Mistletoe Marriage (Harlequin Romance)

by Jessica Hart

  Part of her was glad that she couldn’t. She didn’t want to see the yearning she was afraid might show on Bram’s face.

  ‘It was a long time ago, though,’ she told Nick, her eyes still on Bram, trying to interpret his body language. There was something protective about the way he was leaning towards Melissa, wasn’t there? ‘They were both very young.’

  Her mother had already decorated the room for Christmas, and it looked warm and inviting with the lights on the tree and candles on the mantelpiece. There was even a bunch of mistletoe hanging from the light in the centre of the room. Bram and Melissa were standing almost exactly beneath it. Sophie hoped neither of them would notice.

  ‘And you don’t mind?’

  Sophie brought her attention back to Nick with an effort. She frowned. ‘Mind? Mind what?’

  ‘You don’t mind that Bram’s one of Melissa’s…how can I put it? Cast-offs sounds a bit crude, doesn’t it?’ said Nick. ‘But you know what I mean.’

  Sophie flushed at his tone. ‘That’s not how I think of Bram at all!’

  ‘Oh, I know you’ve always been very fond of him,’ said Nick indulgently, ‘but I have to confess to being a little bit surprised when I heard the news.’

  ‘Why?’ she asked with a challenging look.

  A smile played around Nick’s mouth as he looked down into her face. ‘Let’s just say that I didn’t think that Bram was quite your type,’ he said softly. ‘I know Melissa’s still got a very soft spot for him, and he’s a nice chap, but not really exciting enough for you, I wouldn’t have thought. You were always so refreshingly passionate, Sophie.’

  His eyes looked into hers, and she knew that he was remembering how extravagantly she had adored him. ‘I can’t see a sturdy hill farmer like Bram giving you what you need.’

  ‘Can’t you? I think that indicates a lack of imagination on your part, Nick.’ Sophie was beginning to get angry. He was patronising Bram, and she didn’t like that. ‘Bram gives me just what I need, he is exactly my type—and, as it happens, I find him very exciting.’

  ‘I stand corrected,’ said Nick, but his smile reeked of disbelief. ‘And of course I’m very glad for you. Melissa and I have been very distressed to think that you were taking so long to get over our relationship. I know how hard it was for you.’

  ‘Do you?’ said Sophie.

  All the agonies she had suffered for this man, all the tears, all the homesickness because of him—and for what? Sophie looked at Nick and wondered if she had ever really known him. Had she just been consumed by a physical passion, by the joy of loving, or had she really loved the man himself? And, if it was Nick, what was it about him that she had loved? It was becoming very hard to remember now.

  She had dreaded this moment for so long, and now that it was here she felt foolish more than anything else. Foolish and sad—for the dream she had clung to for so long and for so little point.

  Nick was still musing on Sophie’s relationship with Bram. ‘Of course it’s taken a very long time for Bram to get over Melissa, too, so you’ve got that in common. There’s a certain symmetry to it all in a way, isn’t there?’ he said, with a teasing smile. ‘Nothing like keeping it all in the family!’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ said Sophie coldly.

  ‘I think it’s very sensible of you both to make the best of things and throw in your lot together,’ Nick explained kindly.

  Sophie’s heart sank. That was, in fact, what she and Bram were doing, but she didn’t feel like sharing that with Nick right now. She should have known that he would guess. If he passed on his suspicions to Melissa her sister would always feel guilty and unhappy.

  ‘Is that what Melissa thinks we’re doing?’ she asked carefully.

  ‘No, Melissa’s convinced you and Bram are love’s sweet dream. She believes it because she wants to believe it.’

  ‘You don’t think it could be because she knows Bram and me better than you do?’ Sophie enquired tightly, but Nick only laughed and put an arm round her to squeeze her shoulders.

  ‘No need to look so fierce, Sophie,’ he said as she shook herself free. ‘Your secret’s safe with me.’

  ‘What’s all this about secrets?’ Melissa asked, catching the last couple of words as she and Bram joined them.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Sophie, pink with annoyance. She glanced at Bram, wondering if he had seen her pull free from Nick’s embrace, but his face was expressionless.

  ‘It’s a secret between Sophie and me,’ Nick answered his wife smoothly. ‘And there’s no use asking, darling. That’s the thing about secrets. You can’t tell them.’

  Sophie thought there was something mechanical about Melissa’s smile, but in any case Nick gave her no time to reply. He was turning to Bram and holding out his hand.

  ‘It’s good to see you again, Bram,’ he said, all easy charm. ‘Congratulations! You’re a lucky man.’

  Bram’s eyes flickered to Sophie’s face. ‘I know,’ he said, shaking hands briefly.

  ‘I think I’m the lucky one,’ said Sophie, determined to show Nick just how wrong he was about her and Bram.

  Even if he wasn’t.

  With a dazzling smile, she slipped an arm around Bram’s waist and leaned into him. She was half afraid that he might jump away, the way he had in front of the shop window, but, after a pause so fractional that only she could have noticed it, he pulled her closer, so she was able to reach up and kiss him on the corner of his mouth.

  Bram was burningly conscious of her body pressed against his, of the touch of her lips, but he mistrusted the brittleness of her smile, and when he saw her glance at Nick his suspicion deepened.

  He saw the other man raise his eyebrows and smile at Sophie in a quick appreciative gesture. What was going on?

  There was a tiny silence.

  Melissa broke it first. ‘Let’s see this ring Bram’s been telling me about, Sophie,’ she said, and Sophie held out her hand, grateful for the change of subject.

  Her sister oohed and aahed suitably over the ring. ‘It’s absolutely lovely, and just right for you—unconventional and warm and colourful.’ She smiled warmly at Bram. ‘You know Sophie very well!’

  Bram thought of the look Sophie had just exchanged with Nick. ‘Sometimes I wonder if I do,’ he said.

  ‘Come and look at Sophie’s ring, Mum,’ said Melissa as Harriet came back into the room, followed by Joe, who was carrying a bottle of champagne.

  ‘Very nice,’ Harriet approved.

  Nick made a big deal of taking Sophie’s hand and inspecting the ring closely. Sophie felt one of his fingers caress her palm surreptitiously, and she snatched her hand back, her colour heightened.

  ‘Unusual,’ he said.

  ‘Sophie’s an unusual person,’ said Bram, who hadn’t missed Sophie’s quick flush.

  ‘Indeed.’ Nick seemed amused. ‘Still, are you sure you wouldn’t have preferred diamonds?’ he asked Sophie. ‘That’s what a real engagement ring should be, after all.’

  ‘No,’ said Sophie, meeting his eyes, unspoken challenge in her own. She knew that he was referring to the ring that he had bought for her. That might have been a ‘real’ engagement, but it hadn’t brought her happiness. ‘I like rubies best,’ she said, and took Bram’s hand to underline her point.

  ‘Must have set you back a bit, Bram,’ commented Joe, taking his turn to inspect the ring with a grunt. ‘I reckon that would have paid for a heifer or two! I hope you thanked him nicely, Sophie?’ he teased, the way he had when she and Melissa were little girls.

  ‘I did, but I don’t mind saying it again,’ said Sophie, not averse to the chance to show Nick just how in love she and Bram were. ‘Come under the mistletoe, Bram.’

  Tugging him under the dangling mistletoe, she reached up to pull his head gently down to hers. ‘Thank you, Bram,’ she whispered, her palm warm against his cheek so that she could trace his lip with her thumb and look deep into his eyes.

  And then a funny thing happen
ed. She forgot that Nick was watching, forgot to care what he might be thinking. She forgot Melissa and her parents, and the fact that the champagne was getting warm.

  She saw only the blueness of Bram’s eyes, felt only the urge to press her mouth to his and give herself up to the dizzy, delicious pleasure of kissing him deep and long and slow, and feeling him kiss her back. She wanted the kiss to go on for ever, wanted to sink down with him somewhere soft so that she could pull off that stupid tie, unbutton his shirt and feel his hands ease down the zip of dress…

  Heart thudding with excitement at the very thought of it, Sophie gave something between a gasp and a murmur and clutched at him, as if desperate to anchor herself to his solidity, but Bram was already raising his head to break the kiss. For a long moment they just stared at each other, Sophie’s expression dazed, Bram’s completely unreadable.

  Senses still reeling, shaken at the effort it had taken to break away before he lost control, Bram tore his eyes away from hers. Looking around for something, anything, to fix on instead, he saw Joe looking dourly pleased, Harriet indulgent, and Melissa delighted.

  Bram’s gaze moved on to Nick. The other man’s face was perfectly straight, but Bram could swear that he was smirking. He watched as Nick lifted his brows at Sophie with a glance that was a complex mixture of amusement and indulgence. Why not hang out a sign saying that he knew she had kissed Bram merely to prove a point to him? Bram wondered savagely.

  Was that why she had done it? He looked at Sophie just in time to see her catch Nick’s eye. Colouring, she let her gaze slide away.

  So it was. Disappointment twisted like a knife inside Bram. Well, what had he expected? Just because he had fallen in love with her it didn’t mean that Sophie felt any differently about Nick. He had been hoping against hope that things would change when she saw him again, but it looked as if she was as closely bound to the other man as ever. He had let himself forget the deal they had made to accept each other as second best.

  But how could he remember when Sophie kissed him like that? When he could still feel the warm softness of her body pressed against his, the sweetness of her lips? It was all too easy to let himself believe then that she felt the same sense of rightness in his arms. It wasn’t Sophie’s fault that being second best wasn’t good enough for him now.

  Harriet was bustling around, making sure that everyone had a glass of champagne before Joe made a toast to the happy couple.

  Still pulsing from that kiss, Sophie hardly heard what her father was saying. She fixed on a bright smile, but her whole body was throbbing and tingling, and her lips burned. She felt as if she were radiating heat and awareness. They could put her on top of a police car and save on the flashing lights.

  To Sophie, emerging from the warmth and sweetness and excitement of kissing Bram, Nick’s look had been like a slap in the face. Until then she had forgotten that she had just seized on a chance to prove to him that he was wrong, and remembering made her feel cheap and ashamed of herself.

  It hadn’t even convinced Nick. That had been obvious. He had made it plain that he realised that she was only kissing Bram to make a point to him, and that the fact amused him.

  It wasn’t like that! Sophie wanted to shout, thinking about that wonderful kiss.

  She supposed she must have smiled and said the right thing, because nobody else seemed to notice anything amiss. They all seemed perfectly normal.

  Or perhaps not all.

  Sophie revised her opinion as they sat down to dinner. Her parents were certainly behaving as usual. Her father was gruffly affectionate, her mother beaming at the success of her family party, but there was a distinct tension in the middle of the table.

  Bram was talking pleasantly to her mother and Melissa, but there was a grim look around his mouth and a bleakness to his expression that Sophie hated to see. His shoulders were rigidly set, and when she rested her hand against the small of his back, in an attempt to offer wordless reassurance, it was like touching iron. He was smiling and talking as normal, but she sensed a new distance in him.

  Hadn’t he wanted her to kiss him? Sophie wondered, dismayed thoughts tumbling around in her head. Surely he must have known that a kiss would be likely at some point? Or was he simply finding it harder than he had thought to be close to Melissa again?

  Melissa herself seemed to be blossoming under his attention. Sophie hadn’t had a chance to talk to her sister properly yet, but she sensed a tension in her too. She was as lovely as ever, but when Sophie looked more closely she noticed a look of strain around the beautiful violet eyes. Something was wrong, that was for sure. Her mother had described Melissa and Nick as being all over each other normally, but they were barely touching, barely even looking at each other tonight.

  Nick, lounging easily across the table from Sophie, ignored his beautiful wife. He was deriving more amusement from playing with Sophie instead. His eyes wandered over her in naked appreciation as he paid her extravagant compliments and needled her about her engagement.

  He thinks I’m still in love with him, Sophie realised. He thinks I wore this dress for him.

  She hadn’t dressed with Nick in mind at all…or had she? With characteristic honesty Sophie asked herself whether she might have subconsciously wanted to make Nick regret losing her. She didn’t think that she had, but she had thought herself in love with him for so long that it was possible, and she felt humiliated at the thought.

  Once she would have glowed at having his exclusive attention, but now it was making her uncomfortable, and she kept trying to draw the others into the conversation.

  ‘I hear you’ve been on holiday?’ she said desperately at last, leaning across the table to Melissa. ‘Where did you go?’

  ‘Just Morocco.’ Nick answered for his wife, with all the casualness of the seasoned intercontinental traveller. ‘We were trekking in the High Atlas.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound like you, Melissa,’ said Sophie, persevering with her attempt to talk to her sister. ‘You were always a beach girl.’

  Melissa’s answering smile was a little strained. ‘I have to admit that I would have preferred to spend the time in a resort, but you know Nick and his mountains…!’ she said, trying to make a joke out of it.

  Actually, Sophie did know. Nick had told her at length about all his mountaineering exploits, as well as everything else he had done. Nick didn’t just climb mountains—oh, no! True, he had climbed peaks in the Andes and the Himalayas and the Alps, but he had also been on expedition in the Amazon, done white water rafting in the Rockies and surveyed rhinos in Africa. He had sailed around Cape Horn and canoed in Polynesia. He had been everywhere and done everything. No wonder she had been bowled over when he had condescended to notice her.

  Now she wished she hadn’t been so impressed.

  ‘It’s much better for you to have an active holiday,’ Nick told his wife. ‘It’s boring sitting on a beach all day.’

  For him, maybe, but not for Melissa. For the first time Sophie realised that her sister’s marriage might not be as perfect as she had imagined. She had so wanted to marry Nick in Melissa’s place—but would she really have wanted him making all the decisions about where they went on holiday and what they did?

  Nick’s interruptions were beginning to irritate her, too. ‘So, how was the trekking?’ she asked, pointedly addressing her sister.

  ‘Oh, it was…fine. Great. There were some nice people in the group.’

  ‘Sheep,’ said Nick dismissively.

  ‘Just like being out on the moors, then,’ said Bram dryly, and Melissa giggled. But Nick quite missed the humour.

  ‘I meant that the people were like sheep,’ he explained. ‘They just did whatever they were told.’

  ‘I expect that’s why they paid to go on a guided tour,’ said Sophie. ‘Sometimes you don’t want to have to work everything out for yourself. Especially when you’re in a foreign country.’

  Nick was unimpressed. ‘The whole trip was a shambles,’ he said. �
��I’ve always been an independent traveller, but I’d been so busy with the company that I didn’t have time to plan our own route, so I thought we’d see how the other half lives and go on an organised trip. Never again!’

  ‘Why? What happened?’

  Nick made a gesture indicating that he didn’t know where to start. ‘The tour guide didn’t seem to have a clue what he was doing—he had no leadership abilities at all!—and it was clear that the local guides were running rings round him. I soon put them right. If I hadn’t been there we’d have been ripped off left, right and centre!’

  To hear Nick tell it, he had single-handedly rescued the group from the disaster of sticking to the itinerary they had booked and paid for. He had changed the route of a trek that had unaccountably been considered perfectly satisfactory by previous trekkers, and, thanks to his fluency in Arabic, had negotiated a deal for food by coming to separate arrangements with locals whenever they stopped, thus cutting out the local guides, whose contacts had provided sustenance previously.

  ‘Tourists are too easily intimidated,’ he said.

  ‘How did the others in the group react to all this?’ asked Bram.

  ‘Nobody said anything.’ Nick shook his head in wonder at their ingratitude. ‘I even gave them copies of our catalogue and the address of our website, and we said that we would give them a small discount, and no one has been in touch!’

  Sophie glanced at Melissa and saw that she was staring down at her plate, looking distinctly uncomfortable. As Sophie watched, she lifted her lashes and sent Bram a look of naked appeal. Bram smiled and winked at her, and Melissa coloured slightly.

  There was something intimate about the tiny exchange, and Sophie wished she hadn’t seen it.

  Nick was still going on about their trip. ‘It was an interesting experiment, but it reminded me how frustrating it is to be in a group. It takes for ever to get everyone ready, and then when you do get going you’re always having to slow down to wait for the others to catch up. The only way to really experience things is to go on your own.’