LITMIR.BIZ

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looked doubtful, then relieved. “I guess it was all over years ago,” Maddie said hopefully. “Are you sure you’re okay with this?”

      There wasn’t much she—or anyone—could do about it. “I’m fine, stop worrying, Mad. Hadn’t we better get back? Your husband will think you’ve left him already.”

      “Never!” Maddie turned to the mirrored dressing table and the makeup container sitting on it. “My husband,” she repeated dreamily, fishing in the miniature hatbox and bringing out a lipstick. “Fancy me being an old married woman!” She began expertly applying the lipstick.

      “Hardly old,” Paige argued. Maddie was twenty-five to her own twenty-nine. “But old enough to know what you’re doing, I guess. Which is more than I can say for my first venture into matrimony.”

      In the mirror, Maddie threw her a sympathetic look, shook out a tissue and blotted her lips. Gorgeous lips, Paige noted abstractly. Pink perfection. Glen was a lucky man. Her sister was as sweet as she was pretty, without a malicious bone in her body.

      Scrunching the tissue, Maddie said, “It wasn’t even a proper wedding, was it? I mean, it hardly counts, really.”

      “No.” Paige’s voice was perfectly steady. “It doesn’t count at all.”

      CHAPTER TWO

      JAGER didn’t approach her again, but while Paige dutifully danced with the best man and then others, she was continually aware of him, leaning against a wall with arms folded or prowling the periphery of the room, exchanging a few words here and there with other guests, and for several minutes talking with Glen and Maddie.

      When the bride and groom left, Paige kept her hands at her sides as Maddie tossed her bouquet into the crowd of well-wishers, allowing an excited young girl to catch it.

      She was looking forward to slipping away now her duties were over. She couldn’t have turned down Maddie’s tentative request to attend her, hedged about with anxious assurances that Maddie would understand if she didn’t want to. But now she felt drained and tired, with an incipient headache beating at her temples.

      She sought out her mother and said quietly, “Do you mind if I go on home now? I’m not needed anymore.”

      “Of course, dear.” Margaret searched her face. “Your father and I have to stay until everyone’s gone, but I’m sure Blake would drive you…” Margaret looked around for the best man.

      “No, give me my purse and I’ll call a taxi. There’s a phone in the lobby.”

      “Well…if you’re sure.”

      “Yes. I’ll see you in the morning.” Paige leaned down and kissed her mother’s cheek. “It was a lovely wedding.”

      “Yes, wasn’t it?” Margaret glowed. At least this time she’d launched a daughter into matrimony in style.

      In the lobby Paige found a card pinned above the phone with the number of a taxi company printed on it, and was dialing the final digit when a lean, strong hand came over her shoulder and pressed down the bar, leaving the dial tone humming in her ear.

      “You don’t need them,” Jager’s voice said. “I’ll take you home.”

      Her hand tightened on the receiver. She didn’t turn. “Thank you,” she said, “but I’d prefer a cab.”

      “Why? My car’s right outside.”

      Why? She couldn’t think of an answer that didn’t sound either unnecessarily rude or like an overreaction.

      He lifted his hand and gently removed the receiver from her grasp, replacing it in the cradle. Belatedly she said, “I wouldn’t want to take you out of your way…”

      He didn’t even bother to reply to that, already steering her toward the doors that swished open at their approach. “Where are you staying?”

      “With my parents.” She waited for some caustic remark, but all he said was, “The car’s over here.”

      It was long and shiny, a dark navy-blue, she guessed, though it was difficult to tell at night.

      The interior was spacious and the upholstery was real, soft leather.

      Unless he was living beyond his means Jager had come up in the world. Her father had said something about him apparently doing well.

      He slid into the seat beside her and buckled up his safety belt. When he turned the key in the ignition she scarcely heard the engine start, but they were soon gliding out of the car park.

      “So,” he said, “you came home for your sister’s wedding. Last I heard you were living in New York.”

      “Yes.” Paige shifted uneasily in the leather seat. “And you…? What are you doing now?”

      He spared her a glance. “I run a telecommunications business, providing systems for industry.”

      “Is it a big business?”

      “Big enough.” He shrugged. “We’re expanding all the time, increasing staff numbers.”

      “It sounds…interesting.”

      “It’s challenging. New technologies are being invented and refined all the time. We have to stay a jump ahead, deciding which innovations are a flash in the pan and which will become industry standards.”

      “It sounds risky?”

      “I’ve built a solid enough base that we can afford the odd risk. So far I haven’t been wrong.”

      “You must be proud of yourself.”

      He seemed to ponder that. “Pride is what goes before a fall, isn’t it?”

      “Are you afraid of falling?”

      He laughed, with that new, somehow disturbing male confidence. “Not anymore. Are you?”

      She looked away from him, not answering.

      He gave her a second or two, then said quite soberly, “I learned a long time ago, no matter how hard the fall, I can survive. And I never make the same mistake twice.”

      “It seems like a sound philosophy.” She’d survived too. And she had no intention of scaling any heights again with him.

      He said, “I heard you got married in America.”

      “Yes.”

      “Did your parents approve?”

      “Yes, actually.” They had come to the wedding, given their blessing.

      “But you’re alone now.”

      She didn’t want his sympathy. Even less did she want to bare her feelings to him, of all people. To take the conversation away from herself she asked, “Are you married?”

      The first question that had come to mind, but immediately she regretted asking. It could lead to a minefield.

      “Like I said,” he replied, “I never make the same mistake twice.”

      “Marriage isn’t always a mistake,” she said.

      It left him an opening, she realized, and was thankful that he didn’t take it. He gunned the motor and the car leaped forward before he lifted his foot slightly and the engine settled back into its subdued growl. When he spoke again his voice was remote and cool. “I suppose you can’t wait to get back to…America.”

      Evasively she answered, “I’ll be spending some time with my family.”

      “How much time…days, weeks?” He paused. “Months?”

      “I’m not sure.”

      He flashed a glance at her. “He must be pretty accommodating…your husband.”

      Her thoughts skittering,

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