LITMIR.BIZ

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touch her full lips.

      Her reply was honest. Honesty was the best policy. She pushed away the stab of unease. There were exceptions to every rule and occasions when breaking them was the right thing to do.

      ‘I’m not sure.’

      Another smile almost escaped. The woman’s wide-eyed reaction suggested she was seeing Mari walk into a wardrobe crammed with designer outfits. In reality, nothing could be farther from the truth. She possessed one other dress beside this bargain designer second with the label cut out.

      The blue silk shift that had excited the other woman’s admiration left her arms bare and ended just above the knee. She liked the simplicity of the flattering figure-skimming cut, and the bright cerulean shade echoed the colour of her eyes almost exactly. People who got past her hair often commented on the colour of her eyes, frequently asking if she wore coloured contact lenses to achieve the dramatic shade.

      ‘If I had your hair I wouldn’t wear a hat either.’ Her eyes on Mari’s tumbling auburn curls, the young woman touched a rueful hand to the frothy pink confection perched jauntily on her smooth blonde hair as she responded to an irritable, ‘Come on, Sue!’ from a tall, grumpy-looking young man, top hat in hand.

      He saw Mari, looked far less grumpy and adjusted his tie. Mari, oblivious to the male admiration, attempted to slip away but the young woman moved to block her way.

      ‘Do you mind—can I have a picture for my blog?’

      Before she could respond the woman was snapping Mari on her phone.

      ‘Who was that?’

      ‘I think she’s that model...or the actress in what was that film, the one with...?’

      Under normal circumstances the overheard snatch of conversation as she hurried on would have made Mari laugh, but this situation was not normal, and she couldn’t allow herself to be distracted.

      What would they say if they could share the joke: not only was she not a famous model or actress, she was not even a guest at this wedding!

      She was crashing it!

      A thing that a month, a week, even a day ago, she could not have imagined herself doing.

      A lot of things could change in a week!

      * * *

      A week ago Mari was listening to her twin brother telling her how his life was ruined, ignorant then of the real life-wrecking disaster that would strike him within the next few hours. At that moment disaster meant being dumped by the woman he loved because her very important brother, with his blue blood and family estates, didn’t think that he, Mark Jones, who didn’t even know who his parents were, was good enough for a Defoe!

      Mari offered her sympathy, while in reality she was dizzy with relief. It was all she could do not to punch the air in triumph. The sick feeling that had been in the pit of her stomach ever since she had realised who her twin’s new girlfriend’s brother was had gone.

      That her happiness came from her brother’s misery made her feel terribly guilty, but the truth was, since she had realised that there was a strong possibility that Mark’s new relationship might bring her face-to-face with the man who after six years still featured in her nightmares, she had been living with a sense of impending doom.

      Crazy, really—for years she’d fantasised about coming face-to-face with him and telling him all the things she wished she had at the time, instead of just standing there and taking every vile insult he’d thrown at her... She had actually apologised!

      No matter how many times she tweaked the cathartic speech she longed to deliver, deep down she had always known this was only a fantasy, and the knowledge infuriated her. She had spent her life not only standing up for herself, but also fighting the battles of anyone less able to fight for themselves, but there was no escaping the shameful fact that when the opportunity had arisen for her to defend herself, she’d bottled it!

      And run away rather than face things!

      She could still remember years ago, how cold the wind had felt as she had dashed across the lawn into the hotel away from all those eyes and the people judging her.

      ‘He was on the news tonight. Did you see him?’

      ‘Who?’ she asked, her thoughts still on that terrible night six years ago.

      ‘Sebastian Rey-Defoe.’

      The name made her tense and the awed way her brother said it made her want to scream. She could admire achievements, even when money and power were not things she personally felt any desire for, but to inherit a position and money... What was to admire about that? Any more than you could admire someone for being beautiful and brooding, for inheriting genes that gave him sculpted features, spectacular eyes and sensually moulded lips.

      ‘They were talking about the massive deal he has with some Gulf state. The royal family there are putting up half the capital and one of his companies is supplying the know-how to computerise their health service, sort of a tit-for-tat thing—it could bring over a thousand jobs back to the area where they plan to build—’

      Mari gave a cynical snort and cut across him. ‘And line his pockets with money, too.’

      Mark’s sigh was tinged with envy. ‘If only I had some money.’

      ‘What’s money got to do with it, and what does it matter what he thinks if you want to be together?’

      ‘I don’t know why I expected you to understand. I mean, you’ve never been in love, have you? Oh, I forgot—you go for married men, don’t you...?’

      Essentially a nice person, this was Mark when he was hurting. He hit out, wanting to share his misery, and he usually succeeded because he knew her weak spots.

      He was the only one who did know this particular weak spot. Not the shameful details—those she would never share with anyone—just the basics. Well, knocking on his door at 4:00 a.m., having lost her key during the terrible journey back from Cumbria that had involved trains, buses and multiple changes, had required an explanation of sorts.

      ‘Adrian, he’s married!’ had been all she’d got out before she had burst into tears and fell sobbing through the door.

      It was the past and she had moved on, Mari reminded herself.

      Moved on or not, the fact remained that she couldn’t think of her eighteen-year-old self without cringing. How had she ever been that naive, that...needy? How could she not have seen past the smooth, slick charm and macho posturing of her personal tutor?

      ‘If you’re not ready, Mari, I understand you want the first time to be special. I can wait...’

      She had almost fallen over herself to assure Adrian that she was ready and she loved the Lake District. She’d never even had a boyfriend and here was this gorgeous, sophisticated man who looked like one of the Byronic heroes he lectured on falling for her, Mari Jones. Of course she couldn’t wait to show him how much she loved him.

      And she would have.

      If that man hadn’t appeared when he had...

      For a year after the event he had been that man in her head, the strong, amazingly handsome lines of his lean face clearer somehow than Adrian’s, until the day she had opened a magazine in the dentist’s waiting room and there he was on a silver-sanded beach, too beautiful to be real, just like the blonde model he was entangled with.

      The man who had humiliated her in front of an audience who had eaten up every word, every insult he had so eloquently delivered, was Sebastian Rey-Defoe: rich, gifted and born with several silver spoons in his cruel, insult-spewing mouth.

      He’d made her feel grubby and guilty, his contempt somehow worse than Adrian’s deceit; at least she’d got the chance to tell Adrian that he was a total sleaze.

      That man had not paused to ask questions, he’d just presumed the very worst.

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