Here Comes The Bride

She risked another glance. Like many of the other men in the room, P.J. was wearing a dinner jacket, and the severe black and white tailoring made him look powerful and more distinguished than she had ever seen him. He was standing on one side of the gallery, talking to a dark, intense girl who was dressed in such a challenging way that Nell wondered if she was one of the artists.

He seemed absorbed in his conversation, and Nell let her eyes rest hungrily on him for a moment. It was as if everything about him were in sharp focus, the planes of his face, the set of his shoulders, the white cuff against his brown hand as he gesticulated, and her stomach clenched with longing.

Turning abruptly, she headed off in the opposite direction in search of Eve. There was such a press of people, none of whom seemed to be the slightest bit interested in the pictures and installations that lined the walls, that it was quite hard work pushing through them and when Nell had got as far away from P.J. as she could, she paused. She couldn’t see any sign of Eve.

What now?

The whole exercise was pointless anyway, Nell told herself. There was no way they were going to be able to talk properly to anyone in this crush. Perhaps she would just slip away now…

Glancing longingly towards the entrance through a break in the crowd, she found herself staring straight into a pair of familiar warm blue eyes that lit at the sight of her.

P.J. smiled at her, and Nell’s bones seemed to dissolve. Appalled, she spun on her heel before she had a chance to think and turned her back pointedly, desperate to break the effect of that glinting blue smile. Her instinct was to bolt for the entrance, but if he saw her leaving now P.J. would know that it was because of him.

Unseeingly, she stared at a picture on the wall instead, pretending to be absorbed in it. Surely P.J. would get the point and leave her alone now?

‘What do you think?’ His voice came from behind her and Nell jumped. How had he got across the room that fast? Why had he come at all? Couldn’t he see how hard this was for her?

Her mouth was dry, and she moistened her lips. ‘Think?’ she repeated stupidly. How could she think when he was standing right beside her, near enough for her to turn and lean into him, to rest against his broad chest and wind her arms around his back and cling to him as if he were her last refuge?

‘Of the picture,’ P.J. prompted.

‘Oh.’

With difficulty, Nell focused on the painting and discovered that she had been apparently absorbed in an extremely explicit male nude study. A wave of colour surged up her cheeks, but somehow she managed to keep her expression composed enough.

‘Interesting use of brushwork,’ she said stiltedly, and P.J. laughed.

‘Don’t tell me you’ve learnt to like contemporary art, Nell!’

‘I wouldn’t say “like,’” said Nell, ‘but maybe I’ve learnt to appreciate some of the things I wasn’t old enough to appreciate before.’

Their eyes met for a brief moment, and something flared in P.J.’s face, something that made Nell’s heart stumble, and she looked away almost fiercely, afraid that she had given too much away.

CHAPTER EIGHT

P.J. LOOKED at Nell’s averted face, letting his eyes rest on the pure line of her cheek and the pulse hammering in her throat, and he remembered her as a girl, sitting across a cafe table in Paris, her expression vivid as she talked and argued and laughed.

Even then he had marvelled that this beautiful creature was really his. That she would love him had seemed too good to be true, and when Simon Shea had swept in and taken her away part of P.J. had told himself that he had always known it couldn’t last. Why would a girl like Nell want to be with him, with his big nose and lanky frame and utter lack of sophistication?

She was still beautiful, still slender and somehow elusive, and as he watched her P.J.’s earlier confidence drained away. He felt twenty-two all over again, awkward and unsure, dazed by her nearness and gripped by the fear that if he tried to hold on to her, she would slip through his fingers and leave.

As she had.

She had John now. She was happy. Why would she want to start all over again with him? Look at her, sophisticated and desirable in a dress that clung in all the right places. It was a dress that made you think about how soft and warm her body would be beneath the soft, floaty material, how it would slide and slither over her skin, what it would be like to ease down the zip…

P.J. swallowed hard.

‘You look stunning,’ he said, aware that he sounded abrupt and almost angry, but unable to help himself.

‘Thank you,’ said Nell a little warily.

‘I hope John appreciates that dress.’

John? For a terrible moment, Nell couldn’t think who he meant, but then she remembered her blind date, and she clutched at the idea. John represented the future, P.J. the past. Pretending that she had already chosen the future would make it easier in the end to say goodbye to P.J. again.

‘John doesn’t think clothes are important,’ she said. It was the first thing that came into her head, and P.J. wasn’t impressed.

‘You don’t have to think clothes are important to appreciate a beautiful woman in a beautiful dress!’ he said. ‘He sounds a bit worthy for you, Nell.’

‘He’s a very nice man,’ she said a little defensively.

‘Not just a little boring?’ P.J. suggested.

‘Of course not,’ said Nell stiffly.

‘It just sounds as if he might be, that’s all.’

Nell glared, so irritated by his needling that she almost forgot that she knew absolutely nothing about John. ‘He’s not like that at all,’ she insisted, lifting her chin defiantly. ‘He’s great. He’s…kind and reliable and…clever… and he’s got a great sense of humour,’ she finished as if laying down a challenge.

‘I suppose he’s incredibly good-looking, too?’ said P.J. nastily.

‘Not that it matters, but, yes, as a matter of fact, he is!’

In for a penny, in for a pound, thought Nell, wondering what the real John would make of all this. Would he have a sense of humour? Would he prove to be kind and clever? Would he be the man who could push P.J. back out of her heart and her mind and her life?

‘He sounds perfect.’ P.J. glowered down into his glass of champagne. ‘So, do you think this is it?’ he made himself ask, not wanting to hear the answer but needing to know if he should give up now. ‘Are you thinking about getting married?’

‘It’s too early to think about that,’ said Nell, deciding not to get carried away with elaborate wedding plans. ‘We haven’t known each other that long. Anyway, I’ve already been married once and engaged twice,’ she added, trying to make a joke of it. ‘My track record isn’t that good, is it?’

‘Maybe it’ll be third time lucky,’ said P.J.

It had been first time lucky, if only she had had the sense to realise it. Nell’s heart twisted.

‘Maybe,’ she agreed, an unconsciously wistful expression in her eyes.

There was a tiny pause. ‘What does Clara think of him?’

‘Clara?’ Nell echoed stupidly.

‘She comes with you as part of the package, doesn’t she? I presume how she and John get on is important to you?’

‘Of course it is,’ said Nell, thrown back on the defensive. ‘But she doesn’t know him very well yet.’

‘Clara struck me as the kind of girl who makes up her mind about people straight away,’ P.J. observed so accurately that Nell was taken aback. That was exactly what Clara did, just as she had done with P.J. that morning. She had looked at him, assessed him, and decided that she liked him, and that was that in Clara’s book. Nothing would change her mind now.

‘Do you know what I think?’ P.J. went on, leaning forward confidentially, and Nell swallowed at his nearness