We never do, at home. Now you’re here, help me! Do I wear this, or my jeans, or fling myself down the lift shaft?’ she asked earnestly, turning to more immediate dramas.
Petra put an arm around her friend. ‘Wear what you’ve got on. Honest, Trish, you do look nice.’
Nice. What kind of compliment was that? Unfortunately, the mirror told her what Petra must be seeing: a decent, dull, unsophisticated woman. Someone who’d have difficulty even exciting a lecher who’d been marooned alone on a desert island for ten years’ She felt a surge of intense anger.
‘I don’t want nice! I want sensational!’ Trish stopped scowling at her offensively nice and deeply boring dress and eyed Petra balefully instead.
‘Oh, yeah? Why? Thought you never cared about your appearance?’ Petra asked, with a sly grin.
Did Petra know her guilty secret? Trish picked up a pair of nail scissors and tried to even up her zigzag fringe while she dealt with her fears. Then she came to her senses. Petra would never have invited her to her stepfather’s engagement party if she did.
‘I’m having the jitters at the thought of all the stunning women at this party!’ Trish replied, since that was half the truth. Muttering crossly, she put down the scissors in defeat. ‘Women without jagged holes in their fringes!’
‘And one woman in particular.’ Her friend put her head on one side and critically surveyed Trish’s pitch-dark hair, which had been cut by her grandmother into something only vaguely resembling a bob. ‘Adam’s fiancée is perfection itself,’ she offered irritatingly.
Trish resisted the temptation to stamp her foot like a petulant child and wondered instead why she felt so bad-tempered all of a sudden. It dawned on her that she’d hoped Louise would be all teeth, acne and glasses’ She laughed at her idiocy. Of course Adam would marry someone stunning.
‘Exactly!’ Experimentally, she puffed out her chest and sucked in her stomach. She just looked stupid so she let it all go again. ‘Look at me! I need loads of praise, if you please. What’s the use of having a best friend if she’s not going to he through her teeth and swear I’m knockout gorgeous?’ she demanded with a grin.
‘OK.’ Petra assumed the air of a pop fan who had just seen her idol walk m. ‘Wow!’ she gushed, clasping her hands in wonder. ‘I really, really wanna dress like that too! You’ll slay Adam’ He’ll call his engagement off pronto!‘
‘If you’re that thrilled with the sight of searing emerald polyester, I’ll send you the catalogue it came from!’ mut-tered Trish, turning away from the sight of herself in the full-length mirror. Suddenly this wasn’t funny at all.
Here she was in a mail-order frock, hedge-backwards hairstyle and borrowed stilt-walker shoes—why did Petra’s feet have to be a size smaller than hers?—feeling hugely inadequate, nervous, about to meet Petra’s unfairly young stepfather for the first time since...
Trish blanked out the past and haphazardly stuffed things into her handbag. Which didn’t match her dress or the wretchedly crippling shoes. Everything was wrong! Feeling a total mess, she sank dispiritedly onto the bed
Petra accurately read her friend’s body language. ‘If you want sensational, we could sneak off to Adam’s flat, pinch a pair of his shocking pink boxer shorts and twist two silk hankies into the shape of a bra for you to wear,’ she suggested helpfully.
The thought of wearing Adam’s boxer shorts made Trish feel quite peculiar. ‘Adam isn’t the pink sort,’ she said flatly.
‘Purple-spotted? Fluorescent?’ goaded Petra, going too far as usual.
‘No!’ Trish saw Petra’s eyebrows rocket skywards. ‘I mean I don’t know what he wears beneath his pinstripes!’ she cried. And never would! She put on a prim look. ‘Anyway, where’s your respect for your stepfather?’ she asked grumpily.
‘Well...’ Petra was idly trying Trish’s Pale Sunrise lipstick over her own gaudy gash of scarlet. ‘Granted he’s been my dad since I was a three-year-old brat, but he’s sort of grown younger while I’ve grown older. I see him as being more my age. And yours.’ Her eyes slanted to Trish’s, gauging her reaction. ‘Adam’s not exactly an old wrinkly, is he? Bags of energy, lean and toned as a teenager, thanks to his personal trainer,’ she said complacently.
‘Sounds like you’re trying to sell him on a slave market,’ Trish said wryly As if she didn’t know he was a hunk!
‘Well, he’d get a rattling good price,’ said the irrepressible Petra. ‘Active mind, active body. My girlfriends always get jelly-leg syndrome when they see him ’
Trish grinned. She knew the feeling. ‘Sugar-daddy syndrome, you mean ’
But the image of Adam’s fierce vigour made a mockery of her attempt to think of him as approaching middle age. Despite his Jermyn Street handmade suits and well-groomed appearance, he’d always projected a dangerous, tough-guy look Perhaps, she mused, because he enjoyed hair-raising pursuits. Speedboat racing. Off-piste skiing. Risky investments. Sugar-daddy didn’t come anywhere near it Robber baron more like.
Tall Jet-black hair...tousled by her hands... She jammed her teeth together, determined not to start that again. But he stayed in her mind, his near-Roman nose and dark good looks conjuring up an air of menace. This was more than reinforced by the unnerving breadth of his shoulders and the sublime air of authority which swept him through a restaurant to the best table in a matter of seconds.
Her eyes softened to a warm misty blue. His hard, angular jawline had felt as smooth as a baby’s when she’d touched it. Dreamily she recalled the way his mouth didn’t entirely fit his hard, macho look, because it was too soft and curved for ready laughter. Or kissing. And that devastating combination of total masculinity and sensual promise had been her downfall
Trish drew in a quick, sharp breath, physically disturbed by her thoughts. Drat him! Would he never go away?
‘Dear old Adam! It’s nice he’s found someone, at his age,’ she said patronisingly, trying hard to convince herself of that fact.
Petra looked at her curiously. ‘His age? Are you mad? Adam married Mother when he was eighteen. She was ten years older. He’s only fifteen years older than I am. Sixteen more’n you.’
‘Wow! That old!’ Trish exclaimed in assumed horror.
Thirty-eight, to her twenty-two. In his prime.
Trish began emptying her handbag for no reason at all other than aimless occupation. He was too old—and yet too young She thought crossly that if Adam had been the same age as Petra’s late mother, or even years older, she wouldn’t be in this stupid state of nervous anticipation and semi-hysteria. It wouldn’t matter a damn what she looked like. Because they would never have nearly. .nearly ..
‘What are you doing?’ asked Petra mildly.
‘I’m...I’m removing biscuit crumbs from the bottom of my bag,’ she jerked out, hoping her friend wouldn’t notice she was having trouble with her breathing.
‘Uh-uh.’
That was the most significant-sounding ‘uh-uh’ that Trish had ever heard. But what was the big deal about a tidy handbag? Her gaze fell on the invitation. She folded it in half and jammed it into
