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Any protest caught in her throat as he leant towards her and she knew he was going to kiss her. She closed her eyes, wanting it, and felt the warmth of his breath on her cheek. Then suddenly the shril sound of a police siren brought them both back to their senses. Riona’s eyes flew open to catch a look of anger cross his face before he reached out and took Rory from her, muttering, ‘Dress yourself.’

Riona did so, clumsily, now embarrassed by the whole incident. It was his fault. He should have kept his distance. Yet she was the one left feeling guilty.

They waited in silence for Stevens and Gloria, who were now having their lunch in the restaurant. Cameron continued to hold Rory, al owing him to

pul on his silk tie, then giving him a set of keys to jangle. Although he wasn’t demonstrative, Riona sensed Cameron’s growing affection for his son. She looked away, detaching herself from the scene. They might seem the perfect, happy family, but it was a sham.

When the others returned, Cameron instructed Stevens to drive to the public gardens, explaining to her, ‘I thought Gloria might walk Rory in the

gardens while we shopped for clothes.’

‘I have clothes,’ Riona stated stubbornly.

‘Yes, wel ...’ he slid a critical eye over her denim blouse and loose cotton skirt ‘... clothes more suitable for your position.’

‘Position? Position as what?’ she chal enged scornful y.

‘My fiancée, natural y,’ he declared in leaden tones.

Riona gave an inelegant snort of laughter. Did he real y think dressing her up was going to fool anyone?

‘I’m glad one of us is finding the situation amusing,’ he responded icily, and Riona wondered once again what had happened to the warm, witty

Cameron who had been able to laugh at himself in Invergair.

‘I just don’t see any point in pretending,’ she sighed back, ‘when everyone’s going to know why you’re marrying me. Dressing me up like a Barbie

dol won’t make any difference. I stil won’t be your sort.’

His lips thinned even more. ‘Real y? And what do you imagine is “my sort”?’

‘I didn’t mean yours specifical y.’ She wondered if he was deliberately misunderstanding her. He must know what she was getting at. ‘I meant your

family’s and friends’ sort. Wel connected. Right schools. Al the social graces. Rich!’ Her tone told him she wasn’t any of these—and didn’t wish to be.

‘Wel , if that’s my sort, too,’ he threw back at her, ‘then would you like to explain what I was doing with you?’

Riona had no difficulty answering that one. She’d worked it out on her own a while ago. ‘The truth? We both know it. Basical y, Cameron, you were

slumming it.’

His face went into even tighter lines, but he didn’t deny it. Instead he pointed out, ‘If you think that, you don’t have too high an opinion of yourself either.’

‘On the contrary,’ she retorted, her voice haughty as she could make it, ‘I think myself and my people better than you and yours. We just don’t need to dress up and have flash cars and throw big parties to prove it.’

‘You just have to be as proud as the devil, is that it?’ Cameron suggested in ironical tones, but some of his annoyance seemed to have faded.

‘I’m not proud,’ Riona claimed, sounding every inch of it.

‘Yeah,’ Cameron agreed, ‘and Reagan wasn’t President.’

Riona opened her mouth to argue back, but found no response. He had the last word, and his own way, as the car stopped and, not waiting for

Stevens to open their door, he literal y pul ed her out of the back seat.

‘Three hours, back here,’ he instructed Stevens briefly, then, keeping tight hold of Riona’s hand, walked away from the gardens towards a street

lined with shops.

‘What about Rory?’ she protested, almost tripping to keep up with him.

‘Rory wil be fine,’ he dismissed. ‘I didn’t just pick Gloria at random. She hopes to train as a nanny, and I think you can be sure she knows the

basics. You’ve been with her al morning. Have you any reason to think differently?’ he chal enged mid-stride.

Riona had to shake her head. Not only was she a nice girl, but Gloria had proved herself kind and competent in her handling of Rory.

‘Right, let’s go, because I have to get back to the office some time,’ he informed her, before marching her up to the first of several boutiques on Newbury Street. The shop front screamed exclusiveness, the window containing three lifelike dummies draped in silks and chiffons, dresses she couldn’t imagine herself wearing in a thousand years.

Cameron, however, pul ed her inside and, when an assistant materialised to offer her help, he asked if she could select any day and evening dresses that might suit his companion. It seemed Riona wasn’t going to be al owed to choose for herself.

The sales assistant politely looked her up and down and asked her size.

No sooner had she said, ‘Twelve’, when Cameron contradicted her with, ‘Ten. US sizes are different.’

‘Oh.’ Riona wondered how he knew this. He seemed so at home in the dress shop that it suggested this wasn’t his first experience of buying clothes

for a woman.

The assistant, at any rate, decided Cameron was the customer and proceeded to consult him exclusively. When she pul ed out a selection of dresses

and complementary underwear, he was the one to say, ‘Yes. No. No. Yes. Yes.’

Al Riona had to do was try them on. She resented it at first, but vanity final y got the better of her. How could it not, when she looked in the mirror and saw not a girl but a woman in a black silk slip dress that made her pleased for the first time that she had a figure that curved in al the right places? And wasn’t it only natural to wonder if she could rival the beautiful Melissa in a dress like this?

She walked out of the changing-room. Suddenly shy, she didn’t look in Cameron’s direction. The assistant led her over to a ful -sized mirror and

Riona stared at her reflection once more, only now doubts crept in about her appearance, especial y when there was no comment from Cameron.

It was the assistant who assured her, ‘This dress is stunning on you, miss, simply stunning. Don’t you think so, sir? She could be a young Kathleen Turner.’

Even Riona knew Kathleen Turner was an American actress, although she wasn’t quite sure what she looked like. At any rate, Cameron seemed in

no hurry to agree with the assistant.

He came to stand behind Riona and she saw his reflection in the mirror. His eyes ran over the dress before meeting hers in the glass. They stared

hard at each other for a moment while the assistant discreetly disappeared into the background. Riona shivered, not because of the dress, but because of the coldness she read in his gaze.

‘She’s right,’ he final y said. ‘The dress transforms you. From country girl to sophisticated beauty in one easy move,’ he added with a thin smile.

Riona did not smile back. She did not feel complimented.

‘If you don’t like it,’ she answered flatly, ‘don’t buy it.’

‘On the contrary—’ his eyes ran down her length once more ‘—most men would desire you in such a dress and admire me for being the one who

possesses you.’

He spoke quietly into her ear, mindful of the assistant. Riona managed, just, to keep her voice down as she hissed back, ‘You don’t possess me.’

‘I know that,’ he said, even as he laid a possessive hand on her waist, ‘but other men don’t. They’l think I’m lucky marrying so beautiful a girl.’

‘And you? What do you think?’ Riona asked, her heart missing a beat as his fingers spread towards her abdomen.

His eyes caught hers in the mirror again. ‘Once I would have thought myself the luckiest man alive.’

Last summer, he meant, and for a brief moment Riona felt herself spun back in time. How he had seemed to love her then. And how she’d loved

him. If only...

He pul ed her back against him and she did not resist. Voices in the background faded. Everything faded but Cameron. She wanted to turn in his

arms, to tel him there was stil a chance.

Only he destroyed it as he muttered, ‘That was before I wised up, of course,’ then pushed her away from him.

She shut her eyes. He’d just been playing with her, trying to hurt her, succeeding.

‘We’l take it,’ he informed the assistant, and, when Riona walked back towards the changing-room, suggested coldly, ‘Try the green one next.’

Later Riona wished she’d rebel ed; at the time she’d felt too defeated. She’d put on the clothes he’d suggested and al owed him to decide which to

buy. She didn’t care. She’d lost al pleasure in her new appearance. Fine clothes hadn’t altered his low opinion of her.

She fol owed him from shop to shop, let him make his selection, and said nothing when he either accepted or rejected what she was wearing.

It took them a mere three hours to purchase three evening dresses, appropriate underwear, six smart daytime outfits that might also be worn at

dinner, a col ection of heeled shoes in various colours, and some more casual clothes—silk shirts and trousers, and sweat-shirts and jeans, but with designer labels. No mention was made of cost. He simply arranged for any alterations required, signed for them, and requested delivery when they acquired too much to carry home.

‘You’l need more,’ Cameron announced as they walked back down Newbury Street. ‘I’l try to take some time off at the end of the week.’

Riona shook her head. ‘No, it’s al right. You’ve bought me enough. It’s not as if I’l be in Boston that long.’

‘No,’ he agreed shortly, ‘but, when you return to Invergair, people wil expect you to dress up to your new role there.’

Riona made a slight face. She equated ‘dressing up’ to putting on airs, and she knew that would make her less than popular with her old neighbours.

They’d not forget she was once just old Roddy Macleod’s granddaughter—and, if she had any sense, neither would she.

But she didn’t argue with him. Her mind was on Rory now. They approached the car to find him once again dozing in the back seat, and she

released the breath she’d been subconsciously holding from the moment she’d left him.

They drove back to Harcourt Adams, where Cameron got out of the car; it was already past five in the afternoon, but it seemed he intended to

return to work. He left her with a brief, ‘See you at dinner. Perhaps you could wear one of your new outfits.’

The suggestion was polite enough but Riona’s face went into lines of resentment. He had bought al these clothes for her so she’d be presentable to his family and friends. She felt like a dol he was dressing up, only to ultimately discard.

Yet she seemed to have lost al her backbone as later she settled Rory for the night, then put on a white silk blouse and black skirt from her new

wardrobe. Both were beautiful y cut, and, with her hair drawn back into a French plait and her face careful y made up, she achieved a surprising

sophistication. She looked in the mirror and saw a different girl, someone she didn’t know. She felt less confident than ever when she went down to dinner.

Cameron wasn’t there, just his father, stepmother and the dreaded Melissa. They al stared as she walked into the lounge, and she felt as if she’d

stepped into enemy territory. She wanted to flee back upstairs and might have done so had Cameron’s father not stood up to greet her with a warm, ‘Riona, come in. Let’s have a look at you... You look absolutely beautiful,’ he declared, smiling widely as he admired her in her new clothes.

‘Thank you,’ Riona murmured shyly, not taking the compliment too seriously. Charles Adams was a nice man; he saw her lack of confidence and

wanted to make her feel better about herself.

Riona thought the women’s reactions were probably closer to the truth. Melissa Adams, dressed in a dark red silk dress that made her look exotic,

surveyed her for a moment, then pouted her mouth in dismissal of the simple outfit. Even in expensive clothes, she was obviously stil a nonentity to Melissa.

As for Barbara Adams, she just raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

In fact, the older woman said very little to Riona throughout dinner. While Charles Adams did his best to include their guest in conversation, his wife just stopped short of treating her as invisible. It was rude, but preferable to Melissa’s snide remarks and attempts to make Riona seem simple.

They were just starting the second course when Cameron materialised. Riona felt relieved at the sight of a familiar if scarcely friendly face. He sat at her side, where a place had already been set.

‘Sorry I’m late. I was attempting to clear my desk,’ he explained general y.

‘Not to worry, son. I’m sure Riona understands.’ Charles Adams clearly thought the apology was directed at her.

Riona smiled weakly, reluctant to play the devoted fiancée.

Melissa, however, wasn’t going to let her off so easily. ‘Do you? I wouldn’t have thought so.’

‘Melissa.’ Cameron raised a warning brow in her direction.

Melissa ignored it. ‘I mean, how can she understand? I wouldn’t have thought there were too many multi-mil ion-pound corporations among the peat

bogs and heather. Correct me if I’m wrong,’ she addressed Riona in a cloyingly sweet tone.

‘Not many, no,’ Riona confirmed shortly.

‘And presumably Cameron is the first high-powered executive you’ve—er—dated—if that isn’t a sil y word in the—um—circumstances,’ Melissa

drawled on.

‘A very sil y word.’ Cameron put in before Riona could think of a response. ‘So, Mel, if there’s a point to this, could we get to it? Then perhaps the rest of us could enjoy our dinner.’

‘Sourpuss.’ Melissa pul ed a playful face at him. ‘You don’t have to get so uptight. I was actual y sympathising with the poor girl.’

She could have fooled Riona.

And Cameron, it seemed, as he echoed, ‘You were?’

‘Wel , it must be hard for her—’ she sent Riona a pitying glance ‘—coming to terms with a completely new environment as wel as the expectations

you have of her as an executive wife.’

‘I have no expectations,’ Cameron claimed flatly.