The Fiance Fix. Carole Mortimer

about David Banning without totally letting her defences down. And she had needed those the last seven years. Needed them still!

      ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she dismissed briskly as she stood up. ‘Thank you for lunch,’ she added challengingly.

      Nick nodded. ‘You’re welcome,’ he returned tightly.

      Leaving Joey with no choice but to walk out of the sandwich bar with as much dignity as she could muster. Which was quite a lot, really. She had needed her pride the last seven years, too!

      Another potential romance blown, she accepted ruefully to herself as she wandered around the supermarket picking up something for Lily’s tea—not a Mason’s supermarket; she refused, as a matter of principle, to use that particular chain of supermarkets!

      It was a pity, really, that she and Nick had parted so badly, because she quite liked him—actually, more than liked him. There was a physical awareness between the two of them that was impossible to deny. Although there was no guarantee that it would ever have been any more than that, she argued with herself. Even if she had wanted it to be. Which she probably didn’t…

      Probably? Get a grip, Joey, she admonished herself. Nick was thirty-five, still single, so what did that tell her about him?

      That he just hadn’t found the right woman?

      Romantic nonsense. The sort of thing she had believed in when she was sixteen years old. Real life wasn’t like that. If you were lucky you managed to find someone to share your life with that you were reasonably compatible with; if you were less lucky you managed to live with those differences in uneasy harmony. There simply wasn’t a ‘right’ man or woman in the world for everyone. Mr Right did not exist!

      So decided, Joey put Nick firmly from her mind, paid for her purchases and returned to work. She had the much more pressing problem of David Banning to deal with this evening…

      She dressed with care for her evening out; a simple black dress that reached her knees, teamed with an emerald-green short jacket that matched the colour of her eyes. It was formal enough for dinner, almost businesslike, in fact. Which was exactly the impression she wanted to give David Banning this evening.

      Even from her brief meeting with Daniel’s brother the previous evening, Joey knew he was going to be a formidable adversary. Because adversary he most certainly was. When it came to Lily, anyone, or anything, that threatened the even tenure of her carefree young life came under the heading of enemy as far as Joey was concerned. And she had a definite feeling that was exactly what David Banning intended…

      ‘Miss Delaney,’ he greeted, standing up smoothly as Joey joined him in the lounge of the hotel at exactly eight o’clock. ‘You’re looking very nice,’ he added evenly.

      And God, how it hurt him to say that, Joey observed derisively as she sank down into the chair opposite the one where he was now resuming his own seat. It made her wonder exactly what he had expected the mother of his brother’s child to be like. Hard? Grasping? Calculating? She wasn’t any of those things. Although he would find she could be as fierce as a lioness guarding her cub if anyone threatened Lily!

      ‘So do you,’ she returned drily.

      His clothes might be a little over-the-top for this particular hotel, but there was no denying that David Banning did the tailored evening suit and white silk shirt justice, emphasising his broad shoulders, tapered waist and long legs. The black leather shoes looked as if they might be handmade too. And why not? The Banning family were one of the most wealthy in New York.

      ‘The niceties over, I suggest we go in to dinner.’ He stood up, looking down at her coolly with those icy blue eyes.

      Joey stood up too, a humourless smile curving her lips as she accepted the short duration of those ‘niceties’; this evening was going to be every bit as awful as she had known it would be.

      Although the last thing she had expected to see, as she preceded David Banning into the hotel dining-room, was Nick seated across the room at a corner table!

      CHAPTER FOUR

      WHAT was Nick doing here? was Joey’s first panicked thought as she sat down abruptly in the chair the waiter held back for her. The chair, while not having its back towards Nick, was sideways on, meaning she could glance across at him if she wanted to.

      And Nick could glance up from the papers he appeared to be studying, and see her, too!

      Nick looked different tonight, the casual working shirts and denims replaced with a cream shirt and formal trousers. In fact, Joey decided after a brief glance at him from beneath lowered lashes, Nick no longer looked like the approachable workman she had known.

      What was he doing, dining at this hotel? And alone, by the look of it; Nick was already on to the main course of his meal, with no sign of a second place ever having been set at the table.

      She had assumed that Nick, being part of the construction company working on the new supermarket, would be staying somewhere locally. But she certainly hadn’t thought of it being this particular hotel! They must pay building workers higher rates than she had imagined!

      ‘Miss Delaney? Or may I call you Joey now?’

      She turned sharply back to David Banning, blinking rapidly as she tried to gather her scattered thoughts together; seeing Nick in this unexpected way had totally unnerved her! ‘Of course,’ she ceded distractedly, frowning across at her dining companion.

      David Banning looked at her quizzically. ‘The menu, Joey,’ he prompted. The waiter standing at her side was waiting to hand it to her.

      ‘Oh. Thank you.’ She gave the young waiter a brief smile as she took the menu into her shaking hands.

      Shaking because of Nick’s presence here, she easily acknowledged as she stared sightlessly at the menu open in front of her. Goodness knows, this meeting with Daniel’s brother was going to be difficult enough, without the sword of Damocles hanging over her as she waited for Nick to see her here—with the man who was supposedly her ‘date’ for the evening!

      What would Nick do when he finally spotted her—if he spotted her!—seated across the dining-room with the other man? Would he just get up at the end of his own meal and leave the dining-room, too annoyed to speak to her? Or would he come over and say hello?

      Until she had told Nick of her prearranged date for this evening she would have said the latter, but his cool reaction to the fact that she was going out with another man made her hope he would do the former. She really didn’t feel up to dealing with Nick this evening as well as David Banning!

      ‘Is there something wrong, Joey?’

      She looked up to find David Banning looking at her once again with those narrowed blue eyes. As if she were a particularly nasty bug he was studying under a microscope!

      Joey closed the menu with a snap. ‘You arrived out of the blue last night, informed me that Daniel is dead, and then claimed that the two of us need to talk—of course there’s something wrong!’ she bit out caustically.

      ‘Touché,’ he acknowledged drily, slowly closing his own menu to give her his full attention. ‘How did you and Daniel meet?’

      She stiffened at this frontal attack; the ‘niceties’ definitely were over! ‘At university,’ she supplied, as abruptly.

      Blond brows rose in surprise. ‘At Oxford?’

      Joey’s mouth twisted derisively. ‘Awful, isn’t it? The class of person they let in there nowadays if they think they will fit in and they have the right qualifications!’

      ‘Obviously,’ David Banning drawled cuttingly. ‘Did you know who Daniel was when you met him?’

      Joey drew in a sharp breath; obviously this was going to be a ‘gloves off’ evening. Well, two could play at that game! ‘He introduced himself as Daniel Banning,’ she returned scathingly.