Their Wedding Day

Her gaze skated down the perfectly tailored grey business suit to the stylish leather shoes on Keir’s feet, feet she knew had longer second toes than the big ones. The mark of a fast runner, Keir had laughingly told her. Jamie had them, too, and he was the best sprinter in his age group at school.

“Rowena…”

She sighed and lifted her gaze.

“Would you like coffee brought in?”

She shook her head.

“Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“No. I’m grateful to you for this chance to get things straightened out, Keir. This is all I want. I won’t be making a nuisance of myself.”

“I’d never consider you a nuisance, Rowena,” he said seriously.

“You know what I mean.” She grimaced. “I don’t intend to subject Delahunty’s to a series of hysterical scenes.”

“If I can be of any service to you, at any time, please call me, Rowena. I’ll do all I can for you,” he assured her.

She could see the deep sincerity in his eyes, and it hurt. Unbearably. Where were you when I needed you? she cried in silent anguish. It’s too late now. Our lives have moved on.

A courtesy knock on the door heralded its opening. Rowena shot to her feet and stepped away from the table, inadvertently moving close to Keir, who merely turned to greet the newcomer. She wasn’t seeking his support or protection, and wasn’t aware of how they looked together as Adriana Leigh entered the office.

“Good morning, Mr. Delahunty,” she said with a bright, winning smile. Her elegance, sophistication and complete self-assurance were heart-joltingly evident. Not a younger woman. Very much a woman of considerable worldly experience. Rowena was spared a flick of curiosity, but the full beam of Adriana Leigh’s concentration was on Keir as she added, “What can I do for you?”

She was the kind of woman who was always aware of men and knowingly watched for her impact on them. Rowena recognised that instantly. She also knew instinctively there would be no tapping any vein of sympathy or guilt. In a roomful of women, this woman would be bored.

“I’d be obliged if you’d give some time to Mrs. Goodman, Adriana,” Keir answered, his clipped tone making the request more of an order. “Rowena, this is Adriana Leigh.”

The bright smile was only briefly jolted. She batted her eyelashes at Rowena. “How do you do, Mrs. Goodman?” A honeyed voice, dripping with confidence. With barely a pause, she inquired, “Did Phil ask you to come?”

It was a bold and subtle sliding in of the knife.

“No. It was my decision,” Rowena replied, silently challenging the other woman to make something belittling of that.

Adriana Leigh raised perfectly arched eyebrows at Keir. “This is rather different from the usual bounds of work requirements, Mr. Delahunty,” she pointed out, maintaining her decorum while questioning the propriety of his authority in what they all knew to be a personal matter.

“Sometimes extraordinary situations arise,” Keir answered smoothly. “I understood your position as personal secretary to one of my executives requires an ability to handle delicate matters with courtesy and patience.” He paused. Was there a threat left hanging? “However, if you feel unable…”

“Not at all, Mr. Delahunty. As you say, I am used to dealing with such situations.”

“I thought you would be.” A touch of dry irony.

“I’ll do my best to give Mrs. Goodman satisfaction,” she said with her own touch of irony as she started forward, showing no further reluctance to join them by the table. A smart, intelligent career woman would do no less after Keir had put her skills in question.

Rowena concentrated on assessing everything about Adriana Leigh before they were left alone together. She had long, toffee-coloured hair, liberally streaked with blonde and deliberately styled in a casually tousled look. It was not only suggestive of a recent tumble in bed but a ready receptiveness to repeating the pleasure at any time.

She wore a long-sleeved, transparent cream blouse with a lace-trimmed, silk camisole underneath. Her full breasts jiggled freely. Her hips swayed, their voluptuous curve from a small waist emphatically outlined by a tan gaberdine figurehugging skirt that was buttoned down to thigh level and left free to swing from a side split. She wore high heels. High, high heels.

This woman exuded sexuality, flaunted it, and Rowena doubted any man would be a hundred percent proof against it. There was no problem in understanding the attraction for Phil. The question was how deeply did Adriana Leigh have her claws into him?

“Rowena.” Keir took her hand, pressing it to pull her attention to him. “I’ll be in my secretary’s office. You have only to call me.”

Part of Rowena’s mind registered his earnest concern and caring. She felt the warmth and strength of his touch. She had a craven urge to cling to it, but the purpose that had brought her here made it inappropriate. Badly inappropriate. Didn’t he realise that?

“I’m all right, Keir. Thank you,” she said in deliberate dismissal.

He gently squeezed her hand before letting it go. Adriana noticed it. Her amber eyes gleamed feline derision at Rowena before she turned her gaze to watch Keir make his departure. The moment the door was closed behind him, she opened hostilities.

“How did you come to be so cosy with our Mr. Delahunty?”

Rowena ignored the dig. “Do you love my husband, or is he simply another conquest to you?” she asked with quiet dignity.

It won a flicker of surprise. “Well, you’re certainly direct.”

“I’d appreciate a direct answer.”

Adriana led from the chin. “I love Phil and he loves me and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“You must have known he was married.”

“So what? He knew he was married, too. I didn’t take anything from you. You’d already lost it. Phil came to me.” Gloating triumph. Power. No sense of guilt whatsoever.

“Are you married?”

“No.”

“Divorced?” Perfect and obviously expensive make-up gave Adriana Leigh’s face a youthful glow, but Rowena had no doubt this woman was in her thirties, possibly older than Phil, who was thirty-three.

“No.” She was amused by the questioning.

“Children?”

Her laughter was mocking. “Two abortions.” There was a hardness in her eyes as she added, “I won’t go down that road again.”

It made Rowena wonder if previous lovers had let Adriana down, and she felt a twinge of sympathy, remembering the pain of being left without Keir’s support when she was pregnant with Jamie. The sympathy was short-lived. There was none coming from Adriana for the situation Rowena faced.

“Has Phil ever mentioned our children?”

She shrugged. “Emily is five and Sarah is three. They’re young enough to get over the separation without any lasting trauma. The boy is old enough to look after himself. It’s not as though their father has played a great role in their lives.”

“Is that what Phil told you or what you want to assume?”

“I know the hours Phil works,” she said smugly.

“Since you entered his life.” That truth was obvious now. Rowena silently castigated herself for not realising Phil’s long hours and overnight trips could have another purpose besides work. How complacent she had been to attribute it to ambition!

“Doesn’t his desire to stay with me tell you something?’ Adriana taunted.

Rowena hated her mocking amusement. She might be guilty of complacency, but she hadn’t gone out hunting another woman’s husband to fill in the lonely hours. It took all her will-power to keep her voice steady, her demeanour unruffled. She would not give her antagonist the satisfaction of goading her out of control.

“I suppose you think you’ve rearranged his priorities. For the short term,” Rowena emphasised, wanting to shake Adriana Leigh’s complacency. “Passion does tend to burn out.”

“You don’t know much about men, do you?” Pitying condescension. “They have two brains. Keep the one below the belt satisfied and you can bend the other any way you like.”

Such heartless calculation sickened Rowena. Phil preferred this woman to her? “If that’s the case, I find it odd that you haven’t been able to hold onto one of the many men you’ve obviously had in the past,” she retaliated.

“I haven’t wanted to until now.”

“Then your theory hasn’t exactly been tested, has it?” Rowena pointed out, to no effect whatsoever.

“Face it, darling, you’re beaten. You’ve never satisfied Phil as I do. That’s a fact.” The cat’s eyes glittered down Rowena’s classic navy suit and up again. “I daresay you’re too much of a lady.”

“There’s more to a relationship than sex,” Rowena declared with conviction.

“What?”

“Companionship, sharing goals and achievements, caring about each other, understanding…”

Adriana laughed. “Tell that to a sex-starved man. And there’s so many of them around. Especially fathers.”

The unexpected singling out of fathers bewildered Rowena. She stood, speechless, as enlightenment came in a shower of scorn.

“You dedicated mothers tend to focus all your energy on your children. Your attention is divided. You get tired. You have headaches. And the door opens for another woman to give a man back what his children have taken from him. Quite suddenly he doesn’t give a damn about his children any more. He wants a woman in his life, not a mother.”

“I’m sure that’s what you’d like to think,” Rowena said tersely, disturbed by Adriana’s knowingness. Had Phil complained to her that his wife ignored his needs?

“I’m giving you some good advice for the next time around. The world is full of discontented married men.”

“Why pick on Phil?”

“He was here. He’s what I want. I’ll keep him happy.”

Rowena dearly wanted to rattle Adriana’s mind-battering confidence. A flash of intuition came to her. “Phil wasn’t your first choice, though, was he?”

A pause. A flicker of wariness. Then a return to aggression. “He’s my last choice, and I’ll make it stick, so don’t think you can muddy the issue.”

Rowena pressed further. “You got a job here so you could be around Keir Delahunty and try to catch his interest. He’s the bigger prize, isn’t he? Only he didn’t take the bait.”

Her eyes narrowed with anger. “Did he tell you that?”

“You were still flashing availability signals at him when you came into this office. You’d drop Phil if Keir gave you any encouragement.”

Adriana snorted. “That man is made of stone. Phil’s much more my style, and he knows it. You can’t put Keir Delahunty between us.”

That was probably true, Rowena thought in painful frustration. It didn’t matter how right her observation was about Adriana’s motivations, Keir obviously had a fine sense of discrimination in judging women on the make and wasn’t interested. Why on earth couldn’t Phil see…But maybe Adriana was right about him feeling neglected, overlooked in favour of the children’s needs.

What was the best balance for being both a wife and mother? And why was the onus on her? Shouldn’t a good marriage be mutually supportive?

Her head spun between a confused sense of guilt and a sickening sense of having all her ideals betrayed. Coming here, speaking to this woman, was worse than futile. There was no help in it. None at all. If Phil wanted Adriana Leigh, then let him have her, she thought, resolution undermined by a tidal wave of deep hurt and disillusionment.

But what about the children?

“I take it you’re not overly keen about the role of stepmother,” she said flatly, trying to think of anything that might change the situation, might give Adriana pause for second thoughts about a future with Phil.

“You chose to have kids. They’re your responsibility. Not mine.”

“You honestly believe Phil will be happy about shutting them out of his life?”

“Put it this way. You needn’t worry about any fight over custody. Phil may want to see the girls now and then, and I’ll be happy to go along with that.”

“You’re forgetting Jamie.”

Again she shrugged, as though the burden was not hers to shoulder. “Well, he’s not really Phil’s, is he?” she drawled meaningfully.

“Phil is the only father Jamie’s known.”

“Whose fault is that?”

Angry heat crept into Rowena’s voice despite her resolution to keep cool. “Phil adopted Jamie as his son.”

“When he was how old? Four?”

“Three.”

“No difference. He was a little boy, not a baby. The feeling’s not the same no matter how you want to dress it up. The boy is yours, not Phil’s, and at his age, he’s bound to be a sulky troublemaker.”

Rowena could not trust herself to suppress her outrage at these callous sentiments. Her body was beginning to tremble. “Thank you,” she said tightly. “I won’t take up any more of your time.”

“Thank you,” Adriana returned snidely. “It’s always interesting to meet the wife.”

CHAPTER THREE

“MRS. GOODMAN has said all she wishes to say to me, Mr. Delahunty.”

Adriana’s light, almost flippant tone made Keir grit his teeth against an unwise snap. It would be unprofessional to reveal the strong antipathy he felt, knowing as he did that it was aroused by his sympathy for Rowena. He had no right to any personal involvement with this affair. It behove him to maintain some objectivity.

He unhitched himself from the edge of his secretary’s desk in deliberate slow motion. The report he’d been trying to read was still in his hands, and he used it as a point of dismissal. “Thank you for your cooperation, Adriana.”

“My pleasure.”

“To give pain?” The biting, judgmental words were out before he could monitor them. At least he had the satisfaction of wiping the smug look off her face.

“I didn’t ask for this meeting, Mr. Delahunty,” she coolly reminded him.

“A matter of opinion, Adriana. It’s my experience that changing people’s lives incites retaliation, even when the change is innocently caused.”

Rowena’s parents had taught him that. Not that this self-obsessed woman would care what damage she wreaked in going after what she wanted. They were empty words to her.

“I don’t want more company time wasted on gossip, Adriana,” he went on, chilling her out of any further comment. “I’d advise you to keep your meeting with Mrs. Goodman entirely private. Do I make myself clear?”

“Perfectly, Mr. Delahunty. I appreciate your tact.”

He nodded.

She left.

He turned to his homely, middle-aged secretary. “Same for you, Fay. No talk about this.”

“Locked box,” she replied, giving him her owl look.

The tense muscles in his face relaxed into a smile. He liked Fay Pendleton. She not only delivered everything he asked of her with a minimum of fuss and maximum efficiency, her wonderfully expressive face and dry sense of humour always amused him. As did her hair, which was burgundy with wide, blonde streaks at the moment. Every three months she experimented with a new colour combination. Grey, she had declared, was too dull for her.

“I’ll check this later,” he said, dropping the report she had prepared for him on her desk. “Would you make some coffee, Fay, and bring it in with the sandwiches as soon as they’re delivered?”

“Will do.”

He wasn’t about to let Rowena go without any sustenance. She had probably been too wrought up to eat breakfast, and Adriana had undoubtedly gone for the kill. Rowena would be in no fit state to drive. She shouldn’t be alone, either.

Keir reached the office door in a few quick strides. He didn’t know if Rowena would welcome his company or not. He remembered the polite barrier she had maintained between them at last year’s staff Christmas party. He had felt then that she wanted no part of him, and he had reluctantly respected her wishes. It was probably only the shattering effect of knowing her marriage was on the rocks that had allowed the old sense of familiarity to break through this morning. He hoped…

Well, he could only try.

As he entered the office and closed the door quietly behind him, he was intensely aware of the need to tread very carefully. Rowena had come to do what she could to save her marriage. She wanted—loved—Phil Goodman. She was not looking for another man in her life, certainly not in any close capacity.

She sat with her elbows on the table, her head in her hands, fingers pressed tightly to her temples. Pain, defeat…and there was nothing he could do about either. It flitted through his mind that Brett would have pummelled Phil Goodman, inflicting hurt for hurt to his little sister. Keir knew it would do no good in these circumstances, yet he found himself empathising with the urge to do violence. Rowena deserved to be valued. To be cast aside for a woman like Adriana Leigh…

Keir took a deep breath, unclenched his hands and headed down the room to offer what comfort he could. Maybe she would accept a shoulder to cry on. Maybe she would let him drive her home. Maybe there would come some time in the future when she could view him as a friend again. More than a friend.

He was acutely conscious of the hole in his life, the emptiness that no one had been able to fill since Rowena and Brett had been lost to him. A bond of long sharing and understanding had been broken, and the years since had only hammered home how precious and rare it had been. It was impossible to get Brett back, but Rowena…

Dared he lift her from that chair and enfold her in his arms?

She looked up.

Her beautiful green eyes were awash with tears.

There was no decision-making.

He simply did it.

CHAPTER FOUR

IT HAPPENED so fast, Rowena was scooped from the chair and wrapped in Keir Delahunty’s embrace before she could even begin to think it was wrong to have such intimate contact with him. Then the impact of his body against hers threw her into confusion.

She wasn’t used to being held closely by any man but Phil. It had been so long since Keir had made love to her, yet she was instantly reminded of how it had felt with him. It made her acutely aware of both her sexuality and his.

Images of their youthful nakedness flashed into her mind. Her breasts, pressed flat to his broad chest, started prickling with disturbing sensitivity. Her thighs trembled with the shock of recognising the virile strength of his. Her back burned under the cocooning warmth of his arms. All normal thought processes were paralysed by sensations she was utterly powerless to stop.

One hand slid up to her neck, his fingers splaying through her hair as he gently pressed her head onto his shoulder. Her heart seemed to pound in her ears. The scent of some tangy aftershave lotion assaulted her nostrils. Her stomach contracted in sheer panic at the memories evoked.

“You don’t have to fight the tears, Rowena,” Keir murmured, his cheek resting against her head. “You can let out the grief with me. Just as you would with Brett if he were here.”

Guilt that she no longer had a big brother? Sympathy for her pain? The tears were gone, shocked back to the well of despair that Keir’s action had suddenly submerged. She shouldn’t be feeling other things, but she was. And it was wrong. Terribly wrong!

Her mind shifted from one turmoil to another. Was Keir remembering other times when he’d held her, not as a surrogate brother but as a man who wanted her, needed her to be a woman with him?

She was not seventeen any more. She was well and truly a woman, an experienced woman who was in a highly vulnerable state, with her marriage on the rocks and her husband in love—or lust—with someone else. Did Keir think that made her available to him?

Why hadn’t he married? What kind of man was he now? She didn’t know. The meeting with Adriana had left her feeling she was a naive fool who didn’t know anything!

It was as though all the foundations of her life had been ripped away. Was Keir a steady rock that she could cling to? Confide in? Or was there danger in trusting him, danger in trusting anybody?

His cheek moved, rubbing over her hair. His mouth—surely that was his mouth—pressing warmth…kisses! Her heart kicked in alarm. She jerked her head back and looked up. It wasn’t brotherliness she saw in Keir’s eyes. There was no soft sympathy. She caught a darkly simmering passion that triggered a tumultuous eruption of the doubts and fears Adriana had raised.

“Let me go!” she cried, pushing herself free of his embrace as he loosened it.

“Rowena…”

The gruff appeal fell on closed ears. Her eyes flared a fierce and frightened rejection as she backed away from his trailing touch. “Adriana’s right. Sex is all that matters with men.”

“No,” he denied strongly.

But Rowena took refuge in walking over to the glass wall beyond the table, putting a cold, safe distance between them, wrapping her arms around herself, hugging in the pain of hopeless disillusionment.

She was a married woman. It was wrong of Keir to pretend to offer brotherly comfort and then use the opportunity to change it to something else. Even though Phil…But that didn’t excuse it. Keir must realise she had come to save her marriage if she could. For him to take advantage of her weakness at such a time placed him on the same moral level as Adriana Leigh.

“She would have had you.” The words burst from her, the bitter irony of his behaviour being similar to Adriana’s striking her hard. “Why didn’t you take her on, Keir? She was handy, available…”

“Rowena, I care about you. I always have.”

The soft answer stirred more turmoil. She clutched wildly at the first reason she could think of to disbelieve him. “Then why didn’t you stop what was happening between Adriana and Phil?”

No answer.

She swung around to probe further. “Don’t tell me you didn’t know she fancied you, Keir. Even I saw the signals when she walked into this room.”

His face tightened as though she had hit him, yet there was no backward step in the dark blaze of his eyes. “You want a husband that needs to be rescued from another woman?” he challenged, a sting of contempt in his voice. “Face it, Rowena. Phil isn’t worthy of your love. If he really cared for you, Adriana wouldn’t have had a chance with him.”

Phil had cared for her. Rowena was not about to forget he had cared when Keir’s so-called caring wasn’t anywhere in touching distance. “Who are you to judge that? Maybe it’s my fault. Maybe I didn’t give him enough…enough—”

“Sex?”

Heat flooded up her neck and scorched her cheeks. It was too shaming to concede she must have left Phil dissatisfied in that area, yet it had to be true. She bit her lips, wishing she hadn’t started this tasteless argument. Even Keir’s mouth was curling in disgust.

“Sex isn’t the glue that keeps a man and woman together, Rowena. It helps, but if other things are missing…” He paused, compelling her full attention. “You have so many desirable qualities, any man should consider himself fortunate to have you in his life.”

Desirable. Is that how Keir saw her? Still? But he had no right. And she mustn’t let herself get confused and distracted.

“The evidence is against it,” she reminded him. “Phil wants to be with Adriana. Everything we’ve shared means nothing against what she gives him.”

“She strokes his ego, Rowena,” he said flatly. “Phil likes to be stroked. He can’t have enough of it. He never will have enough of it. Surely you’ve recognised that weakness over the years.”

“Then why did you hire him?” she demanded, trying to reject his clear-sightedness about Phil’s vulnerability to flattery. It went against her ingrained sense of loyalty to accept it.

“He’s good at his job.”

“Why did you hire her?”

“I didn’t. Phil did. He’s entitled to choose the staff that work with him. Usually it makes for a more effective team.”

All perfectly reasonable. Rowena was left floundering in a quagmire of emotions with no outlet for them. A knock on the office door provided a welcome distraction.