Dream Wedding

He stopped abruptly and she tensed inside, sensing that she wouldn't like what he was about to say but unable to leave it alone anyway. 'Most women?' she asked softly.

'Most women are quite happy to take the good times along with all the material benefits of a relationship and leave it at that,' he said quietly.

'I think you've been mixing with the wrong women.' His eyes shot to her face as she spoke but she stared back at him bravely as she forced herself to say what she thought. 'In fact I'd hardly call such people women at all. All the ones I know value friendship and a degree of commitment in a relationship far more than what they can get out of it materially. Not all of them ate seeking the love a lifetime, no. I can think of one or two of my friends who have been with their partners for some time because they simply enjoy their company and respect the people they are, but love often starts like that anyway. It isn't always an instant blinding light, whatever the poets might say.'

'And you're an authority on the subject?' he asked coolly, but with a cutting edge to his voice that told her the indulgence he had displayed so far had vanished.

'I don't have to be to give my point of view,' she answered crisply.

'True…' He gave her a long, sardonic glance and then changed the subject abruptly as he gestured at his empty tray. 'I really enjoyed that,' he said politely, but with a shred of surprise in his deep voice that told her the comment was genuine. 'It's probably murder on the digestive system but I can see why the kids go for it now.'

He glanced around the room full of a wide assortment of the human race, including truck drivers, families out for an evening snack, young couples and a host of giggling schoolgirls in one corner who were clearly having a birthday treat. 'And the oldies too.'

'How the other half live?' she suggested drily, and as his gaze snapped back to her she saw the silver eyes were narrowed and watchful. 'Perhaps they don't have such a bad life anyway, even if they aren't setting the world ablaze.' It was probably below the belt, she admitted, even as the words left her lips, but his comments on other women had hit a nerve that wouldn't be calmed.

'I never thought they did.' There was no laughter or amusement in his voice now, nor the overt, laconic mockery with which she had expected him to meet her taunt, but as his eyes met hers for the briefest of moments she saw a passionate, hungry desire in the silver-grey depths that robbed her of speech and froze her thought processes.

It was instantly veiled as he moved his head to glance casually round the room again, but the brief baring of his soul had shocked her beyond measure. These had been untold hurt in that one piercing glance—hurt and pain and a craving for something that was voracious in its intensity. His lost childhood, perhaps?

She sat still and stunned in her seat as she slowly forced her hand to reach out and raise a stone-cold French fry to her mouth in some semblance of normality.

Or was it something in the present that made him look like that? One thing was for sure—what he said and what he felt were two totally different things with this man. The hard outer shell that he had built round himself was inches thick and it would take some sort of miracle to pierce such armour. Or some woman. Sharon's image floated in her mind's eye in all its exquisite beauty and she felt a cold shiver flicker down her spine. And the beautiful blonde was certainly some woman…

'Did you have a nice time on Saturday?' The second the words had left her lips she would have given the world to take them back, but all she could do was present a smilingly bland face to him as his gaze returned to her.

'Saturday?' His brow wrinkled for a moment and then cleared. 'Oh, Saturday. Well, the meal was excellent— but then the Berkely-Smiths have a reputation for their lavish hospitality which is second to none and must be maintained at all times.' The cynicism was hard and raw. 'It was more of a business evening anyway; Charles and I had several important matters to discuss.'

'Oh, I see.' She knew that she ought to leave it right there, but she also knew that she wasn't going to. 'I thought it was a dinner party?'

'It was,' he said briefly.

'I suppose Sharon's parents like having you around,' she continued carefully. 'You being an old friend of the family and so on.' Mention her. Say something, she screamed at him silently. The very fact that he had avoided saying Sharon's name spoke volumes—didn't it?

'Not particularly.' The silver gaze fixed on her face and she forced her eyes to show no reaction. 'I get on quite well with Charles, but Margaret is too like my mother for there to be any rapport between us, and she is astute enough to know I don't like her.'

'You don't like her?' she echoed faintly, 'But you just said she was like your mother—'

'My mother was a cold, predatory, rapacious woman completely devoid of normal human warmth,' Reece said coolly with absolutely no emotion whatsoever. 'Rather as you view me, I suspect,' he added, in a voice that was deceptively casual. 'For some reason I have never been able to fathom, my father adored her, and her slightest wish was his command. She was exceptionally beautiful but he came into contact with many beautiful women. However…' he shrugged slowly '…obviously my mother had something the others hadn't.'

'But she was your mother,' Miriam protested faintly. 'You must have felt something for her—'

'You were brought up in a happy, normal home,' Reece said quietly. 'You wouldn't understand.' It hurt—it hurt so much that her skin prickled with cold and her throat felt as rough as sandpaper. What could she say? How could she begin to get through to him when he had just told her that she didn't have a clue what he was talking about?

As the chatter and laughter ebbed and flowed around them she stared at him, searching her mind for a comment that wouldn't seem inane as her heart thudded painfully. She knew somehow that he hadn't talked to anyone like this for a long time; it was there in the hard, straight line of his mouth and the visible withdrawal in his body and face as he glanced round the crowded restaurant. But they were worlds apart. In every way. The knowledge caused her chest to tighten and burn and she felt a physical pain that caught the breath in her throat. She had to say something. She just had to say something; she'd probably never get the chance to reach out to him again.

'Anyway, all that was a long time ago and, like the line from the film, 'I don't give a damn'.' He smiled as his gaze returned to her troubled face, his eyes glittering with a savage self-mockery that belied his words.

'I'm in control of my own life now and I live exactly the way I want to,' he said flatly. 'No false emotion, no promises that are impossible to keep and no ties.'

'And Barbara was the same until now,' she whispered, with a sudden stage of understanding. That was why fee couldn't believe his sister's love for her fiancé was genuine. They were twins, each with a twin's capacity for understanding the other's mind, and after the childhood they had had Reece couldn't visualise Barbara taking such a step of faith with another human being. Because he couldn't. Her heart stopped and then thudded on.

'Dead right.' He had heard her whisper and his voice was scathing. 'I don't know what she's playing at but she'd make the worst mother in tine world; we've both got some of our mother's blood running through our veins, after all.'

'She loves him, Reece,' Miriam said bleakly. 'She told me so and I believe her.'

'She's a Vance,' Reece said bitterly as his eyes turned into pinpoints of steel. 'She's incapable of love.'

CHAPTER SIX