Merger By Matrimony

‘Not even in passing since I came.’

‘No? Well, he’s considering helping out financially in exchange for a house in the country I’ve also been willed.’

‘Let me get this right, Dessie… This man, whose name you’ve studiously avoided mentioning all evening, is proposing to pour millions into a company that’s currently losing money in exchange for…a house?’

‘It’s a big house.’

‘Sure it’s just the house he wants in exchange?’ There was teasing amusement in his voice. ‘Sure he doesn’t want you thrown into the bargain?’

Destiny rounded on him with vigour, hands on hips, thunderous frown on her face. ‘No, he most certainly does not want me thrown into the bargain! That’s an awful thing to say! He’s not my type and I am very far from being his! In fact, the man’s arrogant, bossy and pushy!’

Henri held up both his hands in mock surrender but his expression was shrewd. ‘Okay! I get the message! Arrogant, bossy and pushy! Just the type of man to get on the nerves of a determined, forceful woman with a mind of her own!’

‘Exactly.’ She offered him a weak grin. ‘Anyway, he’s just broken up from my stepcousin—or, should I say, he’s just been dumped by her, and not a minute too soon, as far as I’m concerned. Stephanie says it’s like a weight being lifted from her shoulders, even though they’re still friends.’

‘You seem to have become very involved in the lives of the rich and the beautiful, Dessie… Methinks the little chick is maturing…’

‘Shut up,’ she laughed, ‘or I’ll hit you over the head with the kettle!’

‘I’m cowering!’

‘Anyway, you’d better get some sleep now. Tomorrow there’s no time for jet lag, not when you’ve only got ten days over here. I’ve got an itinerary planned as long as my arm and in the evening we’re going to the theatre with my stepcousin. She’s dying to meet you.’

‘Haven’t been telling lies about me again, have you?’ he joked. ‘Like the time we went to the city and you sent me to collect a shirt you’d bought. Do you remember? Me, standing there, with a flowered blouse in my hand, and you show up and explain to the sales girl that I can’t help myself but that there’s nothing wrong with men wearing women’s clothing if it makes them happy?’

‘I was a kid at the time!’

‘A kid of nineteen!’

But they ended the evening on a warm note, despite some choppy waters in the middle. Any hint of a relationship with Callum other than a business one would fly back to her father at the speed of light, and then her father would be worried. He’d had a long and traditional marriage to his childhood sweetheart and the thought that his daughter might be having any kind of fling with a man he’d never met and whom she barely knew would send him into a frenzy of paternal protectiveness. He’d never said so in so many words, but she knew that Henri was the sort of man her father would approve of for her. The very last would be the likes of Callum Ross.

Not, she thought, guiltily confused, that Callum Ross even entered the equation when it came to her private life. Really.

Of course, studiously omitting to mention him would arouse another burst of unhealthy curiosity, so she reluctantly dragged his name up a couple of times during the course of the next day, and was relieved when it was met with a casual air of indifference.

And the evening would be a doddle. They were meeting Stephanie at the theatre at six-thirty, well in time for the start of the play.

When she emerged at five forty-five in her glad rags, she was met with wolf whistles and a one-man round of wild applause.

‘Gorgeous, darling, fabulous,’ Henri said in an affected voice, approaching her to kiss her hand. ‘Where does it all end? Can you tell me? Your father would be very proud!’

‘To see me decked out like a clown?’ But she laughed at the appreciative gleam in his eyes. She might feel a little clownish, but she knew that she didn’t resemble one. Not in the slightest. The wardrobe which she’d initially bought with tentative reluctance, and originally worn with awkward self-consciousness, had now expanded and included a number of dresses of which her first saleswoman would have heartily approved. No more craven concealment of her legs. No more functional, loose garments to cope with stifling heat.

Now, she was wearing a dark green straight dress, caught in at the waist and reaching her mid-calves. The neckline was off the shoulder and scooped low enough to expose the first hint of cleavage. And she was in heels, something she’d never, ever worn in Panama. The heels meant that she was taller than her escort, and she wondered how she’d never noticed Henri’s lack of stature before. She could see the top of his head and she had to resist the temptation to give him a quick pat.