A Consultant Claims His Bride. Maggie Kingsley
bat.’
He smothered a laugh. ‘Nell, I hardly think being thirty-two makes you an old ba—’
‘Jonah, I’m a thirty-two-year-old, fat, five-foot-nine inch female with dyed hair and boring grey eyes.’
‘No, you’re not,’ he protested. ‘Your hair is lovely, your eyes are beautiful, and you’re not fat. You’re statuesque, curvy.’
‘I’m fat, Jonah,’ she interrupted, ‘and do you want to know something? I hate the way I look. I want to be a size six instead of a size sixteen. I keep going on diets, but…’ she waved her hand expansively, sending part of the wine in her glass sloshing onto the carpet ‘…they don’t work, and you know why they don’t work? Because I cheat. I end up so damned hungry I cheat.’
‘Nell, there is nothing wrong with the way you look,’ Jonah declared. ‘You’re fine just as you are.’
Tears welled in her eyes and she sniffed them back. ‘You’re a good friend, Jonah, a good mate. Are you sure you don’t want some of this wine? It really is very good.’
‘You obviously think it is,’ he said dryly as he watched her empty her glass, ‘but I’m driving, remember? Look, why don’t you phone Brian? I know he’s going to be back in six months, but you’re obviously missing him.’
‘He’s not coming back.’ There, she’d finally said it, and now she had his full attention.
‘You mean he’s staying in the States?’ he said slowly. ‘You’re going out there to join him?’
‘No, I’m not going out there to join him. He…he’s found somebody else. This…’ She stared down at her engagement ring for a second, then pulled it off and put it down on the coffee-table. ‘I shouldn’t be wearing this because he doesn’t want to marry me any more. He wants to marry somebody called Candy, and I…I…’
She couldn’t say any more, and Jonah looked hard at her as she reached for the bottle of wine again.
‘I think you’ve had enough of that.’
‘It beats slashing my wrists,’ she said, striving to sound flippant, but Jonah didn’t seem to find it amusing.
He got to his feet, pulled the wine bottle out of her hand and set it down on the coffee-table beside her engagement ring with a clatter.
‘Don’t ever let me hear you say that again,’ he said, his eyes icy. ‘Not even as a joke. OK, so Brian has found somebody else, but these things happen. Relationships fail—’
‘And I just have to pick myself up and start all over again,’ she finished for him tartly. ‘Well, that’s just dandy, Jonah. That’s just swell, and I’m sure in a few months’ time I’ll be able to think like that, but right now I can’t, OK?’
‘So you’re going to drink yourself into a stupor for the next few months,’ he said as she reached for the bottle again.
‘Sounds good to me,’ she said, and under Jonah’s disapproving gaze she defiantly poured herself another glass and gulped it down.
Actually, she could see now why people got drunk. Your vision became a little blurry, and your head might not feel as though it was completely connected to your body, but it warmed you, relaxed you. In fact, she was so relaxed that Jonah’s disapproval suddenly seemed funny and she started to giggle.
‘Nell, you’ve definitely had enough to drink!’ he exclaimed, and she stuck her tongue out at him.
‘Oh, for God’s sake, lighten up, Jonah,’ she said, leaning back in her seat and missing the arm of the chair by a mile.
‘Nell.’
She sighed. ‘All right, all right. If you’re going to be boring, I’ll get us both coffee.’
And she fully intended to do just that, but when she stood up a rush of blood suddenly sped from her legs to her head and before she knew what was happening she’d pitched forward onto the carpet, missing the coffee-table by inches.
‘Nell, are you all right?’
Jonah’s voice was anxious, tense, and she rolled over onto her back and stared fuzzily up at him.
‘Of course I’m all right. Except what are you doing up there while I’m down here?’
He shook his head. ‘I think it’s time you were in bed,’ he said, and she fluttered her eyelashes at him.
‘Ooh, Jonah, that’s the best offer I’ve had in ages.’
With a sigh he reached to help her up, and she waited for him to put his back out when he tried to lift her, but he didn’t. Never before had she felt small and fragile, but somehow Jonah managed to make her feel both as he lifted her effortlessly up into his arms.
‘My hero.’ She hiccuped as he carried her out of the sitting room. ‘Superman in a white coat. Where are you taking me, Mr Superman?’
‘To your bedroom, if I knew where it was,’ he said.
‘Second door on the right,’ she replied, waving an unsteady hand down the hall. ‘You know, you have lovely hair, Jonah,’ she added, nuzzling her nose into the side of his neck. ‘I never realised you had such lovely hair. Soft, silky. Smells nice, too.’
‘Don’t do that, Nell.’
His voice sounded strained, constricted, and she tickled the hair at the nape of his neck with her fingers and giggled.
‘Why not? It’s nice. You’re nice.’ He muttered something she didn’t catch, and she planted a kiss at the base of his throat, only to feel him jerk his head away. ‘You’re my knight in shining armour, Jonah. My true-blue, always-there knight in shining armour.’
A knight in shining armour who was going to leave, she suddenly realised when they reached her bedroom and Jonah gently began to lower her onto her bed. But she didn’t want him to leave. She didn’t want to lie there all alone, remembering she’d been dumped. She wanted to feel desired, attractive, and before she could rationalise her thoughts, or Jonah could straighten up, she flung her arms around his neck and pulled him down on top of her.
‘Nell, what the…?’
‘Stay, Jonah,’ she whispered. ‘Stay with me.’
He shook his head, his face unreadable. ‘Nell, you don’t know what you’re saying.’
‘I do,’ she insisted. ‘I do. Don’t go. I don’t want you to go.’ And as he opened his mouth, clearly intending to protest, her lips met his and silenced him.
CHAPTER TWO
IT WAS the insistent ringing of her alarm clock that woke Nell with a start. A ringing that went straight through her skull with all the force of a dentist’s drill.
Gingerly, she tried to sit up, only to lie down again swiftly with a groan as the contents of her stomach lurched up into her throat. She’d never been a drinker and now she remembered why. Two glasses of wine were her limit and she couldn’t begin to count how many she’d had last night. Too many, if her throbbing head and churning stomach were anything to go by.
With an effort she turned on her side, and froze. Two aspirins and a glass of water were sitting on her bedside cabinet. Two aspirins and a glass of water she knew she hadn’t put there yesterday.
Jonah.
‘Oh, God, tell me I didn’t,’ she whispered, squeezing her eyes shut as memories of last night began creeping into her mind. ‘Tell me what I’m thinking happened didn’t happen, and it was just a bad dream.’
But it wasn’t. When she lifted her duvet she could see she was still wearing her bra and knickers. At least it was her halfway decent bra and knickers, as opposed to some of