Dream Wedding

Once he was in the tears started again, but this time there was none of the tearing anguish of before, just a numb, empty hopelessness that seemed to fill her body and mind until she felt as though she was in a black void where nothing good could ever penetrate again. 'I want to go home, Mitch.' She raised her head as her brother came in with the coffee that he had insisted on making. 'I've had enough.'

'You're exhausted.' He patted her arm ineffectually. She hadn't told him what had transpired, beyond a brief outline of Donnie's advances and the way Reece had dealt with him. 'Things never get you down normally; you need a break.'

He sat down opposite her on one of the easy chairs. 'I'll stay here tonight and oversee everything. There won't be too much to do tomorrow, so why don't you take some time off and get away? You've worked damn hard on this one, Mim, and worn yourself to a frazzle. We've nothing heavy for the next few weeks, and with the amount we're getting for this job, and our order book for next year, we've got no problems financially. Why don't you disappear for three or four weeks in the sun? You haven't had a holiday for years and it'd do you good.'

'I might just do that.' She smiled weakly and forced herself to accept the coffee and drink it as though her world hadn't just fallen apart. 'If you're sure you can cope.'

'Sure I'm sure.' Mitch grinned and walked into the bedroom, packing her case and bringing it through, to the lounge. 'Now, I'll sleep here tonight and clear things tomorrow. You go home and take the phone off the hook and get some rest. Come on.' He took her arm, pulling her to her feet and picking up the case with his other hand. 'The car's outside; I came in it this morning. You use that as the vans are both here too.'

She could never remember driving home that night, the next few hours blurring for ever in her mind, but when she awoke the next morning to a Sunday filled with bright winter sunshine something had clarified in her mind during the long night hours. She was eaten up with misery and jealousy and anger and she didn't like herself like this—she didn't like it at all. Some of what she had screamed at Reece the night before had been the truth and some of it had been a result of her blinding jealousy and hurt, but whatever, it couldn't continue.

She took a long, deep breath as she lay in the snug warmth of her bed watching a dancing ray of white sunlight on the far wall. Mitch was right; she had to get away and try and get herself together. She couldn't go on like this. She didn't want to. She wanted to be able at least to like herself again, even if she wasn't someone that Reece Vance could love.

CHAPTER TEN

Mitch banked the enormous cheque that Reece had given him on Sunday prompt and early Monday morning, and before Miriam left for Morocco later that day she wrote another cheque to cover the whole of the debt outstanding on the vans, along with a formal little note of thanks expressing best wishes for himself and Sharon in their future together.

It nearly killed her to do it but, once done, the solid weight that had settled where her heart should have been was a little easier. If she could do this she could do anything, she thought wryly as she watched the buff-coloured envelope slip into the postbox with a dull thud.

And later that afternoon, as she sat in the airport departure lounge on the first stage of her month's holiday to Morocco, which she had got at a ridiculously low price due to a last-minute cancellation by the original ticket-holders, she reflected flatly that she had learnt more about herself in the last few weeks than in the whole of all the years before.

She had never imagined spending Christmas alone in a foreign country for a start, but the date of the holiday was such that she would be travelling home at the beginning of the new year and it amazed her that she didn't even care. She had written no Christmas cards, bought no presents, would be detached from the last-minute rush involving Christmas trees, turkeys and plum puddings, and all she could feel was indifference.

What have you done to me, Reece? she asked herself more than once on the uneventful plane journey. Would the joy of living ever revive? It frightened her that she didn't know and didn't care.

She spent the first few days in Casablanca by the hotel pool, reading, sleeping and eating. She felt strange when she stopped to analyse it, almost as though she were convalescing after a serious illness that had taken every scrap of energy and drive and left her an empty, damaged shell.

And she was still feeling exactly the same on the following Tuesday, when she had been in Morocco just over a week. She had visited one or two mosques, their towering minarets and beautiful arches delicate and timeless under the hot Eastern sun, and wandered slowly in the countless souks—markets filled with tiny stalls where, in the ancient way of Eastern peoples, merchants haggled over the prices with their customers. And although England with its snow and winter chill seemed a million miles away still the feeling of unreality persisted.

So, as she opened sleep-filled eyes after dozing lazily on a comfortable sun-lounger at the edge of the pool for most of the afternoon, the fact that Reece was lying not three feet away from her took a second or two to sink in.

She stared at him mindlessly and the beautiful silver-grey eyes stared back, his black hair gleaming in the last of the dying sunlight and his big body naked except for a pair of brief swimming trunks.

'Hello, Miriam.' It was his voice that convinced her it wasn't a dream—that deep, dark voice that had made her mad on occasion with its cool, authoritative tone and arrogant self-assurance.

'I—' She struggled into a sitting position as she became aware of two things simultaneously. One was the fact that the brief bikini that she was wearing left very little to the imagination, and the other, intrinsically linked with the first, was the effect that the sight of his near-naked body was having on hers.

He looked magnificent but she had known he would, she thought desperately as her brain began to function again. 'Where's Sharon?' She glanced round her helplessly, as though the lovely blonde was going to drop out of the sky like the wicked witch of the East.

'Sharon?' His eyes narrowed slightly, but apart from that he didn't move a muscle. 'I've no idea. Should I have?'

'But—' She stopped abruptly again and then, mercifully, hot rage began to sweep away the confusion and panic and loosen her tongue. 'Of course you should,' she said tightly as she reached down by the side of the lounger for her robe and moved her feet over the side of the plastic frame as she slipped it on.

The rush of love and longing that had deluged her since she had opened her eyes had to be brought under control, she told herself desperately as she kept her face in profile to the piercing gaze. He mustn't guess—

'Why?' He was leaning on one elbow as he watched her, the epitome of the relaxed holiday-maker, and for a moment she could have kicked him for that casual confidence.

'Look, I don't know why you're here but—'

'I'm here to see you, Miriam, and, for the record, I couldn't care less where Sharon is now or at any other time,' he said quietly, bringing her eyes to his with a little snap. 'I don't know what that lady has been telling you—'

'She's been telling me about your plans for the future,' Miriam said tightly, 'which I suppose you are now going to deny?' She laughed harshly, the sound jarring in the thick, scented air and causing the one or two hotel guests who were left by the pool to glance over before returning to their magazines. 'As if you could.'

'I could.' He sat up now, swinging his feet over the side of his lounger and taking her arm in his. 'Put your sandals on,' he said grimly, 'We're going for a walk in the gardens.'

'I'm not going anywhere with you—'