Page 30

Oh, yes, she thought, holding out her glass to be refilled by a hovering waiter. She was going to get over Will, come hell or high water. Because what option did she have? Was she going to spend the rest of her life pining after him? No, she was not.

One thing was for sure though. She was done with emotion. Emotion made you unstable and unpredictable, and only led to heartbreak. So from now on she was going to be practical. Ruthless. She'd take no prisoners. Break some balls. She was going to—

'Bella.'

At the sound of the voice behind her Bella froze and whatever she'd thought she'd been going to do went clean out of her head. All her blood rushed to her feet and she swayed. Her stomach leapt, her heart lurched and the room swam. Oh, no. Please, no. Not again.

She closed her eyes and tried not to panic.

Maybe she'd imagined Will's voice. Maybe to add insult to injury she'd finally lost her mind.

Because he was supposed to be on the other side of the planet, wasn't he?

Conquering the day-trading world or whatever it was he did and cowering behind his hang-ups.

But while her imagination had been pretty active recently, it wasn't so good that it could conjure up the intoxicating scent of him. Or the heat of his body. Or the familiar instant response of her body.

Slowly she turned, her heart beating so hard she feared it might leap out of her chest, and thought frantically about how she was going to handle this.

'Oh, Will, hi,' she said brightly, deciding that 'greeting an old friend' and acting as if his appearance at the wedding didn't mean a thing to her was the way forward.

'Hi,' he said, his eyes dark and unfathomable and fixed unwaveringly on hers.

Bella held herself still, which was hard when every cell in her body longed to fling itself at him. It had only been a couple of weeks since that night outside the museum but it felt like a century and despite everything it was so heavenly to see him. Even though he looked haggard and exhausted.

Ignoring the urge to stroke the weariness from his face, Bella injected some much-needed steel into her spine. 'I didn't think you were planning to be here.'

'I wasn't.'

A tiny spark of hope rushed through her at the thought he'd come to see her and she stamped it out. Ruthlessly, of course, because she was done with emotion, wasn't she? She twisted the glass in her hands and then made herself stop it. 'So how are the Cayman Islands?'

'Still there.'

'And work?'

'Fine.'

'How nice.'

'I'm thinking of transferring my business back here.'

Bella's heart leapt. 'Oh?' she said, unable this time to obliterate the hope that his decision might have something to do with her.

Will nodded. 'Running the dukedom from so far away is proving tricky.'

Her heart sank and she wished she could give herself a good hard slap. See? This was why she had to be practical instead of emotional. Emotional simply hurt too much. 'I can imagine.'

He stared at her and for some reason her heart began to thunder despite her attempts to tell it not to. 'Although it's not just that.'

'No?' Her mouth went dry.

'No.'

So what else was it? she desperately wanted to know. But he didn't elaborate and no way was she going to ask.

'Great wedding, don't you think?' He gave her a faint smile and she felt like kicking him, because he must know he was rubbing a ton of salt into a raw open wound.

'The best,' she said, furious with the way he could still make her feel. 'A top London hotel, fabulous food and drink and a twenty piece swing band. What could be better?'

'They look happy,' he added, looking over to where Alex and Phoebe were gazing adoringly into each other's eyes.

'They are.'

And then anger and frustration surged through her. Because what was all this about? Did he have any idea of the distress he was causing her by just being here? 'So why did you come, Will? I didn't think you did weddings.'

Will rubbed a hand along his jaw and shrugged, as if it was a mystery to him as well. 'Neither did I. Now I do, we need to talk.'

What for? So he could tell her again how he couldn't risk a relationship with her? No way. 'No, we don't.'

'We do. Because you have no idea of how so sorry I am about the way our affair ended.'

She shrugged as if she'd forgotten all about it and ignored the knives making mincemeat of her heart. 'Don't be. Really, it's nothing. I've moved on.' She waved at the man she'd been sitting next to in the church and shot him a bright smile.

Will frowned as he looked in the direction she was waving in and went still. 'Have you?'

'Oh, yes, absolutely,' she said, nodding and smiling like a lunatic.

'And have you found what you're looking for?'

She swung her gaze back to him and saw that he'd gone a little pale. 'I'm getting there,' she said breezily, reminding herself it didn't matter what colour he went.

He shoved his hands in his pockets, the muscle in his jaw hammering as his eyes blazed into hers. 'So I don't suppose there's any point in asking you to marry me.'

'Absolutely none whatso—' Bella stopped. Blinked. The blood roared in her ears and for a moment she thought she might be about to pass out. God, how many glasses of champagne had she had?

'What?' she croaked.

Will took her arm and Bella let herself be pulled behind an enormous flower arrangement, too stunned to resist.

'I said, I don't suppose there's any point in asking you to marry me.'

She jerked her gaze to his and scoured his expression, but found nothing to indicate that he was anything other than completely serious. 'That's what I thought you said.'

The pulse at the base of his neck was hammering. 'Good. So what do you think?'

What did she think? What did she think? Bella thought that she didn't have a clue what she thought about anything any more.

Because shouldn't she be ecstatic? Shouldn't she be leaping around with joy and delight and happiness?

She was being offered everything she'd ever wanted by the man she loved to distraction.

So why wasn't she throwing herself at him and smothering him in kisses? Why couldn't she forget the way they'd parted? The flat bleak way he'd looked at her as he told her he'd never let himself love her? Or the fact that he must have known what he was doing to her but had carried on regardless?

Did he really expect her to forget the way he'd hurt her and simply tumble gratefully into his arms as if he was the answer to all her prayers? If he thought that he could think again.

Will watched the emotions play across Bella's face, his heart racing and a bead of sweat trickling down his spine.

This wasn't going the way he'd imagined.

He hadn't had the time to think it through in great depth, but if he had he'd have assumed that he'd propose and she'd fling herself into his arms, smile up at him as she pressed herself up close and say yes in that gorgeous breathy way she had.

And then they'd go and set about making each other deliriously happy for the rest of their lives.

So what was she doing standing there stock still with a frown creasing her forehead and a guarded look in her eye?

'But you don't want to marry anyone,' she said and something in his stomach curdled. 'You don't do commitment. You have issues.'

Will went cold at the flat tone of her voice, but when he thought about the last conversation they'd had he knew it was nothing less than he deserved. 'I know. But I'm working on them.'

'You said you'd never take the risk on us. You said you couldn't.'

'I know,' he muttered again, the panic flooding back as it dawned on him that he was staggering around on unknown territory in the dark without a torch.

'Do you have any idea how much that hurt?'

Her eyes flashed with pain, the pain that he'd caused. 'I'm sorry,' he said, his throat as rough and dry as sandpaper. 'You'll never know how much. I'd do anything to be able to go back and fix things.'

She tilted her head and shrugged as if she couldn't care less. 'So what's changed?' she asked, arching an eyebrow and shooting him a cool glance, and for the first time in his life Will knew what real fear felt like.

It felt like an icy hand clutching his heart. It felt like a gallon of acid swilling around in his stomach. It felt like the bleakness of a lifetime of loneliness, a future that yawned ahead of him empty and cold.

' I have,' he said, clearing his throat in an effort to beat back the bone-chilling dread that he'd screwed things up beyond repair.

'I see.'

And as he looked at her, clearly deliberating over what decision she was going to make, he realised he was going to have to fight as he'd never had to fight before.

'I'm sorry I reacted like a jerk when you told me you loved me,' he said, nearly passing out with the force with which everything he wanted to say slammed into his head.

'I'm sorry I couldn't tell you I loved you.

I didn't think I deserved it. I never allowed myself to wish for it. I didn't think I could have it.'

'You could have had everything,' she said simply, and his heart wrenched. 'And you rejected it. Deliberately.'

'I was terrified.'

'Terrified?'

Will raked his hands through his hair and dragged in a deep ragged breath. 'My feelings for you scared the hell out of me. They still do a bit, to be honest. I've spent the best part of three decades avoiding the damn things and now I'm riddled with them.'

Her eyebrows lifted. 'And what feelings would those be?'

'I have so many I barely know where to start.'

'Well, I'm not going anywhere.'