Page 25 of The Couple Behind the Headlines

Now that she thought about it, over the last couple of days she’d been so caught up with thoughts of Jack and the way he made her feel that Max and Connie and their forthcoming nuptials had barely crossed her mind.

She cast her memory back to the traumatic afternoon she’d discovered they’d got engaged, and to her bewilderment she felt nothing. Not a pang, not a twinge, not an ache. Which was as unnerving as it was a relief.

‘Or at least I was,’ she added, thinking that since Jack had come to her rescue so splendidly and as it no longer appeared to hurt perhaps she owed him the rest as well. ‘The afternoon we met at the gallery when I was

a little, ah …’ She paused as she searched for any word that wouldn’t make her sound demented.

‘Unhinged?’

‘Vulnerable,’ she corrected, flashing a glare at him, ‘I’d just found out they’d got engaged.’

‘I see.’

‘And it kind of threw me.’

‘Well, that explains a lot,’ he said with a satisfied nod.

‘Don’t look so pleased with yourself,’ she said archly. ‘You didn’t exactly help.’

‘Oh?’

‘You reminded me of Max.’

Jack’s eyebrows shot up and then he scowled. ‘I’m nothing like Max.’

He looked so affronted she couldn’t hold back a smile. ‘Well, I realise that now, but I didn’t know that at the time, did I? All I could see then was that you were both good-looking, charming with a fine line in banter, and heartbreaking players.’

Jack flinched. ‘You jumped to an awful lot of conclusions.’

‘And you didn’t?’ she countered as she thought of the character flaws he’d flung at her.

He frowned. Tilted his head as he stared at her with such an intense expression on his face her stomach squeezed. ‘You’re right. I did. I’m sorry.’

Mollified, Imogen gazed up at him until something that had been niggling away at her ever since he’d pitched up at her side struck her again. ‘What are you doing here anyway?’ she said. ‘I don’t remember seeing your name on the original guest list.’

‘It wasn’t. My ticket was a last-minute thing.’

‘Why?’

‘I wanted to see you.’

His eyes darkened and the glint appeared. As the air seemed to thicken around them Imogen gulped, her heart rate rocketing.

‘What for?’ she said a little huskily. ‘You must think I’m insane.’

He pushed himself off the wall and turned so that he was standing so close she could feel the heat radiating off him. ‘I don’t think you’re anything of the sort.’

‘Really?’

‘Really.’ He tilted his head and gave her a smile that frazzled her senses. ‘Would you like to know what I do think?’

She’d love to. ‘I’d be fascinated,’ she said evenly, trying not to sound too desperate.

‘I think you must have had a rough time recently.’

‘Oh, I have.’ That he appeared to understand was doing strange things to her brain.

‘And I think you’re beautiful.’

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