‘My word, you literally do have a God complex,’ she said, annoyed beyond measure that he of all people should still be the only man ever to melt any of her internal organs. ‘Why am I not surprised?’
‘Lucky you’re always there to smack me down.’
‘It’s my sole purpose in life.’
‘Really?’ he murmured. ‘I thought your sole purpose in life was work.’
‘I excel at multitasking.’
‘Of course you do. Heaven forbid you should fail at anything.’
‘I try not to.’
They began proceeding down the aisle at a pace that would have had a snail overtaking them. In crackling silence, until Marcus said conversationally, ‘You know, I’m rather amazed you’re here.’
Celia kept her smile firmly in place. ‘Oh? Why?’
‘I wouldn’t have thought that you’d have been able to drag yourself away from your desk.’
‘It’s my brother’s wedding.’
‘Nice to know there are some things that take priority. I kept expecting your phone to go off during the service.’
She bristled and her jaw began to ache with the effort of maintaining the smile. So she worked hard. Big deal. ‘I’m not a complete workaholic.’ Well, not to such an extent she’d forgo something as important as this.
‘No?’
‘No,’ she said firmly, choosing to ignore the fact that she had spent much of the morning on her phone, dealing with calls to and from the office and a string of emails that couldn’t wait.
‘I read about that pharmaceutical merger of yours going through. Congratulations.’
Despite the indignation Celia couldn’t help feeling a stab of pride because the six months she’d spent pushing that deal through had been the toughest of her working life so far, yet she and her team had done it, and now the partnership she’d been working towards for what felt like for ever was that tiny bit closer.
‘Thank you,’ she said demurely, ignoring the way his body kept brushing against hers and sent thrills scurrying through her. ‘And I heard you’d sold your business.’ For millions, according to the gossip magazine she’d picked up and flicked through at the hairdresser’s a fortnight ago, which had been light on detail about the sale and heavy on speculation about what one of London’s most eligible bachelors was going to do with all his money and free time.
‘I did.’
‘So what are your plans now?’
‘Do you really want to know?’
Not really, because she’d willingly bet her lovely two-bedroomed minimalist flat in Clerkenwell that she knew what he’d be doing for the foreseeable future. What he did best, but even better. ‘I’m guessing it’ll involve partying till dawn with scantily clad women.’
‘Am I really that much of a cliché?’
‘You tell me.’
‘And spoil the fun you have baiting me?’
‘You think I find it fun?’
He raised an eyebrow as he glanced down at her. ‘Don’t you?’
Celia thought about it for a second and decided that, as she didn’t know exactly what to attribute the thrill she always got from winding him up to, ‘fun’ would do. ‘OK, perhaps,’ she conceded. ‘Just a little. But no more than you do.’
‘Well, I’m all for equality.’
‘Yes, so the tabloids say,’ she said witheringly as the interview with one of his conquests that she’d read in that magazine popped into her head. Apparently he was intense, smouldering and passionately demanding in the bedroom, and sought the same from whoever he was sharing it with. Which was something she could really have done without knowing because now she did it was alarmingly hard to put from her mind.
‘You know, Celia, darling, you have such low expectations of me I find I can’t help wanting to live down to them.’
Before she could work out what he meant by that he turned away and directed that devastating smile of his at a couple of women at the end of a pew on Dan’s side, and as she watched them blush she mentally rolled her eyes. How very typical. That was Marcus all over. Lover of women. Literally. Lots of women.
But not her. Never her. Not that she thought about that night fifteen years ago when she’d been so desperate to lose her virginity to him. Much.
‘What’s with the death grip?’
Celia blinked and snapped her train of thought away from the treacherous path it would career down if she let it. ‘Huh?’
‘On the flowers. What did they do? What did they say? Because I know from personal experience that it doesn’t take much.’
Celia glanced down at the beautiful bouquet of pink roses and baby’s breath that matched her dress and saw that her knuckles were indeed white, and she mentally swore at herself for letting him get to her.
She really had to relax because if she didn’t she’d never make it to the door with her nerves intact. This walk down the aisle was taking for ever. What with the way Dan and Zoe kept stopping to talk to people in the pews, they were progressing at about a metre an hour and she wasn’t sure how much longer she could resist the temptation to push past the bride and groom and make a run for it.
‘The flowers haven’t done anything,’ she said, taking a couple of deep calming breaths and surreptitiously rolling her shoulders in an effort to release some of her tension.
‘Am I to take it, then, that you don’t really approve of Dan and Zoe?’
Celia stilled mid-roll and stared at him for a moment, unable to work out where that had come from because Zoe was the best thing that had ever happened to Dan, as she’d told him after supper last night just before giving him a big hug and wishing him luck. ‘Why on earth would you think that?’
‘Because you spent the entire ceremony looking like you wished you were somewhere else.’
Oh. She hadn’t wanted to be anywhere else. She’d wanted Marcus to be somewhere else, preferably on another planet, but she’d thought she’d managed to hide that. Clearly she’d been wrong. ‘I’m surprised you noticed.’
‘Oh, I noticed,’ he murmured, his gaze drifting over her and making her skin feel all hot and tingly and tight. ‘You look beautiful, by the way.’
That was the trouble with him, she thought irritably as she stamped out the heat with every ounce of self-control she had. Just when she felt like slapping him, he went and said something charming. ‘Thank you.’
‘You’re welcome.’
‘And you look very handsome,’
