The Eleventh-Hour Groom

‘Look, I realise that you are a busy woman. I know it’s probably a shock my turning up like this. But I need to talk to you, Beth…it’s urgent.’

She hesitated.

‘So, what do you say?’ he murmured. ‘Will you give me a few hours of your time…please?’

Hell, he wasn’t going to start being nice to her, was he? She could handle his disdain, his arrogance, but she couldn’t hack it if he started to be kind. That led to all sorts of dangerous grey areas.

Her eyes moved over the handsome face. It was hard to tell what he was thinking, his features were impassive.

She sighed. ‘Okay, but I’ve only got an hour. I’ve got work to do.’

‘Thanks.’ He smiled. ‘I appreciate it.’

He held the door for her as she got in. She told herself she was only doing this to avoid a scene. Her work colleagues would be coming out at any moment and she didn’t want them asking her questions tomorrow.

He slammed the door and then came around to join her.

She watched as he fastened his safety belt then checked his mirror before pulling out into the steady stream of traffic.

This was really weird, she thought. If anyone had told her this morning that Jay would pick her up from work she would have looked at them as if they were mad.

‘So…you haven’t really come all this way just to see me…have you?’ she asked cautiously.

He glanced over at her. ‘Yes. I have.’

She wanted to ask why, but she couldn’t. She was too afraid he was going to say the dreaded D word. But of course that had to be the reason. What other one was there? He wanted a divorce.

She noticed the familiar tang of his aftershave. It made a curl of remembrance stir painfully inside her. She squashed it immediately.

‘Where did you get the car?’ she asked, more for something to say than anything else.

‘I rented it.’

‘Where are you staying?’

‘I don’t know. I haven’t booked in anywhere yet.’

She frowned. ‘You mean you’ve just arrived?’

He nodded. ‘Yep. I rang you from the airport.’

‘Oh!’ She wished she could think straight.

She watched as he drove into an underground car park. Watched the reflection of the neon lights as they played over the hard contours of his face.

He parked and then turned to look at her. ‘I’ve booked a table at a restaurant around the corner.’

‘You’ve booked a restaurant but you haven’t booked a hotel?’

He shrugged and grinned. ‘I can think better on a full stomach.’

She stared at him, trying to work this out. But her brain was befuddled with confusing, sidetracking thoughts, like how his smile lit up his eyes, how his lips were firm and yet sensual, how the shape of his face was hard-boned and square, giving him a look of arrogant determination.

Sometimes in her dreams she had imagined seeing him again, had imagined what it might be like. Sometimes she had thought that she would feel nothing and sometimes her body had twisted with an empty kind of longing. Now she didn’t know what her body was telling her, except how wonderful he looked…and that was crazy.

‘Elizabeth.’ His eyes seemed to be resting on her lips. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Of course I’m okay.’ She wrenched her gaze away from him. Picked up her briefcase and opened the car door. ‘I’m hungry,’ she lied. ‘Like you, I can’t think on an empty stomach.’

CHAPTER TWO

THE restaurant which was one of the best in town was a place that Elizabeth had only ever visited when she had been entertaining clients for the firm. And even then she hadn’t got one of the tables in the private side booths; they were always reserved weeks in advance.

‘How did you get this table?’ Elizabeth asked as the waiter disappeared with their coats and they settled themselves opposite each other in the private alcove.

‘I just bribed the head waiter,’ he answered nonchalantly.

Her eyes widened. ‘Really? I didn’t see you.’

He grinned as he handed her a menu, and she realised he was teasing her.

For a moment their eyes held. Then she felt his gaze sweeping over her, assessing the heart-shaped face, the sophisticated style of her raven-dark hair, the slender lines of her figure.

‘You’re looking well,’ he murmured.

‘Thanks.’ She gave him a strained smile. ‘So are you.’ They sounded like two strangers, she thought. Who would believe that they had once promised to love, honour and stay together, forsaking all others? Her lips twisted wryly as she reminded herself what a sham that had been.

‘You’ve cut your hair,’ he remarked.

She put a hand self-consciously to the short, urchin cut, remembering that he had once told her how much he liked her waist long hair. ‘It got a bit hard to manage.’

A glimmer of a smile lit his dark eyes. ‘Pity…I always liked your hair.’

Meaning he didn’t like it now? Well, she didn’t care, she told herself crossly. In fact part of the reason she’d had cut it was because she knew he had liked it. She had finished worrying about what Jay did and didn’t like. That game was over long ago.

‘It’s been a long time…hasn’t it,’ he remarked casually. ‘Must be what…nearly a year?’

It was over a year, but she wasn’t about to admit she was counting. ‘Something like that. How are things in Jamaica?’

‘Hot.’ He smiled. ‘Do you miss it?’

Of course she missed it. Although she was originally from England her parents had moved to the Caribbean when she was just nine. In her heart Jamaica was still home. But she wouldn’t admit to Jay that she felt homesick. She had moved away because of him, because of their sham of a marriage. She had to put a brave face on things. So she just smiled and shrugged. ‘Sometimes,’ she said easily.

The wine waiter interrupted them to ask what they’d like to drink.

‘Would you like wine, or something stronger?’ Jay asked her.

‘A glass of white wine would be fine, thank you.’