Merger By Matrimony (13 page)

He touched her stomach, placed his hand palm-down on it, and then moved to caress the inside of her thigh.

From the depths of her excitement, Destiny knew
where his hand wanted to be. She wanted it too. Her body was melting, waiting for him. Through her jeans, he began to rub, cupping her while she squirmed against his hand. She felt him undo the button of her trousers, pull down the zipper, and terror made her stiffen.

She had never made love before and this wasn't how she was supposed to lose her virginity. She struggled under him and he looked at her.

‘What's the matter?'

‘I can't.' They were both still breathing heavily.

‘You can't?'

‘I'm sorry,' she said helplessly. ‘I…I've never…'

‘And I'll be gentle, my darling…'

‘No. You don't understand.' He had called her
his darling,
but she wasn't, was she? Cold reality gleefully resurfaced. She'd given herself, allowed him to do things, and she'd never stopped to ask herself why.
Why
the sudden physical interest in her? Well, she asked the question now and the answer came immediately. He was a man on the rebound, vulnerable and in need, and she'd been a willing and eager participant in easing his pain after Stephanie.

‘What? What don't I understand? I understand what you wanted up to a minute ago…'

‘This isn't right.' She wriggled, but he was already drawing back from her, sitting up, watching as she miserably fumbled with her bra, then shoved her shirt back on. Dishevelled, but at least clothed. In a manner of speaking.

‘Why not?' Callum demanded. ‘We're both adults.'

‘I can't just… Look, I'm sorry, but…I'm not a Stephanie substitute…'

‘I never accused you of being one!' he exploded; then he drew in a few sharp breaths and eyed her narrowly.

‘And I can't… I have to love someone… I'm not the kind of girl who… I realise that there's an awful lot I don't know, and I'm sure if I were a bit more sophisticated…who knows…? But I'm not, and I can't, and I want to go up to my room now. Please.'

‘Go ahead,' he said brusquely. ‘I'm not about to stop you. But your mother should have warned you about leading men on.'

His words echoed in her head as she finally made it to her bedroom, as did the sensation of his eyes on her back as she had fled in inelegant panic.

Want and lust were all very well, but they weren't enough. She needed stability and security and marriage and babies, and if that was old-fashioned, then it described it down to the last detail.

She lay down on the bed, buried her face in her pillow and knew that she would have to do something about what was happening to her. She could feel herself poised with one foot dangling over the cliff, and she couldn't fall over.

She needed to remind herself of what was real for her and there was only one person who could do that for her.

H
ENRI
arrived in England eight days later.

During the interim, Destiny immersed herself in the company, had daily meetings with various members of the board to discuss flow charts, saw Derek twice, had dinner with Stephanie several times and generally busied herself with anything and everything that could take her mind off Callum.

To a certain degree, it worked.

It was easier not to think of him when she was busy grappling with the complexities of profit and loss accounts and budgets which, even to her unskilled eyes, appeared horrendously optimistic. But the minute her mind wasn't occupied it slipped back to their lovemaking and, to the even more disastrous Sunday, when they had toured the grounds, keeping a measured distance between them and acting as though nothing had happened. He'd appeared to find that very easy to do. As he'd appeared to be relaxed around Stephanie. In fact, they had seemed more relaxed than when they'd been engaged. Maybe he had been trying to prove a point. The only point he'd ended up proving, through his silence, was that what had happened between them had been a regrettable inconvenience but not much more.

He'd only called her once since then, to find out whether she'd made any decisions about his offer, to which she'd responded with her rehearsed speech about needing a bit more time, needing to consult Derek and informing him that either she or her lawyer would be in
touch as soon as possible. It had been a brilliant five-minute exercise in concealment but she'd been shaking after the telephone call.

So, right now, she was banking on Henri to restore her perspective.

When it came to Callum Ross, she seemed to spend half her time banking on someone or something to restore her perspective. She was, she'd thought ruefully, fast becoming a cast member in one of life's soap operas.

Henri emerged into the open walkway along with the rest of the passengers from his flight, trailing his suitcase on a trolley and peering anxiously around to see if he could spot her.

Destiny felt a swell of fondness, waved and gesticulated and, when she had finally made her way over to him, gathered him in a hug.

‘You look different, Dessie,' he said, pushing her back to give her the once-over. ‘
Very smart.
Where's my little girl with the bright clothes and the scrubbed face?' He smiled warmly at her.

‘She's temporarily on leave,' Destiny said, speaking in Spanish because she was beginning to feel that her bright, shiny, complicated new life was making her lose touch with the things she had always taken for granted. ‘Tell me everything that's been happening on the compound. How's Dad? Has he sorted out his filing system as yet? And how's Martha and John?' She linked her arm fondly through his as they walked to the terminal exit.

She might have changed but dear Henri was still the same. Smaller and thinner than she remembered, but just as appealing, with his small round glasses and his engaging smile.

‘I'm really glad you made it over, Henri,' she told him, one hour later when they were standing in the hall of her
townhouse. ‘Really glad that you decided to use some of your leave here instead of Paris.'

‘The temptation to see little Destiny in surroundings other than a jungle was irresistible,' he said, looking around him with interest and then finally turning his attention to her. He was standing less than two feet away from her; their eyes were meeting, but she felt nothing but sisterly affection for the man whose flirting had once aroused the occasional romantic notion in her. It was nothing like what she felt when she was around Callum, the giddiness, the excitement, the feeling of
being alive.

‘And, besides, your father was worried about you,' he confessed.

‘Why?' she cried, alarmed. ‘Worried for what reason? Everything's going smoothly over here.'

‘But you still felt desperate enough to ask me to come over.'

‘I wasn't desperate. I wanted to see you. I'm not going to be here for ever and I thought it would be fun for us to see London together. That's all.'

‘Sure that's all there is to it?'

‘Pretty much,' Destiny mumbled, turning away towards the kitchen while he followed in her wake. ‘Do you fancy something to eat? A drink? How was the flight? Are you tired? I can show you up to your bedroom if you like.'

‘To answer your questions, no, yes, fine, yes and in a minute.'

But he was still curious about what was really going on with her. He allowed his curiosity to be reined in while they continued to chat about everything under the sun but the expression in his eyes when they rested on her was one of concern.

‘I've arranged for you to see the medical facilities of
the company,' she told him, as they headed up to the spare room that would be his. ‘I thought you might find it interesting.'

‘Not, I gather, that it'll be of much use if you go ahead and sell the company.'

‘I might not.' She drew his curtains, flicked her hand over the bedspread and averted her eyes. ‘I've had an offer, actually. By the same man who wanted to buy the company. Callum Ross. Have I mentioned him?'

‘Not even in passing since I came.'

‘No? Well, he's considering helping out financially in exchange for a house in the country I've also been willed.'

‘Let me get this right, Dessie… This man, whose name you've studiously avoided mentioning all evening, is proposing to pour millions into a company that's currently losing money in exchange for…a house?'

‘It's a big house.'

‘Sure it's just the house he wants in exchange?' There was teasing amusement in his voice. ‘Sure he doesn't want
you
thrown into the bargain?'

Destiny rounded on him with vigour, hands on hips, thunderous frown on her face. ‘No, he most certainly
does not want me thrown into the bargain!
That's an awful thing to say! He's
not my type
and I am very far from being
his!
In fact, the man's arrogant, bossy and pushy!'

Henri held up both his hands in mock surrender but his expression was shrewd. ‘Okay! I get the message! Arrogant, bossy and pushy! Just the type of man to get on the nerves of a determined, forceful woman with a mind of her own!'

‘Exactly.' She offered him a weak grin. ‘Anyway, he's just broken up from my stepcousin—or, should I say,
he's just been dumped by her, and not a minute too soon, as far as I'm concerned. Stephanie says it's like a weight being lifted from her shoulders, even though they're still friends.'

‘You seem to have become very involved in the lives of the rich and the beautiful, Dessie… Methinks the little chick is maturing…'

‘Shut up,' she laughed, ‘or I'll hit you over the head with the kettle!'

‘I'm cowering!'

‘Anyway, you'd better get some sleep now. Tomorrow there's no time for jet lag, not when you've only got ten days over here. I've got an itinerary planned as long as my arm and in the evening we're going to the theatre with my stepcousin. She's dying to meet you.'

‘Haven't been telling lies about me again, have you?' he joked. ‘Like the time we went to the city and you sent me to collect a shirt you'd bought. Do you remember? Me, standing there, with a flowered blouse in my hand, and you show up and explain to the sales girl that I can't help myself but that there's nothing wrong with men wearing women's clothing if it makes them happy?'

‘I was a kid at the time!'

‘A kid of nineteen!'

But they ended the evening on a warm note, despite some choppy waters in the middle. Any hint of a relationship with Callum other than a business one would fly back to her father at the speed of light, and then her father
would
be worried. He'd had a long and traditional marriage to his childhood sweetheart and the thought that his daughter might be having any kind of fling with a man he'd never met and whom she barely knew would send him into a frenzy of paternal protectiveness. He'd never said so in so many words, but she knew that Henri was
the sort of man her father would approve of for her. The very last would be the likes of Callum Ross.

Not, she thought, guiltily confused, that Callum Ross even entered the equation when it came to her private life. Really.

Of course,
studiously omitting to mention him
would arouse another burst of unhealthy curiosity, so she reluctantly dragged his name up a couple of times during the course of the next day, and was relieved when it was met with a casual air of indifference.

And the evening would be a doddle. They were meeting Stephanie at the theatre at six-thirty, well in time for the start of the play.

When she emerged at five forty-five in her glad rags, she was met with wolf whistles and a one-man round of wild applause.

‘Gorgeous, darling, fabulous,' Henri said in an affected voice, approaching her to kiss her hand. ‘Where does it all end? Can you tell me? Your father would be very proud!'

‘To see me decked out like a clown?' But she laughed at the appreciative gleam in his eyes. She might feel a little clownish, but she knew that she didn't resemble one. Not in the slightest. The wardrobe which she'd initially bought with tentative reluctance, and originally worn with awkward self-consciousness, had now expanded and included a number of dresses of which her first saleswoman would have heartily approved. No more craven concealment of her legs. No more functional, loose garments to cope with stifling heat.

Now, she was wearing a dark green straight dress, caught in at the waist and reaching her mid-calves. The neckline was off the shoulder and scooped low enough to expose the first hint of cleavage. And she was in heels,
something she'd never, ever worn in Panama. The heels meant that she was taller than her escort, and she wondered how she'd never noticed Henri's lack of stature before. She could see the top of his head and she had to resist the temptation to give him a quick pat.

They'd booked a taxi to take them to the theatre and they arrived to find no sign of Stephanie. In fact, there was no sign of her at all until they were seated, and then she chose to make her entrance with the panache of someone who thrived on attention. Not that you would ever think it, looking at her, because she approached their row with the vaguely lost and bewildered expression of someone not quite sure of their surroundings.

Destiny grinned wryly and could imagine how many men would be watching the beautiful brunette, wishing that they could leap to her assistance.

She turned to point her out to her companion, only to find him staring at Stephanie with an open-mouthed, befuddled expression. He watched, fascinated, as she made an apologetic fuss of having to make everyone in the row stand to allow her to pass, yet, mysteriously, was not so bothered by the disturbance as to hurry in the slightest.

Unlike Destiny's, Stephanie's dress was brief, and the palest of blue so that every inch of her small, supple body stood out in sharp contrast. The wavy hair had been tamed into perfect sleek straightness and flowed like silk around her face and over her shoulders, halfway down her back.

It was quite an entrance, Destiny thought with amusement, and if it was all part of the partner-searching game, then it was working, because Henri, once the introductions had been made, had been reduced to throat-clearing, speechless wonder.

‘Remember the play?' she was forced to whisper half
way through the performance, when she could yet again feel his head staring at the averted profile of the woman sitting to the right of Destiny.

‘You should have told me what she looked like,' he said in a responding whisper.

‘And you would have prepared yourself by…?'

‘Putting on some aftershave.'

‘You're wasted as a doctor, Henri. You should be writing sex manuals—especially if your key to mutual attraction can be summed up in one word,
aftershave.
'

‘Think of the money I could save all those poor men who spend their time buying flowers and chocolates.'

He fancied Stephanie. Frankly, any passing interest
they
might have had in one another had been, she suspected, the combination of their surroundings and a lack of basic choice when it came to members of the opposite sex. They understood each other and they liked one another, and occasionally that affection had manifested itself in a kiss and a cuddle, but she could see now that there had never been anything beyond that. She could feel him shifting restlessly next to her, responding to the woman on her other side, and there was no jealousy or envy, just amusement.

By the time the interval rolled round, it was a relief to get to the bar. At least there he would be able to talk to Stephanie instead of just breathing heavily and sneaking sidelong glances every three seconds.

But did he talk? Stephanie talked—talked with that animated, endearing eagerness that made her such a warm person. Destiny talked about how wonderful it was to be at the theatre for the first time, about the little plays she'd used to get her children at the school to do, dramatisations of the classics she had read over the years. But Henri could barely manage to piece together three
sentences without displaying all the signs of a man bowled over by the sight of a woman.

In the end, it was Stephanie and not Destiny who saved the situation.

‘I don't want to intrude on anything you two might have going…' She raised her eyebrows expressively at the both of them, and, while Destiny firmly denied any such thing, Henri stuttered out his version of the same. ‘But I'd really like to get to know you, Henri…' She lifted his spectacles gently and smiled at his confusion. ‘And this is utterly the wrong place. Too many people, too much going on…'

‘We can leave,' he said eagerly. ‘Go somewhere for a bite to eat…' In his haste, he slipped partially back into his native French and Stephanie looked delighted.