The thought widened her mouth into a smile that momentarily lit up her face, transforming the ‘striking’ into something else. Not beauty—her features were not classically proportioned. It was nothing he could put a name to. He only knew that he wanted to see it again.
‘Not that she’d have come with me even if she was free. Weddings are my department.’ Then, as if aware that she hadn’t made it clear, ‘I’m an events planner.’
‘I’d just about worked that out. It was just that when Francis said you were the “wedding lady” I assumed that you were the bride.’
‘Not in this life,’ she said matter-of-factly as she handed him the cup. ‘My role is simply to deliver the wedding on time, on budget, with no hitches. Will that do?’ she asked as he sipped it and, when he smiled, made another move to go.
‘Stay. Sit down,’ he said with a gesture at the lounger beside him.
‘Do you always issue invitations as an order?’ she asked, ignoring the invitation.
‘On the contrary, I always issue orders as an invitation.’ Then, before she could walk away—he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had to work this hard to keep a woman’s attention; when he’d wanted to—he said, ‘Simply?’
‘Sorry?’
‘You think delivering a wedding here will be simple?’
That earned him a smile of his own. A slightly wry one, admittedly, with one corner of her mouth doing all the work and drawing attention to soft, full lips.
‘Weddings are never simple,’ she said, perching on the edge of the lounger rather than stretching out beside him as he’d hoped. Keen to be off and conquering worlds. No prizes for guessing who that reminded him of. ‘Certainly not this one.’
‘But you’re the wedding lady,’ he reminded her. ‘It was your bright idea to have the wedding here.’
‘You don’t approve the choice of location?’ she asked, her head tilting to one side. Interested rather than offended.
He shrugged without thinking and as he caught his breath she moved swiftly to steady the cup with one hand, placing her other on his shoulder.
‘Are you all right?’ she said.
No. Actually, far from all right.
As she’d leaned forward her robe had gaped to offer him a tantalising glimpse of the delights it was supposed to conceal. Her breasts were not large, but they were smooth, invitingly creamy and, without doubt, all her own and he was getting an overload of stimulation. Pain and pleasure in equal measure.
‘A noisy celebrity wedding doesn’t seem to fit the setting,’ he said and, doing his best to ignore both, especially the warmth of her palm spreading through him, he looked up.
Her face was close enough to see the fine down that covered her fair, smooth skin. Genuine concern in those extraordinary eyes. But what held his attention was a faint white scar that ran along the edge of her jaw. It would, under normal circumstances, have been covered by make-up, but Josie had come on her errand of mercy without stopping to apply the mask that women used to conceal their true selves from the outside world.
No make-up. No designer clothes.
It left her more naked than if she’d stripped off her robe and he had to clench his hand to stop himself from reaching out, tracing the line of it from just beneath her ear to her chin as if he could somehow erase it, erase the memory of the pain it must have caused her, with his thumb.
‘What about the other guests who are here to watch the wildlife?’ he demanded, rather more sharply than he’d intended as he sought to distance himself. ‘Don’t they get any consideration?’
‘There won’t be any,’ she said, removing her hand as she sat back, distancing herself. Leaving a cold spot where it had been.
‘Exactly my point.’
‘No, I meant that there won’t be any other guests, Gideon. We’ve taken over the entire resort for the wedding so we won’t be disturbing anyone.’
‘Apart from the animals. Every room?’
‘And the rest. We’ve got a river boat coming to take the overflow.’
‘Well, I hate to be the one to say “I told you so”, but here comes your first complication. I’m not going anywhere.’
‘Then you’re going to have to bivouac in the bush because you’re certainly not staying here,’ she replied.
He didn’t bother to argue with her. She’d find out just how immovable he could be soon enough.
‘Did you get a good discount for block booking?’ he asked.
‘What?’ She shook her head. ‘There’s nothing discount about this wedding but, since I wasn’t part of the negotiations, I couldn’t say what financial arrangements were made with the owners. I was brought in at the last minute when the original wedding planner had to pull out. Not that it’s any of your business,’ she added.
‘If it had been your call?’ he pressed. ‘Would you have chosen Leopard Tree Lodge?’
‘The venue is the bride’s decision,’ she replied. Then, with the smallest of shrugs, ‘I might have tried to talk her out of it. Not that the location isn’t breathtaking,’ she assured him. ‘The drama of flying in over the desert and then suddenly seeing the green of the Okavango delta spread out below you, the gleam of water amongst the reeds. The river…’
She was going through the motions, he realised. Talking to him, but her brain was somewhere else. No doubt working out the implications of a cuckoo in the nest.
‘The photographs are going to be breathtaking,’ she said, making an effort. ‘Any special deal that Celebrity managed to hammer out of the company that owns this place is going to be cheap in return for the PR hit. Six weeks of wall-to-wall coverage in the biggest lifestyle magazine in the UK. Well, five. The first week is devoted to the hen weekend.’
Undoubtedly. A full house as well as a ton of publicity. Whoever it was on his staff who’d negotiated this deal had done a very good job. The fact that he or she hadn’t brought it to his attention in the hope of earning a bonus suggested that they knew what his reaction would have been.
Not that they had to. His role was research and development, not the day-to-day running of things. No doubt they were simply waiting for the jump in demand to prove their point for him. And earn them a bonus.
Smart thinking. It was just what he’d have done in their position.
Tf the setting is so great, what’s your problem with it?’ he asked.
It was one thing for him to hate the idea. Quite another for someone to tell him that it was all wrong for her big fancy media event.
‘In my experience there’s more than enough capacity for disaster when it comes to something in which such strong emotions are invested, without transporting bride, groom, a hundred plus guests, photographers, a journalist, hair and make-up artists, not to mention all their kit and caboodle six thousand miles via three separate aircraft. One of them so small that it’ll need a separate trip just for the wedding dress.’
‘You’re exaggerating.’
‘Probably,’ she admitted. ‘But not by much.’
‘No. And that’s another problem,’ he said, seizing the opening she’d given him. ‘It’s a gift to the green lobby. They’ll use the high profile of the event to get their own free PR ride over the carbon footprint involved in transporting everyone halfway round the world just so that two people can say “I do”.’
‘You think they should have chosen the village church?’
‘Why not?’
‘Good