‘You’re dumping me?’

Dan shifted his eyes briefly from the road to glance across at her, a mock grin on his face. Because of course this was some kind of joke, right?

Emma simply looked back at him, her brown eyes serious.

‘Well, technically, no,’ she said. ‘Because we’d have to be in a proper relationship for me to do that, and ours is a fake one.’ She put her head on one side. ‘If it’s actually one at all. To be honest, it’s more of an arrangement, isn’t it? A plus-one agreement.’

He’d never been dumped before. It was an odd novelty. And certainly not by a real girlfriend. It seemed being dumped by a fake one was no less of a shock to the system.

‘It’s been good while it lasted,’ she was saying. ‘Mutually beneficial for both of us. You got a professional plus-one for your work engagements and I got my parents off my back. But the fact is—’

‘It’s not you, it’s me?’ he joked, still not convinced she wasn’t messing around.

Dear Reader

Doesn’t time fly? I can’t believe this is my fourth book. I’m as excited as ever to be writing for this fabulously fun, modern and flirty series, and I’m still pinching myself to make sure I’m not dreaming!

Talking of flirty … We’ve all had times when the dating game seems more trouble than it’s worth—I know I have. In that kind of situation wouldn’t it be great if you had a person on the end of the phone who could fit the bill as your date, no matter what the occasion? Someone who would always step up to the plate, make the right impression and never let you down or show you up? Wouldn’t that make life easier?

Just as long as you don’t fall in love with your perfect platonic plus-one, of course. Imagine the mayhem that could cause. Especially at a big family occasion where good impressions really count.

I’ve had so much fun playing around with these ideas while writing this story, and I hope you will have a lovely time reading it too.

Love

Charlotte x

The Plus-One Agreement

Charlotte Phillips

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHARLOTTE PHILLIPS has been reading romantic fiction since her teens, and she adores upbeat stories with happy endings. Writing them for Mills & Boon is her dream job. She combines writing with looking after her fabulous husband, two teenagers, a four-year-old and a dachshund. When something has to give, it’s usually housework. She lives in Wiltshire.

This and other books by Charlotte Phillips are available in eBook format from www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Gemma, who makes my day every day.

With all my love always.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Excerpt

ONE

Q: How do you tell your fake boyfriend that you’ve met a real one and you don’t need him any more?

A: However you like. If he’s not a real boyfriend, it’s not a real break-up. Hardly likely that he’ll start declaring undying love for you, is it?

Chance would have been a fine thing.

This Aston Martin might fly before arm candy addict Dan Morgan developed anything more than a fake attraction for someone as sensible and boring as Emma Burney, and it wasn’t as if she hadn’t given it time. Getting on for a year in his company, watching an endless string of short-term flings pout their way through his private life, had convinced her she was never going to be blonde enough, curvy enough or vacuous enough to qualify. In fact she was pretty much the opposite of all his conquests, even dressed up to the nines for her brother’s art exhibition.

She glanced down at herself in the plain black boat-neck frock and nude heels she’d chosen, teamed as usual with her minimal make-up and straight-up-and-down figure. Romance need not apply.

She did, however, possess all the qualities Dan wanted in a supportive friend and social ally. As he did for her. Hence the fake part of their agreement.

An agreement which she reminded herself she no longer needed.

Not if she wanted to move forward from the suspended animation that had been her life this last year. Any residual hope that what was counterfeit between them might somehow turn genuine if she just gave it enough time had been squashed in these last few amazing weeks as she’d been swept off her feet by a whirlwind of intimate, luxurious dinners, expensive gifts and exciting plans. What was between her and Dan was now nothing more than a rut that needed climbing out of.

She watched him quietly for a moment from the passenger seat of his car, looking like an aftershave model in his dark suit and white shirt. His dark hair was so thick there was always a hint of spike about it, a light shadow of stubble lined his jaw, and his ice-blue eyes and slow smile had the ability to charm the entire female species. It had certainly worked on her mother, whose ongoing mission in life was to get Emma and Dan married off and raising a tribe of kids like some Fifties cupcake couple.

Perpetuating her gene pool was the last thing Emma wanted—a lifetime in the midst of her insane family had seen to that. Having Dan as her pretend boyfriend at family events had proved to be the perfect fob-off.

But now she had the real thing and the pretending was holding her back. All that remained was to explain that fact to Dan. She gathered herself together and took a deep breath.

‘This has to stop,’ she said.

* * *

‘You’re dumping me?’

Dan shifted his eyes briefly from the road to glance across at her, a mock grin on his face. Because of course this was some kind of joke, right? She simply looked back at him, her brown eyes serious.

‘Well, technically, no,’ she said. ‘Because we’d have to be in a proper relationship for me to do that, and ours is a fake one.’ She put her head on one side. ‘If it’s actually one at all. To be honest, it’s more of an agreement, isn’t it? A plus-one agreement.’

He’d never seen fit to give it a name before. It had simply been an extension of their work dealings into a mutually beneficial social arrangement. There had been no conscious decision or drawing up of terms. It had just grown organically from one simple work success.

Twelve months ago Emma, in her capacity as his lawyer, had attended a meeting with Dan and a potential client for his management consultancy. A potentially huge client. The meeting had overrun into dinner, she had proved a formidable ally and his winning of the contract had been smoothed along perfectly by their double act. She had seemed to bounce off him effortlessly, predicting where he was taking the conversation, backing him up where he needed it. He’d ended the evening with a new client, a new respect for Emma and the beginnings of a connection.

After that she’d become his go-to ally for social engagements—a purely platonic date that he could count on for intelligent conversation and professional behaviour. She’d become a trusted contact. And in return he’d accompanied her to family dinners and events like this one today, sympathising with her exasperation at her slightly crazy family while not really understanding it. Surely better to have a slightly crazy family than no family at all?

He’d never been dumped before. It was an odd novelty. And certainly not by a real girlfriend. It seemed being dumped by a fake one was no less of a shock to the system.

‘It’s been good while it lasted,’ she was saying. ‘Mutually beneficial for both of us. You got a professional plus-one for your work engagements and I got my parents off my back. But the fact is—’

‘It’s not you, it’s me?’ he joked, still not convinced she wasn’t messing around.

‘I’ve met someone,’ she said, not smiling.

‘Someone?’ he said, shaking his head lightly and reaching for the air-conditioning controls. For some reason it was suddenly boiling in the car. ‘A work someone?’

‘No, not a work someone!’ Her tone was exasperated. ‘Despite what you might think, I do have a life, you know—outside work.’

‘I never said you didn’t.’

He glanced across at her indignant expression just as it melted into a smile of triumph.

‘Dan, I’ve met someone.’

She held his gaze for a second before he looked back at the road, her eyebrows slightly raised, waiting for him to catch on. He tried to keep a grin in place when for some reason his face wanted to fold in on itself. In the months he’d known her she’d been on maybe two or three dates, to his knowledge, and none of the men involved had ever been important enough to her to earn the description ‘someone’.

He sat back in his seat and concentrated hard on driving the car through the London evening traffic. He supposed she was waiting for some kind of congratulatory comment and he groped for one.

‘Good for you,’ he said eventually. ‘Who is he?’

‘He was involved in some legal work I was doing.’

So she had met him through her job as a lawyer, then. Of course she had. When did she ever do anything that wasn’t somehow linked to work? Even their own friendship was based in work. It had started with work and had grown with their mutual ambition.

‘We’ve been on a few dates and it’s going really well.’ She took a breath. ‘And that’s why I need to end things with you.’

Things? For some reason he disliked the vagueness of the term, as if it meant nothing.

‘You don’t date,’ he pointed out.

‘Exactly,’ she said, jabbing a finger at him. ‘And do you know why I don’t date?’

‘Because no man could possibly match up to me?’

‘Despite what you might think is appealing to women, I don’t relish the prospect of a couple of nights sharing your bed only to be kicked out of it the moment you get bored.’

‘No need to make it sound so brutal. They all go into it with their eyes open, you know. I don’t make any false promises that it will ever be more than a bit of fun.’

‘None of them ever believe that. They all think they’ll be the one to change you. But you’ll never change because you don’t need to. You’ve got me for the times when you need to be serious, so you can keep the rest of your girlies just for fun.’

She looked down at her hands, folded in her lap.

‘The thing is, Dan, passing you off as my boyfriend might keep my family off my back, and it stops the swipes about me being single and the comments about my biological clock, but it doesn’t actually solve anything. I didn’t realise until now that I’m in a rut. I haven’t dated for months. All I do is work. It’s so easy to rely on you if I have to go anywhere I need a date that I’ve quit looking for anyone else.’

‘What are you saying?’

She sighed.

‘Just that meeting Alistair has opened my eyes to what I’ve been missing. And I really think our agreement is holding us both back.’

‘Alistair?’

‘His name is Alistair Woods.’

He easily dismissed the image that zipped into his brain of the blond ex-international cycling star, because it had to be a coincidence. Emma didn’t know anyone like that. He would know if she did. Except she was waiting, lips slightly parted, eyebrows slightly raised. Everything about her expression told him she was waiting for him to catch on.

‘Not the Alistair Woods?’ he said, because she so obviously wanted him to.

He stole a glance across at her and the smile that lit up her face caused a sorry twist somewhere deep in his stomach. It was a smile he couldn’t remember seeing for the longest time—not since they’d first met.

The glance turned into a look for as long as safe driving would allow, during which he saw her with an unusually objective eye, noticing details that had passed him by before. The hint of colour touching the smooth high cheekbones, the soft fullness of her lower lip, the way tendrils of her dark hair curled softly against the creamy skin of her shoulders in the boat-neck dress. She looked absolutely radiant and his stomach gave a slow and unmistakable flip, adding to his sense of unreality.

‘Exactly,’ she said with a touch of triumph. ‘The cyclist. Well, ex-cyclist. He’s in TV now—he does presenting and commentating.’

Of course he did. His face had been a permanent media fixture during the last big sports event in the UK. Dan felt a sudden irrational aversion to the man, whom he’d never met.

‘You’re dating Alistair Woods?’

He failed to keep the incredulity out of his voice and it earned him a flash of anger that replaced her bubbling excitement like a flood of cold water.

‘No need to make it sound so unbelievable,’ she snapped. ‘You might only see me as some power suit, great for taking on the difficult dates when one of your five-minute conquests won’t make the right impression, but I do actually have a dual existence. As a woman.’

‘How long have you been seeing him?’ he said.

‘What are you? My father?’ she said. ‘We’ve been out a few times.’

‘How many is a few?’

‘Half a dozen, maybe.’

‘You’re ending our agreement on the strength of half a dozen dates?’

‘Yes, well, they weren’t dates in the way you think of them. He hasn’t just invited me out for an impressive dinner as a preamble to taking me to bed. You can actually get to know someone really well in half a dozen dates if you approach them in a more...serious way.’

The thinly veiled dig didn’t escape him and indignation sharpened his voice.

‘OK, then, if he’s so bloody marvellous, and you’re so bloody smitten, why the hell isn’t he on his way to look at your brother’s wacky paintings and meet the parents? Couldn’t you have dumped me on the phone and saved me a load of time and hassle?’

He pulled the car to a standstill outside the gallery steps and turned off the engine.

‘I’m not dumping you! How many times? It’s a fake relationship!’

A uniformed attendant opened Emma’s car door and she got out. Dan threw his keys to the parking valet and joined her on the steps.

‘So you keep saying,’ he said, keeping his voice low. ‘I could have spent this evening working.’

‘Like you don’t spend enough of your life doing that.’ She led the way through the high arched doorway into the gallery. ‘You can easily afford an evening. Alistair’s out of the country until next week, and I need this opportunity to draw a thick, black and irreversible line under the two of us for my parents’ eyes and undo the tissue of fibs I’ve told them.’

They walked slowly down the red-carpeted hallway, his hand pressed softly at the small of her back—the perfect escort as always.

‘I really don’t see why I need to be there for you to do that,’ he said, smiling politely at other guests as they passed, maintaining the perfect impression. ‘Especially since it’s only a fake relationship.’

Even as he piled heavy sarcasm on the word fake he wondered why the hell he was turning this into such a big deal. Why should he care? It had simply been a handy arrangement, nothing more.

‘Because the problem with it being a fake relationship is that it was a pretty damn perfect one,’ she snapped. ‘And so now I need a fake break-up.’

* * *

She outlined her suggestion as they walked down the hall and it sounded so insane that his mind had trouble processing it.

‘You can’t possibly be serious. You want to fake an argument in front of your family so you can make some kind of a righteous point by dumping me?’

‘Exactly! Shouldn’t be too hard. I’ll choose a moment, start picking on you, and then you just play along.’

‘Why can’t you just tell them we broke up? That things didn’t work out?’ He ran an exasperated hand through his hair. ‘Why do I need to be here at all?’

‘Because I’ve spent the last year building you up as Mr Perfect, bigging you up at every opportunity. You’ve no idea what it was like before we started helping each other out. The constant questions about why I was still single, the hassle about my body clock careering towards a standstill, the negativity about my career. Introducing you as my boyfriend stopped all that like magic. They think you’re the son-in-law of their dreams—a rich businessman who adores me, good-looking, charming, not remotely fazed by my mother. They’ll never just take my word for it that we broke up amicably. I’d spend the rest of my days being questioned about what I did to drive you away. You’d be forever name-dropped as the one that got away. No man I bring home would ever live up to your perfect memory.’

‘You don’t think you’re going a bit overboard?’

‘Are you really asking me that? You’ve met my mother. You know what she’s like.’

He had to concede that Emma’s mother was without a doubt the most interfering person he’d ever come across, with an opinion about everything that was never wrong. Her relationship with Emma seemed to bring out the critic in both of them. Mutual exasperated affection was probably the nearest he could get to describing it.

‘This way your fabulous reputation will be ruined, by the time Alistair and I finish our trip to the States you’ll be a distant memory, and they’ll be ready to accept him as my new man.’ She shrugged. ‘Once I’ve...you know...briefed him on what they can be like.’

Trip to the States? His hands felt clammy. He stopped outside the main gallery and pulled her to one side before they could get swept into the room by the crowd.

‘You’re going on holiday?’

She looked at him impatiently.

‘In a few weeks’ time, yes. I’m going to meet some of his friends and family. And then after that I’m going to travel with him in Europe while he covers an international cycling race for American TV. I’m taking a sabbatical from work. I might not even come back.’

‘What?’ His mind reeled. ‘You’re giving up your life as you know it on the strength of a few dates? Are you mad?’

‘That’s exactly it! When do I ever do anything impetuous? It isn’t as if sensible planning has worked out so well for me, is it? I work all hours and I have no social life to speak of beyond filling in for you. What exactly have I got to lose?’

‘What about your family?’

‘I’m hardly going to be missed, am I? My parents are so busy following Adam’s ascent to celebrity status with his art that they’re not going to start showing an interest in my life.’

She leaned in towards him and lowered her voice, treating him to the dizzying scent of her vanilla perfume.

‘One of his pictures went for five figures last month, you know. Some anonymous buyer, apparently. But two words about my work and they start to glaze over.’

She leaned back again and took a small mirror from her clutch bag.

‘And you’ll be fine, of course,’ she went on, opening the mirror and checking her face in it, oblivious to his floundering brain. ‘You must have a whole little black book of girls who’d fall over themselves to step into my shoes. You’re hardly going to be stuck for a date.’

True enough. He might, however, be stuck for a date who made the right kind of impression. Wasn’t that how this whole agreement of theirs had started? He didn’t go in for dating with a serious slant—not any more. Not since Maggie and...

He clenched his fists. Even after all these years thoughts of her and their failed plans occasionally filtered into his mind, despite the effort he put into forgetting them. There was no place for those memories in his life. These days for him it was all about keeping full control. Easy fun, then moving on. Unfortunately the girls who fitted that kind of mould didn’t have the right fit in work circles. Emma had filled that void neatly, meaning he could bed whoever the hell he liked because he had her for the serious stuff—the stuff where impressions counted.

It occurred to him for the first time that she wouldn’t just be across London if he needed her. He felt oddly unsettled as she tugged at his arm and walked towards the main door.

‘You’ve had some mad ideas in your time, but this...’ he said.

* * *

As they entered the main gallery Emma paused to take in the enormity of what her brother had achieved. The vast room had a spectacular landing running above it, from which the buzzing exhibition could be viewed. It had been divided into groupings by display screens, on which Adam’s paintings—some of them taller than her—were picked out in pools of perfect clear lighting. A crowd of murmuring spectators surrounded the nearest one, which depicted an enormous eyeball with tiny cavorting people in the centre of it. His work might not be her cup of tea, but it certainly commanded attention and evoked strong opinions. Just the way he always had done.

She took two crystal flutes of champagne from the silver tray of a pretty blonde attendant, who looked straight through her to smile warmly at Dan. For heaven’s sake, was no woman immune? Emma handed him one of the flutes and he immediately raised it to the blonde girl.

‘Thanks very much...’ He leaned in close so he could read the name tag conveniently pinned next to a cleavage Emma could only ever dream of owning. ‘Hannah...’

He returned the girl’s smile. Emma dragged him away. Why was she even surprised? Didn’t she know him well enough by now? No woman was safe.

Correction: no curvy blonde arm candy was safe.

‘For Pete’s sake, pay attention,’ she said in a stage whisper. ‘You’re meant to be here with me, not eyeing up the staff.’

She linked her arm through his so she could propel him through the crowd to find her parents. It wasn’t difficult. Her mother had for some insane reason chosen to wear a wide flowing scarf wrapped around her head and tied to one side. Emma headed through the crowd, aiming for it—aqua silk with a feather pin stuck in it on one side. As her parents fell into possible earshot she pasted on a smile and talked through her beaming teeth.

‘They’ll never just take my word for it that we’ve just gone our separate ways. Not without a massive inquest. And I can’t be doing with that. Trust me, it’ll work better this way. It’s cleaner. Just go with everything I say.’

She speeded up the end of the sentence as her mother approached.

‘And you don’t need to worry,’ she added from the corner of her mouth. ‘I’ll pay for the dry-cleaning.’

‘You’ll what? What the hell is that supposed to mean?’

He turned his face towards her, a puzzled frown lightly creasing his forehead, and his eyes followed her hand as she raised her flute of champagne, ready to tip the contents over his head. She saw his blue eyes widen in sudden understanding and realised far too late that she’d totally underestimated his reflexes.

Dan’s hand shot out instantly to divert hers, knocking it to one side in a single lightning movement. And instead of providing the explosive beginning to her staged we’re finished argument, the glass jerked sharply sideways and emptied itself in a huge splash down the front of her mother’s aquamarine jumpsuit. She stared in horror as champagne soaked into the fabric, lending it a translucent quality that revealed an undergarment not unlike a parachute harness.

She’d inadvertently turned her mother into Miss Wet T-Shirt, London. And if she’d been a disappointing daughter before, this bumped things up to a whole new level.

TWO

‘Aaaaargh!’

The ensuing squawk from Emma’s mother easily outdid the gallery’s classy background music, and Dan was dimly aware of the room falling silent around them as people turned from the paintings to watch.

‘An accident—it was an accident...’ Emma gabbled, fumbling with a pack of tissues from her tiny clutch bag and making a futile attempt at mopping up the mess.

As her father shook a handkerchief from his pocket and joined in, her mother slapped his hand away in exasperation.

‘It’ll take more than a few tissues,’ she snarled furiously at him, and then turned on Emma. ‘Do you know how much this outfit cost? How am I meant to stand next to your brother in the publicity photos now? I’ve never known anyone so clumsy.’

Emma’s face was the colour of beetroot, but any sympathy Dan might have felt was rather undermined by the revelation that she’d intended, without so much as a word of warning, to make a fool of him in front of the cream of London’s social scene. That was her plan? That? Dumping him publicly by humiliating him? If he hadn’t caught on in time it would have been him standing there dripping Veuve Clicquot while she no doubt laid into him with a ludicrous fake argument.

No one dumped him. Ever.

‘An accident?’ he said pointedly.

She glanced towards him, her red face one enormous fluster. He raised furious eyebrows and mouthed the word dry-cleaning at her. She widened her eyes back at him in an apologetic please-stick-to-the-plan gesture.

Emma’s brother, Adam, pushed his way through the crowd, turning perfectly coiffed heads as he went, dandyish as ever in a plum velvet jacket with a frothy lace shirt underneath. There was concern in his eyes behind his statement glasses.

‘What’s going on, people?’ he said, staring in surprise at his mother as she shrugged her way into her husband’s jacket and fastened the buttons grimly to hide the stain.

‘Your sister has just flung champagne all over me,’ she snapped dramatically, then raised both hands as Adam opened his mouth to speak. ‘No, no, don’t you go worrying about it, I’m not going anywhere. I wouldn’t hear of it. This is your night. I’m not going to let the fact that my outfit is decimated ruin that. I’ll soldier on, just like I always do.’

‘I’ve said I’m sorry. I’ll pay for the dry-cleaning,’ Emma said desperately.

Dan’s anger slipped a notch as he picked up on her discomfort. Only a notch, mind you. OK, so maybe he wouldn’t have it out with her in public, but he would most certainly be dealing with her later.

Emma closed her eyes briefly. When did it end? Would everything she ever did in life, good or bad, be somehow referenced by Adam’s success? Then again, since her mother was already furious with her, she might as well press ahead with the planned mock break-up. Maybe then at least the evening wouldn’t be a total write-off.

She drew Dan aside by the elbow as Adam drifted away again, back to his adoring public.

‘We can still do it,’ she said. ‘We can still stage the break-up.’

He stared at her incredulously.

‘Are you having some kind of a laugh?’ he snapped. ‘When you said you needed a fake break-up I wasn’t expecting it to involve my public humiliation. You were going to lob that drink over me, for heaven’s sake, and now you think I’ll just agree to a rerun?’

She opened her mouth to respond and he cut her off.

‘There are people I know in here,’ he said in a furious stage whisper, nodding around them at the crowd. ‘What kind of impression do you think that would have given them?’

‘I didn’t expect things to get so out of hand,’ she said. ‘I just thought we’d have a quick mock row in front of my parents and that would be it.’

‘You didn’t even warn me!’

‘I didn’t want to lose the element of surprise. I wanted to make it look, you know, authentic.’

He stared at her in disbelief.

There was the squeal of whiny microphone feedback and Adam appeared on the landing above the gallery. Emma looked up towards her brother, picked out in a pool of light in front of a billboard with his own name on it in six-foot-tall violet letters. She felt overshadowed, as always, by his brilliance. Just as she had done at school. But now it was on a much more glamorous level. No wonder her legal career seemed drab in comparison. No wonder her parents were expecting her to give it all up at any moment to get married and give them grandchildren. Adam was far too good for such normal, boring life plans.

His voice began to boom over the audio system, thanking everyone for coming and crediting a list of people she’d never heard of with his success.

‘I can’t believe you’d make a scene like that without considering what effect it might have on me,’ Dan said, anger still lacing his voice.

The blonde champagne waitress chose that moment to walk past them. Emma watched as Dan’s gaze flickered away from her to follow the woman’s progress and the grovelling apology she’d been about to give screeched to a halt on the tip of her tongue. Just who the hell did he think he was, moaning about being dumped, when his relationship principles were pretty much in the gutter? OK, so they might not have actually been a couple, but she’d seen the trail of broken hearts he left in his wake. He had no relationship scruples whatsoever. One girl followed another. And as soon as he’d got what he wanted he lost interest and dumped them. As far as she knew he’d never suffered a moment’s comeback as a result.

Maybe this new improved Emma, with her stupid unrequited girlie crush on Dan well and truly in the past, had a duty to press that point on behalf of womankind.

‘Oh, get over yourself,’ she said, before she could change her mind. ‘I’d say a public dumping was probably long overdue. It’s just that none of your conquests have had the nous or the self-respect to do it before. There’s probably a harem of curvy blonde waitresses and models who’ve thought about lobbing a drink over you when you’ve chucked them just because you’re bored. And I didn’t actually spill a drop on you, so let’s just move on, shall we?’

Adam smiled and laughed his way back through the crowd towards them, and she seized the opportunity as he neared her proudly beaming parents.

‘Same plan as before, minus the champagne. I’ll start picking on you and...’

The words trailed away in her mouth as Adam clamped one arm around Dan’s shoulders and one around her own.

‘Got some news for you all—gather round, gather round,’ he said.

As her parents moved in closer, questioning expressions on their faces, he raised both hands in a gesture of triumph above his head.

‘Be happy for me, people!’

He performed a jokey pirouette and finished with a manic grin and jazz hands.

‘Ernie and I are getting married!’

Beaming at them, he slid his velvet-sleeved arm around his boyfriend and pulled him into a hot kiss.

Her mother’s gasp of shock was audible above the cheers. And any plans Emma might have had of staging a limelight-stealing break-up went straight back to the drawing board.

* * *

Emma watched the buzzing crowd of people now surrounding Adam and Ernie, showering them with congratulations, vaguely relieved that she hadn’t managed to dispense with Dan after all. From the tense look on her parents’ faces, as they stood well away from the throng, dealing with the fallout from Adam’s announcement wasn’t going to be easy. And despite the fact that it was a setback in her plans to introduce Alistair, there was no doubt that her mother was much easier to handle when she had Dan in her corner.

Dealing with her parents without him was something she hadn’t had to do in so long that she hadn’t realised how she’d come to rely on his calming presence. They might have only been helping each other out, but Dan had had her back where her family were concerned. And he’d never been remotely fazed by her overbearing mother and downtrodden father.

She wondered for the first time with a spike of doubt whether Alistair would be as supportive as that. Or would he let her family cloud his judgement of her? What was that saying? Look at the mother if you want to see your future wife. If that theory held up she might as well join a nunnery. Alistair would be out of her life before she could blink.

She couldn’t let herself think like that.

Calling a halt with Dan was clearly the right thing to do if she was so ridiculously dependent on him that she could no longer handle her family on her own. But she couldn’t ruin Adam’s excitement. Not tonight. She’d simply have to reschedule things.

And in the meantime at least she wasn’t handling her mother’s shock by herself. She took a new flute of champagne gratefully from Dan and braced herself with a big sip.

‘I’m sure it must just be a publicity stunt,’ her mother was saying.

Denial. Her mother’s stock reaction to news she didn’t want to hear.

‘It’s not a publicity stunt,’ Adam said. ‘We’re getting married.’

He beamed at Ernie, standing beside him in a slim-cut electric blue suit. He certainly looked the perfect match for Adam.

Her mother’s jaw didn’t even really drop. Disbelief was so ingrained in her.

‘Don’t be ridiculous, darling,’ she said, flicking an invisible speck of dirt from Adam’s lapel. ‘Of course you’re not.’

Adam’s face took on the stoic expression of one who knew he would need to press the point more than once in order to be heard. Possibly a few hundred times.

‘It’s the next logical step,’ he said.

‘In what?’ Her mother flapped a dismissive hand. ‘It’s just a phase. You’ll soon snap out of it once the right girl comes along. Bit like Emma with her vegetarian thing back in the day.’ She nodded at Emma. ‘Soon went back to normal after a couple of weeks when she fancied a bacon sandwich.’

‘Mum,’ Adam said patiently, ‘Emma was thirteen. I’m twenty-nine. Ernie and I have been together for nearly a year.’

‘I know. Sharing a flat. Couple of lads. No need to turn it into more than it is.’

Emma stared as Adam finally raised his voice enough to make her mother stop talking.

‘Mum, you’re in denial!’

As she stopped her protests and looked at him he took a deep breath and lowered his voice, speaking with the tired patience of someone who’d covered the same ground many times, only to end up where he’d started.

‘I’ve been out since I was eighteen. I know you’ve never wanted to accept it, but the right girl for me doesn’t exist. We’re having a civil partnership ceremony in six weeks’ time and I want you all to be there and be happy for me.’

‘I’m happy for you,’ Emma said, smiling tentatively.

Happiness she could do. Unfortunately being at the wedding might be a bit trickier. Her plans with Alistair lurked at the edge of her mind. She’d been so excited about going away with him. He’d showered her with gifts and attention, and for the first time in her life she was being blown away by being the sole focus of another person. And not just any person. Alistair Woods had to be one of the most eligible bachelors in the universe, with an army of female fans, and he had chosen to be with her. She still couldn’t quite believe her luck. Their trip was planned to the hilt. She would have to make Adam understand somehow.

He leaned in and gave her a hug. ‘Thanks, Em.’

She had grown up feeling overshadowed by Adam’s achievements. Just the look of him was attention-grabbing, with his perfectly chiselled features and foppish dress sense. And that was just now. She couldn’t forget the school years, where for every one of Emma’s hard-earned A grades there had been a matching two or three showered effortlessly on Adam. His flamboyant, outgoing personality charmed everyone he came into contact with, and her mother never ceased championing his successes to anyone who would listen.

It hadn’t been easy being her parents’ Plan B. Competing for their interest with someone as dazzling as Adam was an impossible, cold task.

‘I blame you for this, Donald,’ her mother snapped at her father. ‘Indulging his ridiculous obsession with musical theatre when he was in his teens.’

Sometimes Emma forgot that being her parents’ Plan A was probably no picnic either.

Adam held up his hands.

‘Please, Mum. It’s not up for discussion. It’s happening with or without your approval. Can’t you just be pleased for us?’

There was an extremely long pause and then her mother gave an enormous grudging sigh.

‘Well, I can kiss goodbye to grandchildren, I suppose,’ she grumbled. ‘We’ll have to count on you for that now, Emma. If you can ever manage to find a man who’ll commit.’

She glared pointedly at Dan, who totally ignored the jibe. Emma had been wondering how long it would be before her biological clock got a mention. Terrific. So now Adam could carve out the life he wanted without bearing the brunt of her parents’ wrath because they had Emma lined up as their biological backup plan to carry on their insane gene pool.

Going away with Alistair was beginning to feel like a lucky escape. She just needed to get her plans back on track.

* * *

Dan scanned an e-mail for the third time and realised he still hadn’t properly taken it in. His mind had been all over the place this last day or two.

Since the night of Adam’s exhibition, to be exact.

There was a gnawing feeling deep in his gut that work didn’t seem to be suppressing, and he finally threw in the towel on distracting himself, took his mind off work and applied it to the problem instead.

He was piqued because Emma had ended things with him. OK, so her plans to dump him publicly hadn’t come off, thankfully, but the end result was the same. She’d drawn a line under their relationship without so much as a moment’s pause and he hadn’t heard from her since. No discussion, no input from him.

He was even more piqued because now it was over with he really shouldn’t give a damn. They were friends, work colleagues, and that was all there was to it. Their romantic attachment existed only in the impression they’d given to the outside world, to work contacts and her family. It had always been a front.

His pique had absolutely nothing to do with any sudden realisation that Emma was attractive. He’d always known she was attractive. Dan Morgan wouldn’t be seen dating a moose, even for business reasons. That didn’t mean she was his type, though—not with her dark hair and minimal make-up, and her conservative taste in clothes. And that in turn had made it easy to pigeonhole her as friend. A proper relationship with someone like Emma would be complex, would need commitment, compromise, emotional investment. All things he wasn’t prepared to give another woman. Tried, tested and failed. Dan Morgan learned from his mistakes and never repeated his failures.

It had quickly become clear that Emma was far more useful to him in the role of friend than love interest, and all thoughts of attraction had been relegated from that moment onwards. It had been so long now that not noticing the way she looked was second nature.

But the gnawing feeling in his gut was there nonetheless. Their romantic relationship might have been counterfeit, but some element of it had obviously been real enough to make the dumping feel extremely uncomfortable.

He’d never been dumped before. He was the one who did the backing off. That was the way he played it. A couple of dinner dates somewhere nice, the second one generally ending up in his bed, a couple more dates and then, when the girl started to show signs of getting comfortable—maybe she’d start leaving belongings in his flat, or perhaps she’d suggest he meet her family—he’d simply go into backing-off mode. It wasn’t as if he lied to them about his intentions. He was careful always to make it clear from the outset that he wasn’t in the market for anything serious. He was in absolute control at all times—just as he was in every aspect of his life. That was the way he wanted it. The way he needed it.

He was amazed at how affronted he felt by the apparent ease with which Emma had dispensed with him. Not an ounce of concern for how he might feel as she’d planned to trounce him spectacularly in front of all those people. His irritation at her unbelievable fake break-up plan was surpassed only by his anger with himself for actually giving a damn.

Feeling low at being dumped meant you had feelings for the person dumping you. Didn’t it?

Unease flared in his gut at that needling thought, because Dan Morgan didn’t do deep feelings. That slippery slope led to dark places he had no intention of revisiting. He did fun, easy, no-strings flings. Feelings need not apply. Surely hurt feelings should only apply where a relationship was bona fide. Fake relationships should mean fake feelings, and fake feelings couldn’t be hurt.

That sensation of spinning back in time made him feel faintly nauseous. Here it was again—like an irritating old acquaintance you think you’ve cut out of your life who then pops back up unexpectedly for a visit. That reeling loss of control he’d felt in the hideous few months after Maggie had left, walking away with apparent ease from the ruins of their relationship. He’d made sure he retained the upper hand in all dealings with women since. These days every situation worked for him. No emotion involved. No risk. His relationships were orchestrated by him, no one else. That way he could be sure of every outcome.

But not this time. Their agreement had lasted—what?—a year? And in that time she’d never once refused a date with him. Even when he’d needed an escort at the last minute she’d changed her schedule to accommodate him. He’d relied on her because he’d learned that he could rely on her.

And so he hadn’t seen it coming. That was why it gnawed at him like this.

You don’t like losing her. You thought you had her on your own terms. You took her for granted and now you don’t like the feeling that she’s calling the shots.

He gritted his teeth. This smacked a bit too much of the past for comfort. It resurrected old feelings that he had absolutely no desire to recall, and he apparently couldn’t let it slide. What he needed to do now was get this thing back under his own control.

Well, she hadn’t gone yet. And he didn’t have to just take her decision. If this agreement was going to end it would be when he chose—not on some whim of hers. He could talk her round if he wanted to. It wouldn’t be hard. And then he would decide where their partnership went.

If it went anywhere at all.

He pulled his chair back close to the desk and pressed a few buttons, bringing up his calendar for the next couple of weeks with a stab of exasperation. Had she no idea of the inconvenience she’d thrust upon him?

Not only had Emma dumped him, she’d really picked a great moment to do it. Not. The black tie charity dinner a week away hadn’t crossed his mind the other evening when she had dropped her bombshell. It hadn’t needed to. Since he’d met Emma planning for events like that had been a thing of the past. He simply called her up, sometimes at no more than a moment’s notice, and he could count on the perfect companion on his arm—perfect respect for the dress code, perfect intelligent conversation, an all-round perfect professional impression. There was some serious networking to be had at such an event, the tickets had cost a fortune, and now he was dateless.

He reached for the phone.

It rang for so long that he was on the brink of hanging up when she answered.

‘Hello?’ Her slightly husky voice sounded breathless, as if she’d just finished laughing at something, and he could hear music and buzzing talk in the background, as if she were in a crowded bar or restaurant.

From nowhere three unheard-of things flashed through his mind in quick succession. Emma never socialised on a work night unless she was with him; she never let her phone ring for long when he called her, as if she was eager to talk to him; and in the time that he’d known her she had never sounded this bubblingly happy.

‘What are you doing a week from Friday?’ he said, cutting to the chase.

‘Hang on.’

A brief pause on the end of the phone and the blaring music was muted a little. He imagined her leaving the bar or the restaurant she was in for a quiet spot, perhaps in the lobby. He sensed triumph already, knowing that she was leaving whoever she was with to make time to speak with him.

‘Tying up loose ends at work, probably. And packing.’

So she was storming ahead with her plans, then. The need for control spiked again in his gut. He went in with the big guns.

‘I’ve got a charity ball in Mayfair. Black tie. Major league. Tickets like hen’s teeth. It promises to be a fabulous night.’

He actually heard her sigh. With impatience, or with longing at the thought of attending the ball with him? He decided it was definitely the latter. She’d made no secret of the fact she enjoyed the wonderful opulence of nights like that, and he knew she’d networked a good few new clients for herself in the past while she was accompanying him—another perk of their plus-one agreement.

For Pete’s sake, she had him giving it that ludicrous name now.

Their usual dates consisted of restaurant dinners with his clients. Pleasant, but hardly exciting. Except for Dan’s own company, of course. Luxury events like this only came up occasionally. He waited for her to tear his arm off in her eagerness to accept.

‘What part of “it’s over” did you not understand, Dan?’ she said. ‘Did you not hear any of what I said the other night?’

It took a moment to process what she’d said because he had been so convinced of her acceptance.

‘What I heard was some insane plan to desert your whole life as you know it for some guy you’ve known five minutes,’ he heard himself say. ‘You’re talking about leaving your friends and family, walking out of a job you’ve worked your arse off for, all to follow some celebrity.’

‘It would be a sabbatical from work,’ she said. ‘I’m not burning my bridges there. Not yet. And you make me sound like some crazy stalker. We’re in a relationship. A proper grown-up one, not a five-minute fling.’

He didn’t miss the obvious dig at his own love life, and it made his response more cutting than he intended.

‘On the strength of—what was it?—half a dozen dates?’ he said. ‘I always thought you were one of the most grounded people I know. You’re the last person in the world I’d have expected to be star-struck.’

He knew from the freezing silence on the end of the phone that he’d sunk his foot into his own mouth up to the ankle.

‘How dare you?’ she said, and a light tremble laced her voice, which was pure frost. ‘It was obviously too much to hope that you might actually be pleased for me. Yes, Alistair is in the public eye, but that has nothing to do with why I’ve agreed to go away with him. Has it occurred to you that I might actually like him because he’s interested in me for a change? As opposed to the grandchildren I might bear him or the fact I might be his carer when he’s old and decrepit. Or...’ she added pointedly ‘...the fact that I might boost his profile at some damned work dinner so he can extend his client list a bit further because he never quite feels he’s rich or successful enough.’

She paused.

‘You’re saying no, then?’ he said. ‘To the all-expenses-paid top-notch Mayfair ball?’

He heard her draw in a huge breath and then she let it out in a rude, exasperated noise. He held the phone briefly away from his ear. When he put it back her voice was Arctic.

‘Dan,’ she was saying slowly, as if he had a problem understanding plain English, ‘I’m saying no to the Mayfair ball. I’m through with posing as your professional romantic interest so you can impress your damned client list while you date airhead models for a week at a time.’

Had he really thought this would be easy? It occurred to him that in reality she couldn’t be further from one of his usual conquests, of which currently there were two or three, any of whom would drop everything else at a moment’s notice if he deigned to call them up and suggest getting together.

You didn’t get as far up the legal career ladder as she had by being a ‘yes’ girl. But her easy refusal bothered the hell out of him. He’d expected her to agree to resurrect their agreement without even needing persuasion. Had expected her to thank him, in fact.

The need to win back control rose another notch with her unexpected refusal of his offer, and also her apparent indifference to it. It put his teeth on edge and gnawed at him deep inside.

‘How about helping me out with this one last time, then?’ he pressed, confident that in an evening he could quickly turn the situation around. Reinstate their agreement and then decide what he wanted to do with it. End it, change the terms—whatever happened it would be up to him to decide, not her.

‘Dan, you don’t need my help,’ she said patiently. ‘I’m in the middle of dinner and I haven’t got time to discuss this now. It’s not as if you’re short of dates. Grab your little black book and pick one of your girlies from there. I’m sure any one of them would love to go with you.’

There was a soft click on the end of the phone as she hung up.

That went well. Not.

THREE

‘Let me just recap. You’re in a relationship with Alistair Woods—the Alistair Woods, the man who looks a dream in Lycra—and you’re not planning on mentioning it to Mum and Dad?’

Adam’s eyebrows practically disappeared into his sleek quiff hairstyle and Emma took a defensive sip of coffee. The fantasy she’d had of disappearing around the world on Alistair’s arm and calling up her parents from Cannes/LA/somewhere else that screamed kudos, to tell them she would be featuring in next month’s celebrity magazine, had turned out to be just that. A fantasy.

Because Adam was getting married.

Her big brother, Adam—who never failed to make her laugh, and who was so bright and sharp and funny that she’d never for a moment questioned her role in family life as the forgettable backing act to his flamboyant scene-stealer. Of course she had paled into insignificance in her family’s eyes next to Adam—not to mention in the eyes of schoolteachers, friends, neighbours... But only in the way that everyone else had faded into the background next to him in her own eyes. He was simply someone who commanded success and attention without needing to put in any effort.

She couldn’t exit her life without telling Adam, and she’d asked him to meet her for coffee to do exactly that. She’d even tried to sweeten the news by buying him an enormous cream bun, which now sat between them untouched. If she’d thought he’d simply scoff the bun and wave her off without so much as a question, she’d been deluded.

‘You’re not going yet, though, right? You’re at least waiting until after the wedding?’

‘Erm...’

He threw his arms up theatrically.

‘Em! You can’t be serious! How the hell am I going to keep Mum under control without you? I can’t get married without my wingman!’

‘Woman,’ she corrected.

He flapped both hands at her madly.

‘Whatever. You saw what Mum was like the other night. The wedding is in Ernie’s home village. He’s got a massive family, they’re all fabulously supportive, and if you don’t come along our family’s big impression on them will be Mum telling everyone I’ll get over it when I get bored with musical theatre and meet the right girl.’

‘Dad will be there,’ she ventured. ‘Maybe you could talk to him beforehand, get him to keep Mum on a short leash.’

‘He’d be as much use as a chocolate teapot. We both know he’s been beaten into submission over the years. Since when has Mum ever listened to him? She just talks over him. I need you there.’

His voice had taken on a pleading tone.

‘It’s not as simple as that. Alistair’s covering another cycling race in a few weeks’ time. We’re meant to be having a break before it starts because it’s pretty full-on. I’m flying out to the States, meeting some of his friends and family, relaxing for a couple of weeks. It’s all been arranged.’

She looked down at her coffee cup because she couldn’t bear the disappointment on Adam’s face.

Adam had never made her feel insignificant. Any inability to measure up was her failing, not his. And she was the one who let it bother her.

‘Then there’s no problem! Bring Alistair to the wedding,’ Adam said, clapping his hands together excitedly. ‘You’ve already said he’s got time off from work. The guy’s probably got a private jet. You could zoom in and zoom out on the same day if you had to.’ He made a soaring aeroplane motion in the air with his hand.

She suppressed a mirthless laugh.

‘You mean introduce him to Mum and Dad? A whole new person for Mum to drive insane?’ She narrowed suspicious eyes at him. ‘It would certainly take the heat off you and Ernie.’

He held his hands up.

‘You’ll have to introduce him at some point anyway. OK, so you might travel with him for a while, maybe even settle in the States with him, but you’ll have to come home to visit, won’t you?’

She didn’t answer. Visiting wasn’t something she’d thought about much in her excitement about getting away. It hadn’t crossed her mind that she’d be missed that much.

‘Bloody hell, Em.’

She sighed. She couldn’t say no to Adam any more than the rest of the world could. He just had that gift.

‘It’ll be a nightmare if I bring Alistair,’ she said. ‘Mum will be all over him like a rash, demanding marriage and grandchildren and mentioning my biological clock. He’s a free spirit. He’ll run a bloody mile.’

Adam was on the comment like a shot.

‘Then you definitely should bring him. You’re talking about leaving your whole life behind to be with him—don’t you think he ought to prove himself a bit before you take that kind of plunge? If he’s really the guy you think he is—if he’s really going to put you first above everything else in his life—then he’ll love you no matter what crazy relative you introduce him to, right?’

She couldn’t help latching on to that thought—that desire for a level of regard where she would come absolutely first with someone for a change. Was that what this was really about? Was she afraid to bring Alistair to the wedding because of some stupid subconscious conviction that he might see through her? Might see that she really was a plain and inferior mousy girl, despite all the years she’d put in on breaking away from that persona?

‘He does love me,’ she insisted, mainly to bat away the prickle of unease that had begun in her stomach. It was all Adam’s fault for questioning her perfectly laid plans.

‘Great. Then put your man where your mouth is. Introduce him to Mum and watch him prove it.’

* * *

Dan clicked his phone off with ill-suppressed irritation.

Cancelling a working lunch at a moment’s notice was extremely bad form. Focused to a pinpoint on work performance himself, he found it difficult to tolerate lateness or bad planning in others. Especially when it meant he’d interrupted his day to turn up at a restaurant when he could have eaten lunch on the run or at his desk.

He gave the menu an uninterested glance and was on the point of calling for the bill for the two drinks he’d ordered while waiting for the no-show client when he saw Emma cross the restaurant. A waiter showed her to a table by the window and she sat down alone, so engrossed in scrolling through her phone that she didn’t even notice he was in the room.

The news that she was leaving seemed to have given him a new heightened perspective, and he picked up on tiny details about her that had simply passed him by before. He saw her objectively for once, as someone else might. Alistair Woods, for example. This time his gaze skimmed over her usual business dress when previously it would have stopped at observing the sharply cut grey suit. Instead he now noticed how slender she was. How had he never picked up before on the striking contrast of her double cream skin with her dark hair? The ripe fullness of her lower lip? When you had reason to look past the sensible work image she was unexpectedly cute. He’d been so busy taking her presence for granted he’d failed to notice any of those things.

Maybe this lunchtime wouldn’t be a total waste of time after all. Dealing with her on the phone had been a bad choice. A face-to-face meeting might be a better approach to talking sense into her.

He picked up his drink and crossed the room towards her. His stomach gave a sudden flutter that made him pause briefly en route to the table—then he remembered that it was lunchtime. He was obviously just hungry, and since he was here maybe he should take the chance to grab a sandwich as well as a drink and a smoothing-over session with her. Not that his appetite had been up to much this last week or so.

‘Dan!’

Her eyes widened in surprise as he slid into the seat opposite her and put his drink down on the table. She glanced quickly around the restaurant, presumably for a waiter.

‘Really glad I bumped into you,’ he said. ‘Just wanted to say no hard feelings about the other night.’

A smile touched the corner of her lips, drawing his eyes there. She was wearing a light pink lipstick that gave them a delectable soft sheen.

‘The other night?’ she said.

‘The charity ball.’

‘I hadn’t realised there could be hard feelings,’ she said, toying with her water glass. ‘It was just a work arrangement we had after all, right? Not like I broke off a date, is it?’

She held his gaze steadily and for the first time it occurred to him that it might take a bit more than sweet-talking for him to regain the advantage between them. His own fault, of course. He was judging her by the standards of his usual dates, who seemed to fall over themselves to hang on his every word. Emma was a different ball game altogether. Taking her for granted had been a mistake.

He gestured to the waiter for a menu.

‘How did it go, then?’ she said.

‘How did what go?’ he evaded.

‘The charity ball?’ she said. ‘No-expenses-spared Mayfair hotel, wasn’t it? Who did you take?’

‘Eloise,’ he said shortly.

She had to bring it up, didn’t she? When what he’d really like would be to erase the entire evening from history.

‘Which one’s that?’

She cranked her hand in a come-on gesture and looked at him expectantly until he elaborated.

‘She’s a leg model,’ he said. ‘You know—tights, stockings, that kind of thing.’

The woman had the best legs in the business. Unfortunately she was entirely defined by that one physical feature. Tact, sense and reliability didn’t come into it.

‘Did you make any new contacts?’ Emma said. ‘Normally charity bashes are great for networking, aren’t they? Perfect opportunity for a shared goal, loads of rich businessmen?’

‘Normally they are,’ he said. ‘But normally I have you with me, oozing tact and diplomacy and class.’

It had been kind of hard to hold a professional conversation with Eloise’s arms wound constantly around his neck like a long-legged monkey. The one time he had begun to make headway with a potential client she’d returned from the bar with two flutes of pink champagne and positioned herself between them by sitting on his lap.

He watched Emma carefully, to see if his compliment had hit its mark, and was rewarded with the lightest of rosy blushes touching her high cheekbones. Hah! Not so easily dismissed after all. A proper in-depth talk about her whirlwind plans and he was confident he could sow a few seeds of doubt. From there it would be a short step to convincing her to stay put, reinstating their working agreement, getting things back to normal.

He was giving her a quick follow-up smile when he realised her eyes were actually focused somewhere over his shoulder and the blush had nothing to do with him. A wide smile lit up her face and suddenly she was on her feet, being drawn into a kiss by a tall blond man with a deep golden tan and perfect white teeth. No matter that he was wearing a sharply cut designer suit and an open-necked silk shirt instead of clinging Lycra cycling shorts and a helmet. He was instantly recognisable—by Dan and by the room at large.

Alistair Woods was on the premises.

The surrounding tables suddenly appeared to be filled with rubberneckers. Clearly basking in the attention, he offered a wave and a nod of greeting to the tables either side of them before sitting down—as if he was a film star instead of a has-been athlete. Dan felt an irrational lurch of dislike for the guy, whom he’d never met before but who clearly made Emma brim with happiness.

Jealous? his mind whispered.

He dismissed the thought out of hand. This wasn’t about jealousy. Emma was clearly star-struck and on the brink of making a rash decision that could ruin her working life and her personal life before you could say yellow jersey. If anything, he would be doing her a favour by bringing her back down to earth.

‘Alistair, this is Dan,’ Emma said, taking her seat again, her hand entwined in Alistair’s. ‘Dan, this is Alistair Woods.’

She glanced pointedly at Dan.

‘Dan happened to be here meeting someone,’ she said. ‘He just came over to say hello.’

She didn’t want him to join them. It couldn’t be clearer.

‘Heard a lot about you, friend,’ Alistair said in a strong American accent, stretching in his seat. ‘You’re the platonic plus-one, right?’

Of all the qualities he possessed that Emma could choose to reference him by she’d chosen that. Just great.

‘Did you get my phone message?’ Emma asked Alistair eagerly. ‘I know it means rejigging our plans a little, but I just can’t let my brother down. It’s his wedding day. And it’ll be a good chance for you to meet my family.’

She was taking Alistair to Adam’s civil partnership ceremony?

Dan felt a deep and lurching stab of misplaced envy at the thought of this guy slotting neatly into his recently vacated place—fake though it might have been—in regard to Emma’s family. OK, so they were opinionated and mouthy, and in her mother’s case that translated as being downright bigoted at times, but he’d never felt anything but welcomed by them, and their simple mad chaos had been something he’d enjoyed.

An unhappy flash of his own childhood rose in his mind. His mother, hardly more than a child herself. No father—at least not in any way that mattered to a kid. Plenty of ‘uncles’, though. He hadn’t been short of those. And plenty of random babysitters—friends of his mother’s, neighbours, hardly the same person twice. What he wouldn’t have given for an interfering nosy mother at the age of thirteen, when babysitters had no longer been required and he’d been considered old enough to be left home alone.

He dismissed the thought. Things were different now. He’d learned to rely only on himself, without influence from anyone else. Maggie had been the one time he’d deviated from that course, and it had turned out to be an agonising mistake that he had no intention of repeating. He had no need for family. Past or future.

‘Got your message, baby, but there’s no way we’re going to be able to make the gay wedding,’ Alistair said.

Dan watched Emma’s smile falter and suppressed an unexpected urge to grab Woods by the scruff of the neck.

‘Why not?’ she said. ‘I can’t miss Adam’s wedding. I promised him.’

Dan recognised her tone as carefully neutral. She was upset and trying to cover it up. Did this Alistair know her well enough to pick up that little nuance? Hardly.

* * *

Emma took a sip of her coffee in an effort to hide her disappointment. Had she really thought it would be that simple? That he would just agree to her every whim?

‘We’re spending that weekend in the Hamptons,’ Alistair was saying. ‘I’ve been in talks to land a movie role and one of the producers is having a garden party. Can’t miss it. Lots riding on it. I’m sure Arnold will understand. Career first, right?’ He leaned in towards her with a winning expression and squeezed her hand. ‘We agreed.’

His career first.

‘Adam,’ Emma corrected. She could hear the disappointment, cold and heavy, in her own voice. ‘His name is Adam. And I really can’t miss his wedding.’

Alistair sat back and released her hand, leaving it lying abandoned in the middle of the white tablecloth. His irritation was instant and palpable, and all the more of a shock because he’d never been anything but sweetness and light so far. But then, she hadn’t demanded anything from him so far, had she? She’d been only too eager to go along for the ride. His ride.

‘You do whatever you have to do, baby,’ he said dismissively. ‘You can fly out and join me afterwards.’

‘But I really wanted you to be there, to meet my family.’

‘Sorry, honey, no can do.’

Alistair turned to the waiter to order a drink. She noticed that Dan was looking at her with sympathy and she looked away. Everything was unravelling and it was a million times worse because he was here to witness it. She tried to muster up an attitude that might smother the churning disappointment in her stomach as her high hopes plummeted.

From the moment she’d met Alistair he had made her feel special, as if nothing was too much trouble for him. But it occurred to her that it had only related to peripheral things, like flowers and restaurants and which hotel they might stay in. Now it had come down to something that was truly important to her he hadn’t delivered the goods. It wasn’t even up for discussion. Because it clashed with his own plans.

Disappointment mingled hideously with exasperated disbelief. She felt like crashing her head down despairingly on the table. Would she ever, at any point in her life, meet someone who might actually put her first on their agenda? Or was this her lot? To make her way through life as some lower down priority?

‘Look, I don’t want to interfere,’ Dan said suddenly, leaning forward. ‘But how about I step in?’

* * *

‘What do you mean, step in?’ she asked, eyes narrowed.

Suspicion. Not a good sign, Dan thought. On the other hand Alistair was looking more than open to the suggestion.

Dispensing with Alistair to some swanky party on a different continent was far too good an opportunity to pass up. All he needed to do was step into Alistair’s shoes as Emma’s date and he’d have a whole weekend to make her rethink her actions and to get the situation working for him again.

‘I got my invitation to the wedding this morning,’ he said, thinking of the gaudy card that had arrived in the post, with ‘Groom & Groom!’ plastered across the front in bright yellow, very much in keeping with Adam’s usual in-your-face style.

‘You’ve been invited?’ she asked with obvious surprise, as if their interaction had been so fake that all the connections he’d made with her family were counterfeit, too. But he genuinely liked Adam—they’d always had a laugh.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘So if Alistair is away working I can fill in if you like—escort you. It’s not as if I haven’t done it before. What do you think?’

She stared at him.

‘For old times’ sake?’ he pressed. ‘I’m sure Alistair won’t mind.’

He glanced at the ex-cyclist, who held his hands up.

‘Great idea!’ he said. ‘Problem solved.’

Emma’s face was inscrutable.

‘That won’t be necessary,’ she snapped. ‘And actually, Dan, if you don’t mind, we could do with a bit of time to talk this over.’

She looked at him expectantly and when he didn’t move raised impatient eyebrows and nodded her head imperceptibly towards the door.

All was no longer peachy with her and Mr Perfect and that meant opportunity. He should be ecstatic. All he needed to do was leave them be and let the idiot drive a wedge between them, because one thing he knew about Emma was that her parents might drive her up the pole but Adam meant the world to her. Yet his triumph was somehow diluted by a surge of protectiveness towards Emma at Alistair’s easy dismissal of her. He had to force himself not to give the smug idiot a piece of his mind.

He made himself stand up and excused himself from the table.

Give the guy enough leeway and he would alienate Emma all by himself. Dan could call her up later in the role of concerned friend and reinstate their agreement on his own terms.

* * *

Bumped to make room for Alistair’s career?

Her mind insisted on recycling Adam’s comments from the day before. ‘Don’t you think he ought to prove himself before you take that kind of plunge?’ Was it really so much to ask?

The insistent ‘case closed’ way Alistair had refused her suggestion told her far more about him than just his words alone, and it occurred to her in a crushing blow of clarity. How had she ever thought she would come first with someone who had an ego the size of Alistair’s? An ego which was still growing, by the sound of it, if he was trying to break into the movies.

The waiter brought their food and she watched as Alistair tucked in with gusto to an enormous steak and side salad, oblivious to the fact that there was anything wrong between them. He’d got his own way. For him it was business as usual. His whole attitude now irked her. It was as if she should be somehow grateful for being invited along for the ride. She’d been too busy being swept away by the excitement of someone like him actually taking an interest in her to comprehend that being with him would mean giving up her life in favour of his. Where the hell did she come first in all of that?

It dawned on her that he’d have a lot of contractual issues coming his way with his broadening career. Was that what made her attractive to him? The way she dealt so efficiently with legal red tape on his behalf? Had he earmarked her as his own live-in source of legal advice?

This wasn’t a relationship; it was an agreement. All she’d done was swap one for another. She could be Dan’s platonic plus-one or Alistair’s live-in lawyer. Where the hell was the place for what she wanted in any of that?

‘It’s all off, Alistair,’ she said dully. It felt as if her voice was coming from somewhere else.

He peered at her hardly touched plate of food.

‘What is, honey? The fish?’

He looked around for a waiter while she marvelled at his self-assurance that her sentence couldn’t possibly relate to their relationship. Not in his universe. Alistair probably had a queue of women desperate to date him, all of them a zillion times more attractive than Emma. He had international travel, a beach home in Malibu, a little getaway in the Balearics, his own restaurant and a glittering media career in his corner. What the hell did she have that could compete with that? Interfering parents and a tiny flat in Putney? Why the hell would he think she might want to back out?

‘Us,’ she said. ‘You and me. It’s not going to work out.’

He gaped at her.

‘Is this because I won’t come to your gay brother’s wedding? Honey, have you any idea how much is riding on this new contract? This is the next stage of my career we’re talking about.’ He shook his head at her in a gesture of amazement. ‘The effort that’s gone into lining up this meeting. I’m not cancelling that so you can show me off to your relatives at some small-town pink wedding. And it’s not as if I’m stopping you going. That Neanderthal platonic pal of yours has said he’ll step up to the plate.’

She was vaguely aware of people staring with interest from the surrounding tables. His slight about Dan irked her. Neanderthal? Hardly. He looked like an Adonis, and he was smart, sharp and funny. She clenched her teeth defensively on his behalf.

‘I want you to come with me. I want you to meet my family.’

‘And I will, honey. When the time’s right.’

‘It’s a family wedding. Everyone who knows me will be in one place for the first time in years. When could the time possibly be more right than that?’

His face changed. Subtly but instantly. Like the turning of a switch. The easy, open look that had really taken her in when she’d first met him, the way he’d listened to her as if she mattered and showed her real, genuine interest, was gone. That look was now replaced by a sulky, petulant frown.

‘Because it’s all about you, of course,’ he said. ‘No regard for my career. You have to make these opportunities, Emma, and then follow them up. You don’t mess people like this about, because there are no second chances. I can’t believe you’re being so selfish.’

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