Once the introductions were out of the way and drinks had been bought Dan had slid into the role of her boyfriend with surprising ease, swapping small talk with aplomb while displaying such an impressively wide knowledge of everything from London’s social calendar to Tuscan hot spots that she didn’t think he was even having to fake it.
He certainly couldn’t be faking the charm with which he had people eating out of his hand. It was totally natural, dazzling and hypnotic, and she could only envy the way he was entertaining everyone so effortlessly and so compellingly that they were buzzing round him like social climbers in the vicinity of a member of royalty.
OK, so it probably didn’t hurt that he was so gorgeous to look at, she had to admit, casting a surreptitious glance up at him over the rim of her glass. She felt the oddly drugging heat that had filled her when they’d kissed properly begin to spread through her again, but it was more than that. It was something within him, something powerful, magnetic and totally mesmerising, and it made the Dan she’d first met seem nothing more than a brief aberration.
If she weren’t so distracted by the aftermath of that kiss and the weird swimming sensation going on in her head she’d be watching and learning, because while she sucked at interpersonal relationships she had the impression that Dan Forrester excelled at them.
‘So, Dan,’ she heard Harriet née Williams now Denham-Davis and one of Samantha’s more docile cronies say. ‘Zoe tells us you’re hugely successful.’
Tuning back into the conversation she should never really have left, Zoe fought the urge to roll her eyes and gazed up at him with what she hoped was adoration instead.
‘Oh, I don’t know about that,’ he said, smiling down at her so warmly that her insides went all fluttery. ‘She over-exaggerates, don’t you, darling?’
‘I couldn’t possibly, Honeybun,’ she said, flashing him a dazzling smile in return and marvelling at the way he didn’t even bat an eyelid at the cringe-worthy term of endearment she’d given the girls when she’d been asked what her fictitious boyfriend was called and had been unable to drum up a suitable name fast enough.
‘What field are you in?’ asked Harriet.
‘Advertising.’
‘Ooh, how dashingly creative,’ she said. ‘Which firm?’
‘DBF Associates.’
Crikey, thought Zoe with a bit of a start. Even she’d heard of that one. It was one of the most successful advertising agencies in London. She’d read somewhere that it was cutting-edge and award-winning and employed only the best.
‘And what do you do there?’ asked Harriet.
‘I own it.’
Zoe just about managed to keep her jaw from hitting the floor, because for one thing what Dan did for a living—and she couldn’t see why he’d be making this up when he hadn’t had to make anything up so far—was surely something his adoring girlfriend would know, and for another what was so surprising about the fact that he ran his own successful business? After all, she did, didn’t she, and she was a lot less sorted than he seemed to be.
Still, she couldn’t help being impressed—although perhaps not in the same way as Harriet and Samantha, who were letting out little sighs of approval while the pound signs, she fancied, lit up their eyes and the sounds of ker-ching rattled through their brains.
‘And would you be one of the Ashwicke Forresters?’ said Harriet, having established Dan’s professional and, by extension, financial status and clearly deciding to move on to the social.
‘I am,’ he said.
Who or what
the Ashwicke Forresters were remained a mystery to Zoe, but Harriet was practically quivering with delight—even the navy velvet Alice band that Zoe suspected was the same one she’d worn at school trembled—and her eyes were sparkling. ‘Oh, how thrilling. I met your parents once years ago. At the Queen Mary’s Ball, I think it was. Absolutely delightful. How are they?’
‘Divorced,’ he said flatly.
‘Oh,’ said Harriet, her eyes widening and losing some of that sparkle as the air thickened with awkwardness. ‘Well. I’m sorry to hear that.’
‘Are you?’ Dan said archly, and as Zoe caught a trace of steel beneath the charming exterior she felt her heartstrings twang. Clearly the subject of his parents’ divorce was a touchy one. As was marriage perhaps, she thought, because gorgeous successful single men over the age of thirty who didn’t have a problem with commitment or excess emotional baggage were rare. So should the conversation ever get round to the imminent proposal she’d hinted at—and in all honesty she didn’t hold out much hope that it wouldn’t—maybe she could do him a favour and release him from that particular obligation.
His abrupt tone might have tugged at Zoe’s heartstrings, but it had taken the other two very aback if the lull in conversation was anything to go by. However, St Catherine’s girls never let conversation stagnate for long, and Zoe wasn’t the least bit surprised to see Samantha recover first.
‘Oh, I recognise you now,’ she said with a gleam in her eye and a faintly triumphant smile on her lips, neither of which Zoe liked the look of at all. ‘You’re that Dan Forrester, aren’t you?’
FOUR
If ever there was a moment to be off this was it, thought Dan darkly as this bombshell once again rendered their little group momentarily silent, because in his blithe assumption that he wouldn’t be recognised he’d clearly been a naïve idiot. He wasn’t vain and he wasn’t arrogant but he was a bloody fool, because he could virtually see ears pricking and antennae quivering, he could practically hear the grapevine beginning to tremble, and it struck him that there was now every chance that this little charade would eventually end up in the news.
As a result he was in something of a quandary. If he stayed he’d undoubtedly be digging the hole he was in deeper, but if he left he’d potentially be adding another dimension to the story, because now he thought about it his departure could well be construed as him giving a damn about what Jasmine had done. Which he didn’t. At least not much.
So what should he do?