Appointment at the Altar

I thought to use my initiative. Dangerfield & Dunn is such a friendly place to work, too. It feels as if everyone’s got a part to play…even the receptionists!’

‘I might try and get a job there myself,’ said Meg, impressed in spite of her reservations. ‘It sounds as if Guy Dangerfield has a better idea of how to run a company than my bosses! How is the gorgeous Guy, anyway?’

Lucy had told her the bare bones about her return to London with Guy and the night she had spent at his apartment, but Meg knew her very well and was adept at reading between the lines. It hadn’t taken her any time to winkle the whole story out of Lucy.

‘I’ve hardly seen him,’ Lucy said.

It was true. She had caught occasional glimpses of Guy walking to or from the lifts. He never failed to smile and greet her and Imogen, but he didn’t come over and talk to them again, even on the rare occasions when he was on his own.

Lucy didn’t mind-obviously-but she couldn’t help feeling just a little put out. After all, the last time they had spoken, she had held his hand and he had told her about his brother’s death. It wasn’t the kind of conversation you had with a total stranger, and perhaps he regretted telling her as much as he had, but she hadn’t forced him to confide in her, had she?

Meg was watching her as she drank her wine abstractedly. ‘Has he kissed you again?’

Lucy flushed. She wished she hadn’t told Meg about that. At least she had managed to be fairly casual about it, and Meg had no idea quite how much Guy’s kiss had affected her.

‘No, as far as he’s concerned I’m just the new receptionist now,’ she said as lightly as she could.

‘It must be a bit awkward, isn’t it?’ said Meg. ‘Having kissed your boss?’

‘He wasn’t my boss when I kissed him, and anyway he kissed me first. Why should I feel awkward?’

‘Maybe Guy does? He might be too embarrassed to talk to you now.’

Lucy gave a short laugh. ‘Guy? I can’t imagine him being embarrassed about anything!’

‘Perhaps he’s met someone else?’ Meg suggested.

This thought had occurred to Lucy, too, more than once. Imogen, source of all information on Guy, hadn’t mentioned anything about a new girlfriend, but presumably she didn’t know everything.

‘Not as far as I know,’ she said. ‘Anyway, it doesn’t matter to me,’ she said with a touch of defiance. ‘I’m just there to do my job. Guy can do what he wants.’

Still, it was hard to concentrate on the job when her heart did that ridiculous flip-flop every time she glimpsed Guy striding across the atrium, every time he turned his head and sent them that smile, every time his laugh rang out.

It was strange how one man, dressed exactly like all the others, could change the whole feel of the building. There was no need to hoist a flag to show that Guy Dangerfield was in residence. All were aware of a shift in the air, the sense of an ocean breeze swirling in and blowing away the staleness in the atmosphere, that charge of extra ozone he brought into the room that made everyone sit up straighter.

Lucy felt it too. Try as she might not to notice him, all her senses were on alert the moment he stepped out of the lift. It seemed incredible now that she had once dismissed him as lazy and a lightweight. How could she not have noticed the charisma of the man in Australia? The older members of the board might be resistant to his charms, but to the staff of Dangerfield & Dunn Guy was a hero.

Lucy understood why they admired him, but when she looked at him now, she didn’t just see the successful banker with an inclusive approach and a thoughtful word for the least significant of his staff. She saw the lonely child with the elder brother who seemed to give his parents everything they needed. She saw the boy dreaming of being a rodeo rider, the young man kicking against convention, the surfer on the crest of a wave, the wind in his hair and the sun in his eyes. The man who had given up his freedom because he didn’t want to let his father down.

The man who walked past her now as if she had never kissed him on the quayside, had never held his hand in the dark.

‘I’ll probably never hear from him again,’ she told Meg. ‘Anyway, it’s Friday. Why don’t I get another bottle?’

CHAPTER SIX

GUY rang the next day. ‘Have I got you at a bad time?’ he said.

‘Er…no…I’m just buying some shoes.’ Lucy had answered the phone without thinking, assuming that it would be Meg arranging where to meet for lunch, and the sound of his voice set her heart thumping wildly against her ribs. Her knees felt suddenly, ridiculously, weak too, and she sat down abruptly on the nearest stool, oblivious to the shoppers around her.

‘Not glass slippers, by any chance?’

‘No.’ Lucy looked down at the shoes on her feet. They were a practical black, the heel sturdier and not as high as Meg’s turquoise shoes, but they had an elegant shape and Lucy loved the floppy bow they boasted. ‘Some sensible shoes to wear to work.’

‘Sensible? That doesn’t sound like you, Cinders,’ said Guy, the old laugh back in his voice, and she could picture him with alarming clarity, holding the phone to his ear, the blue eyes dancing, his cheek creasing with his smile.

‘You challenged me to change,’ she pointed out. ‘Maybe I have changed enough to invest in comfortable shoes.’

‘I’ll know when I see them,’ he said.

Lucy took a breath and made herself sound brisk. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘My mother is at home and in urgent need of distraction,’ he said, getting down to business. ‘You did say once that you’d be prepared to talk to her about Wirrindago one day.’

‘I remember.’ It wasn’t too much to spend a couple of hours distracting an elderly lady from her pain, Lucy thought. ‘Did you want to arrange a time for me to go round?’

‘I don’t suppose you could make tomorrow afternoon?’ said Guy hopefully.

‘I said I would go and see Richard in the evening, but around teatime would be fine.’

Meg was delighted to hear that Guy had insisted on coming to pick Lucy up. ‘I can’t wait to meet him,’ she said excitedly. ‘What are you going to wear?’

‘It’s not a date, Meg. I’m just going to have tea with his mother.’

‘Yes, and how many guys-if you’ll excuse the pun-introduce you to their mothers unless they’re really interested?’ retorted Meg. ‘You could wear your new shoes.’

But Lucy was determined not to make an effort. That would suggest that she was excited at the thought of seeing Guy again and treating it like a date, when she was just a cook from Wirrindago going to have tea with his mother. So she put on her old jeans and a T-shirt, and if the pale blue cardigan she threw over the top happened to be her softest and most flattering one, that was just because it was the first one to hand and certainly not because she had chosen it specially.

Guy was driving himself this time and turned up in-what else?-a Porsche that made Meg’s eyes pop as she peered through the front window. Annoyingly, he had managed to park right outside the house. ‘Ooh, he must be seriously rich to have one of those.’ Meg whistled, impressed. ‘If you don’t want him, Lucy, can I have him?’ She hurried to the door. ‘I’ll go and let him in.’

Lucy was left, desperately trying to get her breathing under control. In the hallway she could hear Guy charming Meg, and the sound of his voice sent the butterflies in her stomach into a frenzy. Anyone would think that she was nervous, she chastised herself as she got to her feet, appalled to find that her legs were doing a passable imitation of jelly. It was only Guy, she reminded herself sternly. There had been a time when she couldn’t have cared less if Meg was flirting with him.

Then Guy appeared in the doorway and instantly every particle of oxygen was sucked from the air, and it seemed to Lucy that her heart actually stopped for a moment. His presence in the tiny room was overwhelming and his smile was like a jolt of adrenalin, setting every cell in her body on high alert.