Their Wedding Day

A woman entered, pushing a traymobile. Either the silence or the palpable tension got to her. She paused, her eyes darting from Keir’s rigid back to Rowena’s face, obviously gauging the weather in the room and finding it dangerously volatile. She winced apologetically and started to retreat.

“It’s all right, Fay. Bring it in,” Keir commanded quietly. He turned to wave encouragement. “This is my secretary, Fay Pendleton. Mrs. Goodman, Fay.”

“Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Goodman.” The quick greeting was accompanied by a tentative smile.

“Yes. Thank you,” Rowena returned jerkily, surprised by Keir’s choice of secretary. Far from being a slickly sophisticated front person for him, this woman looked more like a homely pudding. Except for her hair. The rich burgundy colour with wide blonde bands had a definite touch of eccentricity.

The traymobile was swiftly wheeled to the table, and cups, saucers and plates were set out with deft efficiency. Black coffee was poured, milk and sugar placed handily, and a plate of artistically arranged sandwiches completed the service.

“Smoked salmon, turkey and avocado, ham and—”

“Thank you, Fay.” Keir cut her off.

She gave Rowena a motherly look, her lively brown eyes kind. “Do try to eat.”

“Fay…” Keir warned.

Rowena watched her leave, instinctively liking the woman and oddly comforted by the fact that she didn’t emanate competitive sexiness. Not that it should matter what kind of woman Keir had close to him at work. It didn’t, Rowena told herself. The contrast to Adriana Leigh was simply a relief.

The click of the door shutting behind Fay Pendleton jolted Rowena into realising she should have left, too. This brief hiatus didn’t change anything. Coffee and sandwiches did not fix anything. In fact, they lent an absurd cloak of normality to a highly charged situation, one she should get out of right now before it developed into something worse.

She steeled herself to look at Keir again, thank him for the use of his office and escape from being alone with him any longer. With slow deliberation, she shifted her gaze from the door and met his squarely, determined to put an end to whatever he had in mind.

No matter what Phil had done, she was still married to him, and Keir had no right to be stirring feelings that should have been buried long ago. Buried along with her brother, Brett, because that had been the end of what they had shared together.

Whether he read her intention or not, Keir instantly forestalled any speech from her. “To answer your earlier question,” he said in a tone of relentless pursuit, “I had no interest in Adriana because I don’t care for manipulative people. I don’t want to be with a woman whose responses aren’t genuinely felt. It’s a complete turn-off, regardless of how physically attractive and available she is.”

“And I’m suddenly a turn-on?”

The tense words hung between them, loaded with too much to back away from. Rowena was appalled at having been goaded into such a provocative retort. Somehow Keir’s supreme confidence in who and what he was diminished Phil as a man, and she resented it. She resented even more the idea that Keir might think he could just step in and take advantage of her vulnerable state, letting her know he found her desirable even if her husband no longer did.

“No. Not suddenly,” he answered quietly. “I doubt that many people forget their first love.”

The yearning for that simpler time was in his eyes, and it hurt. It hurt because if he hadn’t forgotten, he should have done something positive about it when it had really mattered. It hurt because it reminded her how naive and trusting she had been, the faith she’d had that he would come back to her and they’d make a life together.

It was he who had broken that faith, he who had dismissed his first love and put it behind him, and he had no right to call on it now. It was Phil who had brought love into her life again. Yet Phil was betraying that love, just as Keir had.

“It doesn’t mean anything,” she said desolately.

“It does to me.”

She couldn’t believe him, not after all this time. He might still be able to stir treacherous feelings in her, but his feelings could only be shallow, a response to present stimulus, nothing deep and lasting.

“How many years have we led separate lives, Keir?”

“We’re still the same people, Rowena.”

The burning conviction in his eyes riled her. “No, we’re not. I’m not,” she stated very deliberately, her conviction rising out of the pain of too many losses. I’m scarred, she wanted to yell at him, but pride held her tongue.

There was a shift in his expression. A frown. A doubt. “Do you really want Phil back, Rowena? Knowing what you now know about him and Adriana?”

It stung raw wounds. “He’s my husband. He married me.” When you didn’t. “He’s the father of my children,” she added, then wished she had cut out her tongue before uttering those last words.

His face tightened. The sudden bleakness in his eyes smote her heart, awakening a painful guilt over the secret she had kept from him. His child…his son. But Keir had forfeited any right to Jamie. Phil was the only father Jamie had known, and Phil had been there for him, good to him. Only now…What should she do now? What if Adriana got her way and Phil didn’t want to be bothered with Jamie any more?

Keir’s gaze dropped to the table. He stepped over to it and lifted the milk jug. “Do you still have white with one sugar?” he asked without looking up.

“I don’t want coffee,” she said flatly, wishing he hadn’t remembered how she liked it. The familiarity hurt. Everything hurt. She should go. Why did she feel this heavy reluctance to move? What could be gained by continuing such a disturbing dialogue with Keir?

He slowly returned the jug to the table, then lifted his gaze directly to hers, his eyes having gathered a piercing intensity. “Do you want me to try to take Adriana away from Phil?”

That he should even think of making such a move for her stunned Rowena. “You said you didn’t like manipulative people.”

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