CHAPTER ONE

      ‘I’M GETTING married,’ Holly announced as she slammed her briefcase on the desk in her office at Cloud Nine Event Management, fifteen minutes later than her usual start time.

      ‘You’re doing what?’ Beth’s voice rang metallic and loud from Holly’s speakerphone.

      Holly sat down, crossed her legs, noticed a run in her stockings, and her mood went from bad to worse. She grabbed a new pair of stockings from the neat pile stocked in her bottom desk drawer, before moving into her private bathroom to change from frayed to fresh. She had to raise her voice for it to reach the speakerphone, but in her current temper that was not a problem.

      ‘I said I’m getting married.’

      ‘But I can’t remember you dating any man more than once in the last six months, much less becoming familiar enough to want to marry one of them.’

      Holly’s assistant Lydia chose that moment to enter the office. She stopped in her tracks, the coffee she carried all but sloshing over the sides, and stared at the speakerphone as though it had produced an offensive noise. Holly came back into the room, new stockings in place, and waved a ‘hurry up’ hand at Lydia who placed the cup down without spilling a drop.

      With no apology, Lydia joined the private conversation. ‘Did I hear you guys right? In the time it took for me to make Holly a cuppa, she’s hooked herself a fiancé? That’s saying something for instant coffee.’

      ‘Is that you, Lydia?’ Beth asked.

      Lydia leaned towards the speakerphone, articulating her words as though speaking to someone hard of hearing. ‘How are you, Beth? When is the baby due?’

      ‘I’m fantastic. Baby Jeffries should be here in a month or so—’

      ‘Ah, guys,’ Holly interrupted, ‘major life decision being made here.’

      Lydia mimed buttoning her lips shut tight.

      ‘Sorry, sweetie,’ Beth said. ‘Blame Lydia. You know if anyone asks about the bubby, I gush. Do go on.’

      ‘Thank you.’ Holly took a deep breath and launched into her story. ‘This morning, as I walked the last block along Lonsdale Street, this…man all but barrelled me over. Everything I was carrying went flying. My briefcase ended up in the gutter, pens rolled down the road and all my precious papers scattered across the footpath. And as I was on my hands and knees crawling around collecting my materials he had the nerve to tell me to watch where I was going.’

      ‘Was he cute?’ was Lydia’s instant response.

      Not cute, Holly remembered. She pictured early morning sunlight glinting off light flecks in hazel eyes. Tired dark smudges underneath those eyes. Sympathy she had felt at his exhausted expression. His scowl as he had realised she had dropped everything she was carrying. The same scowl that had extinguished her sympathy. The rich, deep voice with a hint of a foreign accent as he had said his piece. No, cute was not the word.

      ‘Tall,’ Holly eventually established, ‘dark mussed hair. Matching dimples.