the basin. When she raised her head she caught sight of herself in the mirror and immediately any other thought was swept away by the sight of the scarecrow looking back at her. Her face was pale except for her eyes, which were faintly puffy and red-rimmed. Her hair gave the impression she had been pulled through a hedge backwards.
Whatever had he thought? She groaned. Even in her worst days at home she looked better than this.
Once she had showered and put a little light moisturising cream on her face she applied some careful make-up, which improved things no end. She brushed the tangles out of her hair with the help of a leave-in conditioner, looping it into a high ponytail once it was smooth and wavy.
Better. She inspected the result as she sprayed a dab of perfume on each wrist and the back of her neck. Much better.
Once in the bedroom she dressed swiftly in a sleeveless linen shift, sliding her feet into a pair of flip-flops and fixing small silver studs in her ears. She glanced into the fulllength mirror by the bed. Casual, cool, without appearing to have taken too much effort. As a damage control exercise it would have to do. She took a deep breath. Now to face Nick downstairs.
He was sitting in the breakfast room, its French doors open to the fresh scents from the garden and a row of covered dishes at one end of the big pine table. He looked up as she entered, throwing the newspaper he had been reading to one side as he rose to his feet.
He had waited to eat with her. She felt a glow of pleasure out of proportion to the act of courtesy.
‘Hi,’ he said, very quietly. ‘How about we start over again?’
She stared at him. ‘Yes, please.’
‘Does that mean shopping and lunch later?’
She nodded.
‘Good.’ He grinned at her. ‘I thought I was going to have a fight on my hands. I wouldn’t have let you go, you know.’
She wanted to ask him why but she dared not. ‘I still don’t think you put it very well,’ she said, determined to have her say before they put it behind them. ‘And that remark about William was uncalled for. But overall…’ She hesitated.
‘Overall?’
‘There was some truth in what you said.’
‘Thank you.’ The grin widened. ‘That was hellishly hard to say, wasn’t it?’ he added sympathetically.
She didn’t trust the sympathy any more than she trusted her weakness where his charm was concerned. ‘Hellishly,’ she agreed crisply, determined not to smile. ‘Could I have some juice, please?’
‘Help yourself.’ He waved a hand at the table. Besides the covered dishes there was a mountain of toast, preserves, a jug of freshly squeezed orange juice and a pot of coffee.
Cory suddenly found she was ravenously hungry and more happy than she would have dreamt herself being an hour ago. She filled her plate with scrambled egg, bacon, mushrooms and crisp hash browns, sitting down and beginning to eat with gusto.
Nick had done the same although his plate was filled with twice as much. She had just put a particularly succulent mushroom in her mouth when she sensed his gaze on her. She looked up. ‘What?’
‘I’m so glad you’re not one of those women who push the food round on their plate for half an hour, or sit with a nice juicy something on their fork while they talk on and on,’ he said appreciatively. ‘The times I’ve wanted to lean across and tell a woman to get on with her food.’
She frowned at him. ‘How rude.’
He chuckled softly. ‘I’ve never claimed that patience is one of my virtues.’
And yet he had been terribly patient with her in the last couple of months since they’d met.
Her face must have betrayed something because now it was Nick who said interestedly, ‘What?’
‘Nothing.’ She wasn’t about to give him any accolades after last night. He might be right in essence about William but she hadn’t quite forgiven him for pointing it out so brutally. And she definitely didn’t agree with the victim bit.
It was a new experience for Cory to go shopping with a man and she found she loved it, probably because the man in question was Nick, she admitted to herself ruefully. It was nice shopping too—not trundling around a busy supermarket or anything like that.
She purchased a fairly generic card for Nick’s mother, and then watched with concealed amazement as he scanned all the different verses in the ‘son to mother’