The Wedding-Night Affair. Miranda Lee
Bill Babstock, if you recall. Anyway, when she rang to book Bill for her son’s wedding, dear Bill very sensibly suggested she hire a professional wedding co-ordinator, then gave you the most glowing recommendation. When Mrs Forsythe rang just now, I did explain that you were very busy, but she promptly said that she’d heard you were the best and she wanted only the best for her son’s wedding. So naturally I promised her you.’
‘Naturally,’ Fiona repeated in rueful tones.
Owen threw his hands up in the air. ‘How was I to know you’d once been married to her infernal son? I mean...when I gave the woman your full name to jot down, she didn’t react adversely. It was as though she didn’t recognise it at all!’
Fiona thought about that for a moment ‘No, she wouldn’t. Everyone called me Noni back then. And my surname was Stillman. Fiona Kirby wouldn’t have meant a thing to her.’
Owen frowned ‘Kirby’s not your maiden name?’
‘No, it’s my second husband’s name.’
Owen gaped at her. ‘Second husband! Good grief, girl, I’ve known you six years, and whilst you’ve had more admirers than I’ve had bow ties you’ve never even got close to the altar. On top of that, you’re only twenty-eight! Now I find you’ve got two husbands hidden in your past and the first belongs to one of Australia’s richest families! Who was the other one? A famous brain surgeon? An international pop star?’
‘No, a truck driver.’
‘A truck driver!’ he repeated disbelievingly.
‘First name Kevin. Lived out at Leppington. Nice man, actually. I did him a favour when I divorced him, believe me.’
‘And Philip Forsythe? Was he a nice man too?’
‘Actually, yes, he was. Very.’ She’d never held any real bitterness towards Philip. Or even Philip’s father, who’d been surprisingly kind and gentle. It was his mother Fiona despised, his mother who’d looked down her nose at Noni and never given her brief marriage to Philip a chance.
‘I suppose you did Philip Forsythe a favour when you divorced him too?’ came her partner’s caustic comment.
‘How very perceptive of you, Owen. That’s exactly what I did.’ But it wasn’t a divorce, she almost added. It was an annulment...
Fiona bit her tongue just in time. Such an announcement would lead to some sticky questions which she had no intention of answering.
‘Let’s face it, Owen,’ she went on, ‘I’m not good wife material. I like my own way far too much. I also hate to think we might lose this lucrative commission. Are you absolutely sure you can’t convince Mrs Forsythe to let you do it? Maybe we could say I’m ill.’
Owen sighed. ‘I won’t lie, Fiona. Lies always come back and bite you on the bum. Besides, I could hear the determination in her voice. She wants you for her son’s wedding, and you alone.’
‘That’s a change,’ Fiona muttered under her breath.
‘What was that?’
Fiona looked up. ‘I said that’s a shame. As you said, this wedding would be worth a lot to us, both money-wise and reputation-wise.’ She frowned and gnawed at her bottom lip. ‘I wonder...’
Owen tried not to panic as he watched his partner’s large brown eyes narrow into darkly determined slits. He knew that stubborn, focused look. When Fiona got the bit between the teeth, woe betide anyone who got in her way. Most times, Fiona’s driven and obsessive personality didn’t worry him. It was a plus, business-wise. She got things done.
This time, however, he feared getting things done might get things seriously undone.
‘Oh, no, you don’t!’ he said, leaping out of the chair and jabbing a pudgy finger her way. ‘Don’t even think about it!’
‘Think about what?’
‘Trying to trick Kathryn Forsythe. I can see you now, putting on glasses and a blonde wig then waltzing in there with some funny accent, hoping your ex-mother-in-law won’t recognise you.’
‘But she won’t recognise me, Owen,’ Fiona said with blithe confidence. ‘And I won’t need to change a thing about my appearance. When Philip’s mother knew me ten years ago I was a blonde. A ghastly straw colour done in a big mass of waves and curls. I also wore more make-up than a clown, carried twenty pounds too many and dressed like I was auditioning for a massage parlour. No top could be too tight; no skirt too short.’
Owen could only stare, first at the shoulder-length black hair which swung in a sleek, smooth, glossy curtain around his partner’s striking but subtly made up face, then at the very slender body which was always displayed within a stylish but subtle outfit.
In appearance and dress, Fiona was the epitome of elegance and class, had been ever since he’d known her. The image she’d just painted of herself at the time of her marriage to Philip Forsythe certainly didn’t match the woman she was today. Owen could not visualise her as some brassy voluptuous blonde bombshell.
Even if it was so—and he supposed it was—why would the likes of Philip Forsythe marry such a creature? He didn’t know the man personally, but the bachelor sons of that particular family only ever married glamorous model-types, or the daughters of other equally rich families.
Unless, of course, it was for the sex.
Owen had to admit Fiona exuded a strong sexual allure which even he felt at times. Yet she wasn’t his type at all. He fancied cuddly older women who laughed a lot, played a top game of Scrabble and cooked him casseroles. He never looked at a woman under forty, or a size fourteen.
Still, most men were madly attracted to Fiona. Once they slept with her, they became seriously smitten. She had dreadful trouble getting rid of her lovers after she tired of them.
And she always tired of them in the end.
Owen had often thought her a little cruel towards his sex, despite her always claiming that she never made a man any promises of permanency and had no idea why they presumed a deeper involvement than what was on offer. Perhaps the secret of that cruelty lay in those two marriages to those two supposedly ‘nice’ men.
‘As for a funny accent,’ Fiona was saying with a dismissive wave of her hand, ‘I won’t need to adopt one of those, either. The way I talk now is a lot different to the way I used to talk, believe me. I made Crocodile Dundee sound cultured back in those days. No, Owen, Mrs Forsythe won’t recognise me. And Mr Forsythe senior won’t have the chance. He passed away a couple of years back.’
‘Did he? I didn’t know that.’
‘Cancer,’ Fiona informed him. ‘It didn’t get all that much coverage in the papers. The funeral was private and closed to the public.’
There’d only been the one photo, Fiona recalled. That had been of Kathryn climbing into a big black car after the funeral was over. None of Philip.
Philip was not like his mother, or the rest of the Forsythes. He shunned publicity, and the media. Not once in the past ten years had Fiona ever caught a glimpse of him, either on television, or in the papers or magazines.
‘And what was he like?’ Owen asked.
‘What?’ Fiona looked up blankly. ‘Who?’
‘The groom’s father,’ Owen repeated drily.
‘Actually...he was very nice.’
‘Goodness, Fiona, your past seems peppered with very nice men. How is it, then, that down deep you’re a man-hater?’
Fiona was startled for a moment, then defensive. ‘That’s a bit harsh, Owen, and not true at all. I love you, and you’re a man.’
‘I’m not talking about me, Fiona. I’m talking about the men you’ve dated, then discarded without so much as a backward glance.