by Jessica Hart
‘Just things.’ She swallowed. ‘I’m sure you’ll be able to find another partner for the last dances.’
‘I’d rather dance with you,’ said Rafe softly, and his voice was deep and warm and irresistible. ‘Do you really want to go, Miranda?’
No, Miranda’s heart cried, no, I don’t! But her head was back in control now.
‘Yes,’ she said, not meeting his eyes.
Rafe let her go at that. ‘Then you must go, of course,’ he said. ‘Thank you for the dance, Miranda,’ he said with cool formality. ‘And thank you for everything you’ve done this evening.’
She couldn’t let herself look at him properly, or she would simply throw herself back into his arms and beg him not to let her go again, and what kind of behaviour was that for a temporary assistant?
‘Goodnight,’ she said huskily, and, turning, she hurried away from him, in search of Elvira’s shoes, her clipboard and the cold comfort of knowing that she had been sensible.
Miranda waited for the barman to fill the glasses with champagne before picking up the tray and heading back into the crowd. This was her third night working this week, and she was tired, but she had found herself making excuses not to spend the evenings alone in the flat, where there was too much time to sit and think and remember.
It had been a long three weeks since the ball. She had a new assignment at a management consultancy. Everyone was very nice and if the job was dull, well, temp jobs often were. It was a pity there wasn’t more to keep her busy. She had an hour for lunch every day, but there were no walks in the park, no ice creams, no Rafe to tease her and provoke her and make her laugh.
Miranda hadn’t realised how much she would miss him.
She had never said a proper goodbye. Back in the office, it had taken a couple of days to tidy her desk and sort out the payment of the outstanding bills, and then she had handed the last few loose ends to Ginny. Rafe hadn’t been around.
What had she expected? Miranda asked herself. That he would come rushing back just to say goodbye to a temp? She had done the job she was asked to do, and now that it was over it was time to move on. She’d said goodbye to Ginny and to Simon and promised to keep in touch, but of course she hadn’t. It wouldn’t be fair to meet up when all she wanted to do was to talk about Rafe, to find out how he was, whether he had missed their walks in the park.
Whether he remembered every second of that dance the way she did.
Enough. Miranda was always having to scold herself for drifting into wistful memories nowadays. Straightening her shoulders and fixing her smile back in place, she moved from group to group, offering champagne. The reception, to launch a new charitable foundation, was being held in a museum, although nobody seemed to be looking at the exhibits. They were all too busy talking. They certainly seemed to be enjoying themselves, Miranda thought, squeezing between guests with her tray held high, and was startled to realise that she was feeling envious.
When was the last time she had simply enjoyed herself? Ever since she’d given up her degree course to try-and fail-to sort out the mess at Fairchild’s, it seemed that she had been worrying. She had worried about the firm and what would happen to its employees. She had worried about her father, about Octavia, about how they would pay for Belinda’s wedding.
She had spent so long worrying about money that she had forgotten how to enjoy herself, Miranda realised. Instead, she had fixated on the idea of Whitestones as a place where she could hide away from all the worries associated with London. Everything always seemed so much simpler there.
Well, she would get there, but at her present rate of saving it wasn’t going to be any time soon. In the meantime, perhaps it was time to start enjoying the present more, the way Rafe did? Miranda thought about the laughter at the back of his eyes, about the way he exuded energy and a zest for life no matter what he was doing, whether it was just sitting at a desk or eating an ice cream in the park.
The thought of Rafe’s smiling eyes was enough to give her a pang, but Miranda caught herself up. Less moping, she ordered herself. Less planning. If she really wanted to change, she would start right now. She would still work, still save, but she would live for now too.
It felt surprisingly good to have made the decision, and Miranda smiled as she offered the last champagnes in exchange for empty glasses. There was just one glass left, she noticed. She might as well go back and get more.
She was turning towards the bar when a voice behind her said, ‘I’ll take that one,’ and she nearly dropped the lot as she spun round, joy blazing through her.
‘Rafe!’
There he stood, looking devastatingly handsome in a dinner jacket and bow tie. ‘Hello, Miranda,’ he said, and smiled.
There ought to be a law against a smile like that. It couldn’t be right that a mere curving of the lips, a simple creasing of the cheeks and twinkle of the eyes, could wipe one’s brain free of all coherent thought and turn one’s bones to liquid. Look at the tray, about to slide from nerveless hands!
Belatedly, Miranda tightened her hold on it and took a grip of herself. ‘Hello,’ she said. It came out a bit croaky, but it wasn’t too bad, considering.
Rafe reached out and helped himself to the glass of champagne. ‘How have you been?’
Miserable. Bored. Missing you. ‘Oh, fine,’ said Miranda. It didn’t sound that convincing, so she said it again. ‘Fine.’
‘I heard you had another job. I trust you’ve managed to whip the new photocopier into shape?’
‘Unfortunately, the assignment ends tomorrow, so I’ll have to start training another one next week.’
Yes, that was better. She sounded much more like her old self: cool, composed, in control. ‘How are you, anyway?’ she asked, keeping her smile steady. ‘Are you engaged yet?’
Rafe made a face. ‘Nowhere near. I’m not having much success,’ he told her. ‘I can’t find anyone.’
‘There must be somebody! What happened to all those women we invited to the ball? Haven’t you invited any of them out?’
‘I have,’ said Rafe. ‘I asked Julia first. I invited her out to dinner, and pulled out all the stops to make it a romantic evening I thought she would like. It turned out I needn’t have bothered. She told me very kindly that there was no need for me to jump through all the hoops. She said she didn’t want an emotional relationship right then and was only interested in sex.’
He smiled crookedly. ‘I felt a bit of a fool for going to all that trouble,’ he confessed. ‘I got the feeling she thought I was a bit weird for wanting something more than her body.’
‘Well, now you know what it’s like for a lot of women most of the time,’ said Miranda, wishing she could ask whether he had slept with Julia anyway.
‘Next I invited Stella out. I tried dinner again, but it wasn’t any more successful than the last time.’
‘Was she only interested in your body too?’
‘No, I’d almost have preferred her if she had been. At least Julia was fun. Stella cross-examined me over dinner about everything from my star sign to when I was potty trained.’
‘What on earth for?’
‘She had a very clear checklist in her head about what she wanted from a man. She’s incredibly high-powered and, according to her, she doesn’t have the time to waste on getting to know a man who isn’t going to tick all the boxes.’
‘And you didn’t?’ said Miranda, surprised.
‘Apparently not.’
‘So who did you try next?’
‘Oh, next it was Isabel. She seemed really nice, and I really thought I was getting somewhere, but when I suggested a second date, she said no. She’d been hurt once before, she said, and she said my track record made her nervous. If I’d got to thirty-five without a serious relationship, she didn’t think I would ever be capable of one. So there you are,’ he told Miranda. ‘Three strikes. At least the restaurants are doing a booming business.’
He spoke lightly, but Miranda had the feeling the ch
arge had hurt him more than he was prepared to admit.
‘I obviously haven’t been very successful at changing my image,’ he went on.
‘Perhaps she’d heard about you taking the other two out and thought you were running true to type?’
‘You’d think she’d be glad I wasn’t divorced and was waiting for the right woman before I made a commitment, but no! You women are never happy!’
‘It’s a pity you weren’t at least engaged before,’ Miranda agreed, shifting her tray to the other arm. ‘Then she would have known that you had been prepared to commit, but that you’d been hurt. That’s a big draw for a lot of women. They love the idea of a man they can rescue.’
‘Unfortunately, everyone knows that I was never engaged,’ said Rafe. ‘Thanks to the gossip magazines they all know more about me than I do!’ He paused. ‘Unless I could make up an engagement-when I was in Africa, perhaps?’
Miranda’s mouth turned down dubiously. ‘It would be difficult to carry off. You’d have to make up a whole story and remember it in every detail, and then the press would go off looking for your alleged fiancée…you know what they’re like.’
‘That’s true.’ Rafe sighed. ‘It wouldn’t work unless I could produce the girl and where am I going to find someone prepared to back up a story like that?’
‘Well, if you’d like to pay me, I’ll do it,’ said Miranda flippantly. ‘I’m looking for a new job next week!’ She looked down at her tray. ‘And talking of jobs, I’d better get on with this one.’
She made herself look into his eyes. ‘It was good to see you again,’ she said, meaning it. For a few moments there, it had been like old times talking together. ‘I’m sure you’ll find someone soon. Good luck with it!’
Rafe watched her go, straight-backed as ever. He wished she weren’t working. He wished he could take her out of here, and go somewhere quiet where they could just talk.
Damn it, he had missed her. He had missed the crispness of her comments, the directness of her gaze, the cool consolation of her presence.
Ever since the ball, he had been feeling edgy. Oh, he had tried. Look at all the women he had invited out! But that was the point: he had to try with them. He didn’t have to try with Miranda. He could just be himself. She was a friend. Of course he had missed her. It didn’t mean he needed her. It just meant he wanted to talk to her.
Whenever he went out to a reception or party, Rafe had been hoping to see Miranda among the waitresses, but she was never there, and in the end he had been reduced to looking up the number of the caterers at the ball and calling her friend Rosie to find out when and where she would be working. It hadn’t been difficult to get himself invited tonight. He’d just had to make a substantial donation, and all because he had wanted to see a friend!
Rafe was exasperated with himself. Women complained that men like him fought shy of commitment, but he wanted to settle down, he wanted to commit. Why was he finding it so hard?
His latest three dates had been salutary experiences. It had been easy taking girls out when he was just amusing himself, but getting them to take him seriously was proving more difficult than he thought.
It had been tempting to blame Miranda. The thought of her was distracting him, and he had hoped that seeing her again would put her in perspective so that he could focus on his search for a suitable bride. That ought to be his priority. God knew, he had spent enough on the ball. He couldn’t give up now, just because he had been so happy to see Miranda again.
I’ll do it. Her words echoed as he stared morosely down into his untouched glass of champagne. I need a job.
She had been joking, of course. Rafe knew that. She didn’t mean it.
It would never work, anyway.
Would it?
‘You go on home,’ said Rosie. ‘I’ve still got things to do.’
‘I’ll give you a hand,’ Miranda offered. ‘Then we can go home together.’
But Rosie insisted that she go. There was an air of suppressed excitement about her tonight. Perhaps she had a new man on the go? Shrugging, Miranda picked up her bag and made her way outside. The night air was cool after the heat of the kitchen, and she paused for a moment, breathing it in with relief.
It was only then that she became aware of the sleek car waiting on the double yellow lines outside the entrance, its engine purring and its top down.
Rafe leant over to open the passenger door. ‘I’ll give you a lift home,’ he said.
‘It’s not exactly on your way,’ said Miranda after the first moment of shock.
‘I know. Rosie gave me the address.’
‘Rosie knows you’re here?’
‘She’s trusting me to see you safely home,’ said Rafe.
That explained why Rosie had been so keen to see her go.
‘I’m perfectly capable of getting the Tube,’ Miranda said, but she walked over to the car and got in. Her legs were aching, and she was too tired to make an issue of it. If Rafe wanted to drive around London in the dark, let him.
‘I thought you’d gone,’ she said unguardedly, and then cursed herself for an idiot. Rafe would think that she had looked for him again. She had, of course, but there was no need for him to know that.
‘I’ve been waiting for you,’ said Rafe as he checked the mirror and pulled out into the traffic. ‘If you are available and willing, I’ve got a proposition to put to you.’
She looked at him warily. ‘What sort of proposition?’
‘Don’t worry, it’s not the usual one a girl gets when she’s picked up from a pavement!’ Rafe slanted a smile at her. ‘You must be tired after being on your feet all evening. Wouldn’t you like to give up waitressing?’
‘I can’t. It’s the only way I can save anything for Whitestones.’
‘How much do you think you’ll need before you can move down there?’
Miranda sighed. ‘Twenty, twenty-five thousand?’
‘It’ll take a long time to save that on a temp’s salary even if you have got an evening job.’
‘Thank you for pointing that out,’ she said sourly. ‘I’d already worked it out for myself!’
‘How would you like to earn that in a month?’
Miranda laughed. ‘Would I have to do anything illegal?’ she asked, thinking that he was joking.
‘You might have to lie a bit.’
They had come to a stop at a red light, and she swivelled in her seat to stare at him. ‘Are you serious?’
‘Completely. I’ll pay you twenty-five thousand pounds if you’ll pretend to be my fiancée for a month.’
‘What?’
‘It was your idea,’ Rafe pointed out. ‘You said you needed a job.’
‘I meant a secretarial one!’
‘This one would be more fun.’
Fun. Miranda’s instinctive refusal died on her lips as the car shot away from the lights. Hadn’t she resolved not to take life so seriously? Fun was exactly what was missing in her life at the moment.
If only the thought of spending a month with Rafe would be as simple as fun. Miranda suspected it was more likely to turn her life upside down. It might be shattering or exhilarating or thrilling or dangerously appealing, but simple fun? No, it wouldn’t be that.
On the other hand, she could at least listen before she dismissed his proposal out of hand. Still more than half convinced he was joking, she looked at him suspiciously.
‘What exactly are you proposing?’
‘Just what we talked about. We get engaged, and everyone realises that I’m serious about settling down.’
‘But if the engagement doesn’t last, you’ll just look even more afraid of commitment,’ Miranda objected. ‘Then you’ll be worse off than before.’
‘Not if you’re the one to dump me,’ said Rafe. ‘I’m going to be besotted with you for a month, and when you leave I’m going to be broken-hearted. You were the one who said they’d queue up to help me move on and show me what the love of a good woman could do,’ he rem
inded her.
The more he thought about it, the more sense it made. He had examined the strategy from all angles while he was waiting for Miranda to appear, and he could see no obvious flaws in it. It might not work, of course, but it well might, and in the meantime he would get to spend a month with Miranda, which would surely be enough to get her out of his system once and for all.
Miranda, however, was clearly unconvinced. ‘Nobody’s going to believe that you’re besotted with me,’ she said.
‘You underestimate yourself.’
‘Perhaps I underestimate your acting ability,’ she countered, disgruntled in a way she couldn’t begin to explain.
‘Then you shouldn’t,’ said Rafe. ‘I bet I could convince everyone I was mad about you.’ He glanced at her with a half-smile. ‘I really don’t think it would be that hard.’
‘They’d all think you were odd for choosing someone like me,’ said Miranda grouchily.
‘No, they wouldn’t. They’d think I was perceptive and interesting for being intrigued by a woman who goes out of her way not to draw attention to herself.’
Well, she had asked for it. What had she expected? That he would tell her that she was beautiful and no one would be in the least surprised at his choice?
‘That doesn’t explain why, having snared myself the most eligible bachelor in Britain, I’d toss him aside after a mere month,’ said Miranda after a moment.
Rafe grinned as he turned onto Westminster Bridge. ‘Maybe that’s what makes you so intriguing?’
She regarded him with exasperation. Didn’t he take anything seriously? ‘You’d need a better reason than that if people aren’t going to realise it’s just a big joke!’
‘I’m sure we can think of some reason why you don’t want to marry me,’ said Rafe. ‘It has to be one that doesn’t make people think I’ve got some dirty secret, and it can’t be because you think I’m having an affair with someone else. Remember, they’ve got to be sorry for me. You’ve got to break my heart!’
‘Oh, yes, I can see me doing that!’
‘Why can’t you be the one who’s got a problem with commitment?’ he suggested, ignoring her sardonic aside. ‘Just when I’m ready to settle down, you decide you can’t face married life and run off.’
