One-Man Woman

‘Not exactly.’ Her sister shook her head slowly. ‘I’ve only met him once, and that was at the wedding just over a year ago. He’s always so busy that James sees him rarely himself, although he did enjoy the couple of years he worked for him. So we haven’t met up with him again since the wedding. Why don’t you ask him?’ Beth suggested frowningly, chewing on her bottom lip. ‘You’ve always been so much more forward than me, and—’

‘Because I don’t know the man at all!’ Ellie pointed out impatiently. ‘If you remember, I missed the wedding completely because I was rushed into hospital at the last minute for an emergency appendectomy—’

‘I offered to cancel the wedding—’

‘Don’t be silly, Beth; I wasn’t complaining, just explaining,’ Ellie dismissed irritably. “The wedding had been planned for weeks; you don’t cancel something as important as that just because one of the guests can’t make it.’

‘That guest was my sister!’ Beth protested.

‘And I talked to James and persuaded him that going ahead with the wedding was the right thing to do,’ Ellie sighed.

‘He shouldn’t have listened to you.’ Her sister shook her head. ‘He—’

‘Beth, I don’t really think it matters who was or wasn’t at your wedding, when the two of you now seem to be talking of divorce—Oh, God, I’m sorry.’ She was instantly contrite as she saw the way her sister paled; she had always had an uncanny ability to say the wrong thing at the wrong time! It was the reason why she was still unmarried at twenty-seven, according to her equally straight-talking mother; no man was strong enough to brave her vitriolic tongue long enough to fall in love with her.

‘But, Beth, the wedding is unimportant now, can’t you see?’ she continued more gently. ‘It’s a fact that I didn’t meet Daniel Thackery there, and it now appears he has returned to our hotel and we have to be wary of him on two fronts. But I certainly can’t just march up to him and ask him outright what he’s doing here!’ She frowned deeply.

Beth’s expression lightened. ‘I don’t see why not; it’s what you would usually do!’

But Ellie acknowledged that Daniel Thackery wasn’t the type of man she usually met; she was sure he would just turn round and tell her to mind her own business. And she would have no choice but to do exactly that. She would also have alerted him to the fact that they were curious as to his reason for being here and thereafter he would be on his guard, which wasn’t going to help anyone.

‘Do you know what I think we should do—you should do?’ she corrected pointedly. ‘Invite the man to dinner with the two of us,’ she announced triumphantly. ‘It has to be you, Beth, because you know the man and I don’t,’ she said persuasively as she saw that her sister was about to protest at the idea. ’He was a guest at your wedding, is a friend of James’s, and as far as I’m aware you haven’t even said hello to him yet.

‘I accept you’re a bit wary of him,’ she added hastily at Beth’s increasingly dismayed expression. ‘But it would be perfectly natural for you to invite him to dinner in the circumstances, whereas it would look damn funny if I did the inviting—a woman who doesn’t know him from Adam!’ Besides which, she still felt very uncomfortable about her presence in his suite earlier this evening. He couldn’t possibly know about that, of course, but she did, and she was going to find it difficult facing him again.

Beth still didn’t look convinced. ‘I doubt that he will stay here very long—’

‘Then make the invitation for tomorrow evening,’ Ellie interrupted impatiently, standing up to smooth down her straight black skirt to its just above the knee length. ‘I have to go and take over in Reception for the rest of the evening now, so I’ll leave you to think about it. But if you really want to know if he’s at least seen James I think dinner would be the best way of finding out.’

This last remark was perhaps a little below the belt on her part, but if they were to find out Daniel Thackery’s motive for being in the area someone had to make a move, and as she’d pointed out, it would look odd if she approached him with a dinner invitation.

It was quiet on Reception at this time of night, and Ellie took advantage of the lull to catch up on some of the paperwork that seemed never-ending where running a hotel was concerned.

Her parents had run the hotel until two years ago, when her father had suffered a mild heart attack and been ordered to take it easy for a while—an opportunity her mother had taken to whisk him away to Spain to live in early retirement. Their parents had given the hotel equally to Beth and Ellie, but since taking over Ellie had realised exactly why the hotel had been such a strain on her parents; it was a twenty-four-hour-a-day job, and left little time for anything else. She—

‘Good evening, Ellie,’ greeted a huskily male voice. ‘Do you ever get away from this place?’

The question so echoed the sentiments of her own thoughts that she wasn’t able to maintain her usually bright smile as she looked up at Peter, their master chef, as he stood at the other side of the reception desk.

The restaurant was open to the public as well as to guests, and it was one part of the hotel that did make a profit. And justifiably so; Peter was a chef of a calibre Ellie had never met before, and had brought people into the restaurant from far and wide since he had taken over in the kitchen six months ago. She knew they were lucky to have found him and didn’t question their good fortune too deeply—she just gave thanks for it every day. Without Peter’s expertise as a chef she knew they would be in even more dire financial straits than they already were.

‘Not as often as I would like, Peter,’ she answered somewhat wistfully, her chin resting on her palm as she leant on the desk-top looking up at him; he was one of the few men she could look up to when she was wearing high-heeled shoes, as she was now—Peter was a little over six feet tall, a good-looking man in his late thirties.

He shook his head. ‘I wish you would accept my invitation for the two of us to go out. I see by the rota that you’re off tomorrow evening too...’

This was, as Peter had so rightly pointed out, far from the first time he had invited her out. It wasn’t that she didn’t find Peter’s blond good looks attractive, because she did, very much so; she just didn’t think it was a particularly good idea to go out with someone she was working with almost every day. It could be very uncomfortable for everyone if it didn’t work out. And Peter really was an excellent chef...

Besides, she was hoping that tomorrow evening she and Beth would be dining with Daniel Thackery!

She gave Peter an apologetic smile. ‘I already have an appointment tomorrow evening. I’m sorry.’

He grimaced, obviously in no hurry to leave. His shift was over for the evening and the restaurant would be closing shortly—only the lingering coffee-drinkers were left. ‘Out of luck again,’ he said teasingly. ‘Who’s the lucky man?’

He didn’t know who he was himself yet, and she somehow doubted he would think of himself as ‘lucky’ when he did—although hopefully a sense of politeness towards James’s wife would make him accept the invitation. ‘No one you know.’ She shrugged dismissively.

‘Aha!’ Peter looked interested now, leaning conspiratorially across the desk. ‘A secret lover, hmm?’ His brown eyes twinkled with mischief.

‘Hardly!’ Ellie chuckled softly. ‘I don’t have time for lovers—secret or otherwise—’

‘Are there any messages for me?’ interrupted a harshly cold voice.

Neither she nor Peter, she was sure, had been aware of anyone approaching the desk. But Ellie recognised that voice only too well; hadn’t she listened to him earlier when he’d been talking to ‘Darling’ before making that telephone call to his fiancée? And she was sure, from the faintly disdainful expression on his face as he looked at the two of them, that he had overheard her ill-timed remark about lovers!

She turned to check the box for his suite, studiously hiding any awkwardness she might feel at his having heard her conversation with Peter. ‘No messages, Mr Thackery,’ she told him with a brightly professional smile, noticing the woman standing a short distance away watching the exchange uninterestedly—probably ‘Darling’, of the long, silky legs!

He nodded abruptly, his expression still grimly disapproving as he glanced briefly at Peter. ‘I’ll be in the bar if there are any—’ He broke off abruptly as he was racked by a sudden sneeze. ‘Damn it!’ he muttered furiously, his gaze a fierce blue glare now.

Ellie maintained her smile of cool politeness. ‘You seem to be starting a cold, Mr Thackery. I’m sure we have something you could take for that, if you—’

‘I don’t have a cold,’ he cut in harshly. ‘I’ll be in the bar if there are any calls for me.’ He gave an abrupt nod of dismissal before turning on his heel and striding off across the reception area to join the woman waiting near the entrance to the bar—a tall, blonde woman, her beautiful face animated as she put her hand through the crook of Daniel Thackery’s arm.

If his fiancée called again he would be in the bar, Ellie guessed crossly. Well, she hoped none of them were expected to lie for this man; if Angela telephoned again Ellie had every intention of telling the other woman exactly where he was. Not who he was with, of course, but it would be up to Daniel Thackery to explain away his presence in the bar. She—

‘I seem to know that man,’ Peter said slowly as he gazed after Daniel Thackery with narrowed eyes.

Peter was a hotel employee, so there was no problem in revealing the identity of a guest to him. Besides, after her exploits in Daniel Thackery’s suite earlier, who was she to preach about a guest’s right to privacy?

‘That’s Daniel Thackery,’ she told Peter flatly.

‘The Daniel Thackery?’ Peter said slowly.

Was he ‘the’ Daniel Thackery? He was known worldwide as a very successful businessman, with his restaurants in the capitals of the world frequented by the cream of society, so she supposed that, yes, he was ‘the’!

‘Yes,’ she confirmed abruptly. The man under discussion had entered the bar with the beautiful blonde now, and Ellie turned her full attention back to Peter.

‘I see.’ He whistled softly through his teeth. ‘What does a man like that want in a sleepy little place like this?’

What indeed? It was what Ellie wanted to know too. ‘Anonymity, probably,’ she snapped. ‘If the woman he’s with is anything to go by.’ She grimaced her disapproval of the other woman.

Peter’s brows rose. ‘She looks rather beautiful to me.’

Oh, there was no doubting that the blonde was absolutely gorgeous to look at—tiny in height, with an hourglass figure, long legs and a youthfully beautiful face. But there was also no dismissing the fact that the man she was with was getting married next week—or that ‘Darling’ was well aware of Angela’s existence!

‘The two of them aren’t married,’ was all that Ellie could think of by way of explanation for her own bitchiness; after all, she could hardly admit to hearing of the existence of Daniel Thackery’s fiancée while hiding in his wardrobe!

Peter grinned, leaning conspiratorially over the desk towards her. ‘Signed themselves in as Mr and Mrs Smith, did they?’ He gave her a teasing wink.

Ellie had to smile at that ludicrous wink. ‘Sorry.’ She gave a rueful smile. ‘There’s just something about that man that puts my hackles up.’ That had to be an understatement; just being anywhere near that man seemed to set her teeth on edge!