Best Man To Wed?. PENNY JORDAN

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СКАЧАТЬ to the business; an evening course in computer technology had turned out to be a wise investment of her time, as had her determination to involve herself in the administrative side of the business.

      To some, such work might have seemed mundane, but Poppy felt it had given her a working knowledge and an insight into the running of the company which would be just as valuable on any future CV she needed to prepare as her language skills and her degree.

      The overnight bag which she had packed the night before was downstairs in the hall. Picking up her suit jacket she studied her reflection in her bedroom mirror critically.

      Her hair, soft and straight, made her look younger than she actually was, she knew, but she was loath to have it cut. Chris had once told her that he thought long hair on a woman was incredibly feminine. Sally, though, oddly enough, had a short, almost boyish crop of blonde curls.

      Her features didn’t lend themselves well to exaggerated make-up and her skin was too pale, she decided critically. Her eyes, her best feature, were large and almond-shaped and fringed with thick dark lashes which looked ridiculous when loaded down with mascara. Her nose was short and straight, and her mouth, in her view, was an odd mismatch, her top lip well shaped and moderately curved whilst her bottom lip was wider and fuller, somehow giving her mouth a sensuality which she personally found distressing and which she always tried to play down with a softly coloured matt lipstick.

      So far the early spring weather had been unseasonably fine and warm and her skin had begun to lose its winter pallor, but she had still slipped on stockings beneath her skirt. Bare legs, no matter how blissfully cool, did not, in her opinion, look properly businesslike.

      Downstairs she made herself a cup of coffee and a slice of toast which she knew she wouldn’t eat. Her stomach was already churning nervously. She had never particularly liked flying.

      James and Chris’s father, her uncle, had been a keen amateur pilot who had been killed with a friend when they had flown into a freak electric storm. She remembered how devastated Chris had been at his father’s death. They had cried over it together, sharing their grief. James, on the other hand, had retreated into grim, white-faced silence—a remote stranger, or so it had seemed to Poppy, who’d looked contemptuously upon her and Chris’s shared emotional grief.

      She heard James’s car just as she was swallowing her last mouthful of coffee. Quickly putting down her cup she hurried out into the hall, pulling on her jacket and picking up her handbag and case as she went to open the door. Like her, James was dressed formally in a business suit, not navy for once but a lightweight pale grey which somehow emphasised his height and the breadth of his shoulders.

      As he took her case from her, Poppy saw the brief, assessing glance he gave her and her chin started to tilt challengingly as she waited for him to make some critical or derogatory comment, but instead, disconcertingly, she suddenly became aware that his original scrutiny had turned into something a little more thorough and startlingly more male as his eyes lingered on the soft curves of her breasts.

      It was the kind of inspection that Poppy was used to from other men; that telling but, generally speaking, acceptably discreet male awareness of her as a woman. But to be subjected to it by James ... James who’d sternly reprimanded his younger brother when Chris had teasingly commented on her new shape the first day she had self-consciously worn the pretty, flower-sprigged cotton bra that her mother had gravely agreed that her eleven-year-old’s barely thirty-inch c hest demanded.

      Seeing James focus on that same chest in such a very male and sensual way when for years Poppy could have sworn that he was totally oblivious to the fact that she had grown from a child to a woman was a very disconcerting experience.

      Somehow just managing to resist the temptation to tug the edges of her jacket protectively together, Poppy gave him an angry glare. How would he like it if she focused on... a certain part of his body in that way.

      ‘Have you got everything?’ she heard him ask her before her brain could come up with an answer to her own question. ‘Tickets, passport, money...?’

      ‘Of course,’ Poppy responded, grittily withholding the angry comment she wanted to make. This was a business trip to Italy, she reminded herself grimly, and she intended to preserve a businesslike distance between them, if only to prove to James that she was not the adolescent child he constantly taunted her as being.

      Outside, his Jaguar gleamed richly in the early morning sunshine. As he opened the passenger door for her, Poppy could smell the rich, expensive scent of the car’s leather seats. Chris and her mother, who, like James, were directors and shareholders in the company, drove cars with far less status and the urge to remind James of this fact was irresistible as he slid into the driver’s seat next to her and started the car.

      ‘Very nice,’ she commented, smoothing the cream leather with her fingertips. ‘A perk of the job, I presume...?’

      ‘No, as a matter of fact, it isn’t,’ James shocked her by denying as he swung the car into the traffic. ‘It’s time you brought yourself up to date with current tax laws, Poppy,’ he told her acidly. ‘Even if I wanted to make use of my...connection with the company to my own financial advantage, the current tax penalties involved in owning an expensive company car would prohibit me from doing so.’

      Poppy could feel her face start to burn as she interpreted the message in the first part of his statement. Unlike her, he did not have to benefit from his connection with the company, he was implying.

      Resentment burned angrily in Poppy’s chest. Was she never going to be judged on her own merits, instead of being condemned because of her mother’s position as a shareholder? How would James like it if she pointed out to him that the only reason he was the company’s chairman was because of his father?

      Poppy moved irritably against the restriction of her seat belt, all too aware of how easily James could refute such an accusation. Although he had the reputation within the company of being a demanding employer, noone disputed the fact that the company’s present success was due to his hard work. And no matter how much he might demand of those who worked for him it was never any more than he demanded of himself.

      The traffic was starting to build up as they got closer to the airport and already Poppy’s stomach was beginning to clench nervously as she anticipated what lay ahead. It was the moment of take-off she dreaded most; once that was over it was easier for her to relax.

      The spot in Italy where the conference was being held was three hours’ drive from the airport, which meant, Poppy suspected, that they would be spending the better part of the day travelling. She had brought some work with her to keep her occupied during the Sight—and to ensure that she didn’t have to talk to James—but she couldn’t help wistfully reflecting how different things would have been if her travelling companion had been Chris... a Chris who was not married to Sally or anyone else, a Chris who—

      Stop it, she warned herself sternly. He is married to Sally and you’ve got to stop thinking about him... stop loving him...

      As she quickly blinked away the weak tears she could feel threatening her, she heard James say sardonically, ‘Poor Poppy, still hopelessly--in love with a man who doesn’t want her. Why do I get the impression it’s a role you actively enjoy playing?’ he asked her savagely, the harshness in his voice shocking her almost as much as the cruelty of his accusation.

      ‘That’s not true,’ she denied chokily.

      ‘That’s not the impression I get;’ James said to her as he negotiated the maze of slip-roads that led to the car park. ‘In fact I’d say the role of self-pitying СКАЧАТЬ