The Bridegroom's Dilemma

‘Is that what you think? That I tried to dominate Skye?’

‘Wouldn’t put it past you.’

They gazed at each other until Florence reddened suddenly and looked away. ‘Sorry,’ she said stiffly, ‘it’s not my place—’

‘No.’ Nick waved a hand. ‘You’re perfectly entitled to speak your mind. If nothing else it’s brought one thing home to me. As I’m going to feature as the villain of the piece, it might be a good idea to leave town for a while.’

‘You’re still…you’re being flippant,’ Florence pointed out frustratedly. ‘Didn’t she mean anything to you?’

It was Nick’s turn to look away and for a moment there was something entirely serious, even dark about him. But he broke the moment with a faint smile, and said almost gently, ‘Flo, I will always love Skye in a way. But, for reasons that matter only to the two of us, we would not suit. Surely it’s better to have found this out before the wedding?’

‘You need to get away for a while, darling,’ Iris Belmont said to her daughter over dinner that same evening. ‘Doesn’t this series of the show close shortly for a recess? That usually gives you three months before you start taping the next series, or something like that.’

‘Yes. But there’s still work to be done on the next series, my new book…’ Skye inspected her meal then pushed her plate away. ‘Sorry, I’m not hungry, Mum.’

‘You could work on your new book anywhere,’ Iris pointed out. ‘You might make even pick up some new ideas for it.’

‘I guess so. Look—’ Skye stood up ‘—I’ll think about it,’ she promised. ‘In the meantime I’m going to have an early night. Please don’t worry about me. I’m…I’ll be fine!’

Famous last words, she thought as she lay on her bed in the house she’d grown up in and had retreated to after breaking her engagement. She had her own flat not that far away but, apart from being alone, which her mother had insisted she shouldn’t be, being prey to the media hadn’t recommended itself to her.

It was a blue room, her bedroom in her mother’s house. Blue to match her eyes, frilly and appropriate for a little girl but not much comfort for a woman who had loved and lost Nick Hunter.

She let her mind drift back to how they’d met over a year ago. Cooking had always been her passion, a passion passed onto her by her mother. After her father’s death when she was twenty, she and her mother had invested their inheritance into a small, chic restaurant that had taken off overnight.

And one of their regular clients, a television producer, had offered Skye a guest spot on a cooking program. Before she’d had time to pinch herself, she often thought, she had her own show that worked on a tried, not particularly original formula but it had worked amazingly well. She went into the home of a celebrity, took over the kitchen and cooked their favourite dishes for them.

What had puzzled her at first was the metamorphosis that came over her when she was in front of the cameras. She’d always been a reserved person, her teens had been plagued by shyness and she’d had a very sheltered childhood. Yet on the small screen she came across as bubbly, worldly, humorous and able to make people laugh—and before long, at twenty-two, she’d been unable to go to the supermarket without being recognized.

She’d discussed this paradox with her producer and he’d pointed out that by all accounts Rowan Atkinson was a shy, reserved person. He’d also told her that it was her passion for her subject that gave her her onair confidence. And assured her that the way she dealt with her celebrities flowed on from it.

Off-screen confidence in some areas had also gradually flowed from it, she’d found, although fame and constantly being recognized had proved to be a bit of a problem. On the other hand, fame and a relative amount of fortune had seen her able to hire help for the restaurant, although her mother still supervised it, and had seen her first cookbook leap off the shelves.

Then, one day, it was in Nick Hunter’s kitchen that she’d found herself doing a show. Of course she’d heard of him. His father was reputed to be one of the wealthiest men in the country. His mother was a renowned psychologist. His sister designed couturier clothes and lived in Paris. He himself was second-in-command of the vast empire his father had carved mainly from minerals.

He flew his own plane around the country, had a passion for motor racing as well as speedboats and competed as an amateur. In fact anything fast and racy, including women, often appeared in the same context as Nick Hunter.

She’d been surprised, therefore, when he’d immediately divined her determination to be unimpressed by him behind the scenes. And more surprised when, by a mysterious process, he’d turned their on-air time into one of the best shows she’d ever done. Hilarious, warm and as if a certain chemistry existed between them as she showed him how to boil an egg.

She could even remember saying indignantly to her mother when they’d watched the show together, ‘How did he do that? He’s not the kind of man who impresses me at all.’

Her mother had looked quizzical. ‘He’s rather gorgeous, though. I mean physically,’ she’d amended hastily, discovering herself on the receiving end of a speaking look from her daughter.

‘He’s also a playboy if I’m not very much mistaken,’ Skye had said coolly.

‘Oh, to be sure. A right breaker of hearts, I have no doubt. Lucky you’re not an impressionable girl, Skye,’ Iris had added, but with a little twinkle in her eye that had caused her daughter to look affronted then start to laugh reluctantly.

‘OK—tall, dark and dangerously attractive,’ she’d conceded ruefully. ‘He still, well, puts my hackles up.’

What had further put her hackles up was to discover that the ratings for the Hunter show had been astronomical, causing her to be the blue-eyed girl of the station in more ways than one.

She’d remonstrated with herself over this state of mind. She was being ridiculous and, if anything, she should have bought the most expensive bottle of champagne she could find for Nick Hunter—only he’d got in first. With flowers and a lunch invitation.

Go! everyone had insisted. But what had made her go, she’d thought at the time, was a determination to prove to Nick that she could remain unimpressed by him.

Now, as she lay dry-eyed but miserable on her bed, she had to acknowledge that she’d probably been impressed from the first time his dark eyes had lingered on her. From the moment he’d unwound his tall, spare frame from a low armchair and run his fingers through his straight dark hair when she and the television crew had descended upon him.

And going to lunch with him that first time had definitely been a mistake, in hindsight, she also conceded.

Because he’d done nothing at all to cement her playboy image of him—the opposite if anything. He’d told her about his particular passion—for rocks, as it happened. He was a geologist, he told her, and, be they iron ore, gold, silver, tin or diamond-bearing rocks, he found them exceedingly fascinating. He’d also told her he was never happier than when he was prospecting, living in a tent somewhere.

Prepared for a sophisticated, seductive onslaught of some kind, she had relaxed unwittingly. Three hours later, she’d been unable to believe the time had passed so swiftly, or been so interesting.

And Nick Hunter had watched the slight confusion that came to her expression with a little glint of something she couldn’t identify at the time in his dark eyes.

Because he was aware that beneath her TV persona there lurked a different Skye Belmont; he had divined it at their first encounter when her beautiful sky-blue eyes had been distinctly cool. And, although he couldn’t put his finger on it, it had been enough to intrigue him. In what way could she be different underneath from all the other bright, worldly girls who littered his path? And if so—why?

Had Skye been privy to his thoughts at the time, she would have known that he also knew exactly how to reel her in… It was something she was later to throw up at him.

He’d ended the lunch on a friendly, casual note, made no reference to their meeting again and left her with an oddly intimate handshake. She hadn’t heard from him again for two months.

For the first week of those two months she’d been strangely insulated from just about everything, work included. Because she couldn’t get over how much she’d enjoyed Nick Hunter’s company, how ordinary it had been—yet not ordinary at all. He’d been witty, serious, he’d got her to talk about her opinions on books, films, politics, and had responded in kind. It had been like having lunch with a very good friend.

At the same time, though, there’d been this sudden awareness of him flowing through her. Not, at first, in a particularly sensual way but little things—such as how she liked that he was lean and rangy, she liked his hands and the way he smiled, his voice. It had only occurred to her after they’d parted that just once his dark eyes had rested on her in a way that was particularly adult.

It had been in the moment of confusion when she’d realized they’d spent three whole hours together. And that drifting gaze had, almost objectively, she thought later, seen through her clothes but, more, read her soul.

This discovery had caused her to shiver slightly for a reason she couldn’t explain, but the more she thought about it, the more she saw it as a danger sign—and the more everything about Nick Hunter started to plague her. Then the weeks had passed and her feeling of friendship, already eroded, had hardened into something she despised herself for but couldn’t help—sheer pique.

So the fact that he caught her completely unprepared two months after their lunch, and not as the result of him getting in touch with her, didn’t help her much.

She tried, as she lay on her bed, to resist being transported back in time to that meeting but it was useless…

‘Going my way, lady?’

The voice was the voice of her rather bitter dreams but it brought her up short in the act of stepping into a lift in a smart city hotel, on her way to a cocktail party to celebrate the release of a new wine.

She turned slowly with her heart suddenly pounding, and Nick Hunter was standing behind her, all the lean length of him clad in black: black open-necked shirt, black trousers and with his straight dark hair flopping on his forehead.

‘Oh, it’s you,’ she said unoriginally, although she wasn’t unhappy with the lack of enthusiasm in her voice.

‘Mmm,’ he murmured, letting his gaze drift over her in that disturbing way he had, ‘and a very beautiful-looking you, Ms Belmont. But cool. Distinctly cool…’

The word seemed to dangle in the air between them as she looked down at herself in some confusion.

She wore a short, bias-cut dress with a vee neck in a floating silk georgette over a taffeta slip. The cap sleeves were unlined, the colour was a beautiful Prussian blue with a shadowy dusky pink pattern on it and she wore silver high-heeled sandals. Her long, slender legs were bare and her fair hair was in its natural curly bob to her shoulders. She wore a minimum of make-up and her lips were painted a dusky pink. All she carried was a tiny blue purse.

‘Should I be any different?’ she asked, having used the moment to banish the confusion and starch her soul against this man, as their gazes caught and held again.