Return Engagement. Carole Mortimer
she hadn’t yet realised that there was much more to choosing a life’s partner than the way he looked. But the important question was, had Rebecca Harcourt realised it, now that it was almost too late and she was due to marry in a few months’ time? Almost...? It was too late, with Wolf as the bridegroom!
She determinedly put the Harcourt-Thornton wedding from her mind once they got back to the office; she had a business to run, and she wouldn’t be able to do that effectively if she allowed herself to think of Wolf. She had spent seven years not thinking about him, and, while it hadn’t always been easy, she had somehow managed to get on with her life. He had no right disrupting things for her in this way when she was on the brink of finally making a breakthrough with her business. The unfortunate factor was that Wolf’s wedding to Rebecca Harcourt was going to be instrumental in helping her achieve that breakthrough!
She picked the receiver up automatically when the telephone rang a short time after their return, although she immediately tensed when the caller identified herself as Rebecca Harcourt.
‘What can I do for you, Miss Harcourt?’ she enquired with polite distance. She usually made a point of getting on friendly terms with all the brides she dealt with. She had found from experience that it made things better all round if the two of them could talk easily together, but that wasn’t going to be easy for her with this girl, not when Wolf was the man Rebecca intended marrying!
‘Rebecca, please,’ the girl requested a little breathlessly. ‘And what you can do for me is—well—’
‘Yes?’ Cyn prompted when she realised Rebecca seemed to be having difficulty finishing what she wanted to say. ‘If it’s that you’ve decided you don’t want to use my agency after all, please don’t worry that I’ll be offended,’ she added lightly—in the circumstances, she would be relieved if this turned out to be the case! ‘I realise that perhaps your father put you in a position where—’
‘Oh, it isn’t that,’ Rebecca hastened to reassure her. ‘I’m sure that your help with things is going to be invaluable,’ she accepted distractedly. ‘I just—’ She broke off awkwardly.
‘Yes?’ Cyn urged again, more gently this time, sensing the girl’s strain. And what was the point of her being distant with Rebecca? It wasn’t the girl’s fault that she was marrying Wolf, of all people!
‘I— Could you—?’
Oh, dear! Cyn had a feeling that the meeting Rebecca had had with the gardener in the gazebo was going to be important after all!
‘Everything’s going too fast.’ Rebecca finally seemed to find the right words, sounding relieved as she did. ‘I’m sure I’m not the first bride you’ve found to have a touch of pre-wedding nerves,’ she attempted to dismiss lightly. ‘I just—well, I want you to slow down on the arrangements for a bit,’ she added brightly, obviously feeling more confident now. ‘There’s no rush, and—’
‘The wedding date is only four months away,’ Cyn reminded her quietly.
‘Well, yes. But— Well—’
‘How about if just the two of us got together for a chat?’ Cyn took pity on her. As Rebecca said, she was accustomed to dealing with last-minute jitters, but four months away could hardly be called ‘last-minute.’ Besides, she had a feeling this was so much more serious than that.
‘Oh, yes,’ Rebecca agreed gratefully. ‘That would be marvellous. I could—try to explain, then.’
Cyn doubted that very much. She had a feeling Rebecca was trying to deny the truth even to herself. ‘How about if I come back to the house tomorrow, and we can—?’
‘Oh, not here!’ Rebecca cut in sharply. ‘What I mean is,’ she forced her voice to sound lightly dismissive, ‘why don’t we have lunch together somewhere, at least make the meeting enjoyable?’
And as far away from her father and Wolf as possible, Cyn would hazard a guess. ‘That’s fine with me,’ she accepted. ‘How about—?’ She broke off abruptly as her office door swung open without warning, staring up at Wolf as he stood so arrogantly in the doorway. Her hand tightened instinctively round the telephone receiver, the colour draining from her cheeks even as she felt her mouth go dry.
Although why she was so disconcerted she didn’t know. She had known earlier that there was no way Wolf was meekly going to accept her reappearance into his life, after an absence of seven years, without making her well aware of his displeasure, for all that he had remained so outwardly calm while they were both still at the Harcourts’. Meekly? Wolf had never accepted anything meekly in his life!
No, what was making this second meeting with him in one day so awkward for Cyn was that, for all the other girl’s bravado as to her reason for calling, Cyn could almost guarantee that Wolf was the last person Rebecca would want to know about this telephone call. And as they were still connected, and Cyn had no way of letting the other girl know of her fiancé’s arrival without at the same time alerting Wolf to the identity of the person on the other end of the line, Cyn wasn’t quite sure what to do next!
She watched Wolf as he came fully into the office, closing the door firmly behind him, standing across the room to look at her with haughty disdain as he waited for her to end the call. As end it she surely must. And as quickly as possible.
‘Lunch sounds fine,’ she somehow managed to answer Rebecca, although she could hear the strain in her own voice as she tried to sound normal. ‘Perhaps you could name a restaurant that would be convenient for both of us?’ she added lightly, all the time watching Wolf as he moved about the office now, occasionally picking things up to examine them before discarding them again, as if he had had no real interest in them in the first place. As, indeed, he probably hadn’t. She had bridal books, printers’ books, schedules, all littered about the gaily decorated office, its pink and cream wallpaper and paint applied by Cyn herself; she hadn’t been able to afford to pay a professional after putting down her first years’ rent on the office itself! The disdainful twist of Wolf’s harshly etched lips seemed to say he was well aware of the amateurish attempt she had made at decorating. He turned back to her now, dark blond brows raised pointedly as she still remained on the telephone.
Cyn would gladly end the call, if Rebecca would just name a restaurant. The sooner she got this meeting with Wolf over and done with the better. And after it, her meeting with Rebecca would probably be superfluous anyway: Wolf hadn’t said so at the time, but Cyn was sure she was the last person he wanted involved in the organisation of his wedding to Rebecca.
Thank goodness Janie had gone out for a late lunch on their return, otherwise her assistant would have been agog with curiosity as to the reason for Wolf Thornton calling on Cyn here after they had so recently spoken at his fiancé’s house. Cyn certainly had no intention of explaining to the girl that there were certain things Wolf would like to say to her that he wouldn’t want anyone else to be witness to!
‘How about the Ritz?’ Rebecca finally suggested after what seemed to Cyn like an extraordinarily long time. It probably wasn’t, but with Wolf still prowling around the room, it certainly seemed that way!
And the Ritz was hardly ‘convenient to both of them,’ or indeed within Cyn’s budget, but as this was to be a business meeting it would have to go on expenses; she certainly couldn’t waste the time—or, indeed, give away Rebecca’s identity—by suggesting somewhere else.
‘Fine,’ she accepted tersely. ‘Twelve-thirty tomorrow,’ she ended the call, putting the receiver down abruptly before turning to look at Wolf where he had moved around behind her now, studying the wall-chart she had of future bookings for the services of Perfect Bliss. Several dinner parties were also booked down during the more barren weeks.
He turned to her abruptly now, his golden-brown gaze rapier-sharp as it raked over her contemptuously, making Cyn very aware of the slightly windswept appearance of her silver-blond hair as it fell in soft waves to her shoulders, the colour made to look even lighter against the dark violet of her blouse. Her lips, she knew, would be bare of lip-gloss too, as she had