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“I’m so sorry, Mike—”
“I’m so sorry, Willow—”
They both spoke at the same time.
Willow frowned. “What are you apologizing for, Mike? I’m the one who left you standing at the altar. Was it awful?” she asked. “Did my mother have hysterics?”
“I don’t know, because I wasn’t there. I wasn’t there,” Mike repeated.
“What?” Her breath was coming in tiny little gasps as what he was saying finally sank in. “You did it too, didn’t you?” She felt almost dizzy with relief. “We both ran out on our wedding!”
Almost at the altar—will these nearlyweds become newlyweds?
Welcome to Nearlyweds, our brand-new miniseries featuring the ultimate romantic occasion—weddings! Yet these are no ordinary weddings: our beautiful brides and gorgeous grooms only nearly make it to the altar—before fate intervenes and the wedding’s…off!
But the story doesn’t end there…. Find out what happens in these tantalizingly emotional novels by some of your best-loved Harlequin Romance® authors over the coming months.
The Wedding Secret
by Janelle Denison
#3653
www.millsandboon.co.uk
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
PROLOGUE
‘DON’T go.’ Mike kept his arm around her, holding her close. ‘I love it when I wake up and you’re the first thing I see.’
Willow loved that, too. Loved waking with her cheek pressed against his chest, his arm around her, his corn-coloured hair flopping over his forehead. Loved him. And nestling against him in the dark, his kisses tempting her to stay put and damn the consequences made it hard to be strong.
Getting out of a warm bed to drive home late on a Sunday evening was not top of her ‘fun-to-do’ list, any more than it was Mike’s. Which was why she always found some pressing reason to drive to his place, rather than have him pick her up. With her own car parked outside, she didn’t have to make a big deal of it.
‘Sorry, sweetheart.’ She stirred, kissed him and then forced herself to get out of bed. ‘If I stay, I’ll have to get up at dawn and dash across town to change for work. Mondays are stressful enough, without that.’
‘You should bring a change of clothes with you.’ He propped himself up on an elbow and watched her. ‘Keep some stuff here. That’d beat the stress.’
It wasn’t the first time Mike had suggested this, but Willow was having none of it. She’d handled the toothbrush issue by buying a little travelling set, with a folding toothbrush and a mini tube of toothpaste, easily stored in her capacious shoulder bag, along with a clean pair of knickers and a spare pair of tights. She was a journalist, she reasoned, and had to be prepared for any eventuality. Even on a regional rag like the Chronicle.
Leaving clothes at his place was much more serious. The edges of their relationship would become blurred. She’d become too accessible. Before she knew it she’d be there more often than she was at home and he’d be taking her for granted. Expecting her to take on the routine domestic duties because she was there. Because she was female. She’d seen it happen a dozen times.
‘It wouldn’t help. I have to feed Rasputin and Fang.’ She grabbed his bathrobe and headed for the shower. Her two needy goldfish, won by Mike at a visiting fair, were worth their weight in fish food.
‘Bring the fish, too,’ he called after her. ‘I’ll build an extension and you can bring your entire collection of cuddly toys, if you like.’
‘When I’m here, sweetheart, I prefer to cuddle you.’ She turned on the shower and then peered around the bathroom door. ‘And an extension would look very peculiar on a second-floor flat.’
He swung himself out of bed, followed her into the bathroom, putting his hand into the water to check the temperature. ‘It’s the thought that counts.’
‘Is that right?’
‘You can even bring those horrible wind chimes with the tubes like a church organ.’ Then he said, ‘Move over. Or had you forgotten about the water-saving campaign you’re running in the paper?’ This was no way to get home before dawn, Willow thought. But she moved over, hoping to avoid too much tempting physical contact. ‘What more can I say?’ Mike asked, squeezing some gel into his palm, smoothing it over her back. A whole lot more, she thought, as his hands sapped her will to the point that she had to bite back a groan of pure pleasure. ‘Bring everything. Move in here with me.’ She held her breath, waiting, but he’d apparently finished. That was it.
She took a slightly shaky breath, turned to face him. ‘Why would I want to do that?’
He grinned. ‘Because I’m irresistible? Because you hate driving home in the middle of the night, and you’re too kind, too tender-hearted to get me out of bed to drive you myself?’
The water was slicking his skin, heating her up. ‘You’ve got that right.’
‘Come on. It’ll be fun. We can do this all the time.’ And he gathered her close, the water cascading over them as he kissed her in a prelude to showing her exactly how much fun it would be.
He was right. He was irresistible. But on this subject she was unshakeable. When he lifted his head, waggled his eyebrows at her, apparently in no doubt as to her answer, she simply sighed and reached for a towel. He wasn’t going to allow her to change the subject, not without some explanation. It was time to explain her philosophy on the ‘living together’ issue.
‘Hey,’ he complained as she stepped out of the shower stall. ‘When I said we should save water, I wasn’t thinking drought conditions…’
‘Mike, listen to me.’ The tone of her voice finally got through and the grin slipped from his face. He turned off the water, listening. It would help if he wrapped a towel round his waist… ‘Darling, you’ve met my cousin—’
‘Crysse? Nice girl. Not a patch on you, but—’
‘And you know that Crysse lives with her boyfriend, Sean.’
‘People do that these days,’ he said, his hands on her shoulders, serious now. Concentration was getting harder by the minute. ‘Move in with me. I promise you, no one is going to throw stones at you in the street…’ And he kissed her again, moving her gently, but inexorably back towards the bed. It would be so easy to say yes. She wanted to say yes…
Mike’s grin was firmly back in place, his grey eyes gleaming with the prospect of success. He clearly thought his case unanswerable.
‘No! Listen!’ She dug in her heels. Literally and metaphorically. ‘Before they lived together, Sean used to take Crysse out all the time. Make a real fuss of her. Every Friday night they went to the cinema, or the theatre. On Saturday they’d go out for the day, or have a meal out at a nice restaurant. On Sunday, he cooked her breakfast and brought it to her in bed. They stayed there most of the day and talked about what they’d do when they were married. How many kids they’d have. Dreaming, you know?’
‘Isn’t that what we do?’ He shrugged. ‘Maybe we haven’t got around to discussing the number of off-spring, but breakfast in bed is a good start. I’ll bring you breakfast tomorrow—’
‘Then he suggested they move in together.’
‘Do it tomorrow. I’ll make you breakfast in bed for the rest of your life.’
‘That’s what Sean said. Crysse was so excited. She sold her flat, redecorated his…’
‘I’m beginning to get the uneasy feeling that this story doesn’t have a happy ending.’
‘That depends on your point of view,’ she said. ‘Sean’s happy. He goes out with his mates on Friday while Crysse, after a hard week attempting to drill the rudiments of mathematics into thirty twelve-year olds, cleans the flat they “share”.’ She made little quote marks to indicate her doubts about the sharing part. ‘These days the highlight of Saturday is a trip to the supermarket while he plays football, or cricket, or whatever other macho pursuit happens to be in season. And on Sunday she takes him breakfast in bed, where he stays until lunch-time to recover from his exertions on the sports field.’
‘And Crysse?’
‘Crysse gets on with the ironing. His as well as hers.’
‘She should take a break for a while. Let him see what he’s missing. She could move into your flat—’
‘It doesn’t work like that, Mike. What happens is that, while Crysse is proving that she’s indispensable to Sean’s well-being, some other girl comes along and sees this poor suffering man with no one to iron his shirts for him. It’s practically irresistible and she’ll come over all motherly. She’ll cook and iron and this time, having learned his lesson, Sean will fall over himself to make it permanent.’
He looked at her for a moment, and there was no trace of a smile as he absorbed the message. ‘I take it that’s a definite no, then?’
‘It’s nothing personal. If I was the moving-in kind of girl, there’s no one I’d rather move in with than you. But I like my life—’
‘And if I make it personal?’
‘Please, Mike.’ She made a move to collect her clothes, but he blocked her way. ‘It’s late.’
He remained very still. ‘And if I make it personal?’ he repeated.
The mood in the flat had changed. Suddenly it was far too intense and Willow felt as if she was balancing on the edge of a precipice that five minutes ago hadn’t existed. Her heart flared in panic, she didn’t want to lose Mike. She loved him. But before she surrendered the life she had, a life she enjoyed, she had to know he loved her, too. Loved her enough to make a total commitment. No compromise.
‘Move in or we break up?’ she asked. ‘Is that what you’re saying?’
‘No, angel.’ He reached out, cradled her cheek for a moment, then raked his fingers through her short dark curls, holding them back from her forehead so that her face was entirely revealed. ‘What I’m saying… What I’m asking…’ He seemed to hesitate, consider his words carefully. ‘I want you to live with me, Willow Blake. To have you beside me every morning when I wake. To hold you every night as I fall asleep. I guess what I’m saying is, I’m not prepared to risk making Sean’s mistake with you. So, how soon can we get married?’
CHAPTER ONE
‘I NEED an answer today, Miss Blake, or I can’t guarantee—’
‘You’ll have one!’ Willow rang off, then instantly regretted her short temper. It wasn’t the builder’s fault that she couldn’t make up her mind about the cupboards for her new kitchen. That she didn’t care a fig for her new kitchen. It was the kitchen out of her worst nightmares, one in which she would be expected to cook three meals a day. Just like her mother…
Why on earth had she ever said she’d marry Mike? Why couldn’t she have just moved in with him and settled down to uncomplicated domesticity like her cousin? Crysse was happy, wasn’t she? Ironing a few shirts for Mike would have been a lot simpler than living through her mother’s idea of the perfect wedding and Mike’s father’s idea of the perfect house.
It was as if their lives had been taken over by aliens.
Perfectly amiable aliens maybe, but aliens who, in their excitement, their desire to help, had accidentally switched off their ‘listening’ button. And had clearly never had any kind of grasp of the word ‘simple’.
For Willow, a simple wedding conjured up visions of a small country church, a dress from the local bridal shop, standard grey morning suits all round for the men, two bridesmaids. Two grown-up bridesmaids who could be relied upon not to eat their posies, burst into tears, or worse. A simple reception.
Her mother’s version of simple involved Melchester Cathedral, scrubbed choirboys in starched-white surplices, massed bell-ringers and a full-scale posse of bridesmaids and page-boys. Add in enough flowers and ribbon to keep a florist in business for a year…
Then there was the reception.
No. She was stressed enough, she absolutely refused to contemplate the reception. Or the vast edifice of the confectioner’s art that was her wedding cake. Forget simple. From Willow’s perspective her life appeared to be attracting complications in the manner of a magnet confronted with a open box of iron filings.
And the wedding was just the visible, outward sign of ‘complicated’. Liveable with. Just. Real complications came in small, less obvious packages. Long white envelopes with the logo of a national newspaper in the corner.
If life was simple, she’d phone the telephone number on the letter in her bag, say, thanks, but no thanks. She was no longer available. They’d left it too late to offer her the job of her dreams. She was getting married on Saturday. She’d phone and she’d say all that and she wouldn’t be able to stop herself from grinning while she said it. But she kept putting it off.
Which was why it was so complicated.
‘Are you all right, Willow?’
‘What?’ She started, realising that Emily Wootton was staring at her with concern. ‘Oh, yes. It’s nothing.’ And she lifted her shoulders in what she hoped was a convincing shrug. ‘I’m getting married on Saturday—’
‘Really?’ The older woman smiled. ‘How lovely.’
Willow had her doubts. ‘I’m sure everyone else will enjoy themselves. I’m just looking forward to next week when I’ll be on a beach in St Lucia and the last few weeks will be nothing but a blur.’ She made a big effort at a smile. ‘You were telling me about these cottages the Trust has been given by the Kavanaghs?’ she invited, before she broke down and poured out her misgivings to a woman she’d only met a couple of times. But who else was there? No one who knew Mike and had seen the house, could be expected to understand; she didn’t understand herself. If she could just go back to the night he’d proposed, hear him say it again. Convince herself that he really meant it. He’d seemed so distracted lately… ‘You need money to convert them into a holiday home for deprived children, is that it?’
‘No, that’s all done. All that’s left is the decorating and we’re looking for volunteers to help out.’ She grinned. ‘I don’t suppose I can tempt you to change your honeymoon plans? I mean who really wants to go to the West Indies?’ A great fat tear escaped and slid down Willow’s cheek. ‘Willow?’ She wanted to put her head down on her desk and howl. ‘Willow, dear, is there anything I can do?’
‘No.’ She sniffed, searching her pocket for a tissue. ‘It’s just pre-wedding nerves.’ Probably. Pre-wedding nerves and the strain of trying very hard not to let anyone see that she’d fallen in hate at first sight with the house Mike’s parents had bought for them as a wedding present. A huge red-brick edifice with five bedrooms, three bathrooms and half an acre of landscaped garden that would take every minute she could spare from cooking and dusting to keep it from reverting to wilderness.
She and Mike hadn’t come to any decision about where they’d live. His flat or hers. They were both convenient, easy to run, perfect for a busy couple. Then—whammy. An invitation to lunch from Mike’s parents at a country pub with a route that just happened to bypass the house from hell. The kind of house that needed a full-time wife, not a woman with a life of her own and a career that was about to take off into the stratosphere. Or would be, if she wasn’t getting married.
It was becoming clear that as Mike’s wife she wouldn’t have a life of her own.
No more Willow Blake. She’d be Mrs Michael Armstrong, consort to Michael Armstrong, newspaper proprietor. In the fullness of time she’d become mother to the statutory two-point-four children, with a busy life as a champion of local good causes and all-round pillar-of-the-community. In ten years she’d have turned into every woman’s worst nightmare, a carbon copy of her mother.
Oh, she’d carry on working for a while—quietly shunted off into the more ladylike stuff, the WI meetings, the garden club, local celebrities. Just until the babies came along. That house demanded babies to fill its echoing spaces. Mike’s father was already referring to bedroom number two as ‘the nursery’. As if the Peter Rabbit decor wasn’t enough of a hint.
As for Mike, well she didn’t know what he was thinking any more. Suddenly he was more distant than the Khyber Pass.
Which was why the letter offering her the job of her dreams was still in her bag, still unanswered. A lifeline.
‘It’s, er, rather a big house, Mike. Not quite your usual style. A bit different from the hayloft,’ Cal pressed anxiously.
‘That depends on your view of big.’ Michael Armstrong was eager to cut off any discussion about what his usual style entailed. Cal was his oldest friend, his best man, and he knew him far too well to be easily fooled. ‘Willow was brought up in a ten-bedroom mansion.’
Mike had been working up to taking her to Maybridge, gauging her reaction to an alternative lifestyle; her excitement over the house had made him realise that it was going to be a non-starter.
‘Right. Well, I suppose if you’re both happy with it, that’s all that matters.’ Cal clearly wasn’t convinced, but let it drop. ‘When are you supposed to be moving in?’
Mike dragged himself back from some place where he wasn’t expected to live to this monstrosity of a house which his father, with all his plans apparently about to be fulfilled, had sprung on them as a wedding present. There had been no prior consultation because his father had known what his answer would be. The cunning old fox had relied on Willow to do his dirty work for him. And since she’d clearly loved the place, he’d choked back the ‘thanks, but no thanks’. There was no way he could refuse it.
Realising that Cal was regarding him with a look that suggested his face was betraying his innermost thoughts, Mike quickly answered, ‘The house is supposed to be ready when we get back from honeymoon.’
‘You don’t sound…’ his friend hesitated as he sought for the appropriate word ‘…optimistic.’ Mike ignored the underlying invitation to say what he really felt and kept quiet. ‘Ookaaay.’ Cal stretched out the vowels in acknowledgement that, as a topic of conversation, it was going no further. ‘I’m sure you and Willow can live without carpet for a week or two. And there’s no hurry to furnish the nursery,’ he added, in an attempt to lighten the atmosphere, gesturing at the giveaway decor of the second bedroom. ‘Unless there’s something you’re not telling me? It would certainly explain the prodigal’s unexpected return to the fold—’
‘My father’s trip to intensive care provoked my return,’ Mike declared. ‘It was never my intention to stay in Melchester.’
‘Until you met Willow.’ Until he met Willow. ‘Does she know how you feel about stepping into your father’s shoes? I only ask because when we were having a drink last week, I got the distinct impression that she thinks you’re taking the fast route to businessman of the year.’ He waited. ‘That you’ve got accountants’ ink running through your veins.’ Then he added, ‘She doesn’t know about Maybridge, does she? You haven’t told her.’
‘Mind your own business, Cal.’
‘I’m your best man. This is my business.’
‘You’ve met her. She’s old money, centuries-deep breeding.’ Mike’s gesture conveyed unspoken volumes. ‘She was simply marking time, doing the social stuff at the newspaper until one of the local chinless wonders invited her to become his Lady Chinless Wonder and breed little chinless wonders.’
‘Excuse me? Have you actually read any of the stuff she writes? Listened—’
‘I have to live with the Chronicle, Cal. I’m not prepared to sleep with it.’ He held up his hands. ‘Okay, okay. If there was a prize for writing up the gardening club’s committee meeting I’m sure she’d get it. But you can understand why I haven’t suggested she move in over my workshop in Maybridge and live off what I make with my hands.’
‘What you wouldn’t do for your father, you’ll do for love? In your shoes, I have to admit I’d do the same.’ He looked around, then grinned. ‘Maybe the nursery should be a priority after all.’
‘This is my father’s idea of a subtle hint. He could give a steam hammer lessons.’
‘The heart attack hasn’t slowed him down?’
‘Heart attack? I’m beginning to suspect that it was nothing more serious than a bad bout of indigestion.’ But it had done the trick. Brought him racing home, full of guilt, to take over managing the Chronicle and its sister magazine, the Country Chronicle while his mother took the old man on holiday. A long holiday. He should have run then, smelt a rat the moment his holiday-hating father hadn’t objected to a six-week cruise. ‘I don’t know. Maybe I’m just being cynical. Whatever, it’s reminded him of his own mortality.’ He gestured at the wallpaper. ‘Hence the rabbits.’
‘That’s it? No other problems?’
Mike dragged his fingers through his hair. ‘Well, I have to get my hair cut before Saturday,’ he said, making a determined effort to shake off a sense of doom.
He loved Willow. She’d been the one bright spark in the darkness when he’d been forced to come home, take up the reins of the family business while his father convalesced.
He’d walked into the office that first morning, his mood as black as the Chronicle’s headlines when she’d cannoned into him, her belongings scattering across the floor. She’d dived after her phone to check that it wasn’t damaged before rounding on him with a sharp, ‘Why don’t you look where you’re going?’
About to put her right about who hadn’t been looking, he’d caught his breath and there had a been a small, still moment when everything, including his heart, had seemed to stop. Then she’d grinned and said, ‘Oops. Bad mistake. Memo to brain. Don’t yell at your new boss until you’ve been properly introduced.’ When he’d continued to stare at her, his tongue apparently stuck to the roof of his mouth, she’d added, ‘You are Michael Armstrong? There’s a photograph of you on your father’s desk—’
‘It’s Mike,’ he’d said. ‘And I’m not the boss. Just standing in his shoes for a couple of weeks.’
‘Oh well, hello, Mike.’ She’d stuck out her hand. ‘I’m Willow Blake.’ Then she’d given a little yelp. ‘And I’m late.’ And then he’d been watching her run for her car with a smile on his face that would have given the Cheshire cat an inferiority complex.
He hadn’t intended more than a flirtation. A brief dalliance. Nothing heavy, nothing serious. She’d taken some catching, had kept him at arm’s length for longer than he was used to. The chase had been fun, though, and catching her had been…well…as if he’d found something he hadn’t known he’d been missing. But he’d pursued her as Michael Armstrong, acting head of the company she worked for. She was a class act and he’d needed every advantage he could use to stack the scales in his favour.
And when he’d caught her there didn’t seem to be any particular hurry to explain that this was just a temporary persona. Then he’d asked her to marry him.
And had meant it.
Her slightly stunned ‘yes’, had left him wanting to shout stop the presses…reset the front page…I’ve got some real news…—drowning out the small warning voice telling him that she thought she was getting the heir to a publishing empire. Not a man who, in his real life, lived in the old hayloft above what had once been a coach house and stables. Above his workshop where he lived an entirely different dream.
Could it be that he was afraid she wouldn’t want the real Michael Armstrong? Was that why he’d put off telling her?
Once his father had driven them out to the house, handed them the estate agent’s glossy brochure, gift-wrapped, it had been too late.