Molly Matthews Meddles in Marriage (12 page)

Molly flinched, the air rushing out of her as if she’d been punched in the chest. That would explain it. Rory was in need of some damage limitation. With Molly at his side, there’d be no chance of him appearing in any incriminating photos.

What had she expected? Wasn’t she the one to keep insisting their relationship was purely professional? So why was she now nursing a ridiculous swell of disappointment?

Chapter Seven

Inside the darkened auditorium, Molly sat next to Rory in plush velvet-covered seats, their knees almost touching, while up on the big screen he was playing the romantic lead in the latest film sensation, a bittersweet comedy about a TV presenter killed in a car accident. Rory’s character, Jimmy Mack, is left in a state of limbo, neither alive nor fully gone over to the other side, unhappily residing in that nowhere land,
Betwixt and Between
, the title of the film.

Opposite him, playing the romantic heroine, helping him make the transition to another world, was Carey Fisher, a young Australian actress who lit up the screen with her luminous beauty. All the time Molly had to remind herself that the heartthrob high up on the screen was sitting right next to her and she’d been landed with the job of finding this man a bride! C
ould this experience get any more surreal?
she wondered.

I
t was a fabulous film, entertaining, poignant and laugh-out-loud funny. And both Rory and Carey won the hearts of the audience with their honest and believable performances. So believable in fact that every time they kissed and cuddled, Molly screwed up her face, watching the unfolding events through one eye as she cringed in discomfort. It was excruciating to see Rory in such intimate exchanges while sitting alongside him. She clutched her arms around her chest, wriggling in her seat, as a whole range of emotions ran riot around her body as she watched Rory seducing a woman, embarrassment, a stirring of arousal and that unwelcome shard of jealousy that she had no reason to feel.

One thing it taught her was that any woman brave enough to take on Rory as her boyfriend would need to have oodles of self-confidence and assurance and be successful in their own right. Wilting violets definitely need not apply. Molly was all of those things, but there was no way she’d be able to cope with watching the man she loved falling in love with other women, even if it was only for make believe. There were too many painful reminders of her own reality there.

“So what did you think?” Rory asked when the credits rolled.

“Oh, it was amazing,” said Molly honestly, dabbing away a few random tears from her cheeks with a tissue. “It was so sad at the end when she had to say goodbye to Jimmy. I thought my heart would break. And you and Carey were just brilliant together. You made the perfect couple.”

Everyone else thought so too. Rory was swamped by people wanting to offer their congratulations and Rory spoke to each one of them graciously and courteously, but Molly was thankful he included her in the conversation, keeping her close to his side, a proprietary arm around her shoulder at all times.

As soon as the crowds had dispersed, he turned to her.

“There’s a party going on in the basement, which I should probably attend, but…” He shrugged, looking as if he couldn’t imagine anything worse. “I don’t know about you, but I’m all partied out. I might head for home, unless you have a burning desire to go…”

“No, not at all.” She wasn’t bothered about the party, so why the sense of deflation that Rory was bringing their evening to a premature end? As far as he was concerned, it was a case of job done and it looked as though her services were no longer required. Hurt and disappointment pricked at her skin, but she shook them aside. “That’s absolutely fine with me. It’s been a long day and I’m tired out. I could do with an early night too. But thanks so much for inviting me along, it’s been a great evening.”

Rory’s brow furrowed.

“Hey, you’re not getting out of this that easily. I can’t invite you out for the evening and not feed you. I was thinking a takeaway, Chinese, Indian, a burger? What do you fancy?”

Molly’s laugh masked her relief, the mention of food making her stomach rumble. With Rory she never quite knew what to expect next. One moment he was taking her to Michelin-starred restaurants and then the next he was suggesting the local burger bar. In his black tie getup as well, he couldn’t have looked more inappropriately dressed for the occasion. She gazed up into his dark, smiling eyes, warming to him even more at the fact that he could take a wildly glamorous evening and turn it into something reassuringly normal.

“Now you come to mention it, a burger sounds just heavenly,” she sighed.

* * * *

“That…was…amazing!” Molly licked her fingers, removing the final traces of barbeque sauce from each of them in turn. They were back at Rory’s apartment, sitting on his plump leather sofa with polystyrene boxes surrounding them and Bella sitting at their feet, looking hopeful. Molly had managed to polish off a double bacon burger, large fries, onion rings and a strawberry milkshake with gusto and was now looking happily satiated.

“You enjoyed that then?” Rory couldn’t keep the amusement from his voice.

“Oh God, it was so good,” she said, passing Bella a sneaky chip with a pretend you haven’t seen this look to Rory. He thought about all the many other women he’d ever gone out with and wondered how many of them would have been happy with a take-out. Not many, he reckoned. A lot of them didn’t do carbs, some of them didn’t do fats and the rest of them just didn’t do food in general. He hated a woman who picked at her food, turning it over disdainfully as though it might be poisoned. For Rory, one of the great pleasures in life was eating, along with drinking and sex, although those last two pleasures had been the cause of so many of his problems.

Molly loved her food, that much was evident, and she clearly enjoyed a drink or two. And the other thing? Well, he could only wonder about that. Which he found himself doing a lot of the time. Even though his appetite was now sated, he still felt that recurring hunger gnawing at the core of his stomach, something that he knew could never be satisfied with food, and would be made worse by succumbing to the booze again. No, this particular hunger could be filled solely from the touch of the woman beside him. Somehow she’d seeped into his consciousness. Slowly and surely until she’d taken up residence in his heart. He still wasn’t sure whether or not he was about to evict her.

He thought about her the whole time, when he woke in the morning and when he went to bed at night, laying his head on the pillow. She’d gotten right beneath his skin with her natural beauty and honesty and that joyful laugh, which hit him full-on in the solar plexus, sending ripples of delight through his body.

Rarely did a woman have such a polarizing effect upon him. And if they did there was one simple way to get it out of his system. But he wasn’t going there. Not this time.

He’d made a commitment to himself and to Molly. Instead of acting impulsively and reaching for the nearest bottle of scotch or the prettiest woman available, he was going to act sensibly for the first time in his life. Finding a wife the sensible way would hopefully bring some much-needed stability to his life.

Only Molly was in the mix now and he could never had anticipated when he first walked into her office that the woman who was supposed to be sorting out his love life would be the woman to completely mess up his heart and mind.

Rory had been wrestling with his feelings from the moment he’d met her. Just being in her presence, he could sense the element of danger, the risk to his own equilibrium. However tantalizing and tempting Miss Matthews might be, he wasn’t certain he wanted to open his heart to that sort of exposure. Besides, there were Molly’s feelings to consider too. The inner hurt she carried around with her was tangible and he wasn’t prepared to cause any more damage to those lively eyes just for the sake of a fling.

“I was just thinking, Rory,” she said, tidying away the debris of their burger banquet into neat piles on the coffee table, “you get to work with some of the most beautiful and talented women in the world. It’s hardly surprising that none of the dates I’ve arranged for you have come to anything. All of my female clients are lovely women, but I can’t help thinking that it would be hard for any of them to match up to the glamorous women you’re used to meeting in your working life. Take Carey, for example. She’s utterly gorgeous. What was she like to work with?”

“Honestly?” Rory shook his head gravely. “A complete nightmare. I’ll give it to her, she’s a fabulous actress, but… She might look like an angel, but she swears like a trooper. And high maintenance? You wouldn’t believe it. She’ll eat only macrobiotic foods, has to have her trailer feng-shuied before she’ll step foot inside it, is allergic to every substance going apart from her god-awful cat, and dogs? The devil’s creature, apparently.”

“Really?” Molly’s mouth gaped open and those big brown eyes grew ever wider at his words, clearly delighting in his indiscretion.

“I learnt a long time ago that actresses are bad news when it comes to relationships. Don’t get me wrong. There’s been the occasional fling, flirtations that last the length of time it takes to shoot the film, but once the final cuts are in the can, that’s it. You move onto the next film.”

“That doesn’t sound very romantic.” She sighed, looking deflated.

Why didn’t that surprise Rory? Beneath the buttoned-up exterior and her burning belief that love could be engineered in a top-floor office, she was a hopeless romantic at heart. “Romance is overrated. You must know that, doing what you do. You must see many people coming through your doors, disillusioned with romance and looking for a more pragmatic solution to their problem of finding a partner. Besides, after Emma I came to the conclusion that it was probably best not to mix my personal life with my working life.”

“Emma?” Her interest piqued, Molly sat forward on the edge of the couch, her knees tight together, her body facing Rory, her eyes beseeching him to tell more.

Immediately he regretted mentioning her name. He hadn’t spoken about her in years, he rarely thought about her these days, but saying her name out aloud gave it a validity he wasn’t sure he wanted to acknowledge.

“Oh, an old friend. We kind of grew up together and then when I went off to drama school, she followed me there. We did our first repertory tour together. It was a lot of fun, driving around the country in a clapped-out old van.”

“Did you love her?”

Molly’s question came out of the blue, startling him with its directness. He’d never even asked himself that question.

“It was just a teenage thing. We had a bit of a fling for the three months we were on the road, but it wasn’t anything serious.”

At least it hadn’t been at the time. When they hadn’t been working they’d spent their time talking long into the night, laughing, making love. They’d lived for the moment, until the bubble was burst and Emma waltzed off without a backward glance to chase her dreams. For as long as he could remember Emma had been a constant in his life. And somewhere deep in his consciousness, he’d assumed she always would be. There at his side. But he’d realized too late that it was a dangerous assumption to make and one he wouldn’t make again.

“Do you still run into her now? Is she still an actress?”

“No, she lives in America. She’s a big star out there.”

“Really? Would I have heard of her then?”

“Probably. Her name was Emma Dean when I knew her, but she’s more commonly known these days as Emma D’Santi.”

“Wow! I never knew you two were an item!” Not for the first time tonight, Molly’s face grew animated with disbelief. She bit on her lip, mulling over this latest snippet. “You went out with Emma D’Santi! Oh my God, that’s so amazing.”

Rory laughed, shaking his head at her reaction.

“Well, it was a long time ago, before we were famous.” He shook his head, laughing at Molly’s incredulous expression. “The trouble with you is that you’re far too easily impressed.” He glanced at his watch as he undid his bow tie, tossing it aside on the table. “Christ, is that the time?”

“Oh yes, I should be going,” said Molly, looking uncomfortable as she gathered up her handbag from the floor.

“Nonsense.” Rory jumped out of his seat and went over to the huge stainless steel fridge-freezer, opening the door with a flourish. “It’s only just champagne time.” He pulled out a bottle and held it up toward Molly. He didn’t want her to leave just yet. Or anytime soon.

Molly had learned more about Rory in the past hour than she had in all the time she’d spent in meetings trying to coax information from him. He hadn’t needed to answer her question about Emma—his falsely nonchalant manner, the way his strong jawline tightened at the mention of her name, had told her everything she needed to know. Was an ex-centerfold model and now soap actress the reason Rory had such problems with commitment?

Whatever the issue, tonight had only served to prove to Molly that however much she might want to help Rory, she’d taken her search for his bride as far as she could go. She simply didn’t have an endless supply of the right type of candidate to match Rory’s exacting requirements. His lifestyle was so far removed from that of most of her clients that it was unreasonable to expect to find someone who would willingly take on everything that went along with that celebrity lifestyle. At face value, it sounded wonderful, the fame and acclaim, the money and the glamour, but it would take a special type of person to want to take on all those pressures.

She would have to tell Rory they would need to sever their business relationship. But that was for another time. Tonight it was all about celebrating his success and she’d been delighted to be a part of that. It wasn’t quite what she expected, eating burgers and chips in Rory’s luxury apartment, but she wouldn’t have missed the experience for the world.

She hoped that Rory would come to the same conclusion about the marriage bureau, that it wasn’t the right option for him, but if not she’d be willing to have that conversation when the time was right.