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Regan stared, not at the glass in the manicured hand, but at the stud securing the French cuff of the dazzling white sleeve—a solid gold cufflink inset with New Zealand jade. Her gaze slowly travelled up the length of the white arm to collide with a pair of murderous steel-grey eyes.
‘Y-your brother?’ she stuttered, not noticing the young man had stiffened at her side.
He knew her name. He must have asked about her. The cat was well and truly out of the bag.
His smile was lethally unamused. Her eyes shifted to Carolyn, clinging to his other elbow, and to the huge diamond flashing on her finger. Shock punched her in the stomach as her brain clicked back into gear and worked through all the clues she’d stupidly missed.
Owns a corporation—therefore must be quite a bit older than Carolyn; well-respected in financial circles—meaning millionaire; corporate-apartment-type rich; ‘Darling Jay…’
Jay…JA…Joshua Adam.
Joshua Adam Wade.
Oh, God—she had slept with her employer’s grandniece’s fiancé! The passionate fantasy lover who had told her he despised people who cheated on their partners was the very man whose wedding she was here to help arrange!
CHAPTER SIX
‘HOW long have you been engaged?’ Regan croaked, sipping on her fresh glass of punch.
‘Nearly two months,’ preened Carolyn, looking adoringly up at the man at her side. In a pink taffeta shift overlaid with a black satin and lace Empire-line dress she looked the perfect accessory to her fiance’s monochrome white shirt and black trousers. As a woman who had never had to work—and probably never would—she had plenty of time to devote to her appearance. ‘We got engaged in the second week of February, didn’t we, Jay Darling? Up here—on St Valentine’s Day!’
Regan choked, spluttering liquid back into her glass. That was only two days after her own encounter with ‘Adam’!
‘Sorry, a piece of fruit pulp must have gone down the wrong way,’ she said, as Chris gave her a light tap on the back.
At least Joshua hadn’t been engaged when he had ‘engaged’ himself to be entertained by one of Derek’s ‘friends’!
But he hadn’t just decided he wanted to get married and hunted out a wife within the space of two days. And if he had already been involved with Carolyn why hadn’t he looked to her to satisfy his libido instead of seeking casual sex with a stranger…or did he come from that chauvinistic school which divided the whole of womankind into only two types: those you slept with and those you married?
But, no—looking at the golden-blonde’s flushed cheeks, and the way she was leaning her breasts into Joshua’s side, her eyes avidly darting between the two males, Regan got the strong impression that in spite of her dewy, debutante looks Carolyn was no innocent virgin. And, anyway—Joshua was surely too intelligent to subscribe to such an outrageous double standard!
When she dared look at his face she found that he was staring down at her with a blistering contempt that caught her on the raw. She squared her shoulders and lifted her chin, proudly rejecting his disdain. Did he think she had come here expecting to run into him? Her eyes were violet pools of reflective scorn as she glared back at him. As a betrayed wife herself, she hated that he had forced her into a position where she felt like the iniquitous ‘other woman’.
‘OK now?’ asked Chris, solicitously rubbing her rigid spine.
Joshua’s nostrils flared at the sight of his brother’s petting hand.
‘Do you usually allow yourself to be pawed by men you’ve only just met, Mrs Frances?’ he drawled, his joking smile undercut by the venomous tone which suggested that she was in the habit of allowing liberties a great deal more obscene.
Regan’s drink trembled in her hand, and even Carolyn stopped preening long enough to look startled at his smiling ferocity.
Chris bristled, his hand dropping to clench by his side, as if he was contemplating planting it in Joshua’s cynical face. ‘Her name is Regan.’
‘I know what she calls herself.’ The drawl was even more mocking. ‘Mrs Frances and I are old acquaintances.’
Now old enemies, it seemed! Regan compressed her lips, bewildered by the depth of his anger.
‘That’s right,’ she agreed, smiling with sweet falsity, ‘but in spite of what he seems to want you to infer, Chris, as an “old acquaintance” Mr Wade knows full well that I’m not currently married—my husband died nearly a year ago.’
She was guiltily aware that it wasn’t the first time today she had used her status as a widow to invite the pity she had previously always shunned.
Only one other person recognised the ploy. ‘Ten months, actually, if my memory serves me correctly,’ said Joshua. He looked her slowly up and down. ‘From your outfit I take it that you’re still not sure whether you’re half in mourning or half out of it…’
Carolyn gave a high-pitched nervous giggle as Regan struggled no
t to throw her drink in his insulting face. His eyes glittered, and she knew he almost wanted her to do it. Didn’t he care that his thinly veiled hostility was bound to raise questions about their former relationship?
‘God, when did you become such an insensitive bastard!’ Chris swore, his arm curving protectively around Regan’s waist. ‘I’d have thought you, of all people, would know better than to taunt anyone about the tragedy in their life.’ He turned to Regan and fired out rapidly in a low voice, ‘Maybe you should know that my parents—Joshua’s father and stepmother—died in an arson attack on our house when Josh was seventeen. He got badly hurt saving my twin sisters and me, and then had to give up the career he’d planned to fight for custody of us kids, against our father’s scavenging relatives and business partners who wanted to plunder our inheritance. I guess he feels that all that gives him the monopoly on suffering, so that he can sneer at those who can’t match him for sheer angst—’
