A Bride For His Convenience. Lindsay Armstrong
Читать онлайн книгу.
Marion continued blithely, ‘I think I have it all under control, though. Mind you, it’s been a battle. Derek’s mother has very decided ideas and since I have no mother of my own she seems to have set herself up as my mother by proxy. There have been a couple of tense times.’
Caiti blinked. ‘Such as?’
‘She’s pink-fixated for one thing. She wanted pink smoke, pink doves, pink bridesmaid’s dresses and choirboy angels with pink wings.’
Caiti started to laugh helplessly. ‘I don’t believe it!’
‘Wait until you meet her,’ Marion advised. ‘However, you and Eloise—she’s Derek’s sister and the other bridesmaid—will be walking down the aisle in midnight-blue rather than the particularly foul baby-pink she had in mind—all gratitude duly accepted!’
‘Thank you so much, Marion! Baby-pink makes me look as if I have jaundice.’
Marion grinned. ‘As for the rest of it, it’s all fallen into place rather nicely, and Derek is particularly thrilled because the person he most wanted for his best man is available.’
Caiti froze.
It went unnoticed as Marion poured more tea. She added, as she spooned sugar into her cup, ‘It was so lucky really, considering what short notice it was and the fact that Rob Leicester moves about quite a lot. Have you heard of Leicester Camps, Caiti?’
‘Yes…’ Caiti said slowly, and it came out as if she were searching her mind for an elusive name when, in fact, she was searching for a way to break the news to Marion that she had actually married the founder of Leicester Camps then run away from him.
‘They’ve developed a few eco-resorts in remote spots that have really taken off,’ Marion supplied. ‘Well, Rob has. The family owns a grazing empire on Cape York but Rob—he’s the younger son—decided to diversify. The first one he opened was Camp Ondine, north of the Daintree. Apparently it’s a magical rainforest and reef experience. Another biscuit?’ She offered the plate to Caiti.
Caiti shook her head numbly.
‘Anyway, Derek and Rob were at boarding-school together and their friendship carried on from there. I’m not quite sure why but Derek’s always admired Rob Leicester tremendously and to find that he was back at Camp Ondine, and available, was perfect.’
Marion paused and a faint frown knitted her brow. ‘In fact, I sometimes think,’ she reflected, ‘it’s the one wedding detail that has Derek’s unqualified approval.’
‘What do you mean?’ Caiti queried with a frown of her own.
Marion shook her head and laughed. ‘Nothing. Well, it hasn’t been an easy time for poor Derek with his mother and I at loggerheads occasionally. He is her only son and she lost her husband not that long ago. I don’t know—I just get the feeling that he’s really relying on Rob to get him through it all. I haven’t met him myself so I hope he’s right. Incidentally, we’re having a get-together in a couple of days so we’ll all meet the famous Rob Leicester then!’
‘Marion—’
But Marion beat her to the draw. ‘Honey, you look a bit tired,’ she said with concern. ‘You’ve been flying all day and here I am rattling on about Derek’s best man! Why don’t you have a nice long soak in the tub while I get dinner ready?’
CHAPTER TWO
CAITI ran the bath and sat down to watch the water flowing with utter confusion in her mind.
To parody the words of Rob Leicester, she thought bitterly, how could this have happened to her?
But there were other thoughts. Was she being ultra-sensitive or did she detect that all was not quite as it should be between Marion and Derek?
One thing was becoming obvious—Derek would not take kindly to finding a substitute best man. But was Derek actually having second thoughts? Was Marion rushing him into a wedding against his better judgement?
She reached over to turn the taps off then sat back on the bathroom stool as it hit her that all of that paled into insignificance beside her own dilemma—the dilemma of finding that she was as vulnerable to Rob as she’d ever been.
And she had been vulnerable, she reminded herself. Her parents’ separation just before she’d met Rob had confused and unsettled her. That she should feel troubled and confused had come as no surprise but at only twenty-one then, the loneliness she’d suffered when her parents had gone their separate ways had come as quite a shock.
To counter it, she’d given up her teaching job after a while and applied for something more challenging. She’d applied for a job as a tour guide and interpreter with a company that specialised in bringing French tourists on conducted trips to Cairns and the tropical delights of Queensland.
She’d got the job despite no previous experience and that was how she’d come to meet Rob.
One segment of the package tour on offer had been a two-night stay at a luxury rainforest camp run by Leicester Camps, a company with a growing reputation for developing eco-camps in remote and beautiful spots.
Camp Ondine had been under Rob’s management at the time. North of Cairns on the mouth of a river, it offered not only an unparalleled rainforest experience but also fishing and island-hopping trips offshore to the adjacent Great Barrier Reef. Its maximum capacity was thirty, so it was intimate, and the emphasis was on service and a wonderful cuisine.
Caiti had been most impressed. Then she’d met the man in charge and it had been a bit like receiving a high-voltage charge of electricity.
At thirty then, Rob Leicester was nine years her senior. Not only that, but he’d also first viewed her as a disaster—and told her so.
Her mind took wings as she sat beside Marion’s bath, right back to that first encounter…
Caiti regarded the man who had just accused her of being a walking disaster.
He was tall and rugged with thick, dark, slightly shaggy hair and blue shadows on his jaw. He wore jeans and a blue sweatshirt as if, despite owning and running Camp Ondine, he bucked in with his staff and was more a behind-the-scenes operator than a front man.
On the other hand, the jeans and sweatshirt moulded to broad shoulders and a rock-hard body heightened a dynamically masculine presence. The unexpected impact this had on Caiti made her draw an excited little breath, annoyingly.
Above all, he had light hazel eyes that were boring right through her in a singularly insolent and unimpressed manner.
Big, tough, mean and nasty—it shot through her mind.
She was nothing if not resilient, however. ‘And you may go to hell, Mr Leicester,’ she told him with all the hauteur she could muster.
A spark of interest lit Rob Leicester’s hazel eyes. ‘I see. A rebel without a cause as well.’
‘This is my first week on the job,’ she replied. ‘All I require is a little time to hone my skills.’
‘What you require is a qualified tour guide as an assistant, someone to co-ordinate your clients’ baggage, their dietary requirements and all the nuts and bolts of the job. So you can just be,’ he subjected her person and her long dark hair to a thorough inspection, ‘decorative and dazzle us with your French,’ he drawled.
‘I don’t like you,’ Caiti stated through her teeth.
A flicker of a grin revealed white teeth in Rob Leicester’s tanned face. ‘You don’t have to and I don’t have to like you, Ms Galloway. The fact remains we prepared twelve non-vegetarian dinners last night for twelve subjects of vive la France! who are all vegetarians because you ticked the wrong box.’
Caiti coloured.
‘Can you imagine, when the error was discovered, the kind of chaos it caused in the