She swallowed hard, deliberately turning away from the cold implacability of his face to look at Janie. ‘I seem to have forgotten to bring my notebook in with me—do you think you could go out to the van and get it for me?’ she requested warmly—the notebook in question feeling as if it were burning a hole through her handbag into her hip as she told the lie!
But this barbed conversation with Wolf, of which no one else seemed aware, just couldn’t continue. Much as she hated the idea, if he was a very good friend of the Harcourt family, a frequent visitor to the house, maybe she should just withdraw from being involved in this wedding at all. She could save herself an awful lot of work if she established that fact right now!
‘Of course,’ Janie agreed readily, shooting Wolf a longing look as she sidled past him and then out of the door.
‘Well...Cyn-to-your-friends,’ Wolf grated contemptuously as soon as they were alone, his golden gaze raking over her with slow insult, ‘just how long have you been a “friend” of Gerald’s?’
She drew in a sharp breath at the deliberate provocation of the remark. ‘I—’
‘It can’t have been for very long,’ Wolf added scathingly. ‘He only dropped his last mistress a matter of weeks ago.’
‘I’m not his mistress!’ Cyn hissed the denial, wondering if these heated spots of colour—through anger this time—were going to remain a fixture in her cheeks while she spoke to this hateful man. ‘We only met for the first time on Saturday!’
Wolf’s mouth twisted derisively, those lines grooved into his cheeks intensifying. ‘No, possibly you can’t be classed as a mistress yet; give it another few weeks or so! But don’t give yourself any false hopes where he’s concerned; you heard Gerald’s views on marriage,’ he added harshly.
She gave a weary sigh. ‘I don’t have any “false hopes”, or indeed hopes of any other kind, where Gerald Harcourt is concerned; I barely know the man.’ She shook her head dismissively.
‘It’s obvious he has more in mind than just a business arrangement between the two of you,’ Wolf rasped coldly, his eyes narrowed speculatively.
Taking into account that initial dinner invitation she had received from Gerald, he was no doubt right. But even if he was, it was none of his business if she and Gerald Harcourt should choose to go out together. Or if, indeed, they should become lovers. Just because he was a friend of Gerald’s, there was no reason for him—
‘It will never happen, Cyn,’ Wolf told her softly, his sharp gaze easily able to read her resentful thoughts. ‘Believe me.’
Her head went back challengingly—rather like a kitten putting itself up against a wolf! Wolf was tall and masculine, well over six feet in height, whereas she was barely five feet in her bare feet, not much more than that in the flat shoes she wore with black tailored trousers and matching jacket, the purple blouse she wore beneath the jacket making her eyes look almost the same colour. She looked tiny and slender, nothing like the twenty-seven she actually was—and this man was trying to intimidate her. Well, he wasn’t going to succeed!
‘My relationship—or otherwise—with Gerald is none of your concern,’ she told him waspishly, her eyes flashing.
‘I would make it so, Cyn,’ he assured her softly, warningly.
She frowned across at him, that frown deepening at the stark bitterness in that harshly hewn face. ‘You have no right, Wolf,’ she choked. ‘No right at all!’
‘I have every right, damn you!’ he began fiercely, his eyes glittering deeply gold as he took a threatening step towards her. ‘You—’
‘I couldn’t find it, Cyn,’ a slightly breathless Janie came back into the room at that moment, her face slightly flushed from her exertions. ‘I looked in the back of the van as well as the front and I—’
‘I found the notebook, Janie,’ Cyn told her guiltily, knowing she had wasted Janie’s time, as well as her own, trying to talk to Wolf alone in these circumstances; the differences between Wolf and herself were too deeply embedded to be dealt with in a few minutes of private conversation between them. ‘I realised it was in my bag after all almost as soon as you’d left the room, but by that time it was too late to stop you. I’m sorry about that,’ she smiled apologetically at the other girl, although to her credit, Janie didn’t look in the least put out; she was preoccupied once again gazing up enchanted at Wolf!
And he was looking at Cyn with such a look of intense dislike that a shiver of apprehension ran the length of her spine. They might not have resolved anything by their conversation just now, the intensity of his gaze seemed to say, but then the conversation was far from over. Oh, God!
Cyn turned gratefully towards the door as it opened to readmit Gerald, closely followed by the errant Rebecca. Cyn’s relief turned to dismay as she realised it was the girl from the garden...
All signs of recent tears had been completely erased by the subtle use of make-up. Rebecca Harcourt was even more beautiful close to like this, her skin flawless, her features smooth and even. And if there was a lingering anxiety in the deep blue of her eyes, Cyn felt sure she was the only one aware of it.
‘I’m so sorry I kept you waiting.’ Rebecca’s voice was huskily low—from those recent tears, or naturally so, Cyn couldn’t be sure. ‘I didn’t realise you were here,’ she added awkwardly.
But, to Cyn’s puzzlement, the remarks weren’t being made to her. Rebecca was looking up at Wolf as she crossed the room to his side.
‘Hello, darling.’ Rebecca reached up to kiss him lightly on the lips. ‘I’m so glad you could get away from the office so we could both talk to Miss Smith about the arrangements for the wedding.’ Now she turned towards Cyn, smiling a welcome.
Cyn just stared. She couldn’t have made a response even if she had wanted to. Wolf was Rebecca’s bridegroom...?
‘You know, I suddenly realised after I’d gone off in search of Rebecca,’ Gerald spoke ruefully, ‘that I never did get around to introducing Wolf to you, Cyn.’ He squeezed her arm apologetically for his oversight. ‘This is Wolf Thornton, my daughter’s fiancé.’
Wolf was the bridegroom!
‘SOME people have all the luck,’ Janie sighed at Cyn’s side as they made the drive back to the office a short time later.
‘Hmm?’ Cyn answered distractedly, still too shaken to even try to guess to what Janie was alluding; she had just spent almost an hour going through what arrangements the ‘happy couple’ would like for their August wedding, with Wolf being as objectionable as he could be without making it look like yet another personal attack on her. Or perhaps he was always like that nowadays? She hadn’t thought of that.
‘Rebecca Thornton,’ Janie enlightened her with another sigh. ‘It doesn’t seem fair that she has a gorgeous father like that and a sexy fiancé most women would kill for!’
Cyn couldn’t help her half-smile. ‘I don’t think having a good-looking father counts,’ she said ruefully.
‘Perhaps
