Christmas Eve Marriage (HQR Classic)

by Jessica Hart

  He gave a short, mirthless laugh. ‘When would I have been able to meet anyone, let alone anyone special? I’ve been working in the middle of the desert for most of the past five years, and in the few weeks I’ve been back every minute of my time has been taken up with settling into a new job, buying and moving into a house and trying to coax two words out of my daughter.’

  ‘You lied,’ said Thea admiringly, trying to ignore the sudden lightening of her spirits at the news that Rhys did not, in fact, have a girlfriend.

  ‘I had to,’ he said, assuming a mock martyred expression, and she laughed as she picked up her drink once more.

  ‘Well, thanks for the tip. I might invent an adoring fiancé back home myself before Kate gets me in her clutches!’

  ‘Unless you’d like to be my girlfriend?’ said Rhys.

  Thea paused with the glass halfway to her lips. ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Well, if we’re both going to pretend, we might as well back each other up,’ he pointed out. ‘If my supposed girlfriend was here in person, that would really shut Kate up.’

  ‘But she’d know that I wasn’t your girlfriend,’ objected Thea, not entirely sure whether he was joking or not.

  ‘How? I’ve never told her a name or anything about my girlfriend other than the fact that she exists, and Kate doesn’t know who was booked into the villa. She told me herself that she was wondering who would turn up and hoping that it would be a “nice family”. They didn’t see you arrive last night, and they were off on some day trip before you got up, so she still doesn’t know how disappointed she’s going to be.’

  His face seemed straight, but that was definitely an ironic gleam in those disconcertingly light eyes, and Thea was pretty sure she had seen the corner of his mouth twitch. So he was joking.

  Phew.

  She thought.

  Sipping her retsina, she decided that she might as well enter into the spirit of the thing. It was just a joke, after all.

  ‘Wouldn’t you have told her I was coming?’

  ‘Maybe you decided to surprise me?’

  Thea laughed. ‘What, by barging into the middle of the holiday you’d planned to spend alone with your daughter? I think that’s a bit tactless, don’t you? Frankly, I can’t believe I’d be that insensitive!’

  He was good at keeping a straight face but there was a definite twitch to his mouth now. ‘Perhaps we’d originally planned to spend it together but you couldn’t make it?’ he suggested.

  ‘But if I know you’re going to be pleased to see me, why book a separate villa?’ Thea was beginning to enjoy herself. ‘I mean, we do sleep together, don’t we?’ she joked.

  Rhys looked across the table at her, his gaze dropping from the wide, quirky mouth to the generous cleavage revealed by her sundress. ‘Definitely,’ he said and, when he looked back into her eyes, Thea was mortified to find herself blushing.

  ‘That’s good,’ she said, although not quite as casually as she would have liked. ‘I wouldn’t want Kate to think that I was no fun.’

  ‘No danger of that,’ said Rhys, taking in the wide grey eyes and the mobile mouth that tilted up at the corners and seemed permanently on the point of breaking into a smile.

  OK, this was getting silly. Look away from his eyes now, Thea told herself. Now, she added urgently and at last managed to jerk her gaze away. This was just a joke, she reminded herself as she tried to get her breathing under control. That was it, inflate the lungs, breathe out…and again…

  ‘Ah, so you just want me for my body?’ She tossed her head and the cloudy brown hair tumbled around her face. ‘I thought you loved me!’

  ‘I do,’ said Rhys. ‘Madly. You’re the woman I’ve been waiting my whole life for.’

  Thea hated the way he could say things like that and look so normal, as if the idea—absurd though it was—wasn’t causing little flutters in the pit of his stomach or interfering with the smooth functioning of his lungs at all.

  ‘Then why aren’t we sharing a villa, if you love me so much?’ she asked almost tartly.

  Rhys thought for a moment. ‘You’ve got Clara with you because of your sister’s accident and you need more space?’

  Thea wrinkled her nose. ‘She and Sophie could always share a room,’ she pointed out. ‘It’s not as if the villas are pokey. There’s plenty of room for four in ours, and—oh, I’ve got it!’ She held up a hand dramatically, and Rhys lifted an amused eyebrow.

  ‘Go on, then.’

  ‘You’ve kept me a secret from Sophie so far,’ she said slowly, thinking her way through it as she spoke. ‘You’re not sure how she’ll react when she finds out that you’ve got a girlfriend.’

  He nodded encouragingly. ‘OK.’

  ‘And I’m a bit fed up with this. If you love me as much as you say you do, why won’t you introduce me to Sophie? She’s the most important part of your life, and I want to be part of it too. You keep saying that you don’t want to rush things, and you think it’s too soon.’

  ‘I’m still a relatively new feature in her life,’ said Rhys. ‘I probably would think it was too soon to introduce another new person into it.’

  ‘Well, there you are. But what you don’t realise,’ Thea went on in the same portentous tone, ‘is that I’m sick of the way you’re refusing to commit, and now I’m putting on the pressure. I’ve decided to force the issue by coming out with Clara but, because I’m not quite sure how you’re going to react, I’ve booked a separate villa for us.’

  Rhys considered. ‘Aren’t you afraid I’ll be angry?’

  ‘That’s a risk I’m prepared to take,’ she said solemnly. ‘You might be cross, but you can’t ignore me. By booking my own villa, I’ll be forcing you to introduce me to Sophie, just as a friend initially, but at least then you won’t be able to pretend that I don’t exist.’

  She was getting so into the story by now that she was almost starting to feel resentful at the way Rhys kept shutting her out of his life. ‘And with my own villa I won’t be crowding you, so you can’t be too angry. In fact, I’ve probably planned to be quite independent with Clara once I’ve made my point.’

  Pleased with her own inventiveness, Thea sat back in her chair. ‘What do you think?’

  Rhys was looking at her with open admiration. ‘I think it would convince Kate, and if it would convince her it would convince anybody!’

  They both laughed, releasing the tension that had underlain the game, until Thea realised that Rhys had stopped laughing and was looking thoughtful instead, and the chuckle dried in her throat.

  ‘You’re not serious?’

  CHAPTER THREE

  RHYS looked at her for a long moment, and then seemed to shake himself back to reality.

  ‘No, of course not,’ he said heartily. ‘I couldn’t possibly ask you to do something like that.’ He leant forward and picked up the jug to refill their glasses. ‘Have some more retsina.’

  She had probably had enough, thought Thea, watching the golden liquid pouring into her glass. The retsina was probably the reason why she had been sitting there joking about anything quite so silly.

  Because it was silly, and they hadn’t been serious, and she ought to be running a mile from a strange man who would even suggest such a thing. She didn’t know anything about Rhys Kingsford, other than what he had chosen to tell her this morning.

  But it didn’t feel that way. It felt as if she had known him for a very long time. It felt almost as if he had always been part of her life.

  They sipped their retsina in silence for a while, both thinking about what a ridiculous idea it was to go to such lengths just to avoid being patronised by a woman who meant nothing to either of them.

  But still thinking about it, anyway.

  ‘It would be very embarrassing if Kate and Nick found out that we were pretending, wouldn’t it?’ said Thea eventually as if carrying on the unspoken conversation between them.

  ‘Probably,’ Rhys agreed. ‘On the other hand, would it be as bad as spend
ing the next two weeks finding excuses not to go over to dinner?’

  ‘Or explaining why I’m a sad person without a boyfriend,’ said Thea.

  There was another silence.

  It was Thea who broke it again. ‘Do you really think we could convince them?’

  ‘I don’t see why not,’ he said, considering the matter all over again.

  ‘We’d have to pretend that we were in love,’ she said, as if the idea had only just occurred to her.

  ‘Yes,’ he agreed.

  They glanced at each other and then away.

  ‘But that shouldn’t really be a problem, should it?’ she reassured herself. ‘I mean, they won’t expect us to be all over each other, will they? Even if we were a real couple, we wouldn’t be sticking our tongues down each other’s throats in company.’

  ‘Quite,’ said Rhys in a dry voice. He hesitated. ‘I might have to put an arm round you occasionally or something, though. Would you mind that?’

  Thea managed a careless shrug. ‘I ought to be able to manage that,’ she said as lightly as she could, but it wasn’t easy when his lean, solid body tugged at the corner of her eye and the mere thought of being held against it was enough to give her a severe attack of the flutters.

  The truth was, she wouldn’t mind at all.

  ‘So what are we saying?’ said Rhys at last.

  Thea took a deep breath. ‘I will if you will,’ she said.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Why not?’ She sat up straighter. ‘It’s just a bit of fun. It’s not as if you really do have a girlfriend who would be hurt if she found out…Is it?’ she added, hoping that she didn’t sound too anxious to have this little point confirmed.

  ‘No,’ he said with a wry smile. ‘I’m keeping all my attention for Sophie at the moment. What about you? No boyfriend likely to turn up and start acting jealously?’

  ‘No.’ Thea shook her head a little sadly. She would have loved to have been able to imagine Harry turning up out of the blue and glowering jealously at Rhys, but jealousy had never been Harry’s thing, at least as far as she had been concerned. ‘I don’t think he’ll be doing that.’

  Rhys hesitated. ‘But there is a boyfriend?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘You don’t know?’ he asked in surprise.

  ‘No. I suspect not, but…no, I’m just not sure.’ Thea ran a finger around the rim of her glass, her face sad as she remembered.

  ‘I met Harry a year ago, and fell for him like a ton of bricks. He was a dream come true—incredibly attractive, charming, glamorous…and honest. He told me all about his split with his ex-girlfriend and how close he still felt to her. Isabelle is the complete opposite of me.’

  ‘You met her?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, but Harry spent most of his time talking about her. She’s very pretty and petite, apparently, and she works in the City like him. She’s got some high-powered job that means she’s constantly under pressure and it doesn’t help that she’s completely neurotic anyway. That’s not what Harry says, of course,’ Thea added with a twisted smile. ‘He says she’s “highly strung.”’

  ‘I can see that you might be a relief after someone like that,’ said Rhys carefully.

  ‘That’s what Harry used to say, but I always felt he secretly thought I was a bit dull after Isabelle’s histrionics. According to Harry, it was an amicable split, and they both agreed that they would be free to see other people, but as far as Isabelle was concerned she still had first call on his time. At the first hint of a crisis she’d ring him up and he would drop everything to rush round and sort it out for her.’

  Rhys’s eyes rested on her averted face. ‘That must have been difficult for you.’

  ‘It wasn’t easy.’ Thea managed a shrug. ‘Nell—Clara’s mother—thinks Harry is weak and selfish, but I told her she didn’t understand. Harry’s a kind person. He feels that Isabelle needs him and that he wants to be a good friend to her.’

  ‘What about being a good friend to you?’

  She glanced at him. ‘Funny, that’s what Nell used to say, too!’ Heaving her shoulders, she let them slump back. ‘Oh, I don’t know…I suppose I was prepared to put up with anything as long as Harry came back to me. And he did. He’d tell me that Isabelle was just needy, and that I was the one he loved and, of course, I let myself believe it.’

  ‘So how come you’re here now, not sure whether you’ve got a boyfriend or not?’ asked Rhys after a moment.

  ‘We’d booked a holiday together.’ It still hurt Thea to think about how much she’d looked forward to that holiday. ‘I’d found a perfect little cottage in Provence and it was going to be just the two of us, away from Isabelle, but about a month before we were due to go Harry started to backpedal, saying he wasn’t sure it was good timing and maybe we should think about postponing it.

  ‘It turned out that Isabelle had to have some operation on her foot. It wasn’t anything major, and she was just an outpatient at the hospital, but she decided that she needed Harry to feed her cat, water her plants, make her little cups of herbal tea, and generally dance attendance on her.’

  Thea blew out her cheeks and pushed the hair away from her face. ‘Sorry, that sounds bitchy. I’m sure she didn’t choose to have the operation just then, and for all I know it was very uncomfortable for her. It was just the last straw for me.’

  ‘So you told Harry he had to choose between you?’

  ‘More or less.’ She hated remembering that awful day, and how heartsick she had been. It had felt as if she were deliberately destroying her only chance at love and that she would never be happy again.

  ‘We had a long talk, Harry and I, and I told him how I felt. Harry said that he felt guilty about being constantly torn between the two of us, and that sometimes he felt smothered, so I suggested that he take some time to think about what he really wanted.’

  One of the worst things had been seeing the unmistakable relief that had leapt to Harry’s eyes, as if he had been trapped, longing for her to open the door for him.

  ‘Harry agreed that he needed some space, so that’s what he’s doing, deciding which of us he wants.’

  ‘And in the meantime you’re left hanging on, hoping that you might still have a boyfriend, but not sure if you do or not?’ Rhys’s voice was unusually hard, and Thea glanced at him. What was it to him, anyway?

  ‘The last time I heard from him, he still couldn’t make up his mind,’ she admitted. ‘At least that means I can still hope. I didn’t get my holiday in Provence, but then Nell had her accident and asked if I would come out with Clara in her place, so…here I am!’

  Rhys was frowning down into his glass again, a muscle beating in his jaw as if he was angry about something, but when he looked up after a few moments, he smiled. ‘I’m sorry if it wasn’t the holiday you wanted, Thea,’ he said, ‘but I for one am very glad you’re here.’

  ‘I think it’s Clara you should be grateful for,’ she said, conscious of a dangerous little glow flickering into life inside her.

  He shook his head. ‘You too,’ he said firmly, and the glow spread a little further.

  Thea looked around her, at the rickety tables dappled with sunlight through the plane leaves, at the pots of bright flowers and the massively gnarled tree trunk dwarfing them all. The air was warm and full of the tantalising smell of grilling lamb while beyond the shade the light glared and a car tooted in a failed attempt to disrupt the peaceful atmosphere.

  ‘I’m glad I’m here too,’ she said. ‘It’s been good to get away.’

  ‘I’m glad you told me about Harry, as well,’ Rhys went on. ‘I think it makes things easier in a way.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well…it means that there’s no danger of either of us taking the pretence too seriously, doesn’t it?’ he said, not quite awkwardly, but as if he wasn’t entirely sure how she would react.

  ‘Oh. No. Quite.’

  And that would explain why that glow
was still seeping along her veins and she still had that weird fluttery feeling under her skin at the thought of touching him, wouldn’t it, Thea?

  ‘No danger at all,’ she said firmly.

  Rhys smiled and held out his hand. ‘Let’s shake on it then.’

  Oh, dear, touching him just wasn’t a good idea at the moment. Why hadn’t he suggested drinking to it instead? Chinking glasses would have been fine. Even shaking hands seemed fraught with complications given the confused state her hormones were in right then.

  But she couldn’t see any way to refuse without looking a complete idiot. Thea eyed his hand as if measuring a jump over an abyss, which was almost what it felt like. All she had to do was lift her own hand, touch palms, curl her fingers around his—briefly, remember—and let go. How difficult could that be?

  Thea took a deep breath, put her hand in his and yanked it back before he could do anything alarming like squeeze it or hold it for too long or anything at all to prolong the warmth that was tingling up her arm as it was.

  Rhys looked a little surprised but picked up his glass. ‘Here’s to pretence,’ he said, toasting her.

  Why couldn’t he have done that before?

  ‘I’m not sure we’ve really thought this through,’ she injected a note of caution as she resisted the urge to rub her arm where it jangled still from his touch. ‘We’re going to have to explain to Clara, and Sophie knows quite well that I’m not your girlfriend, even one you’ve been keeping secret up to now. What will she think?’

  ‘It’s impossible to tell with Sophie,’ he said wryly. ‘I can only try. If she doesn’t want to play along, we’ll have to leave it. One thing, she won’t tell Kate,’ he added. ‘She can’t bear her, and is always embarrassingly rude to her. It’s partly Kate’s fault,’ he said in defence of his daughter. ‘She will keep criticizing Sophie’s behaviour in front of her and comparing it to her boys’.’

  ‘I would have thought that would just make her worse.’

  ‘It does,’ said Rhys with feeling, and then his face lightened. ‘Ah, here’s our lunch.’