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He stopped in his tracks and jerked her around to face him. ‘I didn’t think you liked insincere compliments?’
‘I’m not too keen on insults either.’
‘I have my professional pride to consider,’ he told her gravely. ‘I would appreciate a little co-operation. Unless you relish the role of early Christian martyr?’
This question made her bite her lip. He was right, of course. She had to act a part in order to salvage her battered pride. ‘I’m not a professional,’ she reminded him. ‘And I find it strange...your being a total stranger.’
‘Live your part, Georgina; we’re a hot item,’ he contradicted her. His lips brushed hers, gently, but with a confident familiarity. ‘I thought all girls could fake it?’ His lips quirked in a deeply cynical smile.
‘I’m sure the girls you know can,’ she responded acidly. ‘Do you think you could limit that sort of authenticity to the basic minimum?’ she added, drawing away, her colour noticeably heightened. She summoned a distracted but brilliant smile for the usher, a boy she’d known since school.
‘Georgie?’ he said, a note of doubt in his voice. He flushed as she gave him a quizzical look, and continued hurriedly, ‘Bride or groom? Silly question; you’d hardly be with the groom, would you?’ The expression of ludicrous dismay that spread over his face made Georgina feel almost sympathetic.
‘We’ll find our own way, thank you, Jim,’ she said crisply, sweeping past him. ‘That’s my mother,’ she said to the man beside her in a hushed undertone as they entered the dim, ecclesiastical atmosphere of the old building. She nodded in the general direction of one of the front pews.
‘Pink hat?’ Callum had bent his head to catch her hissed words.
Georgina nodded. ‘We’ll clash marvellously; she’ll be furious,’ she observed fatalistically. ‘I should have known; Mother’s a pink sort of person.’ She led him selfconsciously to the front of the church.
‘Georgie, what possessed you to wear pink with your hair?’ Lydia Campion was a beautiful woman whose stern features had been softened by the years. As always she looked stunningly elegant. Georgina knew she could never achieve that degree of polish—the lie of the silk scarf, the tilt of the chin. To Lydia it was as simple as breathing; to her it took hours of painstaking consideration, and even then she was only halfway there.
Georgina shot her companion a tiny I-told-you-so look, before sitting down on the pew.
‘Mrs Campion, I have to take full responsibility for the outfit. Georgina was humouring me.’
The look of shock on her mother’s face as Callum, all eighteen-carat charm and charisma, bent forward across her and extended his hand made Georgina, despite the gravity of her situation, want to giggle. This was not the type of man her mother or anyone else expected good old Georgie to be with. For the first time since she’d seen Callum Smith she felt that her decision to employ a little face-saving artifice had been justified. Might as well utilise his slightly dangerous air for what it was worth. She was the only one to know how fake the glamour was.
‘He’s colour-blind,’ Georgina added with a faint quiver in her voice.
This frivolous comment earned her a swift frown from her parents. ‘Who is this, Georgina? Where are your manners?’
‘This is Callum Sm—’
‘Delighted to meet you, Mrs Campion.’
‘Do call me Lydia. You’re a friend of Georgie’s? She is so secretive.’
‘A little more than that, eh, sweetheart?’ Callum’s impossibly deep blue gaze was fixed on her face with teasing affection. The warm, rich, bitter-chocolate tones just hinted at unspoken intimacies. He was so incredibly convincing that she found herself blushing deeply.
At that moment a figure on the periphery of her vision rose from the row of pews just opposite her. Her head turned as if pulled by invisible strings and her stomach muscles clenched painfully.
The first time she’d seen him she’d been blind to everything else, but now she was uncomfortably conscious of the man beside her. Disturbingly she wanted to turn her head and look at him. The memory of the fleeting sensation she’d experienced when she’d first seen him washed over her. Had Alex ever made her feel like that? What a ridiculous time to admit how physically attractive she found her escort, she told herself crossly.
Alex was an extremely good-looking young man, tallish, athletic. His features were regular, his expression sincere and forthright. The teeth were standard toothpaste-advert stuff and his naturally blond hair was highlighted with exquisite restraint.
The loss and bitterness she felt were suddenly physical. When Alex’s eyes passed over her without any sign of recognition she didn’t know whether to be glad or devastated. The city gloss she’d worked hard to achieve obviously worked. Pity she was still the same girl underneath the expensive clothes and make-up.
The large hand that suddenly clasped her jaw woke her from the short, intense abstraction. As her head turned life flowed back into her body, and it hurt, like icy fingers when the circulation in them began to move once more. ‘I take exception when a woman with me looks at another man like a drooling idiot.’ Low, conversational, his words made her blink. His face had come in close, the whole incident having the appearance of intimacy.
‘How dare you?’ she spat. The arrogance of the man was breathtaking. ‘So long as you’re paid, it’s no concern of yours what I do. Don’t get carried away with your role,’ she advised tartly. She felt humiliated at being caught out in the sort of behaviour she’d sworn to herself she’d not indulge in. Her anger, perfectly logically, was aimed at the only person who’d noticed her momentary weakness and who had had the tasteless effrontery to mention the fact.
‘It’s a waste of time to spend money on a love-struck swain if you behave with the discretion of an adolescent. Why should I waste my time and effort to act the lover if you aren’t going to co-operate?’
She was instantly stung by the insinuation that to act the lover required a vast amount of effort. ‘Because you’re being paid to do so,’ she hissed venomously. ‘So save the temperament. What are you anyway—an out-of-work actor? If you must know, you aren’t at all what I wanted. I require an escort, not a soul mate, so stop working so hard. Unless you’re an excellent liar you’ll end up making fools of us both. My mother’s interrogation techniques are honed to perfection,’ she told him drily, aware of the sharp eyes watching their every move.
He gave a snort. ‘If that—’ he jerked his head in the direction of the groom ‘—is your taste, I find it easy to believe I’m not what the doctor ordered. Take a dummy from the average shop window and you could have a facsimile of your perfect mate.’ The curl of his lip was openly derisory.
Her bosom swelled with outrage. ‘How dare you?’ The long-entrenched habit of thinking Alex encapsulated masculine perfection made her eyes flash.
‘Without any great effort,’ he murmured with casual, almost bored provocation. ‘You do keep saying that, or hadn’t you noticed? Repetition is a sign of a limited intellect, so I’ve heard.’
‘Do they employ many intellectual giants at the escort agency?’ she was pushed into responding sarcastically.
‘One for every snobbish client.’
Absurdly she felt suddenly apprehensive; there was something about the softness in his voice and the contrasting hardness in his deceptively guileless eyes Mentally she shook herself for having such fanciful thoughts. After today she would never have to see this man again; he had no influence upon her life. Still, he did have a point she would have to pull herself together if she was going to convince anyone she was totally heart-whole and leading a completely satisfying life.
Which, of course, she was. She had a stimulating career as a personal assistant in an advertising agency. A frown furrowed her wide, smooth brow as she thought of the man who had, up until recently, been her boss. Oliver Mallory, the infamous hand that had guided the well-known firm to its present place as one of the top six advertising agencies in the country. She had been his protégée and he had been her friend. Oliver had built the agency up from nothing and now he was gone. Though this left her own position uncertain, it was genuine sadness at the loss of the dear old reprobate that made her sigh.
She had everything she had wanted—a career, a flat of her own, independence, good friends, freedom—but without a man at her side she knew that her friends and relations would see only a jilted woman. The widely held conviction that a woman needed a man for fulfilment was one she personally detested. She had seen her own mother go through a series of temporary affairs of the heart, each one leaving her a little more desperate and lonely than the last. Her own recent experience of loss had made her determined never to repeat it.
‘Do you mind taking your hands off me?’ she said, raising her lowered eyes to the face of the man who was, given the time and place, in socially unacceptable proximity to her.
The hand that had captured her attention still lay along the line of her jaw; the tips of his fingers were burrowed into her hairline. His bent head was level with her own, close enough for her to be able to admire the texture of his bronzed skin, smell the masculine fragrance that drifted from him.
One of his fingers worked its way around a stray lock of hair that had escaped the confines of her wildly expensive headgear. The expression in his heavy-lidded, shadowed eyes as they watched the temporary corkscrew effect of his casual labour was absurdly riveting. Also the hard thigh pressed against her own on the wooden seat was distracting—unpleasantly so, she told herself, frowning as a pack of butterflies ran riot in the pit of her stomach.
The familiar strains of the Bridal March issued forth from the organ and, heart thudding, she pulled free, giving her escort a cold, dismissive look, as much to convince herself that he had nothing to do with the adrenaline surge that sent her heart against her ribcage as anything else. At a time like this she couldn’t possibly spare a second thought for anything but the main event.
The bride was tiresomely lovely, her responses clear and resonant. It was the groom who sounded less than his usual confident self. Georgina waited for the humiliation of the occasion to hit her, but with a sense of anticlimax she realised that she was able to view the whole ceremony with detachment. It was like watching a scene of a play she felt totally uninvolved.
Outside the sun did its duty and the guests huddled together whilst photographs were taken. Her lips curled in a cynical smile, Georgina watched her mother speaking with some animation to a distinguished-looking man she didn’t recognise. She kept her chin high and replied cheerfully to greetings from familiar faces, who looked at the tall figure at her side with varying degrees of curiosity, tinged in some cases, she was amused to see, with envy. Well, it was infinitely preferable to pity, she told herself.
‘Why did he ditch you?’
‘That’s an extremely insensitive question,’ she observed, stiffening. Her paid company was watching the proceedings with an air of impatient boredom.
’I’ve never been one to indulge maudlin self-pity.’
‘Or one to keep your opinions to yourself, it would seem.’
‘Just displaying a friendly interest.’
‘Just fishing for the salacious details, more like.’
The thick dark brows shot towards his hairline. ‘Salacious? I was just trying to make conversation, but now I’m really interested.’ The gleam of humour in his eyes was faintly malicious.
‘Actually, it was all very civilised. I went to London to do a business-studies course. We weren’t engaged or anything,’ she said with a detached smile, skimming sketchily over an emotional blow that had devastated her.
‘Everyone, including you, expected marriage,’ he observed shrewdly.
It was peculiar, but his neutral cynicism was much easier to cope with than the understanding sympathy that had been doled out to her at the time. ‘There was an understanding,’ she agreed, switching her weight from one foot to the other and checking who was within hearing distance. It would never do to have this conversation overheard.
She’d agreed that a ring was an extravagance when she and Alex were saving so assiduously. Strange how Harriet had managed to get a serious diamond on her finger in record time, she thought cynically. That was probably why Alex had exchanged his racy coupé for a more sedate saloon. Harriet was worth the sacrifice, it would seem.
‘Did you put up much of a fight? Or had you already got someone more interesting lined up? That can’t have been difficult,’ Callum said, his mind returning to this girl’s relationship with his uncle. Her rather full lips had drooped slightly. For someone who gave off such an air of wholesome sexiness her mouth was altogether more...sensual. A more accurate indication of her character? he wondered. Had her unorthodox manner of promotion been the bone of contention between lovers?
‘No man is worth fighting for,’ she replied, her tone ringing with grim conviction.
Callum caught her arm and swung her out of the path of a gaggle of small pages and bridesmaids. ‘Isn’t that a rather sweeping statement?’
‘I prefer comprehensive and accurate.’ The arm casually draped around her waist showed no inclination to shift. Rather than make herself conspicuous, she let it stay there. She hoped her attitude showed him how totally oblivious to the near proximity she was.
‘After getting your fingers burnt once?’ he said incredulously. ‘Or am I to infer you have a more chequered past than that?’
His cynical, knowing expression made her long to throttle him. ‘I know you’re bored, but I’m not about to enliven your afternoon with any juicy stories. My mother will track you down any moment and extract your vital juices,’ she said darkly and with some relish. Some people deserved her mother.
It was irritating to have to raise her chin to look into his face. Alex was just the perfect height—especially when he’d kissed her, she recalled wistfully. What would it be like to be kissed by this man? Dry-mouthed, she allowed the thought to crystallise with clarity in her head. Swallowing with difficulty, she killed this frivolous piece of speculation and lowered her eyes, which might be less obedient than her brain.
‘She seems occupied at present,’ Callum observed, glancing towards the spot where Lydia stood with the middle-aged guest.
‘Predictably so.’ Her mother was laughing—a low, husky sound that grated on Georgina’s frayed nerves.
‘Do I detect criticism from the daughter? Ought you not to have grown out of the desire to view your parent as a sexless entity? I take it your father is no longer around?’
She wriggled her hips decisively and his hands intuitively fell away from her waist. Where did he get off analysing and criticising her?
‘For your information my father has never been around—at least, not since I was born. He walked out on her, unable to take the strain of domesticity,’ she drawled sarcastically. ‘But Mother never gives up. Her life is not complete without a man on her arm and in her bed. In a place like this the fact doesn’t pass without comment. But they all slip away eventually. Like mother, like daughter—we obviously can’t hold our men—’ Breathing hard, she stopped abruptly and bit hard on her trembling lip, appalled at what she’d just said to a total stranger.
The unvarnished distress emanating from her was unsettling to Callum. He quashed any chivalrous instincts. He wasn’t about to let sentiment interfere with his original reason for seeking out Miss Campion. ‘Are you going to faint?’ He tried to sound unalarmed at the prospect but the violent fluctuation of her colour made him suspect the worst.
The grin was sudden and surprising, full of self-mockery and quite unintentionally charming. ‘Throw up, more likely,’ she said frankly. ‘But don’t worry; it’s passed. I’d be grateful if you’d forget what I just said.’
He met the direct, almost green stare squarely. ‘Your hang-ups are your business, lady,’ he drawled, his accent slightly more pronounced than usual. He touched his forehead as if saluting. The casual elegant gesture had none of the military about it.
Her lips tightened. ‘How do you manage to make everything you say sound like a judgement? Does it ever occur to you you’re in the wrong line of work? A charming, relaxing companion was what I was promised... Instead I got the Grand Inquisitor.’
‘If you’re not satisfied you can always complain. I’ll probably lose my job.’ The sigh was stoical. ‘But don’t let that deter you; we live in a consumer society. There’s no place for sentiment.’
She had to grin; he did ‘meek’ rather well. ‘Just try and look pretty and don’t say too much,’ she advised.
‘Sexist,’ he mumbled as they were ushered into a photo line-up.
The top table was not where she’d hoped to find herself placed. She scented Cousin Harriet’s hand in this arrangement; she always had been less than generous in victory. A great believer in salt rubbed firmly in the wound, our dear Harriet. Still, if she sat far enough back in her seat the depth of Callum’s impressive torso gave her some defence from the sight of the happy couple. The voices were not so easy to block out.
She’d wasted her breath telling Callum to keep his mouth in a strait-jacket. He’d been in earnest conversation with her uncle George for the past ten minutes. She couldn’t catch everything they were saying, but financial terms kept drifting in her direction. He might be a good con artist but her uncle made a very successful living as a financial advisor and it was only a matter of time before he discovered that Callum didn’t know what he was talking about.
She picked worriedly at her fish and drank her wine faster than was advisable on an empty stomach. One ear on an elderly relative on her left, she tried to hear what Callum was saying in his rather deep voice, waiting for her uncle’s respectful expression to turn to scorn.
Callum intercepted her sidelong glance and winked, his expression not changing as he continued to expand on his subject.
Angrily she accepted the wine waiter’s solicitous offer of a refill and swigged it back with scant regard for an expensive vintage. He’d laugh on the other side of his face when she spoke to the agency, she thought militantly. It might be a joke to him... A lump of self-pity rose in her throat as Harriet’s laughter made her teeth clench.
‘Callum, dar-r-rling,’ she purred. Her nails made inroads into the hand she affectionately covered on the damask tablecloth. ‘You really mustn’t talk business. You promised,’ she added, her eyes flashing warnings. If it hurt he managed to disguise the fact remarkably well.
With a flash of white teeth he picked up her claw-like hand and pressed it, open-palmed, to his lips. The gesture was more erotic than courtly.
Her eyes were caught in the bold, mocking glare of his regard. The explosion of heat that flooded across her skin must have been evident to him; it was a response that appalled and disgusted her, a physical thing over which she had no control. The confusion of churning sensations in her belly was profoundly basic and instinctual and she was ashamed of being susceptible to the brazen sexuality of this man. The wine obviously had a good deal to do with this uninhibited response.
‘Are you feeling neglected, angel?’ The dark brows lifted, but she could see the acknowledgement in his eyes of her helpless, angry response. ‘That will never do,’ he murmured huskily, and he let his lips move once more over her hand.
If she could have, she’d have climbed out of her skin. Her nerve-endings were on fire, screaming. Dry-mouthed, she shifted in her seat fretfully.
Uncle George regarded them indulgently. ‘My fault, Georgie, dear. You’ve got a sound man there,’ he said approvingly.
This unexpected recommendation made Georgina’s fuming silence lengthen. Her uncle was not the sort of man who threw compliments around lightly. ‘You always were a sterling judge of character, Uncle George,’ she said drily. The man she loved was barely feet from her and here she was, suffering contemptible, primitive responses to a stranger. It was morally indefensible; worse still, she hadn’t had the sense to hide it.
‘Will you behave?’ she said in a furious undertone as she pulled her hand free.
‘In what particular way did you have in mind?’ he enquired with interest. He winced as girlish laughter rang out once more. ‘You know, I think you should pity that stuffed shirt of yours. He’ll have to live with that laugh for the rest of his natural. Always supposing things last that long.’
‘I wish them all the best,’ she observed primly.
‘Lying little hypocrite,’ he said conversationally. He swirled the liquid in his glass around but didn’t lift it to his lips. ‘Like all females you’re a vindictive little beast who can’t wait to see the man grovel at your feet.’
‘I can well believe the females in your life feel that way,’ she responded tartly. She had rehearsed the tender scene of Alex turning up begging her forgiveness once too often to look him directly in the eye. ‘I don’t find the role of plucky little victim to my taste; that’s the only reason you’re here. I have no wish to make Alex jealous, which, considering what I got for my money, is just as well.’
The deep blue eyes narrowed to slits and his lips twisted with scornful amusement. ‘You’re comparing me unfavourably to that?’ he said with a scornful lift of his shoulders and a flickering glance in Alex’s direction.
‘You really do think a lot of yourself, don’t you?’
‘My self-esteem was fairly healthy last time I looked,’ he agreed.
‘If I had a large pin I’d like to deflate it,’ she murmured longingly. ‘Only I’d call it ego.’
‘Your nose was never constructed to be looked down, sweetheart.’
‘I’m well aware of my physical deficiencies, thank you!’ she replied tartly. With a mother who was an acknowledged beauty she couldn’t help but be. Her nose was unremarkable, her mouth too big. She gave a small sigh. People who were obsessed with their appearance often neglected their personality, or so she often found—if they had any at all. She wasn’t about to fall into that trap.
‘I wouldn’t say it’s a deficiency. I’d call it kind of cute.’ The blue eyes which examined the sudden rush of colour that stained her cheeks looked remarkably guileless. ‘Say, I know today’s a real traumatic experience for you, so why don’t we forget the rotten mongrel who humiliated you and relax? The food’s good, the wine could be better but it’s plentiful, and I won’t blow your cover. Lighten up, eat, drink and dance a little. Enjoy the charming company you’ve paid for.’
‘Charming?’ She couldn’t help smiling.
‘I have a reputation to uphold,’ he told her solemnly. ‘Is it a deal?’
The smile bordered on the irresistible, so recklessly she raised her glass and found herself agreeing.
CHAPTER THREE
‘GEORGIE, he’s absolutely gorgeous, darling. Where did you find him?’
‘Yellow Pages, Alice,’ she told her drooling school-friend with a grin. Callum was dancing with the bride, displaying remarkable grace and co-ordination for such a large man.
‘You never used to be so enigmatic,’ her friend grumbled, her eyes on Callum’s progress across the floor. ‘You even look different.’ Her eyes moved critically over her old friend’s slender figure.
Georgina hardly heard. The man might be abominably conceited, she reflected, her eyes too on the tall figure, but he did have some reason. Controlled power, languid grace and an ability to make everyone present hang on his every word were all attributes that she privately thought could be put to better use in some other capacity than that of hired escort. He had something indefinable but potent; she had given up trying to classify him into any category she had ever come across.
He still remained something of an enigma. Although he had, true to his word, been charming and amusing over the remainder of the meal, he had managed to learn quite a lot about her life, her work and friends whilst unobtrusively redirecting any questions about himself. Why the mystery? she wondered.