The Reunion Lie

Another flash caught his attention and he jerked his head away from the woman in front of him and scanned the room until his gaze fell on a guy holding a camera and taking a series of group shots of the women on the far side of the pub.

And then as he realised that the photos weren’t of him, they weren’t of her, and the guy with the camera wasn’t a paparazzo, and that he had got it wrong, he inwardly groaned. God, maybe he was the one who’d gone mad.

‘Forget it,’ he muttered, briefly wondering whether at some point in the not too distant future he oughtn’t address his attitude towards women because surely not all of them could be out for everything they could get.

‘Not a chance,’ she said with a little snort. ‘Who are you?’

‘Dan Forrester,’ he replied and automatically braced himself for the spark of recognition that usually came with his name.

But this time it didn’t come. In fact, she was staring at him utterly blankly and he wasn’t sure what to make of it.

‘I don’t mean to be rude,’ she said, now looking a bit embarrassed, ‘but is that supposed to mean something?’

‘Doesn’t it?’

She shook her head. ‘I’m afraid not. But then I don’t take much of an interest in anything other than work, so if you haven’t appeared in Significance then it’s entirely possible you’ve slipped beneath my radar.’ She shrugged. ‘Sorry.’

‘Significance?’

‘It’s a magazine about statistics and data interpretation. Riveting if you’re into that sort of thing, boring as hell if you’re not.’

‘And you are?’

She nodded. ‘For my sins. I’m a statistician. But getting back to the point, I think you might have misinterpreted my kiss.’

No surprise there. Quite a shock though when her gaze dropped to his mouth and lingered for a second, and he found himself a split second away from grabbing her and kissing her in a way that left no room for misinterpretation.

Dan swallowed back the impulse, shoved his hands deep in the pockets of his jeans in case they got ideas and reminded himself to concentrate. ‘So why did you throw yourself at me?’ he asked, rather more interested in her answer than he thought he ought to be.

She snapped her gaze back up to meet his and gave herself a quick shake. ‘Oh. Well. It was all part of my plan.’

‘What plan?’

‘The one I came up with five minutes ago.’

‘That was quick.’

She sighed. ‘Way too quick as it turns out. It’s my very makeshift, badly thought out, and with hindsight a total mistake plan.’

‘But one that somehow involves me?’

‘I was rather hoping so.’

‘How?’

Her eyes clouded over again and the panic he thought he’d glimpsed earlier flared in their depths. ‘I’ve got myself into a bit of a fix and I need your help.’

Her voice suddenly held a faint tremble and her body tensed and Dan went still, every instinct he possessed telling him to get away from her right now because, while he might have been wrong in his assessment of her motives earlier, he didn’t do damsels in distress—however attracted to them he was—and he didn’t do help, and nothing good would come of changing his mind about any of that now.

But although his brain was waving great warning signs alerting him to the possible dangers of sticking around, something was keeping his mouth from forming a parting shot and something was keeping his feet from moving. To his alarm he was rooted to the spot, strangely transfixed and unusually bothered by the desperation she was emanating, and he was mystified as to why. Surely he couldn’t actually be interested in hearing her out, could he?

‘What kind of a fix?’ he muttered since he could hardly carry on standing there in silence.

‘See that bunch of women over there?’ She smiled over his shoulder at them and gave a little wave.

He winced as one of them shrieked with laughter. ‘They’re impossible to miss.’

‘I know.’

‘What’s the occasion?’

‘School reunion.’

‘Fun?’ He couldn’t think of anything worse, but then he’d hated his school years.

She shuddered. ‘Absolutely horrendous.’

‘So what are you doing here?’

‘I thought it would be cathartic.’

‘And is it?’

‘No.’

‘Then why not just leave?’

‘Another excellent question.’ She sighed and bit her lip and his gaze dipped to watch, his mouth going dry as he involuntarily imagined nibbling on that lip himself. ‘You’d think that would have been the sensible thing to do, wouldn’t you? The logical thing... But tonight my common sense and logic seem to have deserted me.’

Dan cleared his throat and thought that the same could be applied to him. ‘How unfortunate,’ he said and told himself that it might be a good idea to try and stay cool and aloof if he was ever going to extricate himself from the mess he seemed intent on submerging himself in.

‘It is. Very. It’s never happened to me before.’ She frowned. ‘I don’t normally go around kissing strange men, you know.’

‘I’m glad to hear it.’ And oddly enough he was. ‘So why did you?’

She tilted her head and regarded him contemplatively, as if mentally debating whether and how to continue. ‘Have you ever been to a school reunion hoping to impress everyone with the success you’ve achieved?’ she asked eventually.

‘No.’ Hell would freeze over first. And besides, if anyone was interested they could read about it in the papers like everyone else seemed to want to.

‘Well, I was.’ She sighed. ‘But it turns out that none of them could care less about any of that. All that any of them can bang on about is their husbands and children.’

At the resignation and disdain in her voice Dan couldn’t help feeling a stab of sympathy despite his intention to remain detached, because he knew what it was like to be on the receiving end of that kind of conversation. ‘Now that does sound bad.’

‘It’s awful. I have neither and there’s only so much chat about school league tables and the importance of baby violin classes I can stomach, which is, I’ve discovered, not a lot.’

‘I’m not surprised. How on earth does a baby get to grips with a violin?’

‘I didn’t dare ask.’ She closed her eyes briefly, pinched the bridge of her nose and gave her head a shake of what looked like hopelessness. ‘And they’re the most appalling snobs.’