A Whirlwind Engagement

'I just don't,' she said a little sulkily. 'There's a little too much of that bubbly Irish charm if you ask me. And I don't think she's right for Josh.'

Phoebe looked at her narrowly. 'Are you sure you're not just jealous?'

'Jealous? Jealous?' spluttered Bella, spilling most of the champagne in her outrage. 'Don't be ridiculous! I have never been jealous of Josh, you know that. I've always got on really well with all his girlfriends.'

'Mmnn, but then none of them were at all like you.'

'Nor is Aisling!'

'Yes, she is. I'm sure that's why you don't like her. You've only got to look at her!'

Bella turned to stare across the marquee to where Aisling was snuggling up to Josh. She obviously couldn't keep her hands off him. Josh would hate that, Bella thought disapprovingly. He was definitely a behind-closed-doors sort of man.

On the other hand, he wasn't exactly fighting Aisling off, was he?

She looked away. 'I'm nothing like Aisling,' she told Phoebe. 'She's got red hair, for a start!'

'OK, but change the colour of her hair and eyes, and what have you got? She's ridiculously pretty, has legs up to her armpits, and that glamorous look that is just so different from Josh's previous girlfriends. Admit it, Bella, she's practically a clone!'

Bella wasn't prepared to admit anything of the kind. 'What, apart from looking completely different and having completely different personalities? I'd say all Aisling and I had in common was our gender! Josh is always telling me how practical she is and how she likes doing hearty things like climbing and camping.'

Phoebe shrugged. 'Have it your own way.'

'Anyway,' Bella went on, a defensive edge to her voice, 'Josh and I agreed a long time ago that we would just be friends. There's no question of jealousy.'

'Didn't you ever find him attractive?' asked Phoebe curiously, and try as she might, Bella couldn't quite make herself meet her friend's eyes.

'He wasn't my type,' she said.

'Do you think you were ever his?'

Had she been? For the first time Bella found herself wondering.

'He never said, and anyway, he always seemed to have some outdoorsy girl who didn't fuss about her hair or wear make-up or mind getting up at six to go potholing or whatever it was they used to do at weekends. Josh and I used to make each other laugh, and we had a great time doing that. We didn't want to spoil it by sleeping together.

'Besides,' she added honestly, 'he wasn't at all attractive then. He was a bit thin and nerdy.'

Phoebe glanced across the marquee. 'He's changed,' she said.

'Yes,' said Bella, following her gaze. Through the crowds, she could just glimpse Josh. The lean, compact figure was at once alien and utterly familiar.

He was talking to someone out of sight, but as she watched he threw back his head and laughed, and her stomach abruptly disappeared, as if she had stumbled unawares off the edge of an abyss. The sensation of falling was so intense that Bella had to close her eyes against a sickening wave of vertigo, and when she opened them again she felt dizzy and hollow inside.

'Yes,' she said again. 'He has.'

There was a silence. Frightened by the strength of her physical response, Bella drank her champagne shakily, and it was some time before she realised that Phoebe was watching her expectantly.

'What?' she demanded, and Phoebe held up her hands, one still clutching her champagne glass.

'I didn't say anything!'

That was the worst thing about friends who knew you really well. They didn't need to say anything for you to know exactly what they were thinking!

'I'm not jealous, all right?'

'All right,' said Phoebe equably. 'So what is the problem?'

'Who says there's a problem?'

Phoebe sighed. 'Come on, Bella, it's obvious! Is it Will?'

'No… Yes…sort of,' Bella admitted with a sigh.

'What happened?'

'Nothing, that's just it.' Bella stared miserably down into her glass. 'It's just that I've been feeling…I don't know…restless, I suppose, for a while. We haven't had an argument or anything. It was Will who suggested that we give each other some space, and I think that's all I need. I mean, Will's fantastic, isn't he?' She hated the doubtful note in her voice.

'He certainly seems very nice,' said Phoebe noncommittally.

'And drop-dead gorgeous and intelligent and solvent and not screwed up… What more could I ask for? He would have come today if I'd asked him,' she went on with a sigh. 'I need my head examined to let him go off to Hong Kong! What's wrong with me?'

'There's nothing wrong with you. Will just isn't the right man for you, that's all.'

'But if someone like Will isn't the right man, who is?'

'I don't know,' said Phoebe, 'but you will when you find him.'

CHAPTER TWO

Bella wished she had Phoebe's confidence. She was beginning to wonder if there was something wrong with her. It wasn't that she was particularly vain, but she knew she was pretty, and there was never any shortage of men wanting to go out with her. Somehow, though, it never came to anything. She fell headlong into love and just as quickly out of it.

She might never find that special man, Bella thought glumly as she helped herself to a canape, and now she might not even have Josh to fall back on. They had once agreed that if they both reached forty without finding anyone they would marry each other.

Bella actually remembered laughing at the time. The truth was that it had never occurred to her then that Josh might marry someone else. He was so self-contained that it was hard to imagine him sharing his life with anyone. None of his girlfriends had ever moved in with him.

Looking for him now, her eyes found him instinctively in the crowded marquee. There he was, Aisling clinging as usual to his arm, and no matter how much she wanted to think that he looked irritated by her possessiveness, she just couldn't do it.

Bella drifted around the edge of the marquee to get a better view. That was better. Now she could see Josh quite clearly, talking to Gib. He was wearing a morning suit, and the crisp white shirt made his skin, weathered from so much time spent in the tropics, look even browner than usual.

He looked surprisingly good in formal clothes, she thought. Even now, dressed identically to most of the other men in the marquee, he had the tough, competent air of a man who should be hacking his way through a jungle or bumping along a dusty track in faded khakis, not sipping champagne and eating canapes in an English garden.

Bella's gaze rested on him. Really, it was amazing that it had taken her so many years to realise what a great body he had, lean and hard and tautly muscled in an intriguingly restrained way. If she had walked into the marquee as a stranger, she would definitely have clocked him.

His face wasn't that bad either. Not jaw-droppingly handsome like Will, of course, but still, there was nothing actually wrong with it. He had nice eyes, creased around the edges from too much squinting at the sun, and they held a lurking smile sometimes that might be really quite disturbing if you weren't used to it, the way she was.

Nice mouth too, Bella thought judiciously. Not the kind of mouth you noticed at first, maybe-it was too quiet and cool for that-but if you looked at it for too long, something about it made you squirm suddenly.

Like that. A strange feeling shuddered down Bella's spine, and she jerked her eyes away.

It felt all wrong to be thinking about Josh like this. He was her friend, the one person she could talk to about