there was something about the softness in his voice and the contrasting hardness in his deceptively guileless eyes Mentally she shook herself for having such fanciful thoughts. After today she would never have to see this man again; he had no influence upon her life. Still, he did have a point she would have to pull herself together if she was going to convince anyone she was totally heart-whole and leading a completely satisfying life.
Which, of course, she was. She had a stimulating career as a personal assistant in an advertising agency. A frown furrowed her wide, smooth brow as she thought of the man who had, up until recently, been her boss. Oliver Mallory, the infamous hand that had guided the well-known firm to its present place as one of the top six advertising agencies in the country. She had been his protégée and he had been her friend. Oliver had built the agency up from nothing and now he was gone. Though this left her own position uncertain, it was genuine sadness at the loss of the dear old reprobate that made her sigh.
She had everything she had wanted—a career, a flat of her own, independence, good friends, freedom—but without a man at her side she knew that her friends and relations would see only a jilted woman. The widely held conviction that a woman needed a man for fulfilment was one she personally detested. She had seen her own mother go through a series of temporary affairs of the heart, each one leaving her a little more desperate and lonely than the last. Her own recent experience of loss had made her determined never to repeat it.
‘Do you mind taking your hands off me?’ she said, raising her lowered eyes to the face of the man who was, given the time and place, in socially unacceptable proximity to her.
The hand that had captured her attention still lay along the line of her jaw; the tips of his fingers were burrowed into her hairline. His bent head was level with her own, close enough for her to be able to admire the texture of his bronzed skin, smell the masculine fragrance that drifted from him.
One of his fingers worked its way around a stray lock of hair that had escaped the confines of her wildly expensive headgear. The expression in his heavy-lidded, shadowed eyes as they watched the temporary corkscrew effect of his casual labour was absurdly riveting. Also the hard thigh pressed against her own on the wooden seat was distracting—unpleasantly so, she told herself, frowning as a pack of butterflies ran riot in the pit of her stomach.
The familiar strains of the Bridal March issued forth from the organ and, heart thudding, she pulled free, giving her escort a cold, dismissive look, as much to convince herself that he had nothing to do with the adrenaline surge that sent her heart against her ribcage as anything else. At a time like this she couldn’t possibly spare a second thought for anything but the main event.
The bride was tiresomely lovely, her responses clear and resonant. It was the groom who sounded less than his usual confident self. Georgina waited for the humiliation of the occasion to hit her, but with a sense of anticlimax she realised that she was able to view the whole ceremony with detachment. It was like watching a scene of a play she felt totally uninvolved.
Outside the sun did its duty and the guests huddled together whilst photographs were taken. Her lips curled in a cynical smile, Georgina watched her mother speaking with some animation to a distinguished-looking man she didn’t recognise. She kept her chin high and replied cheerfully to greetings from familiar faces, who looked at the tall figure at her side with varying degrees of curiosity, tinged in some cases, she was amused to see, with envy. Well, it was infinitely preferable to pity, she told herself.
‘Why did he ditch you?’
‘That’s an extremely insensitive question,’ she observed, stiffening. Her paid company was watching the proceedings with an air of impatient boredom.
’I’ve never been one to indulge maudlin self-pity.’
‘Or one to keep your opinions to yourself, it would seem.’
‘Just displaying a friendly interest.’
‘Just fishing for the salacious details, more like.’
The thick dark brows shot towards his hairline. ‘Salacious? I was just trying to make conversation, but now I’m really interested.’ The gleam of humour in his eyes was faintly malicious.
‘Actually, it was all very civilised. I went to London to do a business-studies course. We weren’t engaged or anything,’ she said with a detached smile, skimming sketchily over an emotional blow that had devastated her.
‘Everyone, including you, expected marriage,’ he observed shrewdly.
It was peculiar, but his neutral cynicism was much easier to cope with than the understanding sympathy that had been doled out to her at the time. ‘There was an understanding,’ she agreed, switching her weight from one foot to the other and checking who was within hearing distance. It would never do to have this conversation overheard.
She’d agreed that a ring was an extravagance when she and Alex were saving so assiduously. Strange how Harriet had managed to get a serious diamond on her finger in record time, she thought cynically. That was probably why Alex had exchanged his racy coupé for a more sedate saloon. Harriet was worth the sacrifice, it would seem.
‘Did you put up much of a fight? Or had you already got someone more interesting lined up? That can’t have been difficult,’ Callum said, his mind returning to this girl’s relationship with his uncle. Her rather full lips had drooped slightly. For someone who gave off such an air of wholesome sexiness her mouth was altogether more...sensual. A more accurate indication of her character? he wondered. Had her unorthodox manner of promotion been the bone of contention between lovers?
‘No man is worth fighting for,’ she replied, her tone ringing with grim conviction.
Callum caught her arm and swung her out of the path of a gaggle of small pages and bridesmaids. ‘Isn’t that a rather sweeping statement?’
‘I prefer comprehensive and accurate.’ The arm casually draped around her waist showed no inclination to shift. Rather than make herself conspicuous, she let it stay there. She hoped her attitude showed him how totally oblivious to the near proximity she was.
‘After getting your fingers burnt once?’ he said incredulously. ‘Or am I to infer you have a more chequered past than that?’
His cynical, knowing expression made her long to throttle him. ‘I know you’re bored, but I’m not about to enliven your afternoon with any juicy stories. My mother will track you down any moment and extract your vital juices,’ she said darkly and with some relish. Some people deserved her mother.
It was irritating to have to raise her chin to look into his face. Alex was just the perfect height—especially when he’d kissed her, she recalled wistfully. What would it be like to be kissed by this man? Dry-mouthed, she allowed the thought to crystallise with clarity in her head. Swallowing with difficulty, she killed this frivolous piece of speculation and lowered her eyes, which might be less obedient than her brain.
‘She seems occupied at present,’ Callum observed, glancing towards the spot where Lydia stood with the middle-aged guest.
‘Predictably so.’ Her mother was laughing—a low, husky sound that grated on Georgina’s frayed nerves.
‘Do I detect criticism from the daughter? Ought you not to have grown out of the desire to view your parent as a sexless entity? I take it your father is no longer around?’
She wriggled her hips decisively and his hands intuitively fell away from her waist. Where did he get off analysing and criticising her?
‘For your information my father has never been around—at least, not since I was born. He walked out on her, unable to take the strain of domesticity,’ she drawled sarcastically. ‘But Mother never gives up. Her life is not complete without a man on her arm and in her bed. In a place like this the fact doesn’t pass without comment. But they all slip away eventually. Like mother, like daughter—we obviously can’t hold our men—’ Breathing hard, she stopped abruptly and bit hard on her trembling lip, appalled at what she’d just said to a total stranger.
The