The Valentine Bride by Liz Fielding

Author:Liz Fielding [Fielding, Liz]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Contemporary, Fiction, Romance, Women's Fiction
ISBN: 9781742902944
Google: BbDaBeGqJREC
Amazon: B001CDA3DS
Publisher: Harlequin Romance
Published: 2007-02-02T00:00:00+00:00

‘It’s a shame we didn’t make it to the fishing lodge,’ Louise said as they returned to the chauffeur-driven car Sebastian had thoughtfully laid on for them.

The day had just ebbed away. Lunch with Emma and Sebastian had been unexpected. Wonderful, but even an informal, private lunch with the king and his new queen was not exactly an eat-and-run deal. Then the meeting with a leading hotelier had been long on formality, short on substance, and who could know that the Director of Tourism thought he had to ‘sell’ them Meridia? Organise a tour of the city, with stops at all the historic sites. It would have been unpardonably rude to tell him they were already ‘sold’, but it had left them too short of time to get out to the island in daylight.

Now they barely had time to make their check-in at the airport and, although Max had said nothing, it was as clear as day what he was thinking. That the wasted time was entirely down to her.

‘I should have listened to you, Max, instead of trying to cram everything in. We’re going to have to make another trip to look at it.’

‘That won’t be necessary.’

She stopped, stared after him. He’d didn’t even want to look? Was rejecting it sight unseen. Had he just been stringing her along, making some crappy pay back point about leaping before they’d looked…?

‘You’ve decided against it?’ she demanded, already regretting jumping in to take the blame.

Realising that she wasn’t keeping pace with him, he turned to face her.

‘No, Louise. On the contrary. I want to see it very much, but I thought it likely that we’d need more time so I’ve arranged for us to stay over until tomorrow.’

‘Oh.’ She should have felt happy that he was, after all, enthusiastic about the project, but instead she felt oddly flattened. Excluded. Was that how he’d felt when she’d gone ahead and made arrangements without talking to him first? ‘You didn’t think to mention it?’ she asked as she joined him and they moved on.

‘I did, but at the time you were otherwise occupied.’ It was true—Emma had claimed her attention over lunch, wanting to talk about the coming ball. Ask her advice…‘Is it a problem?’ Max asked, standing back so that she could step into the rear of the car, then joining her. ‘We could always stop somewhere to buy a toothbrush.’

‘Not necessary.’

She glanced at him, then quickly looked away.

They’d been sitting shoulder-to-shoulder close for most of the day, but clearly regretting letting slip his problems with his mother—showing a chink in his armour—he’d kept his distance mentally, put up some kind of invisible wall between them. Maybe it had simply been a business thing, a protection against the simmering undercurrent that was always there, just beneath the surface.

Now they were on their own for the first time since they’d landed, she was doubly conscious of his nearness, not as a business colleague, but as a man.

‘I never travel without one,’ she said, aware that he had looked at her, querying her response.

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