Convenient Engagements: Fiance Wanted Fast! / The Blind-Date Proposal / A Whirlwind Engagement

Silence didn’t seem to bother him at all. Phoebe stirred her tea unnecessarily and sought for something else to say. ‘Are you going to be working while you’re here?’ she managed eventually.

‘I’m looking into setting up a couple of projects.’

It all sounded a bit vague to Phoebe, but if he wanted her to think he had a flourishing business with projects on the go, let him. She knew how sensitive men were about their success or lack of it, and she wasn’t that interested anyway.

Gib was looking around him with interest, apparently unconcerned by her awkward attempts to make conversation. Phoebe couldn’t get over how blue his eyes were, and she studied him surreptitiously, wondering if he wore contact lenses to make them that colour, only to flush with annoyance when he caught her looking at him and smiled.

Phoebe jerked her gaze away. He obviously thought she couldn’t keep her eyes off him. How smug could you get? Really, he was just like Seb.

Typical, she thought glumly. The one attractive man to swim into her orbit since Ben, and he turned out to rub her up the wrong way right from the start. Bella and Kate were always urging her to find someone new to help her get over Ben, and she knew that she ought to make more of an effort, but a man like Gib—always supposing he was available—was the last thing she needed. She wanted someone kind and reliable, someone she could trust, not someone who made her feel twitchy and inadequate just by sitting there, no matter how attractive he was.

‘How do you know Josh?’ she asked, when he made no effort to break the silence. ‘You don’t seem at all like him.’

‘Don’t I?’ Gib looked amused. ‘That depends how you think of Josh, I guess.’

‘Josh is wonderful,’ said Phoebe firmly. ‘He’s mainly Bella’s friend, of course, but Kate and I love him. He seems so quiet, but he’s one of the nicest people I know. He never shows off or boasts about how good he is at what he does. He’s just steady and reliable and safe. Anything could happen, and you could always rely on Josh to know what to do.’

It was funny, she thought irrelevantly. Josh was just the kind of man she needed, but it had never crossed her mind to think of him as anything other than Bella’s friend.

‘Yes, he’s very competent,’ agreed Gib, reflecting wryly that he clearly hadn’t made much of an impression so far. He wondered how Phoebe had decided that he was not quiet, or nice, or reliable like good old Josh. All he had done was admire her kitchen and accept a cup of tea.

‘I met Josh in Ecuador,’ he went on, thinking that this was not the time to challenge her for being unreasonable. ‘He was leading an expedition up Mount Chimburazo, and I went along.’

She stared at him in surprise. ‘You’re a mountaineer?’

Gib smiled and shook his head, his blue, blue eyes looking directly into Phoebe’s. ‘No, I just like a challenge,’ he said.

Trapped by the intense blue gaze, Phoebe felt a wave of heat wash through her, and she swallowed, jerking her eyes away with an effort.

There was something disconcerting about him, she thought with an edge of desperation. His presence seemed to fill the room, sucking in all the air until it was hard for her to breathe. His eyes were too bright, his teeth too white, and he was too vibrant, too unsettling, too everything.

Phoebe felt unbalanced, a bit dizzy, and, desperate for something to break the suddenly jarring atmosphere, she pushed her papers out of the way.

‘Sorry about all this mess. I was just trying to do some work before the others got home.’

Gib twisted his head on one side to get a glimpse of the papers. ‘What is that you do?’

‘I’m a production assistant for a company that makes programmes for television,’ said Phoebe, unable to keep the pride from her voice.

Of course, being little more than a dogsbody at her age wasn’t that much to be proud about, but Phoebe had wanted to get into television production for as long as she could remember, and she was determined to make a success of it. Dogsbody was just the first step on the ladder, she reminded herself frequently. It was unfortunate that had ended up with a prima donna of the first order as her immediate boss, but Purple Parrot Productions was her big break, and it was worth putting up with Celia for that.

‘We make documentaries mostly,’ she told Gib.

‘What are you working on at the moment?’ he asked politely.

You never show any interest in my job, Mallory had complained. You have no idea how to talk to a woman as a person in her own right. You only ever think about one thing.

Which was absolute rubbish, of course, thought Gib. He was perfectly capable of talking to a woman seriously. Look at him now, asking Phoebe about her job and listening to her answer and not even thinking about the curve of her mouth or the silky sheen of her hair as she pushed it impatiently behind her ear.

Suddenly realising that he had lost track of what she was saying, Gib tuned in again to hear something about banking.

‘You’re making a programme about a bank?’

‘I thought it was a pretty dull idea too,’ said Phoebe, unsurprised by his reaction, ‘but actually, it’s more interesting than you’d expect. This isn’t an ordinary bank. It was set up by some guy who made a fortune on the currency markets then took everyone by surprise by setting up an ethical bank.’

Gib put down his mug. ‘What?’

‘I know, it sounds like a contradiction in terms, doesn’t it?’ Phoebe had relaxed a bit in talking about her job. ‘I think it just means that it only invests in community-based projects in developing countries. I’ve done some research on the internet, and it sounds really good. It should make an interesting programme.’

‘Is that right?’ said Gib in an odd voice.

‘The only trouble is that my boss is insisting that the focus of the programme should be on the guy who set it all up.’

‘Really? Who’s that?’

‘J.G. Grieve,’ she told him. ‘Everyone refers to him as JGG, and he’s famous for not giving interviews to the media.’ Picking up a printout from a website, she studied it ruefully. ‘I’ve tried all these contact numbers, but I always get the same message: the bank is happy to support any publicity about the projects, but not about JGG himself.’

‘So what else do you know about this guy?’

Preoccupied with her own problems, she failed to notice the oddly grim look around Gib’s mouth. ‘Not much,’ she said. ‘Just that he’s very rich.’

‘He’s not that interesting then, is he?’

‘That’s what I think,’ she agreed, ‘but Celia—my boss—is insistent that I’ve got to arrange an interview somehow. Working on this programme is my big break, so I’ve got to track him down somehow. I’m just not quite sure how I’m going to go about it,’ she confessed.

Gib looked at her across the table and suddenly his expression relaxed and his mouth quirked. ‘Well, I’ve been in the States for a while,’ he said. ‘I know some people. Maybe I could ask around and see if anyone knows anything else about him?’

Phoebe looked back doubtfully. She couldn’t imagine that someone like Gib would have the kind of contacts she needed, but she supposed it was kind of him to offer.

‘Well, thanks,’ she said awkwardly, ‘but I’m sure I’ll get through to someone in the bank eventually.’

Gib grinned at her as he picked up his mug once more. ‘Suit yourself,’ he said.

There was a silence. Phoebe sipped her tea and tried not to feel rattled by the way he was sitting at her table, looking as if he had always sat there. His presence filled the kitchen, which seemed to have shrunk around them alarmingly.

‘I gather from Josh that you’re my landlady,’ said Gib after a while. ‘Thanks for letting me stay.’

When he smiled his eyes looked bluer than ever. Phoebe was more than ever convinced that they couldn’t possibly be real. She looked away from them with an effort.

‘That’s all right,’ she muttered.

‘Are there any rules I should know about?’

Phoebe considered the question. ‘Not really,’ she said at last, ‘but don’t, whatever you do, tell Kate about any stray animal you’ve noticed unless you want to find it sleeping on your bed.’

‘Is that it?’

‘It’s not a good idea to talk to me before I’ve had a cup of coffee in the morning, but that’s advice rather than a rule,’ she admitted. ‘Kate and Bella don’t take any notice of it.’