Wedding-Night Baby Read Online Free Page B

seem.’
    â€˜Just displaying a friendly interest.’
    â€˜Just fishing for the salacious details, more like.’
    The thick dark brows shot towards his hairline. ‘Salacious? I was just trying to make conversation, but now I’m really interested.’ The gleam of humour in his eyes was faintly malicious.
    â€˜Actually, it was all very civilised. I went to London to do a business-studies course. We weren’t engaged or anything,’ she said with a detached smile, skimming sketchily over an emotional blow that had devastated her.
    â€˜Everyone, including you, expected marriage,’ he observed shrewdly.

    It was peculiar, but his neutral cynicism was much easier to cope with than the understanding sympathy that had been doled out to her at the time. ‘There was an understanding,’ she agreed, switching her weight from one foot to the other and checking who was within hearing distance. It would never do to have this conversation overheard.
    She’d agreed that a ring was an extravagance when she and Alex were saving so assiduously. Strange how Harriet had managed to get a serious diamond on her finger in record time, she thought cynically. That was probably why Alex had exchanged his racy coupé for a more sedate saloon. Harriet was worth the sacrifice, it would seem.
    â€˜Did you put up much of a fight? Or had you already got someone more interesting lined up? That can’t have been difficult,’ Callum said, his mind returning to this girl’s relationship with his uncle. Her rather full lips had drooped slightly. For someone who gave off such an air of wholesome sexiness her mouth was altogether more...sensual. A more accurate indication of her character? he wondered. Had her unorthodox manner of promotion been the bone of contention between lovers?
    â€˜No man is worth fighting for,’ she replied, her tone ringing with grim conviction.
    Callum caught her arm and swung her out of the path of a gaggle of small pages and bridesmaids. ‘Isn’t that a rather sweeping statement?’
    â€˜I prefer comprehensive and accurate.’ The arm casually draped around her waist showed no inclination to shift. Rather than make herself conspicuous, she let it stay there. She hoped her attitude showed him how totally oblivious to the near proximity she was.
    â€˜After getting your fingers burnt once?’ he said incredulously. ‘Or am I to infer you have a more chequered past than that?’
    His cynical, knowing expression made her long to throttle
him. ‘I know you’re bored, but I’m not about to enliven your afternoon with any juicy stories. My mother will track you down any moment and extract your vital juices,’ she said darkly and with some relish. Some people deserved her mother.
    It was irritating to have to raise her chin to look into his face. Alex was just the perfect height—especially when he’d kissed her, she recalled wistfully. What would it be like to be kissed by this man? Dry-mouthed, she allowed the thought to crystallise with clarity in her head. Swallowing with difficulty, she killed this frivolous piece of speculation and lowered her eyes, which might be less obedient than her brain.
    â€˜She seems occupied at present,’ Callum observed, glancing towards the spot where Lydia stood with the middle-aged guest.
    â€˜Predictably so.’ Her mother was laughing—a low, husky sound that grated on Georgina’s frayed nerves.
    â€˜Do I detect criticism from the daughter? Ought you not to have grown out of the desire to view your parent as a sexless entity? I take it your father is no longer around?’
    She wriggled her hips decisively and his hands intuitively fell away from her waist. Where did he get off analysing and criticising her?
    â€˜For your information my father has never been around—at least, not since I was born. He walked out on her, unable to take the strain of