‘If you did I missed it. But are you sure you can count all the way to ten? I only make that four languages.’
She smiled. ‘Oh, I can do it in English, too.’
Ben heard himself laughing. What had Ellie said? It didn’t matter what you did so long as you did something. And on an impulse he turned his hand so that it was grasping hers. Reaching for the lifeline that she’d tossed him.
‘About those invitations. I’ve been invited to a wedding on Saturday-one that I really can’t avoid. Could you bear to come with me?’ Then, when she didn’t immediately answer, ‘That is if you aren’t already booked to attend in a professional capacity?’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t do weddings.’
‘Oh, no. It must be…difficult.’
‘Horrendous. I always find myself offering champagne to someone who was in the same year as me who’s now a rising media star or, worse, is marrying one.’
He knew he was supposed to laugh, but he discovered that he couldn’t quite manage it. Couldn’t quite decide whether her flippant humour was courage in the face of personal tragedy or refusal to confront the pain. Suspected it might just be the latter.
‘This one is in London. My cousin, a contemporary of Adele’s, is getting married for the second time. I have to attend on Addy’s behalf. The groom is a stockbroker, apparently, so you should be safe enough.’ He waited. ‘If I go on my own I’ll stand out like a sore thumb. Everyone will think I’m either a closet gay or a sad bastard who can’t rustle up a partner.’
‘Oh, right. You want me to ride shotgun. Fend off the matchmaking aunts.’A shadow briefly crossed her face. ‘Enough said. There’s just one condition.’
‘I’m listening.’
‘I meant what I said about you trying out my cooking this evening. Just a mouthful.’ Her smile, usually so confident, was unexpectedly diffident.
‘It sounds like a win/win deal to me.’
‘Wait until you’ve tasted it before you congratulate yourself. My culinary skills are somewhat limited.’
‘I’ll risk it. I can pick your brains for a suitable wedding present for the couple who have everything.’
‘Oh, no problem. Buy them a goat.’
‘A
‘You said it. They’re not spring chickens, and presumably they’ve both been married before, so they’ll have everything they need for their home.’
‘Er, yes?’
‘So buy a goat, or some tools, or a share in a mango plantation in their name for some Third World family who aren’t so fortunate. If nothing else it will give them something to talk about at dinner parties.’
‘Where on earth did you come up with an idea like that?’
‘Maybe I’m brighter than I look,’ she said. Then she shrugged. ‘Or maybe I read it in a magazine. I’ll find you the website address. You can check it out for yourself.’
A wedding? Ellie stripped off the grass-stained clothes she’d been wearing-nothing elegant or perfect about them-and then turned to look at herself in the mirror.
Not tall. Not fair. Definitely not slender, she thought, pinching the excess at her waist.
She pulled off the band holding her hair in a ponytail and it fell in an untidy mess around her shoulders. Not even a hint of Lady Gabriella, let alone the fabulous and perfect Natasha with her seventeen languages-she was bound to be fluent in all of them by now. Just an over-abundance of Ellie March.
What on earth was she going to wear to a posh London wedding? What would Lady G wear?
She pulled a face. She wasn’t even going there. Ben had invited her and that was who he would get. Not her pretend alter ego, and definitely not a second-class Natasha.
Through the open window she heard the mower start up and couldn’t help looking out.
Ben had changed into a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. He had fabulous legs, she thought. Not white pasty things that had never seen the sun, but the well-muscled legs of a sportsman, with a sheen of fair hair that glinted in the evening sun.
She drew back as he turned the machine, flexed her hand, feeling again that moment when he’d caught it, turned it into his, held it palm to palm in his and she’d felt a shiver of heat, shocking in its urgency, drive deep into her body.
She’d desired him, wanted him-not in that meaningless, fancying-a-good-looking-bloke way that she joked about with Sue, not just physically, but totally, in a way that she’d never thought possible again.
No. It was more than that.
With Sean it had been different. She’d known him all her life. Fought with him in primary school, assiduously ignored him when she was ten and eleven and twelve. And then at thirteen he’d smiled at her, and she’d blushed, and then he’d blushed, and after that it had always been Ellie-and-Sean.
They’d done their homework together, gone to the school disco, shared their first kiss, fumbled through their first sexual encounter together, done everything together for the first and last time.
They’d never been parted.
She’d felt safe with him. Had known that he’d never do anything to hurt her.
Except die.
This was different.
Something had been driving her today. Some restless, reckless need to provoke Ben, make him notice her, make him look at her, and she’d stirred him up like a fool poking a stick in a wasp nest.
She hadn’t expected him to come right back at her, daring to suggest she was running away from her past rather than grabbing for the future she wanted.
As if.
Well, she’d told him, and then she’d walked away. Easy.
Except he didn’t understand the rules. He’d come after her and done the one thing she couldn’t ignore. He’d asked for her help.
Nothing difficult. Just go with him to a family wedding. It wasn’t the invitation that was a problem. Or even that it was a wedding. Okay, so maybe she’d shed a tear for herself, but she wouldn’t be alone.
It was the fact that for Ben it would be duty, nothing more. While for her…
She swallowed, suddenly scared.
It had been so long, more than three years since Sean had died, and there had been no one since. Flirting, yes, but only in a jokey way with men she knew, who were safe, who understood that she didn’t mean anything. Wouldn’t call her on it because they knew that she had always belonged, would always belong, to Sean.
Somehow, though, Ben Faulkner had slipped beneath her defences. When had that happened?
She switched on the shower, stepped under the water and let the hot water pour over her, scrubbing at the green stains on her fingers, scrubbing her nails, shampooing her hair as if she could somehow clean him from her pores.
It didn’t work.
When eventually she stepped from the shower, wrapped a towel around her, tucking it in above her breasts, wrapped another around her hair, she could still feel her hand in his.
Feel the callused roughness from where he’d climbed out of Kirbeckistan. The scars.
Feel the electric charge of his skin against hers, an answering flutter deep in her womb. A sensation that excited her, stirred her, made her long to reach out for something dangerous, something that scared her witless.
Because Ben Faulkner was not like Sean March. If she allowed herself to fall in love with him, he’d hurt her in ways she couldn’t begin to imagine-because he’d never love her back.
She swallowed, sat down on the bathroom stool, leaned forward and tugged on the towel so that it hung down over her face.
If?
Too late for if. Too late from the moment she’d lain against him as she’d caught her breath, feeling the beat of his heart. Too late from her first ‘idiot’.
It was the first word she’d said to Sean when, five years old, he’d knocked her flying as he’d raced into school
