A Whirlwind Engagement

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.’