Return Engagement. Carole Mortimer

was situated above a bakery in the small shopping precinct. There were some days when the smell of baking permeating from the shop below could drive Cyn wild with hunger, but, despite the fact that it was almost two-thirty and she hadn’t even had lunch yet, today was not one of those days! And she doubted that Wolf was actually seeing any of the shopping scene below him either. Unless he had grown more heartless than she had imagined—because she still felt like a quivering wreck after the kisses they had shared!

      ‘Hello, Cyn,’ greeted a warm, masculine voice after she had put the receiver up to her ear and given the name of the agency. ‘You shot off earlier before I had a chance to make definite plans to meet you for that dinner you promised me,’ he added reprovingly.

      Gerald Harcourt! Cyn shot a self-conscious glance across the room at Wolf. Of all the people who could have called her now...!

      As if becoming aware of her tension, Wolf slowly turned to look at her, that amber gaze deeply probing on her suddenly pale face. ‘What is it?’ He frowned suspiciously.

      Cyn swallowed hard. This was awful, just awful! She didn’t know what to do.

      ‘Cyn?’ Gerald prompted with a puzzled voice as he received no response to his teasingly made statement. ‘Have I called at a bad time?’ he guessed astutely.

      A bad time! It couldn’t have been any worse. She swallowed hard. ‘Not really,’ she lied. ‘And dinner would be lovely.’ She deliberately didn’t look at Wolf as she accepted the invitation; if she hadn’t accepted it, she would have just prolonged the conversation, and with Wolf in the room, his expression now thunderous, that was the last thing she wanted to do. ‘Could you pick me up at eight o’clock?’ she continued to speak briskly to Gerald. ‘There’s a rather good Italian restaurant quite near here we could go to. Unless you would rather not have pasta?’ Who cared whether or not he cared for pasta? She just wanted to get this conversation over with as quickly as possible. Because if she didn’t, she had a feeling Wolf was going to explode!

      ‘Pasta sounds marvellous,’ Gerald agreed quickly, obviously pleased at his speedy success when he had surely been envisaging having to persuade her into accepting his invitation.

      Cyn quickly gave him her address, all the time keeping a wary eye on Wolf, and ringing off as soon as she was able without appearing rude to Gerald.

      Wolf hadn’t moved from his position in front of the window, and yet he seemed to have grown, become even more intimidating—if that were possible! Cyn stood beside her desk, her hands clasped self-consciously together in front of her, watching him warily. Both of them were silent, Cyn because she simply didn’t know what to say, Wolf, she was sure, because he had too much to say!

      ‘Gerald?’ he finally accused knowingly.

      ‘Yes,’ she replied unnecessarily; the flush that had instantly darkened her cheeks had been confirmation enough.

      Wolf’s mouth tightened ominously. ‘And you’re having dinner with him tonight.’

      Her chin rose in an instinctively defensive movement. ‘Yes,’ she abruptly acknowledged the statement.

      He shook his head, his mouth turned back scornfully. ‘You asked me a short time ago what happened to me,’ he bit out derisively. ‘I can tell you in one word what happened to me, Cyn,’ he rasped harshly. ‘You happened to me! You with your silver hair, violet-blue eyes, and such an expression of innocence I was totally fooled seven years ago. But not again, Cyn.’ He marched purposefully over to the door and wrenched it open. ‘Never again!’ He slammed the door so forcefully after his exit that the whole room seemed to vibrate in reaction.

      Cyn finally gave in to the weakness in her legs and sat down heavily in her chair behind the desk.

      ‘Never again’, Wolf had said. And yet his kisses such a short time ago, in this very room, made a lie of that claim. In fact, if Wolf could kiss her with such passion then he had no right marrying Rebecca Harcourt at all!

      CHAPTER THREE

      IN THE ordinary course of events, she and Wolf would never have met at all. In fact, it might have been better for everyone concerned if they never had!

      Cyn had been working as one of the evening receptionists at Thornton’s, the exclusive hotel the family owned in the centre of London—the same hotel Rebecca and Wolf were due to hold their wedding reception at in August, which was why they knew there would be no problem with that particular booking!

      There had been a lot of day as well as night-time staff on duty that particular evening; Alex Thornton and his wife were hosting a sixtieth birthday party for his mother, Claudia, in the main function-room. Despite the fact that this was posted up on the notice-board as the guests entered the hotel, Cyn had spent the majority of the beginning of the evening directing people to the appropriate room. Not that she had seen any of the family themselves; they had been escorted into the party by the manager himself. By ten-fifteen, Cyn had been sure all the guests had to be present by now, and settled down at her computer console to complete some of the paperwork that seemed to go along with the job and which she hadn’t had time to deal with earlier, while several of the other girls on duty took a well-earned break; they had all been working extremely hard today to make sure everything ran smoothly for the Thornton party. Cyn had been quite happy to wait for her own break. Besides, she knew she wasn’t going to be too popular if the couple in Room 217 weren’t even officially registered, let alone their preference for morning newspapers logged in!

      ‘What did that computer ever do to you?’ queried a deeply amused voice.

      Cyn looked up from her frowning concentration on the VDU, her eyes widening as she took in the appearance of the man leaning so casually over the top of the desk as he watched her struggling to squash a lengthy home address of one of the guests into the totally inadequate space given for this very purpose by the supposedly foolproof computer program; obviously they hadn’t considered people coming from Russia when they devised the program. But one look at this man and she didn’t care whether the address was legible enough, after her pruning, for the guest to be billed for any extras discovered after his departure or not. This man was gorgeous!

      Tall—he had to be, to be able to lean this far over the top of the reception-desk!—with over-long blond hair that persisted in falling forward over his high intelligent forehead, eyes the colour of warm amber looking at Cyn with deepening amusement as she continued to stare at him, his features striking rather than what could strictly be called handsome, everything slightly larger than life, his cheekbones high, his nose slightly bent, as if it might have been broken at some time, his mouth— Oh, God, that mouth...!

      Cyn stood up slowly, crossing to stand on the other side of the desk from him. ‘Machines and I don’t get on,’ she dismissed with a rueful shrug. ‘Can I help you?’ she offered politely, although from the look of his black evening suit and snowy white shirt, his black bow-tie spoiling the immaculate effect slightly, being not quite straight, as if he had tied it in a hurry, he was yet another guest for the Thornton party. She couldn’t help wondering if one of the other girls would know who this particular guest was. There was a list, of course, for security reasons, but that seemed to have been put to one side earlier as they were swamped with queries about the party. Cyn gave it a sideways glance as it lay on the desk by her hand, but there were so many names not crossed off that it would be impossible to know who this man was. Unless she asked him. And she couldn’t do that—much as she longed to!

      ‘I hope so,’ he grimaced. ‘I’m afraid I’m a little late, you see, and—’

      ‘The Thornton party,’ she nodded understandingly. ‘Well, I shouldn’t worry too much about being late, if I were you; there are so many people crushed into that room that I doubt if anyone has noticed your absence!’ Although if she had asked this man to a party, even if there were three hundred other guests invited, she would still have noticed his absence.

      His grimace deepened. ‘I wouldn’t be too sure of that if I were you!’ He shook his head.

      Ah,