A Whirlwind Engagement

'There's no point in that,' said Josh, feeling curiously detached. It was hard to believe that this was a woman he had slept with, a woman he had planned to spend the rest of his life with. 'We're still working together after all,' he pointed out, 'and I want us both to be able to concentrate on winning this contract. It's not just your job that depends on it.'

Aisling looked a little daunted by his matter-of-fact attitude. He was obviously supposed to be broken-hearted by her rejection. 'I hope you know I never meant to hurt you,' she said.

'Don't worry about it,' said Josh briskly. 'I'm glad you seem so happy.'

'I am. I hope you will be, too.'

Involuntarily, Josh glanced at Bella, deep in conversation with Sally and completely oblivious of him.

Aisling followed his gaze. 'You know, Josh, it would have been a terrible mistake if I had married you,' she said. 'Bella would always have been there between us.'

'Bella's not like that at all,' he objected furiously.

'Maybe she isn't, but she would have come between us all the same,' said Aisling. 'I wasn't at all surprised when you said that you were bringing her in my place. I always thought you had always been much more in love with her than you wanted to admit.'

Josh felt as if he had walked smack into a wall in the dark, leaving him jarred and disorientated. 'That's rubbish,' he said unevenly. 'Bella and I are just good friends. We always have been and we always will be. You've seen us together, Aisling. You know there's no question of anything else.'

Aisling smiled faintly as she got up. 'Isn't there?' she said.

Josh stared after her. In love with Bella? No, he couldn't be! Aisling didn't know what she was talking about. He loved Bella, of course, the same way he loved his sister.

Except that he never knew whether his sister had been in the room just by the fragrance in the air, did he? He couldn't close his eyes and conjure up his sister's image down to the last tilt of her lashes. And, fond as he was of her, he never felt better just knowing that his sister was there.

The way he did with Bella.

Oh, God, he was in love with her!

It was as if the world had suddenly tilted, leaving Josh sliding and slipping towards a precipitous drop, and struggling frantically to claw his way back to safe ground where Bella was just the same as she had always been.

When had it happened? Had she changed, or had he?

'What did Aisling want?' Bella broke into his reeling thoughts and Josh stared at her stupidly.

'She just…'

Just wanted to blow his life apart. To rock the foundations of his world. To throw everything he thought he felt about his best friend into doubt.

'… she just wanted to thank me,' he said, astounded that his voice came out sounding almost normal.

'What for?'

'For understanding how she felt about Bryn. She said she was grateful.'

'As well she might be,' Bella sniffed, remembering the emerald ring Aisling was still flaunting. At least she had had the decency to wear it on her right hand.

That had been a very intimate chat the two of them had been having, though, and Josh had looked shell- shocked when Aisling had walked away. 'Did she say anything else?'

Josh hesitated. 'Only that she thought it would have been a terrible mistake if we had got married.'

'She would say that, wouldn't she? Mind you, she's not the only one that thinks so,' Bella told him. 'I've just been talking to Sally there. She says she's worked with you a couple of times and that she likes you a lot but she was never mad about Aisling when she was at C.B.C. She told me that she'd heard rumours that the two of you had got together, and she said she was glad when she met me to find out that it wasn't true.'

'What did you say?'

It was Bella's turn to hesitate. 'Well, I thought I'd better let her believe that she'd misunderstood, so I said that you were mine and always had been.'

She laughed to show that she hadn't really meant it, and then she made the mistake of looking into Josh's eyes again, and the desperate expression she saw there made her heart stop for a second. She had never seen Josh look like that before.

'Are you OK?'

'Yes…' He shook his head as if to clear it. 'It was just something Aisling said…' He stopped, unable to continue.

A tide of shame and guilt surged through Bella. What had she been thinking of, joking about their pretend relationship and making snippy comments about Aisling when it was all still so raw for Josh? She had forgotten how he might feel about seeing Aisling again. He was so cool and self-contained that it was easy to forget that he might not be nearly as fine as he claimed to be, but she of all people should have known better.

'I'm sorry, Josh,' she said, contrite.

That strange expression flickered in his eyes again. 'It's not your fault,' he said.

What had Aisling said to him? Even she wouldn't be tactless enough to ask, thought Bella, but it must have been something that had made the whole situation come home to him.

She hated the bleakness in his face, couldn't bear the thought of him hurting like that. 'It'll be all right, Josh,' she tried to reassure him, putting a hand on his knee.

Josh just looked at her oddly. 'Will it?' he said.

The hotel was wedged between a steep mountainside covered in luxuriant vegetation and a curve of dazzling white sand edging the Indian Ocean. The shallows sighing onto the shore were the palest minty green, deepening to an impossible blue further out into the bay. Bella couldn't help gasping when she saw it. After London in November, it was hard to believe that it was real.

The bus from the airport emptied them out into a cool, dim bar furnished in dark tropical wood and open on two sides to catch any breeze from the sea. There they were greeted by a representative from C.B.C. who introduced herself as Cassandra and bustled around the party, ticking them officiously off her list.

'Josh Kingston…?' she echoed when it was Josh and Bella's turn. She ran her pen down the clipboard. 'Kingston, Kingston, Kingston…ah! Here you are. You're down as plus one!' She laughed merrily and looked at Bella. 'This is your wife, is it?'

'My fiancee,' said Josh curtly. 'Bella Stevenson.'

Cassandra swooped on Bella's ring. 'How gorgeous!' she gushed, brandishing a diamond of her own under Bella's nose. 'I'm getting married myself next year. We must get together and compare notes.'

Bella couldn't think of anything she would want to do less, but she smiled politely. 'We haven't started thinking about the wedding yet,' she said. 'We've only just got engaged.'

'Oh, I'll be able to give you lots of ideas,' Cassandra promised. 'I've got a few magazines with me too. You can read them on the beach.'

What could she say? I won't be needing any bridal magazines? 'That would be lovely,' said Bella dutifully.

Delighted at the prospect of long, girly chats on the subject closest to her heart, Cassandra beamed at them both. 'You're going to love your room. It is so romantic!'

It was romantic-or it would have been under different circumstances. Like Josh not pining for Aisling, for instance, thought Bella with an inward sigh. It was all clean wood and crisp linen, and sliding doors opened onto a little veranda with steps down to the beach.

The first thing Bella saw, though, was the big double bed, with frangipani blossoms laid invitingly on the pillows.

'Very romantic,' she said to Josh as she looked at everything except the bed. She was trying to sound light- hearted and amused at the situation, but wasn't quite sure that she was carrying it off. 'Cassandra was right.'

Picking up one of the frangipani flowers, she held it to her nose and breathed in the exotic perfume. 'It's a pity they didn't throw in a free bottle of champagne while they were at it. If we're going to pretend to be engaged we might as well enjoy some of the perks!'

There was no response from Josh, and when she glanced at him under her lashes she saw that he was looking preoccupied and seemed hardly to have heard her. Clearly her attempts to lighten the atmosphere weren't working.