just yet, anyway.
But she had no intention of telling him a single personal detail. He was a perfect stranger, for heaven’s sake!
The next couple of minutes passed in a blank blur. Charlotte just sat there in a daze whilst the American ordered her a cappuccino. When it arrived soon after his own mug of coffee, he heaped in a couple of spoonfuls of sugar and pushed it over in front of her.
‘Drink up,’ he advised. ‘You need a sugar hit. You’re in shock.’
She did, and soon began to feel marginally better.
‘Thank you,’ she said at last. ‘You were right. I needed that.’
‘Aren’t you going to tell me what happened?’
‘Why on earth would you be interested?’ she countered, just a tad stroppily. Charlotte knew he didn’t really give a damn about her personal pain. He was just trying to pick her up.
His knight-to-the-rescue act. The coffee. His seemingly kind questions. All weapons to get what he wanted. Her.
She’d met his kind before. Overseas visitors who were always on the look-out for female company whilst they were away. He probably had a wife at home, or a live-in lover, or at least a girlfriend. Men who looked and dressed like him were rarely unattached. That suit he was wearing was not of the off-the-peg variety. His gold watch looked expensive as well, as did his gold and diamond dress ring.
He smiled, the gleam in his eyes carrying amusement and admiration. ‘I see you’re already on the road to recovery. That’s good. You’ll survive, then.’
‘That depends on what you mean by survive,’ she retorted. ‘I have my parents driving down to Sydney today to meet my fiancé. Then the rest of my entire family will be arriving tomorrow to attend my wedding. Sisters. Aunts. Uncles. Nieces. Nephews. Cousins. All of them have been dying for me to get married for years. They’re country, you see, and country people think marriage and motherhood is the only true career for a female. At last, I was going to be a success in their eyes…’
Tears threatened again, but she valiantly blinked them back.
‘Tell me what happened with your fiancé,’ he insisted.
She stared hard at him and wondered if she’d been wrong about his intentions. Those expressive eyes of his did seem genuinely sympathetic this time.
‘Nothing much to tell,’ she said with a weary shrug. ‘He’s not coming. The wedding’s off. End of story.’
Again, she had to reach for a fresh tissue. Sympathy always set Charlotte off when she was upset.
He didn’t press her to talk whilst she mopped her eyes once more, and this time she gathered herself more quickly. But as she sat there in wretched silence, having the occasional sip of coffee, Charlotte was suddenly filled with the urge to give vent to her feelings. What did it really matter if he was a stranger? she reasoned as anger started to simmer inside her. Probably better than his being a friend. Most of her friends were sick and tired of hearing about her relationship disasters.
‘Louise was right,’ she bit out, the coffee-cup clattering as she dropped it back into the saucer. ‘He didn’t really love me.’
‘Who’s Louise?’
‘My best friend. We share a flat together.’
‘She was the one on the phone to you just now, I presume.’
My, but he was a very observant man! And extremely intuitive.
She nodded her agreement. ‘Apparently, Gary rang last night and left a message saying he wouldn’t be on the plane and that he’d sent a long email, explaining everything, but we were out very late and didn’t check the answering machine when we came in. Louise saw there was a message after I left this morning. She rang Gary to find out what was going on, but he didn’t answer. I guess it’s the middle of the night over there. So she rang me and I had her have a look at the email he sent.’
‘That would be your missing fiancé’s name? Gary?’
‘Gary Cantrell. And he’s not missing,’ Charlotte ground out bitterly. ‘He’s in LA, with his PA. His pregnant PA, the one who somehow miraculously discovered she was having Gary’s baby the same day he was supposed to be leaving to marry me!’
‘Aah,’ the American said knowingly.
‘Yes. Aaah.’
‘So how long has it been since you and Gary were together?’
‘I haven’t seen him since last June.’
‘That’s eight months ago!’ His shocked tone carried a none too subtle message. Eight months was too long to leave any man on his own, in his opinion.
‘I was faithful to him,’ Charlotte snapped.
‘That’s commendable. But men are not renowned for their faithfulness when their fiancées—or wives—are a world away for such an extended period of time.’
‘Tell me something new.’
‘Why were you apart for so long?’
Charlotte sighed, then gave him a brief run-down on her romance with Gary, leaving out the fact she hadn’t been to bed with him, but including her stupidly going against Gary’s wishes and secretly planning a traditional wedding at a top Sydney hotel.
‘I suppose you don’t know the Regency Royale, being an American,’ she said at this point.
‘The name does ring a bell,’ he replied.
‘It’s one of the plushest hotels in Sydney. Everything there is so expensive. I should be able to cancel the suite I booked for the wedding night, but the reception is a done deal. Know anyone who might want a three-tiered wedding cake and a designer wedding gown? Not to mention a five-day prepaid package holiday up at the Hunter Valley?’
Her father wasn’t the only one who’d wasted a small fortune.
‘Not at the moment. Maybe you can advertise them on the internet. You seem to be able to sell anything there.’
Charlotte groaned. ‘Don’t talk to me about the internet.’
‘Just trying to be practical.’
‘I know what you’re thinking.’
‘What am I thinking?’
‘That internet romances are often little more than fantasies being played out by both parties. They’re not real. Our love for each other wasn’t real.’
‘That is a widely held opinion,’ he said.
‘Maybe that was the case for Gary, but it wasn’t for me. I loved him,’ Charlotte cried. ‘And I was going to marry him tomorrow.’
But even as she proclaimed the depth and sincerity of her love for Gary, Charlotte suspected there had been more than a touch of romantic
