Two Weddings and a Baby Read Online Free

for Christmas and she had told him that he was too short to be a grown-up. She was eleven at the time.
    Somehow in Paris it didn’t matter; in actual fact it was almost a positive in her profession to say exactly the wrong thing to the wrong person at the wrong time. Within the design community she had developed quite the reputation for her cutting wit, ruthless efficiency and determination not to mince words. What no one, not even Bernard, had guessed about the Englishwoman who had somehow infiltrated the heart of the French fashion scene, was that none of it was by design. Tamsyn just had a habit of saying the first thing that came into her head and, as yet, at the age of twenty-nine, it wasn’t a trait she had managed to grow out of. So, although she was always honest, often insightful, it was only Tamsyn who knew that her reputation as the ‘
Reine de Glace anglaise’
, who must never be crossed, was entirely accidental.
    As the rain ran down the back of her neck, she tucked her chin into the collar of her coat and allowed herself the briefest of moments to ponder on Bernard and what he would be up to now, right now, before deciding that it was probably best not to dwell on it. They had been ‘together’ for eleven months, since the night he had told her all her designs were ‘
épouvantable
’ – dreadful – swept them off the pattern-cutting table and her into a passionate embrace. Tamsyn, who had been raised never to let any man assume such rights over her person, had punched him very hard on the nose and broken it. To his credit, in between howling in agony, Bernard had found it all very funny. He had apologised to Tamsyn as she’d taken him to a private hospital, to have his nose reset, without any fuss. He told her he wasn’t in the habit of pouncing on women the way he had on her, and that he deserved her reaction. The flashing fury in her eyes had just been impossible to resist. Tamsyn had accepted his apology, because in that particular city it was impossible to keep a secret, and if Bernard had been a serial philanderer who preyed on the many much younger and more beautiful women he worked with on a daily basis, she would have known it. It seemed that his philandering was more sporadic and always consenting.
    As Tamsyn had dropped him off at his apartment in the early hours of the morning, he’d asked her very sweetly if he might kiss her, and she had allowed it. And it turned out that Bernard, as challenging as he was as a boss, was an exceptionally good lover. So Tamsyn, whose love life up until that point could largely be summarised under the heading ‘nothing special’, had considered telling him where to go for about five seconds only. Another five seconds after that and she knew she was smitten.
    Their affair could have been construed as inappropriate in the work place, of course, but Bernard had a talent for being beguiling at exactly the same moment that he was being infuriating. So despite the lack of any sort of courtship, Tamsyn had found herself very happy to be engaged in a romantic liaison with Bernard du Mont Père. The fact that Bernard insisted on keeping it a secret meant it had that extra frisson of excitement.
    In the last eleven months, Tamsyn had learnt that the secret to sustaining her relationship with Bernard was never to let him see that she cared one bit about it, a trick she was rather good at as she had spent much of her life pretending not to care about anything. And as for her success coming from her association with him, well, if anything the opposite was true. So far not one of her designs had made it to the catwalk, as it was mainly the business and PR side of things Bernard let her handle, although he did sometimes let her have a belt buckle, or a pocket, in one of his designs if he was feeling very generous. And Tamsyn didn’t have a problem accepting that; it took a long time to get to the top in the fashion industry, and she’d rather pay her dues than think