to anyway, if it wouldn’t have hurt Daniel for her to do so. But she doubted, knowing his opinion of her privileged background, that he would ever believe her motives could be that unmercenary. To convince him she would have to tell him of her love, and pity was the one emotion she refused to accept from him.
‘Well, it’s all settled now,’ she answered her uncle with a bright smile.
‘I always thought you and Phillip——’
‘I wasn’t in love with him, if that’s what you mean,’ she interrupted with a feeling of betrayal towards the other man. It was true that she had made it clear to Phillip that she didn’t care for him in that way, but that hadn’t stopped him professing to care for her.
She would have liked to have spared Phillip the painful humiliation she knew he must be feeling at having to witness her engagement to Daniel, but as all the airline’s executives had been invited, it would have looked worse to have singled him out in that way.
‘I’m glad about that at least,’ her uncle squeezed her arm.
‘Which isn’t to say,’ she drawled drily, ‘that you aren’t going to have a very angry young man working at Air International for a while!’
Her uncle grimaced. ‘Maybe I’ll give some thought to sending him up to the Manchester office for a while.’
‘Sending who up to Manchester?’ Stella joined them, light brows arched mockingly. ‘Surely you aren’t trying to get rid of Daniel already, Heather?’ she taunted maliciously.
Heather shook her head, steadily meeting the other woman’s gaze. ‘We have all the wedding arrangements to sort out yet. Besides, Daniel owns the airline, I doubt he could be sent anywhere!’
Stella shrugged. ‘Then who is being sent into exile?’ she drawled.
‘We were just discussing poor Phillip, my dear,’ her husband put in with a sigh.
‘He left, you know,’ the other woman snapped at Heather. ‘I think you used him shamefully——’
‘Stella——’
‘She’s been leading him around by the nose for almost a year now, Lionel,’ his wife reminded him waspishly. ‘And now, just because that savage——’
‘Stella, that will be enough!’ her husband said with quiet authority. ‘Heather is doing the only thing she can in the circumstances.’
‘I always did think Max was slightly vindictive where she was concerned,’ Stella scorned, completely unperturbed by her husband’s disapproving frown. ‘It’s the only reason I can think of for wishing a man like that on his only daughter!’
The first part was true and undeniable, but ‘a man like that’ rankled; Stella had no reason to malign Daniel in that way. ‘He’s a good man——’
‘He’s uncouth!’ the other woman dismissed disparagingly. ‘That remark he made about your not being being pregnant, for instance——’
‘And wasn’t that what Rita was thinking?’ Heather’s eyes were deep purple. ‘Wasn’t that what almost all the people here had assumed?’ she scorned.
‘I think you’re being a little unfair to some of them,’ her uncle chided.
‘Well, I don’t,’ she snapped. ‘And all because we’ve decided to marry soon!’
‘With undue haste,’ Stella corrected pointedly. ‘I can’t see what all the rush is about personally, you have another six months before Max’s deadline is up.’
‘Daniel and I discussed waiting,’ Heather bit out tautly. ‘And we decided that for the good of the airline——’ She broke off as Stella gave a disbelieving snort. ‘—For the stability of the airline,’ she added firmly, ‘it would be better if we ended the uncertainty of ownership as soon as possible.’
Blue eyes raked over her scathingly. ‘You can’t wait to crawl into his bed, can you?’
Heather paled at the viciousnesss of the taunt, all the more hurtful because it was the truth. When Daniel had asked her earlier if she were willing to share his bed, to give herself to him, she had known a thrill of anticipation like never before. She could imagine nothing more wonderful than being his woman. But it was his wife she was destined to be, a wife he was forced to accept, and not his woman at all.
Her eyes flashed as she glared at her aunt. ‘I think our sleeping arrangement once we’re married will be no one’s concern but our own——’
‘Or before we’re married,’ drawled Daniel as he suddenly appeared at her side, his arm moving possessively about her waist, his flinty gaze fixed on Stella’s flushed face. ‘Don’t you know better than to taunt children? he jeered softly.
Stella relaxed a little, glancing dismissively at Heather. ‘That child will be your wife in a month’s time!’
He gave an acknowledging inclination of his head. ‘As Heather has already said, we don’t believe that is any of your business.’
Stella gave him a taunting smile. ‘I suppose you should be admired, really,’ she mocked.
‘You——’
‘Heather, I’ve performed all the duty dances that I’m going to,’ he firmly cut in on her angry outburst, letting the other woman know that was all he considered his dance with her to be. ‘When are we going to throw this lot out so that we can be alone?’
Lionel chuckled softly, obviously relieved to have someone step in and prevent the two women from indulging in a full-scale battle. ‘I think that’s a hint for us to make the first move to leave,’ he told his wife indulgently.
‘I can’t imagine why the two of you would want to be alone,’ Stella remarked, determined to be the one to have the last word.
Daniel looked at her with flinty eyes, before turning pointedly to Heather’s alluring curves outlined in the clinging black dress, and then back again to the more obviously displayed charms of the older woman in the low-cut red dress. ‘Can’t you?’ he taunted softly. ‘I’m sure all the men in this room could give you numerous reasons!’
Strange as it felt, Heather was grateful for Daniel’s defence of her, especially when Stella flounced off in search of her wrap, her chuckling husband following once he had kissed Heather warmly on the cheek and shaken Daniel by the hand. It was the first time that any man, with the exception of Uncle Lionel, had defended her in that way, and it felt a little strange to feel gratitude to a man who obviously held her in contempt.
Daniel shook his head as he watched the other couple leave, the expression on Stella’s face boding ill for the older man once they were safely outside. ‘I don’t know how Lionel puts up with the shrew,’ he muttered drily. ‘If you turn into a witch like that I’ll put you over my knee and spank you,’ he warned harshly.
She stiffened, moving away from his arm about her waist. ‘I’m grateful for your intervention just now,’ she bit out abruptly. ‘But I believe there are several things we need to discuss before we can be married.’
‘Why
