Birthday Bride. Jessica Hart

away at a rate of knots. Perhaps she was just highly strung?

      Nobody could accuse David Stirling of being highly strung. Did he ever get excited? Claudia’s eyes strayed back to his mouth. What would it take to arouse a man like that, to break through the cool control and make that pulse beat faster for once?

      Aghast at the train of her own thoughts, she jerked her gaze away and hastily turned a page of the magazine. Oh, God, an article about sex! She couldn’t read that with him sitting right beside her. Flicking on, she came to a piece about the pleasures and pressures of different ages. No point in reading about the twenties, she thought glumly. She was leaving those behind her. She’d better read about the thirties instead and find out whether there was any life after thirty, or whether she should just give in and get herself some tweeds and a blue rinse.

      Women in their thirties have left all the insecurities of the twenties behind. They are poised, confident, at ease with themselves.

      Oh, yeah? thought Claudia cynically.

      They have learnt what suits them and what doesn’t, and have the maturity and sophistication to lead life on their own terms. ‘I love women in their thirties,’ one man was quoted as saying. ‘They’re much more interesting than young girls because they’ve got something to say for themselves, they know what they want and they’re confident enough to go out and get it. I think it’s by far the sexiest age. So many women grow into their looks in their thirties. They’ve come to terms with their own bodies and that’s what gives them a glamour and assurance that no twenty-year-old could hope to achieve.’

      Claudia gave a disbelieving sniff. As David Stirling would say, what a load of tosh! She had never met a woman who had come to terms with her own body, thirty or not! Still, all that sophistication and glamour didn’t sound too bad, even if there was something daunting about the idea of maturity. When was it going to hit her?

      It was all very well to talk about knowing what you wanted, but all Claudia could think that she really wanted right now was to get to Telama’an, to wash her hair and to have a very long, very cold gin and tonic. Hardly very lofty objectives with which to begin the next decade of her life!

      Claudia closed the magazine with a sigh. David was still reading his report. There was something wrong with a man who could concentrate like that, she decided, but she didn’t quite dare interrupt him again. That must be because she was still twenty-nine and not yet confident. It would be different tomorrow.

      Casting around for another diversion, she looked around the cabin and met the eyes of a Shofrani sitting across the aisle from her. He was a handsome man, dressed stylishly in western clothes, with dark hair and very warm, very dark eyes. He smiled charmingly as their eyes met and Claudia, pleased to find someone who seemed disposed to like her after David’s crushing attitude, smiled back.

      ‘I am sorry if I was staring,’ he said in excellent English. ‘We do not often see such beautiful passengers on the flight to Telama’an!’

      Claudia warmed to his flattery. He introduced himself as Amil and they were soon embarked on a discreet flirtation. He had been doing business for his uncle in the capital, he told her, and was now on his way home.

      ‘Will you be staying long in Telama’an?’ ‘Just a couple of weeks, then I have to go back to work.’

      ‘Your job cannot spare you for any longer?’

      ‘I’m afraid not. I work for a television production company and we’re terribly busy at the moment.’

      Beside her, David, who was unable to avoid listening in on their irritatingly complacent conversation, awarded himself points for being right about her job anyway. He had guessed that she worked in the media, but he might have known that it would be in television! He tried to close his ears and focus on his report, but Claudia was rabbiting on about how hectic and important her job was, and her new-found friend was just encouraging her, nodding and smiling and sounding impressed. It was hard to tell which of them was more pleased with themselves, David thought savagely, and gritted his teeth.

      Out of the corner of her eye, Claudia caught the tightening of his jaw, and redoubled her efforts to charm Amil. She would show him that some men found her attractive! Turning back to Amil, she gave him a dazzling smile. ‘But that’s enough about my job,’ she said winsomely. ‘I’m sure your life is much more interesting than mine!’

      God, she was irritating! David clamped his lips together and scoured out a typing error in the report with unnecessary vigour. He had to endure another quarter of an hour of their stomach-churning, treacly conversation before the steward, moving down the aisle with a trolley, broke them up.

      David breathed a sigh of relief, but it was short-lived. Claudia must have had the attention span of a gnat. Couldn’t she just sit still for a minute? She was rummaging around in her bag, sorting through her inexhaustible supply of lipsticks, polishing her mirror, carefully applying colour to her mouth.

      When she snapped the mirror shut and dropped it back in the bag with her lipstick, David allowed himself to hope that she would relax, but no! Now she had got out an emery board and was touching up a nail, the next minute it was hand cream, the next refreshing herself with a spray of perfume. The subtle, expensive, undeniably sexy scent that he already associated with her drifted towards him, but he resolutely ignored it and, putting down his pen, pretended to consult the index.

      Then—of course!—she had to comb her hair. Tipping her head forward, Claudia ran a comb through the silky mass and then tossed her hair back so that it bounced softly around her face. David tried not to notice how soft it looked, or how the sun through the window glinted on the gleaming strands and turned them into spun gold.

      At last it seemed as if she was finished. The comb was put away, the bag pushed under the seat once more. David offered up a silent prayer of thanks and picked up his pen again.

      Claudia was bored. David was still resolutely ignoring her and she had run out of ways to provoke him. It was no fun if he wouldn’t respond, anyway. She glanced at her watch. Still an hour and a half to go. Amil was talking to his neighbour, and the magazine just seemed full of articles expressly designed to remind her how old she was getting. With an impatient sigh, she began drumming her fingers on the arm of the seat.

      For David, it was the final straw. He threw down his pen. ‘Can’t you sit still for two seconds?’ he demanded between clenched teeth.

      ‘I am sitting still,’ objected Claudia, offended.

      ‘You’re not,’ said David, hanging onto the shreds of his temper with difficulty. ‘If you’re not chatting up complete strangers, you’re tarting yourself up, combing your hair, admiring yourself in your mirror, or fossicking around in that bag, and then, when you’ve exhausted all those intellectual activities, you sit there and make that extremely irritating noise with your fingers!’

      Claudia looked huffy. ‘What do you want me to do?’

      ‘I don’t want you to do anything! Why can’t you just sit quietly?’

      ‘I hate just sitting,’ she said sulkily. ‘I’ve got a very low boredom threshold. I’ve got to do something.’

      ‘Why don’t you try thinking?’ David suggested with an unpleasant look. ‘That ought to be a novel experience for you. The effort of using your brain ought to keep you occupied for a good five minutes!’

      ‘I’ve been thinking,’ said Claudia, very much on her dignity.

      ‘You amaze me!’ He shook his head in mock admiration. ‘And what have you been thinking about?’

      ‘Well, mostly I’ve been wondering how Patrick came to give a job to anyone quite so arrogant and unpleasant,’ she pretended to confide.

      David looked at her for a moment. ‘What makes you think Patrick gave me a job?’

      ‘I know he’s the senior engineer on the project, so if you’re involved with the negotiations you must report to him, and if he knew how badly you represent