A Wedding To Remember. Emma Darcy

in hers. “It’s not the time I spend on a job that’s important, Joanna. It’s the knowledge I have. A large corporation will spend half to a million dollars without blinking to access that data. It can mean the difference between failure and success. And I have a stranglehold on this market. I was the first into it, and no-one has been able to catch me.”

      “So all the spadework paid off in the end,” she commented dryly.

      His mouth twisted into a travesty of a smile. “Ironic, isn’t it? When we were married and together it was a struggle for me to survive in business from week to week. You had to support me. After you left me, it started to roll in in the millions, month after month.”

      The open reference to their marriage stirred conflicting emotions. Joanna sought to hide them by lifting her glass of champagne in a toast to his achievements. “Congratulations, Rory. You’ve certainly done well for yourself.”

      His eyes mocked the distance she was trying to keep between them. “Perhaps you did me a good service in walking out on me, Joanna. It concentrated my mind on making a success of something.”

      “It must give you a lot of satisfaction,” she retorted lightly.

      He lifted his glass and sipped the champagne before pointedly remarking, “Funny thing about money. When you don’t have it, you think it’s the answer to everything. When you’ve got more than you could ever possibly need, you find out there’s still something missing.”

      Did he mean her?

      She tore her gaze from the intense provocation in his and forced her legs to walk casually through the room. “But you must enjoy what you have here,” she said, indirectly seeking some clue to his feelings.

      “Yes,” he answered, too briefly to reveal anything. He strolled past her, heading for a set of doors that led onto the terrace outside. “Sorry it’s such a grey day,” he tossed over his shoulder. “Normally this room is flooded with sunshine.”

      To Joanna, it was a taunting reminder of what she had hated most about the apartment they had rented to keep living expenses to a minimum. The windows had been small and facing the wrong direction for any ray of sunshine to warm or cheer the place. She had stipulated to Rory that when they could afford to buy a home of their own, it had to have rooms with lots of sunshine coming in, and if possible, a view of...

      “The view of the sea is better from out here,” he said, finishing her thought for her and gesturing an invitation to accompany him onto the terrace.

      Joanna walked forward like an automaton, drawn almost against her will to see all there was to see, despite the inner torment it aroused. From the railing between the arches, there was a magnificent view of the sea and a long wide sweep of beach, as well. On a sunny day it would be glorious. Even now, with the sky overcast and threatening rain, it was still perfect to Joanna, precisely what she had dreamed of having.

      “Geraniums,” Rory said, pointing to the ceramic pots near the railing. “Since it’s midwinter they’re not in flower right now, but that one over there is red, that one a sort of apricot, that one...”

      He listed off the geraniums she had envisioned as adding to the Mediterranean look she’d favoured. How he had memorised them she did not know, but he had forgotten nothing. Then, as though he could command nature itself to do his bidding, the clouds parted and the sun beamed a brief benevolence on both of them. It was always like that with Rory, Joanna thought. The most surprising, unexpected and improbable things happened.

      Again he gave her that heart-kicking smile, sharing a moment made specially for them, or so it seemed. Joanna was somehow incapable of resisting when he took her hand, enfolding it warmly in his. He drew her along the terrace, beyond the living room, past a cane and glass table setting that was positioned outside a curtained room, to the end of the last archway, where there was a rich profusion of potted palms and hanging baskets of ferns.

      Then Rory showed her it wasn’t the last archway at all. There was another that was glassed in on three sides, and inside this part of the terrace was an even more mind-wrenching sight. The whole space was taken up by a huge spa bath, luxuriously set in richly veined green onyx with gold taps and crystal jars of bath oils around the wide ledges.

      “To make you feel relaxed and pampered,” Rory murmured.

      After we make love. That’s what she had said, imagining the jets of the spa shooting tingly bubbles over their sensitised flesh while they moved their bodies sensuously together in the scented flow of the bath.

      “You can lie back and be soothed by the sight of tropical greenery, or watch the sea,” Rory continued softly. “At night you can see the stars. There are skylights specially built above the bath so you can look up and see the universe revolve if you want to stay there long enough.”

      That was what he had added when she had described what would be heavenly to her. She remembered laughing in delight but never dreaming it could really be possible for them. A delicious fantasy, totally unrealistic, yet Rory had made it come true.

      Tears pricked her eyes as an ungovernable well of emotion surged from her heart. It wasn’t fair, her mind cried. How could Rory do this when everything was over between them? As though in tune with the ache gathering inside her, there was a roll of thunder and the sunshine blinked out. Heavy drops of rain began to fall.