to run and a message to deliver. She straightened her hat and entered the dining room and discreetly approached the bridal table, where she bent down to tell the bride and the groom that Mr O’Connor had arrived and would be with them as soon as he’d changed.
‘Thank heavens!’ Juanita said fervently and her brand new husband Damien agreed with her.
‘I know I didn’t need anyone to give me away,’ Juanita continued, ‘but I do need Carlos to make the kind of speech only he can make. Not only—’ she put a hand on Damien’s arm and glinted him a wicked little look ‘—to extol all my virtues but to liven things up a bit!’
Mia flinched.
‘Besides which, Mum is starting to have kittens,’ Juanita added. ‘She was sure he’d had an accident.’
‘I’d have thought your mother would have stopped worrying about Carlos years ago,’ Damien remarked.
This time Juanita cast him a speaking look. ‘Never,’ she declared. ‘Nor will she ever rest until she’s found him a suitable wife.’
Mia melted away at this point and she hovered outside the bridal suite to be able to direct the latecomer to the dining room through the maze of passages.
She would have much preferred to delegate this to Gail, not to mention really making Gail’s day, no doubt, but she was not to be seen.
After about five minutes when Carlos O’Connor still had not appeared, she glanced at her watch with a frown and knocked softly on the door.
It was pulled open immediately and Carlos was dressed in his morning suit and all present and correct—apart from his hair, which looked as if he’d been dragging fingers through it, and his bow tie, which he had in his hand.
‘I can’t tie the blasted thing,’ he said through his teeth. ‘I never could. Tell you what, if I ever get married I will bar all monkey suits and bow ties. Here!’ He handed Mia the tie. ‘If you’re in charge of the show, you do it.’
Typically Carlos at his most arrogant, Mia thought, because she was still hurt to the quick.
She took the tie from him with a swift upward glance that was about as cold as she was capable of and stood up on her toes to briskly and efficiently tie the bow tie.
‘There.’ She patted it briefly. ‘Now, if you wouldn’t mind and seeing as you’re already late as it is, this wedding awaits you.’
‘Wait a moment.’ A frown grew in Carlos’s grey eyes as he put his hands on her hips—an entirely inappropriate gesture between guest and wedding reception manager—and he said incredulously, ‘Mia?’
She froze, then forced herself to respond, ‘Yes. Hi, Carlos!’ she said casually. ‘I didn’t think you’d recognised me. Uh…Juanita really needs you so…’ She went to turn away but he detained her.
‘What are you mad about, Mia?’
She had to bite her lip to stop herself from blurting out the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Chapter and verse, in other words, of every reason she had for…well, being as mad as she could ever recall.
She swallowed several times. ‘I’m having a little trouble getting this wedding going,’ she said carefully at last. ‘That’s all. So—’ She tried to pull away.
He slipped his hands up to her waist and said authoritatively, ‘Hang on. It must be—six—seven years—since you ran away, Mia.’
‘I didn’t…I…well, I suppose I did,’ she corrected herself. ‘And yes, about that. But look, Carlos, this wedding is really dragging its feet and it’s going to be my reputation on the line if I don’t get it going, so would you please come and make the kind of speech only you can make, apparently, to liven things up?’
‘In a moment,’ he drawled. ‘Wow!’ His lips twisted as he stood her away from him and admired her from her toes to the tip of her fascinator and all the curves in between. Not only that but he admired her legs, the slenderness of her waist, the smoothness of her skin, her sweeping lashes and delectable mouth. ‘Pardon my boyish enthusiasm, but this time you’ve really grown up, Mia.’
She bit her lip. Dealing with Carlos could be difficult at the best of times but she well recognised him in this mood—there would be no moving him until he was ready to be moved.
She heaved an inward sigh and mentally gritted her teeth. All right, two could play this game…
‘You’re looking pretty fine yourself, Mr O’Connor,’ she said lightly. ‘Although I must say I’m surprised your mother hasn’t found a wife for you yet.’
‘The last person I would get to choose a wife for me is my mother,’ he said dryly. ‘What brought that up?’
Mia widened her eyes not entirely disingenuously but in surprise as well. And found she had to think quickly. ‘Probably the venue and what’s going on here,’ she said with an ironic little glint. ‘Mind you, things are about to flop here if I don’t pull something out of the hat!’ And she pulled away, successfully.
He stared at her for a long moment, then he started to laugh and Mia felt her heart pound because she’d gone for so long without Carlos, without his laugh, without his arms around her…
‘I don’t know what you expect me to do,’ he said wryly.
‘I don’t care what you do, but if you don’t come and do something, Carlos,’ she threatened through her teeth, suddenly furious although she had no idea if it was with him or with herself, or the situation, ‘I’ll scream blue murder!’
CHAPTER TWO
‘FEELING BETTER?’
Mia took another sip of brandy and looked around. Everyone had gone. The bridal party, the guests, the caterers, they’d all gone. The presents had all been loaded carefully into a station wagon and driven away.
Gail had gone home in seventh heaven because she’d not only seen Carlos, she’d spoken to him. And the wedding had been a success. It had livened up miraculously as soon as Carlos had made his speech and Juanita had thrown her arms around Mia and Gail and thanked them profusely for their contribution to her special day as she’d left.
Carlos had driven away in his metallic yellow car and Mia had kicked off her shoes and changed her Thai silk dress for a smock but, rather than doing any work, she’d sunk into an armchair in the foyer. Her hat sat on a chair beside her. She was perfectly dry-eyed but she felt as if she’d been run over by a bus.
It was quite normal to feel a bit flattened after a function—she put so much into each and every one of them—but this was different; this was an emotional flat liner of epic proportions. This was all to do with Carlos and the fact that she’d been kidding herself for years if she’d thought she’d gotten over him.
All to do with the fact that the feel of his hands on her hips and waist had awoken sensations throughout her body that had thrilled her, the fact that to think he hadn’t recognised her had been like a knife through her heart.
That was when someone said her name and she looked up and moved convulsively to see him standing there only a foot or so away.
‘But…but,’ she stammered, ‘you left. I saw you drive off.’
‘I came back. I’m staying with friends just down the road. And you need a drink. Point me in the right direction.’
Mia hesitated, then gestured. He came back a few minutes later with a drinks trolley, poured a couple of brandies and now he was sitting opposite her in an armchair. He’d changed into khaki cargo trousers and a grey sweatshirt.
‘Feeling better?’ he asked again.
She nodded. ‘Thanks.’
He frowned. ‘Are you sure you’re in the right job if it takes so