Settling The Score

His grey eyes narrowed. ‘You mean you knew that you were about to meet me?’

‘Of course I knew!’ scoffed Romy. ‘Or did you imagine that I would just happily take a job without bothering to check it out first? My work involves me going into people’s homes—often staying there. And I’m a woman! Do you suppose for a moment that I would put myself at risk by not finding out a few details about who is employing me? I’m running a business here, Dominic, for heaven’s sake, not a knitting circle!’

He gave her a grudging look of admiration. ‘Well, well, well, Romy,’ he observed drily. ‘You seem to have acquired a little common sense over the years, at least. Pity it didn’t come five years earlier.’

His patronising comment made Romy even more angry. She drew a deep, indignant breath. ‘But even if I hadn’t known I was going to meet you, why would you naturally assume that I’d recognise you immediately? Is it so inconceivable that I would fail to do so? Do you imagine that you are such a magnificent specimen, Dominic, that you’re unforgettable? That any woman meeting you would have you branded indelibly on her memory for evermore?’

‘I would have been more than a little—surprised if you had failed to recognise me. Quite apart from the fact that I was your best man. After all, we had quite an...experience together, didn’t we?’ He gave a lazy smile which made Romy uncomfortably aware that he was recalling that erotic encounter in the lift. ‘Though I have to admit that most women tell me I have an unforgettable face.’

His words stabbed at her like a knife and it took every ounce of concentration that Romy possessed not to lash out at him in a jealous fit of rage she knew she had no right to feel.

‘Oh, do they?’

‘Yes.’ He smiled arrogantly. ‘They do.’

‘Dominic Dashwood,’ Romy declared heatedly, ‘did anyone ever tell you that you are nothing but an arrogant...arrogant...?

‘Bastard?’ he supplied drily. ‘Is that the word you’re searching for? So why not come out and say it, Romy? It’s true, after all.’

Romy gave him a steady look. ‘I would have used a far more creative insult than “bastard”, thank you very much! And that sounds like a mighty big chip on your shoulder to me.’

His smile had suddenly died and now he shook his dark head with slow emphasis. ‘Not at all,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Illegitimacy no longer carries the stigma that it did when I was growing up.’

She stared at him in surprise. Surely that wasn’t a trace of vulnerability showing through the steely armour?

Romy had always defined Dominic as a black-hearted villain and seducer. But now, with the benefit of maturity, she recognised that she might have been guilty of a little over-simplification.

Had he been a victim of taunts at school? Ridiculed and derided as a child because he had been born on the wrong side of the blanket?

For the first time she lost something of her guarded expression. Her mouth softened and her lips moved into an unconscious pout as a wave of empathy washed over her.

What was it about this man, she wondered, that she should want to take him in her arms and comfort him? And after everything that had happened between them, too...

She gazed across the room at him, the sudden silence making her acutely aware of their isolation.

Her mind began to stray into forbidden territory as she allowed her eyes to drift over the magnificent thrust of his thighs, all tensile muscular perfection beneath the cambric trousers. And the thin silk shirt he wore did absolutely everything to emphasise the hard, lean abdomen and the suggestion of strength rippling in each arm.

Romy shut her eyes in despair, and when she opened them it was to find him staring at her.

‘We’d better have something to drink,’ he said abruptly. ‘You look terrible.’

‘You don’t look so wonderful yourself,’ she lied, but she found herself sinking back against the chaise lounge. Because he was right. She felt terrible. The shock of seeing him again, no doubt. And making the disappointing discovery that in five years she had built up no magic immunity against his devastating appeal.

His eyes narrowed as they raked over her slumped frame. ‘Stay there!’ he ordered curtly.

‘I’m not going anywhere,’ she murmured drily.

Their eyes locked for one long moment, and when he turned to leave Romy found herself watching his retreat obsessively, unable to tear her eyes away from him and yet despising her need to do so.

When Romy had met him he had been twenty-six—very bright and very ambitious. It had been easy, then, to predict that he had a golden future ahead of him. But now it was possible to see how he had managed to surpass even that early promise.

And it wasn’t so much the palatial mansion he lived in, or the expensive clothes he wore, or even the tell-tale designer watch which was designed to withstand almost anything and had a price tag to match. No, it was something much less tangible than material possessions, and yet far more valuable in its way.

For Dominic carried a quiet authority about him which combined both strength and dignity.

He was, Romy recognised, the type of man whose respect would be highly valued. And there was no doubt in her mind that he would probably accord more respect to a snail than he would to her.

And could she blame him? Could she? If she told even the most impartial observer the facts concerning their ill-fated meeting, would they not condemn her, too?

She tried to stem them, but the memories were too strong, too long suppressed for her to be able to stop them flooding back with bitter-sweet clarity.

Long-forgotten fragments of events floated free and her mind took her back to a summer’s afternoon almost exactly five years before...

CHAPTER TWO (#u7ef1337a-6c71-54a1-b304-1f8cfa8f807c)

IT WAS the afternoon before her wedding, and Romy was feeling sick.

The make-up artist had just been through a trial run before tomorrow’s church service, and had put far more gunge on her face than she was used to. Romy peered in the mirror and frowned. The oodles of mascara and foundation might have made her eyes look bigger and her skin even smoother, but she looked much older. And harder, too.

So she went straight into the bathroom and scrubbed the whole lot off!

Her mother was lying on the bed in the hotel room, drinking unchilled white wine and stuffing cottonwool balls between her toes as she waited for the red varnish on her nails to dry.

She looked up as Romy entered the room, and frowned. ‘Put some make-up on!’ she ordered instantly. ‘Your face looks awful without it!’

Ignoring that, Romy sat down on the edge of her bed and studied her fingernails intently. ‘Do you—do you think every bride feels like this?’ she asked her mother tentatively.

Her mother took another swig of warm wine. ‘Like what?’

Romy swallowed as she struggled to explain her thoughts to her mother—although she supposed that there was absolutely no reason why she should suddenly succeed after all these years. ‘Oh, I don’t know. Excited, I suppose, and yet...well, afraid, too...’

Stella Salisbury, whose dissolute life was finally taking its toll on her once beautiful face, shot her daughter an acid look. ‘All I can remember is the feeling of being shackled,’ she drawled, and lit a cigarette. ‘But unfortunately there wasn’t a lot I could do about it—I was pregnant with you at the time.’

‘Mum...’ Romy sighed worriedly. ‘Do you really think you need any more to drink? There’ll be plenty at the party tonight. And you want to be sober for that, don’t you?’

‘Why?’ asked her mother, inhaling deeply on her cigarette. ‘It’s hardly likely to be the bash of the year, now, is it? Honestly, Romy, I didn’t spend all that money on your education for you to marry the first man who asked you! The Ackroyds may be a fine, old-established family—but they’re as dull as ditchwater!’

And that’s precisely why I’m marrying Mark, thought Romy as she helplessly watched her mother refilling her glass. Because he’s everything that you’re not and he wants to give me everything I’ve never had.

In a nutshell, Mark represented security. And Romy craved security with all the fervour of someone who had spent her formative years being bundled from pillar to post while her mother worked her way through a series of unsuitable boyfriends. Romy’s father had been killed in Africa when she was just a tiny baby, and she had never known a single, stabilising male influence.

‘Besides...’ Stella fixed her daughter with a sharp look ‘...there might not even be a wedding at this rate!’

Romy pushed a strand of blonde hair out of her eye. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked in alarm.

Stella shrugged. ‘Well, the best man still hasn’t arrived, has he? And it beats me why a man with Mark Ackroyd’s connections has chosen someone who nobody knows from Adam. Someone told me that he grew up on completely the wrong side of the tracks, so why on earth—’

‘Becàuse he saved Mark’s life when they were at Oxford,’ put in Romy patiently. ‘I thought I’d explained that’