One Night with Morelli(9)

                ‘Well, I find men who have massive egos boring!’ she jeered, and slid onto the driver’s seat. ‘And there is no chemistry,’ she yelled, before slamming the car door.

                She could hear the sound of his low throaty laughter above the metallic scream as she crunched the gears before finding reverse.





                                      CHAPTER TWO

                THE TWO YOUNG women who stood waiting in the bedroom were both in their mid-twenties but there the similarity ended.

                The girl who sat on the edge of the four-poster, one slim ankle crossed over the other, was an elegant, tall, blue-eyed blonde. The other one, who had spent the last five minutes prowling restlessly up and down the room, her heels making angry tapping sounds on the age-darkened polished boards, was neither tall nor blonde, and, even though the two women were dressed identically, she was somehow not elegant.

                She was five three without heels and had chestnut-brown hair. Making no concession to the occasion—the dress was enough—she wore it as she always did: scraped into the heavy knot on her slender neck. It was not a style statement, though it did reveal the length of her neck and the delicate angle of her rounded jaw, just convenient. When exposed to even a sniff of moisture it fell into a mass of uncontrollable kinky waves and Eve liked control in all aspects of her life.

                There had been a period when she had struggled to emulate her friend Hannah’s effortless elegance, but no matter how hard she tried it just didn’t happen. She always ended up looking as though she were dressing up in her mother’s clothes. Gradually Eve had found her own style or—as an exasperated Hannah put it—uniform, which was a little unfair. Not all Eve’s trouser suits were black—some were navy—and who had time to shop anyhow when they had a business to run? You couldn’t afford to relax in this competitive world.

                ‘Ouch!’ She tripped over the skirt of her duck-egg-blue silk bridesmaid dress and banged her knee on the window seat. The pain made her green eyes film with tears.

                ‘Well, if you’d come to a fitting it wouldn’t be too long.’ Harriet gave an affectionate smile and shook her head. The frantic last-minute pinning meant that Eve’s dress had a sort of waist but the neckline of the fitted bodice still had a tendency to gape and slip down a couple of inches if Eve moved too quickly—and Eve moved quickly a lot. Her friend was never still mentally or physically, and just watching her made Hannah feel tired.

                Eve gave another hitch accompanied by a hiss of exasperation. If she’d been more naturally blessed in the boob department it wouldn’t be a problem, but even with the tissues tucked into the strapless bra that was chafing the partially healed scar on her shoulder blade she was one cup size short of keeping the bodice up.

                On the plus side, while she was focusing on not exposing herself she wasn’t thinking about her mother throwing herself away on a man who didn’t deserve her! The furrow in danger of becoming permanent in her wide brow deepened because, impending wardrobe malfunction or not, she was thinking about it and had been ever since her mother had rung excited as a schoolgirl with the glad tidings. A week was not a long time but Eve had prayed her mother would come to her senses.

                She hadn’t.

                ‘The measurements you sent must have been way off. Sarah said you’ve lost weight since she saw you last,’ Hannah commented.

                Eve felt a stab of guilt that intensified when Hannah made excuses for her.

                ‘I know Australia is a long way to come for a fitting.’