lined with lilac tissue.
All utterly gorgeous, but she’d done all that love’s young dream, happy ever after, fairy tale thing ten years ago. Had seen it crumble to dust the minute there was trouble.
Maybe that was why she’d been hit so hard by the Candida Harcourt/Tom McFarlane debacle. It had been too close to home. Had brought back too many painful memories. Despite Tom McFarlane’s move on her, it was obvious that he hadn’t been over it, he’d just been hurting.
Her response had been to shift the hands-on wedding stuff to Josie, using her pregnancy as an excuse. Not that the clients were getting second-best. Josie was brilliant at making things run on oiled wheels behind the scenes. In fact, if she wasn’t very careful, her rivals would be headhunting her, offering her all kinds of incentives to come and work for them.
She made a note on her PDA to do something about that. Which was just another way of putting off the task in hand.
‘Come on, Sylvie,’ she muttered, taking a couple of long, slow, calming breaths. ‘You can do this.’
And then, avoiding the dresses, she picked up one of a pair of embroidered and beaded purple silk shoes.
‘Anything catch your eye?’ Geena said from the doorway.
‘These shoes?’ she offered.
‘You’re finding it difficult?’
She indicated her shape. ‘Just a bit. But I’ve definitely ruled out the vestal virgin look,’ she said, indicating the photograph in front of her. ‘Not that it isn’t lovely,’ she added quickly. ‘They’re all lovely but, to be honest, I’m finding it hard and it’s not the bump. It’s just not real, you know?’ She tried to think of some way to explain. ‘I find most of my brides are thinking about their groom when they choose their dress.’ Most of them. ‘When they find the dress of their dreams they always say something like, “He’ll just melt when he sees me in this…”’
Candy, on the other hand, had said, ‘Everyone I know will die of envy when they see me in this…’ But then that had been the standard by which she’d judged everything about her wedding. Not what Tom would think but how envious everyone else would be.
Maybe that was the difference between marrying for money and marrying for love. Candy hadn’t needed any of the trappings when she’d married Quentin. Just the two of them had been enough.
She’d read all about it in their ‘true love’ story in
‘You know it’s going to be perfect when they say that, don’t you?’ Geena agreed, breaking into her thoughts. But then, dressing brides was her business so clearly she understood better than most.
‘It does help,’ Sylvie said. Then shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Maybe I’ve planned too many “perfect” weddings that didn’t last.’
‘Think about the ones that have,’ she said, taking the shoe, looking at it. ‘This is totally gorgeous.’ She tried it on but it was too small and she handed it to Sylvie. ‘Go on, your feet are smaller than mine. Try it.’
Anything was better than looking at wedding dresses and the shoe
They both sighed.
‘I think we have a bit of a Cinderella moment here,’ Geena said with a grin. ‘Try the other one. Walk about…’ Then, after a moment, ‘Are you getting anything?’
‘A total reluctance to take them off, give them back,’ she admitted, laughing, ‘but honestly, purple shoes!’
‘Colour is making a big impact in wedding gowns these days,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘It might work. Embroidery? Applique? I have a woman who is brilliant at that.’ Then, getting no encouragement, ‘What we really need to get you in the mood is a man.’
‘I’m sorry, I can’t help you there,’ she said, concentrating on the shoes.
‘No? Really? But what about-’
‘Believe it,’ Sylvie swiftly cut in. ‘The infant is the result of a…a…sperm donation.’
‘At a clinic?’ She did not sound convinced.
‘Not quite, but the man wasn’t included in the deal.’
‘Oh, well, not to worry. He doesn’t have to be “the one”,’ she said, making little quotation marks. ‘Just someone hot enough to get you in that dreamy, this-will-make-him-melt mood.’ Then, when she shook her head, ‘A this-will-make-him-want-to-tear-it-off-and-take-you-to-bed mood would do,’ she assured her.
Which fired up all those visions of Tom McFarlane that she’d been doing her best to smother.
‘Not possible, I’m afraid.’
‘No? Shame. But there are some seriously hunky blokes putting up a marquee out there. I’ll go and drag one of them in, shall I?’
She turned as someone cleared his throat behind her.
‘Oh, hi, Mark. What are you doing here?’ Then, before he could answer, she glanced at Sylvie, a wicked little gleam in her eye. ‘Sylvie, have you met Mark Hilliard, very hot architect of this parish? Mark, Sylvie Smith.’
‘You’ve been misinformed, Sylvie. I live in Upper Haughton with my wife and our three children, so whatever Geena has in mind I regret that the answer is no.’
‘My sentiments exactly,’ Sylvie said quickly.
But he wasn’t finished. ‘For this parish you need Tom McFarlane, Geena. The new owner of Longbourne Court.’
And, as the man himself appeared in the doorway, he left them to it while he took his notebook on a tour of the morning room.
‘Tom?’ Geena said, offering her hand. ‘Geena Wagner.’ Then, she stood back to admire the view. ‘Oh,
‘I am?’ he asked, confused but smiling. A natural smile, the kind any man would bestow on an attractive woman at their first meeting. The kind he’d never given her.
He hadn’t caught sight of her-yet.
Sylvie struggled to protest, but only managed a groan-enough to attract his attention. The confusion remained, but the smile disappeared as fast as a snowball tossed into hell.
‘Absolutely perfect!’ Geena exclaimed in reply to his question, although he didn’t appear to have heard. ‘You’re not married, are you?’ Geena pressed, apparently oblivious to the sudden tension, unaware of the looming disaster.
‘Why don’t you ask Miss Smith?’ he replied while she was still trying to untangle her vocal cords. Stop Geena from making things a hundred times worse.
The mildness of his tone belied the hard glitter in his eyes as he looked over Geena’s head and straight at her. As if the fact that he wasn’t was somehow
Along with global warming, the national debt and the price of fuel, no doubt.
‘You know each other!
‘Nnnnnn…’ was all she could manage, since not only were her vocal cords in a knot, but her tongue had apparently turned into a lump of wood.
‘That rather depends on the nature of the fantasy,’ he replied, ignoring her frantically shaking head. His expression suggested that he harboured any number of fantasies in which she was the main participant…
‘Well, all I need is for you to stand there looking hot and fanciable.’ She smiled encouragingly. Then, before he could move, ‘That’s it. Perfect.’
‘I didn’t do anything,’ he protested.
‘You don’t have to,’ she said, grinning hugely at her own cleverness. ‘Right, Sylvie. Get your imagination into gear.’
‘Geena, I think…’
‘Thinking is the last thing I want from you. This is all about feelings. The senses,’ she said bossily, stepping from between them and, taking her by the shoulders, lined her up so that she was facing him.
The sun was streaming into the morning room and she’d shrugged off the loose knee-length cardigan-style wrap that had become a permanent cover-up since her pregnancy had begun to show and her condition was unmistakable.
And his expression left her in no doubt as to his feelings. He was angry…
