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ened into a tight line of pain as she felt the sickening lurch in her stomach that accompanied such thoughts. If only, oh, if only…
She arrived at the Vance residence a few minutes before nine. She could have started work an hour or two earlier—it would have been preferable to sitting at home with her thoughts—but Reece might have thought that she had arrived early in order to have some time alone with him and she couldn't have coped with that eventuality.
Vera and Dave were already hard at work preparing the ingredients for their famous pate when she arrived, and after checking the schedule for the day she walked gingerly through the hall into the main house to confer with Mrs Goode. She was anxious that the elderly housekeeper felt included in all the preparations for Barbara's wedding; from what Reece had told her the night before, Mrs Goode was as much a part of the family as any blood relative.
She found the little woman in the drawing room in front of a roaring log fire, and as she peered carefully round the door the housekeeper glanced up from the book she was reading and smiled instantly.
'Miriam. Do come and sit down a moment, dear.'
'I was looking for you, Mrs Goode,' Miriam said quietly as she sank down next to the frail little figure and smiled warmly. 'There are a couple of things I wanted to ask your opinion about.'
'You're a good girl, Miriam.' The remark took Miriam by surprise and she stared at the older woman for a moment in consternation. 'I can see that you can handle this perfectly well without an old woman messing things up,' Mrs Goode continued perkily, 'but that's not your way, is it? 'Bonny and blithe and good and gay…'.'
'He didn't tell you about the rhyme?' Miriam asked as hot colour flooded the pale silk of her skin.
'Only in the most complimentary way,' Mrs Goode answered quickly. 'He… admires you very much, Miriam; you must know that.'
'You think so?' Miriam smiled flatly. Admired? And what sort of emotion did he feel for the lovely Sharon? 'Weil, that's good, especially if he puts it down on paper when the job is finished. Most of our contracts are by word of mouth in this business.'
'Yes…' Mrs Goode seemed about to say more, but Miriam continued quickly before she could speak.
'Now, I was wondering about the seating arrangements for the buffet? Perhaps you could suggest…?'
The next few minutes were spent discussing technicalities, and as she rose to leave Miriam forced herself to speak the name that had been hovering on her lips all morning. 'Did Reece tell you about the decision on the flowers, Mrs Goode? Barbara wanted no silk, only fresh ones, so I've arranged for a little firm we deal with to come in on the day and fix them. I think we'll have enough to do without worrying about the flowers.' She smiled warmly.
'No, he didn't mention it, dear.' Mrs Goode shook her head. 'But then he was in a bit of a tizzy when he spoke to me last night.'
'Was he?' Her heart thudded to a standstill and then raced on at a furious pace that made her feel quite dizzy. 'Why was that?' she asked carefully.
'Oh, some problem on an overseas contract he's involved with.' Mrs Goode sniffed disapprovingly. 'Rang him here at home at ten o'clock last night, so they did. Got no respect for people's privacy, have they? Anyway, he called by my room to say he'd got to catch the six o'clock flight to France, so I suppose everything else went from his mind.'
'Yes, I suppose it did,' she agreed mechanically as she berated herself fiercely for the surge of hope that the housekeeper's words had given her. He had probably forgotten that she existed the moment the call had come through—or some time before that if Sharon had stayed. She thought again about the black-stockinged legs and classic little black dress that she had glimpsed fleetingly before Sharon had pulled her coat tight around her. And she would have stayed. She hadn't dressed like that for an evening at home in front of the TV.
And to think that she had been willing to give herself to Reece last night! She bit down on her lower lip hard. Willing? She had all but begged him to take her, she thought miserably as she remembered her uninhibited responses to his lovemaking.
'Are you all right, dear?' She came back to the present to find Mrs Goode staring up at her with a worried expression adding mote lines to the paper-thin skin. 'You look a little peaky.'
'I'm fine.' Or I intend to be, she added to herself firmly as she walked out of the room a moment or two later. There was no way she was going to crumple like a piece of discarded paper over this. She wouldn't. Her eyes darkened with resolve. She was a big girl now, partner in a successful catering firm, with her own career mapped out and the world her oyster. Reece Vance wasn't the only man in the world by a long chalk. But even as she thought them the words rang hollow and empty in the depths of her mind, mockingly unreal.
The next few days raced by in a whirl of activity that left no room for morbid post-mortems, and Miriam embraced the frantic schedule gratefully. She arrived home too tiled to think, often slipping into bed without bothering to eat and falling asleep as soon as her head touched the pillow.
Reece apparently phoned every day to check progress with Mrs Goode, and she made sure that she gave the housekeeper a report on the day's happenings each night before she left to avoid any necessity of speaking to Reece personally.
She could get through like this—she could, she told herself firmly on the fourth day of Reece's absence; it wasn't so hard really. Once he was out of her life for good it would be easy to pick up the threads again and carry on as though nothing had happened. The sick feeling in her stomach, the blanking of her mind at every opportunity, the weird dreams at night and frantic pounding of her heart in the day—all perfectly copeable with. And the urge to cry at the oddest times, the desolate pain—she'd master those too.
She was still persuading herself that everything was under control on the Wednesday before the wedding, after a particularly chaotic day when everything that could have gone wrong had done so. It was seven o'clock at night, she hadn't even begun to clear away the debris of the day and already she was a few hours behind her tight schedule that didn't allow any leeway. Two days to go. She shut her eyes and prayed for calm. They'd do it— they had to do it. But right now she was too tired to think straight.
'You look terrible.' She froze for just an instant before looking towards the door at the large male figure standing silently just inside the room. He looked tired, and utterly gorgeous. That much registered before she wrenched her eyes away and grabbed a large bin-bag of rubbish that she intended to take to the dustbins outside.
'Thank you so much,' she said sarcastically as she whisked a few more items of litter off the worktops into the bag. He'd been away a week and that was all he could manage? She hadn't expected any bouquets, but she was blowed if she was going to put up with this. 'You don't look so hot yourself,' she added tartly as an empty tin did a hop, skip and a jump off the worktop, scattering the last few drips of raspberry sauce all over her pale blue trousers.
Damn, damn, damn! She pushed back her mane of silky red hair that had long ago discarded its ribbon to lie in a flame-coloured sheen around her shoulders and prayed that the tears of exhaustion and rage wouldn't show in her voice. She hated him—she really hated him.
'I didn't mean you look terrible.' He had moved behind her to swing her round so quickly that she had no chance to escape his hold. 'Just… terrible.' He kissed the tip of her nose with great seriousness. 'Tired, exhausted, worn out.' He kissed her again. 'But still the best thing on two legs I've seen for a long time.'
'You obviously haven't been looking properly,' she said weakly, trying to summon up more anger to replace the rage that had melted the minute he had touched her.
How could he come back after being away so long and expect her to fall into his arms the moment he raised his little finger? But then… Her innate honesty came uncomfortably to the fore. She had done exactly that a few nights ago, and just after he had expressly laid out the guidelines for anyone foolish enough to get involved with him. Of course he had gone away thinking that she was his for the ta
