At first she’d succeeded in keeping things strictly business. She’d shown him the progress she was making, and they’d discussed the collection and how it could be displayed to show off the genuine pieces to their best advantage and minimise the risk of anyone spotting the repairs.
But over the course of the last two weeks, somehow they’d ended up talking less about the work and more about other things. Personal things.
She’d found herself telling him about her peripatetic childhood and the colourful characters that had peppered her upbringing. About how, instead of doing her homework, she’d learned to pick locks, forge cheques and hot-wire cars.
Far from being appalled, as she’d rather feared, Will had been fascinated and so, encouraged, she’d gone on to tell him all about her mother and her wildly misspent youth and about how she now lived quietly in Truro, kept goats and grew herbs.
She told him how thanks to a family friend she’d got into the jewellery business and how much, after growing up surrounded by people who lied for a living, she valued honesty.
In return Will had told her about what Caroline had been getting up to online and what he got up to on the Cayman Islands. He’d regaled her with stories about some of the things his dodgy ancestors had got up to and had told her about the dukedom he’d inherited.
Gradually the cool, stoical air she’d adopted to deal with his visits had disappeared and she’d found herself looking forward to them instead. Clock-watching as she’d waited for him to drop by. Aching with disappointment the days he didn’t, which had become increasingly frequent recently. The disproportionate intensity of her reaction when he didn’t come was as disconcerting as the fact she’d taken to clock-watching in the first place.
Which was almost as unsettling as the dawning realisation that she didn’t only fancy him rotten; she liked him as well. Really liked him. And liking him as well as fancying him was the sort of dangerously lethal combination that could easily erode her resistance if she wasn’t careful.
And that was why she’d spent the whole day dithering over whether to come this evening. Why she’d been pacing around her flat, frowning at the floor as she tried to work out what was going on inside her head, and what she was going to do about it.
In the end, unable to figure anything sensible out and with barely half an hour before the launch started, she’d told herself to stop being such a wimp and had pulled herself together.
So she might have to fortify her resistance and strengthen her resolve, but how could she not have come? For one thing she’d been working on this to the exclusion of all else, and was desperate to see the results of three weeks of hard slog. For another, she was longing to know if they’d got away with it.
Besides, it was her birthday and she hadn’t come up with anything else to do, and despite her previous determination to bury herself beneath her duvet and forget about it, she hadn’t really wanted to do that. At least not when there’d been the chance to see Will one last time before their association came to an end.
So she’d whirled round her flat like a dervish, taking a shower, doing her hair, slapping on some make-up and throwing on a dress and shoes, and now here she was. Leaning over a display case that contained two of the pieces she’d restored, champagne glass in hand, and trying not to respond to the feel of the pair of gorgeous blue eyes that had been boring into her back ever since she’d arrived five minutes ago.
‘Happy birthday, Bells.’
Bella jumped, straightened and swung round to see Phoebe standing beside her, a slight frown creasing her forehead and her smile a little strained.
‘Thank you,’ she said and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek, wondering what was up and hoping it wasn’t anything to do with the wedding plans.
‘You know,’ said Phoebe, ‘I was going to say that I’m glad you’re doing something on your birthday, but now I’m not so sure. Now I think it might have been better if you’d holed up in your flat and forgotten all about it like you said you were going to in your email.’
‘And miss the chance to get all dolled up, drink champagne and catch up with colleagues?’ said Bella with a grin. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘Well, as long as that’s all you’re planning on doing,’ said Phoebe, folding her arms across her chest and arching an eyebrow.
Huh? Bella blinked. ‘What?’
‘Don’t give me that innocent blink thing.’ Phoebe narrowed her eyes. ‘What’s going on between you and Will?’
Uh-oh. Bella’s heart lurched. ‘What makes you think there’s anything going on between me and Will?’ she said cagily.
‘I can tell.’
‘How?’ she asked, glancing over at him standing there talking to Alex, and her breath catching all over again.
God, he was gorgeous. The breadth of his shoulders, the lean powerful body clad in a dark suit, and the magnetic energy he radiated never failed to scramble her senses. The sheer impact he made on her, the pull he seemed to exert over her, which was even stronger now that she knew so much more about him, was almost irresistible. ‘We haven’t even spoken.’
‘You don’t need to. I’ve been watching the two of you for the last five minutes and you can’t take your eyes off each other.’
Bella bit her lip. That much was true. It was as if she had some kind of built-in radar where Will was concerned. The minute she’d arrived her gaze had instantly zoomed in on him and ever since she’d been aware of where he was, just as she’d been achingly aware that he’d been watching her.
But he hadn’t come over to say hello, and something about the set of his jaw, and the dark expression on his face, made her wary of going up to him. Given the circumstances of their association, she figured, distance was probably for the best.
‘You’re circling each other like sharks,’ Phoebe said, frowning in consternation. ‘Please, please, please tell me you’re not thinking what I think you’re thinking.’
‘OK,’ said Bella, nodding slowly and sliding her gaze back to her friend, ‘I’m not thinking what you think I’m thinking.’ In fact she wasn’t sure quite what she was thinking.