Читать книгу Sharon Kendrick Collection - Sharon Kendrick - Страница 36
ОглавлениеIT WAS only the sight of a police car on the opposite side of the road that made Romy realise how fast she was going as she rocketed out of St Fiacre’s gates, and she immediately eased her foot off the accelerator.
Her journey back to London was surprisingly swift, but then it was the rush hour and most of the traffic was flowing in the opposite direction.
Within an hour of leaving Dominic, Romy was back in her Kensington mews house, kicking off her shoes with a sigh of relief, glad that she now had the luxury of living on her own since her friend Stephanie had fallen in love and moved in with her boyfriend.
She grabbed a cola from the refrigerator, threw herself down on the large, squashy sofa in the sitting room and sipped thirstily from the can, trying to work out whether or not the meeting with Dominic had done her good.
She had gone over and over her reasons for going there until she was blue in the face.
She had told Dominic that her reasons for accepting the job were curiosity and the desire to get him out of her system, but had that been entirely true? Had her pride perhaps been hoping to demonstrate that she was no longer Little Miss Vulnerable, who allowed herself to be seduced by strangers in broken-down lifts?
She had gone there determined to show him how much she had changed, and in that she had almost succeeded.
Almost
But what about the woman who had allowed Dominic to kiss her today, and who had failed so spectacularly in her efforts to resist him? Was she really any different from the eager nineteen-year-old he had first encountered all those years ago?
The telephone rang and she snatched it up on the first ring. It was Stephanie, her ex-flatmate.
‘Expecting someone, Romy?’ She giggled mischievously. ‘Surely not DDD?’
‘DDD?’ asked Romy, confused.
‘Dear Dominic Dashwood, of course,’ teased Stephanie.
‘Dastardly Dominic Dashwood, more like.’ Romy scowled.
‘How about Devastating Dominic Dashwood?’ laughed Stephanie. ‘Good grief—I could go on playing this game all evening.’
‘Not with me, you couldn’t,’ said Romy darkly. ‘I would have died of boredom long before then.’
‘Ooh! Fighting words! Do I take it that your meeting with the man achieved its objective of flushing him out of your system?’
‘You make him sound like some sort of toxin,’ complained Romy.
‘Now she’s defending him!’ declared Stephanie.
‘No, I’m not!’
‘So you told him what to do with his house party, right?’
‘That would have been highly unprofessional—considering he made the booking months ago,’ said Romy frostily. ‘I do have my reputation to think of, you know!’
‘Did he kiss you?’
‘None of your business!’
‘So he did!’ squeaked Stephanie delightedly. ‘Well, thank heavens for that! I couldn’t bear to think of you saving yourself for him since Mark died, if the man didn’t even do the decent thing and pounce!’
‘I have not been saving myself for anyone!’ said Romy indignantly.
‘Sure,’ said Stephanie, unconvinced. ‘You just get a kick out of turning down every dishy man who asks you out—’
‘Steph!’ said Romy warningly. ‘That’s enough!’
‘Oh, all right!’ sighed Stephanie. ‘Fancy going out for a drink later to fill me in on all the gory details? How he looked? What he said—?’
‘No, I don’t!’ said Romy immediately. ‘I’ve got some stupid tennis party to sort out for tomorrow. I need to write out all the place-names in my best italic writing tonight.’
‘Is that the tennis party in Yorkshire?’
‘It is,’ sighed Romy, thinking of the long drive ahead.
‘With a certain young, handsome and extremely eligible earl attending?’
‘The very same.’ Why was it, Romy wondered fleetingly, that you never fell for the kind of men you knew you really should fall for?
Stephanie clearly felt irritated by Romy’s looking such a gift-horse in the mouth, too. ‘Well, there’s no need to sound as though the three-minute warning has just gone off! This is an earl we’re talking about here, Romy! He’s bloody gorgeous and he fancies you like mad! Couldn’t you even show one teensy-weensy bit of interest?’
That was just the trouble; she couldn’t. And it drove her mad. She didn’t want to be fascinated by silver eyes and a dark, obdurate face. ‘No,’ she said gloomily. ‘Not even a teensy bit.’
But then she thought of the forthcoming house party, and saturation therapy and spiders, and the brain which God had given her and which she intended to start using instead of relying so heavily on hormonal influence—which had her simpering helplessly in Dominic’s arms!
And Dominic was basically a brute, she told herself firmly. An egotistical, single-minded brute who just happened to be over-endowed with sex appeal.
By the end of the house party, with uninterrupted exposure to his arrogance and his faults for a whole weekend, she should be sick to death of the sight of him...
By the time Tuesday came around, Romy was exhausted.
She had spent a professionally successful weekend which the over-eager attentions of the love-struck earl had only slightly dented. He had just been unable to accept that Romy wasn’t interested in him, and that his thousands of acres and family crest did not make the slightest impression on her!
She rang Dominic at his offices, and it took so long for a series of frosty secretaries to connect her that she was in a filthy temper by the time a deep, laconic voice finally said into the receiver, ‘Hello, Romy.’
Thank goodness they weren’t talking on phones with video screens, thought Romy, her cheeks going pink. Because then he would have been able to witness the depressing little spectacle of her nipples stinging with some horrifying Pavlovian response to the way he said her name.
‘I can’t believe I’m through to the Great Man at last!’ she said sarcastically.
‘Had problems, did you?’
‘I should say!’ answered Romy crossly. ‘I had to speak to at least three snotty secretaries who obviously do a bit of moonlighting for the Spanish Inquisition!’
‘Which is why,’ he explained patiently, as though Romy had an IQ in single figures, ‘I offered to ring you—’
‘Can you still meet me tonight?’ Romy interrupted crisply, thinking it would go down well if she sounded both bored and busy.
‘Where?’
Romy blinked. ‘Wh-where?’
‘Well, you did say that you’d book.’
‘Oh, yes. I have. Of course I have!’
A pause. ‘Then where?’
Romy didn’t stop to think. ‘The Olive Branch,’ she said wildly.
Another pause. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course I’m sure!’ she lied outrageously. ‘Is this the way you usually respond when someone manages to get you a table in London’s best restaurant?’
‘I shall look forward to it immensely,’ came the dry rejoinder. ‘What time have you booked the table for?’
The stupidity of what she had done was only just beginning to register and Romy had to think rapidly. Getting a table at The Olive Branch was going to be like procuring a diamond the size of the Koh-i-noor. And the only way she had of increasing her odds was to suggest a time when most normal people had not only eaten their evening meal but were brushing their teeth and about to climb into their pyjamas too!
‘Eleven o’clock,’ she announced.
‘Isn’t that a little late?’
Crossing her fingers, Romy said, ‘Um—I promised my friend Stephanie that I would go and listen to her sing.’
‘So you wanted somewhere near the Royal Opera House?’ he guessed.
Actually, Stephanie couldn’t hold a tune to save her life, and was the least artistic person Romy knew—but there was no need for Dominic to know that. She needed to distract him!
Romy started rustling some papers close to the telephone.
‘What was that?’ he asked, and Romy could tell he was frowning.
‘I’ve no idea. I’d better go and investigate. I’ll see you later, Dominic.’
And she hung up.
‘I could hardly find you, stuck away out here,’ came the sardonic comment, and Romy didn’t need to look up from her mostly gulped down glass of gin and tonic to know who the speaker was.
She looked up to see that he was wearing a suit, and she almost did what he had accused her of longing to do. She almost swooned.
But not quite.
Nonetheless, her outward display of disinterest did not stop her eyes from wandering over him with hypnotic obsession.
The suit was dark grey—a grey that was the stormy colour of his eyes when he was angry. Which seemed to be most of the time when she was around! And the suit must have been designed with Dominic in mind, Romy decided, because the trousers made his lean legs look heart-stoppingly long and the superbly cut jacket emphasised his broad shoulders and the narrow indentation of his waist.
‘Hi!’ she greeted him, rather too brightly. ‘Do sit down, Dominic. You managed to find it all right, then?’
He was still looking at their table with a disbelieving frown. ‘Wouldn’t you rather sit in the main part of the restaurant?’ he persisted as a waiter emerged through the swing doors and whizzed right past them with two steaming platefuls of pasta balanced precariously on the palm of each hand. ‘It looks as though we could spend the evening fielding missiles if we stay here,’ he murmured.
Determined to show that she didn’t care that the maître d’ had seated them in the darkest corner at the back of the restaurant, somewhere in between the kitchens and the lavatories, Romy fixed a wide smile to her mouth. ’Rubbish! Besides, I like The Olive Branch for its delicious food, not the fact that half the media people in London are busy filling their faces!’
Dominic took his seat and looked around the restaurant with interest. ‘I didn’t realise they had an ante-room,’ he observed neutrally.
‘It is not an ante-room!’ Romy snapped. ‘I just thought you might like a little peace and quiet.’
‘I’ll certainly get that!’ he quipped. ‘It looks about as popular as a rainstorm on Derby day!’
Fortunately, at that moment the waiter interrupted them with menus and gave Romy a conspiratorial wink. She had virtually had to get down on her hands and knees and beg for a table. Even a table like this!
And now she wished that she had not behaved like a madwoman—trying to impress Dominic with her choice of restaurant. She should have taken him to a simple soup and salad bar...
‘Just pasta with clams,’ Dominic was saying to the waiter. ‘No, I won’t have a starter, thanks,’ he added, in reply to the waiter’s question. ‘It’s a little late for a three-course meal.’
‘I—I’ll have the same,’ Romy spluttered, wondering how he managed to be quite so superior.
‘And to drink, signore?’
‘The Bardolino, please.’ Dominic smiled and lifted curved black brows in query. ‘Unless you would prefer to choose, Romy?’
He didn’t actually say that if her wine choice was as bad as her table choice then it would leave a lot to be desired, but that was clearly what he meant, thought Romy furiously. She was half tempted to choose the sweetest, most sickly white wine on the menu but thought better of it. ‘Bardolino will be fine,’ she said tightly.
A distinctly awkward silence descended on them while the waiter bustled around, substituting spoons and swapping knives around and pouring wine, and then at last they were alone and Romy found that all her bravado had suddenly deserted her.
For the first time in her life she almost wished that she smoked because she was having awful difficulty deciding what to do with her shaking hands.
In the end she knotted them in her lap and smiled at him inanely. ‘Have all your guests confirmed?’ she babbled. ‘Twelve, wasn’t it?’
‘Ten,’ he corrected her, with a frown. He took a sip of his wine and put the glass down, his thick lashes allowing only a glimmer of silver light to shine from his narrowed eyes.
‘Pretty small do,’ she commented.
‘That’s right.’
‘And the purpose of the party?’
He gave her an ironic look. ‘Do all parties have to have a purpose, then? Can’t it just be for fun?’
Romy shook her head. ‘If it was just for fun you’d organise it yourself. Wouldn’t you?’
‘I doubt it.’ He twirled the stem of his wineglass between thumb and forefinger. ‘The idea of people roaming around my house wanting to be entertained fills me with a certain amount of dread, if you must know.’
‘But there’s only going to be ten people,’ she pointed out. ‘That’s hardly going to fill a stadium!’
‘It’s quite enough,’ he murmured.
‘Well, if you dislike it so much, then why are you doing it?’
He surveyed her over the rim of his wineglass and his eyes glinted.
‘Don’t be so coy, Dominic!’ she snapped, when he didn’t answer. ‘You obviously want to impress someone, don’t you? Maybe a woman?’
He met her interested stare with a mocking gaze. ‘There’s no need to sound so outraged, Romy,’ he responded with dry evasion, then smiled and leaned back while the waiter deposited a steaming plate full of clam-studded spaghetti in front of each of them. ‘Thanks,’ he said.
Suddenly Romy wondered if she needed her head examined. Fancy ordering spaghetti when you were feeling nervous! She could barely hold her fork without her fingers shaking—let alone expertly twist strands of the pasta round it, in the way that Dominic was doing.
She watched a clam disappear down his throat. Lucky old clam, she found herself thinking, and put her fork down.
‘Tell me why you’re having this party,’ she persisted, her fingertips unconsciously roving over her bare neck.
‘It’s part business, part pleasure,’ he told her, laying his fork down on his plate. ‘Basically, I want to buy some land in the north-east of England to develop into a massive entertainment complex. I love the area—and people up there certainly know how to enjoy themselves! The land in question belongs to Dolly and Archie Bailey, who are trying to decide whether or not to sell it to me. And they’re bringing their son and his wife, too—just to help them decide.’
‘And have you offered them a fair price?’
‘More than fair,’ he answered drily. ‘What did you expect?’ He shot her a narrow-eyed look. ‘On second thoughts, don’t answer that.’
‘So what’s the problem?’
‘The problem is that I live in the south of England, and therefore they classify me as a southerner—’
‘Which you’re not, you mean?’
‘I’m nothing but a nomad, sweetheart,’ he said flippantly, and delivered the most heartbreaking smile.
The trouble was that the word ‘nomad’ had all kinds of romantic associations. ‘Go on,’ said Romy hastily.
‘Archie and Dolly have an old-fashioned distrust of southerners, and they don’t know me well enough to trust me. Yet. The purpose of this weekend is to show them they can. They’re afraid that I just want to make colossal amounts of money without giving much thought to the local people, or to the environment.’
‘Which, naturally, you wouldn’t dream of doing?’ she queried caustically.
‘Actually, no, I wouldn’t,’ he answered quietly. ‘I find exploitation deeply old-fashioned and deeply offensive. And I feel quite passionate about preserving the environment, if you must know. As for the local people—well, I discovered a long time ago that if you treat the people who work for you fairly, and kindly, then it pays dividends in the end.’
‘And does that include me?’ Romy challenged, though her heart couldn’t help warming to his fervent little speech about preserving the environment. ‘Do you promise to treat me fairly and kindly?’
Their eyes met in a long look which left Romy feeling faintly unsettled. ‘You’re the exception to my rule,’ he answered obscurely. He finished his pasta, and as he drank a mouthful of the Bardolino he noticed her untouched plate. ‘Not hungry?’ he queried.
‘Starving!’ she responded sarcastically. ‘Can’t you tell?’
‘Makes you edgy if you don’t eat, you know,’ came his unperturbed response.
‘No, you make me edgy, Dominic!’
‘Do I?’
‘Yes! So let’s just stick to the point, shall we, and start discussing the party?’ She leaned across the table towards him and said briskly, ‘You need to tell me what meals you require, and when.’
‘But I thought that was your job?’
Romy thought about it for a moment. ‘OK. If you’re out to convince a northerner that you’re a decent sort then I suggest providing elegant comfort food. Familiar flavours with a different twist. Food that doesn’t pretend to be something it isn’t—that should be our objective.’
He pushed his plate away and leaned back in the chair again, surveying her unblinkingly. ‘You sound so frighteningly efficient,’ he observed coolly. ‘You’re always talking about motivations and objectives, aren’t you, Romy?’
‘Well, that’s my job.’ She shrugged.
‘And yet efficiency suggests a certain coldness, doesn’t it?’ he mused. ‘Which makes your oh, so sweet response in the lift that day rather perplexing. Since it doesn’t seem to go hand in hand with the very ruthless side of your nature.’
Romy was too shocked to be offended; it was as though he was talking about someone else. ‘Ruthless?’ she queried incredulously. ‘Me?’
He gave a cynical laugh. ‘God,’ he breathed admiringly. ‘You do it so well, don’t you? The injured tone which sounds so genuinely outraged. And with just the right amount of pouting, wide-eyed innocence, too. As if you were anything other than ruthless, Romy!’
‘Then how am I ruthless?’ she demanded. ‘You can’t possibly make claims like that without backing them up. So go on—tell me, Dominic! I may have my faults—who hasn’t?—but I’ve never considered myself ruthless.’
He smiled, but it was the coldest smile that Romy had ever seen. A predator heartlessly regarding its prey might have eyes like that, she thought, with a shiver.
‘No?’ His laugh was bitter. ‘It isn’t ruthless, then, to go through with a marriage to a man you don’t love? Like you did—to Mark?’
‘But I did love Mark,’ she defended herself staunchly, and bit down on her lip. ‘I did!’
‘You couldn’t have loved him,’ he gritted back, not seeming to care about her obvious distress. ‘Because if you had, then you could never have let me touch you the way I did!’
She ran a distracted hand through her short blonde hair, as if the movement could come to her rescue and obliterate the past. And make her forget the unbearable pleasure of Dominic’s hands moving over her body. His lips on her skin. His breath warm and soft against her mouth. ‘Oh, what’s the point of discussing it?’
‘There’s every point!’ he snapped back. ‘The main one being that although every logical pore in my body recoils from you and everything you stand for there is still a stubborn part of me which drowns in the beauty of those dark, velvety eyes...’
He stared deep into her eyes as he said it, and a shiver of awareness whispered its way down Romy’s spine. Oh, why him? she thought despairingly. Why did it have to be him?
‘Dominic...don’t...’ she breathed weakly. Don’t look at me that way, she said silently.
‘Don’t what?’ he demanded roughly. ‘Don’t deny that I want you as badly as you still want me?’
‘No!’ She was about to bury her face in her hands when the waiter appeared, a look of concern on his face as he plonked the next course down on the table in front of them.
‘Everything is to your satisfaction, signorina?’ he asked anxiously.
Of all the words he could have used! Romy nodded and even managed a watery smile. ‘I’m fine,’ she lied.
‘Just tell me,’ Dominic whispered harshly, once the waiter had gone, ‘why you went through with the wedding.’
She shook her head, fighting down the sudden and inexplicable urge to confide in him. ‘I—can’t.’
‘Didn’t it worry you that I might go to Mark and tell him what had happened?’
Her eyes were clear and bright. ‘Why didn’t you?’
A look of disgust distorted the hard, handsome features. ‘Because I felt too appalled. Too ashamed of my own behaviour to be able to confess it to Mark. He had offered me one of the greatest gifts of friendship in asking me to be his best man. What would he have done had he known that if our rescuers had not shown up when they did I would have made love to you properly? And I would. I would have done it to you right there and then in the lift, Romy.’
Romy’s cheeks flamed. She doubted whether he had ever spoken quite so crudely to another woman. And the trouble was that she didn’t even dare to deny his words, not even to herself. Because she suspected that they were true. Would they have done? Made love in the lift? With the possibility that they could have been discovered at any moment?
‘Then, when no word came that the wedding was to be cancelled, I naturally assumed that you had not had the courage to tell Mark either,’ he continued inexorably. ‘So I thought you wouldn’t show up at the church.’ He shook his head from side to side, as if the memory still had the power to astound him, even after all this time.
‘I couldn’t believe it when I saw you tripping down the aisle towards us,’ he ground out bitterly. ‘With that virginal white veil covering your cheating face! It took every effort of will I possessed not to shout the truth to the rafters when the vicar asked if anyone knew of any just impediment why you should not wed—’
‘Why didn’t you?’ she whispered.
He shook his head again and met her eyes with an accusing silver stare. ‘God only knows. Because of Mark, I guess. Because I could not bear to inflict such hurt on him.’
Romy felt strangely calm. She was still alive, after all. Still breathing. He had berated her, clearly hated her, and she had let him get it all out of his system. Like removing poison from a festering sore. It was when things were left unsaid that they caused most damage.
And surely if he continued to show how much he despised her then that would kill all her residual feelings for him stone-dead? For surely she couldn’t still hanker after a man who thought she was the lowest of the low?
Automatically, even though she had not eaten, she dabbed at the corners of her mouth with the heavy damask napkin and gave him her most professional smile.
‘It’s getting rather late, Dominic...’ Good, Romy, she thought. Good! She had used just the right mixture of apology and regret—as she would to any client if the evening was drawing to an end. ‘And I think it’s time I was going.’
She saw him frown. He had probably been expecting a hysterical little outburst, she decided with a distinct feeling of triumph.
She composed her face into a placid mask. ‘It might be best if you could have a list of your guests drawn up and sent over—with any of their known likes and dislikes. Anything I’m not entirely sure about.’
She stood up and prepared to make a dramatic exit. ‘I’ll pay the bill on my way out.’
‘Don’t bother. I settled it in advance when I arrived.’
‘You shouldn’t have done that,’ she objected.
‘But why wouldn’t I? After all, it was purely business.’ His eyes glittered. ‘Wasn’t it?’
‘Well, it certainly wasn’t pleasure!’ she snapped back.
He gave a benign smile. ‘So you see, Romy, there was really no need to scrimp and only eat pasta. You could have ordered the most expensive thing on the menu and I wouldn’t have batted an eyelid!’
Fury bubbled up inside her. So he was accusing her of being mean now, was he? She itched to empty the remains of the Bardolino bottle over his head, or to up-end the bread basket all over those thick ebony waves.
‘I can assure you that my choice was not dictated by economy!’ she told him. ‘As it happens, I eat so much rich food in the course of my work that I always opt for something plain when I get the opportunity.’
‘Just a simple girl at heart?’ he mocked.
‘Yes. Simply dying to get away from you!’
‘And at home?’ he murmured. ‘Does London’s finest party planner knock up lots of cosy candlelit suppers for two?’
Well, there was no need to make it sound as though she was running a brothel! ‘I hate to disillusion you, Dominic,’ she told him drily, ‘but I seem to exist on ready-made salads and chocolate mousse, eaten on the run. I’m much too busy for candlelit suppers.’
He gave her a frankly disbelieving smile. ‘Except for tonight, of course. And yet you’ve hardly touched a thing,’ he observed, glancing down at her plate.
‘No.’ Romy gave an exaggerated sigh. ‘Unfortunately I had no appetite—but then, that’s not really surprising.’
‘Oh?’
Her smile was icy. ‘You see, Dominic, I really do need a stimulating dinner companion in order to eat with any kind of enjoyment—boredom just kills my appetite stone-dead.’
He had risen too, so that now he towered over her, all dark masculine power which stirred some powerful response deep in her body. And there didn’t seem to be a damned thing she could do about it!
‘Stimulating, you say?’ he murmured silkily. ‘Well, that’s easily remedied. Why don’t you come home with me tonight, Romy? And I’ll show you that they don’t come any more stimulating than me...’.
And, even though a million smart comments had sprung to her lips, Romy took the coward’s way out.
She fled.
When Romy walked into her flat, it was twenty past midnight and the telephone was ringing. And she knew who it would be even as she picked the receiver up.
‘Romy?’
She was right. No one else of her acquaintance had a voice that deep and that sexy.
‘Hello, Dominic,’ she answered.
‘You left in rather a hurry, Romy.’
‘Understatement of the year,’ she observed sarcastically.
He laughed. ‘Some people might have interpreted that as a desire to terminate our agreement.’
‘They might,’ she agreed crisply.
‘And are you going to?’
‘No.’ Her reply was thoughtful; she knew that if she backed out now the matter of Dominic Dashwood would remain unresolved for the rest of her life.
Maybe Stephanie was right. If she didn’t get him out of her system once and for all then maybe she would spend the rest of her life alone. And who in their right mind wanted that?
‘But I must have your agreement on several issues first.’
‘You drive a hard bargain, for someone who is supposed to be the employee,’ came the dry response.
‘It isn’t a rigid relationship like that, Dominic,’ she corrected him acidly. ‘If I’m organising events in your home then we need to be flexible about the roles we’re each going to be playing.’
‘Oh, really? Now that does sound interesting,’ he murmured.
Romy heard his voice deepen and her skin iced into goosebumps in immediate response. It really was astonishing how your body could betray you, she thought as that familiar stinging pleasure began to tighten her nipples. Why, she was virtually melting just at the sound of his voice!
‘As well as being issued with a budget and the guest list I mentioned earlier, I need to know...’ Her voice faltered as she wondered if he would choose to misinterpret the question.
‘Know what, Romy?’ he prompted sardonically.
She chose her words carefully. ‘Whether you will have a—a... woman there.’
‘A woman? Why, yes!’ An undercurrent of mockery coloured his reply. ‘There will be five women there, as it happens.’
If Romy had been a tiger, she would have snarled. ‘You’re deliberately misunderstanding my question!’
‘Maybe that’s because it was such a vague question. So why don’t you rephrase it and say what you really mean?’
The words threatened to choke her, but somehow she managed to get them out in as normal a fashion as possible. ‘Will your girlfriend be there?’ she asked baldly.
There was a significant pause. Then, ‘No. No girlfriend,’ he murmured, and added hatefully, ‘Do you have a special reason for asking, Romy?’
Romy counted to ten. ‘Your love-life is of no concern whatsoever to me, Dominic,’ she told him loftily. ‘It’s just that in the past I’ve discovered that women who are in a relationship with the host find it somewhat intimidating if a party planner comes in and effectively plays the part of hostess. They see it as a sort of usurpation of their role.’
‘Especially if the party planner has blonde hair and huge brown eyes and the kind of bones a sculptor would drool at the mouth to re-create?’ he questioned.
Romy looked at the receiver she was holding in her hand and blinked, as though she couldn’t quite believe what she had just heard. ‘My looks have nothing to do with it!’
He laughed. ‘A rather naive assumption, if I might say so. But don’t worry—there won’t be anyone there who will feel in the least bit threatened by you, Romy. Meanwhile, I’ll fax over everything you need first thing tomorrow.’
‘I presume you’ve already booked the caterers?’ queried Romy.
‘I have. They came very highly recommended by Triss Alexander—my next-door-neighbour.’
The name rang a distinct bell. Romy racked her brains and remembered the statuesque redhead who had graced the covers of so many glossy magazines. Though not lately, she realised, wondering why. ‘Triss Alexander—the model?’ she queried.
‘The very same.’
‘What’s she like?’
‘She’s lovely.’ His voice had softened. ‘You’ll meet her. She’ll be joining us.’
‘Oh.’ Romy found her heart sinking with an odd kind of disappointment she didn’t even dare to analyse. Maybe when he’d said his girlfriend wouldn’t be coming what he’d meant was that she wasn’t actually his girlfriend yet. And Triss Alexander might be an international model, and one of the most beautiful women in the world, but Dominic was easily in her league.
‘In the meantime, I’ll be in Ireland until the Friday of the party,’ he was saying. ‘I’m flying out tomorrow morning. You can always reach me by phone or fax. Can I leave everything in your capable hands until then?’
‘Of course you can,’ answered Romy. ‘That’s what you’re paying me for!’
There was an odd pause. ‘Until next Friday, then. I won’t be back until late afternoon.’ There was another pause, even lengthier this time. ‘Goodnight, Romy,’ he said at last.
‘Goodnight, Dominic.’
It was odd how depressing she found it to hear him say goodbye.
With a heavy heart, Romy put the phone down.
