The Reluctant Groom

‘Presumably because there’s nowhere to sit in Reception, and perhaps because the security guard didn’t yet know your rules.’

‘Then sack him.’

‘No,’ Greg denied mildly. ‘He only started today.’

“Then why wasn’t he informed that no one, but no one, ever gets to see me without an appointment? That is mandatory—’ Breaking off, he gave a bleak smile. Mandatory. That was what she had said to him.

Intrigued, Greg continued to watch his friend. ‘I’ll make sure he knows them now,’ he agreed absently.

‘Good. And if you discuss this with anyone,’ he warned, ‘you’re fired.’

‘Promises, promises.’

Turning only his head, blue eyes hard and bright, he didn’t smile. Couldn’t have found a smile just then if his life had depended on it.

Greg frowned. ‘Sam...?’

‘Leave it.’

Puzzled, he glanced down through the window. ‘She’s leaving,’ he murmured helpfully.

‘Yes,’ Sam agreed emptily.

CHAPTER THREE

THE need for pretence gone, no amusement now in her lovely eyes, Abby walked slowly back to her car. She felt stunned.

Mind awhirl with speculation, conjecture, she opened the door and climbed in. And thanked God for the practised ease with which she’d been able to summon amused derision after that first initial shock of seeing him again. Essential, of course, because she would never give him the satisfaction of knowing how he could affect her. He did work for Tabiner’s. He had to. She didn’t believe in coincidence. Not of this magnitude anyway. And so, that meant that he had come to her home in the guise of a war historian to look through her father’s papers when he was obviously nothing of the sort.

You don’t know that, Abby, she cautioned herself. No, but it was a damned good bet, wasn’t it? And if he wasn’t a war historian, what had he been doing in her home? Why the pretence? Because he hadn’t wanted the family to know that he worked for Nathan Tabiner? Which he obviously did... No, not obviously, but he knew him. And all those questions he’d asked about her father, herself... Had he come looking for the letter she carried in her bag?

Possibly. Very, very possibly.

Which meant she had to open it, didn’t she? Find out what it said.

With a grim smile, she switched on the ignition and put the car in gear. At least his behaviour had killed the attraction stone-dead. That was something to be thankful for. Other men could probably kiss just as well, she told herself defiantly; she just had to meet them, that was all. And how dared he order her away like an errant schoolgirl? As if she was a nobody. Perhaps he worked there in some other capacity. As a private investigator, maybe? Nathan Tabiner had been there; she would bet her life on it. But Sam hadn’t wanted her to see him, had he? Why?

Blind and deaf to everything but her thoughts, she continued to gaze ahead of her. Over four months since she had seen him. Four months of wondering. Hating. She’d liked him, dammit! No, more than liked, she admitted honestly, and she’d thought he felt the same. Only his tension, she thought grimly, hadn’t been sexual. Hers had. She had known that the very first time she’d seen him. She hadn’t admitted it to herself, but she had known it. He had been mocking, uncommunicative, attractive—and he’d left as abruptly as he’d arrived. Because he’d found what he’d been looking for? Was that why he’d been angry just now? Because he thought she’d found out what he’d taken? But what else had there been?