Miranda Lee – One Passionate Night: His Bride for One Night / One Night at Parenga / His One-Night Mistress (страница 7)

But oh…how she wished she’d taken notice of Gary when he’d requested a really small wedding. That would have made what she was about to do a little easier. Bad enough that she had to tell her parents she wasn’t getting married. Worse that her dad had wasted all that money which he could have put to far better use.

The ongoing drought over the last decade had not hit the family as hard as some, but things were still tough. The money her wedding had cost would have replaced the breeding stock her dad had been forced to sell this past year. Or put in an extra dam. Or taken her parents on that cruise they were always talking about going on but which they never got round to having.

She’d thought how tired and old they were looking at Christmas.

Charlotte glanced around the lobby with an ever-tightening stomach. But her parents weren’t there. She turned full circle, her gaze checking every corner of the reception area. The place wasn’t remotely crowded at this time of day. Too late to be booking out. Too early to be booking in.

No. They definitely weren’t there.

She might have rung them if they’d had a mobile phone, check if they’d become lost once they hit the city. But of course her parents hadn’t come into the twenty-first century yet. Probably never would.

Charlotte settled herself down on one of the deep, velvet-covered armchairs to wait, her body facing the entrance from the arcade. That was the way her folks would come.

She almost didn’t recognise him at first. He wasn’t wearing the same clothes he’d been wearing this morning. His expensive grey suit had been replaced by dark blue jeans and a navy polo shirt trimmed with white. A pair of sunglasses was perched on top of his head. Navy and white trainers covered his feet.

It had taken an effort of will for Charlotte to put Mr Daniel Bannister out of her mind after she’d left the airport this morning, though once she arrived home more immediate and pressing events had overtaken her. Now, suddenly, there he was again, as disturbingly sexy as ever.

Charlotte’s jolt of shock had her sucking in air, and immediately his head turned in her direction. He seemed just as startled to see her. But pleased.

Oh, yes, definitely pleased.

Charlotte’s back stiffened against the armchair as he started walking towards her. At the last moment, she rose to her feet, rather than stay seated. Too awkward having to look up so far into those incredible eyes.

He whipped the sunglasses off his head during his approach, folding and popping them into his chest pocket, his mouth broadening into a dazzling smile at the same time, showing perfectly straight white teeth and a dimple in one cheek.

As if he wasn’t attractive enough already.

‘I don’t believe it!’ he exclaimed. ‘I came here hoping to pry your name and number out of the hotel staff, and here you are in the flesh.’

All the breath rushed out of Charlotte’s lungs at his admission. This wasn’t an amazing coincidence. He was actively pursuing her.

Fury warred with flattery till she was simply flustered.

‘I told you I was meeting my parents here for lunch,’ she said, her face going hot once more. What was it about this man that made her act and feel like some silly teenager in front of her favourite pop star?

‘Really? Can’t say I recall you mentioning it. If you had, I would have remembered. But no matter. You’re here. Now I have the opportunity to redress the bad impression my sister must have given you of me this morning.’

‘You just don’t know how to take no for an answer, do you?’ she threw at him.

He grinned. ‘Beth said as much when I told her I had to find you. She’s here in town, seeing her doctor, so I set out on my mission to uncover the identity of the lovely lady I met this morning, and whom I haven’t stopped thinking about since.’

‘You are the most annoying man,’ Charlotte declared, even as she coloured some more. Couldn’t he understand that the last thing she wanted and needed today was more evidence of how stupid she’d been, thinking she was in love with Gary?

It was mortifying, the way her eyes kept gobbling him up. Dear heaven, but he was gorgeous.

She couldn’t help wishing that it had been this LA lawyer she’d run into on the Gold Coast last year. Because he wouldn’t have taken any notice of her romantically. He’d have seduced her on the spot, then happily dumped her the next day. He wouldn’t have lied to her and betrayed her and jilted her.

Men like Daniel didn’t have to con women to get them into bed. The silly fools would be only too ready to do whatever he wanted without a single promise, herself included.

This was the most flustering part of her feelings right now. That she, Charlotte Gale, a just-jilted woman, could be wanting any man the way she was suddenly wanting the man standing right in front of her.

‘I’m still not going out to dinner with you tonight,’ she pronounced tartly.

‘That’s OK,’ he replied without missing a beat. ‘Tomorrow night will do just as well. Or the next night. I’m here in Sydney for a fortnight.’

‘You’re not listening again. I said no. Now I’m saying it again. I don’t want to go out to dinner with you. Ever.’

‘You don’t mean that.’

She did. But he wasn’t getting the message.

‘Some things are meant to be, beautiful. Otherwise why would fate have put you here, just waiting for me?’

Charlotte groaned. ‘I wasn’t waiting for you. Iwas waiting for my parents. I told you. They… Oh—’ She broke off, her head still spinning with the effort of trying to gain some control over herself and the situation. ‘They’re here.’

CHAPTER FIVE

DANIEL turned to see a couple who had country written all over them coming across the lobby in their direction. Both looked in their mid to late sixties, the woman plump with short grey hair, the man also grey-haired, but rake-thin with a weather-beaten face and kind blue eyes. Both had probably once been quite handsome. They had good features. Both were wearing suits and looked uncomfortable in them.

‘Charlotte!’ the woman exclaimed as she hurried forward to give her daughter a peck on the cheek.

Daniel smiled. At least now he knew her name. Charlotte. Great name for a great girl. She was going to take some talking around, he could see. But he was not going to take no for an answer.

Daniel was well versed in body language. And in the contrariness of women. Charlotte was as attracted to him as he was to her. Her relationship with that pathetic Gary guy had been one big romantic illusion. And she knew it. He’d seen the realisation in her eyes this morning.

Of course, he understood she was still upset. No woman liked to be dumped, especially the day before her wedding. She also clearly loved her parents and didn’t want to disappoint them. Or tell them that they’d wasted a whole heap of cash on a wedding which wasn’t going to take place. Once she broke the bad news to them, she was going to need some comforting.

‘And dear Gary!’ Charlotte’s mother suddenly whirled to give him a big bear hug before putting him from her at arm’s length and looking him over from top to toe. ‘My, but you’re even better looking than in your photos. Of course, you had sunglasses on in those so I couldn’t see your eyes. You didn’t tell me Gary had such beautiful eyes, Charlotte.’

Charlotte, Daniel could see, was dumbstruck. He was pretty flabbergasted himself.

But of course, it was a logical mistake for her mother to make. Charlotte had made it herself this morning. Which was another reason he knew Charlotte was attracted to him. She must have a certain physical type she liked.

‘The thing is, Mum,’ Charlotte finally blurted out, ‘he’s n—’

‘He’s a damn fine-looking man all round,’ her father broke in, taking Daniel’s hand and pumping it enthusiastically in both of his. ‘Tomorrow is going to be the happiest day of my life, seeing my baby girl finally married to a man worthy of her. I have to tell you, Gary, that her last boyfriend was a right drongo. But she’s finally come up trumps!’

‘Dad, for pity’s sake!’ Charlotte wailed.

‘You told me there were no secrets between you and Gary here. You said you’d told him all about Dwayne. Do you know he even wore an earring?’ he directed at Daniel with a truly pained expression. ‘Real men don’t wear earrings!’

‘I certainly don’t.’ Daniel had tried one once but he thought he looked a right prat.

‘I noticed that. You’re my kind of man, Gary. Welcome to the family.’ And he pumped his hand some more.

Daniel wished at that moment that he were Gary. He hated having to disappoint them almost as much as Charlotte did.

When a wild but brilliant idea popped into his mind, Daniel embraced it immediately. It would kill two birds with one stone.

‘It’s a pleasure to meet you at last, sir,’ he said. ‘And you too, Mrs—er…’ Damn it all, he didn’t know their surname. ‘Would you mind if I called you Mum and Dad?’ he improvised.

‘Not at all, my boy!’ Charlotte’s father beamed. So did her mother.

Charlotte just stared at him, her mouth still dangling open a little. But she didn’t make a move to tell them the truth, he noticed.

‘Always wanted a son-in-law to call me Dad,’ her father raved on, having at last returned Daniel’s hand. ‘John—that’s Lizzie’s husband—he at least calls us Peter and Betty. But Keith—that’s Alice’s husband—he still calls us Mr and Mrs Gale.’