anything at all.
Except this.
Bella imagined herself strolling over and saying, 'Hey, Josh, I was just thinking what a great body you have and wondering what it would be like to kiss you,' and she winced, picturing already his appalled expression. She couldn't do that to Josh.
More to the point, she couldn't do it to herself! Honesty was one thing, humiliation quite another.
Gib's attention had been claimed by another guest and, as Bella watched, Josh tightened his arm around Aisling and gave her a quick private kiss. The pain that sliced through her at the sight was so unexpected that it took Bella's breath away, and the champagne spilt from her glass as she flinched instinctively.
Bella turned abruptly away. This wouldn't do! She was the life and soul of a party, not someone who mooned around on the edges feeling left out. It was time to circulate and exert some of that charm she was so famous for.
She succeeded so well that one of Kate's young brothers informed her owlishly at the end of the reception that he had been in love with her since he was fourteen, and asked her to marry him. Touched and amused, Bella let him down kindly but secretly she couldn't help feeling a bit better. She might be tottering on the verge of thirty-three and she wasn't a camping queen like Aisling, but
She seemed to have developed a sudden attraction for very young men. At the ceilidh in the marquee that evening Bella found herself the centre of a group of besotted boys. Their undisguised admiration was very flattering of course, but she wasn't entirely sure that it was a good sign. Did she really look old enough to be in the market for a toy boy? Bella wondered.
Still, it was nice to feel wanted for a change, and she glanced across the marquee to where Josh had Aisling entwined around him as usual.
Determined to show Josh, should he happen to look in her direction, that she was having a wonderful time, Bella let one of her admirers after another swing her eagerly on the dance floor. Her partners appeared deaf to the bellowed instructions of the member of the band who was desperately trying to tell everyone the moves to the Scottish dances, but what they lacked in skill, they more than made up for in enthusiasm. More than once Bella found herself being spun out of control so that she ended up cannoning breathlessly into other couples. Fortunately few of them seemed to have a clue what they were doing either.
Bella told herself she was having a fantastic time, and laughed as she shook back her hair over her shoulders.
From another set, Josh watched her dazzle the boy she was dancing with. He couldn't be more than sixteen and obviously could hardly believe his luck, Josh thought indulgently. He had seen how effortlessly Bella had cast her spell over every man she came across. Even Kate's famously grumpy great-uncle had not been immune to the old Stevenson charm.
It had been the same ever since he had met her. Josh remembered the first time he had seen her. She had walked into the seminar room, blonde, beautiful and impossibly glamorous amongst all the other scruffy students, and when she smiled and sat down next to him, he had gulped like the schoolboy she was dancing with now.
There had been a starry quality about Bella, even then, he thought. For the first few weeks, he had gawked at her from a distance. She was so clearly out of his league, that it never occurred to him that they could ever be friends, but when he did get to know her properly, he was bowled over by the charm that made him feel as if she had been waiting all this time just to meet him, plain Josh Kingston. He had been amazed to discover how friendly and natural she was, and how funny. She might look like a princess, but she had an infectiously dirty laugh.
Not that Josh ever tried to take advantage of the closeness that grew up between them. His role was as a friend, the one constant male in the dizzying ups and downs of her romantic life.
And Josh didn't mind, or he told himself he didn't, anyway. At least that way he saw Bella, and he kept on seeing her in a way the men she fell in and out of love with didn't. None of them ever lasted very long. Bella might look sophisticated, but beneath her glossy veneer beat the heart of a true romantic, determined not to settle for anyone less than Mr Perfect.
Maybe she had found him in Will. He seemed an unlikely Mr Perfect to Josh, but he had never understood Bella's taste in men. He had wondered if things had run their course with Will earlier, when she had seemed tense and unhappy, but there was no sign of that now.
Josh's mouth curled affectionately as he watched Bella dancing up and down the line in the other set, laughing that laugh of hers. She was being swung around and around between each couple, her hair shimmering as it flew around her vivid face and her skirt swirling around those spectacular legs.
'Josh!' Aisling hissed at him, and he started as he realised that he was supposed to be joining hands and going down the set with her, not watching what was going on elsewhere.
He didn't get a chance to dance with Bella herself until much later in the evening.
'I'm tired,' she said when he held out his hand to pull her onto the dance floor.
'Tired? You? Never!'
'I am,' she protested. 'I've been dancing all night.'
She fanned her hot face, unwilling to let him know reluctant she was to take his hand. 'Ask Aisling.'
'She's dancing with Gib.'
'Honestly, Josh, I'm exhausted,' Bella tried, but Josh was determined.
'This isn't going to require any energy,' he said as the band struck up a slow tune to give everyone a chance to cool down. 'We just need to stand there and sway a bit, I'm no good at doing anything else anyway.'
He put out his hand again. 'Come on, Bella, you can manage that, and it's only me!'
That's right, it was only Josh. Bella clung to the thought as she relented and took his hand. Following him onto the floor, she told herself that she could hardly refuse to dance with him. He really would think something was wrong then, and there wasn't. It was only Josh.
Only Josh's arms around her. Only Josh's broad chest tantalisingly close. Only Josh's cheek resting comfortably against her hair. They had danced like this countless times before, so why was it different now? Why this sudden longing to tighten her arms around his back, to lean against him and press her face into his throat?
Bella swallowed. 'Great wedding.'
'You certainly seem to have been having a good time.' Josh sounded amused rather than jealous. 'What's with this new interest in toy boys, Bella? I've lost count of the callow youths I've seen you reduce to stammering incoherence tonight! You realise you've spoilt them for life,' he went on cheerfully. 'They're going to be dreaming about finding a woman like you for years to come, and most of them are going to end up disappointed. You ought to come with a health warning for young men!'
'It never bothered you,' said Bella, more sharply than she had intended, and Josh pulled away slightly to look at her with puzzled frown.
'It was different for me.'
'I know,' she said.
Why? she wondered. Why didn't he desire her like other men? He had never so much as hinted that he wanted her as anything more than a friend. And she would have been appalled if he had, Bella reminded herself honestly.
So why was it suddenly so hard to dance with him like this? It was if something was unravelling uncontrollably inside her, and she didn't know what it was or how to stop it. She was agonisingly conscious of him as he held her against him, not too close, but close enough to be aware of the solid strength of his body, of the warmth of his hand on her back, and the feel of his fingers curled around hers.
Terrified that she was pressing herself against him, Bella held herself stiffly. Her tongue seemed to be stuck to roof of mouth, and she felt absurdly shy of him. As the silence lengthened, she was even reduced to asking how work was going.
'Very well,' said Josh, almost as if he too was relieved at her attempt to break the increasingly tense silence. 'Things have really taken off since Aisling joined us. With her background at C.B.C.-they're our major client-she's been incredibly useful, as she knows how both organisations work.'
'Really?' said Bella, trying to force some interest into her voice.
'There's a possibility of a big contract coming up. It could be the one that changes everything for us.'
'Why is it so important?'
