The lawyer inclined his head. ‘Marcus.’
‘Do you two know each other?’ Donna asked Tony in surprise.
‘Oh, everybody knows Marcus,’ he responded, with a shrug which didn’t quite come off.
But Donna had detected a subtle change in her lunch companion. Suddenly Tony Paxman did not look or sound like the smooth, slick lawyer of earlier. He sounded like a very ordinary man. A man, moreover, who had just recognised the leader of the pack.
Marcus turned to her at last, and Donna realised that she now had the opportunity to react to him as she had always vowed she would react if she ever saw him again. Coolly and calmly and indifferently.
Her polite smile didn’t slip, but she wondered if there was any way of telling from the outside that her heart-rate had just doubled. And that the palms of her hands were moist and sticky with sweat.
‘So. Donna,’ Marcus said slowly, and she met his dark-lashed eyes with reluctant fascination, their ice-blue light washing over her as pure and as clear as an early-morning swimming pool.
‘So. Marcus,’ she echoed faintly, eyes flickering over him. Okay, so he hadn’t become bald or fat or ugly, but he’d certainly changed. Changed a lot. But hadn’t they all?
‘Do you want to say it, or shall I?’ His voice was heavy with mockery, and something else. Something she couldn’t quite put her finger on, but it told her to beware.
‘Say what?’
‘Long time no see,’ he drawled lazily. ‘Isn’t that the kind of cliché that people usually come out with after this long?’
‘I guess they do,’ she said slowly, thinking that nine whole years had passed since she had seen him. How could that be? ‘You could have said, “Hi, Donna—great to see you!” But that would have been a whacking great lie, wouldn’t it, Marcus?’
‘You said it.’ He smiled. ‘And you’re the world’s expert where lying is concerned, aren’t you, Donna?’
Their gazes clashed and she found herself observing every tiny detail of his face; a face she’d once loved—but now she told herself that it was just a face.
She’d known him at the beginning of his rapid rise, before success had become as familiar to him as breathing. Before he’d had a chance to fashion himself in his own image, rather than one which had been passed down to him.
Gone was the buttoned down, clean-cut and preppie look which had been his heritage. The polished brogues and the perfectly knotted tie. The soft Italian leather shoes and the shirts made in Jermyn Street. The suit had gone, too. Now he wore pale trousers and a shirt. But a silk shirt, naturally. With—wonder of wonders—the two top buttons casually left undone. He looked sexy and sensational.
He had let his hair grow, too. A neatly clipped style had once defined the proud tilt of his head. Now strands of it licked at his eyebrows and kissed the high-boned structure of his cheeks. Stroked the back of his neck with loving, dark tendrils. He looked as rugged and as ruffled as if he’d just tumbled out of some beautiful girl’s bed after an afternoon of wild sex.
Maybe he had.
Her smile froze as she found she could picture the scene all too clearly. Marcus with one of those long-legged thoroughbred type of girls wrapped around him. The kind who’d used to hang around waiting for him like groupies.
She searched in desperation for something cool and neutral to say, her gaze fixing with a pathetic kind of relief on his shoes. ‘You’re obviously not working.’
Only his eyes hadn’t changed, and now they chased away faint surprise. As if her reaction had not been what he had expected. He glanced down at the navy deck shoes which covered his bare feet. ‘What’s wrong with them?’ he demanded.
‘Well, nothing really, I suppose. Just not the most conventional of footwear, is it?’ she observed wryly. ‘You look like you’re about to go sailing, rather than running a business.’
‘But I don’t run a conventional business,’ he growled impatiently. ‘And I don’t feel the need to hide behind a suit and tie any more.’
‘My! What a little rebel you’ve become, Marcus!’ commented Donna mildly, noticing the watchful spark which darkened his eyes from aquamarine to sapphire.
There was a small, apologetic cough from the table, and Donna and Marcus both started as Tony Paxman looked up at them. Donna bit her lip in vexation.
She’d forgotten all about her lunch partner! How rude of her! And how unimaginative, too. Just because Marcus Foreman had walked in, that didn’t mean that the rest of the world had stopped turning.
It just seemed that way….
‘Er, shall we order coffee, Tony?’ she asked him quickly.
But Tony Paxman looked as if he’d taken about as much rejection as he could handle in one day. He shook his head as he rose to his feet—master of his own destiny once more as he made a big pantomime out of gazing at his watch.
‘Heck! Is that the time? Time I wasn’t here! Client meeting at three.’ He held his hand out towards Donna and she took it guiltily. ‘Thanks very much for lunch, Donna. I enjoyed it.’
Suddenly Donna felt bad. She hadn’t meant for this to happen—for Marcus to disrupt her whole lunch, her whole day. Which left her wondering just what she had expected. She’d known that there was a strong possibility she would see him today. Had she naively supposed that he would pass by her table without a flicker of recognition? Or that they would exchange, at most, a hurried nod?
‘Thanks for everything you’ve done, Tony! Maybe we’ll do this another time.’
‘Er, yes. Quite. Goodbye, Marcus.’ Tony gave a grimace as Marcus clasped his fingers in what was obviously an enthusiastic handshake. ‘Fantastic lunch! Wonderful food! As always.’
‘Thanks very much,’ murmured Marcus.
The two of them watched in silence while Tony Paxman threaded his way between the tables, and suddenly Donna felt almost light-headed as Marcus turned his head to study her. As though she’d just plunged into the swimming-pool-blue of his eyes without having a clue how to swim.
‘Congratulations, Donna,’ he offered drily. ‘You’ve latched onto one of the town’s wealthiest and brightest young lawyers.’
‘His bank balance and his pretty face don’t interest me—I chose him because he was the best.’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘At what?’
‘Not what you’re obviously thinking! He was recommended to me,’ she answered, with a sigh. But even as she said it she realised that she didn’t have to justify herself to Marcus. Not any more. He wasn’t her boss. He wasn’t anything except the man who’d given her such a disastrous introduction into the world of lovemaking.
And then dumped her.
‘And did the person who recommended him also tell you that he has just come through a mud-slinging divorce which was very nasty? That he’s ready and available—but only if you don’t mind half his salary going out on his ex-wife and two children? I know that financial embarrassment tends to put some women off.’
And then he gave a brief, unexpected smile which half blinded her. ‘Heavens,’ he murmured. ‘I sounded almost jealous for a moment back there.’
‘Yes, you did,’ she agreed sweetly. ‘But there’s really no need to be, Marcus—my relationship with Tony Paxman is strictly business.’
‘I couldn’t care less about your relationship with anyone!’ He stared insolently at her fingers, which were bare of rings. ‘But I presume that you are still in the marriage market?’
Donna stared at him. ‘I’m still single, if that’s what you mean by