Looking at her watch with a groan, Mrs Lucas got up from her knees. ‘I must go; I’ve got so much to do today. I’ll just take the dress off, Pippa, before you get down. Next time you see it, it will fit you perfectly, I promise. You’re going to be a lovely bride.’
The silk and lace softly, sibilantly, lifted over her head. Mrs Lucas inserted the dress back onto a hanger inside the plastic carrier in which she had brought it, and zipped up the carrier.
‘Have you got time for that coffee?’
‘Sorry, no, not really. See you soon.’
She was gone a moment later. Pippa put her clothes back on and made herself black coffee, sat sipping it, trying to shake off her disturbed and uneasy mood.
In a week’s time…just a week now…she would be Tom’s wife. She should be radiant, over the moon. A woman’s wedding day was supposed to be the happiest of her life—so why didn’t she feel happy?
Maybe all brides felt this sense of doom, the fear, the sinking in the pit of the stomach close to nausea? Far from being happy, she had a strong feeling that she was about to make the worst mistake of her life.
She must stop thinking like that! What was the matter with her? She was going to be happy. She wouldn’t let herself think negative thoughts.
She went to bed early that evening and was up in good time to get to work. Tom was always there early, and expected her to be early too. Working in an insurance company wasn’t exactly thrilling, but the job paid well and the work was never complicated or difficult.
Monday was always a calm day; the postbag was light and their workload was easy enough to deal with as they always tried to clear their desks by Friday afternoon, so she was able to go to lunch a little early that day, to give herself time to get to Bond Street, and then hopefully grab a snack before she went back to the office.
She caught a bus, then walked anxiously, hurriedly, to the bridal shop, relieved to see that the pearl and rose coronet was still in the window. The assistant sat her in a chair in front of a mirror, brought a wedding veil and the coronet for her to try on.
Pippa gazed at herself, smiling; it really was perfect, just what she wanted.
‘You look lovely,’ the assistant told her, and Pippa thought she looked pretty good, too.
‘It’s exactly what I’ve been looking for,’ she confessed. ‘I’ll take it.’
Then the smile went and her eyes widened in horror as she saw a reflection of the street outside behind her shoulders.
A man stood there, staring at her: tall, elegantly dressed, his black hair brushed and immaculate.
In the mirror their eyes met. His were fixed and glittering, bright and hot as burning stars. Pippa stared into them, her stomach turning over, grew icy cold and fainted.
CHAPTER TWO
SHE recovered consciousness slowly, not quite sure what had happened, her lids flickering, then rising; she looked up, her green eyes dazed, not focusing properly.
Two faces bent over her. The assistant looked anxious, upset. The other…
Pippa took one look at him and promptly shut her eyes again. She did not want to believe he was real. Surely she wasn’t imagining things, dreaming him up in the oddest places, at the oddest times? Her head buzzed with distressed questions. What was he doing here? Come to that, what had he been doing outside the bridal shop? What was going on? First the accident; now he’d turned up while she was trying on her bridal coronet. What was Fate up to?
‘She’s fainted again,’ the assistant said. ‘Oh, dear. Do you think she’s really ill? She’s very pale. Should I ring for an ambulance? Or a doctor?’
‘No, I don’t think she’s ill; she’s just playing dead,’ said the deep, cool voice she remembered so well.
How dared he? What right did he have to read her so accurately? Angrily she opened her eyes once more and glared at him, beginning to get up.
It didn’t make her any less furious that he helped, as effortlessly as if she weighed no more than a child, lifting her with one arm around her waist, his warm hand just below her breast, the intimacy of the contact making her heart thud painfully.
‘Oh…perhaps we shouldn’t move her yet,’ the assistant nervously murmured. ‘She may still be groggy.’
‘Oh, she’ll be okay. Would you run out and stop that taxi going past? Thanks.’
Pippa was still being held close to that long, lean body; the proximity was doing drastic things to her, especially when she looked up and sideways at the hard-edged, smooth-skinned, masculine face.
She heard the other girl’s high heels clipping across the shop and knew she was alone with him. Panic streaked through her; she pushed him away and his arm dropped.
Those bright eyes gleamed with what she grimly recognised as mockery. So he was finding the situation funny, was he? Her teeth met.