Carole Mortimer Romance Collection

‘No,’ the woman called Barbara acknowledged with a rueful twist of those pouting red lips. ‘But it will give your mother pleasure to have you here, and that’s sure to help the situation.’

Wolf didn’t look at all convinced by this method of thinking, and in fact Barbara didn’t seem over-confident about it either. Having seen Alex Thornton several times, Cyn couldn’t help but think they were right to be apprehensive; the two brothers not only looked nothing alike—Alex being much darker in colouring, with pale blue eyes that almost looked grey, and not possessing the impressive height of his brother—but the two men were nothing alike in temperament either, from the little she had seen of them. Alex Thornton was austere and unapproachable, while Wolf Thornton was possessed of a roguish charm that had instantly captivated Cyn.

In fact, she looked after him a little longingly as the woman Barbara led him away towards the function-room, where he would no doubt be swallowed up completely by the family and friends he had there, forgetting completely the young receptionist who had been so forward with him. Actually, she had better hope that he did exactly that where she was concerned; she didn’t want to be sacked from this job just yet, and her manner towards him had hardly been professional!

Watching him now, so tall and impressive as he walked down the carpeted corridor at Barbara’s side, she couldn’t help but berate herself for not realising earlier that he had a presence, a self-confidence, that was an essential part of his make-up, had been inborn, in fact. But how could she have guessed he was Wolf Thornton? No one had ever mentioned what the other Thornton brother’s first name was. And she certainly wouldn’t have forgotten a name like Wolf if she had heard it before!

Suddenly he came to a halt, murmured something to the woman at his side, before turning and walking purposefully back towards the desk where Cyn still stood. She watched his progress towards her with increasingly widening eyes; oh, lord, what was he going to say to her now?

‘Will you have dinner with me tomorrow evening—Lucynda Smith?’ he added lightly after glancing at the name-badge on the lapel of the jacket the hotel had supplied as part of her uniform.

She swallowed hard, glancing past him towards the woman still standing in the corridor as she watched the two of them with narrowed green eyes, then hastily looked away again as she saw the venom in that glittering gaze, looking up at Wolf Thornton as if he had to have gone slightly mad—or she had; he hadn’t really just invited her out to dinner tomorrow night—had he...?

‘Cyn,’ she answered automatically, dazedly.

He grinned, showing even white teeth against his tanned skin—a tan he had acquired at the same time as the lovely Barbara had? Cyn couldn’t help wondering. Just who was the other woman? And what role did she have in Wolf’s life if he could walk away from her to invite Cyn out for the evening?

‘I didn’t have sin in mind on our first date.’ His eyes gleamed down at her with mocking humour. ‘Only dinner.’ He shrugged those broad shoulders. ‘But if you insist I’m sure I could—’

‘I meant my friends—people, call me Cyn. It’s short for Lucynda,’ she explained irritably as he still looked amused—at her expense! But who could really blame him? She was acting like a besotted teenager, not a responsible twenty-year-old.

‘Ah,’ his mouth twisted teasingly. ‘Well, Cyn,’ he drawled her name with deliberate intimacy, ‘will you have dinner with me tomorrow evening? Nothing so grand as this place, I’m afraid.’ He grimaced at their surroundings. ‘I can only suffer this particular brand of opulence every couple of months or so!’

Cyn wouldn’t have felt comfortable dining anywhere like this hotel herself. But she couldn’t have dinner anywhere with this man: he was her employer, for goodness’ sake, albeit in a non-participating capacity; she had heard that the second son of the Thornton family kept well away from the business side of things.

She shook her head. ‘I can’t, I’m afraid.’

‘Working,’ he nodded understandingly. ‘I could ask my brother to arrange for you to have the evening off,’ he said lightly, ‘but—’

‘Oh, no!’ Cyn gasped her dismay at the very suggestion. The last thing she wanted was for the head of the Thornton family to hear of her encounter with his brother!

‘—I won’t,’ Wolf finished mockingly. ‘I think the best thing to do is work out which evening you do have free, and arrange things from there, don’t you?’

Cyn looked up at him searchingly. He didn’t seem to be taunting her, and yet— Why on earth was he inviting out a little nonentity like her?

‘Do you like Chinese food?’ he added temptingly. ‘It’s my passion at the moment. If you would rather—’

‘I love Chinese food,’ Cyn told him hastily, very conscious of the growing impatience of the beautiful Barbara as she now stood in the corridor, tapping her elegantly-shod foot against the marble floor. ‘And as it happens I do have tomorrow evening off. But—’

‘Great! I’ll meet you outside here at seven-thirty tomorrow evening,’ he said economically, having glanced round to see that a man had now joined the lovely Barbara—a man Cyn recognised only too well as Alex Thornton himself! ‘I hate to eat late,’ Wolf told Cyn before striding off to join the other couple, not looking at her again as the three of them went off in the direction of the music.

Cyn stared after him dazedly. She had just been bulldozed, railroaded, bullied—in the nicest possible way!—into meeting Wolf Thornton for dinner tomorrow evening!

She should never have kept that date with him, should have realised getting to know him any better than she already had would only lead to heartache. Oh, heartache didn’t even begin to describe the pain she had suffered for daring to fall in love with Wolf Thornton!

* * *

Having dinner with Gerald Harcourt that evening was much less traumatic. Gerald was easy company, flirtatious without being pushy—perhaps because he didn’t usually have to be, Cyn thought a little indulgently; Gerald’s good looks and charm would normally make it all too easy for him to make conquests. Just not Cyn. Oh, she liked him well enough, and if he hadn’t been going to be Wolf’s father-in-law, she might even have kept on seeing him on a casual basis. But as he was going to be Wolf’s father-in-law...!

‘I’m not giving up on you,’ he told her warmly when she refused his second invitation for dinner. ‘I happen to think you could be the woman who changes my opinion about marriage.’

Cyn looked up at him reprovingly as they stood inside the tiny sitting-room of the small two-bedroomed cottage she had taken a lease on a couple of years ago in the countryside several miles outside Feltham itself, Gerald having driven her home after their meal. ‘Do many women fall for that line?’ she drawled derisively.

He grinned unabashedly. ‘Quite a few, actually,’ he acknowledged derisively.

She chuckled wryly. ‘Well, not me, Mr Harcourt,’ she told him firmly. ‘If anything I’m probably less kindly disposed towards marriage than you are,’ she added.

‘You see?’ Gerald still smiled, completely unperturbed. ‘We’re perfect for each other!’

Cyn chuckled softly, warmly returning his humour. ‘Forget it, Gerald,’ she drawled. ‘Maybe we can have dinner again another time, but for the moment I prefer to concentrate on your daughter’s wedding.’

He gave a grimace. ‘Reminding me I have a daughter old enough to be married puts me firmly in my place, doesn’t it?’ he acknowledged ruefully.

She shook her head. ‘I didn’t mean it to sound that way. I— Your daughter’s very young to be getting married,’ she added as casually as she was able—when it was Wolf that Rebecca intended marrying.

Gerald frowned. ‘She’s over twenty. Admittedly Wolf is a lot older than her, thirty-five, but I’m sure they’ll be good for each other.’ He shook his head at her implied suggestion that perhaps they wouldn’t.

‘The bridegroom did seem a little—remote,’ she said awkwardly. The Wolf she had met today bore little or no resemblance to that teasing man she had met seven years ago; he didn’t look as if he knew how to tease!

‘Oh, Wolf’s all right,’ Gerald dismissed comfortably. ‘He and Rebecca are good friends.’

‘Friends?’ Cyn frowned at his choice of words. ‘Isn’t that a strange thing to say about a couple who intend marrying in four months’ time?’

‘Not in the least strange,’ Gerald disagreed. ‘I only wish Rebecca’s mother and I had been friends before we married, maybe then we wouldn’t have ended up hating each other’s guts once the initial passion wore a little thin. The same goes for you, I’d hazard a guess.’ He looked at her shrewdly.

Her eyes widened. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked warily. What did he mean? She was sure, not by word or deed, that she and Wolf hadn’t given away the fact earlier today that they had known each other years ago.

Gerald shrugged. ‘Whoever the man was in your past, who gave you the same distrust of marriage that I have, I’ll bet the two of you weren’t friends.’

It was a bet he would lose. She and Wolf had been great friends, had found a rapport existed between the two of them from the first—much to Cyn’s surprise; she had been sure the two of them could have nothing in common. But there was no way she could tell Gerald that Wolf had been that man!

She smiled dismissively. ‘I’m sure we all have disastrous love-affairs in our past that have coloured our judgement in later life,’ she shrugged. ‘We get over them.’ She held her chin defensively high, knowing she had never got over loving Wolf.

‘Some of us do,’ Gerald nodded thoughtfully, watching her closely. ‘I’ll take a rain-check on the dinner invitation, then,’ he finally accepted lightly, moving to grasp her gently by the upper arms. ‘But I really meant it when I said I’m not giving up on you.’ He kissed her lightly on the lips.

Cyn stood in the doorway of the brightly lit cottage waving goodbye to Gerald as he drove away, wondering exactly what he would make of the fact that seven years ago she had been the one about to marry Wolf!

* * *

Given time—once she finally got away from the hotel that evening, without seeing Wolf Thornton again, unfortunately—Cyn had decided that he couldn’t really have been serious about the dinner invitation. But if she had thought he hadn’t been serious, what on earth had possessed her to be waiting outside the Thornton’s Hotel at seven-thirty the following evening?

She had felt very conspicuous standing outside on the pavement, several people entering the hotel eyeing her curiously as she did her best to look casually unconcerned by the obvious fact that she was waiting for someone. Someone who, by seven-forty, still hadn’t arrived!

He hadn’t been serious, she realised with a sinking heart, wondering how she could slip away without drawing any more attention to herself. The doorman, a man she had come to know over the last few weeks, had been watching surreptitiously to see just who her date was for the evening. How awful that the ‘date’ hadn’t turned up!

‘Thank God I caught you!’ gasped a breathless voice behind her. ‘I thought I was going to be too late.’

Cyn had been in the act of quietly slipping away from the front entrance of the hotel, but she turned sharply at the first sound of Wolf Thornton’s voice.