The Bridesmaid's Secret. Sophie Weston
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Bella turned to look. A cab pulled away. In its wake it left a figure, just out of the hotel’s neon, solitary in the deserted street.
He looks cold, Bella thought, then, involuntarily, He looks lonely. As lonely as me?
The man was tall as a tree, a black figure in the blue dark. His shoes were polished, though. She could see the reflection of the hotel’s starburst sign skimming across his toes as he moved. It made him look as if he was walking through water.
Like a ghost, or one of the ancient gods, temporarily lost on earth. It was oddly powerful. Bella shivered.
‘Don’t know him,’ she said positively.
But he came over, his heels clipping on the icy pavement. He bent down by her door.
Arnie did not lower the window. He shifted on the seat bracing himself unobtrusively. ‘Trouble?’ he asked.
Bella was realising that she did recognise the dark figure after all. It was the man who had not asked for her phone number.
‘Trouble? I don’t think so. He was at the club.’
Gil rapped on the window. Arnie looked across and flicked an experienced eye over him.
‘Well, he may be a nut but he’s not a bum. That’s a thousand-dollar coat. Want to talk to him?’
That dance had been exciting. It had made her feel alive. For those hectic minutes in his arms she had even forgotten the soul-killing loneliness.
‘Yes,’ said Bella.
She got out.
Arnie sat back watchfully. He did not turn off the engine.
Bella huddled her coat around her. She was a New York babe now, meeting sexy strangers with a watchful humour. She gathered her sophistication round her as tightly as the coat.
‘This isn’t coincidence, right?’ Bella said to the tall dark shadow.
Gil nodded. ‘Sorry.’ He didn’t sound it. ‘I’m leaving tomorrow.’
‘And that’s your excuse for following me?’
‘Reason. Not excuse.’
‘Word games,’ said Bella dismissively. She pulled her coat tighter. ‘There are laws on stalking you know.’ But she sounded more curious than threatening and she knew it.
For a moment he looked completely blank. Then he gave a great shout of laughter.
‘I didn’t think of that. God, this town is paranoid.’
‘It’s got nothing to do with this town. I’d say the same in London or Paris.’
‘If you think I’m a stalker, why did you get out of the car?’ he countered.
It was unanswerable. She stamped her feet, not entirely against the cold, though early morning ice was frosting the kerb. The hotel would send someone out to clear the ice soon, Bella knew.
She said, ‘I got out of the car because I didn’t want you to make a scene.’
He was unimpressed. ‘Why should you care if I make a fool of myself?’
‘I care if you make a fool of me. I’ve just delivered some influential people here. I don’t want them thinking I’m—’ She stopped, realising too late where it was taking her.
‘The sort of girl who gets out a car to talk to strangers at two in the morning,’ he supplied helpfully.
Bella glared.
He was all innocence. ‘What?’
She gave up. ‘All right. What do you want?’
‘To talk.’
‘We talked.’
‘No, we didn’t,’ he said calmly. ‘We exchanged pheromones. Very rewarding but now I’d like to go somewhere warm and talk.’
She thought of Rosa’s tolerant comments in the cloakroom. Did this man think that they’d danced together so well she would let him take her to bed?
She said furiously, ‘No way.’
He blinked. Then, infuriatingly, he gave her a reassuring smile. Reassuring! As if she, Bella Carew, sophisticate of three continents, needed reassurance. As if she couldn’t handle herself, no matter what a man chose to throw at her.
‘I didn’t say it had to be private. We can go to an all-night diner somewhere if you want.’
Bella looked up and down the upper east side boulevard with exaggerated irony.
‘Oh, sure. You see an all-night diner anywhere?’
‘Well, let’s go into the hotel. They must have a coffee shop.’
‘Oh, great. And my boss’s business contacts wander in and see me chatting to this evening’s pick up? No, thank you.’
She put a hand on the door handle.
He said urgently, ‘Don’t go.’
It stilled her. But only for a moment.
Not looking at him, she said, ‘You should have asked for my phone number like a normal person.’
He drove one gloved hand hard into the palm of the other. ‘I haven’t got time.’
Bella fumbled in her shoulder bag. The spiky heel of a sandal scratched her wrist. She ignored it and found a business card. Swinging round, she held it out to him.
‘Try that.’
He did not take it. He was looking at her very straightly, half impatient, half pleading.
‘I mean it. My day is solid with meetings and I have to fly out tomorrow to deal with a crisis at home. I only have tonight.’
It sounded melodramatic in the dark and freezing street. Somehow Bella did not think he was a melodramatic man under normal circumstances. Once again she had the impression of someone utterly alone.
It was a feeling she knew.
She thrust the business card into her coat pocket and said abruptly, ‘All right. Arnie will find us a diner. Get in.’
But in fact she gave the chauffeur directions to an all-night café in her own area of the Village. Close enough to run for home if she had to, she thought, defending her decision to herself.
Arnie grunted disapprovingly. But he had been on duty since the morning and he wanted to go home. Bella had persuaded him to a late, late coffee in the past and she knew his habits. Now they had unloaded their guests he would want his bed as much as she wanted not to be alone. He did not protest too hard, and dropped them at the little Italian café two blocks from her building.
Gil Whoever-he-was had the manners as well as the overcoat of a gentleman, Bella found. He held the door to the café open for her. There were a few diners, mostly drivers of delivery trucks in jeans snatching a break before getting back onto the empty early morning roads. Gil led the way past them, then stood until she had seated herself. She slid along the wooden bench against the wall but he did not crowd in beside her. He took a chair on the other side of the table and smiled at the heavy-eyed waitress who joined them.
‘What would you like?’ he asked Bella. ‘Breakfast?’
She shook her head, making a discovery. ‘You’re English.’
He smiled. ‘Don’t hold it against me. Coffee? Water?’
It sounded as if he did not realise that she was English too. That pleased her obscurely, and not just because she had been working on her mid-Atlantic accent.
‘Gallons of water. And herbal tea.’
‘Sure.’ The waitress knew her. She was in here often enough between her late night forays with