stretched her legs. Her four-inch spike heels just about reached Rita Caruso’s desk. She was not a tall girl. But she was going to put her feet on the desk anyway. It was symbolic.
She stretched luxuriously and said, ‘So tell me about you. How’s the wedding?’
‘Growing,’ said Annis is a voice of deep gloom.
Bella grinned. ‘Told you it would. Quiet wedding isn’t in mother’s vocabulary.’
‘For you maybe.’
It was just as well Annis was on the other side of the Atlantic. Bella’s grin did not so much fade as freeze.
Fortunately Annis had no suspicion. ‘But I’m not even her daughter,’ she complained. ‘And I’m too tall for frills and veils. Weddings and I were made for separate universes. But will she listen?’
‘No,’ supplied Bella. ‘The wedding experience pervades every known universe as far as mother is concerned. Even if you bring a sick note, she’ll convince herself you want it really.’ She made a huge effort. Her voice didn’t sound too bad.
That was New York for you. It taught you to come back with a smart remark even if your heart was breaking. Let’s hear it for New York, she thought.
Annis did not detect anything wrong. ‘Too right.’ She hesitated. ‘Er—that’s what I was calling about actually.’
Bella’s hand was clammy on the receiver. Please don’t ask me to come to the wedding. Please, please, please, Annie. It was unashamed panic.
‘Oh?’
‘I need help.’
If Annis had hit her, she could not have winded her more comprehensively.
‘Don’t ask me,’ Bella said, when she got her breath back. She was desperate to keep it at the level of a joke. ‘I’ve never organised a wedding. If you don’t trust mother, try one of Kosta’s glam friends. There must be a wedding consultant in there somewhere.’
‘Probably,’ said Annis with the indifference of a woman so utterly sure that she was adored, she hardly noticed the predatory females who still circled round the fashionable architect who loved her. ‘But it’s not technical advice I want.’
Bella’s throat tightened. ‘Oh?’
‘I want my sister,’ said Annis baldly.
For a moment Bella literally could not speak. Everything inside her screamed No! Oh, this wasn’t fair. This really, really wasn’t fair.
‘Bella Bug? Are you there? Bella?’
‘Yes,’ Bella croaked. She cleared her throat. ‘I mean, yes, I’m here. Glitch on the line.’
‘Well?’
Bella floundered. She felt as if she was drowning.
‘Annie, do you know how hard I had to wheel and deal to get this job? American visas are like gold dust. If I go back, I’m not sure they’ll let me back in,’ she said, improvising desperately. ‘Not to work, anyway. I’m here on this six month exchange thing. This is the first proper career-type job I’ve ever had. I can’t afford to risk it.’
The silence was full of disappointment. Bella felt awful but she did not weaken. She could not afford that either. She could feel the tears on her face. She did not know when had she started crying.
This is stupid, she told herself savagely. She did not say anything at all to Annis.
‘Oh, well, if you can’t, you can’t,’ Annis said eventually. Her voice was muffled.
She was obviously hurt. Damn! thought Bella. Still, better hurt now than have her wedding day ruined by a sister weeping all over the man she was going to marry.
‘Look, I’ve got to go. There’s this guy I need to speak to today. I’ll call you and you can fill me in with the news then. Or email me. That’s what the Net is for,’ said Bella trying to be bracing. Even to her own ears she sounded horridly un-feeling.
‘Yes. Of course. I’ll call you.’
Annis rang off.
Bella put down the phone and blew her nose hard.
If only Annis had not looked after her from the moment Tony Carew had married Lynda. If only she had not taught Bella how to sail. If only she had not played with her and read to her and let her borrow her make-up. And then, later, if only she had not believed in her when everyone else thought Bella was a pretty airhead.
If only she had not fallen in love with the same man.
But she had. And Kosta Vitale, for all his smooth sophistication, had taken one look at Annis and had fallen right back. Clever, heartbreaking Kosta was undoubtedly right. Annis was a woman men fell in love with. Bella was the girl they took to parties.
But that didn’t mean the party girl couldn’t fall in love. She just shouldn’t expect anyone to take her seriously when she did. And she should get over it as fast as she could.
Well, she was trying. She wasn’t doing too badly, either. Sometimes she didn’t think of Kosta for a whole hour at a time. Eventually she would get him out of her system altogether. But not if she had to go back to London and watch him walk down the aisle with Annis. Bella knew herself and she knew she was not up to that yet.
She had never told anyone else that she was in love. She had kept her secret well. She had wished them both all the luck in the world and had danced at their engagement party. But Kosta knew she was in love with him. And every time their eyes had met she’d known he knew, even though he’d said nothing. And her heart hurt all over again.
‘Love,’ said Bella aloud, furiously. ‘Who needs it?’
But she would get over it. Of course she would. As long as Annis and Kosta stayed in London and Bella stayed in New York and forgetfulness had time to work its magic.
‘Annis, I need you to come with me to New York,’ Gilbert de la Court said, without preamble.
Annis was sitting in his office, frowning over a flow chart. She looked up, startled.
‘What?’
He gave one of his rare smiles. ‘I need camouflage.’
At once she was wary. They had worked together for months and she knew his company inside out but she knew next to nothing about his private life.
But he was thirty-three and single. Good-looking, too, when you got past his complete disengagement from the everyday world. Besides, some women found that air of aloof preoccupation the ultimate sexual challenge. Who knew how many women he was juggling in the few hours he spent away from his computer? Now she came to think of it, just last week he had taken three days off. She was not going to get involved in any domestic battles he might have.
So she said firmly, ‘I do management consultancy. You want set-dressing, you go somewhere else.’
He
