Praise for Fiona Harper

‘The author never strikes a false note,

tempering poignancy perfectly with humour.’

—RT Book Reviews

‘Classic Fiona—funny with fantastic characters.

I was charmed from the first page.’

—www.goodreads.com on

Invitation to the Boss’s Ball

‘It’s the subtle shadings of characterisation

that make the story work, as well as

the sensitive handling of key plot points.’

—RT Book Reviews

‘Fiona Harper’s Christmas Wishes, Mistletoe Kisses pairs a simple plot with complex characters, to marvellous effect. It’s both moving and amusing.’ —RT Book Reviews

Also by Fiona Harper

Christmas Wishes, Mistletoe Kisses

Blind-Date Baby

Invitation to the Boss’s Ball

Housekeeper’s Happy-Ever-After

The Bridesmaid’s Secret

Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

About Fiona Harper

As a child, Fiona Harper was constantly teased for either having her nose in a book, or living in a dream world. Things haven’t changed much since then, but at least in writing she’s found a use for her runaway imagination. After studying dance at university, Fiona worked as a dancer, teacher and choreographer, before trading in that career for video-editing and production. When she became a mother she cut back on her working hours to spend time with her children, and when her littlest one started pre-school she found a few spare moments to rediscover an old but not forgotten love—writing.

Fiona lives in London, but her other favourite places to be are the Highlands of Scotland, and the Kent countryside on a summer’s afternoon. She loves cooking good food and anything cinnamon-flavoured. Of course she still can’t keep away from a good book, or a good movie—especially romances—but only if she’s stocked up with tissues, because she knows she will need them by the end, be it happy or sad. Her favourite things in the world are her wonderful husband, who has learned to decipher her incoherent ramblings, and her two daughters.

Three Weddings and a Baby

Fiona Harper

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Joy, a true friend with a big heart and open arms.

CHAPTER ONE

IF THERE was one thing Jennie Hunter had a gift for, it was getting away with blue murder. Unfortunately, her magical powers deserted her suddenly and unexpectedly one New Year’s Day—around the same time a dishevelled arrangement of trumpet lilies and green hit her in the chest and then fell upside down into her waiting hands.

How had that happened?

She’d been actively retreating as her step-brother’s new bride had turned her back and hurled her bouquet over her shoulder into the waiting crowd. What had Alice done? Fitted it with a homing device? Jennie wouldn’t have put it past her. Since she’d got engaged to Jennie’s stepbrother she’d been trying to pair all her single friends off, and Jennie had become her pet project.

A damp, puffy hand clapped her on the shoulder. ‘Don’t worry, Jennie. It’ll be your turn soon!’

She turned to give Cousin Bernie a smile that could probably have been more accurately described as a sneer. If he’d left a sweaty mark on her vintage satin bridesmaid’s dress, she’d stuff this bouquet down his throat, petal by petal.

Your turn soon. How many times had she heard that today?

She looked down at the jumble of flowers and leaves in her hands, then turned it the right way up. Why had she clutched on to it when it had collided with her? Must have been a reflex. A whole herd of single women had been frothing at the mouth at the thought of securing this prize; she should have let one of them mow her down and scoop it up. As it was, she could feel their resentful eyes on her as the assembled wedding guests surged forward to say their farewells to the bride and groom before they got into their car.

Jennie was shoved along with the rest of the crowd, still holding the offending bouquet. There was nowhere handy to dispose of it, so she really didn’t have much choice. She stood at the back of the crowd for a while, watching Cameron and Alice as they said their goodbyes, and even her current healthy dose of cynicism for ‘true love’ couldn’t stop her sighing.

Alice looked gorgeous in her nineteen thirties vintage gown, like a willowy debutante. And Cameron? Well, he couldn’t take his eyes off his new wife. And that was how it was supposed to be with newly-weds, wasn’t it? The bride was supposed to be the centre of her groom’s universe, his reason for living.

An unplanned scoffing sound escaped her lips. She disguised it as a cough and decided that this was as good a time as any to plunge through the crowd and say her farewells. Once she’d hugged her smug-looking stepbrother, she turned to Alice. The bride glanced down at the flowers in Jennie’s hands and a satisfied gleam appeared in her eyes.

Jennie stifled another huff by stretching her lips wide. She held the bouquet up and did her very best to look pleased. Alice grinned back and pulled her into a hug.

‘You deserve to find your special someone,’ she whispered in Jennie’s ear. ‘Just wait until you meet him. He’ll turn your world upside down and you’ll be so happy you won’t know what to do with yourself.’

What a pity Jennie had decided recently that she liked her world the right way up, thank you very much. Now, if only it would consent to stay that way.

She closed her eyes briefly, trying to mentally rearrange all the things recent events had turned on their heads. It took all her effort not to let out a giant sigh. However, by the time Alice released her, Jennie’s eyes were open and full of the usual sass and sparkle everyone expected to see there. She was putting on an awfully good show.

And then the bride and groom were gone, accompanied by a flurry of confetti, shouts of good wishes and the rattle of tin cans. Their car sped up the curving drive of the exclusive country house hotel and Jennie felt all the air leave her lungs in one long whoosh.

Finally, it was over.

Now Alice and Cameron had left, people would just concentrate on drinking too much, catching up with long-lost relatives and dancing in a way they would regret when they found the inevitable videos uploaded onto FriendPages tomorrow.

Her plan was to find a quiet corner, kick off her heels and toast the death of her hopes and dreams with as much champagne as she could lay her hands on.

He watched as she turned and walked away—

No. Jennie Hunter didn’t just walk. Walking was too ordinary a word. But he couldn’t think of either a verb or an adjective that summed up the sideways sway of her hips, the elegant length of her stride as she crossed one foot in front of the other.

The bridal bouquet hung at her side, loose in her fingers, as she navigated the gravel driveway in heels. Other female guests picked their way across the uneven surface, but not Jennie. She didn’t even look down, every step giving the impression she was gliding on a smooth and polished surface. Her ash blonde hair swung round her shoulders, just short enough to give him glimpses of a long and graceful neck.

A neck he’d suddenly discovered he would dearly like to wring.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t an option. Not tonight, at least.

She joined a group of people and he could hear her laugh, clear and bright above all the others. She came alive at parties. Not surprising, since she’d made them her life’s work. Being one of the most talked-about socialites on the London party scene had stood her in good stead when she’d started her own event-planning business. Everybody wanted to be at a party where Jennie Hunter was.

He sighed. Seeing her here confirmed all his worst fears and darkest thoughts about her. He so wanted to be wrong, but he suspected this wasn’t a woman who could commit to anything for a month, let alone a lifetime. She’d fooled him. Maybe not on purpose, but he’d been duped, all the same. And that didn’t sit easily with him. He was a man used to reading people in the blink of an eye, and he was rarely wrong. Why this woman? How had she managed to distract him from the truth?

He moved to get a better view of her as she approached the hotel entrance. Her recent lack of sociability had made her hard to find, but he’d known she’d planned to be at her stepbrother’s wedding. Cameron Hunter had opted for a very private and exclusive affair. Friends and family had been sworn to secrecy, so it hadn’t been easy to find out the exact loca without causing suspicion, but he’d done it eventually.

He stepped out of the bush he’d been hiding in and straightened his tie. He hadn’t crashed this wedding for nothing. Now the bride and groom had left, it was time to get what he’d come for. No, not revenge—although seeing her had started that beat pulsing inside his head—but the truth.

Who was Jennie Hunter? Who was she really?

***

When the last fluttering streamers of toilet paper tied to the back of Cameron’s car had disappeared from view Jennie pivoted on her designer heels and headed back inside. Her arms went limp and the heavy bridal bouquet swung by her side, hooked loosely on a finger by its wide satin ribbon.

Suddenly she felt really tired. Exhausted. The smile she’d worn for Alice and Cameron as they’d driven into Happy Ever After started to fade. When she looked up and saw who was coming towards her the smile froze her features, making her face feel brittle.

Aunt Barbara swayed a little on her sensible heels. ‘My favourite niece,’ she announced loudly, the words bleeding into one another. She opened her arms wide and Jennie had no choice but to walk into the hug.

She was careful to extricate herself quickly and cleanly before her aunt’s thick foundation left a smear on her dress. Secretly, she thought Auntie Barb’s penchant for orange-coloured make-up kept half her family’s dry-cleaners in business.

‘Come on,’ she said gently, putting a steadying arm around the other woman’s shoulders. ‘Why don’t we go and find Marion?’

Her stepmother was an expert at situations like these, always brimming with patience and grace that Jennie could only aspire to. She’d been the only mother-figure in Jennie’s life for the last twelve years, and Jennie liked to think that they had the same sort of bond she’d have had with her own mother, if she’d lived long enough to see her daughter grow up. Well, attempt to grow up. There were some members of the family who had their doubts about that one.

Steering Auntie Barb through the smattering of guests who hadn’t made their way back to the bar was harder than Jennie had anticipated. She scanned the crowd, desperate to locate the familiar serene features of her stepmother.

No luck. Just her father leaning on the reception desk in the lobby, waiting to talk to the clerk.

Auntie Barb turned to Jennie and squinted up at her. ‘You’re a good girl, really,’ she said, patting her arm. ‘And don’t you mind—it’ll be your turn soon, you mark my words.’

Okay. That was it.

One parent was as good as another, Jennie decided, as she altered course and headed straight for her father.

Auntie Barb erupted into movement and noise. ‘Dennis!’ She lunged at him and puckered up once more.

Jennie’s mouth twisted into an off-centre smile. There was something very satisfying about seeing Dennis Hunter, president of Hunter Industries and ruler of all he surveyed, being engulfed in one of his sister’s squashy orange hugs.

Jennie met his pleading eyes over the top of Auntie Barb’s shoulders. What have you done this time? they said, but at least these days the familiar exasperated expression was tempered by an indulgent smile.

‘Look who I found,’ she said, making sure there was a twinkle in her eye as she delivered the words.

‘Impossible child,’ she heard her father mutter as her aunt lost interest in her one and only brother and turned to ask the reception clerk which way the bar was. The girl nodded in the direction of the pumping music and coloured lights emanating from the function room.

Her father swatted at a large orange smudge on his lapel with a handkerchief.

‘I don’t know how you managed to avoid it,’ he said wearily. ‘She gets me every single time.’

‘It’s a manoeuvre I’ve perfected over the years. Be nice to me and I might even teach it to you one day.’

Her father grunted. ‘Oh, yes? And just how much will that set me back?’

‘Nothing,’ Jennie replied, and leaned forward to give him a kiss on the cheek, giving the orange smudge on his chest a wide berth. ‘I told you the day I borrowed the start-up money for my business that it would be the last time I’d sponge off the old man.’

Her father gave another grunt. One of the I’ll-believe-it-when-I-see-it variety, then he looked her up and down.

‘I must say, despite my reservations about wearing second-hand stuff—’

‘It’s vintage. Like the stuff in your wine cellar. Supposed to get better as it gets older.’ She batted her lashes and gave him her sweetest look. ‘Just like you, Daddy.’

His mouth folded into a rueful smile. ‘Impossible child.’

‘You wouldn’t have me any other way. Now…’ Jennie folded her arms and looked him straight in the eye ‘…I had the strangest feeling you were just about to pay me a backhanded compliment, so you might as well spit it out.’

Her father coughed into his fist and shuffled his feet. ‘I was just going to say that I’m glad my new daughter-in-law was so insistent about that dress.’

Alice had been very determined to have her own way on that matter. But since she and the other bridesmaid, Coreen, ran a vintage clothing business, there wasn’t much Jennie could have done to dissuade her.

This particular dress had been part of their stock and Jennie had fallen in love with it the moment she’d clapped eyes on it. And who wouldn’t have melted at the sight of the oyster-coloured satin shift dress, cut to perfection. Pure elegance. It fitted Jennie as if the dressmaker had peered into the future and crafted it to her exact measurements. She really shouldn’t have made such a fuss about it when she’d bought it, because it had stuck in Alice’s mind. And once something was stuck in Alice’s mind, it didn’t shake loose again easily.

So, when Alice had started making wedding plans, she’d started badgering Jennie about the dress. It was a crying shame to leave it sitting in the back of the wardrobe, apparently. Then Alice had gone on and on about a pair of shoes she’d once owned and how, when something was such a perfect fit, it just didn’t do to chicken out of wearing it.

Jennie hadn’t been about to tell Alice that, actually, she had worn the dress. Just once. And that, right now, she’d rather have worn a Bo-Peep monstrosity in polyester than put it on again. But that would have led to too many questions. Questions with answers she wasn’t prepared to supply. So she’d worn the dress, and all day it had quietly mocked her.

He father coughed. ‘I was just saying I think you look…that you’re…’

That’s about as expressive as her father got. Sometimes even back-handed compliments were just too hard for him to get out.

‘What he’s trying to say is that you look stunning.’

Jennie felt an arm curve around her waist and she turned to find her stepmother smiling at her, looking more relaxed than she’d been in weeks. She’d pulled the whole wedding together in record time, because Cameron had been too impatient to wait any longer and had insisted he was marrying Alice the first day of the new year—starting it right, as he’d put it.

Marion broke eye contact and looked wistfully in the direction of the wide sweeping drive leading away from the hotel.

‘They’re going to be fabulously happy. You know that, don’t you?’ Jennie said and gave her a reassuring squeeze.

‘Busted,’ her stepmother replied, then gave a little laugh. ‘That’s the thing about being a parent. No matter how big and clever they get, you just can’t stop them being the centre of your universe, can’t switch off the internal radar that turned itself on the day they were born.’

That was all Jennie had wanted from her father after her mother had died—to know that she was even a little blip on his radar—but it had taken a couple of years to work out how to make herself shine brightly enough to get his undivided attention.

Marion sighed. ‘It’s so stupid. All I can think about is that we won’t be seeing Cameron so often for Sunday lunch any more. It seems so selfish.’

Jennie rubbed her stepmother’s arm. ‘Nonsense,’ she said, deciding to lighten the mood. ‘I’ve tasted Alice’s cooking, remember? I can guarantee you’ll be seeing plenty of them.’

They both laughed, knowing they were supposed to, then her stepmother pulled away and turned to face her. ‘And what about you? Are you “fabulously” happy, too?’

Jennie froze. She hadn’t seen that coming, didn’t know how to answer. Nobody ever asked her those kind of questions. They might ask her where she got those darling shoes from or who did her hair, but nothing that probed below the surface. Most people didn’t think she was anything but surface. If little girls were supposed to be sugar and spice and all things nice, then when this little girl had filled out and grown up, all anyone had expected to see was cocktails and fluff and all that stuff. She’d been waiting for years for someone to ask more of her, to expect more of her.

Then one day, someone had looked deeper. Someone had decided to see if there was anything under all the fluff. She’d hoped there was, but his actions had spoken volumes on the matter.

She shook her head. She wasn’t going to dwell on that—on him. And she didn’t look for those kinds of questions now. Didn’t want them.

‘You’re looking tired,’ Marion said, frowning. ‘What’s the matter? You don’t normally drift off like this unless there’s a man involved somewhere along the line and you haven’t been yourself since you got back from Mexico.’ She left the inference hanging in the air.

Jennie shrugged and looked away. She didn’t mention that, despite plans to holiday in Acapulco, she’d actually been in Paris. A last minute surprise. But telling her parents that would only make them curious.

‘It was that stomach bug I got out there. Really took it out of me.’

‘I’ll say,’ her father interjected. ‘Hardly saw anything of you over Christmas.’

She folded her arms across her chest. ‘Well, I’m all better now, so you can both stop fussing and checking up on me. Honestly!’

Her father chuckled. ‘Don’t you stick that bottom lip out at me, my girl. It used to work when you were eight, but it’s well past its sell-by date.’

Jennie hadn’t been aware she’d been doing anything in particular with her bottom lip, and she sucked it in and pressed the other on top of it. ‘Better?’ she mumbled through her closed mouth, with just a hint of a flounce in the way she threw back her shoulders.

‘Much.’ Her father did his best to give her a stern look, and failed.

Marion started to laugh gently. ‘You’re priceless, Jennie. One of a kind.’

Jennie frowned and hugged herself tighter. That was a compliment, right?

Her lips unsealed themselves, but nobody standing there had seriously expected them to remain shut for long, anyway. ‘I don’t see what’s so funny. I just wish everyone would believe I’m all better now, no harm done.’

Seizing on the opportunity to deflect attention away from herself—who would have thought it?—she nodded in the direction of Auntie Barb. ‘Which is more than I can say for some people.’

Marion graciously took the bait. ‘Dennis? She can’t possibly drive home. We’re going to have to sort something out for her. See if you can do something, will you?’

‘Humph,’ was all her father said, but he turned and signalled to the girl behind the desk.

In the meantime, Marion greeted her sister-in-law and motioned for Jennie to help steer her towards a large sofa about ten feet away. A few moments later her father was back.

‘No good,’ he said. ‘One of the reasons we chose this place was because it was small enough to book out for the night. They’ve confirmed we’ve filled it to the rafters.’

Jennie looked up the wide sweeping staircase. Perhaps she should just go straight to Plan B and slope off to her room? There was always room service if she decided she still needed bubbles to help her drown her sorrows.

‘Bloody family,’ her fathered mumbled.

Marion ignored him and turned to Jennie. ‘Could we use your room? Just until we sort something out?’

They were interrupted by a not-so-gentle snore from the settee. Jennie’s shoulders slumped. There went Plan B—up in flames.

‘Of course,’ she said, feeling her insides crumble, but standing straighter.

‘Bless you,’ her stepmother said and turned to gently shake Auntie Barb. ‘It’s not as if you’ll be needing it for a while,’ she said over her shoulder, and nodded towards the function room, from whence the low bass beat of an ABBA classic was thumping. ‘The party’s going to go on for hours yet.’

Whoopee. Another party. Just what she needed.

Her only option now was to hide in plain sight—sit herself at a table out of the way, preferably behind one of the large potted palms that dotted the room.

‘Don’t worry about us,’ Marion said, giving her a little nudge in the direction of the banqueting hall. ‘You go and have some fun. We’ll sort Barbara out.’

‘Bloody Barbara,’ her father reminded. ‘She always does this—refuses to “impose” on me by letting me pay for a room, then ends up having to stay anyway. Next time I’m insisting, and I don’t care what she…’

Jennie tuned the rest of his rant out. Nothing for it now but to pull her features into her usual pixie-like grin and trot off like a good little party girl. And, after blowing her parents a kiss that ended in a little finger wave, that was exactly what she did.

He’d seen her glance towards the stairs and he’d hoped she’d let her feet follow her gaze. The last thing he wanted was to have this out in public, but the location would be up to her. He had no control over what she did next.

He almost let out a hollow laugh. No control whatsoever.

Look at him—reduced to skulking in bushes and crashing weddings just to have a few moments of her precious time. Something she was determined to deny him, it seemed. Well, just this once the spoiled princess was not going to get her own way.

He focused on her again, just in time to see her skip—actually skip—off in the direction of the party. Of course she would choose that over a quiet night in her room. She was Jennie Hunter. She had to go where she could be the centre of attention, where she could shine and glow.

A bitter taste filled his mouth and he swallowed. She really was unbelievable.

He’d been feeling calm and rational when he’d arrived, but all his composure had boiled away once he’d clapped eyes on her. Deep down, he knew he shouldn’t confront her here, not when he was feeling like this, not in front of so many witnesses, but he couldn’t stop himself following her.

He took the exact route he’d watched her take, her exit so imprinted on his memory he could foolishly imagine her shoe prints glowing subtly on the polished hardwood floor. Damn him for still seeing ‘shine’ where he wanted to see none.

However, there was not even a hint of a skip in his long strides as he entered the banqueting hall and began his search.

‘Psst.’

Jennie spun round to find her fellow bridesmaid, Coreen, strategically sitting behind the last available potted palm.

Drat Cameron’s generosity! The open bar, flowing with champagne cocktails, meant that, instead of trailing off into the night, most of the guests had returned to the reception to make sure her stepbrother got his money’s worth. The room was heaving, and her fantasy of finding a quiet corner had already died. Now she was just hoping to find a seat.

Coreen parted the fronds of the palm and leaned forward. The effect of her nineteen-fifties pin-up looks surrounded by all that greenery really was comical, but Jennie couldn’t bring herself to even muster a giggle. She waved back at Coreen, not even bothering to smile.

‘I have a spare chair and two of these,’ Coreen said, shoving an open bottle of champagne through the foliage. ‘Care to join me?’

There were angels in heaven! Jennie let out a long breath. ‘Now you’re talking,’ she replied and swiftly skirted the large terracotta urn to plonk herself in the last available seat in the room.

Coreen, as always, looked flawless. She took her business seriously, and Jennie had never seen her dress in a twenty-first century outfit. Today she had on a fifties prom dress in an icy pink that complemented Jennie’s oyster shift dress.

Coreen slid an open bottle of champagne across the table towards her. Jennie’s fingers closed around the rough foil at the neck. ‘So what are we drinking to?’ She paused. ‘And please don’t say “Happy Ever Afters”!’

Without waiting for an answer, she put the bottle to her lips and swigged. She took a long gulp, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and let the bottle land with a satisfying thunk on the table. When she glanced up, she found Coreen looking at her, a knowing smile on her sculpted lips.

‘Wedding day blues, too, huh?’

‘You have no idea,’ Jennie said dryly and lifted the bottle again. Coreen, in the meantime, managed to attract the attention of a waiter, despite the fact he was being waved at from all over the banqueting hall. Well, maybe it wasn’t that surprising. She was Coreen, after all. She signalled they’d like a couple of glasses and he saluted her, all the while giving her a saucy lopsided smile, then scuttled off to do her bidding. Coreen didn’t turn round again until his rather fine backside had disappeared into the crowd.

‘Me, too,’ she said, after letting out a long sigh.

Jennie couldn’t help but laugh. ‘The wedding day blues don’t seem to be putting you off your stride much.’

A wicked little smirk pulled at Coreen’s lips, and then the corners of her mouth turned down. ‘It’s not the same, though, is it? Flirting’s all well and good, but on days like today, everyone’s gushing about love and promises and for ever. It can make a girl decidedly—’

‘Suicidal?’ Jennie suggested.

‘I was going to go with single, but your word is…descriptive.’

The waiter returned to flirt some more with Coreen. She accepted the glasses he proffered and dismissed him with a wave of her hand and a movie-queen smile. ‘I’ve seen that look in a man’s eyes often enough to know he wasn’t thinking about love and promises and for ever.’

Still, it didn’t stop her glancing over her shoulder to get a second look at the retreating fine backside. Jennie pulled a glass across the table and filled it with bubbles.

‘And you are thinking about that?’

‘Maybe. I don’t know.’ Coreen held up her glass so Jennie could fill it. ‘You?’

Jennie opened her mouth to make some flippant remark and found she couldn’t speak. Her vision blurred. To disguise what was happening, she reached for her glass and knocked half the contents back. The bubbles lodged like boulders in her throat.

A few short weeks ago she’d believed in all of it. Love and promises. Forever. But not now. Maybe not ever again.

‘Hey.’ The soft word came from somewhere near her right ear and she realised that the fuzzy pink blur crouching beside her chair was Coreen. Jennie willed her mouth to stop quivering, clamped her teeth shut. This time she used the backs of her hands to wipe her cheeks.

Why now? Why, after lasting all day without caving in, had she suddenly fallen to pieces? It was really pathetic. Maybe it was the way she’d seen Cameron look at Alice earlier on. She’d compared it to what she’d thought she’d found and realised it had all been a dream. A whirlwind. And the knowledge made her ache deep inside, way beneath her muscles and bones.

‘You never know,’ Coreen said, keeping contact by leaving a hand on Jennie’s knee, but perching back on her seat, ‘we might even be able to trade these dresses in for the real thing one day.’

But that just made Jennie cry all the harder, until her nose felt bubbly and her throat was hoarse.

The hand on her knee squeezed gently. ‘Although, secretly, I’ve toyed with the idea of wearing nothing at all when the fateful day arrives,’ Coreen added.

And suddenly crying turned to hysteria. The tears still flowed, but her sides started to hurt and she clutched at Coreen, and Coreen clutched her just as hard back. Somewhere in the middle of the rib-hurting cackles, Jennie became aware of someone standing a few feet away, looking at her, but she was enjoying the much-needed rush of endorphins too much to pay attention to who it was.

Coreen fell silent and Jennie’s unaccompanied giggles seemed overly loud and jarring. She gulped the last remnants of mirth down and wiped her eyes again, this time in a more ladylike fashion. Her eyelashes were clogged together on one side of her left eye, and she opened her eyes as wide as she could until the lashes untangled. It was only then that she focused on the ominously still figure in front of her.

Her mouth dropped open and every last bit of hilarity left her body, taking all the oxygen with it.

The man standing there was tall, impeccably dressed. His dark hair was cropped severely close, adding a hardness to his already angular features. But it was his eyes that took her hostage—a clear pale blue that could easily have been compared to the soft colour on the horizon on a hazy summer’s day. Only, as they pinned her to her seat, they were as warm as an arctic breeze. She even shivered a little, gripped her arms across her middle.

‘Jennie?’ There was an uncharacteristic waver in Coreen’s voice, and it sounded distant, slightly unreal. ‘Do you know this guy?’

Jennie swallowed, and that one tiny motion seemed to get her functioning again. Her voice returned. It sounded warm, almost normal, when she spoke, which surprised her to no end. She didn’t take her eyes off the man dominating her personal space.

‘Coreen, this is. This is Alex Dangerfield.’

Alex nodded at Coreen, but he, too, didn’t look away. Maybe he couldn’t either. And it wasn’t just her sight—every sense was locked on to him. But it had always been that way. Right from the very start.

‘You know him, then?’ Coreen sounded more than a little relieved.

And then he spoke in his low, rich voice and it rumbled through her, sending tingles up the backs of Jennie’s knees.

‘She really ought to,’ he said, not even a twitch of a smile softening the sarcastic tone. ‘I’m her husband.’

CHAPTER TWO

COREEN, who had stood up some time after Alex’s arrival, now sat abruptly back down in her chair. For a long time she just stared at him, and then she transferred her gaze to Jennie.

‘Your…?’ She trailed off, seemingly unable to utter the word husband.

Jennie knew exactly how she felt.

Coreen’s eyes grew wide. ‘Is this true?’

Jennie nodded. Unfortunately, it was. She’d have heartily liked to deny it, but Alex was the irritating sort of man who would undoubtedly produce a pristine marriage certificate from his inside pocket at an inconvenient moment like this. The thought infuriated her.

In his absence, her anger towards him had been muddled up with stupid yearnings, weighed down with grief and regrets, but now it sprang free, unpolluted and unfettered, and rose up from the pit of her stomach and clouded her eyes just as effectively as her earlier tears had done.

Now? Here? At Cameron’s wedding?

What was he playing at?

She opened her mouth to ask him just that, but he cut her off by talking across her to Coreen.

‘Now we’ve made the introductions, do you think I might have a private word with my wife?’

Jennie flinched as he said the last word. She didn’t feel like his wife. Didn’t feel like the centre of his universe.

Coreen regained some of her usual faultless composure where men were concerned. A glint in her eyes told Jennie she was ready to give Alex some of her legendary sass if he tried anything funny. ‘I’m not leaving you alone with Jennie unless she says it’s okay.’

Jennie almost laughed. If the situation were less dire, she’d have been the first to book a ringside seat for a face-off between Coreen and Alex. But then she glanced at her husband and she changed her mind. She’d never seen him like this—so cold, so…hostile. Maybe, if she’d seen this side of him during their whirlwind courtship she wouldn’t have been stupid enough to say ‘I do’ quite so hastily.

After all he’d put her through, she certainly didn’t. Or, even if that wasn’t quite true, she wanted it to be. So it almost counted.

‘It’s okay,’ she told Coreen, and stood up. ‘Alex and I. Well, we…’

‘Have unfinished business,’ he said.

We are unfinished business, she wanted to say as she tried to work out if this was all some weird hallucination, as the thump of the music filtered back into her consciousness and she became aware of other people in the room again. Lots of people. Reality felt just as strange and unconnected, too, she discovered.

But it struck her that as much as she wanted to grab Alex by the scruff of his neck and make him explain properly why having a honeymoon with his new bride hadn’t been the top of his list of priorities, she didn’t have that luxury at present.

She had to get Alex out of here. Now. Before her father and Marion appeared. Jennie glanced around the room, suddenly glad the party was still in full swing. It made it much easier to blend into the background—something that was normally her worst fear. If things had wound down by now there would have been far too many speculative glances, far too many itching ears.

And, as much as she hated the idea of being the obedient little wife, the only way she could see that happening was if she did what Alex wanted and had this ‘private word’ with him.

It was ironic that during their pitifully short marriage—record-breakingly short—she’d craved nothing more than private time with him.

‘Shall we?’ he said, and motioned for Jennie to walk ahead of him. He’d gestured towards the large double doors that led to the hotel foyer. Jennie gave a tight smile to Coreen, then strode through the packed dance floor, weaving nimbly round the miscellaneous dancers.

Nobody could find out who Alex was. The uproar it would cause would not only get her in a lot of hot water, but the family scandal would overshadow the whole day. Normally, she wasn’t averse to stealing the limelight from just about anybody, and she knew quite well that hers were the antics everybody filed their social memories by.

Do you remember at Josh’s christening when Jennie…? Or Barb’s fiftieth when she…?

And that couldn’t happen to Alice and Cameron’s wedding day. If she caused a scene, nobody would remember how delicately beautiful the bride had looked or how heart-breakingly romantic the groom’s speech had been; they’d just label the day as the one when Jennie and her secret husband had given them a firework display they’d never forget.

Thankfully, Alex was her polar opposite when it came to hogging the spotlight, and she was counting on him to want somewhere quiet and civilised to say whatever he had to say.

They were almost at the doors now and she glanced over her shoulder. Why, she wasn’t sure. She didn’t need her eyes to check if Alex was following her; the prickles running up and down her back confirmed he was close enough to reach out and grab her if she was tempted to bolt. Which she was. He was a very sensible man.

She quickly turned to stare straight ahead again. There was a fire in his eyes that was anything but sensible, and then she began to worry that she’d read the whole situation wrong. He didn’t look as if he was on the verge of being quiet or civilised. Perhaps it’d be a better plan to convince him to meet her somewhere else in the morning, when they were both in a better frame of mind.

Why was he here? Why now?

Scalding anger spiralled up inside her. What gave him the right to come and capsize her life again? What more could he possibly want from her that he hadn’t already taken?

As they reached the foyer, she could see it was virtually empty, populated only by a couple of tired-looking hotel employees and a guest she didn’t recognize. Once they were through the double doors, she headed into a quiet nook, just under the shelter of the grand staircase, and turned to face Alex.

Despite her swift about-face, he didn’t bump into her. Not quite. But he stopped perilously close, only millimetres away. The prickles running up and down her spine shifted accordingly, flowing round to the front of her body, then up her neck and into her cheeks, making every follicle on her head tense. It was like being jabbed all over by a thousand acupuncture needles—and nowhere near as relaxing.

She took a step backwards and asked the question that had been clanging around her head ever since he’d materialised out of nowhere in the function room. ‘What are you doing here, Alex?’

He stood there, terrifyingly still, not even blinking. ‘Jennie, you’re my wife! Why would you think that I wouldn’t come and find you?’

Hot, salty tears burned the back of Jennie’s eyelids. This was what she’d wanted, what she’d prayed for—to hear those words in his deep, rumbling voice. When she’d run away from him, deep down in her subconscious, this was what she’d ached for. But it was only when he hadn’t followed that she’d picked her emotions apart and realised it.

But it wasn’t supposed to be like this.

In her tear-soaked daydreams he’d pulled her to him, pressed warm kisses to her face, whispered his devotion. In her dreams he’d never looked at her with such disdain. No, the words were right, but everything else was wrong, all wrong. And she couldn’t let him see how weak it made her feel.

‘Well, you found me.’ She put her hands on her hips, raised just one eyebrow. If there was one thing Alex couldn’t resist it was a challenge.

She hadn’t thought it possible for him to be more of a foreboding presence towering over her, but in his stillness he hardened further and his eyes narrowed.

‘I came for two reasons… There are things you need to know and, frankly, I think you owe me an explanation.’

An explanation. He wanted an explanation?

Her jaw muscles squeezed themselves into knots. ‘Is that all?’

She hated herself as she waited for his answer, knowing that a small part of her still wanted to hear him say he’d come for her, that he needed her. Those arctic-blue eyes looked her up and down.

‘Possibly. I’m not sure yet.’ From the look on his face, anyone would have thought he really didn’t care.

Jennie’s insides crumpled uncomfortably, as if she were a piece of paper that had been squashed into a ball and discarded. The only way she knew how to stop herself disintegrating was to unleash the rage she’d been nursing for the last few weeks.

‘Go to hell!’

At that moment Jennie wished she hadn’t been brought up so well, because she’d have dearly loved to wipe that condescending look off his face with a stinging slap, the kind that would probably have hurt her as much as it hurt him. The satisfaction at seeing him lose his cool, just for a nanosecond, would be worth it.

She turned on her stilettos and strode off in the opposite direction, no destination in mind, just needing to get as far away from him as possible.

Two things happened at once—she heard her stepmother’s disembodied voice coming from above her and a large hand shot out and shackled her wrist. Her skin burned against his as she tried to twist herself free.

Only one thought filled her mind—she wasn’t ready for this. None of it. Which was strange, because all she’d wanted for the last few weeks was to see him. She’d fantasised about it so many times. At first, she’d dreamed about throwing her arms around him and showing him enthusiastically how much she’d missed him. After that, her imagination had turned more to stamping her foot and screaming. Lastly, she’d envisioned herself looking stunning and aloof as he grovelled for forgiveness. But now she realised she wasn’t even close to being ready to see Alex. It was as if someone had reached a fist down inside of her and pulled her inside out. She needed time to put everything back in its proper place.

And she certainly wasn’t ready for her family to find out. She could imagine the look in her father’s eyes, the utter disappointment. Humiliation washed over her in a warm wave.

But Jennie knew how to pull herself together, knew how to suck all that negative energy in and turn it into something bright and glittering. It was what she did best—what people loved her for.

She looked up to see her stepmother descending the large oak staircase and, with great effort, flicked the inner switch that converted all the dross caking her insides into dazzling pure gold.

‘There you are,’ Marion said, her gaze wandering over Alex and then returning to Jennie. ‘I was just coming to find you.’

There was an awkward moment when nobody looked anybody truly in the eye, then Marion noticed Alex’s hand clamped around Jennie’s wrist and what was left of her serene smile melted away. She looked back at Jennie, a question in her eyes. Jennie did her best to send back an SOS, tempted to bat it out in Morse code with her eyelashes. Marion’s head didn’t move, but Jennie saw her agreement in a tiny blink that only went halfway.

Marion stepped forward and offered a hand to Alex, the picture of a gracious hostess—apart from her pinprick pupils. ‘I’m sorry, I know I should be able to put names to faces after all the poring over seating charts and guest lists I’ve done, but with a wedding this size it’s been hard to keep track. Are you one of Alice’s friends?’

Alex didn’t react straight away, unwilling to release his grip on his runaway bride. It was the first time he’d had any physical contact with her in weeks, which certainly hadn’t been what he’d been expecting when he’d booked a romantic honeymoon in Paris as a surprise for his bride-to-be.

He glanced at Jennie, at the open door at the other end of the hotel foyer, and reckoned he had a ninety-nine per cent chance of snaring her again if she bolted the minute he let go. With anyone else he’d have estimated a hundred per cent chance, but this was Jennie—a woman with a gift for the unpredictable.

How different it had been the last time he’d touched her, when he’d woken her and told her about the call that had lit up his mobile phone in the early hours of the morning, of the family emergency that was about to change his life for ever. She’d been warm and fuzzy with sleep, and she’d pulled him back to kiss him before he left and they’d said their goodbyes with the keen sense of desperation only newly-weds truly understood.

He peeled his hand from around Jennie’s wrist and felt cool air fill his palm as she snatched her hand away.

He’d promised her he’d be back as soon as possible and, even though that had been much longer than either of them had anticipated, he’d kept his word. But she hadn’t believed him.

That had stung. It had also pulled the loose end of a string of doubts that had been unravelling in him ever since. Surely, if his wife knew anything about him at all, she knew he was a man who kept his word, honoured his commitments. It was part of the reason he was here tracking her down.

While in his darkest moments he’d wanted to wash his hands and walk away from this whole mess, he couldn’t do that. Or at least he wouldn’t be able to do that with a clear conscience until he found out that there truly was no way forward. And, to do that, he needed to discover why Jennie had so little faith in him, and why she hadn’t kept her side of the bargain.

He wasn’t the only one who’d made promises. They both had. But it had seemed he’d picked a wife who’d struggled to keep them for much more than a week. Heat flashed behind his eyes, spiking through him. Why had she let him make the most life-altering, soul-wrenching promises a man could make to a woman if she didn’t trust him to keep them?

‘Marion Hunter,’ the woman in front of him said, startling him a little.

Jennie had mentioned her stepmother a lot during their brief relationship, always with affection and respect. Marion’s hand was delicate, but her shake was firm and Alex knew instantly that he liked her. She was no pushover, no matter how cultured and elegant she seemed.

He’d been so consumed with finding Jennie that he realised he hadn’t thought about anything past that, his mind a carousel of all the imagined excuses she’d have for her abominable behaviour. He hadn’t even considered what he’d say or do if he met a member of her family this evening, and that just wasn’t like him—he always saw the big picture, always planned ahead.

What had she told them when she’d returned from her honeymoon on her own? Especially when she’d eloped to Las Vegas with a man they hadn’t even met.

Marion Hunter scowled slightly as she slid her hand from his. He’d bet Jennie hadn’t painted him in a flattering light. But that didn’t matter. He didn’t care about being the villain; he just wanted answers.

He’d been so caught up in his own thoughts he realised he hadn’t even opened his mouth to speak, and now he rectified his lack of manners. ‘Alex Dangerfield,’ he said, with a hint of a smile in his eyes, even if it didn’t reach his mouth. But Marion Hunter looked at him blankly, as if the name meant nothing to her, and he guessed that as the scowl lines on her forehead returned she was mentally scanning guest lists, seeking a match. He decided to help her out.

‘Jennie’s hu—’

‘Half!’ yelled Jennie beside him, suddenly springing into life. She was smiling brightly, and her outburst had been one of her usual exuberant declarations, but there had been a tinge of desperation in the tone, a hint of a squeak because she’d pitched it too high. Marion just looked puzzled.

‘What I mean is…’ She took a deep breath. ‘Alex is my other half, my…my new… man,’ she finished lamely, all the energy and life whooshing out of her like air out of a balloon. Then she grabbed his hand and squeezed it, attempted to mould herself to his rigid side.

‘We had an argument, and I thought Alex wasn’t going to be able to make it, but he did, and at first I was shocked, but now I’m so pleased—really pleased.’

And then she looked up at him, her eyes begging, and the truth hit Alex like one of those cartoon ten ton weights that always landed on the stooge’s head and squashed him flat. Because that was what he was—Jennie’s stooge.

She hadn’t told them. Hadn’t even thought to mention the trivial matter of finding someone to spend the rest of her life with. How stupid of him to have expected otherwise.

Any pleasure at meeting Jennie’s stepmother evaporated in a blistering cloud of rage. That was all he was to his wife—an insignificant detail.

Well, he didn’t care what her family thought, didn’t care what hot water his presence here got her into. He wasn’t going to waste any more time.

Ignoring her stepmother, he turned to Jennie. ‘I need to talk to you. Now.’

Her eyes widened almost imperceptibly, and the fake smile she was wearing hollowed out.

‘I…I…’

She was saved from answering by a staggering group of rowdy wedding guests spilling from the banqueting hall into the foyer. They crowded round Jennie and her stepmother, talking loudly about what a smashing wedding it had been, and how they were having the time of their lives. Jennie started to edge away, but he made sure he stuck right by her side. He wasn’t going to even blink until he got her talking. Taking one’s eyes off this woman for an instant was a mistake.

‘It’s not a good time,’ she said, her eyes large and appealing. ‘How about tomorrow? We can talk in the morning—when everyone has calmed down.’

He just looked at her. Did she think he was that much of a mug?

Marion had escaped the throng of well-wishers and closed the distance between them. ‘Everything okay?’ she said lightly, her eagle eyes missing nothing.

Jennie bit her lip and nodded furiously, but he guessed her stepmother wasn’t fooled for a second. She looked suspiciously at him and he returned her gaze, candour in his eyes. He didn’t have anything to hide, did he? It was his shallow-hearted wife who needed to worry about bothersome things like the truth. Marion looked as if she wanted to interrogate him, and he was quite willing to allow her. Let the games begin.

‘How long have you and Jennie known each other, then?’ she said, making it sound as if this was just chit-chat, but her eyes never left his face.

Jennie held her breath and went rigid beside him.

‘A few months,’ he replied.

‘And how did you meet?’

‘Through my business,’ Jennie said on an out-breath. ‘Alex is a barrister, and I organised a garden party for his law firm at the end of the summer, and we…well, we hit it off straight away.’

Alex almost laughed. She made it sound so normal, so restrained. Yet their instant connection had blind-sided him. He hadn’t been able to get enough of her, hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her, wanting her.

‘You must have missed her when she flitted off on her impromptu holiday. She was gone for weeks.’ Marion Hunter lifted one eyebrow as she tried to gauge his reaction to her question.

Alex just let his eyebrows mirror hers, a slight crooked smile curling his lips.

‘Yes, it was awful,’ Jennie said, words coming out so fast they were almost tripping over each other. ‘But, you know, we phoned every day…texted…emailed…’ She trailed off and looked at the floor.

Marion watched him carefully as Jennie babbled on, and when her stepdaughter fell silent she nodded gently. ‘You must be the stomach bug I’ve heard so much about.’

Jennie was still holding Alex’s hand and now she gripped it with a strength he hadn’t realised she’d had.

‘Apparently so,’ he replied, catching on. One of the things he’d liked about Jennie was her creativity. He hadn’t realised it extended to fibs, too.

Marion turned to Jennie. ‘Well, it seems as if Mr Dangerfield here is right. You have some talking to do, I imagine, so I’ll say my goodbyes and leave you to it.’

‘Don’t go!’ Jennie said, a little too quickly, then recovered herself, lowering her tone and smoothing her dress down with her free hand. And then he felt her relax, breathe out. She continued slowly, the hint of a relieved smile in her voice. ‘After all, it’s too noisy here, and it isn’t as if I’ve got a room to go to—Auntie Barb’s in mine, snoring away loudly, I expect. And it’s late.’ She turned to face him. ‘We’ll just have to catch up in the morning after all,’ she added, not even pretending to look crushed by the fact.

Marion shook her head. ‘That’s what I was coming to tell you. We’ve got you a room.’

Jennie’s mouth sagged. ‘That’s impossible! They were all full up only an hour ago.’

‘But there’s one room we booked that isn’t being used tonight, remember?’ Marion said, looking very pleased with herself. ‘Of course, you’ll have to move the clothing rails and hair and make-up stuff into a corner, but it’s a large suite—I’m sure you’ll manage.’

Alex had been standing still, vaguely amused at the exchange between daughter and stepmother. It was quite refreshing to find things going his way, with very little toil on his part. He had the feeling that if he just stood here and let events unfold around him, fate would be kind. He would get his answers, and he’d get them tonight.

Jennie began to shake, right down to her fingertips. He could feel her hand trembling in his.

‘You don’t mean.?’

Marion winked at Alex, clearly having

decided he was a stomach bug that Jennie needed a second dose of, and he was unexpectedly glad to have found an ally, someone who realised Jennie shouldn’t always be able to shimmy her way out of difficult situations, that she had to learn to face the consequences of her actions.

‘Should have thought of it sooner,’ she said mildly. ‘I’m sure Alice wouldn’t mind, and it seems a shame to let the room go to waste.’ And then she pressed a key with a large plastic tag on it into Jennie’s hand.

Jennie clamped her fingers around it as if it were a hand grenade with the pin out. And then the tension bled out of her and Alex knew he’d won. Funnily enough, he was disappointed by her reaction. He’d never known her admit defeat so easily. Her bullheaded determination was one of the things he loved about her.

Maybe he’d been wrong about her from the start. They’d rushed headlong into things, too caught up in the whirlwind that seemed to storm and crash around them when they were together. Unfortunately, he’d forgotten that, while whirlwinds were awesome displays of natural power, they were ultimately destructive. What a pity he hadn’t realised that until he’d been picking through the wreckage of his marriage, wondering what had gone wrong and whether it was even worth collecting the debris to see if it could be put back together.

In the end, he’d decided that all he really knew about Jennie Hunter was that she was the one woman who’d fascinated him, captivated him. Ensnared him. And that she’d run away the first time the going had got tough.

‘You know where it is, don’t you, Jennie?’ Marion said. ‘After all, you got ready there this morning.’

Jennie nodded dully and started leading the way. Marion grabbed his arm as he passed her and leaned forward to whisper in his ear. ‘Good luck,’ she said, squeezing gently. ‘She’s hard work—but she’s worth it.’ And then she walked smoothly across the foyer and disappeared into the banqueting hall.

Alex followed Jennie up the large wooden staircase. Not as closely as he had before, but close enough to watch those memorable curves move under the satin of that dress.

She had to be wearing that dress, didn’t she?

Finally, they reached the top of the staircase and she led him down a corridor to a vast pair of double doors. Instead of opening the door, she just stood there, the key clutched in her closed left hand.

She wore no ring, he realised.

Slowly, he peeled her fingers away from the key’s plastic tab, and when he’d reached the last one he stopped. He realised the reason for her hesitation now, shared a little of it himself, if he were honest.

In gold italic writing, on the moulded smooth plastic of the old-fashioned room key were two words: Bridal Suite.

CHAPTER THREE

ALEX was glad the sun was finally lowering itself behind the trees and rhododendrons, changing the neat lawn’s wide stripes a dirty gold colour. Garden parties were, by definition, a daytime pursuit, and he’d soon be able to legitimately say his goodbyes. Inside his jacket pocket, his fingers traced the flat buttons of his mobile phone. He imagined sliding it open and dialling the number of the local cab company he’d programmed in earlier.

When his senior partner, Edward, had suggested this event to thank the staff and schmooze their most important contacts, Alex hadn’t been slow in voicing his objections. The beginning of September wasn’t really the perfect time for an outdoor event, was it? But Edward wasn’t cutting his annual sailing trip in Barbados short for anyone, so September it had been.

Luckily, the fickle English summer had only got into her stride around mid-August and had decided to linger awhile yet. The day had dawned bright and sunny and all afternoon a warm breeze had rippled the petals of the late roses in Edward’s borders. But then Edward was an annoyingly lucky man.

Alex sighed and sipped his cold beer. He supposed it had been a good party. To be honest, he’d coasted through it, moving his mouth when he’d had to, smiling if he really must, but he hadn’t retained a single fact about anyone he’d talked to. He couldn’t even remember what he’d filled his plate with at the buffet table. Unless it was connected with work, it seemed details were beyond him these days.

He found a lone wicker chair in the corner of the lawn and waited for the crowds milling in and out of the vast conservatory, or under the rose-twined pergola, to thin. It would look bad if he was the first to disappear, but once others had started to drift off he could follow their lead. The last thing he wanted to do was stand out in this crowd. That would mean they would expect him to be brilliant and eloquent, dazzle them with stories of trials lost and won. And, while he had stories aplenty, he knew that the greyness inside him would invade the telling. So, while he kept his distance, he let them whisper about his aloofness, his distance. Better that than let them find out the brilliance, the eloquence, only happened when he set foot inside the Old Bailey.

He’d got used to this—sitting at the sidelines, watching everyone else have fun—and he knew it should bother him, but he couldn’t muster the energy. He wasn’t unhappy. And at least he knew what to expect from life. No drama. No nasty surprises. He’d had his fill of those. He knew some of his junior colleagues joked that, if attached to a heart monitor, he’d produce a monotonous line instead of peaks and valleys, but he didn’t care about that either. They were young. They didn’t understand that peaks were often overrated and valleys could sink below the threshold of what you could bear. Let them laugh.

The sky grew bluer and bluer, from peacock through to sapphire, but still the guests didn’t diminish. If anything, there seemed to be more of them. When someone turned a switch somewhere, and the paths, shrubbery and whole pergola lit up with a million little white lights, everyone cheered. Blues music started to play, and people under the pergola started to dance. Alex just frowned.

Great. Trust Edward to have a garden party that turned into an all-night rave.

‘Should have guessed I’d find you sulking out here on your own.’

He turned to see Edward’s wife, Charity, smiling down at him. She’d been a trophy wife fifteen years ago, but Edward had certainly struck gold. Far from being a blonde airhead, Charity was an astute businesswoman herself now, and there was no one more elegant and poised. She was the sort of wife men in their position should have.

Mocking laughter filled the inside of his head. He silenced it by standing and giving Charity a soft kiss on the cheek.

‘I’m not sulking.’

Charity just smiled. ‘Edward’s been asking for you. Some bigwig he wants you to impress. He’s out on the terrace.’ She pointed to a huddle of dark suits at the other edge of the garden.

Alex sighed and gave his partner’s wife a little salute but, before he managed to set off in Edward’s direction, she tugged at his sleeve.

‘It’s about time you let her go, Alex.’

She didn’t need to mention a name.

He looked at Charity, her face soft with compassion, and it made a nameless part inside him even colder. ‘I don’t seem to remember having any say in whether she came or went,’ he said without expression.

‘You know what I mean,’ she replied, a glint of her inner strength appearing behind that softness. ‘It’s been almost four years. You’ve got to forgive her and move on.’

Forgive her? Even if he knew how, he wasn’t sure he wanted to.

He shrugged one shoulder and nodded, hoping that would be enough of an answer, and set off in the direction of the group of suits. At least he wouldn’t have to talk about this kind of stuff with them.

Talking to the suits wasn’t hard, either. They didn’t want small talk; they wanted legal facts and arguments. Even so, when he’d done his bit, he extricated himself from the group as soon as possible and wandered away from the house, down the lit path to the patio under the large pergola. He kept going, weaving through the other guests, until he reached the far edge, leaned against a post and let his gaze follow the way the grass changed from artificial green to inky blue as the glow from the fairy lights diminished.

He stayed that way for minutes, until something happened behind him. He was never able afterwards to quantify exactly what it had been—whether the noise level and laughter had increased, or the lights had flickered brighter. He’d half-thought he’d sensed a soft warm breeze, like the memory of the afternoon’s sunshine, but whatever it was, he’d turned round.

His eyes locked instantly on the woman in front of him. A jumble of images rolled over him, each in shocking high definition. Pale blonde hair, the colour of sand on a Highland beach. The graceful flick of a hand as she illustrated a story she was telling. A smile that just seemed to grow and grow and grow. The fairy lights above his head seemed to buzz louder in response to her presence.

Everywhere around her there was colour, life. And not just around her—it seemed to be coming from inside of her. That wasn’t possible, was it? But he just had to look around him to see that something had happened. Suddenly, people were laughing more, dancing with more abandon.

She swayed along to a song as she laughed briefly with someone who’d been trying hard to catch her attention, then moved on. And then he realised she was moving towards him, and he was standing as stiff as one of his golf clubs with his mouth slightly open. He tried to blink and failed.

She looked straight at him, and her smile lifted at one side. ‘What’s this?’ she said, her voice soft and slightly husky. ‘Someone not enjoying the party?’

Alex didn’t know how it had happened, but suddenly he was inside the bubble of noise and colour that seemed to follow her everywhere. He felt different. Lighter. Stronger. As if he wanted to laugh, shout and sing all at once. And the electricity! Had he stepped on a loose wire? Because that was the only possible explanation for the warm buzzing feeling travelling all over him. At once he stopped resting on the post and stood up. And then he smiled back. Not the fake pulling of lips over teeth his colleagues normally saw him do. This one just crept over his mouth and expanded all on its own.

‘Who told you that?’ he said, then smiled even harder as he sensed a slight irregularity in the rhythm of her breathing. How he’d sensed it, he didn’t know. He just had. He wasn’t alone in this. She felt it, too.

Her smile was warm and sassy. Inviting. It made her pale pink lips practically irresistible. So Alex bent forward and tasted them. She didn’t start or pull away. She just closed her eyes and met him.

A while later he began to hear things again, feel something other than her softness under his fingertips. He realised she had her arms wound around his neck and he had one hand pressing against her back and the other at the base of her throat. They were both slightly breathless, and it helped his sense of equilibrium to see she was just as dazed as he was.

They stayed like that for a few seconds, forehead to forehead. ‘And to think someone told me you didn’t like parties,’ she said between breaths.

Alex just pulled her close and laughed, actually felt it rumbling through him like a sound wave. ‘Hearsay,’ he said and kissed her quickly, dragging his lips away before he got lost again. ‘This is the best party I’ve ever been to.’

But she had other plans. She used the anchor of her hands to pull him close again, until he could feel her breath on his parted lips. And then it was all gone again. The lights, the roses, the whole flipping garden.

People began to stop dancing and began to whisper. Nudge each other in the sides and give each other knowing looks. But Alex didn’t notice the lull in conversation or even sense the pairs of eyes turned his way. No more monotone lines for him. His pulse was drowning it all out with a steady and emphatic bump. Alex’s hand closed around Jennie’s and he tugged at the plastic key tag, yet she couldn’t seem to let it go. She was totally terrified, and it was pathetic.

Terrified of the look of disgust in his eyes, terrified of what he was about to say—of what he might not say. Terrified she still loved him as much as ever, that the all consuming chemistry they generated together would overwhelm her. That she’d turn around and give in. But she couldn’t do that. She needed to take a stand and let him know that she was worth more than being second place in his affections. Taking the wide path that led to destruction was not an option this time. Pity, because she’d been down that road so many times she knew all the motels by name.

He was so close. Just the graze of his jacket cuff against her bare arm was enough to make her hyperventilate. She was tempted to close her eyes, wish the events of the last month away, pull him into the suite and continue the honeymoon that had been so rudely interrupted.

By him, remember. Don’t give in. Look where it got you last time—a ring on your finger, yes, but your heart in pieces.

She let him ease the key from her clenched fingers and stepped sideways, out of proximity.

His fingers weren’t shaking. He didn’t seem to have any problems functioning normally, damn him. She let out a silent sigh. She’d always known, right from that first night, that Alex was a man who knew how to be steady, who knew how to keep control, but she’d never realised he could be this cold. But, then again, why would she have done? She’d been too busy basking in the heat of a passionate whirlwind romance. Who gave thought to winter when the sun shone?

Her father had always scolded her for jumping into things with both feet, and she’d steadily ignored his criticism, believing her nothing ventured, nothing gained philosophy got her where she wanted to go. She’d been dumbstruck when she’d realised the truth—that the flip side of her approach was everything ventured, everything lost. This was what happened when you made a mess so big nobody could sweep it under the rug for you.

Alex pushed the door open and, with an economical hand gesture, indicated she should enter ahead of him.

For a moment she just stared at the scene in front of her. She and Alice and Coreen had got ready in the suite this morning, and the evidence of the chaos was still in place. A hanging rail with empty garment bags stood off to one side and there were pots of makeup and a pair of abandoned hair straighteners on the coffee table, spoiling the romantic impact this room should have had. Thankfully.

She walked into the centre of the suite’s living room and stood there, waiting for the click of the door. Dreading it. When it came, she flinched.

All she had to do now was turn around and face him. Yet she didn’t move, suddenly couldn’t take her eyes off the champagne bucket in the corner of the room. An unopened bottle remained there, surrounded with melted ice.

She heard him take a step—just one—towards her, and then there was silence.

What was wrong with the man? Did he think he’d be contaminated if he got any closer? She spun around to find him studying her closely, almost analytically.

‘The last time I saw you in that dress, you were promising to stay by my side for ever.’

She crossed her arms across her middle, uncrossed them again. ‘Believe me, if I could have worn anything else today, I would have. It wasn’t my choice. Frankly, I can’t wait to get out of it.’

And toss it out of the window, she silently added. Or burn it. It would make a very elegant bonfire.

Alex’s eyebrows rose slightly and his mouth tilted into a sarcastic smile. ‘Don’t let me stop you.’

There was literally no breath left in her body to answer him with. She tried anyway. ‘You… You’re.’

‘Insufferable? Judgemental? High-handed?’ The smile twisted his face further, and he walked towards her. ‘Heard it all before. I can keep going with adjectives until I come up with something more fitting, if you like.’

‘I… You…’

His eyes narrowed. ‘How about this for a description? The man you deserted before the ink was dry on the marriage certificate? I promise you, that’s a brand new one for me.’

Jennie wanted to laugh, but it came out as a cough. What parallel dimension was this guy living in? She felt like punching him on the nose, and she bet that’d be a brand new experience for Mr Alex Dangerfield as well.

‘I deserted you? That’s rich!’ She closed the rest of the distance between them, looked him right in the eye. ‘Who was it exactly who sat on their own in a hotel room for almost a week after her new husband had vanished into thin air? Not you, that’s for sure!’

‘You’re being ridiculous. I didn’t vanish, as you call it. You knew where I was going and why. I phoned while I was away. And I distinctly remember apologizing and promising I’d be back. What more could I have said?’

The fact that he sounded all calm and reasonable had her consider throwing that punch. Unfortunately, just as her fury reached boiling point, it evaporated, condensing into moisture that stung the backs of her eyes.

It was all the things he hadn’t said that had been the problem. For a few wonderful months, she’d been the sole recipient of all Alex’s love, devotion and attention. And, with a man as intense as Alex, that was a heady cocktail. She’d felt lit up by him. When he looked at her, it was as if she was in the beam of a scorching bright searchlight but, instead of withering under its bleaching stare, she’d come alive, sparkled all the brighter. It was where she’d thought she was supposed to be. She hadn’t cared if anyone else had paid her attention or not. All she had wanted to do was live her life in the warmth of Alex’s spotlight.

Maybe she’d been out of her mind, drunk on that feeling, but all she knew now was that when that phone call had come, his light had swung away and focused somewhere else, and she’d been left shivering in the shadows, feeling lost and hungover.

In those short, hurried phone calls, often on car journeys between appointments, he’d given her information, but never reassurance. And then a trip that had only been supposed to last a day or two had dragged on and on.

‘You never did properly explain what kept you back in England for so long.’

He opened his mouth to answer her, but she cut him off.

‘I know that Becky was injured in a car crash. I’m not saying you shouldn’t have gone, but I don’t understand why it had to be you standing at her bedside. She divorced you. Where were her family? Couldn’t they have visited her and fluffed up her pillows?’

‘I would have explained if you’d given me a chance, but it’s kind of hard to have a meaningful conversation with a dial tone!’ He looked really angry. Jennie started to get scared, but then he breathed air out through his nose and looked at her more intently. ‘She was my wife once, too, Jennie. And there are things you don’t know. About my first marriage… About what I discovered when I got to the hospital…’

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