Return Engagement

‘My relationship—or otherwise—with Gerald is none of your concern,’ she told him waspishly, her eyes flashing.

‘I would make it so, Cyn,’ he assured her softly, warningly.

She frowned across at him, that frown deepening at the stark bitterness in that harshly hewn face. ‘You have no right, Wolf,’ she choked. ‘No right at all!’

‘I have every right, damn you!’ he began fiercely, his eyes glittering deeply gold as he took a threatening step towards her. ‘You—’

‘I couldn’t find it, Cyn,’ a slightly breathless Janie came back into the room at that moment, her face slightly flushed from her exertions. ‘I looked in the back of the van as well as the front and I—’

‘I found the notebook, Janie,’ Cyn told her guiltily, knowing she had wasted Janie’s time, as well as her own, trying to talk to Wolf alone in these circumstances; the differences between Wolf and herself were too deeply embedded to be dealt with in a few minutes of private conversation between them. ‘I realised it was in my bag after all almost as soon as you’d left the room, but by that time it was too late to stop you. I’m sorry about that,’ she smiled apologetically at the other girl, although to her credit, Janie didn’t look in the least put out; she was preoccupied once again gazing up enchanted at Wolf!

And he was looking at Cyn with such a look of intense dislike that a shiver of apprehension ran the length of her spine. They might not have resolved anything by their conversation just now, the intensity of his gaze seemed to say, but then the conversation was far from over. Oh, God!

Cyn turned gratefully towards the door as it opened to readmit Gerald, closely followed by the errant Rebecca. Cyn’s relief turned to dismay as she realised it was the girl from the garden...

All signs of recent tears had been completely erased by the subtle use of make-up. Rebecca Harcourt was even more beautiful close to like this, her skin flawless, her features smooth and even. And if there was a lingering anxiety in the deep blue of her eyes, Cyn felt sure she was the only one aware of it.

‘I’m so sorry I kept you waiting.’ Rebecca’s voice was huskily low—from those recent tears, or naturally so, Cyn couldn’t be sure. ‘I didn’t realise you were here,’ she added awkwardly.

But, to Cyn’s puzzlement, the remarks weren’t being made to her. Rebecca was looking up at Wolf as she crossed the room to his side.

‘Hello, darling.’ Rebecca reached up to kiss him lightly on the lips. ‘I’m so glad you could get away from the office so we could both talk to Miss Smith about the arrangements for the wedding.’ Now she turned towards Cyn, smiling a welcome.

Cyn just stared. She couldn’t have made a response even if she had wanted to. Wolf was Rebecca’s bridegroom...?

‘You know, I suddenly realised after I’d gone off in search of Rebecca,’ Gerald spoke ruefully, ‘that I never did get around to introducing Wolf to you, Cyn.’ He squeezed her arm apologetically for his oversight. ‘This is Wolf Thornton, my daughter’s fiancé.’

Wolf was the bridegroom!

CHAPTER TWO

‘SOME people have all the luck,’ Janie sighed at Cyn’s side as they made the drive back to the office a short time later.

‘Hmm?’ Cyn answered distractedly, still too shaken to even try to guess to what Janie was alluding; she had just spent almost an hour going through what arrangements the ‘happy couple’ would like for their August wedding, with Wolf being as objectionable as he could be without making it look like yet another personal attack on her. Or perhaps he was always like that nowadays? She hadn’t thought of that.

‘Rebecca Thornton,’ Janie enlightened her with another sigh. ‘It doesn’t seem fair that she has a gorgeous father like that and a sexy fiancé most women would kill for!’

Cyn couldn’t help her half-smile. ‘I don’t think having a good-looking father counts,’ she said ruefully.

‘Perhaps not,’ the other girl conceded with a dismissive shrug. ‘But Wolf Thornton is something else!’

Oh, he was ‘something else’ all right, Cyn acknowledged inwardly; although exactly what he was, she wasn’t about to regale Janie with!

‘I wonder where the gardener fits into all this?’ Janie added thoughtfully.

Cyn sobered; she had been wondering the same thing. They certainly hadn’t imagined the intensity of the encounter between Rebecca and the young gardener, on Rebecca’s part at least; they hadn’t actually seen the young man emerge from the gazebo, Gerald’s arrival in the small sitting-room distracting their attention from the garden at that moment. But it was safe to assume, from the little they had seen, that the gardener did ‘fit in’ somewhere!

If it had been anyone else but Wolf who was the bridegroom in this job, Cyn probably wouldn’t have given it another thought; after all, it was none of her business whom the bride chose to meet, in the open or otherwise. All that concerned her was that the bride turned up on the wedding-day, and that all the arrangements ran as smoothly as they were supposed to. But the bridegroom was Wolf—

God, she could still hardly believe that! Rebecca was twenty at a guess—younger, not older, if anything, and Wolf was already thirty-five, a mature, experienced thirty-five at that; why on earth was he marrying a girl almost young enough to be his daughter? More to the point, why was Rebecca marrying him, when at the same time she was having assignations with young gardeners at her father’s home! Cyn didn’t doubt that Wolf would be furiously angry if he should ever find out about that. Not that she, for one, intended telling him, but perhaps Rebecca should...?

She had watched the engaged couple when she didn’t think she was being observed herself; they seemed to get on well enough, although hardly in a lover-like way, Wolf treating Rebecca with the same indulgence her father did, Rebecca slightly in awe of him as she deferred to him over every decision. Even over where she should buy her wedding-dress! Cyn certainly wouldn’t have consulted him—

What was she thinking of? This was Rebecca’s marriage to Wolf, a relationship she could already see was in serious trouble. Although perhaps not. How did she know what arrangement Rebecca and Wolf had for after their wedding? Wolf was a stranger to her now, bearing little resemblance to the man she had known—thought she had known?—seven years ago, so perhaps he and Rebecca were going to have the sort of relationship where they both had other friends, lovers, as well as each other.

It was somehow a depressing thought to have about a marriage that hadn’t even begun yet.

Whatever, the last hour had been one of the most traumatic of Cyn’s life. She had been constantly on edge in case Wolf should finally say something that would reveal to the Harcourts that the two of them had met before, which would be very embarrassing when they had behaved like strangers from the outset. Embarrassing for Wolf too, but, as she knew from experience, he didn’t give a damn what people thought of him, and it would be a way of scoring off her.

And the longer the meeting carried on, without him saying something, the more tense and agitated Cyn had become. Especially as Wolf had seemed to become more and more relaxed as he obviously—to her—enjoyed her growing discomfort, that golden-brown gaze never far from her flushed face. Damn him!

And as she and Janie had taken their leave, she had known from Wolf’s expression that this wasn’t the last she was going to see of him for another seven years, that, whatever the outcome of this wedding, he would make sure of that!

‘Perhaps he doesn’t fit in at all.’ Janie gave a dismissive shrug at Cyn’s lack of a verbal response. ‘After all, what woman in her right mind would even look at another man when she was going to marry someone like Wolf Thornton?’

Cyn gave a pained wince; what woman, indeed! How naïve poor Janie still was at eighteen; she hadn’t yet realised that there was much more to choosing a life’s partner than the way he looked. But the important question was, had Rebecca Harcourt realised it, now that it was almost too late and she was due to marry in a few months’ time? Almost...? It was too late, with Wolf as the bridegroom!

She determinedly put the Harcourt-Thornton wedding from her mind once they got back to the office; she had a business to run, and she wouldn’t be able to do that effectively if she allowed herself to think of Wolf. She had spent seven years not thinking about him, and, while it hadn’t always been easy, she had somehow managed to get on with her life. He had no right disrupting things for her in this way when she was on the brink of finally making a breakthrough with her business. The unfortunate factor was that Wolf’s wedding to Rebecca Harcourt was going to be instrumental in helping her achieve that breakthrough!

She picked the receiver up automatically when the telephone rang a short time after their return, although she immediately tensed when the caller identified herself as Rebecca Harcourt.

‘What can I do for you, Miss Harcourt?’ she enquired with polite distance. She usually made a point of getting on friendly terms with all the brides she dealt with. She had found from experience that it made things better all round if the two of them could talk easily together, but that wasn’t going to be easy for her with this girl, not when Wolf was the man Rebecca intended marrying!

‘Rebecca, please,’ the girl requested a little breathlessly. ‘And what you can do for me is—well—’

‘Yes?’ Cyn prompted when she realised Rebecca seemed to be having difficulty finishing what she wanted to say. ‘If it’s that you’ve decided you don’t want to use my agency after all, please don’t worry that I’ll be offended,’ she added lightly—in the circumstances, she would be relieved if this turned out to be the case! ‘I realise that perhaps your father put you in a position where—’

‘Oh, it isn’t that,’ Rebecca hastened to reassure her. ‘I’m sure that your help with things is going to be invaluable,’ she accepted distractedly. ‘I just—’ She broke off awkwardly.

‘Yes?’ Cyn urged again, more gently this time, sensing the girl’s strain. And what was the point of her being distant with Rebecca? It wasn’t the girl’s fault that she was marrying Wolf, of all people!

‘I— Could you—?’

Oh, dear! Cyn had a feeling that the meeting Rebecca had had with the gardener in the gazebo was going to be important after all!

‘Everything’s going too fast.’ Rebecca finally seemed to find the right words, sounding relieved as she did. ‘I’m sure I’m not the first bride you’ve found to have a touch of pre-wedding nerves,’ she attempted to dismiss lightly. ‘I just—well, I want you to slow down on the arrangements for a bit,’ she added brightly, obviously feeling more confident now. ‘There’s no rush, and—’

‘The wedding date is only four months away,’ Cyn reminded her quietly.

‘Well, yes. But— Well—’

‘How about if just the two of us got together for a chat?’ Cyn took pity on her. As Rebecca said, she was accustomed to dealing with last-minute jitters, but four months away could hardly be called ‘last-minute.’ Besides, she had a feeling this was so much more serious than that.

‘Oh, yes,’ Rebecca agreed gratefully. ‘That would be marvellous. I could—try to explain, then.’

Cyn doubted that very much. She had a feeling Rebecca was trying to deny the truth even to herself. ‘How about if I come back to the house tomorrow, and we can—?’

‘Oh, not here!’ Rebecca cut in sharply. ‘What I mean is,’ she forced her voice to sound lightly dismissive, ‘why don’t we have lunch together somewhere, at least make the meeting enjoyable?’