by Fiona Harper
That’s about as expressive as her father got. Sometimes even back-handed compliments were just too hard for him to get out.
‘What he’s trying to say is that you look stunning.’
Jennie felt an arm curve around her waist and she turned to find her stepmother smiling at her, looking more relaxed than she’d been in weeks. She’d pulled the whole wedding together in record time, because Cameron had been too impatient to wait any longer and had insisted he was marrying Alice the first day of the new year—starting it right, as he’d put it.
Marion broke eye contact and looked wistfully in the direction of the wide sweeping drive leading away from the hotel.
‘They’re going to be fabulously happy. You know that, don’t you?’ Jennie said and gave her a reassuring squeeze.
‘Busted,’ her stepmother replied, then gave a little laugh. ‘That’s the thing about being a parent. No matter how big and clever they get, you just can’t stop them being the centre of your universe, can’t switch off the internal radar that turned itself on the day they were born.’
That was all Jennie had wanted from her father after her mother had died—to know that she was even a little blip on his radar—but it had taken a couple of years to work out how to make herself shine brightly enough to get his undivided attention.
Marion sighed. ‘It’s so stupid. All I can think about is that we won’t be seeing Cameron so often for Sunday lunch any more. It seems so selfish.’
Jennie rubbed her stepmother’s arm. ‘Nonsense,’ she said, deciding to lighten the mood. ‘I’ve tasted Alice’s cooking, remember? I can guarantee you’ll be seeing plenty of them.’
They both laughed, knowing they were supposed to, then her stepmother pulled away and turned to face her. ‘And what about you? Are you “fabulously” happy, too?’
Jennie froze. She hadn’t seen that coming, didn’t know how to answer. Nobody ever asked her those kind of questions. They might ask her where she got those darling shoes from or who did her hair, but nothing that probed below the surface. Most people didn’t think she was anything but surface. If little girls were supposed to be sugar and spice and all things nice, then when this little girl had filled out and grown up, all anyone had expected to see was cocktails and fluff and all that stuff. She’d been waiting for years for someone to ask more of her, to expect more of her.
Then one day, someone had looked deeper. Someone had decided to see if there was anything under all the fluff. She’d hoped there was, but his actions had spoken volumes on the matter.
She shook her head. She wasn’t going to dwell on that—on him. And she didn’t look for those kinds of questions now. Didn’t want them.
‘You’re looking tired,’ Marion said, frowning. ‘What’s the matter? You don’t normally drift off like this unless there’s a man involved somewhere along the line and you haven’t been yourself since you got back from Mexico.’ She left the inference hanging in the air.
Jennie shrugged and looked away. She didn’t mention that, despite plans to holiday in Acapulco, she’d actually been in Paris. A last minute surprise. But telling her parents that would only make them curious.
‘It was that stomach bug I got out there. Really took it out of me.’
‘I’ll say,’ her father interjected. ‘Hardly saw anything of you over Christmas.’
She folded her arms across her chest. ‘Well, I’m all better now, so you can both stop fussing and checking up on me. Honestly!’
Her father chuckled. ‘Don’t you stick that bottom lip out at me, my girl. It used to work when you were eight, but it’s well past its sell-by date.’
Jennie hadn’t been aware she’d been doing anything in particular with her bottom lip, and she sucked it in and pressed the other on top of it. ‘Better?’ she mumbled through her closed mouth, with just a hint of a flounce in the way she threw back her shoulders.
‘Much.’ Her father did his best to give her a stern look, and failed.
Marion started to laugh gently. ‘You’re priceless, Jennie. One of a kind.’
Jennie frowned and hugged herself tighter. That was a compliment, right?
Her lips unsealed themselves, but nobody standing there had seriously expected them to remain shut for long, anyway. ‘I don’t see what’s so funny. I just wish everyone would believe I’m all better now, no harm done.’
Seizing on the opportunity to deflect attention away from herself—who would have thought it?—she nodded in the direction of Auntie Barb. ‘Which is more than I can say for some people.’
Marion graciously took the bait. ‘Dennis? She can’t possibly drive home. We’re going to have to sort something out for her. See if you can do something, will you?’
‘Humph,’ was all her father said, but he turned and signalled to the girl behind the desk.
In the meantime, Marion greeted her sister-in-law and motioned for Jennie to help steer her towards a large sofa about ten feet away. A few moments later her father was back.
‘No good,’ he said. ‘One of the reasons we chose this place was because it was small enough to book out for the night. They’ve confirmed we’ve filled it to the rafters.’
Jennie looked up the wide sweeping staircase. Perhaps she should just go straight to Plan B and slope off to her room? There was always room service if she decided she still needed bubbles to help her drown her sorrows.
‘Bloody family,’ her fathered mumbled.
Marion ignored him and turned to Jennie. ‘Could we use your room? Just until we sort something out?’
They were interrupted by a not-so-gentle snore from the settee. Jennie’s shoulders slumped. There went Plan B—up in flames.
‘Of course,’ she said, feeling her insides crumble, but standing straighter.
‘Bless you,’ her stepmother said and turned to gently shake Auntie Barb. ‘It’s not as if you’ll be needing it for a while,’ she said over her shoulder, and nodded towards the function room, from whence the low bass beat of an ABBA classic was thumping. ‘The party’s going to go on for hours yet.’
Whoopee. Another party. Just what she needed.
Her only option now was to hide in plain sight—sit herself at a table out of the way, preferably behind one of the large potted palms that dotted the room.
‘Don’t worry about us,’ Marion said, giving her a little nudge in the direction of the banqueting hall. ‘You go and have some fun. We’ll sort Barbara out.’
‘Bloody Barbara,’ her father reminded. ‘She always does this—refuses to “impose” on me by letting me pay for a room, then ends up having to stay anyway. Next time I’m insisting, and I don’t care what she…’
Jennie tuned the rest of his rant out. Nothing for it now but to pull her features into her usual pixie-like grin and trot off like a good little party girl. And, after blowing her parents a kiss that ended in a little finger wave, that was exactly what she did.
He’d seen her glance towards the stairs and he’d hoped she’d let her feet follow her gaze. The last thing he wanted was to have this out in public, but the location would be up to her. He had no control over what she did next.
He almost let out a hollow laugh. No control whatsoever.
Look at him—reduced to skulking in bushes and crashing weddings just to have a few moments of her precious time. Something she was determined to deny him, it seemed. Well, just this once the spoiled princess was not going to get her own way.
He focused on her again, just in time to see her skip—actually skip—off in the direction of the party. Of course she would choose that over a quiet night in her room. She was Jennie Hunter. She had to go where she could be the centre of attention, where she could shine and glow.
A bitter taste filled his mouth and he swallowed. She really was unbelievable.
He’d been feeling calm and rational when he’d arrived, but all his composure had boiled away once he’d clapped eyes on her. Deep down, he knew he shouldn’t confront her here, not when he was feel
ing like this, not in front of so many witnesses, but he couldn’t stop himself following her.
He took the exact route he’d watched her take, her exit so imprinted on his memory he could foolishly imagine her shoe prints glowing subtly on the polished hardwood floor. Damn him for still seeing ‘shine’ where he wanted to see none.
However, there was not even a hint of a skip in his long strides as he entered the banqueting hall and began his search.
‘Psst.’
Jennie spun round to find her fellow bridesmaid, Coreen, strategically sitting behind the last available potted palm.
Drat Cameron’s generosity! The open bar, flowing with champagne cocktails, meant that, instead of trailing off into the night, most of the guests had returned to the reception to make sure her stepbrother got his money’s worth. The room was heaving, and her fantasy of finding a quiet corner had already died. Now she was just hoping to find a seat.
Coreen parted the fronds of the palm and leaned forward. The effect of her nineteen-fifties pin-up looks surrounded by all that greenery really was comical, but Jennie couldn’t bring herself to even muster a giggle. She waved back at Coreen, not even bothering to smile.
‘I have a spare chair and two of these,’ Coreen said, shoving an open bottle of champagne through the foliage. ‘Care to join me?’
There were angels in heaven! Jennie let out a long breath. ‘Now you’re talking,’ she replied and swiftly skirted the large terracotta urn to plonk herself in the last available seat in the room.
Coreen, as always, looked flawless. She took her business seriously, and Jennie had never seen her dress in a twenty-first century outfit. Today she had on a fifties prom dress in an icy pink that complemented Jennie’s oyster shift dress.
Coreen slid an open bottle of champagne across the table towards her. Jennie’s fingers closed around the rough foil at the neck. ‘So what are we drinking to?’ She paused. ‘And please don’t say “Happy Ever Afters”!’
Without waiting for an answer, she put the bottle to her lips and swigged. She took a long gulp, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and let the bottle land with a satisfying thunk on the table. When she glanced up, she found Coreen looking at her, a knowing smile on her sculpted lips.
‘Wedding day blues, too, huh?’
‘You have no idea,’ Jennie said dryly and lifted the bottle again. Coreen, in the meantime, managed to attract the attention of a waiter, despite the fact he was being waved at from all over the banqueting hall. Well, maybe it wasn’t that surprising. She was Coreen, after all. She signalled they’d like a couple of glasses and he saluted her, all the while giving her a saucy lopsided smile, then scuttled off to do her bidding. Coreen didn’t turn round again until his rather fine backside had disappeared into the crowd.
‘Me, too,’ she said, after letting out a long sigh.
Jennie couldn’t help but laugh. ‘The wedding day blues don’t seem to be putting you off your stride much.’
A wicked little smirk pulled at Coreen’s lips, and then the corners of her mouth turned down. ‘It’s not the same, though, is it? Flirting’s all well and good, but on days like today, everyone’s gushing about love and promises and for ever. It can make a girl decidedly—’
‘Suicidal?’ Jennie suggested.
‘I was going to go with single, but your word is…descriptive.’
The waiter returned to flirt some more with Coreen. She accepted the glasses he proffered and dismissed him with a wave of her hand and a movie-queen smile. ‘I’ve seen that look in a man’s eyes often enough to know he wasn’t thinking about love and promises and for ever.’
Still, it didn’t stop her glancing over her shoulder to get a second look at the retreating fine backside. Jennie pulled a glass across the table and filled it with bubbles.
‘And you are thinking about that?’
‘Maybe. I don’t know.’ Coreen held up her glass so Jennie could fill it. ‘You?’
Jennie opened her mouth to make some flippant remark and found she couldn’t speak. Her vision blurred. To disguise what was happening, she reached for her glass and knocked half the contents back. The bubbles lodged like boulders in her throat.
A few short weeks ago she’d believed in all of it. Love and promises. Forever. But not now. Maybe not ever again.
‘Hey.’ The soft word came from somewhere near her right ear and she realised that the fuzzy pink blur crouching beside her chair was Coreen. Jennie willed her mouth to stop quivering, clamped her teeth shut. This time she used the backs of her hands to wipe her cheeks.
Why now? Why, after lasting all day without caving in, had she suddenly fallen to pieces? It was really pathetic. Maybe it was the way she’d seen Cameron look at Alice earlier on. She’d compared it to what she’d thought she’d found and realised it had all been a dream. A whirlwind. And the knowledge made her ache deep inside, way beneath her muscles and bones.
‘You never know,’ Coreen said, keeping contact by leaving a hand on Jennie’s knee, but perching back on her seat, ‘we might even be able to trade these dresses in for the real thing one day.’
But that just made Jennie cry all the harder, until her nose felt bubbly and her throat was hoarse.
The hand on her knee squeezed gently. ‘Although, secretly, I’ve toyed with the idea of wearing nothing at all when the fateful day arrives,’ Coreen added.
And suddenly crying turned to hysteria. The tears still flowed, but her sides started to hurt and she clutched at Coreen, and Coreen clutched her just as hard back. Somewhere in the middle of the rib-hurting cackles, Jennie became aware of someone standing a few feet away, looking at her, but she was enjoying the much-needed rush of endorphins too much to pay attention to who it was.
Coreen fell silent and Jennie’s unaccompanied giggles seemed overly loud and jarring. She gulped the last remnants of mirth down and wiped her eyes again, this time in a more ladylike fashion. Her eyelashes were clogged together on one side of her left eye, and she opened her eyes as wide as she could until the lashes untangled. It was only then that she focused on the ominously still figure in front of her.
Her mouth dropped open and every last bit of hilarity left her body, taking all the oxygen with it.
The man standing there was tall, impeccably dressed. His dark hair was cropped severely close, adding a hardness to his already angular features. But it was his eyes that took her hostage—a clear pale blue that could easily have been compared to the soft colour on the horizon on a hazy summer’s day. Only, as they pinned her to her seat, they were as warm as an arctic breeze. She even shivered a little, gripped her arms across her middle.
‘Jennie?’ There was an uncharacteristic waver in Coreen’s voice, and it sounded distant, slightly unreal. ‘Do you know this guy?’
Jennie swallowed, and that one tiny motion seemed to get her functioning again. Her voice returned. It sounded warm, almost normal, when she spoke, which surprised her to no end. She didn’t take her eyes off the man dominating her personal space.
‘Coreen, this is. This is Alex Dangerfield.’
Alex nodded at Coreen, but he, too, didn’t look away. Maybe he couldn’t either. And it wasn’t just her sight—every sense was locked on to him. But it had always been that way. Right from the very start.
‘You know him, then?’ Coreen sounded more than a little relieved.
And then he spoke in his low, rich voice and it rumbled through her, sending tingles up the backs of Jennie’s knees.
‘She really ought to,’ he said, not even a twitch of a smile softening the sarcastic tone. ‘I’m her husband.’
CHAPTER TWO
COREEN, who had stood up some time after Alex’s arrival, now sat abruptly back down in her chair. For a long time she just stared at him, and then she transferred her gaze to Jennie.
‘Your…?’ She trailed off, seemingly unable to utter the word husband.
Jennie knew exactly how she felt.
Coreen’s eyes grew wide.
‘Is this true?’
Jennie nodded. Unfortunately, it was. She’d have heartily liked to deny it, but Alex was the irritating sort of man who would undoubtedly produce a pristine marriage certificate from his inside pocket at an inconvenient moment like this. The thought infuriated her.
In his absence, her anger towards him had been muddled up with stupid yearnings, weighed down with grief and regrets, but now it sprang free, unpolluted and unfettered, and rose up from the pit of her stomach and clouded her eyes just as effectively as her earlier tears had done.
Now? Here? At Cameron’s wedding?
What was he playing at?
She opened her mouth to ask him just that, but he cut her off by talking across her to Coreen.
‘Now we’ve made the introductions, do you think I might have a private word with my wife?’
Jennie flinched as he said the last word. She didn’t feel like his wife. Didn’t feel like the centre of his universe.
Coreen regained some of her usual faultless composure where men were concerned. A glint in her eyes told Jennie she was ready to give Alex some of her legendary sass if he tried anything funny. ‘I’m not leaving you alone with Jennie unless she says it’s okay.’
Jennie almost laughed. If the situation were less dire, she’d have been the first to book a ringside seat for a face-off between Coreen and Alex. But then she glanced at her husband and she changed her mind. She’d never seen him like this—so cold, so…hostile. Maybe, if she’d seen this side of him during their whirlwind courtship she wouldn’t have been stupid enough to say ‘I do’ quite so hastily.
After all he’d put her through, she certainly didn’t. Or, even if that wasn’t quite true, she wanted it to be. So it almost counted.
‘It’s okay,’ she told Coreen, and stood up. ‘Alex and I. Well, we…’
‘Have unfinished business,’ he said.
We are unfinished business, she wanted to say as she tried to work out if this was all some weird hallucination, as the thump of the music filtered back into her consciousness and she became aware of other people in the room again. Lots of people. Reality felt just as strange and unconnected, too, she discovered.