Page 48 of One Bridegroom Required!

For it was her dress in the window, and yet it was not her dress.

Fingers shaking, she managed to get the door open, and stepped into the half-light of the interior, where the spotlight focussed so brightly on the wedding dress gave out the only illumination.

Holly walked forward, slowly as a sleepwalker, until she was just feet away from the gown, and then her hands began to tremble. She reached forward to touch it, and the difference became evident in a moment. Her mother’s gown was made of far costlier material than hers, the stitching on it exquisitely fine. Holly’s wedding gown was a beautiful dress, but her mother’s was an heirloom.

‘Like it?’ came a deep voice from the shadows.

It should have given her a fright, but it didn‘t—it was a voice she had grown to love and which she recognised immediately. She didn’t even turn round, but then maybe that was because she could sense he was moving across the shop towards her, and she didn’t speak until he was right behind her.

‘Where did you find it?’ she asked dully.

‘Long story.’

She did turn round then, and she could do absolutely nothing to stop the great rush of emotion which washed over her. She’d missed him, she realised, more than she had any right to miss him.

She met his gaze. ‘No need to ask how you got in.’ He shrugged. ‘The landlord always has a spare key.’ He looked at her face closely for some kind of reaction. ‘Surprised to see me?’

She thought about it. ‘I’m not sure.’

He thought that her voice contained neither warmth, nor chill—just a matter-of-factness which was oddly emotionless. She sounded like a tired teacher at the end of term.

She frowned. ‘Have you lost weight?’

‘Yeah.’ His voice was wry. ‘Haven’t had a lot of appetite recently.’

Me neither, she thought, but, ‘Oh,’ was all she said. She wanted to ask what his reason was, but that might sound as if she was concerned about his welfare, and she wasn’t Because she still hadn’t forgiven him.

He threw her a conciliatory look. ‘Do you want to know about the dress?’

She wasn’t going to make this easy for him. ‘I’d rather know the truth about you and Caroline.’

He nodded. ‘I thought you might say something like that. Can we go and sit down somewhere more comfortable while I tell you?’

‘Where did you have in mind?’ she asked nastily. ‘The changing room?’

Luke resisted the temptation to say, If you like, and shook his tawny head instead. ‘Upstairs?’

‘I thought you didn’t like my flat!’ she snapped. He had come prepared for a fight, but even so it was the hardest thing in the world to just tiptoe round her raw feelings like this, when all he wanted to do was to scoop her up in his arms and kiss the breath out of her.

‘I like your flat very much, Holly,’ he told her equably. ‘But if you’d prefer we could talk somewhere else. How about the quiet, intimate atmosphere of The Bell?’

Her mouth began to twitch, but she wouldn’t laugh, she wouldn’t. ‘Come on, then,’ she said ungraciously, and stomped loudly up the stairs, like a child sent early to bed, while he followed her.

The flat was warm. ‘Have you turned the heating on?’ she demanded suspiciously.

‘Guilty.’

‘But why? I might not have been back at least until the day after tomorrow. The shop won’t open on New Year’s Day.’

‘I know. But I also knew that you’d be back tonight—’

‘How could you know that, for heaven’s sake?’

‘Because that’s when you said the draw would take place.’

Holly nodded, pleased that he had remembered and pleased that he had taken her at her word. But if he had really taken her at her word, then he wouldn’t be here, would he? Not when she had told him that she never wanted to see him again.

She sat down on the sofa and looked at him, steeling herself against the denim-blue eyes, the tawny head, the irresistible mouth.

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