Christmas Eve Marriage (HQR Classic)

by Jessica Hart

  And then he lowered his arm from her neck to take her hand instead, lifting it to his mouth and kissing it. ‘You don’t need time to fall in love, do you, Thea?’

  She shook her head dumbly, her fingers curling hopelessly around his. ‘No,’ she said, but her voice came out as barely more than a croak.

  ‘Have you told Lynda yet?’ asked Kate, which Thea thought was a bit tactless of her. On the other hand, if it was her friend, she would probably want to know too.

  ‘No,’ said Rhys evenly, ‘but I will, of course, when we get home. We only got engaged today,’ he explained. ‘It was a spur of the moment thing, but it feels absolutely right.’

  ‘I see.’ Kate looked between them, an oddly calculating look, and it occurred to Thea that she might not be as convinced by their story as they had hoped.

  ‘We’re getting married at Christmas,’ she put in, feeling that a few corroborating details were required.

  ‘Christmas is only four months away!’

  ‘I know, but I’ve always wanted a Christmas wedding,’ said Thea disingenuously. ‘We’ll have plenty of time to organise things. We don’t want anything too elaborate, do we, darling?’

  She took the opportunity to snuggle closer to Rhys and gaze winsomely up at him. ‘Just family and close friends, and of course Sophie and Clara as bridesmaids. It’ll be lovely,’ she finished with a misty look. She was tempted to heave a sigh as well, but didn’t want to overdo it.

  ‘Sure you know what you’re doing, Rhys?’ On his way round with the bottle to top up their glasses, Nick gave him a nudge that nearly made Rhys spill his wine. ‘I’d make the most of my freedom, if I were you! You haven’t been back from the desert long, and there are lots of nice girls out there.’

  ‘I don’t want a nice girl,’ said Rhys. ‘I want this one.’

  Laying a warm palm against her far cheek, he turned her head until she was facing him, and very gently he touched his mouth to hers. It was a brief, sweet touch, over much too soon.

  Rhys drew back and for a moment they just looked at each other, before leaning towards each other once more, their lips moving as if they had a will of their own, catching and clinging with a kind of desperation. Nick and Kate were forgotten as they kissed, and that strange glow that had been simmering inside Thea since she had seen Rhys smile for the first time ignited with a whoosh, spilling fire along her veins.

  The feeling was so intense that when Rhys broke the kiss once more, it was all she could do not to grab him back to her and make him kiss her again. But he was sitting back, saying something to Nick and apparently carrying on the conversation as if nothing had happened at all.

  How did he do that? It was taking everything Thea had not to slide off the bench into a puddle on the terrace. She was quivering inside and out, and her pulse was booming so loudly in her ears that she could hardly hear a thing. It was only when she realised that the other three were looking at her curiously that she realised that she was being asked a question.

  ‘Sorry?’ she said huskily.

  ‘I was just asking what you do.’ Kate’s perfectly shaped brows rose slightly, as if in faint surprise that Rhys should have chosen someone apparently incapable of following a simple conversation.

  ‘Oh…I…er…I’m a secretary.’ Thank God Kate hadn’t asked her anything more difficult.

  ‘A secretary?’ Kate echoed as if she had said something extraordinary.

  ‘Yes. Well, a PA, really. In a PR firm.’

  ‘Oh.’ Kate was clearly deeply unimpressed. She glanced at Rhys. ‘Thea is obviously very different from Lynda!’

  ‘She is indeed.’ Rhys put his arm around Thea once more and met Kate’s eyes squarely. ‘Very different.’

  Kate didn’t seem to think that the point had been adequately made. ‘Lynda was a lawyer when I first met her,’ she told Thea. ‘She’s gone on to start up her own business. She’s a marvel, isn’t she, Rhys?’

  ‘She certainly seems to have become very successful,’ he said, non-committal.

  ‘And you’re just a secretary.’ Kate sighed, turning back to Thea. ‘It does seem a waste,’ she lamented. ‘I mean, you seem quite intelligent, Thea. Haven’t you ever thought about a proper career?’

  ‘What sort of thing did you have in mind?’ asked Thea, who was finding it hard to concentrate on what Kate was saying. She was burningly conscious of the strong arm around her and longing to turn her face into Rhys’s shoulder, to burrow into him.

  ‘Oh, you know,’ said Kate. ‘A solicitor, for instance.’

  ‘I can’t quite see myself as a lawyer,’ Thea confessed. ‘I’m not very ambitious, I’m afraid. To be honest, I’d be just as happy having children and looking after a home. We’re planning a big family, aren’t we?’ she added to Rhys.

  ‘At least four children,’ he agreed solemnly.

  Kate pursed her lips. ‘What about Sophie?’

  ‘Sophie will be part of the family,’ said Thea, meeting Kate’s disapproving eyes, her own very clear and direct. ‘Of course she will.’

  Thea and Clara had breakfast on their own terrace the next morning. They had their own coffee, their own yoghurt and honey, their own peaches, but somehow none of it tasted quite as good as it had the day before.

  It wasn’t the same without Rhys and Sophie. They had agreed the night before that they shouldn’t feel obliged to spend all their time together and that was good, naturally, but it was as if the light was less bright this morning, her appetite less sharp, the sounds and scents drifting in the air less intense.

  Clara felt it too. ‘Can I go and see if Sophie wants to play?’ she asked as soon as she had finished her peach.

  ‘OK. I’ll be down in a minute,’ said Thea and then, as Clara skipped off, she added, ‘Oh, if you see Rhys, tell him I’m going to spend the day by the pool, so I’ll keep an eye on Sophie if he wants to go out.’

  There, that sounded perfectly natural, as if she didn’t really care whether she saw him or not. As if she hadn’t spent hours lying in bed last night remembering those kisses and reliving the way they had sat talking on the terrace after supper, listening to the cicadas rasping frantically in the dark.

  They hadn’t got round to cooking a proper meal. Rhys had barbecued some lamb and Thea made a salad, and afterwards the girls disappeared. Sitting side by side, feet up on the low terrace wall, Thea hadn’t been touching Rhys, but she’d been agonisingly aware of him, of his lean, solid strength, of the line of his jaw, of the gleam of his eyes when he’d turned his head to look at her.

  He was nothing special, she kept telling herself. There was no reason for her pulse to kick whenever he smiled. She was just on the rebound from Harry.

  Yes, that was it. Harry’s departure to think about things had left an emptiness in her life and now she was subconsciously casting around for someone to fill it. Rhys simply happened to be the first man who had swum into her orbit.

  Of course, there had been Neil at work, who had asked her out several times so, strictly speaking, Rhys wasn’t quite the first…or the second, now she came to think of it. She’d forgotten about Andy from the flat downstairs, who was always offering to sort out her CD player for her. Both would have been ideal rebound material, now Thea came to think of it. She hadn’t felt like this about either of them.

  Thea had picked a piece of mint from the pot on the terrace and rubbed it between her fingers, enjoying the smell even as she tried to justify her unaccountable attraction for Rhys to herself.

  So she wasn’t desperate…Well, that was a good thing, wasn’t it? Maybe it was more a question of timing? She was alone and on holiday and the normal conventions didn’t apply. It was the classic scenario for a holiday romance, in fact. You fancied yourself attracted to someone quite different but you weren’t committed to anything, because you both knew that at the end of two weeks you’d say goodbye, so you could relax and have your confidence boosted by having a good time with no strings attached.

  It made sense,
Thea had thought, lifting the mint to her nose and feeling better. Of course, with Clara and Sophie around, there was no question of embarking on a fling with Rhys, but at least now she could explain her own peculiar reactions to herself.

  So now she could relax and stop feeling guilty and confused about the way Rhys made her feel, right?

  Thea had studied Rhys under her lashes. He was pointing at the velvet blue sky, and telling her about the stars in the desert, his face animated, and she had felt something shift deep inside her as she’d watched him.

  Yeah, right.

  Now Thea gazed down at the pool, glinting in the bright morning sunshine. Clara and Sophie were already there, sitting on the edge and dangling their feet in the turquoise water, their heads bent together as if they hadn’t spent most of the night before talking.

  She would see Rhys again today. He might come to the pool and, even if he didn’t, she owed him dinner. Thea smiled and stretched luxuriously. The day stretched lazily ahead of her, with absolutely nothing to do but try and convince him that she wasn’t quite such an idiot as Kate had made her appear. She might not be a dynamic business-woman, but she too could be cool, calm and in control.

  Today was the perfect opportunity to christen her new swimsuit. Sadly, bikinis and her figure didn’t go together, but she had found a one-piece that was really quite flattering if she held her tummy in and lay very still.

  When Rhys found her, she was draped decoratively over one of the sun loungers by the pool, one leg oh-so-casually bent to avoid splayed thigh syndrome, and apparently absorbed in the book Nell had lent her. According to the cover, it had been short-listed for several literary prizes, and Nell had raved about it.

  ‘You must read it, Thea,’ she had insisted, and Thea had judged it easier to pack it rather than protest that she would be much happier with a rollicking blockbuster. Now she was pleased that she had. The book lent her a certain gravitas, she felt, and she had secreted a couple of glossy magazines under the lounger for later when no one was looking.

  ‘Good morning, Thea.’

  Thea lifted her sunglasses and squinted up at Rhys. ‘Oh…hi.’

  Her voice was a bit squeaky, but otherwise she didn’t think it sounded too bad for someone whose heart had just done an elaborate series of somersaults. The way it did when you were cool and calm and in control.

  He sat down on the edge of the lounger beside her. ‘You look very comfortable.’

  ‘I am. I’m planning a lazy day to recover from all yesterday’s excitements.’

  Rhys twisted his head round to read the title of her book. ‘Are you enjoying that?’

  ‘It’s marvellous,’ said Thea, who hadn’t a clue what was going on, and had been stuck on the same page for at least half an hour. She didn’t understand why books like this had to be such hard work, but she was glad now that she hadn’t succumbed to the lure of Marie Claire. It wouldn’t do Rhys any harm to see that even secretaries could engage in literary discussion before lunch.

  ‘Have you read it?’ she asked him, mentally crossing her fingers, and hoping devoutly that he hadn’t. If he wanted an in-depth analysis of the plot, she’d be sunk. Fortunately, he was a scientist. Chances were that he didn’t go in for any arty-farty stuff like this.

  But Rhys was nodding. Really, why couldn’t he conform to his stereotype? Thea wondered crossly.

  ‘I thought it was rubbish,’ he said. ‘You’re obviously more intellectual than I am. I didn’t understand a word of it.’

  Phew! Thea beamed at him in relief. ‘Well, I’ve only just started it,’ she said, settling her glasses back on her nose. ‘I might persevere with it for a while. I haven’t got anything else to do all day, so if you wanted to go off and do anything on your own, here’s your chance.’

  Translation: here’s your chance to say that you’d rather stay here with me.

  ‘Are you sure? Clara did mention that you were happy to keep an eye on Sophie, and there is a walk that I’ve wanted to do for some time. It’s too long for Sophie, though, so this might be an opportunity.’

  So much for the seductive effect of her swimsuit, Thea thought glumly. He couldn’t wait to get away. Perhaps she had intimidated him by seeming too intellectual. That would be a first, anyway!

  ‘I feel a bit guilty, though,’ Rhys was confiding. ‘I should really be spending time with Sophie, not leaping at the chance to go off on my own.’

  He sounded so unsure of himself that Thea put the book aside and sat up to reassure him. ‘You have been spending time with her,’ she pointed out. ‘What you should be doing is letting her have a good time, and she is. Look at her now.’

  Rhys followed her gaze to where Sophie and Clara were hanging off a lilo and chatting animatedly as they drifted around the pool.

  ‘She’s transformed,’ he agreed. ‘Normally she converses in monosyllables, but she was positively chatty at breakfast this morning. I don’t know how to thank you,’ he added, and the expression in his eyes made Thea’s throat tighten.

  ‘It’s nothing to do with me,’ she told him. ‘Thank Clara.’

  He looked back at the pool. ‘I will,’ he said.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THERE was a tiny silence, and then Rhys got to his feet. ‘Will you be all right having Sophie for the day?’ he asked, looking down at Thea, who put on a martyred air.

  ‘It’ll be a terrible struggle lying here in the sun all day—’ she sighed ‘—but I expect I’ll cope somehow.’

  Rhys laughed and got up from the lounger. Walking over to the pool, he hunkered down to have a word with Sophie. Behind her glasses, Thea admired his back view. Not many British men could carry off shorts that well, but Rhys had just the right lean, brown, I-spend-my-life-squinting-at-far-horizons look about him.

  Clara was splashing over to talk to Rhys, hauling herself up to fold her arms on the edge of the pool and dangle there while she carried on an animated conversation with him, punctuated by giggles from both girls.

  ‘What was all that about?’ Thea asked as Rhys straightened and headed back to her with an odd expression on his face.

  He didn’t answer directly, nodding down at her lounger instead. ‘May I?’

  ‘Sure.’ A little surprised, Thea shifted her legs over so that he could sit down, and put down her book again.

  It felt very intimate to have him so close. He was sitting facing her, so that her arm was very close to his bare knees and her legs were almost touching his thigh.

  Her heart had started that slow, painful thumping that interfered with her breathing again, and she was very glad of the sunglasses that hid most of her expression, which otherwise would be a dead giveaway. Without them she might as well have kiss me, kiss me! emblazoned on her forehead.

  That was it, Thea, cool, calm and in control!

  She swallowed hard. ‘If Clara was putting in a plea for an ice-cream run later, we’ve got a whole tub in the freezer.’

  ‘No,’ said Rhys slowly, ‘it was a little bit more delicate than that.’

  ‘What?’ God, it was hard to concentrate when her entire body was jangling with the awareness of how close his hand was and how easily he could smooth it along her thigh.

  ‘She was pointing out that Kate was making a poor job of pretending not to watch us from her terrace.’

  Thea lowered her sunglasses and glanced surreptitiously over the rim to the Paines’ terrace, where Kate was indeed sitting at the table where she had a perfect view of what was going on at the pool.

  ‘You can hardly go over and tell her to stop looking,’ she pointed out. ‘It’s her terrace. She can sit where she wants, surely.’

  ‘That’s not quite what Clara had in mind.’ There was a thread of amusement in Rhys’s voice that made Thea look at him suspiciously.

  ‘Oh? What exactly does Clara have in mind?’

  ‘She thinks it would be a very good idea if I kissed you goodbye.’

  ‘Oh…’ The breath leaked out of Thea’s lungs and she coul
dn’t get it back, especially when Rhys smiled quizzically.

  ‘She seems to be taking the whole pretence very seriously!’

  That was because Clara was determined to turn pretence into reality, thought Thea, but she had better not tell Rhys that.

  ‘I know.’ Her answering smile was decidedly nervous. ‘I think it’s something to do with having a vivid imagination. I wonder where she gets her ideas from sometimes. Television, I suppose. Nell’s always complaining that she watches too many soaps.’

  Oh, great, now she was babbling. Rhys was talking about kissing her, and all she could do was witter on about television. Thea took a deep breath and made herself shut up.

  ‘So what do you think?’ asked Rhys after a tiny pause, presumably to check that she wasn’t going to start drivelling on about something else.

  ‘Um…about a goodbye kiss?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, I…I suppose it wouldn’t do any harm. I wasn’t sure Kate was entirely convinced last night.’

  ‘That’s what I thought.’

  Another silence, longer this time. Long enough for Thea to wonder if he could actually hear her pulse booming.

  ‘We’d better make it look good, then,’ said Rhys.

  ‘Might as well.’

  Thea was mortified to hear her voice disappear into a squeak. ‘Let’s give it a go,’ she tried again. That was better—casual, relaxed, no big deal. This wasn’t about getting involved, it was about feeling good and keeping it light.

  The trouble was that it didn’t feel light. It felt dangerous and disturbing as Rhys leant forward, very slowly. She could change her mind if she wanted to, but now his hand was on her thigh, warm and firm, and her heart was slamming against her ribs, making it hard to breathe and even harder to think.

  Deep inside her, anticipation churned, quivering out to the ends of her fingers and the tips of her toes, but all at once he was hesitating. Don’t say he had changed his mind?