LITMIR.BIZ

      CHAPTER ONE

      THE way the dark stranger kept staring at her was completely and strangely disconcerting. There were times when Bess felt so uncomfortable that she didn’t know where to put herself.

      That too constant tarnished-silver gaze, sometimes oddly speculative, sometimes quite embarrassingly assessing, was making her a mixed-up mess of edginess, arousing a weird kind of insecurity that made her feel dismayingly like a turtle who’d lost its shell.

      A shell-less turtle with a tummy bug, she amended as her stomach churned sickeningly around.

      And she shouldn’t be feeling like this—so hatefully and inescapably aware of a stranger—especially not at her own engagement party. She told herself that very firmly, adding that she wouldn’t allow him to have any effect on her at all, and she was working up a comfortable mood of defiant control as Tom whispered in her ear, ‘It’s time we circulated, pet. There are dozens of late arrivals we haven’t greeted yet.’

      He was already releasing his hold on her and she went into a mild state of panic, clutching his shoulders, the ring he had put on her finger earlier glittering in the brilliantly lit, crowded room. ‘Must we?’

      She knew she sounded childish and the censor in her brain told her that her deep reluctance to leave the dance-floor, to mingle and inevitably be formally introduced to the dark stranger who had appeared as her sister’s guest was totally irrational.

      But knowing a fear was irrational didn’t make it go away.

      ‘Of course we must.’ Tom’s smile was wry as he undamped her hands from his shoulders. ‘We’re public property tonight. No need to be shy.’ But he didn’t sound impatient; he never did with her.

      She had known him for most of her twenty-four years. and for all of that time he’d been protective of her, gently teasing her for what he liked to classify as shyness. So much so that she sometimes thought that even if she’d been the most extrovert soul on two legs he would have brainwashed her into believing she was the original shrinking violet!

      But it wasn’t as simple as that, as uncomplicated as being shy and retiring by nature. She had learned, early in life, never to thrust herself forward or try to muscle in on the limelight that had shone down on her sister all of her life. It simply didn’t pay.

      Two years older, the same age as Tom, Helen had always been the beautiful one, the witty one, the one who could charm and dazzle herself out of any scrape and into a position totally advantageous to herself, while Bess was the ordinary one, unnoticed when Helen was around, getting on with her life in her own quiet way, making no waves.

      She exhaled on an unconscious sigh and Tom slid an arm around her tiny waist.

      ‘Did I tell you how pretty you look tonight?’

      Bess smiled at that. He sounded more dutiful than genuinely impressed. But then she decided that she did deserve the compliment, after all, because she had carefully dressed to please him.

      When she’d chosen the understated beige silk dress to wear for their engagement party she’d known it would be exactly to his taste. He liked to see her looking neat and tidy, her curling copper hair tastefully subdued in a head-hugging pleat, only a token amount of make-up and nothing startling in the way of jewellery—just the simple gold chain he had given her at Christmas around her fragile neck.

      He hated and distrusted flamboyance in any form. Which was probably why he had never approved of Helen, or her lifestyle.

      And that, in turn, was why Helen’s escort had been watching her almost from the moment she’d seen them arrive. He wouldn’t be able to believe she was in any way related to the dazzlingly glamorous blonde creature at his side, she decided sickly.

      But it wasn’t important. It couldn’t be. Wasn’t she used to such reactions? Tom liked her just the way she was, and that was all that mattered, she told herself as she pinned on a smile and accepted the congratulations of those guests who’d arrived after she and Tom had taken to the dance-floor in the elegant conference-cum-hospitality suite of the area’s most prestigious hotel.

      ‘Some time within the next twelve months, but most probably this time next year. We’ve more or less decided on an Easter wedding. We have to find a suitable house first, of course—’

      She was still smiling as Tom answered the inevitable questions about the wedding date, but her face froze as Helen bore down on them. The gold tissue she was wearing looked as if it had been painted on and the sheer dazzle of her smile would have put a firework display to shame.

      ‘I’m glad you could make it,’ Bess said dutifully, not at all sure whether she really meant it, and reluctant to look up at the tall, commanding figure at her sister’s side because for some utterly insane reason he made her blood boil in her veins, firing her with a surge of adrenalin that was making her want to slap him!

      And that wasn’t like her at all!

      Weeks

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