A Vow of Obligation. Lynne Graham

he was gorgeous, but under no circumstances was she going to go there.

      Rich, handsome men didn’t attract her. Her mother and her sisters’ experiences had taught Tawny not to crave wealth and status for the sake of it, for neither brought lasting happiness. Her father, a noted hotelier, was rich and miserable and, according to her older half-sisters, Bee and Zara, he was always pleading dissatisfaction with his life or latest business deal. Nothing was ever enough for Monty Blake. Bee and Zara might also be married to wealthy men, but they were both very much in love with their husbands. At the end of the day love was all that really mattered, Tawny reflected thoughtfully, and substituting sex for love and hoping it would bridge the gap didn’t work.

      That was why Tawny didn’t sleep around. She had grown up with her mother’s bitterness over a sexual affair that had never amounted to anything more. She had also seen too many friends hurt by their efforts to found a lasting relationship on a basis of casual sex. She wanted more commitment before she risked her heart; she had always wanted and demanded more. That was the main reason why she had avoided the advances of the wealthy men introduced to her by her matchmaking sisters, both of whom had married ‘well’ in her mother’s parlance. What could she possibly have in common with such men with their flash lives in which only materialistic success truly mattered? She had no wish to end up with a vain, shallow and selfish man like her father, who was solely interested in her for her looks.

      ‘Are you going to tell me what this proposition entails?’ Tawny prompted in the simmering silence.

      ‘I want you to pretend to be my fiancée,’ Navarre spelt out grimly.

      Her eyes widened to their fullest, for that had to be almost the very last thing she might have expected. ‘But why?’ she exclaimed.

      ‘You have no need of that information,’ Navarre fielded drily.

      ‘But you must know loads of women who would—’

      ‘Perhaps I prefer to pay. Think of yourself as a professional escort. I’ll be buying you a new wardrobe to wear while you’re with me. When this is over you get to keep the clothes, but not the jewellery,’ he specified.

      No expense spared, she thought in growing bewilderment. She had read about him in the newspapers, for he made regular appearances in the gossip columns. He had a penchant for incredibly beautiful supermodels and the reputation of being a legendary lover, but none of the ladies in his life seemed to last very long. ‘Nobody’s going to believe you’re engaged to someone as ordinary as me,’ she told him baldly.

      ‘Ce fut le coup de foudre …’ It was love at first sight French-style, he was telling her with sardonic cool. ‘And nobody will be surprised when the relationship quickly bites the dust again.’

      Well, she could certainly agree with that final forecast, but she reckoned that he had to be desperate to be considering her for such a role. How on earth would she ever be able to compare to the glamorous model types he usually had on his arm? Jacques ushered a statuesque blonde in a dark trouser suit into the room. ‘Elise will escort you down to the locker room,’ he explained.

      ‘So you’re a bodyguard,’ Tawny remarked in French as the two women waited in the lift.

      ‘I’m usually the driver,’ Elise admitted.

      ‘What’s Mr Cazier like to work for?’

      ‘Tough but fair and I get to travel,’ Elise told her with satisfaction.

      Elise hovered nearby while Tawny changed out of her uniform into her own clothes and cleared her locker. The Frenchwoman’s mobile phone rang and she dug it out, glancing awkwardly at Tawny, who was busily packing a carrier bag full of belongings before moving to the other side of the room to talk in a low-pitched voice. That it was a man Elise cared about at the other end of the line was obvious, and Tawny reckoned that at that instant she could have smuggled an elephant past the Frenchwoman without attracting her attention.

      ‘What’s going on?’ another voice enquired tautly of Tawny.

      Tawny glanced up and focused on Julie, who stood only a couple of feet away from her. ‘I’m quitting my job.’

      ‘I heard that but why didn’t he report you?’

      Tawny shrugged non-committally. ‘You didn’t spent the night with him, did you? What’s the real story?’

      ‘A journalist offered me a lot of money to dig out some personal information for him. Accessing Cazier’s laptop was worth a try. I’ve got credit cards to clear,’ Julie admitted calmly, shockingly unembarrassed at having her lies exposed.

      ‘Mademoiselle Baxter?’ Elise queried anxiously, her attention suddenly closely trained on the two women.

      Tawny lifted her laden bags and walked away without another word or look. So much for friendship! She was furious but also very hurt by her former friend’s treachery. She had liked Julie, she had automatically trusted her, but she could now see her whole relationship with the other woman in quite a different light. It was likely that Julie had deliberately targeted her once she realised that Tawny would be the new maid in charge of Navarre Cazier’s usual suite. Having befriended Tawny and put her under obligation by helping her to move into her bedsit, Julie had then conned the younger woman into trying to take Navarre’s laptop. What a stupid, trusting fool Tawny now felt like! How could she have been dumb enough to swallow that improbable tale of sex and compromising photos? Julie had known exactly which buttons to press to engage Tawny’s sympathies and it would have worked a treat had Navarre Cazier not returned unexpectedly to catch her in the act.

      ‘You have an appointment with a stylist,’ Navarre informed Tawny when she reappeared in his suite and set down her bags.

      ‘Where?’

      He named a famous department store. He scanned the jeans and checked shirt she wore with faded blue plimsolls and his wide sensual mouth twisted, for in such casual clothing she looked little older than a teenager. ‘What age are you?’

      ‘Twenty-three … you?’

      ‘Thirty.’

      ‘Speak French,’ he urged.

      ‘I’m a little rusty. I only get to see my grandmother about once a month now,’ Tawny told him.

      ‘Give me your mobile phone,’ he instructed.

      ‘My phone?’ Tawny exclaimed in dismay.

      ‘I can’t trust you with access to a phone when I need to ensure that you don’t pass information to anyone,’ he retorted levelly and extended a slim brown hand. ‘Your phone, please …’

      The silence simmered. Tawny worried at her lower lip, reckoned that she could not fault his reasoning and reluctantly dug her phone out of her pocket. ‘You’re not allowed to go through it. There’s private stuff on there.’

      ‘Just like my laptop,’ Navarre quipped with a hard look, watching her redden and marvelling that she could still blush so easily.

      He ushered her out of the suite and into the lift. She leant back against the wall.

      ‘Don’t slouch,’ he told her immediately.

      With an exaggerated sigh, Tawny straightened. ‘We mix like oil and water.’

      ‘We only have to impress as a couple in company. Practise looking adoring,’ Navarre advised witheringly.

      Tawny wrinkled her nose. ‘That’s not really my style—’

      ‘Try,’ he told her.

      She preceded him out into the foyer, striving not to notice the heads craning at the reception desk to follow their progress out of the hotel. A limousine was waiting by the kerb and she climbed in, noting Elise’s neat blonde head behind the steering wheel.

      ‘Tell me about yourself … a potted history,’ Navarre instructed.

      ‘I’m an only child