Mistress Of The Groom

by Susan Napier

  The agony in her left hand had settled down to a dull throbbing that flared into hot needles of pain whenever she flexed her fingers. It was probably going to be as swollen and bruised tomorrow as Ryan Blair’s jaw. But it was worth it, she thought bitterly.

  She had wrecked his marriage?

  He had never even been married!

  Halting a wedding ceremony was not the same thing as splitting up a husband and wife. When Jane had stepped in to prevent Ryan Blair and Ava Brandon from taking their final vows she had truly believed that the dramatic, last-minute intervention was the only way to save the bride and groom from making a miserable mistake.

  A dynamic, self-made man like Ryan Blair wouldn’t have been happy with someone as passive and retiring as Ava, and her gentle, sensitive friend would have had her quiet individuality crushed by his dominating personality. If Ava had been madly in love with her future husband Jane would have wholeheartedly supported the match, despite her own serious doubts about the couple’s compatibility, but she knew that, far from being in love, Ava was intimidated by the man her ambitious, old fashioned, overbearing parents had pushed her into agreeing to marry.

  Ava had said that Ryan claimed to love her when he had swept into her life and proposed, but the announcement, shortly after their engagement, of a Brandon/Blair financial joint venture and his hectic work schedule, which allowed them little time together during their six month engagement, had deepened Ava’s misgivings.

  However, as usual, instead of confronting the problem, Ava had taken the path of least resistance until the last possible moment, only to have her belated attempts to assert herself ruthlessly dismissed as bridal jitters.

  The first Jane had known of the depths of despair to which her friend had sunk was the day before the wedding, when Ava had invaded her office in tears. In between her friend’s savage draughts of Mr Sherwood’s eight-year-old Scotch, which still stocked the office drinks cabinet, Jane had dragged out the sorry details, realising with a shock that it had been months since she and Ava had sat down and talked together. No...since she had taken time to really listen to what her friend was saying.

  Although she had ostensibly taken over Sherwood Properties when her father had been forced into premature retirement by a heart attack, Jane had only been a figurehead. Mark Sherwood had remained the real power behind the throne, as ruthless, demanding and critical as ever, constantly questioning her performance and countermanding her decisions, never letting her forget who was in ultimate charge. His sudden death when she had been still only twenty-two had made it critical that Jane prove as quickly as possible to competitors, clients and employees alike that she was as good—if not better—than her father.

  So she had started putting in twelve-hour days at Sherwood Properties’ downtown office, constantly pushing to improve the business, and had felt vindicated when the company’s profits had begun to burgeon in response to her ambitious plans. Vindicated but not satisfied. Success had been like a drug. The more she achieved, the higher the goals she set herself.

  In the process, Jane’s social life had dwindled to virtually nil. It had given her a strange chill to realise that Ava was not only her best friend, she was virtually her only real friend—the rest qualifying merely as acquaintances or colleagues. The guilt over her neglect of their friendship had made Jane boldly assure her sobbing friend that of course she’d help her think of a way to escape the imminent marriage, a way that wouldn’t result in an irrevocable family breach.

  Secretly, Jane had thought Ava’s self-confidence might improve if she were temporarily estranged from her manipulative parents, but she had known that her insecure friend would go through with a marriage she didn’t want rather than risk permanently alienating herself from her mother. Having lost her own mother at six, Jane had no wish to be responsible for depriving anyone else of their maternal bond.

  Jane cradled her injured hand in her lap, swamped by the memory of that awful wedding.

  It had been almost exactly three years ago, on a beautiful, sunny spring afternoon. The graceful old inner-city church had been bursting at the seams with society guests when Jane had squeezed nervously onto the end of the back pew on the groom’s side, resisting the usher’s attempt to seat her further forward. She had had the feeling she might need the fast getaway, whether her hastily conceived plan worked or not.

  Although, as giggling schoolgirls, she and Ava had vowed to be bridesmaids at each other’s weddings, Jane hadn’t been surprised when Kirstie Brandon had excluded Jane from the official wedding party by insisting that family take precedence. Ava had been upset but, as usual, quite incapable of standing up for herself. Mrs Brandon was an extremely possessive mother and had never liked the influence that strong-minded Jane had exerted over her precious only child during their time at school together. Not that she had been overtly rude; she had merely made it clear, whenever Jane visited, that she was a guest rather than a family friend.

  Mrs Brandon set great store by appearances, and Jane was too tall, too plain, too outspokenly intelligent to conform to her view of a proper lady. If her father hadn’t been a wealthy businessman Jane suspected that the friendship would have been squelched altogether, rather than merely tolerated, but Kirstie Brandon’s mercenary streak was almost as wide as her snobbish one. It had always seemed a miracle to Jane that the Brandons had produced such a kind, generous-hearted offspring.

  So, two petite teenaged Brandon cousins had been selected to serve as Ava’s bridesmaids along with her fiancé’s younger sister, and three excited little flower-girls and two sulky page-boys had completed the entourage. When Jane had seen the extravagantly flounced pale peach-coloured bridesmaids’ dresses coming down the aisle she had had one more reason to be glad not to be part of the fateful wedding party. With her height and colouring she would have looked disastrously overdecorated in all those pallid ruffles.

  After the ceremony a lavish reception was to have been held on a hotel rooftop, with a helicopter booked to whisk the happy couple away to their honeymoon. The Brandons had spared no expense for their only child’s wedding, another reason why Ava had felt obligated to sacrifice herself to their wishes.

  In the event, there was no marriage, no reception, no honeymoon, and Jane considered herself fortunate not to have been slapped with the bills by the furious parents of the bride.

  She had sweated through the opening part of the very traditional ceremony, deaf to the poetry and grace of the lyrical words, glad of the large picture hat and embroidered net veil that she had chosen to wear with her tailored cream suit.

  From under the deep brim she had watched Ava enter the church door on her strutting father’s arm. Just before she had taken her first step down the aisle Ava had glanced across at Jane, and her frightened, apologetic eyes and valiant, wobbly smile had said it all: she was trusting Jane to do what she herself had been unable to do.

  They had been friends since kindergarten, blood-sisters since High School, and Jane had always been the natural leader of their various exploits, the one who boldly carried out Ava’s wishful thinking. Whenever they had landed in some scrape it had been Jane who had cheerfully shouldered the blame, shielding Ava from the full fury of adult outrage.

  The years had passed but their respective roles had remained essentially the same.

  Jane’s mouth had dried when the minister had finally uttered the words that she had been waiting for, the pronouncement that was usually mere ritual.

  ‘Therefore, if anyone can show any just cause why they may not lawfully be joined together, let them now speak or else hereafter forever hold their peace...’

  He paused. The few seconds of silence seemed to stretch into eternity. Jane watched Ava’s fragile, laceclad shoulders stiffen and settle as if accepting a blow. In the periphery of her vision she saw a stir in the opposite pew and was released from her frozen inaction.

  She leapt to her feet and stepped out into the aisle just as the minister drew his breath to continu
e.

  ‘Stop! I know of an impediment to this marriage. There’s a good reason why it shouldn’t go ahead!’

  Stunned silence.

  The wedding party turned as one.

  Kirstie Brandon moaned and swayed in the front pew. Jane ventured boldly down the aisle, her gaze fixed on the slack-jawed minister, conscious of Ava’s trembling relief but afraid to look her way in case she caught the eye of the rigidly stupefied man at her side. The minister was quite young, the hint of panic in his shocked expression indicating that the interruption was unprecedented in his limited experience and he wasn’t quite certain how he was going to handle it. Jane knew... The solemnisation must be deferred until such time as the truth be tried...

  She had lifted her chin, her cold, pale face a blur behind the opaque veil. ‘You can’t marry this couple—their vows would be a lie before God!’ Her voice rang with the sincerity of her conviction. ‘You’re going to ask them to promise to love and honour and forsake all others, but one of them is already committed to someone else!’

  Sensation!

  The steering wheel dug into Jane’s forehead as she rolled her head in negation of the real-life nightmare that had haunted her for three years. She had vaguely realised that she was going to make some powerful enemies that day, but she hadn’t realised how truly implacable and remorseless Ryan Blair would be in his lust for revenge. Fortunately, although she was still persona non grata as far as the Brandons were concerned, so was Ryan Blair. The humiliation of the failed wedding had been something the Brandons had attempted to expunge from existence, and in doing so they had held themselves aloof from the ensuing hostilities.

  For more than a year, long enough to allow Jane’s fears of reprisal to fade, Ryan Blair had dropped out of sight, fighting desperately behind the scenes to regain the financial footing that he had lost after the simultaneous collapse of his wedding and the Brandon joint venture project, which had apparently been going to bring a vital infusion of funds into his company. He had moved to Sydney to restructure and rebuild his fortune, keeping such a low profile that when he burst back on the Auckland scene, wielding serious economic clout and considerable political. influence, it had come as a nasty surprise.

  Ryan Blair had come storming back with a vengeance. Time, far from tempering his attitude to Jane’s untimely interference in his personal life, seemed to have forged it into an unyielding hatred. From the moment he had resettled in Auckland he had not allowed Jane a day’s respite. He had stolen her clients, head-hunted her staff, undercut her percentages, bought up her mortgages, blocked her financing, competed for every tender—so successfully that she knew he must have inside information from her office—and made attending business functions a misery by pointedly snubbing her and her companions completely.

  Disaster had seemed to dog her every business decision. Unsourceable rumours had begun circulating about her private life, her mental stability, the viability of her company. Within two years her formerly superbly controlled life had been turned into total chaos.

  Jane heard a tap-tapping and raised her head to see a tentatively smiling man knocking on her window, gesturing for her to wind it down. She did so, thinking that he was a kindly passer-by intending to ask if she was ill.

  ‘Miss Jane Sherwood?’

  She frowned, the thick black eyebrows that gave her a perpetually serious look rumpling in puzzlement. ‘Yes.’

  He consulted the piece of paper he was holding. ‘Jane Sherwood of Flat 5, 8 Parkhouse Lane? Formerly proprietor of Sherwood Properties?’

  She experienced the sinking feeling that was becoming all too familiar these days. ‘Yes, but—’

  She was cut off as he thrust the paper through the half-open window at her and at the same time deftly whipped her keys out of the ignition.

  ‘John Forster of Stanton Security. This vehicle is under a repossession order. I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to vacate the car, Ma’am, so that it can be returned to its rightful owner.’

  While she was squinting at the small-print, which told her that all vehicles registered to or leased by Sherwood Properties were now the legal property of the mortgagee, he opened the door and invited her to step out onto the pavement.

  ‘But how do I get home? I live on the other side of town and I haven’t got enough money with me for a taxi or a bus—’ Jane began to protest.

  ‘What’s going on here?’

  To her horror she saw Ryan Blair step into view behind the stocky repossession agent. That appalling kiss hadn’t been enough; he obviously wanted everyone to think that they had gone off somewhere together.

  ‘Nothing—’

  ‘I’m repossessing the car. The lady claims she hasn’t got any way of getting home.’

  Jane blushed vividly as her denial mingled with the horrible man’s blunt announcement. She raised her chin and glared.

  ‘I’ll drive you home.’

  Her eyes widened before her thick black lashes fell defensively. ‘Go to hell!’ she snarled.

  ‘Look, lady, you got a lift home—take it!’ the stocky man advised. “Cos you’re sure not going anywhere in this car. See my mate over there? He’s going to hitch it up to his tow-truck if you won’t let me drive it away.’

  As Jane turned her head to look at the shadowy figure leaning against the cab of his tow-truck on the other side of the road she heard a rustle, and suddenly Ryan Blair was plucking her out of the car and setting her down on the pavement.

  ‘Get your hands off me!’ she hissed, struggling belatedly.

  ‘You really don’t know when to give up, do you?’ he said grimly, stepping out of range of her flailing arms. ‘What did you think you were going to do, sit there and argue all night? Let the man do his job.’

  ‘Let him do your dirty work, you mean!’ she snapped, remembering how, barely more than a month ago, she had been escorted off the premises of her own company by a security guard to ensure that she took nothing from the office, not even her personal effects. Sherwood’s was not a limited liability company, so literally everything she owned was forfeit.

  Ryan Blair folded his arms across his broad chest. ‘It’s standard practice for a mortgagee to request that all assets be sequestered when a company goes out of business.’

  ‘What about my evening bag? I suppose you’re going to demand that be sequestered as well?’ Jane said sarcastically, pointing to the small black beaded drawstring bag which lay on the passenger seat.

  He picked it up and handed it to her. ‘Come on, there’s my car.’

  A black limousine was creeping across the entrance to the long cul-de-sac. The driver must have orders to follow his boss wherever he went, thought Jane contemptuously.

  ‘I’m not going anywhere with you,’ she said.

  ‘Are you asking me to give you cab fare?’

  ‘I’d rather beg in the streets!’

  Her defiant statement was punctuated by the roar of her car engine as it was driven smartly away.

  ‘It might come to that,’ he pointed out softly. ‘A woman dressed like you...expensive, displaying a lot of flesh, obviously alone....you’re bound to attract plenty of attention from the kerb-crawlers. Only they’ll expect you to earn your taxi fare.’

  Her throbbing hand tightened on her bag. ‘Why, you—’

  ‘Temper, temper, Miss Sherwood,’ he said, stepping back and lifting his hands in mock fright. ‘You’re not going to hit me again, are you? I always thought you were as cold as ice, but you have quite a volcano seething under that chilly exterior, don’t you?’ He dropped his hands and his voice acquired a bored impatience that suggested he didn’t care one way or the other. ‘Now, do you want a free ride home or not...?’

  Pride warred with expediency and pride won.

  ‘Not!’

  Head high, she skirted the limousine and began to walk up the hill in the opposite direction to the hotel, away from the centre of the city. All she wanted to do was get away from Ryan Blair as quickly as po
ssible, then she would decide what was best to do. She was well past the theatre centre, and even though the night wasn’t very far advanced there were few people on this section of the street and no stores open, but she knew she had to come across a phone box soon.

  Her sense of isolation rapidly intensified as she hurried on her way. Her heels sounded very loud against the concrete pavement and she shied at a shadowy couple in a shop doorway. Deciding that it might be more prudent to walk nearer the streetlights, she had barely got a few hundred metres when a car-load of young toughs cruised noisily past and then backed up, the scruffy youths leaning out of the window and crooning invitations and suggestions that burned her ears.

  Her lack of reaction finally caused them to tire of their sport and the car roared away, spewing howls of raucous laughter, but almost immediately another one slowed to a crawl beside her. This time the suggestions from the lone driver were a great deal more sophisticated, but no less persistent and stomach-churningly graphic. At the end of her tether, Jane bent and rested her good hand on the open car window and delivered a blistering tirade to the sweaty, middle-aged man behind the wheel.

  An obscene smile split his rubbery lips and he reached over and clamped his fat hand around her wrist. ‘Yes, I know. I’ve been very bad and I must be punished. I knew when I saw you striding haughtily along that you were a woman capable of the most delicious cruelty. I look forward to your discipline—’

  ‘Sorry, the lady’s already booked up for the night!’

  For the second time in half an hour Jane found herself the object of an unwelcome rescue. Ryan Blair’s limousine was riding the bumper of the kerb-crawler as the man himself put his arm through the driver’s window and hauled the culprit up by the shirt-collar to utter a few sibilant phrases in his ear. As soon as he was released the unfortunate man rammed his car into gear and took off, burning rubber in the process.

  Ryan Blair, still standing on the road, hands on his broad hips, said through his teeth, ‘Get into the limo, Jane.’