The Bride's Baby

‘Shall we go, Miss Smith?’ he prompted, opening it, waiting for her.

‘Go?’ She stood up very slowly. ‘Go where?’

‘To pick up all this expensive but completely useless junk that I’m about to pay for.’

Oh. No. Really. That was just pointless. Besides the fact that she was now, seriously, running out of time as well as breath. Her staff didn’t need her to hold their hands, but the pop diva was paying for that kind of service.

Sylvie was really annoyed with herself about that. Not the time—that was all down to Tom McFarlane. But the breath bit.

It wasn’t even as if he’d tried. Done a single thing to account for her raised pulse rate or the pitifully twisted state of her hormones.

Apart from looking at her.

It was, apparently, enough.

‘I’m qu-quite happy to dispose of it for you,’ she said quickly. She could at least spare him the indignity of having to haul it to the recycling centre. Then, when that offer wasn’t leapt on with grateful thanks, ‘Or I can arrange to have it delivered.’

It wasn’t as if he could be in a hurry for any of it.

‘If that’s more convenient for you,’ he said. Her relief was short-lived. ‘I assume you’re not planning to charge me for storage?’

‘Er, no…’

He nodded. ‘I’m leaving the country tonight—my diary has been cleared, the honeymoon villa paid for—but I can hold on to the cheque until I get back next month and we can finish this then.’

What?

‘I’ll give you a call when I get back, shall I?’

Give her a call…?

Everyone had their snapping point. His had been the wedding cake. This was hers.

‘You have got to be joking! I’ve already rearranged my afternoon for you and been kept waiting nearly an hour for my trouble. And I’ve got a party this evening.’

‘Your social life is not my problem.’

‘I don’t have a social life!’ she declared furiously.

‘Really?’ His glance was brief but all-encompassing, leaving her with the feeling that she’d been touched from head to foot in the most intimate way. And enjoying every moment of it.

Then he lifted one brow the merest fraction as if he knew…

‘Really,’ she snapped. Every waking moment of her life was spent making sure other people had a good time. ‘This is business. And my van, unlike me, can’t do two things at once.’

For some reason, that made him smile. And she’d been right about that too. Something about the way one corner of his mouth lifted, the skin crinkled around his eyes. The eyes heated…

‘No problem,’ he said, bringing her back to earth. ‘For a reasonable fee, I’ll hire your company one of mine.’

Beneath the riotous collage of balloons, streamers and showers of confetti with which Sylvie’s van—the one presently engaged elsewhere—was painted, you could just about make out that its original colour was, like her mood, black.

Tom McFarlane’s van was an identical model. Equally glossy and well cared for and equally black. In his case, however, the finish was unrelieved by anything more festive than his company’s gold logo—TMF enclosed in a cartouche—so familiar from that wretched cake.

They’d ridden in his private lift down to the parking basement in total silence. With no choice but to go along with him, she was too angry to trust herself to attempt small talk.

Her sympathy was history. Sylvie no longer cared what he was feeling.

Smug self-satisfaction, no doubt, at putting her to the maximum possible inconvenience just because he could.

He led the way past an equally black and gleaming Aston Martin that was, no doubt, his personal transport. Fast and classy with voluptuous cream leather upholstery, it fitted his specification perfectly.

For a car or a wife.

Shame on Candy for dumping him; he deserved her!

They reached the van. He unlocked it, slid open the driver’s door and held out the keys.

She stared at them.

She’d been tempted to insist on driving the van herself, if only to reclaim a little of the control which he’d wrested from her the moment she’d arrived at his office. If he was really serious about charging her for using it—and nothing about him so far suggested he had a sense of humour; his smile, when he’d finally let it go, had been pure wolf—it seemed eminently reasonable.

She’d had Tom McFarlane up to the eyebrows; he’d used up every particle of goodwill and she didn’t want to spend one more minute with him than was absolutely necessary.

But she also wanted this over and done with as quickly as possible and had been counting on the fact that macho man wouldn’t be able to stand by and watch her load and unload the thing by herself.

She might, of course, be fooling herself about that. It was quite possible he’d enjoy watching her work up a sweat as she earned every penny of her—reduced—fee. She was already regretting that twenty per cent. She’d earned every penny of it this afternoon.

Too late now. She’d just have to think of the eighty per cent she would be paid. The money for all those suppliers who’d put their heart and soul into making Candy’s dream come true. And her reputation for being the kind of solid, dependable businesswoman whose word, in a business that was not short on flakes, meant something. Trust that had taken time to garner when her centuries-old name had, overnight, become a liability…

‘I’d come and give you a hand but I have to take delivery of a cake.’ Then, ‘Do you need a hand up?’

‘No, thanks,’ she snapped back, snatching the keys from him and tossing her bag on to the passenger seat. ‘I’ve got one of these and I frequently drive it myself.’

‘Not in that skirt or those heels, I’ll bet.’

Oh, terrific!

That was where anger and speaking before your brain was engaged got you. But it was too late to change her mind because he didn’t give her the chance to do so and back down gracefully. Instead he gave one of those I’m-sure-you-know-best shrugs—the ones that implied it was the last thing he thought—and stood back, leaving her to get on with it.

Unfortunately, getting on with it involved hoisting her narrow skirt up far enough to enable her to step up into the cab. Which was far enough for Tom McFarlane to get the full stocking tops and lace underwear experience.

The up side—there had to be an up side—was that it would be his breathing under attack for a change.

‘Not that I’m complaining,’ he assured her, apparently perfectly in control of his breathing.

And a good thing too, she decided. One of them ought to be in control of their bodily functions. Not that she bothered to dignify his remark with an answer, but let her skirt drop, smoothing it primly beneath her as she sat down, before placing the key in the ignition.

‘What kept you?’