noticed that she had pretty little feet, shown to advantage in open-toed, high-heeled sandals, her toenails painted the same candy-pink as her top. And her phone.
As she came closer he saw that she was looking pale. Pale and somewhat shaken. Clearly, she was receiving some bad news.
She ground to a halt within listening distance of Daniel’s table. ‘I don’t believe it!’ she cried out. ‘Life couldn’t be that cruel to me!’
Oh-oh. Something serious must have happened to her missing fiancé. As much as Daniel would like the blonde to be footloose and fancy-free, he wasn’t selfish enough to hope her boyfriend had had an accident, or anything horrible like that.
‘The bastard!’ the blonde suddenly spat, and Daniel’s eyebrows shot up.
Nope. Not an accident. The cad just hadn’t shown up. By the sounds of things, he wasn’t about to, either.
Despite his feeling sorry for the girl, all sorts of sexual vistas suddenly opened up before Daniel’s eyes. When his conscience pricked, he ignored it. He was a normal, red-blooded male, after all, not a saint.
‘No, I’ll be all right,’ the blonde said in clipped tones. ‘No, I’m tougher than that. No, of course I’m not going to start crying. I’m in public, for pity’s sake. I’ll wait till I get home first. Or at least in the car.’
But she didn’t wait till she got home. Or even in the car. No sooner had she said goodbye to whoever she was talking to than she burst into tears. Not quiet tears, either. Great, shoulder-racking sobs.
He could understand why the person on the other end of the phone had been worried about her crying.
Thanking fate, Daniel jumped to his feet and rushed to the rescue.
‘Is there anything I can do to help?’ he asked as he laid a firm, but gentle hand on one of her shaking shoulders.
Charlotte stiffened, then glanced up through her sodden lashes.
It was him, the handsome American she’d encountered earlier, the one she’d mistaken for Gary, the one who’d stared at her with hot, hungry eyes.
But they weren’t hot, or hungry at the moment. They were looking at her with kindness and concern.
‘Bad news, I gather.’
‘You could say that,’ Charlotte mumbled as she pulled a tissue out of her bag and dabbed at her nose.
‘Look, why don’t you come over and have some coffee with me?’ the American invited, indicating a nearby table. ‘I’m stuck here, waiting for my sister to arrive, and wouldn’t mind a bit of company. Meanwhile, you can tell me why your fiancé didn’t show up.’
Shock made her blink, then blink again. ‘How on earth did you know that?’
‘You told me yourself you’d mistaken me for your fiancé back at the exit gate,’ he explained. ‘There’s no man by your side and you were just crying. It doesn’t take much intelligence to put two and two together.’
‘Oh. Yes, I see,’ she said as she wiped her nose again, then took a deep, gathering breath.
‘So, have you been temporarily stood up?’ he asked. ‘Or fully jilted?’
‘Fully jilted, I’m afraid,’ she said dully, her earlier distress gradually being replaced by despair. How could fate be so cruel? And what on earth was she going to tell her parents?
‘Some men are bloody fools,’ the American said.
Charlotte might have been flattered, if she hadn’t been feeling so devastated.
‘Come on. A cup of coffee will do you the world of good.’
Charlotte was beyond protesting when he took her elbow and led her over to the table. The many-times-bitten part of her knew the American probably had his own agenda in being nice to her. But she wasn’t too worried. They were in public. She was quite safe. If he wanted to buy her a cup of coffee, then he could. She was in no fit state to drive home just yet, anyway.
But she had no intention of telling him a single personal detail. He was a perfect stranger, for heaven’s sake!
The next couple of minutes passed in a blank blur. Charlotte just sat there in a daze whilst the American ordered her a cappuccino. When it arrived soon after his own mug of coffee, he heaped in a couple of spoonfuls of sugar and pushed it over in front of her.
‘Drink up,’ he advised. ‘You need a sugar hit. You’re in shock.’
She did, and soon began to feel marginally better.
‘Thank you,’ she said at last. ‘You were right. I needed that.’
‘Aren’t you going to tell me what happened?’
‘Why on earth would you be interested?’ she countered, just a tad stroppily. Charlotte knew he didn’t really give a damn about her personal pain. He was just trying to pick her up.
His knight-to-the-rescue act. The coffee. His seemingly kind questions. All weapons to get what he wanted. Her.
She’d met his kind before. Overseas visitors who were always on the look-out for female company whilst they were away. He probably had a wife at home, or a live-in lover, or at least a girlfriend. Men who looked and dressed like him were rarely unattached. That suit he was wearing was not of the off-the-peg variety. His gold watch looked expensive as well, as did his gold and diamond dress ring.
He smiled, the gleam in his eyes carrying amusement and admiration. ‘I see you’re already on the road to recovery. That’s good. You’ll survive, then.’
‘That depends on what you mean by survive,’ she retorted. ‘I have my parents driving down to Sydney today to meet my fiancé. Then the rest of my entire family will be arriving tomorrow to attend my wedding. Sisters. Aunts. Uncles. Nieces. Nephews. Cousins. All of them have been dying for me to get married for years. They’re country, you see, and country people think marriage and motherhood is the only true career for a female. At last, I was going to be a success in their eyes…’
Tears threatened again, but she valiantly blinked them back.
‘Tell me what happened with your fiancé,’ he insisted.
She stared hard at him and wondered if she’d been wrong about his intentions. Those expressive eyes of his did seem genuinely sympathetic this time.
‘Nothing much to tell,’ she said with a weary shrug. ‘He’s not coming. The wedding’s off. End of story.’
Again, she had to reach for a fresh tissue. Sympathy always set Charlotte off when she was upset.
He didn’t press her to talk whilst she mopped her eyes once more, and this time she gathered herself more quickly. But as she sat there in wretched silence, having the occasional sip of coffee, Charlotte was suddenly filled with the urge to give vent to her feelings. What did it really matter if he was a stranger? she reasoned as anger started to simmer inside her. Probably better than his being a friend. Most of her friends were sick and tired of hearing about her relationship disasters.
‘Louise was right,’ she bit out, the coffee-cup clattering as she dropped it back into the saucer. ‘He didn’t really love me.’
‘Who’s Louise?’
‘My best friend. We share a flat together.’
‘She was the one on the phone to you just now, I presume.’
My, but he was a very observant man! And extremely intuitive.
She nodded her agreement. ‘Apparently, Gary rang last night and left a message saying he wouldn’t be on the plane and that he’d sent a long email, explaining everything, but we were out very late and didn’t check the answering machine when we came in. Louise saw there was a message after I left this morning. She rang Gary