‘I’m truly grateful,’ he said. ‘Now, where’s your luggage?’
She picked up her large, bright pink suitcase and faked a confidence she didn’t quite feel. ‘OK. I’m ready. Let’s go.’
His car was gorgeous—sleek and low-slung, with leather seats that were amazingly comfortable—and she wasn’t surprised to discover that he had a really good sound system, too. She was happy enough to listen to music until they were out of London and on the motorway, and then she turned to him.
‘Can I ask you some questions?’
‘Sure you can ask,’ he said, sounding as if he reserved the right not to answer.
‘We’ll start with your family,’ she said. ‘Even an unsuitable airhead girlfriend would know who she was going to visit. I know you’re the youngest of four boys, and we’re going to your brother Nigel’s engagement party somewhere in Oxfordshire. Everyone else in your family is a stockbroker. And that’s all I know. Do you not think that I might need to know everyone’s names, at the very least?’
‘I guess,’ he said. His voice was totally expressionless, so she had no idea what was going through his head. ‘OK. My parents are Oliver and Elizabeth. Pa’s recently retired and spends half of his day on the golf course. Ma’s in the WI and does charity work. My brothers— Julian’s the oldest, married to Poppy, and they have a baby girl, Sophia. Alistair’s the next and he’s married to Harriet. Nigel’s about to get engaged to Victoria, and they’re getting married at Christmas. I’m the youngest, and I’m taking my new girlfriend Bella Faraday to meet the folks. Anything else?’
‘Yes. Ground rules. What does playing your girlfriend actually mean?’ she asked. ‘Holding your hand? Draping myself artfully over you?’
He blew out a breath. ‘I hadn’t thought that far ahead, to be honest. I suppose they’d expect us to hold hands. And for me to dance with you at the cocktail party. Which is a point. Can you dance?’
She couldn’t help smiling because he’d set up her answer so beautifully. And, with any luck, it would make him laugh and relax a bit, too. ‘Would that be with or without a pole, Mr Moncrieff?’
As she’d hoped, he laughed. ‘Without.’
‘I don’t really tend to go clubbing,’ she said. ‘But I go to a dance aerobics class, so I can move in time to music.’
‘That’s good enough for me.’
But he hadn’t answered her question fully. ‘Anything else?’ she asked.
He frowned. ‘Such as?’
‘Normally, people who are dating tend to, um, kiss each other,’ she said. ‘Especially when dancing and parties are involved.’
‘Ah. Yes. Kissing.’
The car suddenly felt way too small. And was it her imagination, or had the temperature just shot up by ten degrees?
‘Chaste kissing would be acceptable,’ he said.
Right at that moment, she didn’t feel very chaste. And she wished she hadn’t brought up the subject, because she could just imagine what it would be like to kiss Hugh Moncrieff. To cup his face in her hands and brush her lips against his, teasing at first, and then letting him deepen the kiss. Matching him touch for touch, bite for bite, until they were both dizzy with desire and he carried her off to his bed...
‘Bella?’
‘What?’ She’d been so lost in her fantasy that she hadn’t heard him say anything to her. She felt colour flood into her cheeks.
‘I said, are you OK with that?’
No. It was way too risky.
But she’d agreed to play his unsuitable girlfriend. And she was the one who’d brought up the question of kissing in the first place.
‘I guess,’ she said, trying to sound cool and calm and completely unbothered. ‘Next question.’
‘Hit me with it,’ he said dryly.
‘Why are you single?’
He blew out a breath. ‘You’re very direct. Why are you single?’
Because she’d put her trust in the wrong people. ‘I asked you first.’
He shrugged. ‘I was seeing someone and it didn’t work out.’
That was obviously the need-to-know version of the story, she thought. She didn’t think Hugh was the type to be a selfish love rat—someone like that wouldn’t have come to her and Grace’s rescue when they’d needed help, the other week—so she assumed that he hadn’t been the one to end the relationship. Had his ex broken his heart? But there was no point in asking him. She knew he’d stonewall her.
‘You?’ he asked.
‘You summed it up for me, too. I was seeing someone and it didn’t work out,’ she said. She didn’t want to tell him the whole messy story. More precisely, she didn’t want him knowing that she was so naïve and had such poor judgement in relationships. Her best friend and her live-in boyfriend. Just how had she managed to keep her eyes so firmly closed to what was really going on between them?
‘Was it recent?’ he asked.
‘Six months ago,’ she said. ‘And you?’
‘A year.’
‘And you haven’t met anyone else since?’ That surprised her. When he wasn’t being grumpy in the office, Hugh was good company. And he was very easy on the eye. Surely he had women lining up for him in droves?
‘I’ve been too busy concentrating on my business.’ He paused. ‘You?’
‘The same.’ Except it hadn’t just been her romantic relationship that had crashed. Kirk had dumped her for the woman Bella had believed was her best friend since sixth form, taking that support away from her, too. And Kirk had quietly cleaned out their joint bank account, the morning he dumped her—which was why Bella hadn’t had her normal safety cushion of the equivalent of three months’ salary when her best client went bust, and why her finances were in such a mess now.
And there had been next to nothing she could do about it, because the money had been in their joint names. She’d talked to the bank, but they’d said that any signatory to a joint account had the right to withdraw however much money they liked, no matter how much they’d actually put in.
Bella would never make that mistake again. And she was really glad that she’d listened to Grace’s advice and put her tax money to one side in a different account rather than keeping it with her ‘salary’, or she’d be in debt to the Inland Revenue as well.
‘Let’s just say I’m tired of always dating Mr Wrong and I’m happier being single,’ she said.
‘Works for me. Any more questions?’
He was definitely in his Monday morning office mode now. Grumpy and difficult. She decided that any other questions could wait. ‘I guess we’ve covered the basics.’
‘Good. If you don’t mind, I’d better concentrate on my driving.’
Given that they were going to his family home, he probably knew the route blindfold, so Bella was pretty sure that this was just his way of avoiding any more questions. And she supposed he had a point. She knew enough to play her role. Asking him anything else would be intrusive, wouldn’t it? She let him concentrate on his driving and fiddled quietly with her phone, until he turned off the main road and drove them through narrower country roads to the outskirts of a village.
‘Here we are, then,’ he said as he turned into a driveway. The fences on