The Business Arrangement

Hugh frowned. ‘Why should she think anything? It’s the obvious thing to do. We can settle the final details later.’ He turned to Seb. ‘I do need to head back. Are you walking over to the house later?’

‘Give us an hour. There’s no desperate hurry. I drove the picnic over to the cricket pitch before any decent human being should be awake so we’ve bagged our spot.’

Amy let the conversation carry on without her as she slipped out of the door and up the narrow cottage stairs to her bedroom at the back of the house. Unobserved and unremarked upon, she thought, flopping on the black antique bed covered with the patchwork quilt her mum had finished the summer before she’d died.

Twenty-three today and unemployed—as Hugh had said. It was actually a bit depressing. Except not unemployed any longer. Somehow she’d agreed to become Hugh’s PA and anything more degrading she could scarcely imagine. If he imagined for one moment she was going to make his tea and field telephone calls from would-be girlfriends, he was going to be disappointed.

But protect him from Sonya? Yes, she would do that.

She looked up at the crack in the low ceiling. And she’d have to stay in his home. There was no choice. The sofa bed in Seb’s flat wasn’t very appealing and her bank balance wouldn’t stretch to the cost of commuting.

It would be nice to think Calantha wouldn’t like it. It wasn’t at all flattering for Hugh to be so completely unaware of her as a woman. She obviously hadn’t registered on his antennae as anything other than ‘little Amy, Seb’s kid sister’. Which shouldn’t bother her at all—but did. Obviously.

Jumping off the bed, she lifted the latch on the cupboard door where she kept her clothes and looked despairingly at the meagre contents. The cheque her father had sent for her birthday might have been used to buy something with ‘wow’ factor for the regatta, but it had arrived this morning and there hadn’t been time.

The dress code was so specific: no trousers, no skirts with a split, not even the kind that wrapped around. The tiniest hint of a thigh had been known to cause apoplexy in the Stewards’ Enclosure and would certainly result in being refused entrance. But then what did you expect when the rules had been created in the nineteenth century? All of which left her with no choice. The only dress she possessed that fell below the regulation knee length was a recent charity-shop buy in beige. It was pleasant, it was boring and it was as unremarkable as she was.

And who was she kidding? Hugh just had to sit there in his immaculately cut trousers and fix his deep blue eyes on her and she forgot he was shallow and arrogant with an appalling attitude to women.

Immune to Hugh? Of course she wasn’t! Never had been.

She should be immune to him, should be completely inured to his sexy eyes and throaty laugh—but she wasn’t. But at least she could make a fantastic job of making sure he didn’t suspect it.

Amy threw the dress on the bed and swiped at the fly buzzing about the room before watching it bash itself against the small glass window-pane. That just about covered how she felt about herself. Damn.

CHAPTER TWO

CALANTHA RAINFORD-SMYTHE was everything she remembered.

Amy stood next to her, completely dwarfed and feeling more sparrow-like than even she’d anticipated. There was some small consolation in watching the difficulty Calantha was having in preventing her spiky stiletto heels sinking into the soft grass of the Champagne Lawn. It made her grateful for her own flat pumps.

But there was no consolation to be found in the matter of Calantha’s soft coral dress. It fell to the regulation below-knee length but the back looped so low you knew she couldn’t be wearing a bra and the silk fabric skimmed her bottom so closely it suggested she couldn’t be wearing knickers either.

Amy sipped at her chilled fizzy alcohol and watched Calantha’s possessive hand, beautifully manicured, move to rest gently on Hugh’s cream blazer. She’d seen Hugh with beautiful women so many times over the years, but there was something about this one that really set her teeth on edge. She was so self-assured. So perfect. So…unlike her, she thought with a wave of inadequacy.

‘Hugh and I went to the Maldives this February. We had a simply marvellous time, didn’t we, darling?’ she said with a turn of the head that set her earrings swinging, drawing attention to a long and impossibly graceful neck. ‘We stayed at Kanuhura, which is only about forty minutes by seaplane from Male.’

It was obvious what Hugh saw in her. She was stunning to look at. She probably looked great in a bikini on a beach in the Maldives, but Calantha was still a condescending snob with a sweet, sickly voice that personally made Amy feel nauseous.

‘We stayed in a water villa. Totally fabulous. They’re built on stilts with steps that lead directly into the water,’ she continued, with an expressive wave of her manicured hand.

Amy looked away. Standing around eavesdropping on Calantha’s conversation wasn’t her idea of a great way to spend a birthday. Her eyes scanned the sky and watched ominous grey clouds blow across. They’d be lucky if the rain held off. She pulled her cardigan closer round her shoulders and wondered how Calantha could stand there looking elegant in practically nothing. The wretched woman didn’t even seem to have a goose-pimple anywhere.

Looking back at her, she caught Hugh’s eyes watching her. They twinkled engagingly as though it were a shared moment of amusement. Her mouth instinctively twitched as she felt his boredom radiate across the gap between them.

She allowed herself a small smile and gave half an ear to Calantha’s eulogising about other perfect holiday destinations. Ben appeared to be enthralled and Jasper’s girlfriend was gamely trying to outdo the blonde beauty in gushiness.

Seb touched her gently on the arm. ‘When you’ve finished your drink, shall we go back to the car and set up the picnic? Ben wants to be back here by two to watch some friends row.’

‘Do you need some help with that?’ Hugh asked, cutting across Calantha.

‘If you like,’ Seb agreed. ‘Amy’s not much use lifting out the hamper.’ He took her empty glass out of her hand and passed it to Ben. ‘Find somewhere to leave this. Give us half an hour and follow on. Same pitch as last year.’

Amy allowed herself to be propelled by a firm hand in the small of her back. Anything would be preferable to standing around listening to a boring conversation about places she couldn’t afford to visit and people she’d never met.

Last year she’d quite enjoyed Henley Royal Regatta—but then last year Hugh hadn’t been able to leave London. He’d been busy with a party of friends over from the States and had rung Seb to cancel. She’d quite enjoyed a day people-watching: handsome, athletic men wandering around and foolish ones drinking far too much. Ben, by virtue of now living in the quintessential English town of Henley, had become an associate member of the world-famous Leander Club and had taken them to tea. It had been pleasant.

This year, Hugh held court. When he was home everything always revolved around him and it irritated her. Even as she agreed to fall in with whatever he suggested it bothered her he should lead everyone so effortlessly. As soon as he said he was going to set up the picnic she could see the sparkle leave his girlfriend’s conversation.

‘Are you sure Calantha can spare you?’ she asked pointedly as Hugh joined them.

His eyes gleamed with amusement, evidently aware of the waspish edge to her voice. ‘I’m sure she’ll manage,’ he responded blandly.

‘Did you ask if she wanted to be left with people she scarcely knows?’

‘Do you think I should go back and ask her?’

Amy pulled her cardigan further onto her shoulders. ‘Do what you like. It’s none of my business.’ She looked back towards the group, now rudderless. Calantha’s long blonde hair blew in the breeze and the silk fabric outlined the shape of her legs. Into the silence she couldn’t stop herself asking, ‘How come she doesn’t freeze in that dress? It’s hardly a balmy summer day, is it?’

‘It’s cold, but women do that kind of thing.’

‘But not our Amy,’ Seb cut in, putting his arm around his sister.

‘What do you mean?’

‘You’ve dressed for comfort.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ she asked, shaking off his patronising arm.

‘Nothing.’

‘Just that I’m not dressed like Calantha.’

Seb looked surprised. ‘Well, you’re not, are you? I’ve never seen you wear anything like Callie chooses.’

Amy glanced down at her offending simple tunic dress with its demure circular neckline. If it had been made for a petite frame it would have been more flattering, but she was acutely aware how out of proportion it was on her. Certainly it would never be described as glamorous. She felt the sting of female pride behind her brown eyes and lifted her chin defiantly.

How dared Seb do this to her?

Unthinkingly cruel. She looked like what she was—someone who’d been eking out her existence on a student loan. What did Seb expect her to wear? He knew she’d had no financial help from their father at all with her degree. Being so much younger than him, she’d felt the full force of their father’s bankruptcy whereas he’d been cosseted through his degree and launched on the London job market.

‘Shut up, Seb. She looks fine.’

Hugh’s intervention just made her feel worse. She supposed he meant it kindly, but ‘fine’ was scarcely the way she wanted to be thought of. She knew her tunic dress did nothing for her figure. It flattened her breasts to practically nothing and made her legs look too thin.

‘She doesn’t look fine,’ Seb said with a searching look at her. ‘You know, Hugh, it’s not going to work. This thing about Amy going up to London with you. It’s a great idea, but it’s not going to work unless we do something about her clothes. If you think this dress is bad, you should see the other things she wears.’

Both men turned to look at her as they walked and their scrutiny wasn’t flattering. If the floor could have opened up and swallowed her she’d gladly have disappeared. Her embarrassment, humiliation and total mortification were paralysing. It was all the worse for being true. Seb’s words continued to whirl about her with a hateful accuracy.