He looked incredulous. ‘Is that the ultimate peak of ambition for you and your friends?’
The hint of scorn in his voice stung her into a sharp reply. ‘Marriage is generally considered a huge milestone in one’s life, like birth and death…’
‘And divorce,’ he slid in.
‘Do you have to be so negative?’ she snapped.
‘I’m a realist.’ One black eyebrow lifted in challenge. ‘I thought you would be, too. Nursing might be a noble profession but it can’t leave you with too many illusions about people.’
‘You’re right. You see the best and the worst and everything in between, which gives me all the more reason to respect the best, to pay homage to it and celebrate it.’
So, criticise that at your peril! she mentally shot at him.
‘You think Celine now has the best…something you aspire to?’ he shot back at her.
He made it sound as though she and her friends were a bunch of empty-headed girls whose only goal in life was to get married. Okay, they might hope for it, wish for it, dream about it, but none of them thought it an ultimate ambition. It would only be good if they met the right guy, and Celine was certain Andrew was the one.
‘She believes it’s the best for her and I’m not about to put that down.’
It was a warning for him to stop doing it.
He didn’t, coming straight back with ‘How on earth could Celine know what’s best for her when she’s only twenty-three?’
Harping on her age again…being so superior with his older experience!
Tammy eyed him disdainfully. ‘What does knowledge have to do with it? Choosing a mate is more about instinct. Maybe all that brain work you do has choked off your instincts. You think too much and don’t trust natural feelings.’
He smirked. ‘If you’re talking about biological urges…’
He had them all right, and Tammy knew they were directed at her, but she wasn’t feeling so thrilled about that right now. In fact, she was downright offended that he had reduced her argument to nothing more than lust. ‘Instinct covers more ground than basic biological urges,’ she stated bitingly.
‘It starts with chemistry,’ he insisted.
He wasn’t taking her view onboard, wasn’t even giving it respect.
‘Well, let me tell you chemistry can be very swiftly switched off by other out-of-tune elements.’
He grinned. ‘Celine was right. You do have a smart mouth.’
‘She was right about you, too. You are arrogant, thinking you know better than everyone else.’
And before she could regret delivering that knock-out blow with her smart mouth, she tossed her head in the air and turned her back on him, walking off to place herself in the company of her like-minded friends. Where she stayed, for the rest of the time before the reception dinner, pointedly ignoring him, feeling strongly it was a matter of loyalty. She would not side with him against her friends, even if he was drop-dead gorgeous. The hormones he had stimulated could gallop as much as they liked. They were heading nowhere.
It was a relief when they finally sat down at the long wedding-party table and he was at the other end of it, out of sight and out of any possible contact—physical and verbal. Nevertheless, she found it difficult to get him out of her mind, despite chatting almost feverishly with her fellow bridesmaids. They, of course, wanted to know how it was going with Fletcher, but she dismissed that very firmly.
‘Forget it! The brain took over from the body and it wasn’t to my liking. Hunk is not everything!’
They ruefully agreed with this declaration and the subject was dropped. There was so much else to comment on: the wedding decor, the dressing of the guests, the food, the speeches—which Tammy privately decided Fletcher would consider a whole lot of sentimental claptrap, but which she thought were beautifully heartfelt and heart touching.
She smiled, clapped, laughed in all the right places, though no matter how hard she tried to enjoy herself, there was this weird leaden weight on her heart—something she’d never felt before, not over a man. Fletcher had stirred a lot of new feelings in her today. Had she been too hasty in taking such decisive umbrage against him? Was this the weight of disappointment because he wasn’t how she’d wanted him to be, or of regret for cutting herself off before exploring the experience further?
Fortunately, when the bridal party all trooped off to the powder room before the cutting of the cake, Celine cleared up some of the turmoil in Tammy’s mind.
‘Did I detect something going on between you and my brother, Tammy?’ she asked with a little frown of concern.
‘Just a bit of flirtation. You didn’t tell me he was so handsome.’
Celine grimaced. ‘Alpha male at its best and worst—that’s Fletcher. Didn’t he put you off with his supposedly superior intellect?’
Tammy shrugged. ‘I had to cut him down a few times.’
‘Well, I’m glad to hear you’re not completely bowled over by him. Fletcher is only into very casual relationships, and I mean casual. No woman is good enough to keep his interest. Besides which he flies back to London on Monday. He’ll be out of your life before you even begin to know him properly.’
‘No problem,’ Tammy answered airily and concentrated on renewing her lipstick, telling herself to stop maundering over what might have been with Fletcher Stanton. He was definitely not the right man for her.
Her body, however, staged a highly unsettling rebellion against that edict when she had to dance with him.
The bridal waltz followed the cutting of the cake. The bridesmaids and groomsmen were scheduled to join in after Celine’s and Andrew’s showpiece solo performance. There was no avoiding it. As the fifth bridesmaid, Tammy had to line up with the fifth groomsman. They stood together, waiting for their turn to step onto the floor, Tammy looking studiously ahead, acutely aware that her pulse was racing and her female hormones were zinging into a merry dance of their own at the prospect of physical connection with the man beside her.
‘Ready?’ he asked.
She glanced up and caught a devilish twinkle in his dark eyes. ‘I hope you can waltz,’ she answered, trying to dampen the rush of heat through her bloodstream.
‘Counting one, two, three, is not beyond me’ was his sardonic reply.
‘Mathematical skill does not guarantee a natural rhythm,’ she instantly countered, bristling at his arrogance again. ‘Some people have it. Some don’t.’
‘Do you have it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then we should move well together,’ he said with such sexy satisfaction, Tammy told herself to keep her smart mouth shut because it was only giving him ammunition to light a fire she had to put out.
This attraction was going nowhere.
She was not going to be a casual, meaningless one-night stand for Fletcher Stanton. Pride forbade it. She deserved more from a man than to be left to herself after an intimate connection.
‘Our turn now,’ he said, and swept her onto the dance floor, one arm clamping her lower body to his, his powerful thighs pushing hers into the slow sensual rhythm of ‘Moon River,’ the jazz waltz Celine had chosen.
He held her so closely, her breasts pressed to his chest, she had to put her arm up around his neck, and he didn’t just hold her other hand. He intertwined their fingers, fueling the hot sense he was claiming possession of her and had no intention of letting go. Tammy couldn’t stop herself from virtually melting into him. He danced divinely. Never had she had such a masterful partner. The question