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‘Do you often do that sort of thing?’
He gave her a quizzical look. ‘You consider it beneath my lofty position to go out on the road?’
‘I’d imagine it’s pretty unusual.’
‘It probably is. I’d go crazy sitting around an office all day and every day, so I take the chance whenever I can.’
‘How much of the world does Orbis cover?’
‘Just about anywhere people might want to go. The Maldives are getting to be one of the biggest draws.’
‘Have you been there?’
‘A couple of times. Wonderful scuba diving. Have you ever done any?’
Jessica shook her head. ‘I’ve always wanted to handle a snorkel!’
‘Easy enough to learn. Fancy it?’
She laughed. ‘Some chance!’
‘Every chance,’ he corrected. ‘There are tiny islands out there that are just made for honeymooners.’
It took Jessica a moment or two to come up with a response. ‘I thought we’d already had the honeymoon.’
It was Zac’s turn to laugh. ‘I doubt if we’ll be the first to have anticipated.’ He lowered his voice to a seductive murmur. ‘Imagine nights making love under a starry sky on a bed of pure white sand, with no need for clothing because there’s no one else there to see us.’
Jessica could imagine it only too vividly. The very thought set the blood sizzling in her veins. ‘Are you serious?’ she questioned uncertainly. ‘About going there, I mean?’
‘Unless you know of somewhere even better?’
‘From the sound of it, there can’t be any!’ She was too entranced for any blase act. ‘I’ve never been outside Europe before.’
‘High time you did, then,’ he said. ‘There’s a lot of world out there.’
Much of which he would already have seen himself, Jessica guessed. As a Prescott wife, she would be living on a different level from the one she was accustomed to.
‘Of course, it’s going to have to wait a while,’ Zac added.
She took his meaning at once. He would hardly want to be out of the country with his grandfather in the state he was.
‘Of course,’ she echoed.
‘I’m assuming you’ll be going to Leonie’s place tomorrow when you supposedly get back from Majorca,’ he went on. ‘Best if you give her the news on your own, I think. I’ll come round on Wednesday. In the meantime, I’d better show you where you’ll be living once we’re married.’
Jessica’s thoughts hadn’t got that far ahead as yet. ‘A flat?’ she hazarded.
‘A bit less conventional than that. You might not care for it.’
‘I’m sure it will be perfect,’ she said.
She had no reason to change that opinion when she saw the Chelsea mews. It was an absolute delight, every dwelling different, plant life abounding in every corner. Zac had both floors of number eleven. A dream of a place all round, Jessica acknowledged, roaming through the imaginatively decorated and furnished rooms.
‘A designer friend’s doing,’ Zac admitted when she congratulated him on his taste. ‘I wouldn’t have known where to start.’
A woman, no doubt, she reflected. Possibly rather more than just a friend too. As a bachelor, Zac had enjoyed the freedom to spend his nights however he chose. There was every chance he was going to find the curtailment of that freedom hard to take.
‘Hungry?’ he asked.
Not for food, she could have told him. She shook her head.
‘Coffee then? Or something stronger?’
‘Coffee will be fine. Let me make it,’ she tagged on as he made a move in the direction of the kitchen.
‘I can manage,’ he said. ‘I even cook the odd meal.’
‘I’ll have to do something to earn my keep,’ she responded flippantly.
Amusement gave way to some other, less easily defined emotion. ‘You won’t have to earn anything.’
He went from the room before she could come up with a reply, leaving her to the conclusion that she’d caught him on the raw with the unthinking remark. She found the idea reassuring in the sense that it suggested a certain vulnerability on his part: a way through, if she worked at it, to the inner man she needed to find if this marriage of theirs was to stand any chance at all of succeeding.
Whatever his feelings, he had them well under control by the time he brought the coffee in. Jessica eyed him over the rim of her cup as he took a seat on the far side of the three-seater sofa, the ache inside her increasing by the moment as she viewed the strong lines of his profile, the breadth of shoulder and muscular upper arm structure emphasised by the cream silk shirt he was wearing—the firm line of his thigh beneath the fine linen trousers.
Unable to stand it any longer, she put her cup down on the table in front of them, and reached to do the same with his, moving over to put both hands about his face and draw it down to reach his mouth with hers.
The sofa was more than big enough to accommodate them, the cushions supportive, the passion all-consuming. It was some time before either of them could gather the strength to move.
‘That,’ Zac murmured at last, ‘was worth waiting for! Not that you did,’ he added with a hint of humour. ‘And there was I trying to be all considerate, thinking you’d be too tired!’
‘I’ll never be too tired for this,’ she claimed huskily.
‘Let’s hope I can live up to demands, then.’
There was something in his voice that gave her pause for a moment, but she wasn’t sure enough of herself to start probing for possible hidden meanings.
‘As if,’ she said, ‘there could ever be any doubt about that!’
‘As if,’ he echoed drily. He planted a fleeting kiss on her lips, then eased himself upright. ‘You’ll find everything you need in the en suite. I’ll take the guest room shower.’
Jessica had thought he might suggest they share a shower, the way they’d done that morning while waiting for room service, but the cabinets here weren’t really big enough, she supposed, to hold two people.
The possibility that he’d had enough of her for one day, she refused to contemplate.
If she needed reassurance on that score, it was provided back at the hotel, where they spent the night again. By morning, Jessica had reached a state not even the coming meeting with her cousin could demolish. If it wasn’t love she and Zac shared, it was a wonderful substitute!
He left her at ten. Safe in the knowledge that Leonie would be at work all day, she took a taxi to the flat in St John’s Wood, using the key and code already provided to let herself in.
Like the Majorcan apartment, the place was beautifully done out. At twenty-nine, Leonie was in a position to afford some of the best in life. Deservedly so too.
Jessica spent the afternoon on steadily increasing tenterhooks. Her cousin’s homecoming at seven was small relief.
Blonde hair swept back in a smooth French pleat from her fine-boned face, slim, elegant figure clad in a designer suit in soft grey, Leonie looked delighted to see her.
‘You should have let me know you were coming in today,’ she chided. ‘I might have been out for the evening. What time did you get here, anyway?’
‘Around lunchtime.’ Jessica hesitated, wondering whether to wait a while before breaking the news. Yet to what purpose? Now, or later, it had to be gone through.
‘I have something to tell you,’ she said. ‘It’s going to be quite a shock.’
‘Really?’ Leonie looked intrigued. ‘What is it?’
Jessica drew a deep breath. ‘I’m going to marry Zac Prescott.’
Chapter Five
LEONIE laughed. ‘That certainly would be a shock! Do you have any other jokes stored up?’
Actions, Jessica decided, spoke louder than words. She held out her left hand, seeing astonishment leap in her cousin’s eyes.
‘I don’t believe it!’ Leonie exclaimed. ‘You and Zac? It’s only a few days since you said you’d blown him out of the water!’
Jessica fought the temptation to blurt out the whole story. ‘I lied,’ she said, thinking that much at least was the truth. ‘I didn’t know how to tell you.’
‘Tell me what? That the two of you had fallen for each other on sight?’
‘Something like that, I suppose.’
‘Well, I’ll be dammed! Zac Prescott, of all people!’ Leonie shook her head, apparently more taken aback than upset by the news. ‘Just goes to show the age of miracles isn’t yet past!’
‘You don’t mind then?’ Jessica ventured.
‘Mind? Oh, you mean because I had him first?’ She shook her head. ‘I won’t pretend I’ll not miss our occasional encounters, but we were neither of us under any illusions. You’ve more reason to resent me, in fact.’
‘I don’t,’ Jessica assured her, not entirely certain that that was the complete truth either. ‘As Zac said, anything that happened between the two of you was before he met me.’
‘Right enough. This is certainly going to be one in the eye for Paul! Not that he obviously means a thing to you any more.’
‘No.’ Jessica could say that much with total honesty. ‘I haven’t even thought about him in days.’
‘Hardly surprising. There’s absolutely no comparison between what you had with him and what you’ll have with Zac.’
‘It isn’t about material things!’
Leonie gave a sly grin. ‘A secondary consideration, I’ll grant you, but hardly to be sniffed at.’
‘Did you never meet with Zac here in London?’ Jessica asked after a moment.
‘No. We preferred to stick to the occasional fling out there. What can’t be altered must be endured,’ Leonie added candidly. ‘You’re the one he asked to marry him. The only one, by all accounts.’
Claiming that she had no feelings whatsoever about their past relationship would not only be a waste of breath but a further bending of the truth too, Jessica admitted. Leonie was one on her own in that respect. One on her own in most respects, in fact.
Her cousin proved that by refraining from any in-depth probing over the evening, prepared, it seemed, to take the situation at face value. Asked her opinion of the island where she’d spent the past week, Jessica was glad to be able to return a totally truthful answer for once.
‘I can understand why you bought there,’ she concluded. ‘It’s the perfect place to switch off after a hard week.’
Relaxed on a sofa, Leonie inclined her head. ‘Isn’t it just. Nice to get away from everything on occasion—including men! Zac excluded, of course,’ she tagged on blandly.
Jessica pulled a face at her, aware of being teased. The thought still reckoned, but she could handle it. She was going to be handling a whole lot more.
Leonie was out of the room when the phone rang at nine. Jessica answered it, heart leaping when she heard Zac’s voice. He wasted little time on greetings.
‘There was a message on the answering machine when I got in this morning,’ he said. ‘Grandfather wants to have the wedding down there. He’s already contacted the vicar. Apparently, it can be managed on Saturday.’
Head whirling, Jessica blurted out the first thing that came to mind. ‘I thought you said it took months to organise a church wedding? What about banns and such?’
‘With a common licence, and another from the bishop, it’s possible to do without banns being read. I’ve got everything in hand.’
‘But the time!’ she protested. ‘It simply can’t be done!’
‘No reason why not,’ came the measured response. ‘We can travel down on Friday. That gives you two clear days to do what you have to do. Time enough to contact your parents.’
Jessica made an effort to pull herself together. This week or next? What difference did it make?
‘You’ve obviously no objections yourself,’ she said.
‘No,’ he confirmed. ‘We can take a few days somewhere along the coast afterwards.’
To be on hand should the need arise, Jessica assumed. Understandable in the circumstances, of course.
‘Whatever you think,’ she said restrainedly.
His laugh was a reassurance in itself. ‘Practising subservience already?’
‘One swallow doth not a summer make,’ she responded.
‘Now who’s indulging in clichés?’ There was a pause, a change of tone. ‘How did Leonie take the news?’
The intimation that her cousin’s reactions were of any importance to him stirred an emotion becoming all too familiar.
‘Why don’t you ask her?’ she said. She held out the phone to her cousin, who had just returned to the room. ‘Zac would like a word.’
Leonie took the handset from her without comment. Her tone was easy as she addressed the man on the other end of the line. ‘I believe congratulations are in order.’
She listened for a moment to what Zac had to say, her expression giving little way. ‘Kismet, obviously. Well, sure. No reason at all. Saturday?’ Her brows lifted a fraction, her eyes seeking Jessica’s. ‘Can’t be done, I’m afraid. I’ll be away on business. My very best wishes to you both, anyway.’
She handed the instrument back, returning to her reclining position on the sofa. Jessica hoped she sounded as natural as she took up the call again.
