There was nothing between Nik and this woman, not even a speck of sexual tension, and Sybella felt oddly freed by it. She wasn’t that twenty-two-year-old bride any more, feeling as if she didn’t measure up. It was as if she’d cut the cord on the spectre of the other woman who had haunted her brief marriage. Only she suspected now that other woman had been the Sybella who was sitting here now, claiming what she wanted.
She’d never felt able to assert herself with Simon for fear of losing the place he’d made for her here in Edbury when he’d brought her home as his wife.
Whatever was between her and Nik, it wasn’t about this woman thrusting herself into the middle of their intimate conversation.
She and Nik didn’t have a problem. They just had an interruption to their lunch.
Phones had appeared stuck up in the air all around the pub, angled to take pictures. Sybella guessed at least as a non-celebrity she’d probably be lopped out of any shots that appeared on the Internet.
‘We will have such a good time!’ Marla put her hands on her hips and swivelled to face Nik. ‘I will let you out of dinner, but invite me down to your yacht in Nice this year for Cannes and I will forgive you.’
‘There’s always an open invitation.’
As Marla retreated to her table on the far side of the room people actually got up and followed her.
Nik leaned forward, the bored look on his face during Marla’s performance replaced by real concern.
‘Prohshu prahshehnyah. I apologise, Sybella. I didn’t know she’d be here.’
‘Clearly. She followed you, darling, all the way to the wilds of Gloucestershire.’
Nik scanned her face. ‘She didn’t bother you?’
‘No, but she’s chomping at the bit to bother you. Luckily you’ll let her on your yacht. Even if it is only this big.’ She inched her thumb and index finger apart to show him.
Nik was observing her as if she’d turned into some species of wild animal he’d never met with before but fascinated him.
‘Do you really want to go to this party?’ He was looking at her mouth and Sybella, already stirred up by that kiss and her little flag-raising exercise over this man, could feel her erogenous zones jumping up to meet him.
‘The Eastmans own the most beautiful stately home in the county,’ she insisted. ‘Of course I want to go to that party.’
He leaned forward. ‘What would you like to do after the party?’
Right now her thighs were liquid and her nipples tight and she knew exactly what she wanted to do after the party and she guessed he did too.
If she were free to do it she would have dragged him into the coat room and made love to him within earshot of the entire pub. Only, she wasn’t free to follow her instincts. Her mother-in-law would be back at any moment with her five-year-old daughter and that kiss was the best she could do with what she had to hand.
Instead she asked, ‘What on earth do the two of you have in common?’
‘Marla came to me for business advice.’ Nik’s thick lashes had screened his eyes and he sat back, and Sybella got the feeling he wasn’t telling her the entire truth.
‘You mine for minerals. She models lingerie. It must have been an interesting conversation.’
He looked almost weary for a moment and Sybella shifted forward. ‘What’s wrong, Nik?’
‘She has a son,’ he said unexpectedly, ‘a few years older than Fleur, and she pretty much stocks her entourage with her family.’ He frowned as if this bothered him. ‘I think the two of you would probably get on well—if you could put up with the theatrics.’
‘And you can’t?’ But her feelings softened. Single motherhood wasn’t easy—for anyone.
‘It’s business, Sybella. She wants to design what she models and she has a very savvy designer on her payroll who happens to be her sister. I’m the money. Full stop. I’m expecting to see a tidy profit from this transaction, which interests me much more than seeing Marla socially.’
Nik knew then if he told Sybella about the other woman’s impromptu striptease ending with her in his lap, even if it was a week before he drove into Edbury, it wouldn’t go down well. Not after the story she’d told him about her husband and another girl.