The Reunion Lie

‘In the name of all that’s holy, why?’

‘My sister was bullied and it was only when she stood up to them that she got over it. You need to deal with it so you can move on.’

‘I have, thank you very much, Mr Amateur Psychologist, and I am.’

He arched a sceptical eyebrow. ‘Really?’

‘OK, so I’m a work in progress.’

‘I can help.’

‘They’d see through us in a second.’

‘No, they wouldn’t. I’m in advertising.’

For a second she just stared at him in uncomprehending disbelief. ‘What on earth does that have to do with anything?’

‘It involves manipulating perception and getting people to believe what they’re told regardless of whether it’s the truth or not, and I’m an expert.’

‘Your cynicism runs deep.’

‘Luckily so does my creativity.’

‘Believe me, it’s not a patch on mine,’ said Zoe darkly. ‘You do not want to hear the stuff I’ve made up.’

‘Don’t I? I’m rather keen to find out the exceptional talents you’ve given me.’

She clutched at his shirt and stared at him wildly. ‘Why are you being so persistent about this?’

‘I don’t think I want to let you go just yet.’ Of everything that had been running through his brain that was the one thing of which he was certain. He wanted some more of those kisses. He wanted more of her.

‘So let’s talk on the pavement outside. Let’s go to a different bar, a restaurant, anywhere away from here.’

‘I also don’t like bullies.’

‘Neither do I, but they’re mine to deal with, and—’

‘Zoe!’

‘Oh, God,’ she muttered, her voice shaking as the strident female tone came from right behind them. ‘I told you it would be too late.’ She dropped her head onto his chest. ‘This is going to be a disaster,’ she said, her words muffled against his shirt. ‘A total unmitigated disaster.’

* * *

Despite Zoe’s misgivings, her frustration that her escape plan had been thwarted and her deeply felt conviction that Dan had ruined everything, things weren’t turning out to be as bad as she’d anticipated.

With her contemporaries flocking around them she really had feared the worst, but by that stage she’d had no choice but to extricate herself from Dan’s arms to face Samantha and her little bunch of cohorts and imminent disaster.

Lacking his confidence, she’d made the introductions with apprehension and nerves twisting her stomach into knots, absolutely certain that the women, Samantha especially, would immediately see straight through her, Dan and their pseudo romance. She’d been waiting on tenterhooks for the fragile house of cards she’d built to collapse, and preparing herself to run and hide and never show her face in public again.

But in fact things couldn’t be going better, and she was beginning to think she actually ought to be thanking him for making her follow through with this.

Once the introductions were out of the way and drinks had been bought Dan had slid into the role of her boyfriend with surprising ease, swapping small talk with aplomb while displaying such an impressively wide knowledge of everything from London’s social calendar to Tuscan hot spots that she didn’t think he was even having to fake it.

He certainly couldn’t be faking the charm with which he had people eating out of his hand. It was totally natural, dazzling and hypnotic, and she could only envy the way he was entertaining everyone so effortlessly and so compellingly that they were buzzing round him like social climbers in the vicinity of a member of royalty.

OK, so it probably didn’t hurt that he was so gorgeous to look at, she had to admit, casting a surreptitious glance up at him over the rim of her glass. She felt the oddly drugging heat that had filled her when they’d kissed properly begin to spread through her again, but it was more than that. It was something within him, something powerful, magnetic and totally mesmerising, and it made the Dan she’d first met seem nothing more than a brief aberration.

If she weren’t so distracted by the aftermath of that kiss and the weird swimming sensation going on in her head she’d be watching and learning, because while she sucked at interpersonal relationships she had the impression that Dan Forrester excelled at them.

‘So, Dan,’ she heard Harriet née Williams now Denham-Davis and one of Samantha’s more docile cronies say. ‘Zoe tells us you’re hugely successful.’

Tuning back into the conversation she should never really have left, Zoe fought the urge to roll her eyes and gazed up at him with what she hoped was adoration instead.

‘Oh, I don’t know about that,’ he said, smiling down at her so warmly that her insides went all fluttery. ‘She over-exaggerates, don’t you, darling?’

‘I couldn’t possibly, Honeybun,’ she said, flashing him a dazzling smile in return and marvelling at the way he didn’t even bat an eyelid at the cringe-worthy term of endearment she’d given the girls when she’d been asked what her fictitious boyfriend was called and had been unable to drum up a suitable name fast enough.

‘What field are you in?’ asked Harriet.

‘Advertising.’

‘Ooh, how dashingly creative,’ she said. ‘Which firm?’

‘DBF Associates.’

Crikey, thought Zoe with a bit of a start. Even she’d heard of that one. It was one of the most successful advertising agencies in London. She’d read somewhere that it was cutting-edge and award-winning and employed only the best.

‘And what do you do there?’ asked Harriet.

‘I own it.’

Zoe just about managed to keep her jaw from hitting the floor, because for one thing what Dan did for a living—and she couldn’t see why he’d be making this up when he hadn’t had to make anything up so far—was surely something his adoring girlfriend would know, and for another what was so surprising about the fact that he ran his own successful business? After all, she did, didn’t she, and she was a lot less sorted than he seemed to be.

Still, she couldn’t help being impressed—although perhaps not in the same way as Harriet and Samantha, who were letting out little sighs of approval while the pound signs, she fancied, lit up their eyes and the sounds of ker-ching rattled through their brains.

‘And would you be one of the Ashwicke Forresters?’ said Harriet, having established Dan’s professional and, by extension, financial status and clearly deciding to move on to the social.

‘I am,’ he said.

Who or what the Ashwicke Forresters were remained a mystery to Zoe, but Harriet was practically quivering with delight—even the navy velvet Alice band that Zoe suspected was the same one she’d worn at school trembled—and her eyes were sparkling. ‘Oh, how thrilling. I met your parents once years ago. At the Queen Mary’s Ball, I think it was. Absolutely delightful. How are they?’

‘Divorced,’ he said flatly.

‘Oh,’ said Harriet, her eyes widening and losing some of that sparkle as the air thickened with awkwardness. ‘Well. I’m sorry to hear that.’

‘Are you?’ Dan said archly, and as Zoe caught a trace of steel beneath the charming exterior she felt her heartstrings twang. Clearly the subject of his parents’ divorce was a touchy one. As was marriage perhaps, she thought, because gorgeous successful single men over the age of thirty who didn’t have a problem with commitment or excess emotional baggage were rare. So should the conversation ever get round to the imminent proposal she’d hinted at—and in all honesty she didn’t hold out much hope that it wouldn’t—maybe she could do him a favour and release him from that particular obligation.

His abrupt tone might have tugged at Zoe’s heartstrings, but it had taken the other two very aback if the lull in conversation was anything to go by. However, St Catherine’s girls never let conversation stagnate for long, and Zoe wasn’t the least bit surprised to see Samantha recover first.