After The Loving

But that was out of the question. Her parents, then. She didn’t doubt for a moment that they would be overjoyed by the news, whether she had a husband or not; as Bryna was an only child they had given up any idea of ever becoming grandparents. Maybe instead of telephoning them she would go up to Scotland at the weekend and tell them in person; the look on their faces might be worth the long journey!

‘I’m sorry, Bryna.’ Kate gave a self-disgusted sigh at her intention to wound. ‘You aren’t what Daddy meant at all.’ She picked up her fork to eat her salmon. ‘I’m disappointed, that’s all,’ she grimaced. ‘I thought you would make a great stepmother.’

Raff had lost his wife, and Kate and Paul their mother, over ten years ago, but Raff gave the impression that the marriage he had entered into at only eighteen had ceased to be a complete success years before that. But both parents were devoted to the children, and while their marriage didn’t exactly sparkle it hadn’t been unpleasant either.

Paul and Kate obviously had very warm memories of their mother, and it warmed Bryna to know that Kate, at least, would have had no objection to her taking that place in her father’s life. If the situation had ever arisen. Which it never would.

‘Thank you,’ she accepted briskly. ‘Now, as a friend, would you hurry up and eat your lunch; I have to get back to work.’ She smiled brightly in the face of Kate’s pain at the deliberate snub; she couldn’t allow Kate to live under the misapprehension that there would ever be a happy-ever-after between Raff and herself. Raff was thirty-nine years old, with a grown-up family, and the thought of having to go through night-time feeds, teething, crawling, walking, the terrible-twos, and so on and so on, with another child, would throw even the self-confidently arrogant Raff Gallagher into a panic! It threw her into a panic!

Who would have guessed when she had walked into a restaurant very similar to this one six short months ago that this would happen?

She had been meeting Courtney Stevens, to discuss the use of six of her models to promote a new line he was introducing to his chain of fashion stores throughout Europe and America for the winter. He had proved every bit as charming as the advertising agency she was working with had told her he was.

Or warned her. She and Janet Parker had worked together before, and when the cynical Janet described a man as ‘charming’ it was like any other woman saying he was lethally attractive!

Courtney Stevens—or Court, as he had insisted she call him as they introduced themselves—was a blond giant of a man with a devilish charm glinting in deep blue eyes that were guaranteed to seduce even the most hardened of women. Bryna was charmed almost from the first moment, almost forgetting what she was there for as he deftly centred the conversation on her rather than the business she had come here to discuss.

‘We have to decide what models you would like to use,’ she had finally laughingly protested.

‘Well, we’re going to use the family pile,’ he dismissed drily. ‘For some reason my father bought himself a manor house in Kent and left it to me in his will; I’ve never had reason to use it until now. So as it means the crew will have to stay overnight down there, how about making one of the models a tall violet-eyed silver-blonde?’ He looked at her expectantly.

She couldn’t possibly feel insulted by the intimacy of the suggestion, and she laughed huskily. ‘I no longer work as a model myself.’

‘Couldn’t you make this the exception?’ His large hand covered her much slenderer one.

Her eyes glowed. ‘I’m afraid not.’

‘No?’ He looked as if she had dealt him a wounding blow. ‘Then how about joining me for——’

‘Would you like to introduce us, Court?’ interrupted a harshly rasping voice.

Court frowned his irritation up at the other man. ‘Not now, Raff,’ he protested.

‘Exactly now,’ the other man drawled.

‘Bryna, Raff Gallagher. Raff, Bryna Fairchild,’ Court made the introductions in a disgruntled voice. ‘A friend of mine,’ he told the other man pointedly.

‘I’m glad to meet you, Miss Fairchild.’ The man, who until that moment had only been a dark blue tailored suit, she could see out of the corner of her eye, and a rasping voice, lowered himself into the chair beside her.

For some reason just the sound of his voice as he cut in on their conversation had made her reluctant to look at him before, and as she glanced at him now she knew the reason why; it was like the moon eclipsing the sun. Court was the sun, open and uncomplicated, and Raff Gallagher was the moon, dark with secretive depths he allowed no one to enter.

She told herself she was being imaginative, and yet piercing grey eyes seemed to look into her very soul and see all that was Bryna Fairchild.

Raff couldn’t be called handsome, his features were too rugged for that, and yet he had something else that was even more effective, a compelling quality that overshadowed and obliterated every other man but him.

He appeared to be the same age as Court, in his late thirties, and yet the years had left their mark in the cynical twist of his mouth, the hardness of his eyes, and the grey wings of hair over each temple.

And from the moment she looked at him Court Stevens ceased to be anything but an attractively pleasant client.

‘Mr Gallagher,’ she greeted him coolly.

‘Please call me Raff,’ he invited gruffly. ‘I have every intention of calling you Bryna.’

Whether she liked it or not! she acknowledged ruefully. Of course she realised who he was now; anyone who was in business and hadn’t heard of Raff Gallagher was either a fool or doomed to fail. And she hoped she was neither of those things. This man was Midas, anything he touched, from property to industry, turning to gold.

‘Raff, why don’t you get lost?’ Court invited irritably. ‘Bryna and I have some business to discuss. Not that sort of business, you fool,’ he admonished as the other man raised disbelieving brows in Bryna’s direction. ‘Bryna runs the Fairchild Agency.’

The dark brow cleared. ‘I’ve heard of it,’ Raff drawled, turning to Bryna. ‘I apologise for the assumption I made just now.’

Being a model, Bryna had received her fair share of insults over erroneous assumptions of what her profession actually entailed, but never before had a man presumed that about her without knowing a thing about her!

She turned to Court Stevens with frosty eyes. ‘I really do have to go,’ she snapped. ‘Perhaps you could give me a call and we could get together to discuss this another time.’ She was probably walking away from a contract that could mean even bigger things for her agency if Court Stevens was pleased with the work they did for him this time, but she wasn’t going to stay around and be insulted by a man who acted as if he owned half of London—and probably did!

‘Now look what you’ve done!’ Court turned accusing eyes on the other man. ‘Will you just get out of here?’

It was testament to how deep the friendship was between the two men that Raff Gallagher didn’t take exception to the way Court had been trying to get rid of him ever since he had interrupted them. But at that moment Bryna was too angry to care how close the two men were, as she stood up to leave.

‘Please stay, Miss Fairchild,’ Raff Gallagher drawled as he stood up, the formality deliberate, she was sure. ‘And please accept my apology for interrupting the two of you. Game of golf tomorrow, Court?’

‘OK,’ Court sighed unenthusiastically. ‘But you’re starting with a handicap.’

‘Don’t I always,’ the other man mocked. ‘Miss Fairchild,’ he nodded dismissively before strolling across the restaurant to join two men at a table who had obviously been waiting for him.

‘He always wins, too,’ muttered Court. ‘Sit down, Bryna. Please,’ he persuaded.

She did so slowly, pointedly turning her chair so that she didn’t have to look at Raff Gallagher.

‘We became friends in our first week of boarding school after he bowled me out at cricket and I hit him with my cricket bat in the changing room,’ Court sighed. ‘I broke his nose.’

Bryna had noticed that slight bump on the hawklike nose, laughing softly now as she envisaged the two little boys glaring at each other across a cricket bat, both taking their aggression at being away from home out on the other. ‘Stranger meetings have formed just as strong a friendship, I’m sure,’ she teased.

Court smiled, his eyes brimming with laughter. ‘It wasn’t the fight that caused the friendship,’ he assured her. ‘What did that was the fact that Raff told everyone he’d fallen over and hit his nose. If he hadn’t I would have been expelled in my first week of school!’

Two little boys who had bonded a lifetime friendship through resentment and pain. Maybe Raff Gallagher did have some redeeming qualities after all. One just had to dig deep to find them!

She made a point of not looking his way as she and Court got down to the serious business of discussing the models. Nevertheless, she was aware of the exact moment Raff Gallagher stood up to approach their table before leaving.

Grey eyes delved into her soul a second time. ‘We’ll meet again, Miss Fairchild,’ he murmured as he bent over the hand he had lifted to his mouth, his lips cool and yet moist.

‘Give me a chance, Raff!’ Court complained.

His friend chuckled huskily. ‘The choice will be Bryna’s,’ he said softly, meeting her gaze once again with compelling intensity before taking his leave.

‘It’s a no contest,’ groaned Court resignedly. ‘It always is.’

‘I can assure you Mr Gallagher holds no interest for me,’ Bryna dismissed primly.

When she got back to her office a box containing a single red rose lay on her desk. There was no card with it, but she guessed that it wasn’t from Court; he was the type of man who would sign his name with a flourish to the accompanying card if he found a woman attractive enough to send her flowers.