The Engagement Deal. Kim Lawrence

Tara pleaded. ‘I can see you two enjoy it, but I just hate it!’

      Holly shot the older woman a startled glance. They were enjoying it? Where did she get that crazy idea? She looked sideways and discovered that Niall was looking at her with an expression that suggested he was just as startled as she was by this preposterous notion.

      ‘Tell me, Holly, what do you do?’

      ‘Drives me to distraction, mostly,’ Niall forestalled her reply.

      Obviously, she brooded darkly, he had concluded that whatever she did for a living wouldn’t be good enough for the prospective wife of a powerful and influential figure like himself. As it happened, a junior doctor who didn’t have a minute to call her own probably was about as unsuitable as you could get.

      ‘Did I mention that Holly is Rowena Parish’s sister?’

      ‘Really, I’d never have guessed! You know, Niall,’ Tara mused thoughtfully, ‘I thought that if you ever married again it would be Rowena. Actually, Holly,’ she added in a wry aside, ‘when we were first married I was rather jealous of your sister and all their blood-brother pals act. If you know what I mean.’

      Holly, who could identify completely with this comment, nodded.

      ‘It’s ironic, isn’t it?’ Tara laughed.

      ‘You never told me that!’ Niall exclaimed in a shocked voice. There was a dark band of colour across the slanting sweep of his high cheekbones.

      Guilty conscience? Holly wondered uncharitably. Well, she couldn’t see a single reason why she should give Niall the benefit of the doubt.

      ‘Well, I wouldn’t, would I, silly.’

      The loud sound of a chair being pushed over made them and every other diner in the restaurant turn around.

      ‘Oh, help, please, someone!’ An attractive woman was down on her knees beside the figure of a prone middle-aged man. ‘I don’t think he’s breathing!’ she wailed.

      Holly wasn’t very far behind Niall as he moved towards the traumatised woman. He was feeling the man’s neck for a pulse when she dropped down on her knees.

      ‘Nothing,’ he said shaking his head. He started to loosen the tie around the portly man’s neck and the anxious companion began to wail in earnest, throwing herself bodily on top of the man.

      ‘Let me…’ Holly began.

      ‘Will you look after the woman?’ Niall curtly cut her off. ‘Has someone called an ambulance?’

      ‘I have, sir,’ the maître d’ confirmed, materialising at their side. He took the distraught woman by the arm and pulled her to one side. He looked on doubtfully as Niall struck the man sharply on the chest and tilted his head back in readiness to begin mouth-to-mouth. ‘Don’t you think, sir, we should wait until a doctor arrives?’