And when he’d caught her there didn’t seem to be any particular hurry to explain that this was just a temporary persona. Then he’d asked her to marry him.
And had meant it.
Her slightly stunned ‘yes’, had left him wanting to shout stop the presses…reset the front page…I’ve got some real news…—drowning out the small warning voice telling him that she thought she was getting the heir to a publishing empire. Not a man who, in his real life, lived in the old hayloft above what had once been a coach house and stables. Above his workshop where he lived an entirely different dream.
Could it be that he was afraid she wouldn’t want the real Michael Armstrong? Was that why he’d put off telling her?
Once his father had driven them out to the house, handed them the estate agent’s glossy brochure, gift-wrapped, it had been too late.
‘You only have one life, Mike,’ Cal said, interrupting his black thoughts, reading his mind with frightening accuracy. ‘You have to live your own dream.’ Then, frowning, he said, ‘It’s the bride who’s supposed to be having last-minute nerves.’
‘I’d advise you to wait until you try it from the business end of the wedding banns before you make such sweeping judgements.’
‘That sounds like a bad case of cold feet.’
The inflection in Cal’s voice again urged him to confide his misgivings, but things had gone too far for that, so he shook his head. ‘I guess I thought it would be simpler. I guess I thought getting married was just a question of turning up at the church on time and not losing the ring.’
‘You can safely leave those details to me. As for the rest…’ He glanced at his watch. ‘It’s nearly lunch time. Why don’t you go and find the lovely Willow, give yourselves the afternoon off and remind yourself what this is all about?’
‘I haven’t got time.’ Cal’s brows rose slightly. ‘I’ll be away from the business for the best part of a month.’ Except it wasn’t going to be the business, any more. It was going to be his business. He’d conformed, settled down and his father was all set to hand over the minute the ink was dry on the marriage register.
‘Mike?’ She’d been waiting an hour for him, finishing the feature about the holiday cottages, tidying up loose ends. Thinking of some way to tell him about the job she’d been offered.
Leaving the paper would be bad enough, a kick in the teeth of both Mike and his father. And she’d have to travel to London every day, not always making it home, maybe. It was possible that if the Globe knew she was about to get married, they might not be so keen to have her…
Mike finally made a note in the margin of a column of figures, then looked up.
‘What is it, Willow?’
She looked at the pencil keeping his place in the margin and said, ‘Nothing. Absolutely nothing.’
She didn’t wait for his response, but walked quickly out of the building. Her car was in for a service and Mike had offered to give her a lift to Crysse’s. He’d clearly forgotten and she’d rather walk than interrupt his love affair with a calculator. That was what you got for falling in love with an accountant.
She hoisted her shoulder bag a little higher. She’d walk off the bad day with the builders, the endless queries from her mother about details, details, details. She no longer cared about the colour of the ribbons on the pew ends, or whether there would be sufficient roses in the garden for buttonholes. In a world where there were children who’d never had a holiday, never would have a holiday unless someone like Emily Wootton made it possible, such things didn’t rate a second thought.
But walking was a mistake. She was wearing new shoes and, by the time she’d gone half a mile, the deceptively soft leather had raised a blister on her heel. If she limped up the aisle, every painful step captured on video for posterity, her mother would probably kill her. Which would solve every one of her problems at a stroke. The other option was to catch a bus. As she reached a stop, she joined the queue, eased the weight off her foot and waited.
‘Offer you a lift, lady?’ She forced herself to ignore the little heart-lift as Mike pulled up beside her, an unruly cow-lick of honey-coloured hair sliding over his forehead as he leaned across to push open the passenger door of his black four-wheel drive.
‘My mother told me never to take lifts from strangers,’ she said, horribly conscious of the envious glances of women with heavy shopping bags. Then she said, ‘I thought you were busy.’
‘I was. I am. And I have a headache to end all headaches, which is why I forgot about giving you a lift to Crysse’s.’
‘I hope your stag night was worth the headache.’
‘Nothing is worth this amount of pain.’ And it hadn’t worked. No amount of alcohol or the juvenile high jinks organised by Cal, had been able to blot out the mess he’d got himself into. He glanced at the queue of people who had stopped straining to see if a bus was coming and were now all watching their little drama. ‘Please get in, Willow.’
‘How did you know I didn’t call a taxi?’ She considered taking out her phone and doing just that.
‘You were angry.’ And he didn’t blame her. ‘In your shoes I’d have walked.’
‘Then, you’d have made a mistake.’ Willow was attracting more attention than she cared for. And calling a taxi would be petty. She took a deep breath and climbed in beside him. Shut the door. ‘My shoes have given me a blister.’
‘Oh, hell. Come here.’ Mike forgot all about the bus queue as he put his arms around her and she went to his shoulder like a kitten to a warm blanket. ‘I’m sorry.’ He eased back, looked down at her, took the full force of her electric blue eyes and found himself wishing he’d heeded Cal’s advice, taken yesterday afternoon off and stayed in bed. Until this morning. ‘Do you have to go to Crysse’s this evening?’
‘I’m afraid so. There’s the crèche at the reception to be finalised, a panic about a torn bridesmaid dress, some place names still need to be written—’ She was ticking the endless list off on her fingers, but he caught her hand, stopping her.
‘Do you know something?’
‘What?’
‘If I’d known then, what I know now, I would never have asked you to marry me.’
‘Believe me,’ she came back without hesitation, ‘if I’d known then what I know now, I’d have said no.’ And for just a second something flickered in the depths of her eyes. Almost, he’d have said, as if she meant it. Then she shivered. ‘I’m getting through by dealing with it the way I would an overdue trip to the dentist. Agony at the time, but afterwards…’
Her voice trailed off, leaving him to fill in the blank with something appropriate, like ‘bliss’, he thought. Instead he said, ‘Hold onto that thought,’ as he released her. ‘And buckle up.’ He engaged gear and turned to check the oncoming traffic.
Anything rather than face the everlasting afterwards behind a desk, in an office, balancing the books.
‘I’ve been offered a job, Crysse.’
‘A job? What kind of job?’ Her cousin looked up from repairing the hem that one of the tiny bridesmaids had somehow managed to put her foot through. ‘Surely the Evening Post isn’t trying to poach you? What a nerve!’ She slipped in another pin. ‘Although, come to think of it, maybe working with your husband isn’t that great an idea. Twenty-four hours a day of perfect bliss might be more than any ordinary woman could stand. Not that I’m in any position to judge.’
‘I scarcely see Mike at the office. Besides, it isn’t with the Post. I couldn’t work for a rival paper.’ Crysse looked up from threading a needle. ‘You remember I applied