A Whirlwind Engagement

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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