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the car as he held the passenger door open for her.
She felt a fraud, and she said over her shoulder, trying not to sound stiff,
'You'd think I'd flipped if I turned up for work wearing this!'
She heard his deep chuckle as he walked round the car, and she gritted her
teeth. She was as she was, there was nothing more. The coolly sophisticated
woman he knew as his PA was all there was to her. She had no frivolous,
ultra-feminine side. Would he be disappointed when he realised that?
He slid in beside her and the engine purred aristocratically to life at the start
of the journey to Slade House where Grace had arranged a small celebration
lunch party for them. Uncle John hadn't been well enough to attend the
ceremony, but she'd see him at the house. She wondered, her face white and
set, what his reaction would be if he knew exactly why she had married Jude
Mescal. But he would never know; that had been the whole point of the
exercise.
'You're very quiet, Cleo.' Calm, azure eyes left the road for a split second,
probing hers. 'Second thoughts?'
'No, not at all,' Cleo lied. During the past three weeks she'd been having
second through to tenth thoughts, but they'd all led to the same inevitable
conclusion. She was doing the only thing she could, given cold
circumstance.
She would be in a far worse position had Jude refused to marry her, or if
she'd got really cold feet and had called the whole thing off. She would just
have to make the best of the situation, and she had far too much respect for
Jude to allow him to know that his stipulation about a full marriage had her
running scared.
'Good,' he said softly, his strong profile relaxed as he returned his full
attention to the road. There was even a smile in his voice, and Cleo
marvelled that he should appear so much in control, so easy in his mind. He,
for one, could have no doubts about their future.
'I've some news for you,* he told her. 'Interested?'
'Of course. Tell me.' Cleo jerked herself out of the dangerous and all too
often recurring mood of introspection, and Jude grinned.
'I've managed to fix us a honeymoon on a Greek island. Only a week, I'm
afraid, that's all the time I can spare right now. But we'll have time to relax
together.' He braked for traffic lights, his hands light on the wheel, and
turned to her, his eyes enigmatic, 'It might help you to adjust.'
'It sounds delightful.' She carefully kept her tone neutral, not letting him
know she had recognised the specific words she'd used when making her
own stipulation. 'But a long way to go for just one week.'
'I suppose so,' he concurred absently. If he was disappointed by her lack of
enthusiasm he wasn't showing it. 'But when a colleague offered me the use
of his villa, the thought of all that sun, sea and solitude was too tempting to
turn down. I'd been thinking along the lines of asking Fiona if we could
borrow her cottage in Sussex, but I think we'd enjoy the island better.
Besides,' his eyes slanted a totally unreadable message, 'we could both use a
break in the sun. We'll leave in three days' time
give you some breathing space to settle into your new home.'
He was arranging everything with no recourse to her. Was his private
persona to be as dominant as his public one? She didn't know whether she
liked that idea. But the tiny frown between her eyes was eased away as rapid
calculations informed her that they would be back in London before her
fortnight's period of grace was up. And then, as if he knew every nuance of
her thoughts, every twist and turn of her brain, he added drily, 'To the world
at large it will appear as a brief and romantic honeymoon. You can regard it
simply as a lazy week in the sun.'
'You've picked yourself a great guy, and I should know! And I just know
you're going to be happy.' Fiona was the first to greet them when they
reached Slade House. 'Welcome to the family, poppet!'
Cleo was roundly kissed on both cheeks, and her hat slid further down over
her nose. Laughing, she took it off and tossed it on a nearby chair,
instinctively liking Jude's sister.
After retirement his parents had settled in New Zealand, so Jude had told
her, leaving Fiona as his only effective family. Cleo hadn't missed the pride
in his voice as he'd talked of his sister. She was lovely to look at,
strong-minded, and at thirty years of age she was still unmarried because she
preferred the uncomplicated single state, putting all her energies into her
nationwide string of boutiques.
'The Mescals don't take lightly to the state of matrimony,' Jude had
commented after giving Fiona's potted biography, and that had left Cleo
wondering why the Slade Securities shares had been important enough
tomake him finally plunge into the married state something he had
carefully avoided before.
The shares would be useful to him, but important? Well, fairly. That
important? Very unlikely unless there was something she had missed.
Later, she had come to the conclusion that she must have missed something.
Jude's brain was clever, quick, and, astute in City matters as she liked to
think she was, she knew that his grasp of financial affairs left her as far
behind as a snail trailing in the wake of a comet.
Granted, he had decided that the time had come to start a family, but he
could have had his pick of women only too eager to have his ring on their
wedding fingers. So those shares had to be far more important than she had
imagined. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]