The Independent Bride

Mary Ellen was not expecting it. ‘Where are you going?’ she yelled, suddenly not even pretending to be ladylike any more.

Pepper did not stop. She went running, scrambling up the soggy path, to where Ed was sitting.

Her grandmother ran after her, but halted at the point where the path began to climb.

‘You get back here this minute,’ she yelled.

Pepper did not stop. Not even when she fell to one knee. Not even when she felt her pantyhose tear and blood trickle down her shin. She didn’t care. She didn’t care about anything but getting away from the grandmother whose affection had been a lie right from the start.

By the time she reached Ed, she was panting. ‘Take me back to New York,’ she said. ‘Take me back now.’

He hesitated, but only for a moment. It would have taken a braver man than Ed Ivanov to face Mary Ellen in this mood. He took Pepper’s arm and hurried her towards the clearing where the helicopter was waiting.

Ladylike, five foot two, Mary Ellen had a voice like a bass drum when roused. It reached them easily. So did the fury.

‘You’ll never make it on your own, Penelope Anne Calhoun, do you hear me? I own you.’

A week later, Pepper knew exactly how true that was. So she leaned against the wall, skulking down as a party of VIPs swept onto the London plane in advance of everyone else. She did not care about VIPs, but there was an outside chance that they might recognise her. After all, Mary Ellen was a VIP. As the Calhoun heir, Pepper had been one too for most of her life.

Well, that was all over now. A good thing, too, she told herself.

She would get to London. She would put together a new life. And she would survive.

All she had to do was keep clear of VIPs.

‘Professor Konig?’ The flight attendant had obviously been waiting for them. She was instantly alert, full of professional smiles. ‘Welcome on board, sir. This way.’

The VIP and the airline director followed her.

‘So that’s what you get in first class,’ Steven Konig muttered to David Guber. ‘Instant name-check and personal escort to your seat.’

The attendant took his jacket and the ticket stub to label it, and left her boss to do the formal farewells. Steven looked after her.

‘Is it enough to justify the cost, I ask myself?’

The other man smiled. ‘You old Puritan! Still working on the principle I’m uncomfortable therefore I am?’

Steven laughed. ‘You may be right.’

Dave punched his arm lightly. ‘You’re important enough to fly the Atlantic without having your knees under your nose any more, Steven. Live with it.’

‘Can I quote you?’ Steven was dry.

Dave Guber was not only a long-standing friend, he was a main board member of this airline. He grinned, ‘If you do, I’ll sue.’ He shook hands and added soberly, ‘I mean it. I’m really grateful, Steven. You saved our butts.’

Steven shook his head, disclaiming.

‘Yes, you did. If you hadn’t come through for me we’d have had a conference and no keynote speaker. Great speech, too.’

Steven shrugged. ‘I was glad to do it. I’ve wanted to do a think piece on the subject for a long time.’

‘Yeah, sure. Like you haven’t got enough to fill your time already.’

‘No, I mean it,’ Steven insisted. ‘It makes a change.’ He gave a rueful smile. ‘It seems like all I do these days is meetings, meetings, meetings. It was really nice just to sit down and think for once.’

Dave Guber looked quizzical. ‘Wish you were only doing one job again?’

‘Chairman of Kplant is my job,’ Steven told him drily. ‘Being Master of Queen Margaret’s isn’t a job; it’s a vocation. Ask the Dean.’

They both grinned. They understood each other perfectly. They had first met at Queen Margaret’s College, Oxford, as students years ago. And they had both been fined by the Dean regularly for standard student bad behaviour.

Dave cocked an eyebrow. ‘He isn’t glad to see you back?’

‘Spitting tintacks,’ agreed Steven, amused.

‘That must make life peaceful.’

‘Hey, if I wanted peace I’d have stayed in the lab. You say goodbye to peace the moment you open your own company.’

Dave’s career had been with big international corporates. He looked at his friend curiously. ‘Is it worth it?’

‘It’s great,’ said Steven. There was no mistaking his enthusiasm.

‘You never want to slow down?’ Dave asked tentatively.

Slowing down was heresy in business, of course. But he remembered the gorgeous blonde whom Steven had dated all those years ago. No one mentioned her any more. Nobody linked his name with anyone else, either. Dave thought he had never met anyone as lonely as Steven Konig.

‘Do you never think about—er—a family, maybe?’

Steven’s face changed. He didn’t frown exactly. He just withdrew—very slightly, very politely. Suddenly Dave wasn’t talking to his old buddy any more. He was taking formal leave of an international figure.

Dave sighed and gave up.

‘Well, don’t forget you’re going to come and stay with us the very next vacation you get. Marise and I are counting on it.’

Vacation? Steven managed to repress a hollow laugh.

‘Sure thing,’ he said. It was vague enough not to count as a promise. Steven always kept his promises, so he didn’t hand them out lightly.

‘I’ll hold you to that.’

Steven gave his sudden smile, the one that made him look just like the student who had once worked out how to set off fireworks by remote control from Queen Margaret’s venerable tower. His eyes were vivid with amusement.

‘I’ll put it in the five-year plan.’

Dave flung up his hands in mock despair. ‘You’re crazy.’

‘You said it yourself. I’m a Big Name,’ Steven said crisply. ‘For that, there’s a price.’

David Guber was an important man, with stock options and the power to hire and fire. But he wasn’t Steven Konig, who had single-handedly taken his food research business from the small companies sector to the big time. The press fell over themselves to interview Steven Konig in five continents. Of course there was going to be a price.

Dave sighed. ‘Well, if you ever get off the carousel come see us,’ he said. And to the glamorous flight attendant, who still hovered, ‘Make sure Professor Konig has the journey of his life. We owe this man, big time.’ He pumped his hand again. ‘You’re a great guy, Steven. Have a good flight.’

Steven was already opening his briefcase before Guber had left the plane.

‘Can I get you anything, Professor?’ the attendant asked.

Steven bit back a wry smile. So Dave Guber thought he ought to date, did he? How was a man to do that when every woman he met called him Professor? Or Chairman? Or even, God help him, Master?

‘A drink?’ The flight attendant knew her duty to the friend of a boss so big she had only ever seen him on video before. ‘Coffee?’

Steven gave her his ordinary smile, the one he used when more than half his mind was elsewhere. ‘No, thank you.’

‘A warm towel?’ pressed the flight attendant, trying hard.

‘Nothing.’ He corrected that. ‘You’ll give me everything I need if you just keep other people away.’

He had caught sight of several British delegates from the conference in the airport. He could just see them grabbing the chance of a transatlantic flight to buttonhole him. Experience had taught him that someone always wanted advice they didn’t listen to or the name of contacts whom they misused.

He said with feeling, ‘I’d really appreciate some peace.’

‘You’ve got it,’ said the flight attendant, relieved.

Steven worked until long after the attendants had put out the cabin lights and his fellow passengers had composed themselves for sleep. He finished making notes on the monthly statements of Kplant, dictated two memos and a letter, and then skimmed the agenda for the next college meeting. Finishing that, he looked at his watch. Space for two hours’ sleep if he was sensible.

And I’m always sensible, thought Steven wryly. With two jobs, three titles and more responsibilities than he could shake a stick at, he had to be.

He stretched out on the wonder of a first-class transcontinental airline bed and clicked off his overhead light. He was asleep in seconds.

Pepper had never flown coach before. It was an experience, she thought grimly.

The seat was uncomfortably tight. The woman in the next seat kept jabbing her in the ribs and maintained an agitated monologue until she finally fell asleep. And in the row behind a party of young entrepreneurs were drinking and laughing loudly about some conference they had been to in New York. By the time the cabin crew had finally settled them down Pepper knew that sleep was hopeless.

Suppose that’s the price of running away, she told herself, with an attempt at humour. No more business class for you.

Only it didn’t make her laugh. Not even smile. In fact she felt her stomach clench as if she had just swallowed a glassful of ice. And not because of the loss of luxury.

I am not running away. I am not running away.

Pepper winced. Even in her head she sounded defensive.

Who are you kidding, Pepper? Of course you’re running away!

She shivered—then pulled the thin flight blanket up to her chin. It made her feel a bit warmer but it did not stop the inner turmoil.

She had always known that crossing her grandmother was a risk. But she had never suspected the lengths that Mary Ellen would go to.

Because I still thought I was her little princess! I thought she loved me. What an idiot I was. What a blind, naïve idiot. And I thought I was so street-smart!

Mary Ellen’s revenge had not been subtle. It had been fast.

Within two days of their secret meeting Pepper had notice to quit her apartment. Well, she had expected that; her grandmother had rented it to her in the first place. She had not expected to find her appointment diary suddenly emptying. Or the company that rented her office space suddenly demanding that she pay a year’s rent up-front or leave in a week. Or to have her platinum credit card suddenly withdrawn.

She had tried to speak to Mary Ellen. But her grandmother had refused to take her calls. So Pepper had gone to the Calhoun Carter building.

Mary Ellen refused to see her. More, she’d kept her waiting for half an hour, then had the security force escort her from the building under guard.

Pepper had not believed it. ‘Why?’ she had said to Mary Ellen’s PA. She had known Carmen all her life.

Carmen had tears in her eyes but she did not stop the uniformed guards.

‘Everyone will think I’ve been stealing from her,’ Pepper said, still too bewildered to be indignant.

Carmen looked as if she were going to cry in earnest. ‘That’s why.’

‘You mean—’ Pepper struggled with it. ‘This is a publicity stunt?’

‘Mrs Calhoun says you want independence, you’ve got it.’ Carmen sounded as if she had learned it off by heart. And as if she were eating glass.

‘You mean she wants to destroy my credibility,’ said Pepper slowly. ‘Oh, Carmen!’

The PA blew her nose. ‘Better go quietly, Pepper. You don’t want to make the evening news.’

So Pepper went.

She went back to her apartment, sat down and made a list of what she had got going for her. It was frighteningly little—a good business brain, a wardrobe of executive suits, enough money to live for six months if she was careful, and the ability to speak three languages. Oh, and a really good project in Out of the Attic. Only her grandmother was going to make sure that Out of the Attic never came to market.

She was packing when the doorbell rang. She checked through the spy hole. Ed?

She opened the door. ‘What do you want, Ed?’ she said wearily.

He divested himself of his overcoat and sat down on the sofa, taking her with him. He took her hand and held onto it.

Pepper snatched it back. ‘You don’t have to look like that. Nobody died.’

But Ed went on looking honest and remorseful.

‘Not yet. But your career is damn nearly gone,’ he said frankly. ‘Why don’t you make it up with Mary Ellen? It’s crazy to throw away Calhoun Carter for a whim. You were born for business.’

Pepper flinched. ‘And not for Prince Charming,’ she said savagely.

Ed was disconcerted. ‘What?’

She took a deep breath. ‘Will you tell me something, Ed?’

‘If I can.’

‘When we went out together—was I a mercy date?’

He hesitated just a fraction too long.

So her grandmother had not lied. Pepper had hoped against hope that it was one of Mary Ellen’s snaky tricks. But clearly it was the simple truth.

‘Thank you,’ she said quietly. ‘Goodbye, Ed.’

It was a night when Pepper despaired. She had never felt more lonely in her life.

It was also the night that she decided. She had to go somewhere nobody would care that she was Mary Ellen Calhoun’s granddaughter. And if that looked like running away, tough.

She put her life in order faster than she would have believed possible. She got rid of furniture. Gave away her books and CDs. Said goodbye to the two or three people who would care and was out of the apartment before Mary Ellen could send in someone in uniform to evict her.

So this was where she found out whether she deserved her prize for problem solving, Pepper thought wryly now, as one by one even the partying entrepreneurs in the row behind fell asleep.

If she did, she would survive in London. She would set up Out of the Attic in England instead of the States.

And find Prince Charming?

Pepper closed her eyes. No need to get over-ambitious, she told herself. I think you can say goodbye to that one. There, at least, Mary Ellen had proved to be right.

And I never want another mercy date if I live to be a hundred.

In the first-class section, Steven Konig came awake the moment the smell of coffee began to waft through the cabin. Everyone else was still slumbering under doused lights. But the flight attendant saw him stir. She came over.

‘Professor?’

He sat up, rubbing his eyes.

‘It starts with my alarm call now, does it?’

She was bewildered. ‘I’m sorry, Professor?’

Steven said wearily, ‘Could you just lay off Professoring me until I’ve had my orange juice?’

She did not understand. ‘No need to move just yet if you don’t want to, sir,’ she said softly. ‘We’ve got more than an hour until we land.’

He smiled at her, shaking himself free of the airline blankets and pillows. ‘No, that’s fine. I’ve got work to do. And I always like to see the sunrise.’

She nodded and went back to her galley. No one else in the business class cabin stirred. The smell of coffee intensified.

When did I last wake up to the smell of coffee? Steven thought. That holiday in Tuscany with the Cooper family when I’d just got the Chair of Business Innovation? Five years ago? Six? Become a success—give up someone making you coffee in the morning!

He gave a dry smile and ran his hand over his chin. He had a heavy beard. Years ago, Courtney had told him that she went to bed with Don Juan and woke up with the Pirate King. That was when she’d still been in his life and they were laughing about their secret love affair. Before she’d decided that rich kid Tom Underwood was a better bet than a man who had to put himself through his PhD as a petrol pump attendant. It hadn’t mattered to Courtney that Tom was his best friend. But then it hadn’t mattered to Courtney that Steven loved her, either.

Well, all that was a long time ago. These days he tried to look like a smooth businessman at all times. He went to the softly lit first-class bathroom to freshen up.

But on the point of shaving off the morning’s beard he stopped. He’d been on duty at that damned conference for over a week. All that time he had been shaving twice a day, listening to boring papers, making small talk with elliptical officials and never, ever exchanging a word with anyone that wasn’t about business. He was tired of behaving.

Arrested, Steven considered his mirrored image. He ran a thoughtful hand over the dark stubble. He looked like a gunslinger in an old movie, he thought, amused. Not a chairman. Never a master of an Oxford college. Above all not a professor. No one who met him for the first time today would think of calling him Professor.

‘Go for it,’ he told himself.

He put on a clean shirt but left it hanging defiantly outside his trousers. The piratical look would give the perfect flight attendant a shock, he thought. Excellent!

He was grinning as he came out of the small washroom. In fact, he was so distracted that he walked straight into another body.

‘Oh, excuse me,’ said the body, flustered, and dropped a washbag.

Steven dived for it chivalrously. The body was a tall woman with an untidy bush of hair and a tired face. As he handed the bag back to her he thought that she looked as if she had not closed her eyes since they left New York.

‘My fault,’ he said compassionately. ‘Sorry about that.’

She shook her head, hugging the bag to her breast. ‘Don’t be. I shouldn’t be up here anyway.’

The aroma of coffee had been joined by the smell of hot rolls. Passengers in the first-class cabin were still resting peacefully, but presumably other people were being shaken awake. A continental breakfast was clearly imminent somewhere. He made the obvious deduction.

‘Do I take it you’re an invader from economy class?’

‘Yes.’ She eyed him warily.

Steven was impatient. Did she think he would call an attendant and complain? So much for his piratical appearance! It obviously took more than a missed shave to make him look like a free spirit.

He said ruefully, ‘Good luck.’

He realised that he was blocking her path. He began to move aside with a word of apology—and the plane banked.

Two things happened simultaneously. The jet-enhanced sunrise lit the cabin with gold. And the woman staggered. Her eyes flared, as if she had suddenly been recalled to herself, but it was too late. There was nothing to hold on to. She tipped forward, dangerously off balance, and began to tumble.

Steven caught her. Well, of course he caught her. He was a gentleman. And anyway, that was what he was good at, thought Steven wryly. It was what he was designed for, with his rugby player’s build and his judo-honed muscles. Strong and stable. He was not charming, and he had never been handsome, but by golly he had always been good at stopping women falling on the floor.

So good that he almost managed to repress the leap of the senses that hit him fair and square.

For in the blazing dawn she was suddenly amazing—no longer a tired woman with tangled hair. She was a golden-skinned goddess with a wild red mane. More than red—flame and scarlet and crimson and bronze, flickering like living fire. As it brushed his mouth it smelled of leaves. In his bracing arms her body felt unbelievably soft…Steven swallowed.

Ouch! One rejection of the morning razor, one lurch of a plane, and he was into seriously politically incorrect territory.

Hold on, there, Steven Konig. You’re not Captain Blood and never have been.

He restored her to her feet fast.

‘I’m so sorry,’ said the goddess, flustered.

She did not seem to have noticed his reaction.

‘My pleasure,’ said Steven. He could have kicked himself the moment he said it. It sounded as if he had been hanging around just waiting to get his hands on her.

But the goddess did not seem to be on political correctness patrol just now, thank God. In fact the goddess was looking adorably remorseful.

‘Did I hurt you?’ The soft voice had an accent he did not recognise, and Steven was good at accents.

‘Of course not.’

Steven was charmed that she should ask, though. It was a long time since anyone had asked if they’d hurt him. The brilliant and influential Steven Konig was not supposed to have any vulnerabilities at all.

But his golden Venus was still worried about him.

‘That was so clumsy of me. I just wasn’t concentrating.’

‘I was standing in your way. Don’t worry about it.’

She gave him a shy, grateful smile. His flame-haired Venus was shy?

‘No, it was my fault. I had stuff on my mind. Sorry.’

‘I know the feeling.’ And for some reason he found himself telling her a truth, suddenly. ‘I end up taking stock of my life when I’m on a plane. Coming down can be a shock. Brace yourself for landing; here comes your life again!’

She laughed. She had exactly the right sort of laugh for a goddess. It was a warm gurgle, as warm as that amazing hair and full of delighted surprise. Steven felt as if he had been given a prize.

‘You are so right,’ she said with feeling.

He beamed at her. Flustered and rumpled and honest, she was the sweetest thing he had seen in a long time. He had a sudden urge not to let her go.

‘Is this your first time in England?’

And at once thought, How stupid; that accent could even be English.

She was shaking her head but she did not crunch him. ‘No. But I haven’t been here for years. I’m going to have to do the Tower of London and St Paul’s Cathedral all over again. If I have time.’

‘Time? It’s really a business trip, then?’

‘You could say that.’ She had a dimple at the corner of her mouth when she wanted to smile and was trying to repress it. Steven stared, fascinated. All goddesses should have dimples, he decided. Made them more human. More approachable.

He said on impulse, ‘If you’re doing the sights, you should certainly take a trip out to Oxford. The old colleges are pure fairytale.’

She let herself laugh aloud then, and the dimple disappeared. He would have objected but her dancing eyes made up for it.

‘That’s a great marketing job you’re doing. Has the town got you on a retainer?’

‘City,’ he said automatically. ‘No, but I live there.’ He smiled into those warm brown eyes. It was a heady feeling. ‘The place is a jewel. You ought to see it if you haven’t.’

She shook her head. ‘No. Well, not that I remember.’

He was intrigued. ‘Amnesia?’

‘I wish.’ This time the dimple flickered only for a moment. She gave a sharp sigh. ‘I was born in England, but my mother died when I was five and my father took me to Peru.’

He was fascinated. ‘And you’ve never been back?’

‘Well, not seriously. Once with the school for a few days, a long time ago. But it wasn’t easy—’ She stopped. Then said explosively, ‘Hell, why cover it up any more? There was a family feud. The Other Side lived in England.’

He pursed his lips in a soundless whistle. ‘Big stuff. I didn’t know people still had family feuds. Not having a family myself, I suppose I wouldn’t.’

The dimple reappeared. ‘Congratulations.’

He laughed aloud, enchanted. ‘So, this trip is of the nature of a peace summit?’

She jumped. ‘Not really. Though I’ve thought about it,’ she admitted cautiously. ‘But I’d have to do a lot of tracking down. I don’t know where to start.’

The goddess had a chin that Napoleon would have been wary of—and a voluptuous, vulnerable mouth.

Distracted, Steven said, ‘I bet you’ll find a way. I bet you could do just about anything you set your mind to.’

She gave him a smile like sudden sunshine. ‘That’s what I’ve always been told.’

‘Well, then—?’

She laughed. ‘They may not want to see me,’ she pointed out. ‘People have been brooding on this feud for a long time.’

He found his mouth widening into his wickedest grin. ‘Montagues and Capulets,’ he said. ‘They’ll be fascinated. Trust me.’

She was doubtful. ‘Do you think so?’

‘Positive. What’s more, it makes you much more than a tourist. So you must definitely come to Oxford.’ He felt in his pocket for a business card. ‘It’s your heritage. You’re coming home.’

‘Home!’ She flinched as if he had kicked her. The wonderful smile died as abruptly as if someone had flung a switch. ‘I don’t think so.’