Beaumont Brides Collection by Liz Fielding

Author:Liz Fielding [Fielding, Liz]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Amazon: B007N6LQKC
Published: 2012-03-19T13:00:00+00:00

‘We might not have co-operated.’

‘Then he would simply have used the kiss on the film.’

‘But that wasn’t... You didn’t... Oh. I see.’

‘I knew you would.’ Eventually. He’d kissed her and that had given Barty James the idea to use it for the show. And now it was Claudia’s name that was being bandied about. Oh, he was there, but no one was really interested in him except as an accessory for their story. And that was how reputations were forged in the heat of the pressroom. Except of course there was no hot lead these days.

It was all done clinically, by computer.

She hadn’t said he was slow on the uptake, but then she hadn’t needed to.

He swallowed and turned back to the clipping for another lesson in reading between the lines. In fact there wasn’t much more than a caption, leaving the journalist little room to speculate on their relationship. But then he hadn’t needed words; the photograph said it all.

Other newspapers hadn’t been so restrained. Without the picture of the kiss they had simply printed a stock photograph of Claudia and made up for the omission by telling their readers what they had managed to dig up in the meantime.

All reported that the two of them had met during a charity parachute jump, all repeated the “hero” motive although mercifully without any details, which suggested it was just a useful word to go with parachute.

Thankfully none of them had taken the trouble to look up his record. Or anything else. Several had made a big point about the instant attraction between them.

‘There was an attraction all right,’ Mac said. ‘Your nearside wing was instantly attracted to the offside of my Landcruiser. I’ll bet none of them mentioned that.’

Claudia looked back up over her shoulder at him, laughing at his obvious indignation. ‘Oh, yes they did,’ she said, rifling through the cuttings. ‘Listen to this.’ She put on a pompous voice. ‘“Claudia Beaumont suffered a minor accident on arrival at the airfield, skidding on the wet grass in her new sports car. Gabriel MacIntyre immediately rushed to her assistance...” - rushing to wring my neck more like,’ she countered - ‘“and his deep concern was obvious to everyone present.”‘ She turned to face him without dislodging his hand from her shoulder. ‘Nicely done. You were concerned, weren’t you Mac? About your shiny black car. And your aircraft hangar.’

‘I did apologize.’

‘Mmmm. I don’t think you’ve quite got the hang of apologies, Mac. You should consider taking lessons.’

‘I thought you’d forgiven me.’

‘Well I have,’ she said, ‘for that. But you will keep doing and saying things that mean you have to say you’re sorry all over again. You’re beginning to slip seriously behind. That comment you made outside the theatre for instance,’ she said, ticking it off on her fingers. ‘Then grabbing my shirt and telling me to behave in front of the crew wasn’t exactly gentlemanly.’

And apologizing for his thoughts would take a month. Fortunately Claudia couldn’t read his mind. Interestingly she hadn’t mentioned the incident with the dress.

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