The Plus-One Agreement (11 page)

There was a part of him that was halfway back to London in his head already, keen to do exactly as she had suggested.

She shifted gently in her sleep and he sat up on the sofa, throwing back the crumpled sheet. He could see the smooth pool of her dark hair on the pillow. The quality of the light in the room had changed almost imperceptibly and he glanced at the luminous face of his watch. Dawn would be kicking in before he knew it. He could be back in his Docklands flat in an easy couple of hours if he left now. No need to battle London traffic if he left this early. Why the hell was he even still here?

You want to help. You want this involvement with her and her family.

He absolutely
did not.

Every sensible instinct told him to get some serious distance from this situation but he rationalised furiously. A brief chat with Adam—and a brief chat was all it
would
be, too—might be the perfect way to take control of this situation. He wasn’t about to quietly slink back to London on her say-so, leaving her with the upper hand.

He ignored the inner voice whispering that he didn’t like being labelled as selfish, because labels were to him completely irrelevant. Results mattered. Successes. Not good or bad opinions. Even if they happened to be
her
opinions.

Help Adam out and Emma would be in his debt. The fact that after that kiss she felt very much like unfinished business was beside the point. He was not about to fall for her. He was in total control here. When they got back to London he would end their agreement, as planned, in full possession of the moral high ground. It wasn’t as if she wasn’t expecting him to. He’d made it clear this was their last outing together. There would be no need to see her again after that. It would be over.

* * *

There was a chink in the curtains that let the sunlight in.

It took a moment for her brain to process the fact that the bedroom window of her flat in Putney looked out onto a tiny enclosed yard which the sun penetrated for roughly ten minutes somewhere around noon. Additional details seeped into her consciousness. This bed was hard, where hers was soft, and was that
birdsong
she could hear? Where was the roar of rush-hour traffic?

This was
not
her flat in Putney.

Reality rushed in. Luxury country house hotel. Adam’s mad-as-a-box-of-frogs wedding. Disastrous room-share with her crush of the year.

She sat bolt upright and stars swam in front of her eyes at the unexpected movement. She turned instantly to look at the sofa. Every bone in her body ached with tension and her eyes felt gritty when she blinked. She could have sworn she’d been awake all night. Yet that couldn’t be so. Last seen lying on the sofa as she climbed back into bed at two-thirty and turned her back on him in fury, at some point Dan had managed to get up and exit the room without her noticing.

She checked the time and that was enough to get her out of bed in a split second. How the hell had she managed to sleep in? Her stomach kicked into churning with a sudden sense of urgency. She needed to get up, check on Adam and find out if the wedding was going ahead or not.

The thought of dealing with the fallout if his world imploded filled her with dread. Adam would be in the doghouse and the spotlight would be right back on her life—her failure to keep a man, her failure to produce grandchildren. Her mind stuttered on that thought with a sharp stab of shame. Surely her only concern should be for Adam, for how she could best help him sort out the mess that was his life, how she could support him through the stress. The thought of the effect it might have on
her
shouldn’t even be entering her mind.

Dan’s accusation from the previous night rose darkly in her mind. Could he have a point about her living in Adam’s shadow because it was safer there?

She crossed the room swiftly to the
en-suite
bathroom, knowing from the silence that Dan wasn’t there but sticking her head around the door anyway to check.

Nothing.

She glanced at the hotel information brochure on top of the bureau. Breakfast had been running for at least an hour already—maybe he’d gone down to the dining room. The possibility that he’d upped and left lurked at the very edge of her consciousness but she delayed any consideration of it. And then, as she turned, her eyes took in the antique desk and her heart gave a miserable lurch that she refused to acknowledge.

His holdall wasn’t in the room. And, worse, nor were his laptop and all the associated office stuff which basically provided his identity. All of it was gone.

* * *

She threw on jeans and a T-shirt and speed-walked down the deep-carpeted hall to the honeymoon suite. Ernie had spent the previous night at his parents’ home and had planned to get ready there, so Adam should still be alone.

He opened the door on her first knock and stood aside to let her in before crossing the room back to the full-length mirror. He was wearing an ivory crushed velvet slim-cut suit with gold piping and super pointy shoes that even
she
would think twice about squashing her toes into. He looked her up and down, an eyebrow cocked.

‘I do hope you’re not wearing that,’ he said, waving a hand at her jeans-and-old-T-shirt combo. ‘This is a classy event.’

‘Of course I’m not wearing this,’ she snapped.

There was something incredibly exasperating about the way he was acting, as if the events of the previous night had never happened when they’d caused her a stress-fest of monumental proportions.

‘I didn’t see the point in putting on a swanky wedding outfit and doing my hair when the likelihood of it going ahead was somewhere around fifty-fifty. At least it was when I left you in the small hours.’

She sat down on the enormous bed. Everything in the honeymoon suite was supersized, albeit in a country hotel kind of a way. The four posts were taller, the swags of fabric bedecking them were bigger and sweepier, and through the door of the
en suite
she could see an enormous sunken bath.

‘Oh, that!’

Adam flapped a dismissive hand at her and turned back to his reflection in the mirror. He looked a little tired and drawn but otherwise remarkably like his usual upbeat self. She caught sight of her own reflection behind him. She looked an exhausted wreck. How bloody unfair.

‘That’s all sorted now.’

She stared at him in disbelief.

‘What about last night’s meltdown?’ His lack of reaction combined with her tiredness made her temper strain to breaking point. ‘You puked in my plant, for Pete’s sake! You had a total emotional meltdown. Your life was
over.
’

‘Oh, that,’ he said again, glancing back at her.

At least he had the good grace to look sheepish now.

‘Sorry about that, sweetie. Glass of champagne too many. Still, there were compensations. In fact some might say it had elements of stag night perfection.’

He grinned at her mystified expression.

‘Sharing a shower room with the gorgeous Dan, for example,’ he said mischievously, spraying a toothbrush with hairspray and smoothing his already perfect quiff into place. ‘Even if he did ruin my suit.’ He tapped the side of his nose with one finger in a your-secret’s-safe-with-me gesture. ‘Lucky old you. I know you thought you hit the jackpot with Alistair Woods, but I’ve always thought Dan was in a league of his own. Nice work.’ He winked at her and turned back to the top of the bureau, which was groaning under the weight of male grooming products. ‘I never did think Lycra cycle wear was a good look—didn’t like to mention it.’

He lavishly sprayed a five-foot-high cloud of oriental spiced aftershave into the room beside him and stepped into it.

Emma pinched her nose to stifle a sneeze. She shook her head in automatic denial.

‘It’s not like that. We’re just work friends.’

He cackled mad laughter.

‘Sure you are! That’s why he’s just given me an
enormous
business loan with zero interest and his personal phone number so I can tap him for strategic advice whenever I need it.’ He winked. ‘Either that or maybe he’s got the hots for
me.
Maybe you’ve got competition, sweetie.’

She stared at him in disbelief and he obviously mistook incredulity for angry possessiveness.

‘I’m joking!’ He held his hands up and laughed. ‘For Pete’s sake, where’s your sense of humour?’

‘When?’
she said, as if in a dream. ‘When did he do all this? His stuff’s gone from the room. I can’t find him anywhere.’ She paused. ‘We had a bit of a disagreement.’

Adam shook his head.

‘He’ll be back. He turned up here around dawn, woke me up, ordered a gallon of black coffee and forced me to come clean about my debts.’ He coloured a little. ‘It wasn’t pretty. Then he talked me through a business plan for the next three years and touted unbelievable terms for a loan. I thought he’d want a cut of everything I make for life at the very least, and I would have agreed to it, too. Frankly, I would have put up my
granny
as security to dig me out of this hole. But no.’ He shook his head wonderingly. ‘He is
so
into you.’ He pointed the toothbrush at her.

Her brain was spinning, trying to process what all this meant.

‘Where is he now, then? He didn’t come back to the room.’

Adam shrugged. ‘Around, I think. He was going to make a few calls, draw up some papers and get the ball rolling. I’m sure he’ll show up once it’s all organised, sweetie. He’s probably in the lobby soaking up the free Wi-Fi.’

Or en route back to the city and deliberately avoiding her. Her heart gave a half plummet at the thought and she gritted her teeth. She tugged her fingers through her hair, as if she could somehow smooth some sense into her muddled brain.

She’d told him to go back to London and instead he’d stayed to put together a bail-out package for Adam. Her heart turned over meltingly and she desperately tried to rein it in, to come up with an alternative explanation to the one that was slamming into her brain.

He’d done this for her.

He’d done it to prove her wrong about him.

She cringed inwardly as she remembered the awful things she’d said to him in the throes of her enormous meltdown tantrum. What possible other explanation could there be? It was way above and beyond Dan’s normal remit. Dan didn’t step in to fix other people’s crises. Ever. Since he kept the world at arm’s length it was usually impossible to get close enough to his shoulder to cry on it.

He’d stepped outside the box. And what the hell was she meant to make of that?

NINE

Dan ran
a hand through his hair distractedly as his phone kicked in for the third time in the last ten minutes. Each of the calls had been from Emma. For the third time he pressed ‘call reject’ on the dashboard and fixed his expression on the road. The motorway would still be pretty clear this time of the morning, but he’d hit traffic when he reached London. It was a Saturday so would be marginally better.

Dealing with Adam had taken a good deal longer than he’d thought it would. Still, it was done now. Loan organised, cash transfer organised, soul sold. Point made. The wedding would go ahead without a hitch and he would return to his work in London. The ridiculous plus-one agreement would be discharged exactly as he’d planned. They would move forward separately, but Emma would go with the knowledge that she’d been wrong about him.

Sad workaholic singleton.

Was that really what he boiled down to? His mind gnawed at it relentlessly and, try as he might, he couldn’t shake the feeling that the reason it bothered him so much was because
she’d
said it. He, who didn’t give a toss about how he came across to people so long as the job got done,
cared
what she thought of him.

A miserable, dark churning was kicking into his stomach with every mile he drove further away.

* * *

Emma pelted back up the stairs for the third time, having performed a whirlwind circuit of all the public rooms and lounges in the hotel, her heart sinking lower by the second. The marquee was teeming with hotel staff transforming it from plain tent into what was, by the look of it, to be some kind of yellow-themed fairy grotto, all under the supervision of a pristinely dressed wedding coordinator with a clipboard and a voice like a sergeant major.

There wasn’t another guest in sight, she hadn’t showered, washed her hair or applied a dab of make-up, and she only had an hour or so left to get ready before pre-wedding cocktails and nibbles were served. Her mother was probably already wearing her mother-of-the-bride outfit and preparing herself for an afternoon of wedding critique. Wherever Dan had disappeared to, catching up with him and sorting things out would have to go maddeningly on hold now that the wedding was going ahead as planned.

Maybe he’d come back while she was getting dressed...

She showered and changed with minutes to spare and there was still no sign of him.

Maybe he had no intention of coming back at all while she was there. She had told him he was selfish for not helping out a friend, that he cared about no one but himself. Without him here there was only one conclusion. This wasn’t about any regard for
her
—it was about making a point, showing her she was wrong about him and then exiting her life with the moral high ground.

The finished marquee turned out to be a yellow flower explosion. Huge floral arrangements stood on plinths in every spare space. Yellow silk bunting decked the roof, and the chairs were wrapped in huge yellow bows, standing in twin rows separated by a wide aisle covered with a thick-pile yellow carpet. At the very front a perfectly dressed white table was decked in yellow flowers.

She was one of the last people to take her seat, earning a glare from her mother, who was perched in the front row rubbernecking at the other guests. Her furious face was topped by an enormous salmon-pink feather hat which clashed eye-wateringly with the mad overuse of yellow.

In a sudden burst of exasperated defiance Emma stood straight up again. She could just nip outside and try his phone again. And maybe while she was there check the car park. At least that would be conclusive.

She sidestepped out of her row and turned back down the aisle to the door. She had to get hold of him. She wasn’t about to let this go now—wedding or no wedding. She was stopped in her tracks by a deafening funked-up version of the ‘Bridal March’ as Adam and Ernie blocked the door in front of her. They were both wearing dark glasses, probably in defence against the major overuse of yellow. Ernie’s small niece walked at their feet, lobbing yellow rose petals. The eyes of everyone in the room bored into her back and she had no choice but to slink back to her seat.

What was she thinking? She might as well face facts.

The wedding was under way. And he was clearly not coming.

The wave of sadness that realisation evoked took her breath away and made her throat constrict. The assumption that he’d helped Adam for her, because he
cared
about her, seemed unlikely now that he hadn’t hung around to soak up her gratitude. The surge of excitement she’d felt when Adam had told her what had happened took a nosedive into stomach-churning disappointment. She would have to resign herself to coping with the ceremony and its aftermath by herself.

It was an odd novelty to be stressed about something else for a change, instead of the usual prospect of mad parental behaviour. The thought of being without him beat all her other problems into submission. Nothing seemed to bother her now. Her parents could do their worst, and probably would.

And then, just as she mentally gave up on Dan and tried to steel herself to get through the day without losing her sanity, her stomach gave an unexpected and disorientating flip as he walked into the marquee.

He strode casually down the aisle behind Adam and Ernie, crushing the trail of yellow rose petals under his feet, and slid into the seat next to her as if he was just a couple of minutes late instead of having gone AWOL for the last twelve hours. Any possible annoyance with him was immediately sidelined by her heart, which went into full thundering mode. To hide it, she immediately faked irritation.

She spoke from the corner of her mouth as Adam launched into his personally written over-emotional vows. Ernie was gazing at him adoringly.

‘You’re late,’ she whispered.

He stared straight ahead. In his dark suit and crisp white shirt he looked ready for cocktails at some trendy London wine bar. A yellow carnation had been pinned to his lapel by one of the super-efficient attendants. There was a hint of stubble lining his jaw and one tiny sign that he’d cut it fine—the spikes of his hair were still slightly damp from the shower.

‘I’m not. I’m bang on time.’

‘I thought you’d gone back to London.’

This time he looked her way and gave her a half smile that made her stomach go soft.

‘Just because you told me to? You don’t get rid of me that easily.’

Her stomach gave a slow and delicious flip. What the hell did
that
mean? That he wanted to stay or that he was making a point?

* * *

The service progressed at the front of the room and she barely heard a word of it. Her mind continued to whirl while cheers rang out around them and a shower of yellow confetti fluttered over Adam and Ernie as they raised triumphant hands above their heads. She hardly took in any of it. All she wanted was to drag Dan somewhere quiet to talk.

Nerves twisted inside her as she followed the rest of the guests back up the yellow-ribbon-lined aisle and into the hotel’s conservatory for drinks while the marquee was reset for dinner. A string quartet kicked into action at one side of the room as waiting staff with trays of canapés began to mingle with the guests. Dan nodded around, smiling and winking at people, working the fake plus-one wedding guest image to a tee, and suddenly she could stand it no longer.

She grabbed him by the elbow and tugged him to a quiet corner of the room.

‘Where
were
you all morning, then?’ she said. ‘You don’t get off that easily.’

She waited for him to regale her with how he’d single-handedly solved Adam’s problems and then sit back to watch her eat her words.

Instead he shrugged easily and took a sip of his champagne.

‘Around. I’m an early riser. You were dead to the world, snoring away.’

He grinned broadly as she aimed an exasperated slap at his shoulder.

‘I do
not
snore.’

So he was clearly not immediately going to volunteer what he’d done. What was the point of actually
doing
it, then, if it hadn’t been to impress her?

She ran her hand through her hair, trying to think straight. She was so confused.

* * *

Dan watched her over the rim of his glass, trying to maintain a relaxed air of mingling wedding guest when all he wanted to do was stare at her. She looked prettier than ever in a silver-grey silk dress that set off her creamy complexion. Her hair was lying in soft waves, one side held back from her face by a sparkly clip. His desire for her was as strong as it had been the previous night. Nothing had changed. Had he really thought it would?

She held his gaze boldly and he heard her take a deep breath.

‘You helped Adam,’ she said. ‘I know about the loan. I thought you didn’t want to get sucked into family stuff.’

He deliberately didn’t meet her eyes and kept his tone light.

‘Yeah, well, I wasn’t thinking straight when you first suggested it,’ he said. ‘Maybe I just wasn’t crazy on Adam’s timing.’

He watched the blush rise on her cheeks at his reference to the previous night and heat began to pool deep in his abdomen.

‘Well, if you think I’ll just hop into bed with you now, because you stepped up to the plate with Adam, you’re wrong,’ she said.

If only that were the limit of his need for her.

‘If I’d wanted to go to bed with someone I wouldn’t have wasted half the night counselling Adam. I would have been down in the lobby chatting up the receptionist.’

If he needed any reminder that he was in over his head here, there it was. This was
not
just about getting her into bed.

He’d actually done far more than he’d intended when he’d left her sleeping in the small hours. The plan to just give Adam some kind of rousing pep talk had gone out of the window when he’d realised the monumental size of the mess he was in. Within five minutes it had become clear that a couple of websites and the number of a debt helpline were simply not going to cut the mustard, and the temptation had never been stronger to simply bow out of the situation and leave all of them to it while he went right back to his safe and organised life in London.

But all he’d been able to think about was Emma floundering the next morning, trying to pick up the pieces, and he simply hadn’t been able to do it to her.

And what that decision meant filled him with far more trepidation than practically writing out a blank check to her lunatic brother.

He had feelings for her.
Beyond anything he’d felt since Maggie. And even she now seemed to be taking on a vagueness in his mind that she hadn’t had before—as if the edges of her memory were being softened by the reality of the present.

‘To prove a point, then,’ she said, narrowing her eyes. ‘You can’t stand being wrong and I touched a nerve.’

He cocked an eyebrow.

‘With your “sad workaholic singleton” comment, you mean? I think I’ve had a few worse insults than that over the years.’

‘Then what? Why would you do that about-face if it wasn’t so you could have the last word?’

The cynical tilt of her chin finally tipped him into irritation.

‘I notice you haven’t asked me if I just did it out of the goodness of my heart. It hasn’t occurred to you that I might just want to
help.
’

‘Of course it hasn’t. Because there’s always an ulterior motive with you. Normally it’s to do with work. Or possibly sex.’

‘Emma, are you so used to being second best that you have to find some negative reason when the truth is staring you in the face? Why is it that you can’t possibly contemplate that I might have just done the whole bloody thing for
you?
’ he blurted in exasperation. ‘You’re maddening, your family are insane, you snore and your luggage habits are scary. But for some reason I’d rather commit myself financially to your mad brother and stay here with you instead of going back to London and my nice, peaceful, “sad workaholic singleton” life. Do you think I don’t want to run for the hills? Truth is, I can’t. I’ve realised there’s nowhere I’d rather be than here.’ He paused for breath. ‘With you.’

She was staring at him.

His pulse vaulted into action as he met her wide brown eyes. He could see the light flush on her cheekbones. All the unrequited tension of the night before seeped back through his body. All around them the socialising carried on, and the urge raced through him to ignore the lot of them, grab her by the hand and tug her upstairs—let this crazy charade go on without them.

He closed the gap between them and lifted a hand to her cheek. The softness of her skin was tantalising beneath his fingers.

‘Dinner is served.’

The Master of Ceremonies’ curt tones cut through the background buzz of chatter and snapped him out of it.

‘Do stop dawdling, darling,’ Emma’s mother called as she swept past them in her ghastly coral ensemble, undoubtedly en route to the top table.

Oh, for Pete’s sake...

* * *

By the time the meal was over the presence of Adam’s entire social circle was beginning to seriously annoy Emma. It was extremely difficult to have an in-depth personal conversation while seated at a table of eight overenthusiastic art groupies.

Dinner finished with, the marquee was cleared of the tables in the centre to reveal a glossy dance floor. Strings of fairy lights and candelabra supplied a twinkly, magical ambience. You couldn’t move without tripping over a champagne waiter. And this after the most sumptuous four-course meal she’d ever been too strung-out to eat. Clearly there had been no expense spared. She wondered just how big Dan’s loan to Adam was. If this was the level of his spending habits he’d still be paying it off when he was drawing his pension.

‘I mean, really—no speeches? No best man. No bridesmaids. No tradition whatsoever! I just want to
know
—and I’m sure I’m not alone in this—’ her mother glanced around for confirmation ‘—what happens about the name-change? Who takes whose name?’

She looked expectantly at Adam, standing nearby, who shifted from foot to foot.