Red-Hot Lover. Sarah Holland
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in.’
‘No, he can’t.’
‘I want to leave.’
‘Jared, Susie is my—’
‘I am not attending—’
Harrison opened the door.
Dishevelled and loveswept, Clara hesitated. But only for a moment. Jared was on the brink of ordering Harrison to drive them straight home and she couldn’t let him do it. Not at this wedding. Susie wouldn’t just be disappointed. She’d be heartbroken. And in that moment of hesitation all Clara could think of was the little red-haired girl in the playground of St Winifred’s, who had hurled herself fiercely at the boy who’d just broken Clara’s doll. Susie had leapt to Clara’s defence on the day they met. The very least Clara could do now was return the favour—twentyone years later.
Fumbling for her hat and bag, she stepped out onto the hot pavement while Jared watched her with brooding temper. She avoided his gaze. He could glare at her all he liked. She wasn’t getting back into the car.
‘Clara.’ Jared’s voice was almost drowned out by the sound of traffic. ‘Get back in the car.’
She pretended not to have heard him, and stepped back to let the traffic drown his voice to nothing. Staring resolutely at the curly green writing on the Lebanese restaurant across the road, she continued to avoid his eyes. He was trying to will her back into the car.
Eventually, he got out. Women walking past stared at him with admiring recognition. He stood smouldering with bad temper as he shrugged his grey jacket back on.
Clara turned on her high heels before he could start another argument and walked up the gilded steps to the swing doors of the Ritz.
Inside, the hushed pink and marble shimmered and the soft carpeted reception area glowed under crystal chandeliers. Handsome young men in smart frockcoats swished around attending to wealthy guests.
‘Very well.’ Jared strode in behind her with a face like thunder. ‘You get your way. So where is it? This wedding reception? The Marie Antoinette Suite?’
‘No, the restaurant.’
‘Then let’s get it over with.’ He took her hand in a firm grip and strode off down the pink carpet past the Palm Court. People stared. It was at moments like this, when they were in the middle of a blazing row, that Clara wished they weren’t so famous.
But as they entered the restaurant her tense face relaxed into a radiant smile. A wedding breakfast fit for a princess, she thought, staring at the top table which ran along the French doors. White lace and satin decorated it; sapphire taffeta bows gleamed along the edges. Silver flatware, an assortment of crystal glasses and bouquets of the most exquisite pale pink orchids completed the look of luxurious celebration.
For a little ragamuffin from St Winifred’s—with no parents, family or real chance in life—Susan O’Malley had done well. Susie had not realised when she first met Gareth that his grandfather, Owain Llewellyn, was rich. Gareth’s family was so used to money that they were almost aristocratic in their habits: unpretentious, homely and down to earth. Imagine Susie’s shock when she’d realised she’d been courting for a year with a Llewellyn of Llewellyn and Sons, Builders—a firm currently valued at over fourteen million pounds and entirely in private hands.
‘Looks wonderful, doesn’t it?’
‘Wonderful.’ He strode without another word to inspect the table. Clara followed him. He was reading the place settings. As he reached the far end of the table he caught his breath, staring. ‘We’re sitting here! Did you organise the place settings? Did you put me—?’
‘Of course I didn’t.’
‘Then who did?’
‘Well, I imagine it was the groom’s mother. She organised the whole thing.’
‘Why was she allowed to?’
Clara’s eyes rounded in amazement and he flushed angrily.
‘I can’t sit here!’
‘Jared, for heaven’s sake stop behaving like this! It’s only a wedding reception. You won’t have to stay longer than an hour or two. Who are you sitting next to, anyway? Let me see the—’
‘Owain Llewellyn Senior,’ he snapped, and turned on his heel, mystifying her as he walked out of the open French doors into the private gardens beyond.
Clara counted to ten. Keep your cool, she told herself, and picked up the place card. Studying it as though convinced she might find some clue on it, she eventually replaced it, baffled. Then she followed Jared out into the gardens.
He stood with his back to her. Sunlight blazed over his dark hair and made it seem to shine blue-black. A balustrade ran along the white steps which led to the lawns. Grecian urns were bathed lazily in the warmth of the summer afternoon.
‘Darling—’ she walked up behind him ‘—why don’t you want to sit next to Owain Llewellyn Senior? Do you know Mr Llewellyn?’
Silence.
She tried again. ‘Is there some kind of business intrigue going on that I don’t know about? Something that’s happened between you and the Llewellyns that makes social interaction difficult?’ Jared bought and sold companies as part of his work. Failing businesses were turned into dynamic successes with a wave of the Blackheath hand. Because of this, he frequently had to build new factories or redesign existing buildings to accommodate the leap in productivity and employment.
‘You know I always use Wright-McArd for all my construction work in the UK. Why would I engage another building firm?’
‘Especially a Welsh firm?’
‘It’s got nothing to do with their Welshness. You don’t seriously think I’d do business on a basis of personal background or family history?’
‘I didn’t mention family history.’
He tensed, aware he had given himself away.
‘Do you know anything about their family history, Jared?’
‘What is this—the Spanish Inquisition?’ He turned away, his voice thick. ‘I couldn’t be less interested in the Llewellyns or their family history.’
‘Then why don’t you want to sit next to Owain Llewellyn?’ She knew she was pressing on some kind of old wound but she wasn’t going to let him keep his secret hidden for ever. Not when it was so obviously painful for him. To say nothing of the trouble it was causing everyone today. Jared had a tendency to cope alone with difficult emotions. Normally she let him carry on while she waited for the moment he decided to turn to her and share them. But today they simply didn’t have time for that approach. ‘Let’s examine exactly who Owain Llewellyn is, shall we?’
‘Let’s not,’ he muttered, but she carried on regardless.
‘The head of the firm. Gareth’s grandfather. Just an old man in his early sixties with very little about him that could possibly worry—’
‘Stop harping on about him. I’m not interested in the man. Why are you?’
She was obviously getting warmer. ‘The Llewellyn offices are in Cardiff, aren’t they? I’m sure I remember Susie mentioning something about it. Offices in London, Cardiff—’
‘I don’t want to discuss the geographical details of Llewellyn’s damned offices!’
‘And a house in the countryside. A house by the sea, Susie said, somewhere on the south coast, somewhere Gareth always wanted to visit but wasn’t allowed to because…’ She paused with a thoughtful frown. ‘Now why was that? He couldn’t visit the house because his family said—’
‘Look!’ He turned on her without warning. ‘I just don’t want to be here, all right? Is that so hard to understand? Must you hunt for clues that don’t