Redeemed By Her Innocence (HQR Presents) Page 3

  The dart of her eyes down to her feet and the blush of pink that bloomed over her face told him all he needed to know on that front. He was beginning to remember the earlier conversation. Was this the woman who was bad in business?

  ‘No, I’m afraid not.’

  ‘Someone else’s turn, this year. But Ariana has won awards in the past, Jacquelyn, haven’t you?’ cut in Martin, gallantly.

  ‘Oh, yes, one or two. We’ve won Wedding Dress of the Year and been runners-up a few times.’

  ‘That’s quite an achievement,’ said Nikos. So the business was once at the top of its game. ‘And is this one of your own designs?’

  Despite her slightly dismissive glance he stood back to view.

  He had a practised eye. He was a retail giant, for heaven’s sake. House was the ‘stylish woman’s department store of choice’, built on his keen eye, and in one of the most rapid, successful expansions in retail in recent years, he’d taken on concessions in all other departments. So he had every professional right to cast his critical eye over the very seductive shape of Ms Ariana Bridal, even as she tried to shield herself with her long slim arms, twisting to the side, speaking the least subtle body language he’d ever witnessed.

  Then she started staring over his shoulder, as if looking for someone better to talk to, even more clearly communicating, I’m not interested.

  Didn’t she know that being not interested made her uniquely the most interesting person here?

  ‘Sorry, did you say you designed this yourself?’ he repeated quietly.

  She turned, with a slightly irritated look on her face, which he found curiously seductive.

  ‘Not me, but this is our original design.’

  ‘Isn’t this the Jones cut?’ said Martin, whom Nikos was beginning to find more than mildly irritating himself.

  ‘Nonna Ariana’s, yes. Martin, I wonder if we might have a word,’ she said, lowering her voice as she turned to him now and took a step away from the table. Martin mirrored her and moved away too. She was clearly trying to cut Nikos out of the conversation. ‘Later on this evening? Would that be all right?’

  Music started to play, people were taking their seats, Martin hesitated and Nikos raised his eyebrow, reminding him that he had a prior engagement.

  ‘Tonight? Oh, I’m not sure. It’s not ideal.’

  ‘Please, Martin. There’s something I want to discuss.’

  The floor was emptying, people were taking their seats. They were beginning to look very conspicuous as the only three people still standing.

  Jacquelyn knotted her fingers together as if she was praying. She looked truly anguished.

  Martin looked at Nikos with a what can I do?

  Nikos felt a tiny twinge of regret on her behalf but he had bigger things to worry about than a buttoned-up Englishwoman, no matter how attractive.

  ‘Ah, this could be tricky. I’ve got Nikos here as my guest.’

  She turned to look at Nikos as if he was even more of a pariah than she’d first thought, as if he were personally responsible for the fact that her business was dying on its feet.

  ‘We’d better take our seats now. See you later, sweetheart,’ he said, with a wink.

  * * *

  Jacquelyn walked back to her table as if she were entirely made of wood and tried to take her seat with grace that seemed to have completely deserted her.

  Had she blown it already? She reached for her glass, something to hold as she quickly replayed the meeting in her head. Martin seemed to have been friendly enough but he’d been totally eclipsed by Nikos Karellis. And no wonder. The man was completely unnerving. She’d never met anyone so—intense. So physical. He’d made her self-conscious, tongue-tied and totally put her off her stride.

  She slipped a glance to the side to look at him as the band struck up and was met with him staring right back at her. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up in an instant and she looked away.

  All through the starter she could feel him staring and she absolutely would not look at him. Maybe he thought that she had gone over there to meet him? He probably thought that every woman was in love with him. He was so off the mark. She’d never let herself fall for a man like him. Anyway, she had one single mission here tonight, and it had nothing to do with love.

  She turned again to tell him that with her eyes but he was talking intensely with the woman on his left. She watched as he listened to her, tilting his head towards her and smiling as the woman started flirting, throwing her head back when she laughed, playing with her hair, touching her chest and batting her eyelashes, all while Martin looked miserably at his salad.

  She felt more and more desperate and in a haze of self-pity she began to cast around the room, looking for Tim. At the back of the hall she found him, his once boyish good looks now paunchy, his blonde hair thin.

  He could have been her husband. They could have been sitting together at that table, waiting to collect awards, gossiping about how everyone was fawning over Nikos Karellis. At one point any other future would have been completely unimaginable.

  Jacquelyn Jones not married to Tim Brinley? Don’t be ridiculous—it’s written in the stars...

  But strangely enough she didn’t feel wistful. And she didn’t blame him for the mess of Ariana. She blamed herself. Funny how a crisis could put everything into perspective. And this was a crisis. For all she played it down with everyone, especially her parents, she was in a full-blown state of emergency.

  She pushed the food about on her plate, unable to eat, and words seemed to stick in her mouth like cardboard. All she could focus on were the minutes ticking by and the location of Martin Lopez.

  She sat through the tables being cleared, the lights being dimmed, and then the award hosts, two TV presenters she recognised from a breakfast show, arrived on stage to start the ceremony.

  And then in a never-ending series of announcements and applause she sat through the awards, from Best Florist to Best Accessories, Best Cake to Best Make-Up, Best Venues to Best Stylist. When the Best Photographer names were called out, she prepared herself.

  Suddenly there was the image of the winning photograph. A bride and groom on a horse. It was Tim’s—it had to be. He loved to ride and he loved to use the riding motif in his photographs. It looked so phoney to her now.

  The compère boomed out his name.

  As the crowd burst with applause, she lifted her hands from her lap and tapped them together briefly. Most people wouldn’t know what he’d done to her, but some of them would, and she couldn’t let herself down by acting so childishly.

  She forced herself to watch him accept his award, and she realised then that there was nothing there now other than the memory of a man she’d once loved, an outline of something once vivid. A bare-branched tree in winter, once so full of leaves.

  She had so much more to worry about now.

  The final award was Best Wedding Dress, and to announce it Nikos Karellis bounded athletically to the stage.

  ‘He was her tennis coach,’ she heard the woman beside her whisper.

  ‘Ooh, he could coach me in anything he wanted,’ said someone else, and giggled.

  Jacquelyn tried not to roll her eyes, but she couldn’t help looking closer, measuring his stature with her own innate sense of proportion. He was quite physically perfect. Exceptionally physically perfect. In the pit of her stomach something awoke, a swirl of longing, a primal feeling that tugged and shocked her, and she squirmed and moved in her seat. She looked around to see if anyone had noticed, but everyone’s face was turned to the stage, eyes wide with interest.

  The finalists were announced. The winning dress displayed on the screen and then the flushed and jubilant face of the designer, a pretty brunette. Nikos delivered the glass trophy, kissed her warmly on each cheek and gave her an affectionate squeeze.

  Nice, thought
Jacquelyn.

  She had barely had a peck on the cheek in the three years since Tim. She was never the most physical person, but she liked affection, as much as everyone else. She liked being held close; she liked her hair being stroked and all the intimacy that came with being with someone you cared for.

  Another wave of self-pity washed over her.

  Was she destined to be single her whole life? Would she ever meet someone else?

  She looked around the room. She might not be the youngest person here, but she was almost certainly the only one who was still a virgin.

  She wondered if anyone knew. Sometimes she felt as if she were wearing a sign. And sometimes, there were moments she wished she could just go out and find someone and have sex and be done with it.

  Those months after Tim left she’d tortured herself thinking she’d been wrong, stupid, blindly falling in with Nonna’s views, not thinking for herself. She’d almost considered tracking him down to tell him she’d changed her mind. But he’d gone. And that was that. And now she was glad. She really was.

  The ceremony was over. The audience was applauding. The final comments were being made. Some people had already started to move. The lights came up. She spun back round to see if Martin was still there, but he’d gone.

  She threw down her napkin and pushed back her chair. It caught on the carpet. She struggled to right it as she looked up. Where on earth had he gone? Everyone was heading off to the bar, but where was Martin?

  Panic gripped her. What if she lost sight of him? What if he disappeared and she couldn’t find him?

  Then she saw him, heading off in the opposite direction. She picked up speed, almost stumbling over the parquet dance floor in her heels, desperate not to lose sight of him. But then suddenly from nowhere Tim appeared!

  ‘Jacquelyn, wait,’ he called, and he reached a hand around her arm.

  She turned, confused, wondering what on earth to say.

  The days she’d spent longing for the tiniest glimpse of him, five seconds of his time so that they could ‘work it out’. Yearning to see his face, feel his hands, just be in the same room as him, again.

  Now all she felt was embarrassment. All she could think was that he was holding her back from the one thing she had come here to do.

  ‘I’ve got nothing to say to you,’ she said, tugging her arm away. His face, the one she had once thought handsome, twisted as if she had slapped him.

  ‘I know this isn’t the right time,’ he said, grabbing for her arm again, ‘but you have to know that I’m really sorry about the way I treated you. I’ve grown up, I’ve moved on...’

  ‘Look, I’m not interested.’

  People were crowding at the opposite doors; thankfully no one seemed to be looking this direction. But he was right in front of her, blocking her view of the door to the hallway where Martin had disappeared.

  ‘I thought I could do it but what you wanted was unnatural, Jacquelyn,’ he whispered. ‘I’m a man. I have needs and you wouldn’t listen.’

  ‘We made a promise!’ she hissed. ‘You never once said that you couldn’t do it. Instead you just vanished! So you’ll have to live with that. Now let me go, I’m in a hurry.’

  ‘You made the promise for both of us. Your martyrdom is wasted, you know. That whole “pure as the driven snow” act is so last century.’

  ‘Look, get out of my way. I couldn’t care less what you think.’

  She tried to step past him, but someone else was there.

  ‘Is everything OK here?’

  A deep Australian drawl, a strong unflinching presence.

  ‘I’m trying to find Martin. Is he still here?’ she asked desperately, smoothing her hair. The last thing she wanted was him to hear any of this.

  Nikos’s eyebrows were raised over dark eyes that flashed concern.

  ‘I need to see him.’

  ‘Yes, he’s here,’ he said, and he came towards her, reading the situation with a frown. Then he turned to Tim, bearing down on him with his six-foot stature.

  ‘Don’t you know any better than to crowd a woman?’ he said, stepping further into the space, his body telegraphing masculinity, strength, power, the like of which she’d never experienced before.

  Tim’s face blanched and he took a step back.

  ‘Now look here. I’m a friend of Jacquelyn’s and I’m only trying to have a conversation.’

  She looked at the two of them and a moment of clarity struck like a thunderbolt. Tim looked so short and plump and silly next to this man. What on earth had she seen in him? She had wasted so much time and tears, and now she was reduced to begging for crumbs from some rich man’s table when she should have been taking Ariana on to the next level?

  She shook her head in despair. Where had she gone so badly wrong?

  ‘Tim, the only reason you’re here right now is because there are people here tonight who remember what you did, and you want me to say it’s OK. Well, it’s not OK. Nothing about it is OK. So why don’t you take your half-baked little excuse for an apology and your stupid plastic award and get out of my way?’

  She turned to Nikos, whose eyes were wide. She’d shocked him too. Good.

  ‘I want to see Martin. Now. Where is he?’ she said.

  A grin broke out across his face and he stepped to the side.

  ‘Come with me, I’ll take you to him.’

  CHAPTER THREE

  MARTIN’S SUITE WAS in the Duchess Wing, about a mile of plush velvet carpet to the east of the grand ballroom. They walked in complete silence along its length until the ornate double doors came into sight.

  Nikos had the good sense not to say a word until they got there but he was weighing up what he’d just heard and it sounded nasty. Whatever the guy had done, breaking a promise sounded like the least of it. And accusing her of being a martyr. Nikos had met more than a few of those, but in his experience they tended to be the nice ones.

  Maria had never played the martyr. Maria took what she wanted and what other people wanted too...

  ‘You all right?’ he asked, his hand on the doorknob. ‘Is there anything I can do?’

  Jacquelyn looked up at him with eyes that told him she was still feeling some pain.

  ‘I’m fine,’ she replied. ‘Thank you.’

  Nikos nodded and opened the door of Martin’s suite, ushering her in.

  ‘I found your friend Jacquelyn. She wants a word.’

  Martin looked up, surprised. He was sitting at a fireplace filled with yet another giant arrangement of flowers.

  ‘Of course. If that’s OK with you, Nikos?’

  Nikos stood back and watched her sail right past him and perch on the sofa opposite Martin. Her back was ramrod straight and she turned, flashing Nikos a look that might have said, thank you, but might as easily have said, beat it.

  ‘Yeah, sure. I was on my way to get my phone. I’ll be back in five. That long enough, do you think?’

  Martin nodded vigorously. Jacquelyn didn’t move a muscle.

  Nikos closed the door and walked back to his suite.

  She was a force of nature, that one. The Ice Queen, but the way she’d blasted that guy was pure fire. It was impressive. And if she pitched like that to Martin he didn’t stand a chance.

  Maybe he’d been too harsh on her. She was clearly passionate about her business, and good for her. If he’d been in tough times, the last thing he’d want to do was waste his precious time on small talk with a stranger.

  He collected his phone and checked for messages and emails, frowning when he saw yet another one from his accountant, Mark, about the investigation into Maria’s missing assets. He had better get answers from Martin. This whole thing was getting more and more out of hand.

  He rounded the corner of the hallway and paused. He put an ear to the door to see if they were still talking.
<
br />   Martin’s deep voice was making reassuring noises; Jacquelyn seemed to be silent. He knocked on the door and walked in.

  ‘OK? All wrapped up?’

  He didn’t have time to worry if it wasn’t. He had his own issues to deal with now.

  ‘Nikos. Great timing.’

  Martin was facing Jacquelyn. They were both standing, but now Martin was the one who looked imploringly at him, and Jacquelyn’s eyes were bright with—hope?

  ‘I was just explaining to Jacquelyn that I’m retiring. She’s looking for an investor and I was trying to think of someone else who’d be a good fit. I don’t know if I mentioned but Ariana Bridal goes back quite a long way. They need to modernise, perhaps? Would that be right, Jacquelyn? And so maybe you or your connections would be a...better fit...?’

  Nikos shook his head.

  ‘I’m not looking to invest in anything, Martin. I’m here to sort a problem.’

  He held up his phone.

  ‘A problem that’s giving me a headache. While we were giving out awards, I’ve been getting more messages.’

  ‘I won’t take up much of your time, Mr Karellis.’

  On a heartbeat Jacquelyn turned and walked towards him. She was breathtaking and he realised he was still standing holding his phone in the air. Quickly he pulled his arm down.

  ‘Time is what I don’t have. Martin?’ he said, meaning, Martin, what the hell are you thinking?

  ‘Maybe you could squeeze in five minutes with Jacquelyn before you go?’

  ‘I promise it won’t take longer than five minutes. Ten at the most. Martin understands. This is a business that has so much to offer. We go back decades and we’ve got great plans. We just need a break.’

  Nikos looked at Martin, who raised his eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders as if to say wouldn’t hurt.

  With a sigh that he didn’t even know he was going to make, he breathed out an, ‘OK.’

  ‘Five minutes. If we get this sorted,’ he said to Martin. Then turning to Jacquelyn, ‘Wait in the bar and I’ll send someone.’