Barbara Hannay - Blind Dates and Other Disasters

Blind

Dates and

Other

Disasters

Ally Blake

Fiona Harper

Barbara Hannay

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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When ALLY BLAKEwas a little girl she made a wish that when she turned twenty-six she would marry an Italian two years older than her. After it actually came true she realised she was on to something with these wish things. So next she wished that she could make a living spending her days in her pyjamas, eating M&Ms and drinking scads of coffee while turning her formative experiences of wallowing in teenage crushes and romantic movies into creating love stories of her own. The fact that she is now able to spend her spare time searching the internet for pictures of handsome guys for research purposes is merely a bonus!

Come along and visit her website at www.allyblake.com

This book is dedicated to Mark, my angel,

who looked after me, brought me M&Ms

and made me feel like I had it in me all the time.

‘I’M GETTING married,’ Holly announced as she slammed her briefcase on the desk in her office at Cloud Nine Event Management, fifteen minutes later than her usual start time.

‘You’re doing what?’ Beth’s voice rang metallic and loud from Holly’s speakerphone.

Holly sat down, crossed her legs, noticed a run in her stockings, and her mood went from bad to worse. She grabbed a new pair of stockings from the neat pile stocked in her bottom desk drawer, before moving into her private bathroom to change from frayed to fresh. She had to raise her voice for it to reach the speakerphone, but in her current temper that was not a problem.

‘I said I’m getting married.’

‘But I can’t remember you dating any man more than once in the last six months, much less becoming familiar enough to want to marry one of them.’

Holly’s assistant Lydia chose that moment to enter the office. She stopped in her tracks, the coffee she carried all but sloshing over the sides, and stared at the speakerphone as though it had produced an offensive noise. Holly came back into the room, new stockings in place, and waved a ‘hurry up’ hand at Lydia who placed the cup down without spilling a drop.

With no apology, Lydia joined the private conversation. ‘Did I hear you guys right? In the time it took for me to make Holly a cuppa, she’s hooked herself a fiancé? That’s saying something for instant coffee.’

‘Is that you, Lydia?’ Beth asked.

Lydia leaned towards the speakerphone, articulating her words as though speaking to someone hard of hearing. ‘How are you, Beth? When is the baby due?’

‘I’m fantastic. Baby Jeffries should be here in a month or so—’

‘Ah, guys,’ Holly interrupted, ‘major life decision being made here.’

Lydia mimed buttoning her lips shut tight.

‘Sorry, sweetie,’ Beth said. ‘Blame Lydia. You know if anyone asks about the bubby, I gush. Do go on.’

‘Thank you.’ Holly took a deep breath and launched into her story. ‘This morning, as I walked the last block along Lonsdale Street, this … man all but barrelled me over. Everything I was carrying went flying. My briefcase ended up in the gutter, pens rolled down the road and all my precious papers scattered across the footpath. And as I was on my hands and knees crawling around collecting my materials he had the nerve to tell me to watch where I was going.’

‘Was he cute?’ was Lydia’s instant response.

Not cute, Holly remembered. She pictured early morning sunlight glinting off light flecks in hazel eyes. Tired dark smudges underneath those eyes. Sympathy she had felt at his exhausted expression. His scowl as he had realised she had dropped everything she was carrying. The same scowl that had extinguished her sympathy. The rich, deep voice with a hint of a foreign accent as he had said his piece. No, cute was not the word.

‘Tall,’ Holly eventually established, ‘dark mussed hair. Matching dimples. Smelled nice. But that’s irrelevant.’ ‘Irrelevant?’ Beth said. ‘He sounds perfect.’ ‘I reckon,’ Lydia agreed.

‘Just when you stop looking where you are going, he finds you. It’s kismet.’

Holly rolled her eyes, picturing Beth reaching for one of her New Age books to justify the incident.

‘He did not find me, Beth, he berated and bruised me. See.’ Holly pointed out a light scrape on her knee to Lydia, who pouted in appreciation.

‘And this is the guy you’re going to marry?’ Lydia asked.

‘No! You’ve both missed the point.’

‘Which is?’

‘The point is, the whole horrible episode brought about an epiphany. My social life consists exclusively of attending parties we coordinate. But instead of meeting men, I meet male party personalities. They mislead me with an attractive, charming, confident disguise but there is never anything more going on behind the eye-catching masks they wear. The gentleman this morning was very attractive, uncompromising, and uncaring and was therefore the embodiment of all that is wrong with the men I meet. It’s a foolproof theory.’

‘I’m confused,’ Lydia said. ‘If not this guy, who on earth are you marrying?’

‘That’s the thing—I’ve decided Ben is going to find him for me.’

‘My Ben?’ Beth asked after a couple of seconds of bewildered silence.

‘Of course. Can’t you see it’s the only way? Ben works in a big company, he’s got plenty of staff under him, mostly young men he has hand-picked, and he knows me better than anyone apart from you guys. He’s the perfect objective observer and if he can find me someone he likes then we can all be friends for ever. You know, live next door to one another, have neighbourhood BBQs, go on camping trips …’ ‘You hate camping—’

‘I’m not joking, Beth. Come on, you have to see how flawless a plan it is.’

‘And all of this came from banging into some very attractive, dimpled, nice smelling guy on the street?’ Beth asked.

‘It was like when we collided he smacked some sense into me.’

‘Gave you concussion, more like it,’ Lydia muttered. Holly shot Lydia an unimpressed look. ‘This guy must have been something to get you of all people talking marriage,’ Beth said. ‘Why me of all people?’

‘Come on, Holly. You are the most controlled, independent woman I know. You keep a colour range of spare pairs of stockings in your office drawer, for goodness’ sake.’

Catching sight of those very packets, Holly casually closed the drawer shut with her foot.

‘And here you are,’ Beth continued, ‘wanting to put your future happiness in someone else’s hands.’

‘Ben is not just someone else and you know that. I trust him to make a good choice.’

‘I can’t believe you are making some sort of sense,’ Beth admitted. ‘All right, come over for dinner tonight so that we can ambush my poor, unknowing husband.’