And as for her lack of underwear... Well, even though technically it wasn’t her fault, who went commando at a wedding where there was the possibility of a breeze or an ignominious fall to the ground courtesy of four-inch heels?
It was as if she’d been taken over by someone else today. Someone who wasn’t cool and collected and totally unflappable, but tense and jumpy and chaotic. Someone who was ruled by emotion instead of reason. Someone who did things like have sex in the open air with a thoroughly unsuitable man.
And now all those things that had seemed so exciting half an hour ago—the recklessness, the loss of control, the overwhelming desire to slake the clawing lust—now just seemed wrong. Shameful somehow.
Even though physically she’d adored what she and Marcus had done—who was she to deny the fabulousness of two earth-shattering orgasms in quick succession?—she was beginning to realise that she’d just become one of his conquests. One in a very long line of women he’d taken to bed and then forgotten about. Not that there’d been a bed involved, but still.
It shouldn’t really have mattered, but, annoyingly enough, it did. Because while she was under no illusion about him, maybe by assuming a quickie with Marcus would deal with the attraction she felt for him, she’d been under an illusion about herself. She’d had a better time with him than she’d expected to. Hadn’t thought that kind of pleasure actually existed. Was kind of knocked sideways by the fact that it did, and that she’d experienced it. And while she’d never fall for the mistake of thinking she could be the one to reform him, even if she wanted to, which she didn’t, if she hung around she could well find herself wanting more instead of closure.
Given everything she’d endured today and the way her emotions had got the better of her it wasn’t entirely surprising. Her confidence and her self-belief had been bashed. Things she’d always thought she’d known had been proved false. And as for her emotions, well, those were all over the place.
But however justifiable her behaviour today had been she still didn’t like it. She didn’t know what it meant. Didn’t have the energy to work it out.
Nor did she have the energy for the night of heaven Marcus was no doubt planning, tempting though her body clearly thought it was. She needed space, time and distance to figure out that today was nothing more than a blip, that the sex, even though spectacular, had been just that and that she’d be back to normal in a jiffy.
So, all in all, she thought, watching the bouquet sail through the air and land in Marcus’ hands, it was lucky she’d booked herself on the seven-o’clock train back to London.
* * *
God only knew where the suggestion he join Celia in the drive for the throwing of the bouquet had come from. All Marcus knew was that he’d caught that flash of vulnerability again and he’d found himself wondering how the hell he could have ever thought her uptight and judgemental when she clearly had a core of marshmallow. A deeply hidden core of marshmallow, admittedly, but there nevertheless.
And as a result of the glimpse he’d got of it, he was now waving goodbye to Dan and Zoe, who were heading off on a two-month honeymoon in South America in a vintage convertible, while clutching a bunch of pale pink roses and feeling a bit of a berk. But he reckoned he could live with that. Especially if it meant that Celia felt obliged to express her gratitude for his chivalry in bed later.
As his pulse began to race at the thought of the long, hot, steamy night ahead, during which he’d make sure she expressed her gratitude over and over again, Marcus wondered if she’d be up for meeting up once back in London.
Now that they’d lost the hostility he wouldn’t mind getting to know her a bit better. He might have been acquainted with her for close on the twenty years he’d known Dan, but he didn’t really have a clue how she worked. As an adolescent he hadn’t been interested, at eighteen he’d just wanted to get into her pants and as an adult the animosity had acted as a barrier to thinking of her as anything but a thorn in his side. Now, though, he was thinking he’d quite like to find out.
Which was odd because up to this point he’d never really wanted to explore the minds of the women he’d dated. It wasn’t that he didn’t think they’d be all that interesting. In fact, he was sure they would be, because he didn’t date bimbos. The women he went out with were bright and entertaining, yet despite that he’d just never been sufficiently engaged to want to try to dig all that far beneath the surface, even with those who lasted weeks instead of only one night. He didn’t really know why this was, it was just the way it had always been.
Celia, however, intrigued him. Her mind, her work ethic, her ambition and her drive as much as the spectacular body beneath the dress. With hindsight she always had fascinated him, even when she’d been needling him. Maybe particularly when she’d been needling him. And he didn’t really know the reason for that either.
What he did know, however, was that he’d like to see more of her. Literally, of course, because he still hadn’t seen her naked, but also because this thing between them deserved a lot more exploration.
And while anything long-term clearly wasn’t an option when they had polar-opposite views on marriage and family, that didn’t mean that if she was up for it they couldn’t have some fun in the meantime, did it?
In fact, why wait till later? he thought, lowering his hand and vaguely wondering if it would be all right to just dump the flowers on the ground as his heart began to thump. Why not whisk her away now as he’d implied earlier he wanted to? She was right there, standing beside him and waving as the car headed down the drive. What could be quicker than sending her up to get her stuff and then dragging her off to his hotel? Or hers. He wasn’t fussy.
‘So another couple bites the dust,’ he murmured, deciding as he watched the red brake lights disappear round the corner that etiquette probably took as dim a view of abandoning the bouquet as Celia would of him throwing her over his shoulder and carting her off.
‘In a cloud of dust,’ she said, screwing her face up in disgust and now flapping her hand in front of her face to wave it away. ‘Do you mind?’
‘What about?’
‘Your best friend’s just got married,’ she said. ‘Your relationship will change.’
Contemplating the idea, Marcus figured that Celia was probably right about that, although he wasn’t unduly worried. It wasn’t as if he and Dan saw each other all the time. They met up once, maybe twice a month at the most, and he couldn’t see why that should change. ‘Zoe doesn’t strike me as the sort of woman who’d ban her husband from seeing his friends,’ he said.
‘No. She’s lovely. And I think they’re going to be very happy.’
This she said with what he would have thought was a trace of wistfulness if it had been anyone other than Celia, but, because it was Celia, she was probably not considering her own happiness but the way her relationship with her brother would change.
But then to his faint alarm she sighed deeply, and he shot her a quick glance only to find a kind of dreamy expression on her face that he’d never have expected.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked, not sure quite what to make of it.
‘Fine,’ she said, giving herself a quick shake and smiling at him brightly—too brightly, perhaps. ‘You?’
‘Never felt better.’ Oddly enough, it was true. He might not have slept in the past twenty-four hours but he felt great. Amazing the e