To Marry Mccloud. Carole Mortimer

a table for eight-thirty, if that’s okay?’ He was determined to choose the time, if not the place!

      ‘Fine,’ she agreed. ‘I’ll see you on Friday.’

      ‘Er—Chloe?’ He stopped her as he sensed she was about to ring off. ‘It’s customary where I come from for a man to call and collect his date for the evening,’ he explained dryly.

      ‘I thought it might be better if we went in my car. Just in case,’ she added teasingly. ‘I actually don’t drink alcohol, you see.’

      ‘Neither do I, to excess. Normally,’ Fergus instantly defended; it was impossible to ignore the reference to his inebriated condition of last night, even if the remark had been made jokingly.

      ‘You explained you were depressed about your cousin’s wedding,’ Chloe sympathised.

      Fergus wasn’t sure exactly what he had and hadn’t said, and done, last night. And it wasn’t a feeling he was comfortable with. He was usually so much in control, master of his own destiny, and all that.

      ‘That was the champagne talking,’ he dismissed harshly. ‘I’m actually very pleased for Logan and Darcy.’ And in retrospect he was. Yesterday’s churlishness had faded. After all, he and his cousins couldn’t have remained the Elusive Three for ever! ‘I would also prefer to pick you up and drive you to the restaurant on Friday evening,’ he said firmly.

      ‘And I would prefer to meet you there,’ she came back just as decisively.

      Fergus grimaced his frustration with her stubbornness. Why didn’t she want him to call at her home for her on Friday? Did she have something to hide? Someone? Just because she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring didn’t mean she wasn’t in a permanent relationship; not everyone bothered to get married nowadays. Although, if that were the case, her partner must be a pretty weak character to have let her stay out all of last night. He certainly wouldn’t be as understanding in the same circumstances!

      ‘Please yourself,’ he returned flatly. ‘Now, if you don’t mind, I’m rather cold and wish to return to my bath.’

      He was also extremely irritated by this conversation. Something about Chloe Fox—and it wasn’t just her seemingly domineering nature!—really annoyed him. They had spent the night together, gone to bed together, and yet he didn’t feel that he knew her at all.

      Well, on Friday evening he intended changing all that!

      At least, he would have done—but Chloe had yet to turn up!

      By eight-forty-five, he had been sitting in the restaurant for almost fifteen minutes, and there was still no sign of her. He was starting to feel decidedly uncomfortable!

      The secluded corner table was set for two people, so it was obvious he was waiting for someone to join him, and he was starting to receive sympathetic looks from the other diners. When—if—Chloe ever did turn up, he was not going to be in the best of moods.

      Besides which, he had ordered a bottle of wine while he waited for her, and he knew—to his consternation!—that he had already drunk two glasses of it in his increasing agitation. On an empty stomach too.

      But he had been working hard today, and it wasn’t unusual, when he worked, that he forgot to eat. Despite Maud’s efforts to make sure that he was fed!

      In fact, apart from spending some time with his mother before she returned to Scotland following the wedding, he had been working hard on research for his next book all week. It had been a way of diverting his attention while he’d waited for Friday evening to arrive!

      Because, hard as he had tried, he hadn’t been able to find out a single thing about Chloe Fox!

      A few discreet enquiries to his friends and acquaintances hadn’t turned up a single person who had ever heard of Chloe Fox. Directory Enquiries had been unable to help him too, when he had no idea of her address; the telephone book was apparently full of Foxes!

      It was almost as if Chloe had appeared from out of nowhere. And, apart from that telephone call to him late on Sunday evening, had disappeared as completely.

      He—

      Wherever Chloe had disappeared to all week, she had now very definitely reappeared!

      And, once again, she took his breath away!

      If he had thought her exquisitely beautiful on Saturday night and Sunday morning, that was nothing to the way she looked tonight. And Fergus knew he wasn’t the only one to think so.

      Xander’s was a discreetly exclusive restaurant, well accustomed to the rich and the famous coming through its doors. But as Chloe Fox moved gracefully through its crowded midst, the other diners fell silent, stopped eating their delicious food, in order to turn and look at her admiringly.

      Her dress was bright scarlet red, Chinese in style, with a small mandarin collar, the silk material fitted to the perfection of her body like a second skin, its above-knee length leaving bare a long expanse of shapely legs. Her hair wasn’t loose tonight but pulled back and secured on the back of her head in a neat chignon, the severeness of the style revealing the full extent of her unusual beauty.

      Her skin was as delicate as magnolia, liner giving those deep blue eyes a slightly slanted appearance, her lips painted the same scarlet as her dress. She was, undisputably, the most beautiful woman in the room.

      Fergus couldn’t help feeling a certain satisfaction in knowing she was to be his partner for the evening.

      He stood up as she approached their table. ‘You look wonderful,’ he told her as he pulled her chair back for her to sit down, his senses at once assailed with the delicacy of the perfume she wore.

      Fergus had no idea what the perfume was, but he did know that he would never be able to smell it again without thinking of this woman. For good or bad!

      ‘Thank you, Fergus.’ She reached up to kiss him lightly on the cheek before sitting down. ‘Isn’t this a wonderful restaurant?’ She looked around them with obvious pleasure.

      While Fergus could only look at her!

      He was thirty-five years old, had known many beautiful women in those years, quite a lot of them on a very intimate level. But he had never known any woman before who possessed Chloe Fox’s sensually mesmerising beauty.

      ‘Sorry I’m a little late.’ She smiled at him now, revealing those tiny, even white teeth he remembered from last weekend.

      But he couldn’t help feeling slightly irritated when she offered no explanation for her tardiness. After all, he had been sitting here for almost twenty minutes, feeling more and more of an idiot as those minutes had passed.

      ‘Would you like a glass of wine?’ he offered stiffly.

      She smiled ruefully. ‘I really don’t drink,’ she refused with a shake of her head, turning to ask the waiter for some mineral water. ‘Have you had a good week?’ she turned back to enquire of Fergus politely.

      His irritation increased. Politeness was fine, in its place, but between Chloe and himself he found it implied a distance that just shouldn’t be there after they had spent the night together last Saturday.

      ‘Very good,’ he confirmed tersely; he had covered a lot of research towards his next novel this week, should be ready to start writing very soon. ‘How about you?’

      ‘I’ve kept busy.’ She shrugged.

      ‘Doing what?’

      ‘This and that,’ she dismissed, those blue eyes dancing with mirth as she looked across at him beneath lowered lashes.

      Fergus couldn’t miss the fact that her mirth was at his expense! This little minx knew exactly what he was doing—and she was just as determined not to be in the least helpful!

      Fergus drew in a harsh breath. ‘Chloe—’

      ‘I’m sorry, Fergus, I shouldn’t tease