Convenient Engagements: Fiance Wanted Fast! / The Blind-Date Proposal / A Whirlwind Engagement
‘I hope you and Lisa will be very happy,’ she was saying to Ben. ‘I’m sure you will.’
‘Thank you,’ said Ben, which Gib thought was a bit inadequate. He could at least have acknowledged what a difficult moment this was for Phoebe, or said how much he appreciated her efforts to pretend that everything was absolutely fine and that he hadn’t broken her heart.
As it was, the other man looked distinctly ill at ease. Gib studied him, unimpressed. What did Phoebe see in him? He looked pleasant enough, but dull, Gib decided dismissively. Not enough character in his face to deal with Phoebe. She needed someone with a bit more fire to appreciate her.
‘This is Gib,’ Phoebe introduced him awkwardly, and the two men shook hands without any noticeable enthusiasm.
‘Congratulations,’ said Gib.
There was a tiny pause. Phoebe kept her smile pinned to her face and tucked her hand in Gib’s arm. ‘Congratulate us, too, Ben. Gib and I are thinking about getting married.’
‘Really?’ Ben looked taken aback for a moment.
Gib could practically see the relief warring with surprise and a touch of chagrin in his face. No doubt Phoebe was supposed to stay broken-hearted for ever, not find someone else.
‘That’s great news,’ Ben recovered, kissing Phoebe again. ‘Congratulations, Phoebe.’ He looked warily at Gib. ‘You’re a lucky man.’
‘I know,’ said Gib discouragingly.
The moment Ben had moved on to greet other well-wishers, Phoebe rounded on Gib. ‘Did you have to be quite so unfriendly?’ she demanded. She had never seen him behave like that before. For a moment there he had looked quite grim. ‘This is Ben’s wedding day. You’re supposed to be nice to him!’
‘You can’t expect me to fawn all over the man who hurt the woman I love,’ said Gib with a slight edge.
‘I don’t think there’s any need to take your role that seriously! Ben looked as if he were afraid you were about to punch him.’
‘It might have livened him up a bit,’ Gib beckoned a waiter over and exchanged his empty glass for a full one. ‘What do you see in that guy, anyway? He’s not exactly a ball of fire, is he?’
‘Ben is a very nice man,’ said Phoebe defensively. ‘He’s kind and honest and … and reliable—unlike some people I could mention! Why on earth did you tell Penelope you would spend the night when we had already agreed you would go back to London?’
‘Because no self-respecting fiancé would leave you on your own the very night you most need support. Even if you were madly in love with me, it would be hard for you to see Ben getting married, and Penelope obviously knows that. If I’d gone back to London making some lame excuse about flying to Switzerland on Monday it really would have looked suspicious.’
Gib told himself that he was only trying to offer her support. He did think it would be easier for Phoebe if she had a friend with her tonight. He had hated the idea of getting on a train and leaving her to cope on her own. She might not want him, but he thought that she would need someone, and it might as well be him. The fact that he had leapt at the opportunity of staying had absolutely nothing to do with knowing that this might be the only chance he would have to get this close to her.
Of course not.
Phoebe eyed him with some frustration. It sounded reasonable enough, and the only argument she could really come up with was that he wasn’t doing as he was told, which would come across as a bit childish.
Feeling rattled, she sipped edgily at her champagne. How could she tell Gib that she was far more bothered by the prospect of spending the whole night with him than she had been about coming face to face with Ben? She wasn’t even sure that she was ready to admit it to herself.
‘It’ll certainly look suspicious if you leave now!’ she said crossly. ‘Then Penelope really would think we’d had a row. I suppose we’ll just have to make the best of it.’
Suppressing a sigh, she looked around her, and forced a smile as she caught the eye of an old friend of Ben’s family. ‘We’d better circulate. From now on, could you please not introduce any more variations on the story we agreed? If we get separated, say as little as possible, and when you do, stick to neutral topics. Talk about cricket or something.’
Gib snapped into a mock salute. ‘Whatever you say, boss.’
* * *
Phoebe picked up a plate and joined the queue for the buffet. Round tables had been set out where the guests could sit down or move around informally, and she looked around as casually as she could, trying to spot Gib, who had drifted from her side in far too relaxed a fashion. She didn’t trust him now.
A girl who had known her when she was going out with Ben was standing next to her, rabbiting on about some skiing holiday, but Phoebe was too busy wondering where Gib was and what he was saying to concentrate. She nodded and put in an occasional ‘yes’ or an ‘oh, really?’ while her eyes scanned the crowd with increasing nervousness.
There he was! Phoebe’s gaze did a double take and swung back to where she had spotted Gib sitting at a table with—oh, God!—her parents and Lara, and they all seemed to be getting on famously.
Typical, she fumed. There must be a hundred strangers here Gib could have picked to sit and make small talk with, but no! He had to choose the three people who were most likely to interrogate him closely and pick up on any weaknesses in their story!
Hastily grabbing a couple of vol-au-vents and a chicken leg, Phoebe muttered an excuse and, leaving Vanessa still yapping about drag lifts and chalet girls, fought her way across the room towards him to try and stop him before he embellished any more aspects of their supposed relationship. It took ages, though, as people kept hailing her, all delighted to see her again and eager to tell her how much they liked Gib.
He was so charming, they told her.
So funny.
So interesting.
‘So attractive!’ sighed more than one girl enviously. ‘You are lucky, Phoebe.’
Hadn’t she told Gib very clearly to stick to neutral topics? It didn’t sound as if he had listened to a word she had said, Phoebe thought furiously. Far from lurking quietly on the sidelines talking about the weather or the lack of hold-ups on the motorway, he had obviously been in the thick of things, circulating breezily and talking to everyone who knew her!
Smile fixed, she agreed for the umpteenth time that Gib was wonderful and struggled on through the tables to her family.
‘Ah, there you are!’ her mother waved gaily and Gib turned quickly to see Phoebe suck in her breath to squeeze in between two chairs, holding her plate high to clear the heads. She looked hot and flustered, and beneath her hat he could see that her jaw was gritted and her smile decidedly brittle.
He got to his feet and pulled out a chair for her to sit down beside him. ‘I lost you,’ he said, taking the plate from her as a precautionary measure. Now that she was close, he could see that her eyes were flashing an unmistakably irate message, and he didn’t want vol-au-vents all down his suit. ‘I was hoping you’d find me eventually.’
‘Gib’s been keeping us entertained,’ Lara told Phoebe, who was half tempted to refuse to sit next to Gib but couldn’t think of a reason that wouldn’t make her look childish.
‘So I saw,’ she said rather grimly instead as she sat down in the chair he still held.
‘He’s been telling us all about how you met,’ Lara went on. ‘You never told us it was quite that romantic, Phoebe!’
Romantic? What had he been telling them? Phoebe looked at Gib with foreboding, which only deepened when she saw his eyes dancing. She wished they wouldn’t do that. It only made her more nervous.
‘I didn’t tell them everything,’ he assured her, straight faced, and to Phoebe’s consternation her family laughed merrily, as if he had already told them more than enough.
‘Perhaps I should know what he did tell you,’ she said, holding on to her temper with difficulty.
‘He said it was a very easy mistake to make.’
‘And that it was wonderful to meet someone without any preconceptions about him.’
‘Yes, and that one of the reasons he loves you is that you just don’t care what he does.’
They beamed at her.
Phoebe looked at Gib. ‘Is that right?’ she said, unable to think of anything else, other than the obvious option which was that she had no idea what any of them were talking about.
‘I didn’t tell them what an idiot you felt when you realised that I was the president of the bank and not the layabout you thought I was when you were trying to get an interview.’ Gib’s eyes gleamed with appreciation as he saw her struggling to come to terms with the sheer nerve of him. ‘You were expecting the president to be someone a lot more formidable, weren’t you, darling?’
Somehow Phoebe managed to stretch her mouth into a ghastly smile. ‘It was quite a surprise,’ she said.
‘I must say, darling,’ said her father, ‘you might have told us what Gib did. You just told your mother he worked for a bank, as if he was some teller. I felt a complete fool when I realised!’
‘It sounds wonderful, too,’ said Lara, equally impressed. ‘It’s not as if an ethical bank is something to be ashamed of. Not like … I don’t know … being an arms dealer or a politician or something.’
Gib put a consoling arm around Phoebe’s shoulders. ‘But that’s exactly what I love about Phoebe. She just doesn’t care what I do or how much money I have.’ He smiled teasingly into her eyes. ‘You love me for what I am, don’t you, bunni—’ He pretended to catch himself up guiltily. ‘Don’t you, honey?’
‘You know exactly how much I love you,’ she said, meeting his gaze directly, and he laughed and released her.
‘What did you feel when you found out that Gib was actually the president?’ Lara asked eagerly. ‘You must have felt a bit stupid, didn’t you?’
‘To tell you the truth,’ said Phoebe, a decidedly crisp edge to her voice, ‘I didn’t believe a word of it!’
‘President!’ she bit out the moment the door to their bedroom closed behind them. The guests had begun to drift away from the reception and they had a couple of hours to recover before they had to go back down for dinner and dancing. ‘Couldn’t you have chosen something a bit more likely, like Chancellor of the Exchequer or Director General of the United Nations?’
‘I always fancied myself running a bank,’ said Gib by way of an excuse.
‘Why stop at a bank? Why not pretend you were President of the United States?’
‘They would have known that wasn’t true.’
Phoebe ground her teeth at the reasonableness of his tone. ‘Whereas, it’s so believable that you should be running your own bank?’
‘They did believe me, didn’t they?’ he replied, unanswerably.
‘I thought we agreed that you would stick to our story?’ she accused him, wrenching off her hat. She had a massive tension headache, and the champagne she had been reduced to gulping to cope with the stress of Gib’s increasingly ridiculous lies hadn’t helped any.
‘No more variations, we said. Now I’m not only supposed to be engaged to you and spending the night with you, I’m an accessory to illegal impersonation! Have you thought what will happen if J.G. Grieve hears that you’ve been impersonating him?’
‘I don’t think that’s very likely,’ said Gib soothingly. He hadn’t been able to resist the temptation to tease Phoebe a little by elaborating on the basic outlines they had agreed. ‘How’s he going to know what goes on at an obscure English wedding?’
‘These people have lawyers, you know,’ said Phoebe with a dark look. ‘If he sues you, you needn’t think I’m going to support you. God, what a day!’ she sighed, sinking down onto the edge of the vast four-poster bed and easing off her high-heeled shoes so that she could rub her sore feet.
Flopping back across the bed, she stared tensely up at the embroidered canopy. ‘And we’ve still got tonight to get through!’
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘OH, COME on, it hasn’t been that bad.’ Gib loosened his tie with a sigh of relief as he wandered around the room, inspecting the wood panelling and the magnificent stone fireplace.
‘Not for you, maybe,’ she grumbled, ‘but it’s been a nightmare for me, not knowing what ridiculous story you’re going to make up next, and just waiting for someone to turn round and spot that you’re here under false pretences. I’m going to feel great when that happens, aren’t I?’
‘Relax,’ he said soothingly. ‘Everything’s fine. You’re just tired. What you need is a nice bath.’
Without waiting for her to reply, he disappeared through a door in the panelling, and the next minute Phoebe heard the sound of water gushing into the bath. ‘I’ll bring you a drink, and you can unwind,’ he shouted over the noise. ‘You’ll feel much better then.’
Phoebe was tempted to tell him that she would be the judge of what would make her feel better, but a wonderful fragrance of foaming bubbles was drifting through into the bedroom and, when it came down to it, the thought of a long hot soak with a long cool drink was immensely appealing. No point in cutting off her nose to spite her face.
So she leant back against the pillows and let Gib run the bath for her. ‘Your bath awaits, madam,’ he said grandly at last, holding the door open with a flourish.
The bathroom turned out to be almost as impressive as the bedroom. It was panelled throughout, apart from a deep stone window, just wide enough to stick your bow and arrow through. A stuffed bear’s head was fixed to the wall. There was a selection of imposing antique chests and, in the middle, a vast claw-footed tub, filled to the brim with scented foam. Averting her eyes from the bear, Phoebe saw that Gib had put fluffy towels conveniently to hand on a wooden chair and set out the tempting array of luxurious freebies provided by the hotel along the side of the bath.
‘Thank you,’ she muttered, touched in spite of herself by the trouble he had taken.
He smiled at her, that unsettling, daredevil grin that never failed to make her nerves jump alarmingly. ‘It’s my way of saying I’m sorry,’ he said disarmingly. ‘I didn’t mean to wind you up today.’
‘That’s OK,’ Phoebe said awkwardly, feeling as if the wind had been rather taken out of her sails.
‘Now, what would you like to drink?’
‘Really, you don’t need to—’
‘I’ll add it to my expenses if that will make you feel better,’ Gib offered.
Phoebe wasn’t sure whether being reminded that he was only doing his job made her feel better or worse, but decided in the end that the most dignified course of action would be to relent.
‘Something long and cold would be wonderful,’ she said.
‘You get in,’ said Gib. ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’
When he had gone, Phoebe got undressed and stepped into the bath. It was enormous, more of a swimming pool than a bath, and she lay back with a luxurious sigh, immersing herself completely beneath the scented water. Maybe Gib wasn’t so bad after all, she thought as she emerged, blowing bubbles out of her mouth, and smoothing the wet hair back from her face.
Perhaps she had been overreacting. Gib was right, everyone had accepted him without question and there had been no need for her to be so nervous. She had been wound up about the whole situation, she realised, but in the end it hadn’t been the wedding or meeting Ben or fooling her family that had made her nervous. It had been Gib himself, Gib with his glinting, unsettling smile, and his warm hand on her back.
You’re beautiful and you’re brave, he had told her, and it had been the look in his eyes she had been thinking about when she watched Ben getting married, not the ache in her heart. The look in his eyes and touch of his mouth and the feel of his palm against her cheek.
It would have been much easier if he hadn’t kissed her. Really, there had been no need for it, Phoebe scolded herself. If she’d thought, it would have been obvious that no one would expect them to kiss like that in the middle of Ben’s wedding. She should have told Gib that it was a stupid idea and pushed him firmly away.
Instead of which she had wrapped her arms around him and pulled him closer and kissed him back. A wave of heat that had nothing whatsoever to do with the bath tingled through her as she remembered how it had felt, and when a sharp knock fell on the door her heart jerked painfully.
‘I’ve got a long, cold G&T here for you,’ came Gib’s voice. ‘If I promise to keep my eyes closed, shall I bring it in to you?’
‘Just a minute,’ she said on a gasp as she slid decorously beneath the deep layer of bubbles. ‘OK,’ she called.
Gib handed her the drink with a flourish. It looked wonderful, satisfyingly full of chinking ice cubes, a slice of lime bobbing merrily as the tonic fizzed. Her fingers touched his as she took the glass from him. It was so cold that condensation was trickling down the side, making it hard to hold.
That was the reason Phoebe gave herself for the unsteadiness of her grasp anyway. Nothing whatsoever to do with the warmth of Gib’s hand.
‘Got it?’
‘Yes. Thanks,’ she added, and then made another mistake of looking up into his face.
He was studying her with appreciative blue eyes, taking in her bare shoulders rising out of the foam. Her hair was slicked back from her face, unconsciously emphasising her bone structure, and the dark lashes were wet and spiky around the green eyes.
‘My pleasure,’ he said, smiling.
To her fury, Phoebe felt a blush rising up her throat and seeping into her cheeks. ‘I thought you were going to keep your eyes closed?’ she said as severely as she could.
‘I was afraid I would drop your drink if I did that,’ said Gib. ‘I’ll close them now.’
Shutting them virtuously, he proceeded to make a big show of bumping into things on his way out of the bathroom.
‘Idiot!’ sighed Phoebe, shaking her head, but in spite of herself she was smiling.
She didn’t know whether it was the bath or the gin that did the trick, but she was feeling a million times better when she emerged from the bathroom some time later to find Gib stretched out on the four-poster bed.
He had loosened the shirt at his neck and rolled up his sleeves and was lying with his hands behind his head. He looked lean and lazy, and somehow disturbing, and Phoebe’s nerves, which had calmed down while she was in the bath, instantly sprang to the alert again at the sight of him.
Gib turned his head as she came out of the bathroom, wrapped in a towelling robe supplied by the hotel, her skin pink and glowing. There was a tiny pause.
‘Better?’ he asked after a moment.
‘Yes, thank you,’ said Phoebe stiffly. She felt ridiculously shy of him again all of a sudden. ‘You can have the bathroom now if you want.’
‘I’ll have a shower in a bit.’ He yawned, and suddenly it was as if that moment of tension had never been. ‘I’m just enjoying this bed. It’s very comfortable. You should try it,’ he added, patting the cover beside him and pulling up some pillows invitingly.
Phoebe hesitated. Every instinct told her that climbing into bed next to Gib was asking for trouble, but it was too soon to get changed and the only other place to sit was a wooden chair which was no doubt authentic but which didn’t look at all comfortable.
And anyway, she wasn’t getting into bed with him, she rationalised. She was just getting onto it, which was a different matter entirely. Gib just happened to be sitting there as well. What could possibly be awkward about that?
So she clambered up beside him, trying not to expose too much leg beneath the towelling robe. The bed was huge and, as Gib had said, very comfortable. Phoebe leant back against the pillows with a sigh. After the accumulated tensions of the day, it was good to relax for a moment.
‘I’ve always wanted to sleep in a bed like this,’ said Gib, breaking the silence that was really quite companionable.
Phoebe, who had been almost asleep, jerked back to attention. It was going to be bad enough getting through the rest of the evening without the prospect of actually getting into bed with Gib to cope with!
‘I hope you’re not planning on sleeping in one tonight!’
‘Where else am I going to sleep?’ he asked in a mock injured tone. ‘That floor is made of stone!’
Phoebe looked around the room, which was authentically furnished with an austere wooden chair and absolutely no modern innovations like a sofa or even an armchair where she could reasonably expect Gib to make himself comfortable. There were good reasons why they didn’t live in the Middle Ages any more.
She sighed inwardly. She supposed the idea of getting married in a castle had seemed very romantic to Ben and Lisa but, when all was said and done, there was nothing wrong with a nice, characterless motel room. Preferably with twin beds.
‘You don’t think sharing a bed might be a bit intimate given that we’re not … that we don’t …?’ Phoebe trailed off uncomfortably.
‘I won’t forget you’re my boss if that’s what you’re worried about,’ said Gib with one of those lurking smiles of his.
‘That’s good coming from someone who’s spent the entire day forgetting that I’m boss!’ she retorted, nettled by his refusal to take the situation seriously.
‘Oh, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, isn’t it?’
‘We agreed that you would stick to the story and keep it simple. The second rule of engagement, if you remember? I’m not sure how claiming to be president of an international bank was keeping it simple!’
Gib looked at her and wondered if she had any idea how desirable she looked with her damp, dark hair and her vivid face and her eyes bright and green with irritation.
‘I stuck to the important thing, which is that I’m in love with you,’ he pointed out. ‘You can’t get simpler than that. I’ve kept my side of the bargain, haven’t I?’ he challenged her.
Phoebe dropped her eyes first. She couldn’t deny that he had been very convincing. He was certainly a much better actor than her.
‘Yes,’ she acknowledged.
‘And I said I was sorry,’ Gib reminded her, his eyes dancing. ‘And I ran you a bath. And I bought you a gin and tonic!’
‘On expenses!’
‘It’s the thought that counts,’ he said virtuously. ‘I’m trying to do my job as best I can, and if you were a caring employer, you wouldn’t even consider making me sleep on a stone floor! Besides,’ he said, patting the expanse of cover between them, ‘this bed could sleep a family of six easily! And we can always put a pillow down the middle if you don’t think you’ll be able to keep your hands off me otherwise,’ he added in what Phoebe considered was a spirit of sheer provocation.
‘I don’t think that will a problem!’ she said in a tart voice.
‘And I’ll keep my hands off you,’ he promised, which somehow didn’t make her feel quite as good as it should have done.
‘Please make sure you do!’
‘So, can I sleep with you tonight?’ asked Gib. ‘I know it won’t mean anything and it won’t be setting a precedent. See,’ he told her, grinning. ‘I haven’t forgotten that first rule of engagement, either!’
‘Oh, all right,’ said Phoebe, who couldn’t be bothered to argue any longer. ‘But I don’t want to hear any more stupid stories this evening,’ she warned him, ‘or you’ll be sleeping on the floor after all. I don’t care how cold it is!’
They only had a couple of hours before they had to return for dinner and dancing but, to Phoebe, lying next to Gib on that big bed, it was quite long enough. It wasn’t that he was restless or said anything she could object to, and the bed was so wide that there was no danger of brushing against him accidentally.
It was just that whenever she closed her eyes all she could see was his smile dancing behind her eyelids, and the moment she snapped them open, they would stray sideways to where he lay beside her, managing to fill all the available space with the sheer force of his personality even when he was at his most lazy and relaxed.