Birthday Bride
‘So you’re an engineer as well, are you?’
‘Of sorts.’ David was cursing his luck. Not only was he doomed to spend the next two and a half hours sitting next to her, but he couldn’t put her in her place as he was longing to do. He was very fond of Lucy and Patrick, so he could hardly tell their guest to shut up and mind her own business. It was hard to believe that there was any connection between them, though. The Wards were one of the nicest couples he knew, while this girl was a ghastly intrusion from some other life altogether.
In spite of himself, he found himself glancing at her. She had beautiful skin—either that, or she was very cleverly made-up. Probably the latter, David decided. Those lashes were too long and thick and dark to be natural with that pale gold hair, and he could see how she had outlined her eyes with a fine pencil.
He had a sudden, bitter picture of Alix at the mirror in his bathroom, her mouth pursed in concentration and one finger holding her eyelid steady as she carefully drew a line above her lashes. David was unprepared for the way the memory could still hurt. Alix had taught him a valuable lesson, and he was wary still of girls like her.
Girls like Claudia Cook.
She would be in marketing, he guessed, or perhaps something in the media. Some job that enabled her to kiss people extravagantly and run around with a clipboard feeling important. She would go to parties and claim to be exhausted by work, although she probably spent most of her day on the phone without producing anything more tangible than a date for lunch or an agreement to talk later.
David smiled grimly to himself. Oh, yes, he had met girls like Claudia before, and he was in no danger at all of being impressed!
The plane had turned, poised for a moment at the end of the runway before hurtling itself down the tarmac and heaving itself into the air at the last moment. Claudia sucked in her breath and concentrated on breathing evenly. David Stirling would only sneer if he thought she was nervous, and she was not going to give him the satisfaction of making a fuss!
Still, it was a relief to hear the tell-tale ‘ping’ of the ‘no smoking’ sign being switched off, and as the plane levelled out she turned back to David, only to catch his eyes straying back to his report. She couldn’t have him concentrating on his work, could she, now?
‘Are you based out in Telama’an like Patrick?’ she asked, all eager interest.
‘No,’ said David through his teeth. The graph danced up and down on the page beneath his eyes. Those wide eyes and that gushing voice didn’t fool him for a minute. He knew perfectly well that she had set out to be deliberately provocative for some reason. Well, he wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of rising to the bait again. She would soon get bored with cold courtesy. ‘I spend most of my time in the London head office.’
‘Why are you going to Telama’an now?’ Claudia persevered.
He drew a deep breath and forced himself to stay calm. ‘I’ve got a series of extremely important meetings to attend,’ he said tightly after a moment. ‘We’re coming to the end of the first phase of the project, and we want to persuade the government to award us the contract for the next major stage, but there are several other big firms in the running, so we’re up against some tough competition.
‘The final decision rests with the local sheikh, who is a cousin of the Sultan and who’s been given overall responsibility for the project, but he’s not an easy man to deal with. After months of requesting a meeting, he’s finally offered us the chance to give him a special presentation the day after tomorrow, and it’s absolutely vital that I get there as soon as possible to brief the rest of the team before the meeting. However, it does mean that I must check these reports, so if you’ll—’
‘Well, that’s a coincidence!’ Claudia interrupted before he could complete his excuse. ‘It’s absolutely vital that I get there by tomorrow as well.’
‘Really?’ he bit out. ‘And why is that?’
She leant towards him confidentially. ‘It’s my thirtieth birthday tomorrow, and I’m going to a party to meet my destiny!’
David looked at her with incredulity. ‘Your what?’
‘My destiny.’ Claudia hoped she looked suitably soulful. ‘Years ago a fortune-teller told me that I wouldn’t get married until I was thirty, and that I’d meet my husband somewhere where there was a lot of space and sand.’
‘So you thought you’d just get on a plane to the desert on the off-chance that you’d bump into some poor unfortunate man?’ David didn’t even bother to hide his disbelief and she smothered a smile as she opened her eyes wide.
‘Oh, no. I know exactly who he’ll be. The fortune-teller told me that the initials J and D would be very important, so I’m sure I’ll be able to recognise him at once. Lucy’s going to throw a party so that I meet him on my birthday and all I have to do is get there by tomorrow!’
He snorted. ‘You’re not trying to tell me that Lucy believes any mumbo-jumbo about predictions? I’ve always thought of her as an intelligent woman!’
‘She was there when my fortune was told,’ Claudia told him solemnly. ‘We were only fourteen and it made a big impression on her,’ she added, omitting to mention that both girls had burst giggling out of the tent and Lucy had teased her unmercifully for years afterwards about having to wait until she was thirty before she got married.
At fourteen, thirty had seemed impossibly remote. She had never dreamt that she would actually ever get to be that old, or that she wouldn’t be married long before. When she had met Michael, she had even joked with Lucy about thwarting fate and tying the knot at twenty-nine.
Except that Michael hadn’t wanted to commit himself in the end—at least not to her—and now here she was, a day short of thirty and just as unwed as the fortune-teller had said she would be.
‘You can’t spend your thirtieth birthday on your own!’ Lucy had said when Claudia had rung to tell her that the engagement was finally off.
‘I’m so miserable, it doesn’t matter what I do,’ Claudia had said. ‘I can’t be bothered to have a party where everyone will just feel sorry for me.’
‘Come out to Shofrar, then,’ Lucy offered impulsively. ‘No one will know anything about Michael, so you could be whoever you wanted to be. It’ll be great,’ she went on, getting carried away with enthusiasm for the idea. ‘We’ll have a party on your birthday and you can meet Justin Darke.’
‘Justin who?’
‘Justin Darke. He’s an American architect who’s working with Patrick out here, and he is seriously attractive. We are talking gorgeous, Claudia! As soon as I met him I thought he’d be perfect for you—much better than that creep Michael. He’s almost disgustingly nice, warm, sincere, single...what more could you want?’
‘There must be something wrong with him,’ said Claudia, whose experience of men had left her armoured against high expectations. Nice, warm, sincere men weren’t usually wandering around unmarried without a good reason.
‘But there isn’t! He’s just a great guy,’ Lucy insisted. ‘And I know he’d like you. I showed him your picture the other day and he said you looked like an exciting lady!’
‘I don’t feel very exciting at the moment,’ Claudia said gloomily.
‘You just need someone to boost your ego—and Justin’s so charming that you wouldn’t be able to resist feeling better!’
Claudia was beginning to warm to the idea. ‘I suppose it would be nice to get away somewhere completely different.’
‘Of course it would. A change of scenery, an attractive man...you won’t give Michael another thought.’ Lucy laughed. ‘Hey, remember the fortune-teller at that fête, Claudia? All that business about sand and initials and being thirty? There’s certainly plenty of sand out here, and Justin’s initials are J D...’
‘And I’m going to be thirty? Don’t remind me!’
‘Just think, this could be your big chance to meet your destiny!’ said Lucy dramatically, and they both giggled.
‘I won’t hold my breath,’ said Claudia. ‘After this last year with Michael I think I can do without destiny—I’ll settle for a good time instead!’
It hadn’t been easy to take two weeks off at one of the busiest times of the year, but once Claudia had made up her mind to do something she was doggedly determined to succeed, and she had booked her ticket the very next day. Everything seemed to have gone wrong since then, but Claudia had gritted her teeth and told herself it would be worth it when she got off the plane to Lucy’s welcoming hug. She was going to have a good time in Telama’an if it killed her...and in the meantime she might as well amuse herself by irritating David Stirling some more!
‘You’ve come all this way in pursuit of a man that you’ve never met but that you just hope will have the right initials?’ He was still shaking his head in amazement.
‘Why not?’ she asked, but he was so appalled at the idea that he missed the teasing glint in her eyes.
‘Well, I presumed, since you were travelling alone, that you had some intelligence, even if it is very artfully disguised,’ he said caustically. ‘Not even someone as desperate as you sound would go all the way to a place like Telama’an without a good reason!’
Claudia considered that after the year she had had the prospect of some sun and some fun and some flattery was reason enough to go anywhere, but that was none of David Stirling’s business. ‘You don’t understand,’ she said dramatically. ‘I’m at a crossroads in my life! I’m going to be thirty tomorrow, I can’t just carry on like before. I’ve got to seize my opportunities!’
‘What opportunities?’
She clutched her throat and somehow managed to keep a straight face. ‘To meet my soul mate, of course! JD is waiting for me in the desert... I just know it! All I have to do is fly to him!’
David curled his lip. ‘JD? No doubt Lucy has been scouring the compound for someone with the right initials! Has she come up with anyone yet?’
‘Maybe,’ said Claudia coyly.
‘Which poor unfortunate soul has she lined up?’ David ran through the possibilities in his mind. ‘Jack Davis? He’s married. Jim Denby? Unlikely. Ah!’ he said suddenly. ‘Justin Darke! Why didn’t I think of him straight away?’
‘My lips are sealed,’ said Claudia, suddenly realising that in her determination to irritate David Stirling she was running a grave risk of embarrassing Lucy’s American friend.
David had seen the flicker in her eyes, though, and drew his own conclusions. Justin Darke was nice enough, but he was no match for a woman like Claudia Cook, that was for sure. Did he have any idea what Claudia and Lucy had planned for him? Th first thing he would do when he got to Telama’an was drop a warning word in Justin’s ear, although there was something so single-minded about Claudia’s attitude that it would take more than a friendly warning to stop her, he was sure.
He shook his head. ‘Poor Justin!’ he said.
‘I really don’t know who you’re talking about,’ Claudia lied. ‘And in any case, knowing who I was going to meet would spoil it. All I know is that I’m going to be at that party tomorrow night, and after that I’m leaving it to destiny!’
CHAPTER TWO
DAVID her a sardonic look. ‘It looks like you’re going to have a busy day being thirty and meeting your destiny tomorrow,’ he said, and the unconcealed sarcasm in his voice was enough to provoke a dangerous glitter in Claudia’s blue-grey eyes.
‘But don’t you see? The two are linked!’ she gushed, hoping that she sounded as ridiculous as she felt. ‘Thirty is such a crossroads in one’s life, isn’t it?’
‘Is it?’ said David unencouragingly.
‘Yes! It’s a time to reassess what one wants out of life, a time to change direction, a time to let go of one’s youth and face up to the prospect of mortality!’
He turned to her consideringly. ‘Do you know,’ he said, ‘I find it hard to believe that you’re going to be thirty tomorrow?’
Claudia was rather taken aback. She didn’t think she was looking too bad for her age either, but she hadn’t expected a compliment from him. Perhaps she should have tried flirting with him after all? ‘Why, thank you—’
‘Because,’ David interrupted her ruthlessly, ‘I never thought that anyone over the age of five could talk such a load of tosh!’
So much for compliments! Bridling, Claudia glared back at him. ‘Oh, and I suppose you didn’t have a crisis at thirty—or can’t you remember back that far?’ she added nastily.
‘I was far too busy to have any crisis.’
She sniffed. ‘Well, just wait until you’re fifty, that’s all! You’ll have spent your life working without ever really thinking about what you’re doing and why you’re doing it, and one day you’ll wake up and realise that you’re fifty and it’s too late to do anything about it. You’ll be in crisis then!’
‘Possibly,’ said David, nettled by her assumption that he was practically past it already, ‘but I don’t propose to worry about it now. As it happens, I haven’t even made it to forty yet! I’ve still got over a month before I have to deal with that crisis!’
‘Oh?’ Claudia’s voice had just the right tone of surprise to be insulting. ‘When’s your birthday?’
He sighed. ‘September the seventeenth.’ He knew what was coming next!
‘You’re a Virgo, then.’ Claudia nodded sagely, although she wasn’t in fact at all sure when Virgos became Capricorns, or was it Librans? ‘That figures.’
David wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of asking what figured. All he knew was that she was by far the silliest and most exasperating woman he had ever met, and he wasn’t going to indulge her any longer, Lucy’s cousin or not.
‘I’m sure,’ he said dismissively. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I really do have to do some work.’
‘Oh, of course!’ said Claudia with exaggerated contrition. ‘I’m so sorry for disturbing you. I’ll just read my magazine quietly, and you won’t even know I’m here.’
David didn’t think that was very likely. She was the kind of girl who could sit in a dark room without moving or speaking and still be distracting. Still, if she would just shut up for a while, he might be able to finish that report.
He bent over it and began jotting quick, decisive notes in the margin while Claudia, reduced to pulling out a magazine, tried not to watch him. It was hard not to be impressed by his ability to concentrate as he worked methodically through the report, and in spite of herself her eyes kept sliding sideways to skitter along the forceful line of his jaw.
He wasn’t good-looking, not really. He had a hard mouth and lean, intelligent face, but there was an air of restraint about him, as if he deliberately presented himself in a low key. It was difficult to accuse him of being colourless, though, much as she would have liked to. The strength of his personality was obvious in his calm assurance, in the disconcerting sharpness of his eyes and the intangible quality of authority that clung to him.
He had taken off his jacket, and rolled up the sleeves of his white shirt in a businesslike fashion. Claudia was very conscious of the dark hair on his forearms, and she had to keep hers rigidly together on her lap in case her arm brushed against him. She tried not to look too obviously, but out of the corner of her eye she could see the pulse beating in his neck above his open collar, very slow and very steady.
Stealthily, she felt the pulse in her own throat, which was hammering away at a rate of knots. Perhaps she was just highly strung?
Nobody could accuse David Stirling of being highly strung. Did he ever get excited? Claudia’s eyes strayed back to his mouth. What would it take to arouse a man like that, to break through the cool control and make that pulse beat faster for once?
Aghast at the train of her own thoughts, she jerked her gaze away and hastily turned a page of the magazine. Oh, God, an article about sex! She couldn’t read that with him sitting right beside her. Flicking on, she came to a piece about the pleasures and pressures of different ages. No point in reading about the twenties, she thought glumly. She was leaving those behind her. She’d better read about the thirties instead and find out whether there was any life after thirty, or whether she should just give in and get herself some tweeds and a blue rinse.
Women in their thirties have left all the insecurities of the twenties behind. They are poised, confident, at ease with themselves.
Oh, yeah? thought Claudia cynically.
They have learnt what suits them and what doesn’t, and have the maturity and sophistication to lead life on their own terms. ‘I love women in their thirties,’ one man was quoted as saying. ‘They’re much more interesting than young girls because they’ve got something to say for themselves, they know what they want and they’re confident enough to go out and get it. I think it’s by far the sexiest age. So many women grow into their looks in their thirties. They’ve come to terms with their own bodies and that’s what gives them a glamour and assurance that no twenty-year-old could hope to achieve.’
Claudia gave a disbelieving sniff. As David Stirling would say, what a load of tosh! She had never met a woman who had come to terms with her own body, thirty or not! Still, all that sophistication and glamour didn’t sound too bad, even if there was something daunting about the idea of maturity. When was it going to hit her?
It was all very well to talk about knowing what you wanted, but all Claudia could think that she really wanted right now was to get to Telama’an, to wash her hair and to have a very long, very cold gin and tonic. Hardly very lofty objectives with which to begin the next decade of her life!
Claudia closed the magazine with a sigh. David was still reading his report. There was something wrong with a man who could concentrate like that, she decided, but she didn’t quite dare interrupt him again. That must be because she was still twenty-nine and not yet confident. It would be different tomorrow.
Casting around for another diversion, she looked around the cabin and met the eyes of a Shofrani sitting across the aisle from her. He was a handsome man, dressed stylishly in western clothes, with dark hair and very warm, very dark eyes. He smiled charmingly as their eyes met and Claudia, pleased to find someone who seemed disposed to like her after David’s crushing attitude, smiled back.
‘I am sorry if I was staring,’ he said in excellent English. ‘We do not often see such beautiful passengers on the flight to Telama’an!’
Claudia warmed to his flattery. He introduced himself as Amil and they were soon embarked on a discreet flirtation. He had been doing business for his uncle in the capital, he told her, and was now on his way home.
‘Will you be staying long in Telama’an?’ ‘Just a couple of weeks, then I have to go back to work.’
‘Your job cannot spare you for any longer?’
‘I’m afraid not. I work for a television production company and we’re terribly busy at the moment.’
Beside her, David, who was unable to avoid listening in on their irritatingly complacent conversation, awarded himself points for being right about her job anyway. He had guessed that she worked in the media, but he might have known that it would be in television! He tried to close his ears and focus on his report, but Claudia was rabbiting on about how hectic and important her job was, and her new-found friend was just encouraging her, nodding and smiling and sounding impressed. It was hard to tell which of them was more pleased with themselves, David thought savagely, and gritted his teeth.
Out of the corner of her eye, Claudia caught the tightening of his jaw, and redoubled her efforts to charm Amil. She would show him that some men found her attractive! Turning back to Amil, she gave him a dazzling smile. ‘But that’s enough about my job,’ she said winsomely. ‘I’m sure your life is much more interesting than mine!’
God, she was irritating! David clamped his lips together and scoured out a typing error in the report with unnecessary vigour. He had to endure another quarter of an hour of their stomach-churning, treacly conversation before the steward, moving down the aisle with a trolley, broke them up.
David breathed a sigh of relief, but it was short-lived. Claudia must have had the attention span of a gnat. Couldn’t she just sit still for a minute? She was rummaging around in her bag, sorting through her inexhaustible supply of lipsticks, polishing her mirror, carefully applying colour to her mouth.
When she snapped the mirror shut and dropped it back in the bag with her lipstick, David allowed himself to hope that she would relax, but no! Now she had got out an emery board and was touching up a nail, the next minute it was hand cream, the next refreshing herself with a spray of perfume. The subtle, expensive, undeniably sexy scent that he already associated with her drifted towards him, but he resolutely ignored it and, putting down his pen, pretended to consult the index.
Then—of course!—she had to comb her hair. Tipping her head forward, Claudia ran a comb through the silky mass and then tossed her hair back so that it bounced softly around her face. David tried not to notice how soft it looked, or how the sun through the window glinted on the gleaming strands and turned them into spun gold.
At last it seemed as if she was finished. The comb was put away, the bag pushed under the seat once more. David offered up a silent prayer of thanks and picked up his pen again.
Claudia was bored. David was still resolutely ignoring her and she had run out of ways to provoke him. It was no fun if he wouldn’t respond, anyway. She glanced at her watch. Still an hour and a half to go. Amil was talking to his neighbour, and the magazine just seemed full of articles expressly designed to remind her how old she was getting. With an impatient sigh, she began drumming her fingers on the arm of the seat.
For David, it was the final straw. He threw down his pen. ‘Can’t you sit still for two seconds?’ he demanded between clenched teeth.
‘I am sitting still,’ objected Claudia, offended.
‘You’re not,’ said David, hanging onto the shreds of his temper with difficulty. ‘If you’re not chatting up complete strangers, you’re tarting yourself up, combing your hair, admiring yourself in your mirror, or fossicking around in that bag, and then, when you’ve exhausted all those intellectual activities, you sit there and make that extremely irritating noise with your fingers!’
Claudia looked huffy. ‘What do you want me to do?’
‘I don’t want you to do anything! Why can’t you just sit quietly?’
‘I hate just sitting,’ she said sulkily. ‘I’ve got a very low boredom threshold. I’ve got to do something.’
‘Why don’t you try thinking?’ David suggested with an unpleasant look. ‘That ought to be a novel experience for you. The effort of using your brain ought to keep you occupied for a good five minutes!’
‘I’ve been thinking,’ said Claudia, very much on her dignity.
‘You amaze me!’ He shook his head in mock admiration. ‘And what have you been thinking about?’
‘Well, mostly I’ve been wondering how Patrick came to give a job to anyone quite so arrogant and unpleasant,’ she pretended to confide.
David looked at her for a moment. ‘What makes you think Patrick gave me a job?’
‘I know he’s the senior engineer on the project, so if you’re involved with the negotiations you must report to him, and if he knew how badly you represent GKS I don’t think he’d be very pleased. Patrick may seem very easygoing,’ she swept on, ‘but I’ve known him a long time, and I can tell you that if he felt that you were giving the wrong impression of GKS he would want to do something about it.’
‘You don’t think he’ll sack me before the meetings, do you?’
There was a look in David’s eye that Claudia didn’t quite like, and she tossed her head. ‘I would have thought that depended on you,’ she said tartly.
‘So if I’m nice to you for the rest of the journey he might let me stay?’
‘I wouldn’t want to put you to so much effort,’ she snapped. ‘Being nice obviously doesn’t come naturally!’