‘You’re going to need me on your side, Josie.’
‘I need you gone!’
He left her with the last word and his reward was a view of an unexpectedly sexy rear as she walked away. A pair of slender ankles. He was already looking forward to making his acquaintance with the legs that connected them.
‘I don’t suppose you’ve got a London newspaper to spare for a man dying of boredom?’ he called after her.
‘Never touch them,’ her disembodied voice replied from the bridge. ‘Far too stressful.’
‘Liar,’ he called back as he tugged on the bell pull that Francis had extended from its place by the bed so that it was within reach of the lounger.
He really should have explained what David had meant when he’d told her to ‘ring’. Actually, David should have told her himself, but maybe he’d been distracted.
She was a seriously distracting woman.
‘Don’t forget lunch.’
CHAPTER FOUR
A stylish wedding often owes more to natural elements than the designer’s art…
—The Perfect Wedding by Serafina
March
JOSIE was trying very hard not to grin as she walked back through the trees to her own deck and, once safely out of reach of those dangerous eyes, a mouth that teased without conscience, she swiftly recovered her senses.
Gideon McGrath might be in pain but it hadn’t stopped him flirting outrageously with her. Not that she was fooled into thinking it was personal, despite the way he’d peered down her robe until she’d realised what he was doing and moved.
All he was interested in was her coffee. In having her run his errands.
‘One o’clock…’ His voice reached her through the branches.
And her lunch, damn it!
She was sorely tempted to stand by the rail and eat that luscious blueberry muffin, very slowly, just to torment him.
Perhaps it was just as well that the monkeys had taken advantage of her absence to clear her tray. Upsetting the milk, scattering the little packets of sugar, leaving nothing but crumbs that were being cleaned up by a bird with dark, glossy green plumage who gave her a look with its beady eyes as if daring her to do anything about it.
She wouldn’t want the man to get the impression that she gave that much of a damn and, quite deliberately turning her back towards him, she looked up at a monkey chittering at her from a nearby branch. He turned on the charm with a smile, an outstretched hand, the moment he’d snagged her attention, hoping for more little treats.
It had to be a male.
‘You’ve cleaned me out,’ she said. ‘Try next door.’
She was treated to a bare-toothed grin before the little monkey swung effortlessly away into the trees, putting on a dazzling acrobatic show just for her.
‘Show off,’ she called after him. But the fact that she was smiling served as a reminder, should she need it, of just how dangerous that kind of self-serving charm could be. How easy it was to be fooled, sucked in.
She took a slow breath, then turned her face up to the sun, absorbing for a moment the heat, the scent of warm earth, the exotic high-pitched hum of the cicadas.
Five years ago she had been peeling vegetables and washing up in a hotel kitchen; the only job she could get.
Today, Celebrity magazine was paying for her to stay in one of the most exclusive safari lodges in Africa. Paying her to ensure that the year’s most expensive wedding went without a hitch. And, with her name attached to this event, she would be one of the ‘chosen’, accepted in her own right; finally able to justify Sylvie’s faith in her.
Gideon McGrath could flirt all he wanted. It would take more than his devastating smile to distract her from her purpose.
She swiftly unpacked, hung up her clothes, then waxed up her hair before dressing for work. At home she would have worn layers of black net, Lycra and jersey; the black tights, T-shirt, a sleeveless belted slipover that came to her thighs, the purple DMs that had become her trademark uniform.
On her first foray into a ‘destination’ wedding, on the island of St Lucia, she’d shed the neck-to-toe cover-up in favour of black shorts, tank top and a pair of strappy purple sandals.
The misery of sunburn, and ploughing through soft sand in open-toes, had taught her a sharp, painful lesson and she hadn’t made the same mistake again. Instead, she’d invested in a hot weather uniform consisting of a black long-sleeved linen shirt and a short skirt pulled together with a purple leather belt. Despite the heat, she’d stuck with black tights, which she’d also learned from experience, protected her legs from the nasty biting, stinging things that seemed to thrive in hot climates. As did her boots.
She took a folder from her briefcase that contained the overall plan for the wedding as envisaged by her predecessor, the latest guest list Marji had emailed to her—she’d need to check it against the rooms allocated by David—and her own lists of everything that needed to be double and triple-checked on site.
Marji had also sent her the latest edition of Celebrity with Crystal’s sweetheart face and baby-blue eyes smiling out of the cover. The first of half a dozen issues that would be dedicated to the wedding.
She glanced in the direction of Gideon’s tree house. It wasn’t the requested newspaper—far from it—but it did contain a dozen pages of the bride on her hen party weekend at a luxury spa. Impossibly glamorous girls poolside in barely-there swimsuits, partying till all hours in gowns cut to reveal more than they concealed would do a lot more to take his mind off his back than the latest FTSE index.
It was just the thing for a man suffering from stress overload.
Then she felt guilty for mocking him. Okay, so he’d taken shameless advantage of her, but it had to be miserable having your back seize up when you were on holiday in a place that had been designed to wipe out all traces of the twenty-first century. No television or radio to distract you. No way to phone home.
If he was as incapable of moving as he said he was. He looked fit enough—more than fit. Not bulky gym muscle, but the lean, sinewy lifestyle fitness of a walker, a climber even.
That first sight of him had practically taken her breath away.
Not just his buff body and powerful legs, but the thick dark hair and sexy stubble. Eyes from which lines fanned out in a way that suggested he spent a lot of time in the sun.
Eyes that unnerved her. Seemed to rob her of self-will. She’d been on the point of leaving him more than once and yet she’d stayed.
She dismissed the thought. It had been a long trip and she never had been able to sleep on a plane. She was simply tired.
The only thing that bothered her about Gideon McGrath was that he was here. Immovably so, according to him, and she could see how impossible it would be for him to climb aboard the tiny four-seater plane that had brought her here.
But there had to be a way. If it had been a life-threatening illness, a broken leg, they would have to get him out somehow.
She’d ask David about that.
The entire complex would very shortly be full to bursting with the wedding party, photographers, hairdressers and make-up artists for the feature on the build-up to the wedding, the setting, and no one was immune from an accident, falling ill.
She needed to know what the emergency arrangements were.
Meanwhile, whatever he came up with, they were going to need Gideon McGrath’s goodwill and co-operation and she regretted