Although why Kyle had stopped her marrying a man who had been eminently suitable, and whom she had actually liked in a lukewarm kind of way, she didn't know. Given their antagonistic past, she had thought Kyle would have been only too glad to discharge a responsibility that had been thrust on him, and which he could not possibly want.
Just like he hadn't wanted her.
Frowning at the thought of the brief, passionate interlude they had shared eleven years ago, she met Kyle's gaze squarely. "Thanks, but no thanks."
Dropping into the little sports car's bucket seat, she snapped the door closed. The engine revved with a throaty roar. Throat tight, still unbearably ruffled that he had actually had the gall to give her a pity proposal, she put the car in gear. Spinning the car in a tight turn, she headed in the direction of the Dolphin Bay Resort, where the reception was being held.
Her jaw tightened at the thought that even the location of the reception was tainted with memories of Kyle and the one time he'd kissed her. In starting her wedding business, though, she'd had to be pragmatic. The Dolphin Bay Resort was family run and offered her a great discount. She would have been flat-out stupid not to use the venue.
Still fuming, Eva strolled into the resort to oversee the gorgeous, high-end fairy-tale wedding she had designed as a promotional centerpiece for her wedding planning business. A perfect wedding that should have been hers, if only Jeremy hadn't cut and run.
Cancel that, she thought grimly. If only Kyle hadn't paid Jeremy off with a lucrative job offer in sandblasted Dubai! Taking a deep breath and reaching for her usual calm control, she checked her appearance in one of the elegant mirrors that decorated the walls. The reflection that bounced back was reassuring. Lately her emotions were all over the place, she was crying at the drop of a hat, she actually wanted to watch rom-coms and she was having trouble sleeping.
None of that inner craziness showed. She looked as calm and cool and collected as she wished she felt, her mass of tawny hair smoothed into an elegant French pleat, her too curvy figure disguised by a low-key skirt and jacket in a pastel pink that matched her shoes and handbag. The businesslike but feminine image achieved a balance between the occasion and her role as planner.
More importantly, it ensured that she did not compete with the bride or other female guests in any way. She had learned that lesson at what would have been her first wedding when the groom had gotten a little too interested in her and the bride had cancelled.
Eva walked through to the ballroom where the reception was being held and lifted a hand to acknowledge the waitstaff, all of whom she knew well thanks to the half dozen weddings she had staged at Dolphin Bay. She tensed as she glimpsed commiseration in the normally businesslike gaze of the maître d' as he mopped around an ice sculpture of swans she had recklessly commissioned because this was supposed to be her one and only wedding day.
The five-tiered extravaganza of a cake, snow-white icing sparkling with crystals and festooned with clusters of sculpted flowers so beautifully executed they looked real, stopped her brisk movement through the room. Out of the blue, the emotion she had been working hard to stamp out grabbed at her. She had wanted to make this a day she would remember all of her life. Unfortunately, that had been achieved since it would be difficult to forget that her perfect wedding now belonged to someone else.
Stomach churning with a potent cocktail of frustration, panic and a crazy vulnerability caused by the fact that Kyle seemed intent on stopping her attempts to achieve a workable, safe marriage, she spun on her heel and made a beeline for the kitchen.
Bracing herself, she pushed the double doors open and stepped into a hive of gleaming white walls and polished steel counters. The cheerful clattering and hum of conversation instantly stopped. Eva's chest squeezed tight as waves of sympathy flowed toward her, intensifying the ache that had started in her throat and making tears burn at the back of her eyes. The jolt of emotion was crazy, given that she hadn't loved Jeremy in the least and marriage had not been on her horizon until Mario had literally forced her to it with that clause in his will. A clause designed to railroad her into the kind of happiness he had shared with his wife and which he had thought she should also have, whether she wanted it or not.
Until she'd started planning this wedding, she had thought Mario had been utterly wrong in believing he could make her want to be married. But every detail of planning her own wedding had confronted her, throwing together the stark realities of her life and cruelly highlighting the parts she couldn't have: the romance and the happy-ever-after ending that true love promised. Most of all, it emphasized the happy aftermath she would never experience: her own babies.
She had known since she was seventeen, thanks to a rare genetic disorder she carried, that she shouldn't have children. The disorder had proved fatal for her twin and two siblings, which had made her doubly wary about the whole concept of marriage. There was always the possibility that she could meet someone who didn't care about the disorder and who would be happy to adopt, but she had difficulty getting past the fact that she literally carried death in her genes.
In retrospect, it had been a huge mistake giving in to the temptation to design a wedding that patently did not go with a marriage of convenience. It smacked of wish fulfilment, and it had opened up a Pandora's box of needs and desires she had thought she had put behind her. She should have settled for a registry office ceremony. No fuss, no bother, no emotion.
Pinning a smile on her face, she breezed through the large bustling kitchen and waved at the head chef, Jerome, a Parisian with two Michelin stars. Jerome had designed the menu personally for her. He sent her an intense look brimming with passionate outrage and sympathy, even though he knew she had managed to sell the wedding on to a couple who had been desperate to marry quickly, owing to a surprise pregnancy.
Eva flinched at the concept that her pretty young bride not only had her perfect wedding, but was also pregnant. She could not afford to dwell on the painful issue that while she could not have children, other women could, and at the drop of a hat.
Keeping her professional smile firmly fixed, Eva fished her menu out of her bag and ran through it with Jerome. For once there were no last-minute glitches. Every aspect of this wedding appeared to be abnormally perfect. After dutifully admiring the exquisite mountain of cupcakes, which Jerome was decorating-her favorite forbidden snack-she escaped back to the reception room before he could toss his icing palette knife down and pull her into a comforting bear hug.
Kyle had proposed.
The kitchen doors made a swishing sound as they swung closed behind her. Eva stared blindly at the crisp white damask on the tables, the sparkle of crystal chandeliers and lavish clusters of white roses. She did not know why Kyle had the power to upset her so. It wasn't as if she was immersed in the painful, oversentimental first love that had gripped her at age seventeen. It wasn't as if she still wanted him.
As the wedding guests began to spill through the doors, she rummaged in her handbag, found and slipped on a pair of the most unflattering glasses she'd been able to buy. The lenses were fake, just plain glass, but the heavy, dark rims served to deflect the attention that her good looks usually attracted.
Fixing a smile on her face, she did a brisk circuit of the main reception room, which she and her assistant, Jacinta, had dressed earlier. Waiters were loading silver trays with flutes filled with extremely good champagne she had sourced from an organic vineyard. Trays of her favorite canapés from the five-star kitchen were lined up in the servery.
The reception was heartbreakingly gorgeous. Since it was supposed to have been her own, she had put a great deal of thought into every detail, no expense spared. The only consolation was that she would be very well paid. And, in three weeks' time, if she was still unwed, she would be in desperate need of cash in order to retain her house and keep her business afloat.
The doors to the kitchens behind her swished open as guests began to seat themselves at tables. Jacinta Doyle, her sleekly efficient personal assistant, came to stand beside her, a folder in one hand. Jacinta gave her a look laden with sympathy but, tactfully, kept things businesslike. Halfway through a list of minor details, she stopped dead. "Who is that?"