Merger By Matrimony

‘Oh.’

‘It’s just that the time isn’t right,’ she rushed on, blushing madly. ‘You know…’

‘Well, not really, but it’s none of my business anyway.’

‘Yes, it is! I mean, you’re the closest thing I have to a relative. At least, a relative of my own age. I have a couple of aunts in Cornwall but they’re in their nineties.’ She wrinkled her nose, considering the dilemma of her relativeless state, then her face cleared slightly. ‘It’s just that…you know…Callum and I… Well, he’s pretty busy…work and such…’

‘Why don’t you tell him to make some time for you?’

Stephanie shrugged and chewed her lip. ‘It’s not as easy as all that.’

Destiny inclined her head to one side and listened. The waiter efficiently cleared their table, routinely asking whether everything was satisfactory, to which she replied, honestly, ‘There wasn’t enough of it.’

‘I shall tell our head chef,’ the man said with an expression that told her that he had no intention of doing any such thing.

‘I mean,’ Stephanie said in a rush, ‘Callum’s so overpowering and he hates women who nag. When we first started going out, he used to say that he loathed women who were demanding.’

‘So what?’ Destiny frowned, trying to work this out in her head. ‘If you don’t demand certain things, how on earth do you ever get them?’

Another helpless shrug. ‘Thing is, we met at a business do that Uncle Abe had hosted before he and Mum divorced, and he sort of swept me off my feet to start with. You wouldn’t believe the women who would love to be seen with him…’

‘I can’t see why if he’s that intolerant.’ But she could. He drew stares from other people. He was physically commanding. He had the sort of personality that compelled other people’s attention.

‘Oh, he’s so rich and powerful and awe-inspiring.’

‘I don’t think he’s awe-inspiring. Actually, sometimes he irritates the life out of me.’

‘But you’d never let him know that, would you?’

‘Yes. Why not? He’s not going to chop both my arms off if I say what’s on my mind.’

Stephanie looked at her as though she had suddenly discovered that she was dealing with a madwoman.

‘Anyway,’ Destiny said hastily, ‘tell me about this wonderful house I shall be going to see on the weekend. Has Callum told you about his offer?’ Which he hadn’t, unsurprisingly, so she spent a few minutes telling her stepcousin the details.

‘So what will you do?’ Stephanie asked, while Destiny wondered why her fiancé had chosen to withhold such important news from the woman he loved. ‘If he’s made such an offer, then you know he’ll expect you to accept. He never compromises when it comes to business.’ She giggled nervously. ‘Or anything else, for that matter.’

‘I don’t care what he expects. I shall have a look around and come to my own conclusions.’ Now, from her stepcousin’s expression, she was listening to someone from another planet speaking in forked tongue. Destiny gave a little sigh, plunged into an unrevealing conversation about Henri because she knew that it would distract her stepcousin, and left the restaurant half an hour later wondering what exactly was the nature of the relationship between Stephanie and Callum. Was it any wonder that she had no time to read over here? There was far too much drama in her everyday life to leave much room for a bit of mindless escapism.

Whatever the dress code was for a trip to a country house—her country house, as Derek had explained in length on the telephone the day before—Destiny didn’t care. She packed comfortable clothes. A spare pair of jeans, two tee-shirts, flat walking boots, a pair of wellingtons. She had worked out that she now possessed roughly twice the amount of clothes she had ever had at any one time before. Aside from when she had been boarding in Mexico.

She managed to cram everything she was taking into her rucksack, and Stephanie’s first words on seeing her at ten past nine on the Saturday morning were, ‘Is that all you’re bringing?’

Destiny slung her bag into the back seat and then folded her long body into the car next to it.

‘It’s only a weekend,’ she pointed out. ‘Hello, Callum.’ She belatedly addressed the back of his dark head. It seemed that meeting Stephanie for lunch had not managed to put some vital perspective on her wayward feelings because, as their eyes met in the rearview mirror, she could feel her skin tingle.

‘My make-up takes up nearly as much room as that,’ Stephanie was saying cheerfully. ‘Doesn’t it, Callum?’