His Marriage Ultimatum. HELEN BROOKS

      A pair of granite-grey eyes held hers, and in the time it took for her to realise the man wasn’t as old as she had thought at first, and that the streaks of grey in the jet-black hair had misled her, she felt her knees start to buckle.

      She heard him swear softly as he grabbed her, holding her against him as he said, ‘Breathe deeply a few times,’ whilst he opened her car door again, positioning her sideways in the seat with her feet on the road. She felt her head being pushed down to her knees but couldn’t resist, the all-consuming faintness rendering her helpless.

      How long she remained like that she was never very sure, but it could only have been a matter of some sixty seconds or so before the dizzy weakness began to clear. ‘I’m sorry.’

      She was aware of him standing next to her and the sound of car horns in the background, but all he said was, ‘Take your time,’ as though they weren’t blocking a major road at the height of the midday rush hour.

      ‘I…I’ll back in again, shall I?’ As she recovered her voice along with her senses she tried to get a grasp on the situation. ‘Maybe you could park somewhere close and we’ll exchange numbers and so on?’ she suggested more briskly.

      ‘Do you feel able to drive?’

      She raised her head and looked him fully in the face for the first time. He had a lovely voice, very deep and almost gravelly but with a dark smokiness which took away any roughness. The sort of voice which would have made him a wow on the silver screen. He was attractive, too, in a somewhat unorthodox kind of way, his face too strong and tough for straightforward handsomeness but carrying a quality which was more powerful than pretty-boy good looks. She pulled herself together fast as she realised he was waiting for an answer to his question. ‘Yes, yes of course,’ she said hastily. ‘I’m only going to back into the parking space I’ve just left.’

      He said nothing more, but the raising of black eyebrows a fraction and the expression on the hard-planed face made it very clear exactly what he thought of her driving prowess.

      The colour was hot in her cheeks as she watched him walk over to his car, but then she shrugged mentally as she concentrated on backing into the neat little space she had vacated so arbitrarily just minutes before. She couldn’t blame him if he was less than enamoured with her performance to date; the accident had been totally her fault. Why hadn’t she checked her mirrors? She groaned inwardly. Basic procedure, something you did without thinking. Only she hadn’t.

      Once she had parked she nerved herself to get out of the car and inspect the damage. Although he had obviously swerved violently and avoided going headlong into the side of her, the glancing blow to the rear had all but taken off the bumper, smashed the back light and dented the side bodywork. It was a mess.

      A horrifying urge to burst into tears brought Liberty’s back straightening and her chin lifting. He already thought she was a menace to all road users; she wasn’t about to compound the image by giving way to waterworks.

      She reached for her handbag on the passenger seat and hunted through for her insurance details, only to give another inward groan as she realised they were in the bag she had used the day before. She always made sure she was fully coordinated down to the smallest detail when visiting her mother, and the black bag of the day before hadn’t lent itself to the french-navy suit she was wearing today. Great. She swallowed hard. This was turning into one swell day.

      She raised her head, glancing along the pavement as a tall commanding figure, who looked to be at least three or four inches taller than anyone else in the vicinity, caught her attention. It was him. Of course, it had to be—it went with the afternoon.

      She watched him striding easily towards her with the sort of nonchalant arrogance which said his handle on life was very secure. He wasn’t hurrying but his long legs seemed to cover the distance between them before she could blink. He had a fantastic body.

      The thought, coming from nowhere as it did, shocked her into lowering her eyes, and she rummaged in her bag as he drew alongside, pretending to still look for her papers.

      ‘Problem?’

      ‘I’m afraid so.’ She was ready this time when she looked at him and didn’t allow the flinty gaze to make an impact. ‘It seems I’ve left my insurance details in my other bag.’

      He nodded.

      It wasn’t a very nice nod, she thought irritably. It was a nod which said he might have expected something like this, or was she just being paranoid? ‘I can give you my name and address and registration number and so on,’ she said quickly, aware she was babbling but unable to help herself. ‘And I’m fully aware everything was my fault. Is…is your car badly damaged?’

      ‘No.’ He didn’t elaborate, looking down at her with a narrowed, assessing stare before he said, ‘Don’t you know it’s foolish to accept liability?’

      She couldn’t hide the annoyance now, her voice something of a snap when she said, ‘I don’t play games, Mr—?’

      ‘Blake. Carter Blake.’

      ‘I don’t play games, Mr Blake. The accident was my fault and I’m just glad no one was injured. I’m fully prepared to take responsibility for my mistake.’

      A brief smile touched his lips and then disappeared. ‘Unusual attribute in this day and age,’ he drawled smoothly, quite unmoved by her antagonism.

      She couldn’t agree more. Her work highlighted this all too sad fact every day. However, for some reason this man had got well and truly under her skin and it went against the grain to see eye to eye with him about anything. She’d also just realised the pen she kept in her handbag—an expensive if showy gold one her mother had bought her for Christmas some years before, but which would have been ideal for suggesting she was a woman of substance to this smug individual—was nestled with the insurance papers and other bits and pieces in the bag at home. She had been in a rush that morning, having overslept due to some pills she’d taken last thing the night before for a persistent headache, and had just grabbed keys, purse, phone and lipstick before leaving the house. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

      ‘Do you have a name?’

      She was brought out of her whirling self-censure as he extended a hand, a very large hand, towards her. ‘Liberty Fox,’ she managed a little breathlessly as she placed her fingers in his, the feel of his warm, firm flesh disconcerting to say the least.

      ‘How do you do.’ He didn’t prolong the contact, for which she was grateful. Something akin to mild electric shocks had radiated through her nerves. ‘Let me give you my card, Liberty.’ He reached into the breast pocket of the dark charcoal suit jacket he was wearing—a jacket which sat perfectly on shoulders broad enough to belong to a professional wrestler—and brought out a small business card. ‘Why don’t you ring me later when we both have more time?’ he suggested silkily.

      ‘But—’ she stopped abruptly, not knowing how to put it.

      The black eyebrows rose. ‘Yes?’

      ‘Don’t you want my telephone number, an address, car details? Something?’

      Firm lips twitched. ‘You’ve already informed me you are prepared to take responsibility for this incident,’ he said reasonably.

      ‘But you don’t know me.’ She stared at him militantly. ‘I might be lying. I might be the sort of person who will make sure you never see or hear from me again.’

      ‘I don’t think so,’ he murmured, studying her with cool amusement. He had thought at first she was very average-looking, nothing special, but he had been wrong. In spite of trying to be severe and assertive, the soft, full mouth and anxious brown eyes spoke of the real woman behind the image the executive suit and stern hairstyle projected. How long was her hair? His eyes moved to the tightly restrained, thick coil at the back of her head. No way of knowing. But the colour was wonderful, a true russet. He’d read somewhere that the word came from a kind of rough-skinned, reddish-brown apple, but her skin was like