Sophie Weston - The Independent Bride

‘You have only one chance to be a bride,’ said Mary Ellen, showing her teeth like a shark. ‘And that’s if I buy you a husband. After all those mercy dates I paid for, I’ve got a good long list of candidates.’

That was when Pepper knew that she could not take any more. There was no point in even trying. With a superhuman effort, she told her icy muscles to stop shaking and move. And she walked out.

Mary Ellen was not expecting it. ‘Where are you going?’ she yelled, suddenly not even pretending to be ladylike any more.

Pepper did not stop. She went running, scrambling up the soggy path, to where Ed was sitting.

Her grandmother ran after her, but halted at the point where the path began to climb.

‘You get back here this minute,’ she yelled.

Pepper did not stop. Not even when she fell to one knee. Not even when she felt her pantyhose tear and blood trickle down her shin. She didn’t care. She didn’t care about anything but getting away from the grandmother whose affection had been a lie right from the start.

By the time she reached Ed, she was panting. ‘Take me back to New York,’ she said. ‘Take me back now.’

He hesitated, but only for a moment. It would have taken a braver man than Ed Ivanov to face Mary Ellen in this mood. He took Pepper’s arm and hurried her towards the clearing where the helicopter was waiting.

Ladylike, five foot two, Mary Ellen had a voice like a bass drum when roused. It reached them easily. So did the fury.

‘You’ll never make it on your own, Penelope Anne Calhoun, do you hear me? I own you.’

A week later, Pepper knew exactly how true that was. So she leaned against the wall, skulking down as a party of VIPs swept onto the London plane in advance of everyone else. She did not care about VIPs, but there was an outside chance that they might recognise her. After all, Mary Ellen was a VIP. As the Calhoun heir, Pepper had been one too for most of her life.

Well, that was all over now. A good thing, too, she told herself.

She would get to London. She would put together a new life. And she would survive.

All she had to do was keep clear of VIPs.

‘Professor Konig?’ The flight attendant had obviously been waiting for them. She was instantly alert, full of professional smiles. ‘Welcome on board, sir. This way.’

The VIP and the airline director followed her.

‘So that’s what you get in first class,’ Steven Konig muttered to David Guber. ‘Instant name-check and personal escort to your seat.’

The attendant took his jacket and the ticket stub to label it, and left her boss to do the formal farewells. Steven looked after her.

‘Is it enough to justify the cost, I ask myself?’

The other man smiled. ‘You old Puritan! Still working on the principle I’m uncomfortable therefore I am?’

Steven laughed. ‘You may be right.’

Dave punched his arm lightly. ‘You’re important enough to fly the Atlantic without having your knees under your nose any more, Steven. Live with it.’

‘Can I quote you?’ Steven was dry.

Dave Guber was not only a long-standing friend, he was a main board member of this airline. He grinned, ‘If you do, I’ll sue.’ He shook hands and added soberly, ‘I mean it. I’m really grateful, Steven. You saved our butts.’

Steven shook his head, disclaiming.

‘Yes, you did. If you hadn’t come through for me we’d have had a conference and no keynote speaker. Great speech, too.’

Steven shrugged. ‘I was glad to do it. I’ve wanted to do a think piece on the subject for a long time.’

‘Yeah, sure. Like you haven’t got enough to fill your time already.’

‘No, I mean it,’ Steven insisted. ‘It makes a change.’ He gave a rueful smile. ‘It seems like all I do these days is meetings, meetings, meetings. It was really nice just to sit down and think for once.’

Dave Guber looked quizzical. ‘Wish you were only doing one job again?’

‘Chairman of Kplant is my job,’ Steven told him drily. ‘Being Master of Queen Margaret’s isn’t a job; it’s a vocation. Ask the Dean.’

They both grinned. They understood each other perfectly. They had first met at Queen Margaret’s College, Oxford, as students years ago. And they had both been fined by the Dean regularly for standard student bad behaviour.

Dave cocked an eyebrow. ‘He isn’t glad to see you back?’

‘Spitting tintacks,’ agreed Steven, amused.

‘That must make life peaceful.’

‘Hey, if I wanted peace I’d have stayed in the lab. You say goodbye to peace the moment you open your own company.’

Dave’s career had been with big international corporates. He looked at his friend curiously. ‘Is it worth it?’

‘It’s great,’ said Steven. There was no mistaking his enthusiasm.

‘You never want to slow down?’ Dave asked tentatively.

Slowing down was heresy in business, of course. But he remembered the gorgeous blonde whom Steven had dated all those years ago. No one mentioned her any more. Nobody linked his name with anyone else, either. Dave thought he had never met anyone as lonely as Steven Konig.

‘Do you never think about—er—a family, maybe?’

Steven’s face changed. He didn’t frown exactly. He just withdrew—very slightly, very politely. Suddenly Dave wasn’t talking to his old buddy any more. He was taking formal leave of an international figure.

Dave sighed and gave up.

‘Well, don’t forget you’re going to come and stay with us the very next vacation you get. Marise and I are counting on it.’

Vacation? Steven managed to repress a hollow laugh.

‘Sure thing,’ he said. It was vague enough not to count as a promise. Steven always kept his promises, so he didn’t hand them out lightly.

‘I’ll hold you to that.’

Steven gave his sudden smile, the one that made him look just like the student who had once worked out how to set off fireworks by remote control from Queen Margaret’s venerable tower. His eyes were vivid with amusement.

‘I’ll put it in the five-year plan.’

Dave flung up his hands in mock despair. ‘You’re crazy.’

‘You said it yourself. I’m a Big Name,’ Steven said crisply. ‘For that, there’s a price.’

David Guber was an important man, with stock options and the power to hire and fire. But he wasn’t Steven Konig, who had single-handedly taken his food research business from the small companies sector to the big time. The press fell over themselves to interview Steven Konig in five continents. Of course there was going to be a price.

Dave sighed. ‘Well, if you ever get off the carousel come see us,’ he said. And to the glamorous flight attendant, who still hovered, ‘Make sure Professor Konig has the journey of his life. We owe this man, big time.’ He pumped his hand again. ‘You’re a great guy, Steven. Have a good flight.’

Steven was already opening his briefcase before Guber had left the plane.

‘Can I get you anything, Professor?’ the attendant asked.

Steven bit back a wry smile. So Dave Guber thought he ought to date, did he? How was a man to do that when every woman he met called him Professor? Or Chairman? Or even, God help him, Master?

‘A drink?’ The flight attendant knew her duty to the friend of a boss so big she had only ever seen him on video before. ‘Coffee?’

Steven gave her his ordinary smile, the one he used when more than half his mind was elsewhere. ‘No, thank you.’

‘A warm towel?’ pressed the flight attendant, trying hard.

‘Nothing.’ He corrected that. ‘You’ll give me everything I need if you just keep other people away.’

He had caught sight of several British delegates from the conference in the airport. He could just see them grabbing the chance of a transatlantic flight to buttonhole him. Experience had taught him that someone always wanted advice they didn’t listen to or the name of contacts whom they misused.