Книга - A Whirlwind Engagement

A Whirlwind Engagement
Jessica Hart


Josh and Bella have been friends for years, but suddenly Bella is starting to see "her Josh" in a very different light. She's falling in love! It's confusing enough but, worse, Josh has just asked her to be his pretend fiancée…Josh needs a stand-in fiancée to clinch a business deal. Bella finally agrees to play the part but, after they spend a week on an exotic island pretending to be head over heels in love, the tension becomes almost unbearable! Especially when Josh starts to wonder if his best friend is pretending at all…









What happens when best friends become lovers? Turn the pages to find out….


“You ought to come with a health warning for young men!”

“It never bothered you,” said Bella, more sharply than she had intended, and Josh pulled away slightly to look at her with puzzled frown.

“It was different for me.”

“I know,” she said.

Why? she wondered. Why didn’t he desire her like other men? He had never so much as hinted that he wanted her as anything more than a friend. And she would have been appalled if he had, Bella reminded herself honestly.

So why was it suddenly so hard to dance with him like this?


Harlequin Romance® is thrilled to present the final book in this lively new trilogy from JESSICA HART:






They’re on the career ladder, but just one step away from the altar!

Meet Phoebe, Kate and Bella…

When their best friend gets married, these friends suddenly realize that they’re fast approaching thirty and haven’t yet found Mr. Right—or even Mr. Maybe!

Living together in the center of London is a lot of fun, but they refuse to admit that they spend more time gossiping and groaning about the lack of eligible men than actually looking for one….

But that’s about to change. If fate won’t lend a hand, they’ll make their own luck. Whether it’s a hired date or an engagement of convenience, they’re determined that the next wedding invitation they see will be one of their own!




A Whirlwind Engagement

Jessica Hart












www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


For Sally




CONTENTS


CHAPTER ONE (#uf2718213-f518-5941-8692-e151ead7f296)

CHAPTER TWO (#u3863df21-dd0c-5855-88e7-c37fd15a769b)

CHAPTER THREE (#uae5a5054-bb22-59db-bba1-3f14406727cc)

CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)




CHAPTER ONE


‘THERE’S Bella.’ Aisling nudged Josh, and he turned in the pew to see Bella and Phoebe hurrying down the aisle.

As befitted best friends of the bride, they had pulled out all the stops. Phoebe was dark and striking in an acid-yellow suit, while Bella had gone for a more romantic look in what Josh inexpertly assessed as a floaty pink number, with a spectacular hat that was clearly intended to knock all the others in the congregation into the shade.

Josh didn’t pretend to know about such things, but even he could see that she had probably succeeded. Even Aisling’s hat, which had made him raise his brows when he first saw it that morning, seemed tame in comparison. Typical Bella, he thought affectionately. She had always had the ability to turn heads, with or without a hat.

Phoebe waved as she spotted Josh and Aisling, and pointed Bella in their direction before heading up to have a word with her husband, Gib, who was best man and waiting with a very nervous Finn in the front pew.

Josh saw Bella register his presence, and an odd expression flitted over her face. It even seemed to him that she hesitated before sliding into the pew beside them, and his brows drew together slightly. Bella was his best friend, but she had been oddly distant recently.

‘Sorry I can’t kiss you,’ she said, indicating the enormous brim of her hat. ‘This isn’t designed for close contact.’

‘Yes, it is a bit awkward, isn’t it?’ Josh ducked underneath to kiss her cheek, anyway, and was sure he felt her tense at the touch of his lips.

He frowned as he drew back. ‘Is everything OK?’

‘Yes, of course,’ said Bella, but he noticed that she didn’t meet his eyes as she leant round him to greet Aisling. ‘You know what weddings are like,’ she went on, sitting back. ‘There’s always some last-minute panic when things get a bit tense.’

Just a fraught morning, then, thought Josh, telling himself that explained the unusual brittleness of her smile. ‘How is Kate?’

‘A bit jittery, but she’ll be fine. She should be here any minute.’

On his other side, Aisling leant forward to talk across him. ‘I’m surprised you’re not Kate’s bridesmaid, Bella,’ she said. ‘You are her best friend, after all.’

‘So is Phoebe.’ Bella’s tone was cool. ‘And Kate’s not very tall. She’d look ridiculous with both of us towering over her.’

‘Yes, but Phoebe’s married.’

‘So?’

‘So as the only unmarried friend left, it would have been quite natural if Kate had chosen you as her bridesmaid,’ Aisling tried to explain.

‘Oh, I think I’m a bit old for that, don’t you?’ said Bella pleasantly enough, but sitting between the two women Josh could feel a distinct undercurrent of tension.

‘I wouldn’t have thought so,’ said Aisling. ‘You can’t be much more than thirty-five, surely?’

Josh cleared his throat and shifted in the pew. Aisling was treading on dangerous ground. Bella was very sensitive about her age for some unfathomable reason.

Glancing sideways, he saw Bella’s blue eyes narrow beneath the brim of her hat. ‘Not quite,’ she said thinly. ‘As it happens, I’m only thirty-two.’

And she shot a glance at Josh which said more clearly than words ever could that he wasn’t even to think about adding ‘nearly thirty-three’.

‘Really?’ Aisling was tactlessly surprised. ‘I always thought you’d be more Josh’s age since you were students together.’

‘No, Josh was a bit older than the rest of us when he started,’ said Bella grittily, and Josh decided it was time to change the subject.

‘Is Kate not having any bridesmaids then?’ he asked hurriedly.

‘Alex is going to have the starring role all to herself. Alex is Finn’s daughter,’ Bella added for Aisling’s benefit. ‘She’s absolutely thrilled—more excited than Kate, I think! She couldn’t stand still while we were helping Kate get ready.’

She smiled at the memory. ‘It’s much more appropriate for Kate to have her stepdaughter, and anyway, if I’d been bridesmaid I wouldn’t have been able to wear this hat!’

‘And that would have been a crime,’ said Josh solemnly.

Bella adjusted the hat on her head, and sent him a speculative glance from beneath the brim. ‘What do you think of it?’ she asked him.

‘It’s…very…big,’ was the most diplomatic thing he could come up with.

She laughed and for a moment it was the old Bella beside him, her face vivid and the bright blue eyes alight with laughter. It made Josh realise how much he had missed her recently.

Not that he hadn’t seen her, but somehow she just hadn’t been herself. Their friendship had always been such an easy one, but recently Bella had been strangely constrained. Something was wrong, and Josh didn’t like it. She had lost her sparkle, and he missed it.

Of course, she might be having problems with Will but he had seen Bella through more romantic crises than he cared to remember, and it had never affected her relationship with him before.

Maybe it was different this time. Maybe Will was more important to her than all the others.

For some reason, Josh didn’t like that thought very much. Will wasn’t nearly good enough for Bella in his opinion.

‘Where’s Will?’ he asked trying not to betray his dislike of the other man. ‘I was expecting him to be keeping a pew for you.’

Bella had picked up the order of service and was studying the front, which was embossed simply with the names Kate and Finn, and the date, 6th September. ‘Will?’ she said a little too casually. ‘He’s in Hong Kong.’

‘Hong Kong!’ Josh scowled. ‘What’s he doing there?’

‘He’s got a meeting,’ said Bella, opening the order of service to look at the hymns.

Josh snorted contemptuously. ‘When did he arrange that?’

‘It came up at the last minute.’

‘Couldn’t he have arranged to go next week? He must have known about Kate’s wedding for ages.’

Bella kept her eyes on the order of service. ‘Yes, but this was important,’ she said, sounding reticent. ‘There was some kind of crisis and he had to drop everything and go.’

‘You’re important, too,’ said Josh angrily.

That was typical of Will! Swanking off to the other side of the world instead of supporting Bella. Josh had always thought him a prat of the first order, and this just confirmed it.

He couldn’t understand why Bella always went for men like Will. They were too smooth by half, in Josh’s opinion. Will was suave and handsome and drove a Porsche, but he didn’t impress Josh. When the chips were down, Will wasn’t a man you could rely on, and his attitude to Bella just proved it.

‘It’s not as if he’s a brain surgeon,’ he went on pugnaciously. ‘He doesn’t do anything. He just sits in some plush office in the City and plays around with money. What’s important about that?’

‘It’s his career,’ said Bella, tight-lipped. ‘And he doesn’t just “play around” with money. He deals with millions and millions of pounds, and when something goes wrong with that kind of money, it can affect the international money markets which affect economies around the world, which affect our jobs and our income and our quality of life. I think that’s important,’ she finished defiantly.

Josh wasn’t ready to be convinced that Will had any useful contribution to make to society. ‘If I thought the economic stability of the world rested on Will’s ability to rush off to Hong Kong at the drop of a hat, I’d be really scared,’ he said. ‘As it is, I suspect that the global economy wouldn’t so much as totter if he’d left it until Monday instead so that he could be with you today.’

Bella glared at him. ‘Look, what’s your problem? If I understand why Will can’t be here, and Kate understands, and Finn understands, I don’t see why you can’t!’

‘I just think he should be here to support you,’ said Josh stubbornly.

‘I don’t need support! I’m at the wedding of one of my dearest friends, surrounded by people who know me. Why would I need supporting?’

‘I think Josh is concerned that you might be feeling a bit left out,’ Aisling put in unwisely. ‘He’s told me how close you were to Phoebe and Kate when you all shared that house, and now they’ve both married and are moving on. I can see it might be quite a vulnerable time for you,’ she finished with a sympathetic look.

Bella shot her a glance of dislike. ‘If you’re trying to suggest that I’m jealous, you’re quite wrong,’ she said clearly. ‘I couldn’t be happier for Kate, and for Phoebe. They’ve both found the perfect man for them, but I don’t feel at all left out, as you put it, because I happen to have found the perfect man for me too. Will and I are very happy together, so I don’t feel the slightest bit vulnerable or in need of support, thank you very much!’

‘You don’t seem very happy, Bella,’ said Josh.

‘That might have something to do with fact that my best friend and his girlfriend are busy slagging off my boyfriend and making me feel that I need to be pitied in some way!’ she snapped back. ‘Would that make you happy?’

Josh opened his mouth, but before he could reply Phoebe was scrambling into the pew beside Bella. ‘Here she comes!’ she said, blowing a kiss in Josh’s direction and moving Bella along with a shove of her hip as the organ struck up the ‘Bridal March’.

Bella found herself pressed against Josh, and expressed her feelings with a vigorous shove of her own which sent him shuffling into Aisling, who ended up squeezed against a pillar.

Not very dignified behaviour for a wedding, perhaps, but it made Bella feel a whole lot better.

Turning, Bella watched Kate coming slowly up the aisle on her beaming father’s arm, and her throat tightened. It was such a cliché to describe a bride as radiant, but it really was the perfect word for Kate that day. Everything about her seemed to shine, and the brown eyes fixed on the man waiting for her at the altar were luminous with love.

Bella followed Kate’s gaze and looked at Finn, who had turned and was watching his bride walk towards him. The expression on his face made her want to cry.

Would anyone ever look at her with that kind of desire? Bella wondered. She tried to imagine herself in Kate’s place, but somehow she couldn’t picture the man who would be waiting for her.

It wasn’t going to be Will, anyway, in spite of what she had told Josh and Aisling. Aisling! What a stupid name, thought Bella. Apparently it was supposed to be pronounced Ashling, but she always made a point of saying it just as it was spelt, just to annoy. There was just something about Aisling that rubbed her up the wrong way.

Guiltily aware that she should be thinking about the fact that Kate and Finn were getting married at last, Bella hurriedly fixed her eyes on the bride and groom.

Kate had turned and was giving her bouquet to Alex, who was bursting with pride at her important role. Her tongue stuck out with concentration as she stepped back with the precious flowers, but when Finn winked at his daughter, her face lit up with a dazzling smile that brought tears to Bella’s eyes.

It was a traditional country wedding in the village church, and Bella found herself absurdly moved by the familiar ceremony. She and Phoebe were not the only ones who spent most of the service wiping their eyes, and when the earlier clouds dissolved letting Kate and Finn emerge from the rose-edged porch into brilliant sunshine, they looked so right together that Bella started to cry all over again.

‘This is awful,’ she wept to Phoebe. ‘I haven’t cried this much since Terms of Endearment!’

‘I know,’ Phoebe sniffed. ‘They just look so happy!’

‘What’s wrong with you two?’ demanded Josh. ‘Weddings are supposed to be joyful occasions!’

‘It’s a woman thing,’ Gib told him knowledgeably. ‘Apparently snivelling like this means they’re having a good time. They’ll be all right when they get some champagne inside them!’

Aisling wasn’t crying, Bella couldn’t help noticing. No fear of her mascara running! Instead she clung to Josh’s arm looking cool and pretty in a simple aquamarine shift with an annoyingly stylish hat. Bella had been so pleased with her own hat, but next to Aisling’s she was suddenly convinced that it seemed over-the-top and ridiculous.

Everything about Aisling made her feel that way. Where Aisling was quietly confident, she was loud. Aisling was elegant, she was blowsy. Aisling knew how to put up a tent and abseil down a cliff, she was city girl incarnate.

Aisling was perfect for Josh, in fact, and she was just his friend.

Bella turned quickly away and pinned on a bright smile to watch the photographs being taken. Gib had organised it well, and after the inevitable family groups, they moved rapidly onto photos of friends with the bride and groom. There was one of them with Kate’s original housemates, Caro and Phoebe and Bella, with Caro and Phoebe’s husbands, of course.

And then there was Kate and Finn with their close friends and partners, which meant Phoebe and Gib, Josh and Aisling, and Bella.

Bella was very conscious of being on her own in both photos. It was a new experience for her. She had always been the one with a boyfriend, while Phoebe and Kate moaned about the lack of men, so it was ironic that she should be the odd one out now.

Not that Bella had any intention of giving Aisling the satisfaction of thinking that it bothered her. She kept a smile fixed to her face, and laughed and chatted animatedly as the last photographs were taken and the entire party walked back through the village to where a marquee had been erected in the garden of Kate’s parents.

She thought she was putting on a pretty good show of not having a care in the world, but it didn’t seem to fool Josh. Sometimes he knew her too well, thought Bella with an inward sigh, wishing he would stop asking if something was wrong. She didn’t want to tell him that she was feeling edgy and unsettled, because then he would ask why, and she didn’t know why.

Only that wasn’t quite true, was it? She did know.

It was something to do with the way Aisling’s arrival on the scene had brought her up short. Something to do with looking across the table at that engagement dinner for Kate and realising that Josh was no longer the familiar, slightly geeky student she had known for so long.

For Bella, it had been like finding herself suddenly face to face with a stranger. There was nothing obvious about Josh. He had a quiet, ordinary face, ordinary blue-grey eyes, ordinary brown hair, she had always known that.

But she had never before noticed how he had thickened out and grown into his looks, or how the fourteen years they had known each other had given him a solid, reassuring presence and an air of calm competence that was impressive without being intimidating.

She had never noticed his mouth before or his hands or throat or that line of his jaw. Never noticed that he had a great body. He wasn’t exceptionally tall but he was lean and compactly muscled, and he moved with an easy, loose-limbed stride.

And now that she had noticed, Bella couldn’t stop noticing.

It made her uneasy. This was Josh. Her best friend, the one who had seen her through endless romantic ups and downs. She had cried on his shoulder and laughed and talked and hugged him without a thought for more than ten years now. He had seen her without her make-up, seen her tired and cross and sick and hungover, and she had taken him for granted. Being with Josh had been like being with Kate or Phoebe, as comfortable as an old pair of slippers.

But now, suddenly, she didn’t feel comfortable with him any more and she didn’t understand why. She just wanted to go back to the way things had been before.

Here he was now. Bella felt her nerves crisp as Josh came up to her in the marquee, and she took a steadying slug of champagne. He was the same old Josh he had always been. It was nonsense to think that anything had changed between them.

‘Are you OK?’ he said, eyeing her with concern.

‘Of course. Why?’

‘You seem a bit tense, that’s all. I wondered if you and Will might be having problems.’

‘I don’t know why you’re so determined that my relationship with Will is a disaster,’ said Bella, annoyed with him for hitting the nail so unerringly on the head. ‘What could be wrong? Will’s fantastic. He’s incredibly attractive, generous, clever, successful…’

And he was, she reminded herself with a kind of desperation. She had been mad about Will when she first met him. Why couldn’t she feel like that again?

‘I’m just missing him while he’s away,’ she offered, hoping that the explanation would stop Josh probing any further. ‘And the house feels very empty without Kate now.’

‘It must do.’ To her relief, Josh allowed himself to be diverted. ‘Are you going to stay there on your own?’

‘I think so. I only pay a token rent as it is. Phoebe doesn’t need the money—one of the many advantages of having a rich husband!—so I can afford to have the house to myself.’

‘I’m surprised you don’t move in with Will if he’s as perfect as you say he is,’ sniffed Josh. ‘Doesn’t he want to “commit”?’ he added, hooking sarcastic inverted commas around the word.

‘That’s good coming from you!’ said Bella, provoked out of her awkwardness. ‘You’ve never committed to anyone!’

‘I’m just waiting for the right woman,’ he said loftily.

‘No, you’re not,’ she said. ‘You’re scared to take a risk.’

Josh’s jaw dropped. ‘How can you say that, Bella?’

‘Yes, yes, I know that you’ve taken convoys through war zones and rescued people off mountains in blizzards and all that stuff,’ she said with a dismissive wave of her hand.

Before he set up his own company to provide executive training a couple of years ago Josh had provided logistical support for expeditions. Most of them were providing disaster relief but sometimes he would organise fund-raising expeditions for the aid agencies he dealt with. Bella had never been able to understand why someone would want to pay good money to be tired and cold and terrified for a month, but they had always proved very popular.

‘I know you’ve been in loads of dangerous situations,’ she went on, ‘but those are physical risks. Have you ever taken any other kind of risk?’

‘It was risky setting up my own company,’ said Josh, sounding a bit huffy.

Bella was unimpressed. ‘That was a financial risk. I’m talking about emotional risks.’

Josh hunched a shoulder. ‘You have to approach all risks the same way. Look at the situation logically, not emotionally, and balance the likelihood of possible outcomes.’

When he went all logical on her like that, Bella always wondered how on earth they had come to be friends. Mentally, she raised her eyes to heaven.

‘It just so happens that as far as relationships are concerned I’ve never been convinced that the risk was worth taking,’ he was saying, ‘but it’s not a question of being scared.’

The scared thing had obviously rankled.

‘We’re not all like you,’ he accused her, ‘investing everything in a relationship five minutes after you’ve met a man. You’d think experience would have taught you to keep something back, but no! You’re barely over one disastrous affair before you plunge into another one!’

‘Better that than dithering around on the edge for ever, wondering if you might just have missed the chance of a perfect relationship,’ Bella retorted.

‘And that’s what you’ve got with Will, is it?’ Josh asked sceptically.

She lifted her chin defiantly. ‘I think so, yes.’

‘So why not live together?’

‘Because we’re both happy as we are. We’ve each got our own place to live and that means we can give each other some space. We all need that.’

Josh didn’t bother to hide his disbelief. ‘You? You’re the most sociable person I know! I can’t see you hankering after your own space.’

‘Perhaps you don’t know me as well as you think you do,’ said Bella crossly. ‘As a matter of fact, I’m looking forward to living on my own. I’ve been getting gradually used to it since Kate has been spending so much time with Finn and Alex, so it won’t be that different now. I might go back to sharing eventually,’ she conceded, ‘but it wouldn’t be the same. Where would I find someone I’d get on with as well as Phoebe and Kate?’

‘What about Aisling?’ said Josh casually.

Bella looked wary. What about Aisling?

‘She’s looking for somewhere to live at the moment,’ he explained. ‘And you’d be bound to get on. I’d have thought she’d be perfect for you.’

What planet was he living on? Bella stared at him in disbelief. He didn’t really see her and Aisling as bosom buddies, did he? Didn’t he know her at all?

‘I’m not sure we’ve got that much in common,’ she said carefully.

Josh looked surprised. ‘Don’t you? I think you’re very alike. Aisling’s in marketing and you’re in PR—they’re not that different as careers go, are they? And she’s a bit of a social butterfly, too.’

‘I thought she spent her whole time climbing mountains or knocking up rafts out of a couple of tin cans and a piece of string?’ said Bella a little sourly.

‘She’s got a lot of expedition experience,’ Josh agreed, ‘but she’s a good-time girl like you on the side as well.’

Oh, right. So Aisling swung both ways. She could hack her way through a rainforest and wear lipstick. Bully for her. Bella took another slurp of champagne.

‘She’s not quite such a princess as you, though,’ Josh was adding with something less than his usual tact. ‘She doesn’t actually require somewhere to plug in her hair-dryer when she’s camping!’

Bella eyed him with some hostility. Josh had once insisted on taking her camping in the Yorkshire Dales, and had been appalled when he discovered that not only had she taken a hair-dryer with her but she had actually used it. He had never let her forget it. Bella was quite sure that Aisling had heard that story and laughed prettily at the idea that anyone could be quite that much of a city girl.

‘I’m not sure Tooting would be very convenient for Aisling,’ she said. ‘It’s not exactly handy for your office, is it?’

‘Aisling’s been trekking across the Sahara,’ Josh pointed out. ‘I don’t think she would find changing tubes a problem!’

Well, that put her in her place, thought Bella grumpily.

‘Yes, well, I’ll talk to Phoebe,’ she said without enthusiasm. ‘It’s her house, so it’s her decision really.’

‘Great,’ said Josh. ‘I’m sure Phoebe won’t mind.’

‘Where is Aisling, anyway?’ said Bella. She had to get to Phoebe before Josh did. There was no way she was going to share a house with Aisling.

Josh looked around the marquee, and pointed. ‘Over there, talking to Finn’s sister.’

As if she had heard him, Aisling looked over, and beckoned imperatively. In spite of being anxious to get rid of him so she could go and find Phoebe, Bella couldn’t believe it when Josh just went. He ought to have more pride, she thought crossly.

Still, now was her chance to grab Phoebe.

‘So you will say no, won’t you?’ she begged when she had dragged Phoebe away from Gib and poured the whole story into her ears.

‘If you want,’ said Phoebe, ‘but I don’t know what I’m going to say to Josh. I can’t think of any reason to object to Aisling. She seems very nice.’

‘I don’t like her,’ said Bella.

‘Why not?’

‘I just don’t,’ she said a little sulkily. ‘There’s a little too much of that bubbly Irish charm if you ask me. And I don’t think she’s right for Josh.’

Phoebe looked at her narrowly. ‘Are you sure you’re not just jealous?’

‘Jealous? Jealous?’ spluttered Bella, spilling most of the champagne in her outrage. ‘Don’t be ridiculous! I have never been jealous of Josh, you know that. I’ve always got on really well with all his girlfriends.’

‘Mmnn, but then none of them were at all like you.’

‘Nor is Aisling!’

‘Yes, she is. I’m sure that’s why you don’t like her. You’ve only got to look at her!’

Bella turned to stare across the marquee to where Aisling was snuggling up to Josh. She obviously couldn’t keep her hands off him. Josh would hate that, Bella thought disapprovingly. He was definitely a behind-closed-doors sort of man.

On the other hand, he wasn’t exactly fighting Aisling off, was he?

She looked away. ‘I’m nothing like Aisling,’ she told Phoebe. ‘She’s got red hair, for a start!’

‘OK, but change the colour of her hair and eyes, and what have you got? She’s ridiculously pretty, has legs up to her armpits, and that glamorous look that is just so different from Josh’s previous girlfriends. Admit it, Bella, she’s practically a clone!’

Bella wasn’t prepared to admit anything of the kind. ‘What, apart from looking completely different and having completely different personalities? I’d say all Aisling and I had in common was our gender! Josh is always telling me how practical she is and how she likes doing hearty things like climbing and camping.’

Phoebe shrugged. ‘Have it your own way.’

‘Anyway,’ Bella went on, a defensive edge to her voice, ‘Josh and I agreed a long time ago that we would just be friends. There’s no question of jealousy.’

‘Didn’t you ever find him attractive?’ asked Phoebe curiously, and try as she might, Bella couldn’t quite make herself meet her friend’s eyes.

‘He wasn’t my type,’ she said.

‘Do you think you were ever his?’

Had she been? For the first time Bella found herself wondering.

‘He never said, and anyway, he always seemed to have some outdoorsy girl who didn’t fuss about her hair or wear make-up or mind getting up at six to go potholing or whatever it was they used to do at weekends. Josh and I used to make each other laugh, and we had a great time doing that. We didn’t want to spoil it by sleeping together.

‘Besides,’ she added honestly, ‘he wasn’t at all attractive then. He was a bit thin and nerdy.’

Phoebe glanced across the marquee. ‘He’s changed,’ she said.

‘Yes,’ said Bella, following her gaze. Through the crowds, she could just glimpse Josh. The lean, compact figure was at once alien and utterly familiar.

He was talking to someone out of sight, but as she watched he threw back his head and laughed, and her stomach abruptly disappeared, as if she had stumbled unawares off the edge of an abyss. The sensation of falling was so intense that Bella had to close her eyes against a sickening wave of vertigo, and when she opened them again she felt dizzy and hollow inside.

‘Yes,’ she said again. ‘He has.’

There was a silence. Frightened by the strength of her physical response, Bella drank her champagne shakily, and it was some time before she realised that Phoebe was watching her expectantly.

‘What?’ she demanded, and Phoebe held up her hands, one still clutching her champagne glass.

‘I didn’t say anything!’

That was the worst thing about friends who knew you really well. They didn’t need to say anything for you to know exactly what they were thinking!

‘I’m not jealous, all right?’

‘All right,’ said Phoebe equably. ‘So what is the problem?’

‘Who says there’s a problem?’

Phoebe sighed. ‘Come on, Bella, it’s obvious! Is it Will?’

‘No…. Yes…sort of,’ Bella admitted with a sigh.

‘What happened?’

‘Nothing, that’s just it.’ Bella stared miserably down into her glass. ‘It’s just that I’ve been feeling…I don’t know…restless, I suppose, for a while. We haven’t had an argument or anything. It was Will who suggested that we give each other some space, and I think that’s all I need. I mean, Will’s fantastic, isn’t he?’ She hated the doubtful note in her voice.

‘He certainly seems very nice,’ said Phoebe noncommittally.

‘And drop-dead gorgeous and intelligent and solvent and not screwed up…What more could I ask for? He would have come today if I’d asked him,’ she went on with a sigh. ‘I need my head examined to let him go off to Hong Kong! What’s wrong with me?’

‘There’s nothing wrong with you. Will just isn’t the right man for you, that’s all.’

‘But if someone like Will isn’t the right man, who is?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Phoebe, ‘but you will when you find him.’




CHAPTER TWO


BELLA wished she had Phoebe’s confidence. She was beginning to wonder if there was something wrong with her. It wasn’t that she was particularly vain, but she knew she was pretty, and there was never any shortage of men wanting to go out with her. Somehow, though, it never came to anything. She fell headlong into love and just as quickly out of it.

She might never find that special man, Bella thought glumly as she helped herself to a canapé, and now she might not even have Josh to fall back on. They had once agreed that if they both reached forty without finding anyone they would marry each other.

Bella actually remembered laughing at the time. The truth was that it had never occurred to her then that Josh might marry someone else. He was so self-contained that it was hard to imagine him sharing his life with anyone. None of his girlfriends had ever moved in with him.

Looking for him now, her eyes found him instinctively in the crowded marquee. There he was, Aisling clinging as usual to his arm, and no matter how much she wanted to think that he looked irritated by her possessiveness, she just couldn’t do it.

Bella drifted around the edge of the marquee to get a better view. That was better. Now she could see Josh quite clearly, talking to Gib. He was wearing a morning suit, and the crisp white shirt made his skin, weathered from so much time spent in the tropics, look even browner than usual.

He looked surprisingly good in formal clothes, she thought. Even now, dressed identically to most of the other men in the marquee, he had the tough, competent air of a man who should be hacking his way through a jungle or bumping along a dusty track in faded khakis, not sipping champagne and eating canapés in an English garden.

Bella’s gaze rested on him. Really, it was amazing that it had taken her so many years to realise what a great body he had, lean and hard and tautly muscled in an intriguingly restrained way. If she had walked into the marquee as a stranger, she would definitely have clocked him.

His face wasn’t that bad either. Not jaw-droppingly handsome like Will, of course, but still, there was nothing actually wrong with it. He had nice eyes, creased around the edges from too much squinting at the sun, and they held a lurking smile sometimes that might be really quite disturbing if you weren’t used to it, the way she was.

Nice mouth too, Bella thought judiciously. Not the kind of mouth you noticed at first, maybe—it was too quiet and cool for that—but if you looked at it for too long, something about it made you squirm suddenly.

Like that. A strange feeling shuddered down Bella’s spine, and she jerked her eyes away.

It felt all wrong to be thinking about Josh like this. He was her friend, the one person she could talk to about anything at all.

Except this.

Bella imagined herself strolling over and saying, ‘Hey, Josh, I was just thinking what a great body you have and wondering what it would be like to kiss you,’ and she winced, picturing already his appalled expression. She couldn’t do that to Josh.

More to the point, she couldn’t do it to herself! Honesty was one thing, humiliation quite another.

Gib’s attention had been claimed by another guest and, as Bella watched, Josh tightened his arm around Aisling and gave her a quick private kiss. The pain that sliced through her at the sight was so unexpected that it took Bella’s breath away, and the champagne spilt from her glass as she flinched instinctively.

Bella turned abruptly away. This wouldn’t do! She was the life and soul of a party, not someone who mooned around on the edges feeling left out. It was time to circulate and exert some of that charm she was so famous for.

She succeeded so well that one of Kate’s young brothers informed her owlishly at the end of the reception that he had been in love with her since he was fourteen, and asked her to marry him. Touched and amused, Bella let him down kindly but secretly she couldn’t help feeling a bit better. She might be tottering on the verge of thirty-three and she wasn’t a camping queen like Aisling, but some men wanted her, even if they were only twenty-one and had been imbibing freely of their father’s champagne.

She seemed to have developed a sudden attraction for very young men. At the ceilidh in the marquee that evening Bella found herself the centre of a group of besotted boys. Their undisguised admiration was very flattering of course, but she wasn’t entirely sure that it was a good sign. Did she really look old enough to be in the market for a toy boy? Bella wondered.

Still, it was nice to feel wanted for a change, and she glanced across the marquee to where Josh had Aisling entwined around him as usual.

Determined to show Josh, should he happen to look in her direction, that she was having a wonderful time, Bella let one of her admirers after another swing her eagerly on the dance floor. Her partners appeared deaf to the bellowed instructions of the member of the band who was desperately trying to tell everyone the moves to the Scottish dances, but what they lacked in skill, they more than made up for in enthusiasm. More than once Bella found herself being spun out of control so that she ended up cannoning breathlessly into other couples. Fortunately few of them seemed to have a clue what they were doing either.

Bella told herself she was having a fantastic time, and laughed as she shook back her hair over her shoulders.

From another set, Josh watched her dazzle the boy she was dancing with. He couldn’t be more than sixteen and obviously could hardly believe his luck, Josh thought indulgently. He had seen how effortlessly Bella had cast her spell over every man she came across. Even Kate’s famously grumpy great-uncle had not been immune to the old Stevenson charm.

It had been the same ever since he had met her. Josh remembered the first time he had seen her. She had walked into the seminar room, blonde, beautiful and impossibly glamorous amongst all the other scruffy students, and when she smiled and sat down next to him, he had gulped like the schoolboy she was dancing with now.

There had been a starry quality about Bella, even then, he thought. For the first few weeks, he had gawked at her from a distance. She was so clearly out of his league, that it never occurred to him that they could ever be friends, but when he did get to know her properly, he was bowled over by the charm that made him feel as if she had been waiting all this time just to meet him, plain Josh Kingston. He had been amazed to discover how friendly and natural she was, and how funny. She might look like a princess, but she had an infectiously dirty laugh.

Not that Josh ever tried to take advantage of the closeness that grew up between them. His role was as a friend, the one constant male in the dizzying ups and downs of her romantic life.

And Josh didn’t mind, or he told himself he didn’t, anyway. At least that way he saw Bella, and he kept on seeing her in a way the men she fell in and out of love with didn’t. None of them ever lasted very long. Bella might look sophisticated, but beneath her glossy veneer beat the heart of a true romantic, determined not to settle for anyone less than Mr Perfect.

Maybe she had found him in Will. He seemed an unlikely Mr Perfect to Josh, but he had never understood Bella’s taste in men. He had wondered if things had run their course with Will earlier, when she had seemed tense and unhappy, but there was no sign of that now.

Josh’s mouth curled affectionately as he watched Bella dancing up and down the line in the other set, laughing that laugh of hers. She was being swung around and around between each couple, her hair shimmering as it flew around her vivid face and her skirt swirling around those spectacular legs.

‘Josh!’ Aisling hissed at him, and he started as he realised that he was supposed to be joining hands and going down the set with her, not watching what was going on elsewhere.

He didn’t get a chance to dance with Bella herself until much later in the evening.

‘I’m tired,’ she said when he held out his hand to pull her onto the dance floor.

‘Tired? You? Never!’

‘I am,’ she protested. ‘I’ve been dancing all night.’

She fanned her hot face, unwilling to let him know reluctant she was to take his hand. ‘Ask Aisling.’

‘She’s dancing with Gib.’

‘Honestly, Josh, I’m exhausted,’ Bella tried, but Josh was determined.

‘This isn’t going to require any energy,’ he said as the band struck up a slow tune to give everyone a chance to cool down. ‘We just need to stand there and sway a bit, I’m no good at doing anything else anyway.’

He put out his hand again. ‘Come on, Bella, you can manage that, and it’s only me!’

That’s right, it was only Josh. Bella clung to the thought as she relented and took his hand. Following him onto the floor, she told herself that she could hardly refuse to dance with him. He really would think something was wrong then, and there wasn’t. It was only Josh.

Only Josh’s arms around her. Only Josh’s broad chest tantalisingly close. Only Josh’s cheek resting comfortably against her hair. They had danced like this countless times before, so why was it different now? Why this sudden longing to tighten her arms around his back, to lean against him and press her face into his throat?

Bella swallowed. ‘Great wedding.’

‘You certainly seem to have been having a good time.’ Josh sounded amused rather than jealous. ‘What’s with this new interest in toy boys, Bella? I’ve lost count of the callow youths I’ve seen you reduce to stammering incoherence tonight! You realise you’ve spoilt them for life,’ he went on cheerfully. ‘They’re going to be dreaming about finding a woman like you for years to come, and most of them are going to end up disappointed. You ought to come with a health warning for young men!’

‘It never bothered you,’ said Bella, more sharply than she had intended, and Josh pulled away slightly to look at her with puzzled frown.

‘It was different for me.’

‘I know,’ she said.

Why? she wondered. Why didn’t he desire her like other men? He had never so much as hinted that he wanted her as anything more than a friend. And she would have been appalled if he had, Bella reminded herself honestly.

So why was it suddenly so hard to dance with him like this? It was if something was unravelling uncontrollably inside her, and she didn’t know what it was or how to stop it. She was agonisingly conscious of him as he held her against him, not too close, but close enough to be aware of the solid strength of his body, of the warmth of his hand on her back, and the feel of his fingers curled around hers.

Terrified that she was pressing herself against him, Bella held herself stiffly. Her tongue seemed to be stuck to roof of mouth, and she felt absurdly shy of him. As the silence lengthened, she was even reduced to asking how work was going.

‘Very well,’ said Josh, almost as if he too was relieved at her attempt to break the increasingly tense silence. ‘Things have really taken off since Aisling joined us. With her background at C.B.C.—they’re our major client—she’s been incredibly useful, as she knows how both organisations work.’

‘Really?’ said Bella, trying to force some interest into her voice.

‘There’s a possibility of a big contract coming up. It could be the one that changes everything for us.’

‘Why is it so important?’

‘It would mean expanding internationally,’ Josh told her. ‘C.B.C. are based in Paris, but they’ve got subsidiary offices around the world. We did some work for head office recently, and now they want us to implement the same training system globally.’

Bella perked up a bit, impressed in spite of herself. ‘That sounds cool.’

‘It might be “cool”, but every national office has a lot of independence, and most are very resistant to the idea of trainers being parachuted in from head office. In some countries it’s vital to establish a personal relationship with the senior executives before you start doing business.’

‘You can hardly go around the world introducing yourself to every office!’

‘Quite,’ he agreed in a dry voice, ‘but once a year C.B.C. invite the most successful executives and partners on an all-expenses-paid holiday. It’s mainly intended as a social occasion and a reward for high-achievers, but it also ensures they all share in the same company ethic.’

‘I’d share the ethics of any company that sent me on an all-expenses-paid holiday,’ said Bella, glad that the conversation seemed to be distracting her somewhat from the pulse that beat in Josh’s throat, right where she would most like to rest her face.

‘That’s my Bella, ever the moralist!’

Bella tore her eyes from his pulse. ‘So where do they do all this bonding?’

‘It’s in the Seychelles this year. They’re taking over a hotel on one of the small islands, and C.B.C. suggested that I go along. They think it would be a good opportunity to meet a lot of those people I may have to deal with on a social basis.’

Only Josh could sound glum about being offered a free trip to the Seychelles!

‘Are you going to go?’

He lifted his shoulders as well as he could given that he had one arm round her waist and the other was holding her hand. ‘Those kinds of corporate jaunts aren’t really my thing,’ he said, ‘but Aisling thinks I should go.’

Surprise, surprise, was Bella’s first jaundiced thought. ‘I suppose she’ll be going as well?’

‘Yes.’ If Josh noticed the acid tinge to her voice, he gave no sign of it. ‘She’s the one with all the contacts and she says it’s important for me to meet people and talk about what we can do for them.’

‘Really?’ said Bella again, this time with a distinct layer of frost. For years now, she had been telling him that he needed to network if he wanted his company to take off, but he had never listened to her when she suggested that he needed to go out and meet people.

At least that unsettling urge to turn her face into his and press her lips against his jaw was receding, which was something of a relief. Getting cross seemed to be an excellent cure for that, anyway.

‘I’m sure Aisling’s right,’ she said coolly, ‘but I’m not sure I can see you on a beach holiday.’

‘God, no.’ Josh shuddered at the thought. ‘I’d go mad if I had nothing to do but sit in the sun all day, but Aisling says these events are always activity-based.’

‘Oh?’ Bella was getting a bit sick of hearing what Aisling said.

‘It’s not dissimilar from the way we work with people on expeditions to build up teamwork and trust,’ he said. ‘Activities like diving or climbing or bush-walking are an excellent way for staff from different offices to get to know each other and bond at a more than superficial level. When you’re all being challenged, you’ve got to be able to communicate.’

‘So you’re always saying,’ said Bella, who had never had any trouble communicating from a sofa with a phone in her hand.

Josh grinned. ‘I know your idea of the great outdoors doesn’t extend beyond a veranda, but other people get a lot out of being pushed to do things they’ve never done before.’

‘That’ll be schmoozing a room for you,’ said Bella tartly. ‘What else is on offer?’

‘I’m not sure. Aisling’s keen to go scuba-diving, and there’ll probably be sailing as well, so I might not be too bored.’

She sighed. It all sounded a bit too hearty for her. ‘What’s wrong with lying on warm white sand?’ she asked. ‘You can network just as effectively at a beach bar, you know.’

‘We don’t all have your ability to forge intimate bonds over a pina colada,’ said Josh.

‘It’s a lot more useful than being able to dive. How much networking can you do underwater? It’s just a lot of pointing and blowing bubbles.’

‘You being such an expert on diving!’

‘I’ve seen it on telly,’ said Bella a little sulkily.

Josh laughed. ‘You just don’t like the idea of getting your hair wet. Luckily, Aisling isn’t quite such a princess in these matters!’

Of course not. Aisling would tie her hair up sensibly, wear practical clothes and leave her high heels behind.

Good luck to her, thought Bella sourly. If she wanted to spend a week underwater in a rubber suit with a tank on her back when she could have a soft tropical beach and a warm lagoon and a long, cool drink brought to her lounger on a tray, that was her problem!

‘By the way,’ said Josh, swinging Bella round in what was for him a nifty bit of footwork, ‘did you get a chance to talk to Phoebe?’

He had tightened his arm around her so that she didn’t lose her balance as she swung, and it was enough to make every nerve in Bella’s body jump to attention. Her heart did an odd sort of flip-flop and then settled with a thud that left her momentarily breathless.

‘Talk to Phoebe?’ she echoed, struggling to sound normal.

‘About Aisling moving in to the house.’

‘Oh, yes. Yes, I did.’ Bella took a steadying breath.

She wished the music would stop and that Josh would let her go. It might be easier to concentrate then.

‘What did she say?’

For a treacherous moment Bella wondered if she could throw the blame onto Phoebe, but she knew that wouldn’t be fair. ‘She left it up to me,’ she told Josh the truth instead. ‘But to be honest I think I’d like to keep the house to myself for a while.’

There, that sounded reasonable enough, didn’t it? More tactful anyway than ‘I’d rather stick pins in my eyes than share a house with Aisling,’ which was the alternative.

‘Fair enough,’ said Josh. ‘Aisling will be disappointed, though. She thought you would get on really well together.’

‘Did she?’

‘Yes, she likes you a lot.’

Bella didn’t believe that for a minute. Aisling might smile sweetly, but her green eyes had always held a distinctly cool look. Bella had a fair idea it was a pretty accurate reflection of her own expression when the two of them met.

‘Really?’ she said in what she hoped was a suitably neutral tone.

‘Oh, yes.’ Josh nodded. ‘She’s told me so several times.’

Oh, well, if he was going to believe everything Aisling said…!

How naı¨ve could you get? Bella wondered. She would have expected Josh to be more perceptive. He must be really besotted with Aisling if he believed every word she said. The thought was profoundly depressing somehow.

To Bella’s intense relief, the music ended just then, and Josh let her go. ‘I hope she’ll find somewhere else soon,’ she said, feeling more in control of herself and thinking she had better make the effort to be pleasant. ‘I’m sure there are more convenient places than Tooting, in any case.’

‘Perhaps you’re right.’ Josh didn’t seem unduly perturbed. ‘She can move in with me in the meantime anyway. You couldn’t get more convenient than that!’

‘What?’ Bella stopped dead in dismay.

‘Well, she’s got to live somewhere,’ he pointed out reasonably. ‘She has to move out of her current flat at the end of next week, and she won’t have anywhere else to go.’

‘But you never wanted anyone living with you before!’ Josh was famously solitary.

He shrugged. ‘Aisling’s different. She’s a very special lady. We get on really well, and we’ve got a lot in common.’

Bella felt sick. Now look what she had done! ‘You don’t think it’ll be a bit much, living and working together?’

‘We won’t know until we try, will we? It hasn’t been a problem keeping our professional and private relationships separate so far. I think it’ll work out fine.’

So that was that.

Bella couldn’t believe how disastrously her refusal to share the house with Aisling had backfired. She had never dreamt that Josh was serious enough to ask Aisling to move in with him! He had always guarded his privacy so carefully. Previous girlfriends might spend the weekend with him, but he had never asked them if they wanted to leave so much as a toothbrush.

And now here he was, sharing his flat and his life with Aisling, of all people!

Bella didn’t like it. Before, she had always known when she could find Josh on his own, but now he was with Aisling all the time. As the weeks after Kate’s wedding passed, she saw him less and less often. When she did, she looked for signs that he was feeling crowded, or to hear that Aisling was moving into her own place, but she had to admit that they both seemed perfectly happy.

And she had no one to blame but herself. Bella could see that quite clearly. She had pushed them into living together, and now she was just going to have to accept the situation.

She didn’t have to like it, though. And she missed Josh. She missed him terribly. Just his friendship, of course, she reassured herself, but still, it was a big gap in her life.

For a while she pinned her hopes on Will. She convinced herself that everything would be different when he came back from Hong Kong. Absence would work its usual miracle and the moment she saw him again she would realise just how much he meant to her.

Only it wasn’t like that. She was pleased to see him, and they got on well, but something had changed. Will could see it as clearly as she did.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said miserably. ‘It’s not you. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.’

‘Hey, don’t worry about it,’ said Will, who was turning out to be a real sweetie. Bella had never appreciated him properly before. ‘We can still be friends.’

In some ways, Will took over Josh’s role, although he could never know her as well as Josh did. Bella knew it wouldn’t be long before he found someone else—he was too good-looking to stay single for long—but in the meantime they got on much better than when they had been a couple.

Her life was much quieter than it had been before…before what? All Bella knew was that she didn’t feel like going to parties any more for some reason, and that now she preferred meeting friends for a quiet drink or going to see a film.

The theatre had never held any interest for her before either, but when Will said that he had managed to get a couple of tickets for the newest and most spectacular show in town, she actually found herself looking forward to it instead of rolling her eyes and wishing they were going to the hottest new club.

She met Will in the foyer of the theatre and together they climbed the sweeping staircases to the main bar. The room was crowded with theatre-goers anxious to get a drink before the curtain went up. Together they pushed their way through to the bar, only to come face to face with Josh and Aisling, who had managed to get their drinks and were heading out of the throng.

Bella’s heart jerked horribly when she saw Josh, and she plucked frantically at Will’s sleeve to catch his attention.

Josh, on the other hand, was unaffectedly pleased to see her. ‘Bella! Where have you been hiding yourself?’

Clearly his heart wasn’t somersaulting sickeningly around in his chest at the sight of her, and it cost him nothing to lean forward, still grasping both drinks, to kiss her cheek.

‘I haven’t seen you for ages!’ he said, and then his eyes fell on Will and his face hardened. ‘Oh,’ he said flatly. ‘You’re back, are you?’

Will was rather taken aback by his tone. ‘Back?’

‘According to Bella, you were single-handedly saving the global economy in Hong Kong while the rest of us mere mortals were at Kate’s wedding.’

‘I wouldn’t say that,’ said Will modestly, ‘but we did manage to brush through that particular crisis.’

‘When did you get back?’ Josh’s tone was unfriendly, and he was eyeing Will like a dog with its hackles up.

‘Some time ago—’

‘I’m sorry we haven’t been in touch—’ Bella interrupted, putting her arm around Will’s waist and leaning winsomely into him ‘—but you know what it’s like when one of you has been away.’ She gave him a meaningful squeeze. ‘We haven’t seen anybody really, have we, darling?’

Will’s expression flickered, but he rose to the occasion wonderfully and put his arm around her and agreed that they hadn’t felt like being very social.

‘I’m glad everything’s going well for you,’ said Josh, not looking in the slightest bit glad, and not sounding it either.

‘Oh, yes, everything’s perfect,’ cooed Bella. ‘Isn’t it, Will?’

‘Perfect,’ he echoed, somewhat woodenly.

‘Anyway, enough about us! How are things with you two?’ Bella asked brightly.

Josh handed Aisling her drink so that he could put his free arm around her in imitation of the way Will and Bella were standing. ‘We’re great,’ he said.

Did Bella imagine it, or was that a defensive edge to his voice?

‘It’s not like you to come to the theatre, Bella,’ Aisling put in. ‘Josh was just saying that you’ve always been too much of a drama queen yourself to ever want to watch anyone else getting all the attention on stage!’

Bella could imagine Josh saying that, but not in the way Aisling made it sound. ‘No, well, I’m rather surprised to see you two here as well,’ she countered sweetly. ‘I thought you preferred being outdoors, competing as to who has the muddiest boots or the dirtiest towel.’

‘We like being active,’ Aisling agreed, her smile every bit as fixed as Bella’s. ‘But we enjoy culture too.’

Josh didn’t look as if he was enjoying himself. Bella raised her brows, but before she could retort, Will had tugged at her. ‘If you want that drink, Bella, we’d better get going.’

‘Of course.’ Bella smiled sweetly at Josh and Aisling. ‘See you later!’

‘Culture!’ she exploded the moment they were out of earshot. ‘It’s only a musical! And Josh will hate it!’

‘So, do you want to tell me what that was all about?’ said Will when he had caught the barmaid’s attention and could hand Bella a gin and tonic.

Bella didn’t pretend not to know what he was talking about. ‘I didn’t want Josh to know that we’ve split up.’

‘I gathered that,’ he said dryly.

‘Thanks for playing along,’ she told him.

Will looked at her curiously. ‘I thought Josh was your big buddy?’ he said. ‘I assumed he’d be the first person you would tell if you split up.’

‘Normally he would be,’ admitted Bella, ‘but he was so unpleasant about you at Kate’s wedding that it made me cross, and besides—’

‘Besides what?’ asked Will when she stopped.

‘Nothing.’ She couldn’t explain why it had seemed such a good idea at the time to let Josh believe that she was still madly in love with Will.

Will raised his brows. ‘It must be six weeks since Kate got married. Do you mean to say that he still doesn’t know?’

‘I just haven’t had an opportunity to tell him,’ said Bella, swirling her gin defensively.

‘You did more than not tell him just now,’ he pointed out. ‘You went out of your way to make him think that we were still very much together!’

‘I know,’ she said guiltily. ‘I just can’t stand the thought of Aisling feeling sorry for me. You saw what she was like. She’d be all warm and sympathetic and oh-so-slightly smug because she and Josh are so cosy together.’ Bella grimaced at the thought and took a slug of gin. ‘You know they’re living together now?’

‘Ah,’ said Will.

Bella lowered her glass suspiciously. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘It explains why you’re so upset.’

‘I’m not upset,’ she said with something of a snap. ‘I just don’t like Aisling. Josh and I were fine until she came along.’

‘But it’s not Aisling who’s the problem, is it? It’s you.’

‘Me?’

‘You’re in love with Josh.’

Bella opened her mouth to deny it vehemently. She was fully intending to tell Will that he didn’t know what he was talking about, and that there was no question of being in love with Josh, who was just her dear friend and absolutely nothing else.

But somehow the words wouldn’t come out. Instead she felt a peculiar sinking sensation, as if she were teetering at edge of a cliff, not daring to look down at what lay in the abyss below. Closing her mouth, she swallowed hard.

‘I’m right, aren’t I?’ said Will, as the bell warning the audience to take their seats sounded.

Smiling ruefully, he took Bella’s glass from her nerveless hand and set it on a nearby table. Then he took her arm and propelled her towards the stairs. ‘Poor Bella. You look like you’ve been hit by a truck!’

That was exactly how Bella felt. Numbly, she let Will guide her up the stairs and into her seat. Having resisted it for so long, now the truth was staring her in the face, she couldn’t avoid it and she felt suddenly, horribly afraid.

How could it have happened? She had never loved Josh before, or at least not in this new, scary way, and there was no reason for her to start falling in love with him now.

Bella didn’t want to be in love with him. She wanted to go back to the way they had been before, but the certainty that she could never do that now was cold around her heart. As long as she had refused to acknowledge it, things were OK, but Will’s careless words had been all that were needed to let the genie out of the bottle, and now she could never get it back.

The truth was out there now, implacable, undeniable. After all these years, she was in love with Josh.




CHAPTER THREE


BELLA stared unseeingly at the dancers on the stage and remembered what Phoebe had said to her at Kate’s wedding. ‘You’ll know when you find him,’ she had said.

But she hadn’t known. It had taken Will, not normally the most perceptive of men, to point out the obvious, and now her life had changed for ever.

What was she going to do? Always before when she hadn’t known what to do she had talked to Josh, but he was the one person now she couldn’t, mustn’t, tell.

If sleeping together all those years ago would have spoilt their friendship, it was nothing to what confessing how she felt now would do. Josh was with Aisling, Bella reminded herself bleakly. She was just going to have to accept that friends was all they were, and make an effort to like Aisling for his sake.

That wasn’t going to be easy, but she would try.

She might not be able to tell Josh how her life had changed so completely, but she could tell him the truth about Will. It was stupid to carry on pretending, Bella decided. She had never lied to Josh before, and it didn’t feel right. If they were friends, and they had always been that, she should just admit that Will was not her ideal man after all.

But there never seemed to be an opportunity over the next couple of weeks. In spite of her determination to try harder with Aisling, Bella balked at trying to explain why she had pretended the way she had in front of her. She wasn’t sure she could stand Aisling’s sympathy or—worse—her understanding.

So when she got an email from Josh one day saying that Aisling was going out with some old colleagues and suggesting that the two of them meet up for a drink the following evening, Bella thought it would be her best chance to straighten things out. Some of them, anyway.

‘Absolutely,’ she emailed back. ‘Don’t seem to have had a good chat for ages and have lots to tell you. Usual time, usual place?’

‘News for you too,’ Josh replied immediately. ‘See you tomorrow.’

Bella was ridiculously nervous next day, and so tense and snappy at work that others in the office took to edging round her. Really, it was worse than going on a first date!

She couldn’t believe that she felt this twitchy about meeting Josh. She was pinning her hopes on a miraculous cure, whereby one look at him would be enough for her to realise that she had blown everything out of proportion—and, let’s face it, it wouldn’t be the first time she had done that!—and to discover that she wasn’t in love with him at all.

But part of her knew that this was just wishful thinking. She was stuck with this now.

Her hands shook as she brushed her hair and put on fresh lipstick in the ladies’ loo at the end of the day.

‘You look nice,’ said her boss’s PA, who was also titivating in front of the mirror prior to going out. ‘Heavy date tonight?’

‘No,’ said Bella, moistening her lips. ‘Just meeting a friend.’

A friend. That was all he was. She must remember that. Never mind that she couldn’t even say his name without her insides twisting themselves into a knot.

She arrived at the bar ten minutes early, unheard of for her. It was a standing joke that her watch ran twenty-five minutes slower than Josh’s. She got herself a drink and sat down at a table, twisting the glass nervously between her hands.

This was awful! She didn’t know whether she longed for Josh to arrive or dreaded it.

When he did, bang on time as usual, he didn’t even bother to look for her, but glanced at his watch, assumed she would be late and went straight to the bar.

Bella’s heart jerked painfully at the sight of him and stuck, hammering frantically, in her throat. It was lucky that he hadn’t seen her and come straight over, as she couldn’t have spoken if she had tried. So much for her hope that she would turn out not to be in love with him after all.

Her eyes rested on him hungrily as he stood at the bar, wearing chinos and a battered old jacket. She had spent years rolling her eyes at his complete absence of any sense of style at all, and the boring way he insisted on having his hair cut. Now just looking at the back of his neck was like a hand squeezing hard inside her.

Josh might not be the sharpest of dressers but he exuded a kind of tough competence, and he wasn’t a man who got ignored by bar staff. He was served far more quickly than Bella had been, and turned with a beer in his hand to look for a table.

Swallowing hard, Bella waved to attract his attention, and his searching expression changed ludicrously to one of surprise.

‘Bella!’ He put his beer down on the table and bent to kiss her cheek. ‘You’re on time! Did I slip into a parallel universe without noticing? What’s come over you?’

I’m in love with you.

Her face tingled where his lips had brushed against her skin. She felt absurdly shy.

‘Things were quiet at work so I left early,’ she said.

‘Things quiet in the PR world?’ said Josh as he sat down opposite her. ‘This is a parallel universe!’

He picked up his beer. ‘Cheers,’ he said and they chinked glasses. Taking a sip he set the glass down again and smiled at Bella. ‘So,’ he said. ‘You’re looking good.’

‘So are you.’

He looked more than good. He looked wonderful. Bella couldn’t take her eyes off him. She wanted to crawl over to him, sit in his lap and run her hand up his arm and along his shoulder, to kiss his throat and then work her way along his jaw to his mouth…

Appalled at the sheer grip of lust, she gulped her wine shakily. All those years she had taken Josh for granted, and now she could hardly keep her hands off him! Thank God he was sitting opposite and hadn’t chosen the seat beside her. Even so, she tightened both hands around the stem of the glass where she could see them on top of the table and keep them under control.

‘How are things with you?’ she managed.

‘Great. And you?’

‘Yes, fine.’

This was ghastly. Bella felt close to tears. It had always been so easy with Josh before. They would get their drinks and spend the rest of the evening talking and laughing and teasing each other, and now they were sitting here being polite to each other.

‘Are you still going off to the Seychelles?’

Josh nodded. He was obviously picking up on the awkward atmosphere. ‘In a couple of weeks,’ he said.

‘Lucky you. I wish I could go away in November. It’s always so dark and miserable then.’

God, now they were reduced to the weather!

Josh didn’t even try and pick up on that particular conversational gambit. He drank his beer instead and an uncomfortable silence fell.

Bella concentrated on making patterns with the condensation on the bottom of her glass. She was supposed to be telling him about Will but she wasn’t sure how to do it without explaining how her feelings had changed, and if Josh probed too far in that direction it wouldn’t take him long to realise that she had changed, and then he would want to know why and…oh, God, perhaps it would be better not to say anything?

‘So,’ said Josh again, sounding rather strained. ‘What’s new with you? You said you had a lot to tell me.’

‘You go first,’ she said quickly. ‘You said you had news too.’

‘Yes…yes, I do.’

He sounded almost as hesitant as she felt. He obviously didn’t know where to begin either. A tiny chill crept into Bella’s stomach.

‘Is it good or bad?’ she asked, trying to make light of it.

‘Good,’ said Josh after another tiny hesitation.

‘You don’t sound very sure!’

He didn’t. Josh could hear it himself. ‘No, it is good. Definitely good,’ he said.

The best, in fact. So why didn’t it feel fantastic? Josh wondered. It had seemed such a good idea when Aisling suggested it. More than that, it had made perfect sense. He should be standing on the table, shouting his luck to the world.

He just hadn’t expected it to be so difficult to tell Bella, that was all.

She was looking at him curiously across the table. ‘Is it something to do with work?’

‘No, no, nothing like that.’ Josh took another desperate drink of his beer.

Bella pursed her lips, rolled her eyes and shook back her long, blonde hair in an achingly familiar gesture of exasperation. ‘Well?’ she demanded, sounding like the old Bella, and not the strange new, shy, prompt Bella who had been sitting opposite him a moment ago. ‘Do I have to guess, or are you going to tell me?’

‘Aisling and I are getting married.’

Josh winced as he heard how he blurted out the words as if he felt guilty or something. He had meant to lead up to it more gently.

He looked at Bella, unsure of how she would react. She seemed to have frozen, and for a second or two her expression was completely blank. Then the blue eyes dropped to her wine and she stared at it for a few moments, until Josh began to wonder if she had heard him.

‘Bella?’ he asked, but she had already lifted her gaze and there was a bright smile on her face.

‘Well…congratulations!’ she said in a voice that matched her smile, and she half stood to lean across the table and kiss him on the cheek.

Her hair swung against Josh’s face, and he could smell her perfume. She always wore exactly the same one. ‘Allure,’ she had told him when he asked once what it was, and she had grinned at him. ‘Feel free to buy me a huge bottle whenever you want!’ Sometimes when she had been in his flat, he could sniff the fragrance still lingering in the air. It always made him think of her.

What perfume did Aisling wear? Wasn’t that the kind of thing a fiancé should know?

‘When did all this happen?’ she asked, sitting back down with the same bright smile that for some reason intensified Josh’s feeling of unease. But she looked just the same, the same blue eyes, the same tilting lashes, the same swing of spun gold around her face as she shook her hair out of the way.

It was just the smile that was wrong, but Josh couldn’t put his finger on why.

‘Last week,’ he said.

They had just won a big contract, and the whole company had been out celebrating that evening. When they got home, Josh had tried to tell Aisling how much he appreciated what she had done. There was no doubt that she had made a huge difference. She had finely honed marketing skills, and with her background knowledge of clients like C.B.C. she had been able to steer the company in a new direction which was paying dividends already. This had been an important contract to win, and if they could get the C.B.C. deal as well, the future would be assured.

‘We couldn’t have done it without you,’ he had told her, still high on the relief and euphoria of the staff. They had all worked hard but Aisling’s input had been key and they all knew it. ‘We make a fantastic team.’





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