by Liz Fielding
‘Come on. It’s your birthday tomorrow. I’m going to make a chocolate cake,’ Saffy declared after breakfast.
‘Can you cook?’ She’d seen no evidence of it in the week since she’d arrived.
‘Don’t be silly. You’re the domestic goddess. You’ll have to show me how.’
Obviously it was in the nature of a distraction, but Saffy must be climbing the wall too, she realised.
They had just put it in the oven when the back door opened and Jake, not bothering to knock, tumbled through.
‘Get your passport,’ he said.
‘Sorry?’
‘Adam called. He’s been driving through the jungle for the last couple of days. He’s in the back of beyond somewhere and it’s going to take him at least three flights to get to the US. There’s no way he can get home in time to beat the deadline, so you’re going to have to go to him. I’ve booked you on a flight to Las Vegas—’
‘Las Vegas?’
‘You’re getting married there, today.’
‘But…’ she glanced at the clock ‘…I can’t possibly get there in time.’
‘You’re flying east. You’ll arrive a few hours after you leave.’
‘Yes!’ Saffy said, jumping up and punching the air, grinning broadly.
‘But…’ She looked at Jake. Looked at Robbie, who was grinning broadly. ‘I never bought a dress.’
‘Forget the dress,’ Jake said. ‘You haven’t got time to pack. We’ve barely got time to get to the airport.’
‘What’s the purpose of your visit to the United States, Mr Wavell?’
‘I’m getting married today,’ he replied.
The man looked him up and down. He’d been wearing his dinner jacket when the rebels had opened fire on his hotel. It was filthy, torn and there was blood on his shirt. It was scarcely surprising that he’d been pulled over at Immigration for a closer look.
‘Good luck with that, sir,’ he said, grinning as he returned his passport.
There was a driver waiting for him in the arrival hall.
‘Miss Coleridge’s flight is due in ten minutes, Mr Wavell,’ he said, handing him an envelope containing a replacement cellphone and a long message from Jake detailing all the arrangements he’d made.
May paused as she entered the arrivals hall. Jake had told her she’d be met but she couldn’t see her name on any of the cards. And then, with a little heart leap, she saw Adam and she let out a little cry of anguish. His clothes were filthy and torn, the remains of his shirt spattered with blood. He looked as if he hadn’t slept for a week and he’d lost weight.
And his cheek… She put out her hand to touch a vivid bruise but he caught her hand. ‘It’s nothing. No luggage?’ he asked.
‘I didn’t have time to pack. I didn’t even have time to change,’ she said, looking down at the smear of chocolate on her T-shirt. ‘The wedding pictures should be interesting.’ Then, keeping it light because it was all she could do not to weep all over him, ‘But you know if you didn’t want your mother to come to the wedding you only had to say. You didn’t have to go to all this trouble.’
‘I called her,’ he said a little gruffly. ‘Called Saffy. When I got to Dallas.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Dust,’ he explained. ‘From the explosion.’
‘Adam…’
‘Let’s go. Apparently we have to get a licence at the courthouse before we go to the wedding chapel.’
‘Well, that was easy,’ May said as they walked out of the courthouse half an hour later with their licence. ‘I hope, for your sake, that the divorce will be as simple.’
‘Don’t!’ Then, seeing her startled look, realising that he had been abrupt, Adam shook his head.
He might have been seized by the sudden conviction that May was everything he’d ever wanted in a woman but she was doing this for only one reason.
To keep her home.
Crawling through the wreckage of the hotel, it had been the thought of May that had kept him going. The need to talk to her, tell her how sorry he was, what a fool he’d been. The hope that maybe they might, somehow, be able to begin again.
But, as the days had passed, all that had been swept away in the need to keep his promise to her. Because words meant nothing. No amount of sorry was worth a damn unless he backed it up with action.
Then, seeing the tiny frown buckling the space between her eyes, a frown that he wanted to kiss away, ‘I’m sorry. I’ve had the worst week of my life and I vote that today we forget about everything, everyone else and just have some fun.’
‘Fun?’
That was what he’d told Jake when he’d finally got to a phone that worked. To forget all the pompous nonsense he’d planned. He had, apparently, taken his brief very seriously. Instead of a simple limo, they’d been picked up at the airport in a white vintage open-topped Rolls, the kind that had great sweeping mud-guards, a wide running board, the glamour of another age.
Or maybe that was simple in Las Vegas.
‘Any objections to that?’ he asked, taking her hand as she stepped up into the car. Kept hold of it as he joined her.
‘None.’ May laughed out loud. ‘I can’t believe this. It seems unreal.’
‘It is. Totally unreal,’ he said, content to be sitting next to a woman wearing the biggest smile he’d ever seen. ‘You’ve been given a magic day, stolen from the time gods by travelling east.’
‘It doesn’t work like that,’ she said, leaning back against the soft leather, her hair unravelling, a smear of chocolate across her T-shirt. She looked exactly like the girl he’d fallen in love with, he thought, allowing himself to remember the heart-pounding edge as he’d climbed over the gate from the park. The heart lift as she’d looked up and smiled at him. He’d loved her before he knew the meaning of the word. And when he’d learned it was too late. ‘I’ll have to give it back when we fly home. You can’t mess with time.’
‘We give back the hours, but not anything that happens during them. You’ll still be married. Your house will be safe. What we do, the memories we make. They are pure gain. That’s why it’s magic.’
She turned and looked at him. ‘They should only be good memories, then.’
‘They will be.’
‘Seeing you in one piece is as good as it gets,’ she said. ‘I thought…’
May swallowed, turned away, tears clinging to her lashes. She’d promised herself she would not cry, but the shock of seeing him had been intense. She could not imagine what he’d been through while she was sitting in front of the television thinking that she was suffering.
She’d been so sure that the first thing she would do was tell him that she loved him. Worked out exactly what she was going to say on the long hours as she flew across the Atlantic, across America. But the moment she set eyes on him she knew that it was an emotional burden he didn’t need. That she was doing what she’d accused him of. Thinking of herself. What she was feeling.
‘Saffy was in bits,’ she said when she could trust herself to speak.
‘More than I deserve.’
Before she could protest, the car turned into a tropical garden and her jaw dropped as they swept up to the entrance to their hotel.
‘Wow!’ she said. Then, again, as they walked through the entrance lobby, ‘Wow! This is utterly amazing.’
She was in Las Vegas and had expected their hotel to be large, opulent, over the top glitzy. But this was elegant. Stunningly beautiful.
‘Good morning, Miss Coleridge, Mr Wavell. I hope you had a good flight?’
The duty manager smiled as he invited them to sit at the ornate Buhl desk, completely ignoring Adam’s appearance. Her own.
‘Just a few formalities. Miss Coleridge, you have an appointment at the beauty salon in half an hour,’ he said, handing her an appointment card. ‘We were warned that you would have no luggage and you’ll find a selection of clothes in your size as well as your usual toiletries in your suite, as will you, Mr Wavell.’
She shook her head
. ‘Jake is great on the details,’ she said. ‘He thinks of everything.’
‘You do have some messages, Mr Wavell. You can pick them up on voicemail from your room.’ He looked from Adam to her and back again. ‘Is there anything else I can do for you?’
‘Just one thing,’ Adam said. ‘We’re getting married this afternoon. Miss Coleridge will need something very special to wear.’
‘That’s not a problem. We have a number of designer boutiques within the hotel and our personal shopper is at your disposal, Miss Coleridge. I’ll ask her to call you.’
And Adam looked across at her with a mesmerising smile.
‘Nearly everything,’ he said.
The suite was beyond luxurious. A huge sitting room with wide curved windows that opened onto a private roof garden with a pool, a tiny waterfall, tropical flowers, a hot tub. There was an office, a bar, two bedrooms, each with its own bathroom.
There was also Julia, who introduced herself as their personal butler. While Adam picked up his messages, she had ordered a late breakfast for them, drawn them each a bath, and then unwrapped and put away their new clothes.
This is magic, May thought, sinking into the warm, scented water. She’d just closed her eyes when a phone, conveniently placed within reach so that she didn’t have to move, rang once, twice. Was it for Adam? It rang again and she chided herself. This was the sort of hotel where if the phone rang in the bathroom it was for the person lying in the bath.
‘Hello?’
‘Good morning, Miss Coleridge. I’m Suzanne Harper, your personal shopper. I understand that you’re getting married today and need something special to wear. Just a few questions and I’ll get started.’
The few questions involved her colouring, style. Whether she preferred Armani, Chanel or Dior.
Dior! She couldn’t afford that.
About to declare that she really didn’t need anything, she thought of the way that Adam had looked at her as he’d said ‘nearly everything’. He’d thought of this, arranged this. It was part of the magic and if she had to sell a picture to pay for it, it would be worth it.
‘I don’t have a particular preference for a designer. I’d just like something simple.’
That only left the embarrassing disclosure of her measurements.
‘I’ll go and see what I find,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘You’ll be going down to the salon shortly?’
‘My appointment’s at twelve.’
‘I’ll bring a few ideas along for you to look at and we can take it from there.’
‘Right.’ Then, since she had the phone in her hand, she called home to let Robbie know that she’d arrived safely. Reassure Saffy that her brother was in one piece.
Adam looked up as May appeared wrapped in a heavy towelling robe, the partner of the one he was wearing, and smelling like heaven. ‘Hi.’
‘Hi,’ she said, perching on the side of the desk. ‘Everything under control?’
‘Pretty much. How about you?’
‘Well, I’ve just been through the mind-curdling embarrassment of giving every single one of my measurements to a woman I’ve never met.’
‘Did she faint with shock?’ he asked.
‘She might have. There was a very long silence.’
‘She was probably struggling to hold back a sob of envy that you have the confidence not to starve yourself to skin and bones.’
‘I make sweets and cakes, Adam. I have to taste them to make sure I’ve got them right.’
‘Your sacrifice is appreciated,’ he said, holding out his hand to her and, when she took it, he pulled her down onto his lap, put his arms around her, and she let her head fall against his shoulder.
She’d pinned her hair up to get into the bath but damp tendrils had escaped, curling around her face. One of them tickled his chin and he smoothed it back, kissed it where it lay against her head. Saw a tear trickling down her cheek.
‘Hey… What’s the matter?’
‘I thought you were dead.’
‘I might as well have been if I’d let you down.’
‘Idiot!’ she said, throwing a playful punch at his arm.
‘Ouch,’ he said, covering his wince with a smile. ‘Is that any way to speak to a man who’s offering to show you a good time?’
She opened her mouth, closed it again. ‘I’m so sorry, Adam. I thought this was going to be so simple.’
‘It is, sweetheart. It is. But it’s time you were moving,’ he said before she became aware just how simple it was. Not even the thickness of the towelling robe could for long disguise just how basic his response to holding her like this had been. ‘You’ll be late for your appointment.’
She gave a little yelp, rushed off to the bedroom, returning a few minutes later in linen trousers the colour of bitter chocolate, a bronze silk shirt that brought out the colour of her eyes, her thick, wayward hair curling about her shoulders. The kind of hair that could give a man ideas. If he hadn’t already got them.
‘I’ll meet you in the lobby at half past three.’
‘In the lobby? But…’
‘I’ll finish up here, get ready and go out for a stroll in the garden.’ He needed to put some distance between himself and temptation. ‘You won’t want me under your feet while you’re getting ready.’
‘Won’t I?’
Without warning, her eyes hazed, darkened, an instinctive, atavistic response to what she must see in his; the kind of hot, ungovernable desire for a woman that he hadn’t felt in longer than he could remember. The kind that set his senses ablaze, threatened to overwhelm him.
‘Suppose I need a hand with a zip?’
‘I only know how to undo them,’ he said. A warning. As much to himself as to her. May trusted him. Believed his motives to be pure.
Not that she’d blame him. Knowing May, she’d almost certainly blame herself, apologise for taking advantage of him. He wasn’t sure whether the thought of that made him want to smile, or to weep for her. A little of both, perhaps, and he wanted to hold her, tell her that she was amazing, sexy, beautiful and that any man would be lucky to have her.
She didn’t move. Continued to stare at him, eyes dark, lips slightly parted, her cheeks flushed.
‘May!’
She started. ‘I’m gone.’
May wasn’t sure what had just happened.
No. She wasn’t that naïve. She knew. She just didn’t know how it had happened.
How a jokey comment fired by nervous tension had created a primitive pulse that made every cell in her body sing out to Adam, made every cell in his body respond to her so that the air shimmered like a heat haze around them. So that the rest of the room seemed to disappear, leaving him in the sharpest, clearest focus. His dark, expressive brows. The copper glints heating up his grey eyes. His mouth, lips that had kissed her to seal their bargain, kissed her again for no reason at all in a way that made her own burn just to think of them.
For a moment she leaned back against the suite door, weak to the knees with hot raw need, knowing that if he’d lifted a hand, touched her, she would have fallen apart.
And he’d known it, too.
He’d warned her. ‘I only know how to undo them.’
And, remembering just how adept he’d been with her shirt buttons, she didn’t doubt it.
Even then she hadn’t moved. Hadn’t wanted to move.
All she’d wanted was him. To hold him in her arms. Know that he was safe. To show him with her body all the things that she couldn’t say.
Adam could not remember the last time he’d felt the need for a cold shower.
He had fudged his promise when she’d asked if he intended a paper marriage. Lied with his heart, if not his tongue, planning an ice-cold seduction, determined that she should beg for him to take her.
But he knew that she had done nothing to hurt him. She had given him her heart, her soul, would have given him her body too, if they had not been discovered before his virgin fumblings had found the mark.
It had not taken a close call with death to teach him that there was no joy in revenge, only in life. He would marry May, then, as his captive partner for a year or so, living in the same house, he would woo her. Wait for her. Propose a real marriage when the false one was at an end.
But, while he could control his own desires, if May lit up like that again he wasn’t sure he could fight them both.
May spent what seemed like an age in the salon. When she finally emerged, her unmanageable mess of mousy hair had been washed, trimmed and transformed. It was still mousy, but she was a very sleek, pampered mouse and her hair had gone up into a smooth twist, the only escaping tendrils those that had been teased out and twisted into well behaved curls.
The facial had toned and smoothed her skin to satin. The manicurist had taken one horrified look at her hardworking nails and transformed them with the application of acrylics. And someone she never actually got to see performed ‘pedicure’ on her feet, giving her toenails a French polish so exquisite that when she was ready to leave the salon, she felt guilty for putting her shoes back on.
And, all the while this had been happening, Suzanne had whisked outfits by her to gauge her reaction to style, colour, fabric.
Everyone had had an opinion and between them they’d whittled it down to four.
‘That’s the one,’ Suzanne said when, back in their suite, she’d tried on an exquisite silk two-piece the warm, toasted colour of fine brandy. ‘I knew it as soon as I saw your shirt. It’s the perfect colour for you.’
‘I do always feel good in it,’ she admitted. ‘Is it vulgar to ask the price?’
‘I understood that Mr Wavell…’
‘Mr Wavell is not paying for this.’
He’d already paid for a first class air fare, first class travel, the hotel, but that was all.
When Suzanne still hesitated—clearly the suit cost a small fortune—she said, ‘Unless you tell me, Suzanne, you’re going to have to take it back and I’ll wear these trousers.’
She told her.
May did her best not to gulp, at least not noticeably. She wasn’t going to have to part with some small picture by a minor artist, something she wouldn’t miss. She was going to have to sell something special to pay for this. But she’d never look this good again and, whatever the sacrifice, it would be worth it, she decided, as she handed over her credit card.