Jessica Hart - Here Comes The Bride

Things might be different if P.J. hadn’t been quite so successful, but his immense wealth seemed to Nell to be an insurmountable gulf between them. It changed everything. She didn’t want him for his money, but how would he ever believe that now?

She would have to stay on her side of the gulf and make the best of it, Nell decided sadly. She would go and meet John, and make a real effort to start afresh, and maybe after a while she could forget P.J. all over again.

The gallery was already crowded when she got there, the hubbub spilling out into the street. If only she didn’t have to face P.J. again! Still, with this crowd, there ought to be a good chance of avoiding him. She would go in, show her face to Eve, talk to a couple of people and then go. She had a previous engagement, after all. She couldn’t be expected to rearrange her entire social life around work.

A brief hope that her name might have been missed off the guest list died as she was waved through, so she accepted a glass of champagne and looked cautiously around for Eve.

Of course, the first person she saw was P.J. He wasn’t looking her way, but still the sight of him made her heart jolt painfully, and she jerked her glass, sending champagne slopping over the rim and down the front of her dress. Nell brushed herself down with a hand that was shaking slightly, and told herself to get a grip.

She risked another glance. Like many of the other men in the room, P.J. was wearing a dinner jacket, and the severe black and white tailoring made him look powerful and more distinguished than she had ever seen him. He was standing on one side of the gallery, talking to a dark, intense girl who was dressed in such a challenging way that Nell wondered if she was one of the artists.

He seemed absorbed in his conversation, and Nell let her eyes rest hungrily on him for a moment. It was as if everything about him were in sharp focus, the planes of his face, the set of his shoulders, the white cuff against his brown hand as he gesticulated, and her stomach clenched with longing.

Turning abruptly, she headed off in the opposite direction in search of Eve. There was such a press of people, none of whom seemed to be the slightest bit interested in the pictures and installations that lined the walls, that it was quite hard work pushing through them and when Nell had got as far away from P.J. as she could, she paused. She couldn’t see any sign of Eve.

What now?

The whole exercise was pointless anyway, Nell told herself. There was no way they were going to be able to talk properly to anyone in this crush. Perhaps she would just slip away now…

Glancing longingly towards the entrance through a break in the crowd, she found herself staring straight into a pair of familiar warm blue eyes that lit at the sight of her.

P.J. smiled at her, and Nell’s bones seemed to dissolve. Appalled, she spun on her heel before she had a chance to think and turned her back pointedly, desperate to break the effect of that glinting blue smile. Her instinct was to bolt for the entrance, but if he saw her leaving now P.J. would know that it was because of him.

Unseeingly, she stared at a picture on the wall instead, pretending to be absorbed in it. Surely P.J. would get the point and leave her alone now?

‘What do you think?’ His voice came from behind her and Nell jumped. How had he got across the room that fast? Why had he come at all? Couldn’t he see how hard this was for her?

Her mouth was dry, and she moistened her lips. ‘Think?’ she repeated stupidly. How could she think when he was standing right beside her, near enough for her to turn and lean into him, to rest against his broad chest and wind her arms around his back and cling to him as if he were her last refuge?

‘Of the picture,’ P.J. prompted.

‘Oh.’

With difficulty, Nell focused on the painting and discovered that she had been apparently absorbed in an extremely explicit male nude study. A wave of colour surged up her cheeks, but somehow she managed to keep her expression composed enough.

‘Interesting use of brushwork,’ she said stiltedly, and P.J. laughed.

‘Don’t tell me you’ve learnt to like contemporary art, Nell!’

‘I wouldn’t say “like,’” said Nell, ‘but maybe I’ve learnt to appreciate some of the things I wasn’t old enough to appreciate before.’

Their eyes met for a brief moment, and something flared in P.J.’s face, something that made Nell’s heart stumble, and she looked away almost fiercely, afraid that she had given too much away.

P.J. LOOKED at Nell’s averted face, letting his eyes rest on the pure line of her cheek and the pulse hammering in her throat, and he remembered her as a girl, sitting across a café table in Paris, her expression vivid as she talked and argued and laughed.

Even then he had marvelled that this beautiful creature was really his. That she would love him had seemed too good to be true, and when Simon Shea had swept in and taken her away part of P.J. had told himself that he had always known it couldn’t last. Why would a girl like Nell want to be with him, with his big nose and lanky frame and utter lack of sophistication?

She was still beautiful, still slender and somehow elusive, and as he watched her P.J.’s earlier confidence drained away. He felt twenty-two all over again, awkward and unsure, dazed by her nearness and gripped by the fear that if he tried to hold on to her, she would slip through his fingers and leave.

As she had.

She had John now. She was happy. Why would she want to start all over again with him? Look at her, sophisticated and desirable in a dress that clung in all the right places. It was a dress that made you think about how soft and warm her body would be beneath the soft, floaty material, how it would slide and slither over her skin, what it would be like to ease down the zip…

P.J. swallowed hard.

‘You look stunning,’ he said, aware that he sounded abrupt and almost angry, but unable to help himself.

‘Thank you,’ said Nell a little warily.

‘I hope John appreciates that dress.’

John? For a terrible moment, Nell couldn’t think who he meant, but then she remembered her blind date, and she clutched at the idea. John represented the future, P.J. the past. Pretending that she had already chosen the future would make it easier in the end to say goodbye to P.J. again.

‘John doesn’t think clothes are important,’ she said. It was the first thing that came into her head, and P.J. wasn’t impressed.

‘You don’t have to think clothes are important to appreciate a beautiful woman in a beautiful dress!’ he said. ‘He sounds a bit worthy for you, Nell.’

‘He’s a very nice man,’ she said a little defensively.

‘Not just a little boring?’ P.J. suggested.

‘Of course not,’ said Nell stiffly.

‘It just sounds as if he might be, that’s all.’

Nell glared, so irritated by his needling that she almost forgot that she knew absolutely nothing about John. ‘He’s not like that at all,’ she insisted, lifting her chin defiantly. ‘He’s great. He’s…kind and reliable and…clever…and he’s got a great sense of humour,’ she finished as if laying down a challenge.

‘I suppose he’s incredibly good-looking, too?’ said P.J. nastily.

‘Not that it matters, but, yes, as a matter of fact, he is!’

In for a penny, in for a pound, thought Nell, wondering what the real John would make of all this. Would he have a sense of humour? Would he prove to be kind and clever? Would he be the man who could push P.J. back out of her heart and her mind and her life?

‘He sounds perfect.’ P.J. glowered down into his glass of champagne. ‘So, do you think this is it?’ he made himself ask, not wanting to hear the answer but needing to know if he should give up now. ‘Are you thinking about getting married?’

‘It’s too early to think about that,’ said Nell, deciding not to get carried away with elaborate wedding plans. ‘We haven’t known each other that long. Anyway, I’ve already been married once and engaged twice,’ she added, trying to make a joke of it. ‘My track record isn’t that good, is it?’

‘Maybe it’ll be third time lucky,’ said P.J.

It had been first time lucky, if only she had had the sense to realise it. Nell’s heart twisted.

‘Maybe,’ she agreed, an unconsciously wistful expression in her eyes.

There was a tiny pause. ‘What does Clara think of him?’

‘Clara?’ Nell echoed stupidly.

‘She comes with you as part of the package, doesn’t she? I presume how she and John get on is important to you?’

‘Of course it is,’ said Nell, thrown back on the defensive. ‘But she doesn’t know him very well yet.’

‘Clara struck me as the kind of girl who makes up her mind about people straight away,’ P.J. observed so accurately that Nell was taken aback. That was exactly what Clara did, just as she had done with P.J. that morning. She had looked at him, assessed him, and decided that she liked him, and that was that in Clara’s book. Nothing would change her mind now.

‘Do you know what I think?’ P.J. went on, leaning forward confidentially, and Nell swallowed at his nearness and clutched her glass harder.

‘What?’

‘I think Clara hasn’t got much time for your John,’ he said provocatively. ‘I think she thinks he’s a dull dog, but she doesn’t want to tell you, and that’s why you’re hesitant about committing yourself to him.’

‘Rubbish!’

‘If you loved John and you thought he was the right man, you wouldn’t hesitate,’ said P.J. ‘You’re someone who loves completely and unconditionally.’

‘Yes, well, maybe I’ve learnt to look before I leap,’ Nell said a little bitterly, thinking of Simon.

The look in her eyes made P.J.’s chest hurt. He was just taking his disappointment out on her, he realised. It wasn’t Nell’s fault that he was still in love with her. ‘I’m sorry,’ he apologised in a different voice.

‘John’s a lucky man,’ he went on seriously. ‘I was just trying to say that if I was waiting for you, and you walked in wearing that dress, I would be really proud.’

Nell looked at him, and her heart contracted so painfully that she almost winced. If only she were going to meet P.J. tonight, instead of the blameless John. The longing to tell him so made it hard to speak, and for a moment she could only stand dumb with wishing that everything could be different.

She didn’t want John. He was a friend of Thea’s, and he would be nice, and friendly and charming and probably attractive and a perfect date, but he wasn’t what she wanted. He couldn’t be. She only wanted P.J.

A muscle worked desperately in her jaw to stop her mouth from wobbling, and P.J., understanding that she was upset, but not why, did what he could to lighten the atmosphere.

‘That dress is the third outfit I’ve seen you in today,’ he said, ‘and it’s definitely my favourite. You looked very nice in your track suit and trainers, of course, but they don’t have quite same the same allure, do they? And to be honest, I didn’t think the cool, crisp look you had this afternoon was quite you!’

Grateful to him for changing the subject, Nell made an effort to smile and follow his lead. ‘I usually carry off cool and crisp better than I did this afternoon,’ she told him. ‘My pen always works, and I manage not to walk into the furniture. But then I don’t usually walk into a meeting to find that I’m shaking hands with my ex-fiancé! Did you know I was going to be there?’

P.J. shook his head. ‘Lester mentioned Eve’s name, but not that there would be anyone else with her. I couldn’t believe it when I saw you come in. After this morning, it seemed too much of a coincidence.’ He smiled crookedly. ‘Do you think fate might be trying to tell us something?’

‘Only that it’s as muddled as the rest of us,’ said Nell, as lightly as she could.

A waitress was hovering with a plate of spectacular canapés. Desperate for a distraction, to look at anything other than P.J., Nell took a firm hold of her glass and wedged her sequinned bag under her arm to give herself a free hand. She selected a canapé at random, and was just lifting it to her mouth when someone behind her stepped back into her.

Nell’s arm was jolted, and she jerked instinctively to avoid dropping her champagne, but the movement was enough to dislodge the little bag, and, with her other hand full of canapé, there was no way of saving it. If she’d been able to close it properly, no harm would have been done, but the Swahili phrase book burst through the clasp’s precarious hold and shot onto the floor, followed by all the other contents.