Jessica Hart - Convenient Engagements - Fiance Wanted Fast! / The Blind-Date Proposal / A Whirlwind Engagement

‘If I didn’t trust you, I wouldn’t be exposing you to my family,’ said Phoebe, grabbing at the door as a taxi swerved in front of them.

‘If you trusted me, you wouldn’t be sitting there clutching the door and jamming your foot on an imaginary brake,’ said Gib in a dry voice. ‘If you’re going to do that all the way to Wiltshire I’d rather you drove after all!’

Phoebe made a conscious effort to relax. ‘Sorry,’ she muttered.

Contrary to all her expectations, Gib was a calm, competent driver, quite unflustered by the London traffic. It was odd seeing him in the driving seat, his hands sure on her steering wheel. Phoebe’s eyes kept sliding sideways, and every time the sight of him was like a tiny shock that made her look quickly away.

For a while the conversation was limited to Phoebe’s attempts to direct Gib through the labyrinth of back streets to get out onto the M4, but once they hit the motorway, he put his foot down and settled back comfortably into his seat with a wriggle of his shoulders that sent a peculiar little shiver down her spine.

‘Do you want to fill me in on a bit more background before we get there?’ he said with a sideways glance. ‘I know the situation with Ben, and I’ve got the job covered, but am I likely to meet anyone else I should know about?’

Phoebe looked out of the window at the speeding traffic. ‘There’ll be various friends who knew me when Ben and I were together, but I suppose we could say that our relationship is too new for me to have mentioned them to you.’

‘Ah, yes,’ said Gib with a wicked smile. ‘When you’re as much in love as we are, you’ve got better things to think about, haven’t you?’

Faint colour touched Phoebe’s cheekbones. ‘Exactly.’

‘So it’ll just be your family I really need to worry about?’

‘Yes.’ Phoebe was glad of the chance to move onto a safer topic. ‘Mum and Dad are pretty much what you’d expect, and my little sister will be there, too. Lara’s the baby of the family. She looks like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, but don’t be fooled. She’s sharp as a tack.’

‘What does she do?’

‘Drives my parents to distraction mostly,’ she said wryly. ‘She’s incredibly bright, but she gets bored so easily. She keeps starting courses and not finishing them, or walking out of perfectly good jobs, and she’s always got some unsuitable boyfriend in tow.’

‘Not like big sister, then?’ said Gib with another of those disconcertingly blue glances.

‘No, I’m the boring one of the family.’ Phoebe gave an unconscious sigh as she stared through the windscreen and thought about her sister. ‘I’ve had such a conventional life. Fell in love with the boy next door, got a degree, saddled myself with a mortgage … Giving up my job to work for Purple Parrot Productions is the riskiest thing I’ve ever done, and that’s not exactly living dangerously, is it?’

‘Is that what you’d like? To live dangerously?’

‘Sometimes,’ she admitted, ‘but I don’t think I’d be very good at it. I’m too sensible.’

That was what Ben had said. You’re so sensible, Phoebe. I know that you’ll understand that it’s not that I don’t care for you. It’s just that we know each other so well that things aren’t that exciting, are they? We can’t surprise each other any more.

‘I wish I could be more like Lara sometimes,’ she told Gib, pushing away the memory. If she had been, maybe Ben wouldn’t have fallen in love with Lisa, who wasn’t predictable and familiar. ‘She decides she wants to do something, and she does it. She’ll try anything. She doesn’t stop to think about the consequences, or what might happen if something goes wrong, she just goes for it.’

Gib slid her another glance. ‘I’ll look forward to meeting her.’

‘You’ll like her.’

Phoebe was conscious of a faint wistfulness. Her sister had exactly the same streak of recklessness that seemed so much part of Gib. It didn’t matter that he was rattling along in the slow lane in her battered old car, or that he was dressed in the most conventional of grey suits, he still exuded an air of danger and excitement that alarmed and intrigued her in equal measure.

Gib would find a kindred spirit in Lara, she thought. Lara was reckless and funny and open, the complete opposite of her big sister in fact.

WITHOUT meaning to, Phoebe sighed.

‘What’s the matter?’ Gib was watching her more closely than she realised.

‘Nothing,’ said Phoebe quickly.

She could feel his blue gaze sharpen assessingly as it rested on her averted profile, but after a moment he evidently decided to let it go.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘What about us?’

‘What about us?’

‘We ought to agree on how we met,’ he suggested.

‘I thought we’d already decided that.’ Phoebe pulled herself together. ‘We met when I contacted you about the programme we’re making.’

‘You don’t think that sounds a bit dry?’ said Gib. ‘I mean, won’t they want to know a few more details?’

‘Like what?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said, lifting one hand from the steering wheel to gesture vaguely. ‘Like whether it was love at first sight for both of us, or did I have to work really hard to win you?’

‘Oh, that last one, I think,’ said Phoebe crisply. ‘I don’t want to be a pushover.’

Gib cast her a wry look. ‘I can’t imagine you ever being that,’ he said. ‘Still, you obviously didn’t play too hard to get since I’ve moved in with you already. In fact,’ he went on with one of his swift, sidelong grins, ‘I think you’d better just admit it! You couldn’t resist me, could you?’

She hated his habit of being right about things like that. It would sound odd if she was claiming to be keeping her distance when Gib had apparently moved into her house barely a week after she had supposedly met him.

‘I suppose we’d better say I was swept off my feet,’ she agreed stiffly.

Gib’s eyes rested thoughtfully for a moment on her averted profile before he looked back at the road. ‘What would it take to do that, Phoebe?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘It’s never happened to me. I always knew I loved Ben, so it wasn’t something that happened overnight. I can’t imagine ever doing anything as rash as falling in love with someone I don’t really know,’ she admitted. ‘I mean, being swept off your feet is all very well in theory, but in practice, how would you be able to trust a man who overwhelmed you and persuaded you into changing your life before you’d had a chance to think about what you were really doing?’

‘I thought you wanted to live dangerously?’

‘Not that dangerously,’ said Phoebe. ‘Falling in love like that seems like a sure way to get yourself hurt.’

Gib signalled and then moved out to overtake. ‘I think if you fell in love you might change your mind. If you really loved someone, you’d be prepared to take that risk.’

‘I’ve been in love,’ she said flatly. ‘I took that risk, and I got hurt. I’m not going through that again.’

There was silence for a while. Gib concentrated on driving, and Phoebe looked out of the side window and thought about Ben and the look in his eyes when he had told her that he had fallen in love with Lisa. He was the last person she had ever expected to hurt her. They had been so comfortable together, so gentle, so safe. She had thought that was what he had wanted too, but she had been wrong. Perhaps she hadn’t known him as well as she had thought.

And then for some reason she found herself remembering what she had said to Bella about Gib. It would be hard to find a man more different from Ben. Safe was the last word you would use about him! Phoebe could imagine him sweeping a girl off her feet all right. He was the type who saw what he wanted and went for it, and if what he wanted was you, you would have little choice in the matter, she thought with a tiny shiver. He would turn your life upside down, spin you around, subject you to a roller coaster of adrenalin and excitement—and then drop you back down to earth with a thump when he was bored and wanted to move on.