The Bride's Baby

by Liz Fielding

  ‘Useful in case I ever manage to forget it,’ he said and, without warning, something happened to his mouth. She thought it might be a smile. Not much of one. Little more than a distortion of the lower lip, but Sylvie reached for the glass and took another sip of water.

  It sizzled a little on her tongue, turning from ice-cold to lukewarm as it trickled down her throat. If he could do that with something so minimal, what on earth could he achieve when he was actually trying?

  No. She didn’t want to know. It didn’t bear thinking about.

  ‘I’m sure she’ll return them,’ she said in an effort to reassure him. Once she came back from wherever she was hiding out. She’d be eager to negotiate the sale of her story to whichever gossip magazine offered her the most to spill the beans on the break-up and the new man in her life before the story went cold.

  Billionaireless, she would need the money.

  ‘How sure?’ he asked, holding the look for a full thirty seconds. ‘And, even if she did, what would I do with them? Sell them on eBay?’ She opened her mouth but, before she could speak, he said, ‘Forget it.’

  And, placing a tick against the item, he moved swiftly on.

  It was only when they reached the cake that the cracks began to show in his icy self-control.

  Candy, to her surprise, hadn’t gone for some modern confection in white chocolate, or the witty little individual cakes that were suddenly all the fashion, but an honest-to-goodness traditional three-tier solid fruit cake, exquisitely iced by a master confectioner with the Harcourt coat of arms and Tom McFarlane’s company logo in full colour on each layer.

  The kind of cake where the top tier was traditionally put aside to be used as the christening cake for the first-born.

  Until that point she’d almost felt as if Candy had been playing at weddings, more like a little girl let loose with the dressing-up box and her mother’s make-up-or in this case a billionaire’s bank account-than a woman embarking on the most important stage of her life. But that cake had suggested she’d been serious.

  Maybe she’d just been trying to convince herself.

  ‘Where is this monstrous confection?’ Tom McFarlane asked.

  ‘The cake?’

  ‘Of course the damn cake!’ he said, finally snapping, proving that he was made of more than stone. ‘Did she take that with her too? Or has it already been foisted on some other unsuspecting male?’

  ‘That’s an outrageous thing to say, Mr McFarlane. The people I deal with are honest, hard-working businessmen and women.’ She should have stopped then. ‘Besides, no one wants a secondhand wedding cake.’ Particularly one with someone else’s coat of arms emblazoned on it.

  ‘They don’t? What a pity the same can’t be said about brides.’ For a moment she thought he was going to let it go. But not this time. ‘So?’ he demanded, glaring at her. ‘What will happen to it?’

  Desperate to get this over with, she was once more tempted to ask him if it mattered.

  The words were on the tip of her tongue but then, for a split second, she caught a glimpse of the man beneath. A man who’d worked himself up from labouring in the markets to the top floor of a prestigious office building but had never forgotten how hard it had been or where he’d come from and was just plain horrified by such profligate waste and realised that, yes, to him it did matter.

  ‘That’s for you to decide,’ she said.

  ‘Then call the baker. He can deliver it to my apartment this evening.’

  This was her cue to suggest that he was joking.

  Had he any idea how big it was?

  She restrained herself, but when she hesitated he sat back in his chair and gestured for her to get on with it.

  ‘Do it now, Miss Smith.’

  About to ask him what he’d do with ten pounds plus of the richest fruit cake-not including the almond paste and icing-she thought better of it. Maybe he liked fruit cake.

  And when he got tired of it he could always feed the rest to the ducks.

  It was all downhill from there with a mass of personalized stuff-all of it now just so much landfill. Menus, seating cards, table confetti in their entwined initials, candles, crackers with their names and the date on them, filled with little silver gifts for the guests-she’d managed to negotiate the return of the gifts. Every kind of personalized nonsense, each imprinted with their names and the date of the wedding that never was.

  There wasn’t a single thing that Candy had overlooked in her quest for the most extravagant, the most talked-about wedding of the season.

  The list went on and on but the only other invoice to provoke a reaction was the one for the bon-bonnière.

  ‘Well, here’s something different,’ he said, stretching for a touch of wry humour. ‘A French tradition for wasting money instead of a British one.’

  Seeing light at the end of the tunnel, she was prepared to risk a smile of her own but instead she caught her breath as, his guard momentarily down, she caught a glimpse of the grey hollows beneath his eyes, at his temple.

  Maybe he heard because he looked up, a slight frown puckering his brow.

  ‘What?’ he demanded.

  She shook her head, managed some kind of meaningless response that appeared to satisfy him, but after that she kept her head down and finally it was all done but for the last invoice. The one for her own fee, which she’d reduced by twenty per cent, even though the cancellation had caused nearly as much work as the actual day would have done.

  ‘It’s as well you don’t offer a money back guarantee,’ he said.

  ‘My company’s services carry a guarantee,’ she assured him.

  ‘But not one that covers parts replacement.’

  Which was almost a joke but this time she didn’t even think about smiling. ‘I’m afraid not, Mr McFarlane. The bride is entirely your responsibility.’

  ‘True,’ he said, surprising her. ‘But maybe you’re missing out on a business opportunity,’ he continued as, finally, he wrote the cheque. ‘It would be so much simpler if one could pick and choose from a list of required qualities and place an order for the perfect wife.’

  ‘Like a washing machine? Or a car?’ she asked, wondering what, exactly, had been his specification for a wife. And whether he’d adjust it in the light of recent events.

  Go for something less glamorous, more hard-wearing.

  ‘Performance, style, finish…’ She had been dangerously close to sarcasm but he appeared to take her analogy seriously. ‘That sounds about right.’ Then, as he tore the cheque from the book, ‘But forget economy. Fast women and fast cars have that in common. They’re both expensive to run. And you take a hit on the trade-in.’ He didn’t hand her the cheque but continued to look at it. ‘Good business for you, though.’

  ‘I’m not that cynical, Mr McFarlane,’ she assured him as, refusing to sit there like a dummy while he made her wait for him to hand it over, she set about gathering her papers.

  She tucked them back into the file and stowed them in her case, taking all the time in the world over it, just to prove that she was cool.

  That nothing was further from her mind than a speedy exit from his office so that she could regain control over her breathing and her hormones, both of which had been doing their own thing ever since she’d been confronted at close quarters by whatever it was that Tom McFarlane had in such abundance. And she wasn’t thinking about his money.

  When everything was done she looked up and said, ‘No one, no matter who they are, gets more than one SDS wedding.’

  ‘Speaking personally, that’s not going to be a problem.’

  And he folded the cheque in two and tucked it into his shirt pocket.

  No…

  ‘Once has been more than enough.’

  He stood up and hooked his jacket from the back of the chair before heading for the door.

  No…Wait…

  ‘Shall we go, Miss Smith?’ he prompted, opening it, waiting for her.

  ‘Go?’ She stood
up very slowly. ‘Go where?’

  ‘To pick up all this expensive but completely useless junk that I’m about to pay for.’

  Oh. No. Really. That was just pointless. Besides the fact that she was now, seriously, running out of time as well as breath. Her staff didn’t need her to hold their hands, but the pop diva was paying for that kind of service.

  Sylvie was really annoyed with herself about that. Not the time-that was all down to Tom McFarlane. But the breath bit.

  It wasn’t even as if he’d tried. Done a single thing to account for her raised pulse rate or the pitifully twisted state of her hormones.

  Apart from looking at her.

  It was, apparently, enough.

  ‘I’m qu-quite happy to dispose of it for you,’ she said quickly. She could at least spare him the indignity of having to haul it to the recycling centre. Then, when that offer wasn’t leapt on with grateful thanks, ‘Or I can arrange to have it delivered.’

  It wasn’t as if he could be in a hurry for any of it.

  ‘If that’s more convenient for you,’ he said. Her relief was short-lived. ‘I assume you’re not planning to charge me for storage?’

  ‘Er, no…’

  He nodded. ‘I’m leaving the country tonight-my diary has been cleared, the honeymoon villa paid for-but I can hold on to the cheque until I get back next month and we can finish this then.’

  What?

  ‘I’ll give you a call when I get back, shall I?’

  Give her a call…?

  Everyone had their snapping point. His had been the wedding cake. This was hers.

  ‘You have got to be joking! I’ve already rearranged my afternoon for you and been kept waiting nearly an hour for my trouble. And I’ve got a party this evening.’

  ‘Your social life is not my problem.’

  ‘I don’t have a social life!’ she declared furiously.

  ‘Really?’ His glance was brief but all-encompassing, leaving her with the feeling that she’d been touched from head to foot in the most intimate way. And enjoying every moment of it.

  Then he lifted one brow the merest fraction as if he knew…

  ‘Really,’ she snapped. Every waking moment of her life was spent making sure other people had a good time. ‘This is business. And my van, unlike me, can’t do two things at once.’

  For some reason, that made him smile. And she’d been right about that too. Something about the way one corner of his mouth lifted, the skin crinkled around his eyes. The eyes heated…

  ‘No problem,’ he said, bringing her back to earth. ‘For a reasonable fee, I’ll hire your company one of mine.’

  Beneath the riotous collage of balloons, streamers and showers of confetti with which Sylvie’s van-the one presently engaged elsewhere-was painted, you could just about make out that its original colour was, like her mood, black.

  Tom McFarlane’s van was an identical model. Equally glossy and well cared for and equally black. In his case, however, the finish was unrelieved by anything more festive than his company’s gold logo-TMF enclosed in a cartouche-so familiar from that wretched cake.

  They’d ridden in his private lift down to the parking basement in total silence. With no choice but to go along with him, she was too angry to trust herself to attempt small talk.

  Her sympathy was history. Sylvie no longer cared what he was feeling.

  Smug self-satisfaction, no doubt, at putting her to the maximum possible inconvenience just because he could.

  He led the way past an equally black and gleaming Aston Martin that was, no doubt, his personal transport. Fast and classy with voluptuous cream leather upholstery, it fitted his specification perfectly.

  For a car or a wife.

  Shame on Candy for dumping him; he deserved her!

  They reached the van. He unlocked it, slid open the driver’s door and held out the keys.

  She stared at them.

  She’d been tempted to insist on driving the van herself, if only to reclaim a little of the control which he’d wrested from her the moment she’d arrived at his office. If he was really serious about charging her for using it-and nothing about him so far suggested he had a sense of humour; his smile, when he’d finally let it go, had been pure wolf-it seemed eminently reasonable.

  She’d had Tom McFarlane up to the eyebrows; he’d used up every particle of goodwill and she didn’t want to spend one more minute with him than was absolutely necessary.

  But she also wanted this over and done with as quickly as possible and had been counting on the fact that macho man wouldn’t be able to stand by and watch her load and unload the thing by herself.

  She might, of course, be fooling herself about that. It was quite possible he’d enjoy watching her work up a sweat as she earned every penny of her-reduced-fee. She was already regretting that twenty per cent. She’d earned every penny of it this afternoon.

  Too late now. She’d just have to think of the eighty per cent she would be paid. The money for all those suppliers who’d put their heart and soul into making Candy’s dream come true. And her reputation for being the kind of solid, dependable businesswoman whose word, in a business that was not short on flakes, meant something. Trust that had taken time to garner when her centuries-old name had, overnight, become a liability…

  ‘I’d come and give you a hand but I have to take delivery of a cake.’ Then, ‘Do you need a hand up?’

  ‘No, thanks,’ she snapped back, snatching the keys from him and tossing her bag on to the passenger seat. ‘I’ve got one of these and I frequently drive it myself.’

  ‘Not in that skirt or those heels, I’ll bet.’

  Oh, terrific!

  That was where anger and speaking before your brain was engaged got you. But it was too late to change her mind because he didn’t give her the chance to do so and back down gracefully. Instead he gave one of those I’m-sure-you-know-best shrugs-the ones that implied it was the last thing he thought-and stood back, leaving her to get on with it.

  Unfortunately, getting on with it involved hoisting her narrow skirt up far enough to enable her to step up into the cab. Which was far enough for Tom McFarlane to get the full stocking tops and lace underwear experience.

  The up side-there had to be an up side-was that it would be his breathing under attack for a change.

  ‘Not that I’m complaining,’ he assured her, apparently perfectly in control of his breathing.

  And a good thing too, she decided. One of them ought to be in control of their bodily functions. Not that she bothered to dignify his remark with an answer, but let her skirt drop, smoothing it primly beneath her as she sat down, before placing the key in the ignition.

  ‘What kept you?’

  She’d had to buzz him so that he could let her through into the basement parking garage and by the time she’d pulled into the bay by the private lift that would take her directly to the penthouse loft apartment he was there, waiting for her.

  His impatience touched a chord deep within her. Despite her very real, her justifiable anger with Tom McFarlane, her own impatience with every interruption, every traffic delay had been driven not by her need to be with an important client in Chelsea but by some blind, completely insane desire to get back to him. To renew the edgy, heat-filled connection.

  He might make her angry but for the first time in years she felt like a woman and it was addictive…

  ‘I can manage,’ she assured him as he opened the door, offered her a helping hand. The default reaction of the modern woman. When did that happen?

  It didn’t matter; he took no notice. ‘I’ve seen you manage once today. Since I’ve already seen your underwear, this time we’ll do it my way.’

  ‘A gentleman wouldn’t have looked,’ she gasped, outraged. Outraged by the fact that he obviously thought her legs not worth a second look.

  ‘Is that a fact? I guess that just proves that I’m not a gentleman.’ His eyes gleamed in the dim light of the underground garage. ‘Didn’
t your old school chum tell you that it was one of the things she liked most about me? After my money. The risk. The realisation that for once in her life she wasn’t in control.’ He leaned close enough for her to feel his breath upon her cheek. For every cell to quiver with heightened awareness. Her skin to get goose-bumps. ‘That she was playing with fire.’

  Sylvie’s mouth dried.

  It worked for her.

  ‘But then again,’ he said, straightening, ‘you’re no lady, Miss Smith, or you’d have accepted my offer of assistance. So shall we try it again? Need a hand?’

  ‘The only help I need is with the boxes,’ she declared angrily. She certainly didn’t need to hitch up her skirt to get down. All she had to do was swing her legs over the side and drop to the floor but, then again, Tom McFarlane was going out of his way to rile her, so why make it easy for him?

  It wasn’t as if she’d wanted to organise this wedding in the first place-especially not once she’d met the groom-but Candy had begged and when she wanted something, no one could deny her anything.

  Except, it seemed, Tom McFarlane.

  And maybe the house in Belgravia and the country estate were, after all, non-negotiable if you weren’t marrying for love…

  In retrospect, Sylvie thought, it was easy to see why she’d left so much of the detail to Quentin, but it really was too bad that, when all her instincts had been proved right, she was being punished by this man, not just for her bad judgement but for his too.

  And her body seemed intent on joining in.

  Maybe that was why, instead of jumping down, she put her hands flat against the seams of her skirt in a deliberately provocative manner, as a prelude to sliding it back up her legs.

  To punish him-punish them both-right back.

  Tom McFarlane couldn’t believe the way he was behaving. He was already calling himself every kind of a fool. He’d cleared his desk in preparation for a month away and all he’d had to do was get on a plane. Instead, he’d demanded Sylvie Smith’s presence in his office to explain her invoice. And then, as if that hadn’t been sufficient misery for both of them, he’d made a complete fool himself by demanding she deliver a pile of useless junk to his apartment.