‘You think?’
His smile was gentle. She met it with a small one of her own.
‘It’s like part of me got stuck in that corridor outside the registry office. My mum’s best friend was there in an awful purple frock. And there were people from her work. Our neighbours. I can remember what the carpet looked like, this hardwearing stuff with a paisley print like an old people’s home. I remember it so clearly. When I came to the Lavington I couldn’t believe how stunning the wedding facilities are. Like a palace.’ She shrugged. ‘The registry office would have done. If he’d just gone through with it. My mother’s never really gotten over it. She’s never let another man into her life since.’
She suddenly realised all this talk of weddings from the past on the back of her outburst at Luke might not be presenting her as the most grounded person he’d ever met.
‘I know how it looks,’ she said. ‘Like I’m some crazy Miss Havisham person who’s wedding-obsessed because of the day I never had, but it really isn’t like that. I started out just working on a local hotel reception, then I moved into an assistant events manager role, handling all sorts of parties and corporate meetings. Then it started to get popular to have a full-on wedding event rather than a church ceremony followed by a reception. Hotels were given wedding licences. Weddings were – are - big business. It was a natural career progression that I ended up handling more and more of them.’ She paused, then admitted, ‘Maybe there is a bit of a dark fascination with all the girly stuff you get these days. The flowers, the dresses, the wedding favours. But only because I see it all as window dressing. The underlying sentiment is the important thing and I don’t think marriage is a condition of whether that’s there or not. Maybe Luke and Sabrina will have it. Maybe they won’t. My job is to basically throw them a massive party and I don’t read anything more into it than that.’
As Owen walked back to the hotel next to her he realised that he’d had a fifteen minute window right there when he could have ducked out to call around his bar managers. Saturday: busiest night of the week and he was strolling in the sunshine.
The bars hadn’t entered his mind for a second. He’d taken a walk with her because he wanted to make sure she was OK. Amy with her cold and focused work ethic. It must have taken a lot for her to talk openly like that about her stepfather. It certainly went some way to explaining her emotionless approach towards weddings. He felt an irrational surge of anger toward this Roger, who he’d never met, but who had stamped on her dreams when she was just a little kid.
What the hell was happening to him? Like he had time to get involved in other people’s problems.
The sooner Luke got this wedding back on track the better.
CHAPTER 9
The calm after the storm. Amy stood unobtrusively next to a plinth on which an enormous flower arrangement stood and watched the party from the sidelines.
This was the part of a wedding that she liked the most. The ceremony out of the way, the wedding breakfast served without a hitch. Speeches done and dusted and evening entertainment perfectly pulled-off. Luke and Sabrina swayed together on the softly-lit dancefloor, so closely entwined that if it weren’t for the ivory of her dress you wouldn’t be able to see where one person started and the other one ended.
It had all worked out well for Luke in the end. Despite his cold feet it seemed Sabrina wanted him for who he was after all, and not for the recording contract. A wistful pang twisted at her chest. Perhaps if Roger had given her mother a proper chance their lives might have turned out differently.
Her eyes had strayed again and again to Owen as the day had progressed. He’d played the best man role to perfection, charming everyone. His speech had been off-the-cuff and funny without the slightest mention of anyone’s cold feet, finishing with a toast to the bride and groom that was met with cheers. Now he was at the bar talking animatedly to Conrad, who was smiling through gritted teeth, undoubtedly offering advice on what drinks he should be serving.
He’d barely spoken to her all day. She squashed the seeds of disappointment before they could start to grow. Why should he want to make time to chat to her? His best man role was his priority and quite right too. And she should be steering well clear of him. The weekend was almost sewn up and the last thing she needed now was to shoot herself in the promotional foot by perpetuating things with him.
Even from here she could see Conrad’s look of relief and exasperated roll of the eyes as Owen left him to it at the bar. Amusement disappeared into a surge of stomach flutters as he headed her way across the dancefloor, a glass in his hand containing blush pink liquid and a cocktail stick.
‘Try this,’ he said, coming to a halt next to her and holding it out.
Alarm bells screamed in her head. Over-familiarity with one of the guests. Drinking on duty. Inappropriate behaviour. She took the glass anyway and took a sip.
‘Strawberries with a kick,’ she managed, trying not to gasp as it burned its way into her stomach. Its strength was hidden by the delicious fruit crush. ‘Very nice.’ She handed it back to him.
He nodded across the room at Luke and Sabrina, now sitting close together at one of the candlelit tables, talking quietly.
‘It all worked out great in the end,’ he said.
‘I know.’ She followed his gaze. ‘My work is almost done. I’m here overnight again, but in reality I won’t be needed. The restaurant staff will manage breakfast and then everyone checks out. All in all, it’s been a success.’
‘You see, it’s not all doom and gloom.’
‘I never said it was,’ she said. ‘Nothing would make me happier than for Luke and Sabrina to live happily ever after. I just prefer not to rely on another person for my own happiness, that’s all.’
‘Of course. Your work-hard-and-no-time-for-play rule,’ he said. He took a sip of the pink cocktail himself. ‘You know it basically means you have no life. You can’t let what happened to your mum affect you like that.’
‘It isn’t just about that,’ she said. ‘I mean it might have affected my attitude towards weddings and marriage, but it’s more that it was the beginning of a recurring theme in my life.’
‘What do you mean?’
She watched as two of Sabrina’s little bridesmaids twirled their way around the middle of the dancefloor.
‘Roger – my stepfather – just couldn’t go through with it. That’s what he said in the note he left for us. It was the lifelong commitment of it that was the sticking point for him. He could go with it while there were no deadlines. For some reason making it official made him feel hemmed in and he couldn’t cope. The responsibility of it, he said. But that’s just an excuse. If he loved us he would have been there. When you pare it right down we were ok for now but he didn’t want to put a ring on it.’
She squeezed her hands together, trying to get it across to him so he’d understand instead of thinking she was some basket-case loner.
‘OK-for-now has been a bit of a pattern for me ever since,’ she said. ‘I was always the mediocre achiever at school, no matter how hard I tried. Then I spent years in the hotel industry never quite landing the managerial role. I applied so many times but until now I was forever the assistant doing the donkey work without the credit.’ She counted things off on her fingers. ‘Same with relationships. They’ve never worked for me, never lasted. Take Luke for example, we dated, it all seemed to go well enough, and then he got a job offer and bailed. You heard him in the hotel room this afternoon – he never saw our relationship as anything more than casual. I’d read it totally wrong. He said he never wanted to be tied down, but in reality he didn’t want to be tied down by me. Neither did Roger.’ She smoothed her jacket. ‘I decided when I moved to London that since there was no point relying on anyone else for my security or happiness, I’d make my own. No more investing in other people only for them to let me down. I’d keep my emotions and my actions totally separate, no getting involved. And so far, that’s working for me.’
&
nbsp; ‘Maybe you just haven’t met the right person,’ he said. ‘You never know what the future might hold.’
His concerned expression made her steel herself. She didn’t want his sympathy or concern. She’d said too much and now he probably saw her as some underachieving saddo.
‘Yes I do,’ she said. ‘If I work hard it will hold a home of my own. That’s my big plan. I don’t need the right person for that, I can get it for myself. And anyway, all this proclaiming that I will meet Mr Right one day and that I shouldn’t write off marriage,’ she touched his chest with a fingertip. ‘You’re hardly the poster boy for that, are you? You think family ties are something that hold you back, don’t you?’
That comment was so astute that Owen had to take a moment, take a sip of his drink to collect his thoughts.
‘Not especially.’
He shoved his parents’ most recent email out of his mind, as yet unanswered. The resentment remained, like a stubborn stain that was impossible to completely wash away. When he’d been trying to get his idea off the ground there had been no interest or enthusiasm, only attempts to talk him out of it. They’d made it clear they wouldn’t be prepared to put any money toward his ‘little adventure’, as they saw it. Not that he’d ever asked them for a penny. But he’d made it now. He was a success, and now they wanted to fix things, now they were keen to build bridges and pull him back into the family fold. Now that he’d done good. If the bar had failed they’d still be giving him the cold shoulder.
‘Please! Every move you make is with a nod towards work. I mean look at you this evening – advising my perfectly capable diva of a Bar Manager on what drinks he should be serving. Slipping behind the bar on Luke’s stag night. Planning your invasion of Europe in every spare moment. I saw the pictures of bar premises in your hotel room. So tell me – when did YOU last go out on a proper date? And I’m not counting flirting with women in your cocktail bar.’
He raised a hand without thinking and pushed it uncomfortably through his hair.
She was right about the flirting. It went with the job. Working a bar meant chatting to the single girls, mixing drinks, being the life and soul of every party. It rarely progressed beyond the flirt stage, however. Now he thought about it, until this weekend he hadn’t been to bed with anyone in months. His goal, the success of his business, was his absolute focus.
‘I don’t really date,’ he said. ‘It’s such a time suck.’
She nodded triumphantly.
‘You see. You’re worse than me,’ she said.
When he didn’t answer she looked at him questioningly.
‘I do get the point,’ she said. ‘At first you had something to prove with your family because you’d chosen not to take over the farm. But you’ve got a chain of bars now. You’re a big success. You’ve shown your family it wasn’t just a pipe dream. So what happens now, do you just carry on and on, building the Lloyd cocktail empire until it’s world dominating? Where does it all end?’ She pointed an emphatic finger at his chest and smiled her cute smile up at his face, making his heart turn over in spite of himself. ‘I hate to break it to you, but basically you have no life either.’
He burst out laughing.
‘We’re as bad as each other. You’re right.’ The moment swept him along. ‘So you want to have no life together?’ he said.
Her eyes met and held his. His pulse was thundering.
‘We’re both here until tomorrow, you must be just about to clock off and my job here is done. What do you say?
The vagueness of the proposal made it somehow so appealing, knowing exactly where she stood made it safe. He’d be checking out in the morning. She’d be back to work as usual. No one would miss her now her shift was over. Why shouldn’t she have one more perfect night where she knew she was the priority? It was only when it started to mean something that things started to go wrong.
‘I’m in the staff quarters tonight again,’ she said, as if that closed the subject.
‘I’ll walk you back,’ he said.
When she didn’t object he put the half-finished strawberry cocktail down on the nearest table. What few guests they saw as they crossed the lobby were having far too good a time to notice them.
‘The staff quarters are down there,’ she said, stopping at a corridor that led to the back of the hotel. ‘You can’t come back there, so I should really say goodnight here.’
His gaze found hers and held it, the question hanging between them in the tense silence. Then he reached across, took her hand in his and tugged her instead toward the lift.
As the lift doors slid closed, shutting out the deserted lobby, he pushed her against the velvet wall and slid both hands into her hair. The lift jolted softly into life beneath her feet as he took her lower lip between his own and kissed her, his tongue caressing gently. Her arms crept up to lock behind his neck, her fingers sliding through his dark hair as the contours of his body fit perfectly against hers.
A harder jolt as the lift came to a stop and Owen had the presence of mind to take a backward pace out of her personal space, leaving her breathing in quick soft gasps. Left to her own mind set, meltingly focused on his touch, she would have had no care if the doors had slid open to reveal half the staff in the hotel.
The corridor was empty. He took her by the hand.
His room again but this time there was no sense of urgency or rush. The desire was as strong as ever but now he took his time, savouring every moment. Fast heat was replaced by slow lingering caresses. He lifted her into his arms and carried her across the room to lay her gently on the bed. As he undressed her he lingered over each new bit of exposed skin, kissing and stroking her until she was naked and writhing with desire. Then she lay in the soft glow of the table lamp, too aroused to feel inhibited as he shed his own clothes, meeting her gaze steadily until his wedding suit was cast aside on the floor and he joined her on the bed.
Turning her gently on her side, the hard muscular contours of his chest pressed against her back as soft kisses teased at the nape of her neck and his hands slipped around her, one cupping her breasts, the other sliding lower, down the flat of her stomach, lower still, until he teased his way inside her with his fingers, making her gasp softly. He used his legs to turn with her until she was on her stomach, and eased her thighs gently apart, then his fingers were replaced by his rock hard erection as he smoothly thrust inside her to the hilt.
She turned her head in ecstasy, the sheet cool against her hot cheek as he took her with a slow and delicious rhythm, his fingers sliding beneath her to tease her most sensitive nub as he filled her again and again. Her climax began to linger within reach and he took her to the brink of it before slowing his pace, then climbing again, until she begged him to finish it and he raised himself on his palms and thrust hard and fast. As she cried out her pleasure he gasped his own against her shoulder.
The room was quiet. She lay against him in a tangle of bedsheets and pillows, listening to his breathing evening out. His hands, curled tightly around her, slowly relaxed into a gentle caressing stroke of her neck and hair.
We’re both here until tomorrow.
She forced her mind to replay that remark of his over and over again because what just happened hadn’t felt like a moment of madness or a quick shag to her. It had felt like he cared about her. It had felt loving.
She was imagining it. Obviously. Because he’d made it clear he wasn’t thinking beyond the morning.
The very reason she’d gone with this was because he so clearly didn’t want to make anything of it. She wasn’t about to hope for or expect more than that. To do so would be to set herself up for the most predictable fall yet. From the back of her mind she grabbed the three no’s - no emotion, no personal involvement, no distraction – and applied them like mad.
‘This doesn’t mean anything after tonight, right?’ she said. ‘Back to real life tomorrow.’
She lay against his chest, her hair lying silkily against his neck. He picked up a stran
d of it, tested its softness against his fingertips.
It might just as well have been him saying that. They were so alike. It was the same point he’d made with the few girls he’d been with these last years, making sure they always knew it was just fun, careful to emphasise it was nothing heavy. He should be feeling fantastic – a weekend of celebration with sex thrown in, that’s what this was, and how great to share it with someone who felt the same, no need to spell out all the caveats for once. And yet for some insane unfathomable reason he wanted more than that this time. Perhaps that was the reason right there - because he knew he couldn’t have it. Human nature, that was all.
That explanation felt uncomfortable. All he knew was that the idea of checking out tomorrow and never seeing her again made him feel bloody miserable. For once he’d met someone with the same outlook as him, and in her it seemed such a waste. And it brought with it a needling unease as to what that said about his own life. He’d spent so long setting himself free from family ties and guilt and responsibility to others that avoiding any new close relationship had become a habit. He groped for a way of seeing her again that didn’t feel like it could end up being a distraction from all that he’d worked for, so important to him after all he’d given up to pursue it.
When he didn’t answer, she pulled herself up onto one elbow and looked at him. Her brown eyes were soft and a smile touched the corner of her lips. He reached up to slide his thumb along her cheekbone, wanting to feel the softness of her skin.
‘What are you doing next Thursday?’ he said, before he could think it over and put a hold on his tongue.
A tiny frown line appeared between her eyebrows. There was a look of wary hope in her eyes now, as if there was a fifty-fifty chance she might stay put or bolt from the bed at any moment.
‘Working,’ she said, carefully.
Meet Me at the Honeymoon Suite Page 8
