Kitabı oku: «One Night of Passion: The Night that Changed Everything / Champagne with a Celebrity / At the French Baron's Bidding», sayfa 2

Her knees wobbled. Nick held her closer still.

“I’m not a very good dancer,” she apologized, trying to straighten and pull back.

But Nick didn’t let go. “I’m enjoying it. Best part of the evening so far.” His voice was a purr in her ear. The vibration sent a tingle all the way down her spine. And her brain leaped ahead, going exactly where she didn’t want it to go.

So far?

How far was he expecting it to go?

“Now what?” he murmured as he must have felt her stiffen in his arms.

Edie gave a little shake of her head. “Nothing. I … I’m fine. I just thought of something.”

“You need to stop thinking.” She could hear the smile in his voice and as he turned his head, she thought she felt his lips against her hair. The shiver was back, sliding down her spine.

What on earth was wrong with her?

She hadn’t felt like this in years. Hadn’t felt the least flicker of interest in a man since Ben.

Her mother’s insistence that she “get back on the horse” had fallen on deaf ears because she didn’t feel any need to. And she refused to force things. But this wasn’t forced. It was entirely in-voluntary—and very very compelling as Nick steered her closer to the orchestra. The music enveloped her, wrapping her in a ridiculous Cinderella fantasy.

Danger! her sensible self whispered.

But her dancing self, her wiggling-toes self, countered just as quickly: as long as she knew it was a fantasy, where was the harm?

It wasn’t as if she believed in fairy-tale endings.

She’d learned at eighteen when heartthrob actor, Kyle Robbins, had broken her heart that fairy tales were fantasies, that real life romances didn’t end in happily ever after. And if she’d dared to think that her marriage to Ben disproved that, well, she had only to remember the devastation of losing him.

So, she knew you couldn’t count on happily ever after. She was immune.

So go ahead, she told herself. Take it for what it is—a few minutes of enjoyment. It won’t last, but who cares? It’s one dance, one night. Nothing more.

For the first time tonight her brain and her feet were in agreement. She smiled up at Nick Savas, wiggled her toes and gave herself over to the dance.

Nick Savas didn’t do weddings.

Hadn’t in years.

He hadn’t wanted to come to this one, either. But when you were the cousin of the groom, on the one hand, and were currently restoring a wing of the bride’s family’s castle, on the other, you knew you didn’t have a choice.

There was no way he could have continued working right through the royal wedding day—even though he would have preferred it. He didn’t want to watch another happy couple make vows to each other for the rest of their lives. He didn’t want to see the way they looked at each other with hope in their eyes and dreams in their hearts. Maybe it was selfish—all right, it damned well was selfish—but he didn’t want to witness other people getting what he’d been denied.

Ever since his fiancée, Amy, had died two days before their own wedding, he’d turned his back on all that.

Savas weddings were particularly to be avoided not just because he would have to watch another of his cousins plight their troth, but because every single relative there seemed to consider it their responsibility to point out eligible women for him to meet. To marry.

Nick had no interest in marrying anyone.

No one seemed to get that. So ordinarily he took care to be on a different continent. But working on Mont Chamion’s castle, meant he was here today. He’d had no choice.

“It will be lovely,” his aunt Malena had assured him yesterday afternoon. “I think Gloria is bringing two of Philip’s assistants. They’re both young and unmarried,” she added brightly, confirming his worst fears.

“Oh, yes,” his aunt Ophelia gushed. “There will be lots of absolutely gorgeous women. You can take your pick.”

But Nick didn’t want his pick. So he’d arrived at the last minute, then sat in the back, avoiding the myriad Savas aunts, uncles and cousins, who, seeing him in attendance, would put one and one together. It was what they did. They couldn’t help it. They had an ark mentality—the world was best arranged by twos.

Nick didn’t dispute that. Hell, he absolutely believed it.

But there was no “best” for him anymore. Never would be.

When he heard the priest intone, “Do you take this woman …” his throat had tightened.

He shut his mind off, determinedly focusing instead on the various cherubim and seraphim floating above the congregation, studying them as if he were going to be tested on them which, once up on a time he had been, in a course on period architectural detail.

These were mid-seventeenth century from the look of them. Very baroque. Bernini would have been right at home.

“I now pronounce you man and wife.”

Nick breathed a sigh of relief.

He would have escaped then, except his uncle Orestes had latched on to him before he could, determined to talk to him to see if he wouldn’t like to come and restore the moldering gazebo on his Connecticut property.

At least it hadn’t been an offer to introduce him to the new office girl. Silently Nick had counted his blessings as he went along the receiving line, congratulated his cousin, Demetrios, and kissed the glowing bride.

After the dinner, which he had contrived to eat in the company of his uncle Philip’s triplet daughters because no one could expect him to be interested in them, he had propped himself against a wall near the dance floor where conversation would be difficult and no one would suggest that he dance.

He’d been counting the minutes until he could politely leave, when an eager young blonde had latched on to him.

“Rhiannon Evans,” she’d announced breathlessly. And she’d looked at him as if expecting him to know who she was.

She was young, definitely stunning and determinedly sparkling. “I’m an actress,” she’d explained, forgiving him because he admitted he didn’t know the first thing about movies. Wasn’t really interested. Didn’t watch them.

He should, she’d told him. He could start with hers.

She was getting billing now—”though still below the title,” she admitted—and bigger and better parts. She told him she was serious about her craft and that she didn’t want to be known simply for being beautiful—she said this last with no self-consciousness whatsoever—but for being good at her work.

There was an edge to her bright girlish chatter. Nick was well-versed in female body language and he could see she had An Agenda.

First there was the hand on his arm, then hers somehow linked around his. She leaned into him. She patted his lapel, then touched his cheek.

“I’m determined not to ride on my mother’s coattails, either.” And that was when he’d learned she was Mona Tremayne’s daughter.

At least he knew who Mona was.

Nick doubted there was a male breathing who hadn’t fantasized about Mona Tremayne at some point in his life—her early sex goddess movies had seen to that. Heaven knew as a young man he had, even if she was nearly old enough to be his mother.

He’d met her a few days ago at a dinner Demetrios had hosted. She’d been without her daughter then, thank God. Mona was still strikingly beautiful, still worthy of fantasies if he’d been so inclined. She was also warm and friendly, interested in what he was doing at the palace.

When she learned he was here not for the wedding, but to oversee the restoration of part of the palace, she’d said, “You don’t do ranches, do you?”

“Never have.”

“You should consider it.” She’d smiled encouragingly. “I’ve got an old adobe on my property that needs to be restored before it crumbles back to primeval mud.”

He’d laughed. But because old buildings of any sort interested him he’d asked her a few questions, then offered to send her the names of some colleagues.

Rhiannon hadn’t been nearly as interesting. But as she kept on chattering. Nick contrived to look interested. At least she didn’t have marriage on her mind. He was sure of that.

There had been an edge of fragile desperation to her frenzied chatter, and the way her gaze roamed the room, he thought she was desperate for someone to see her with him.

He didn’t mind who saw them together. Nothing was happening.

Nothing was going to happen. And her presence kept the Savas matchmakers at bay.

Finally she paused and focused on him. “What do you do?” she asked.

And so he told her—at length—about architectural renovation and restoration. Served her right, he thought, for pawing him. It was clear that she didn’t care a whit. She had other things on her mind.

So he droned on about beams and joists, about weight-bearing walls, about matching the plaster using original techniques. He talked about dry rot and rising damp and wormy floorboards—which in the interest of her further education, he offered to show her as he was currently engaged in pulling up some in the palace’s east tower. He’d even gone so far as to say he’d taken a bedroom there so he could continue to work on the wormy floorboards at all hours.

He’d figured he might bore her enough that she’d go find someone more inclined to take her up on what she seemed to have in mind. Or maybe the suggestion would scare her off.

In fact, that was when she’d run her hand down his lapel, looked dreamily up into his eyes and told him how much she’d “simply adore” coming to his bedroom to see the renovations.

Nick began to think it might be a better idea to dance with her—and step on her toes.

But it hadn’t come to that.

He’d been saved. By Edie Daley.

A less likely savior would have been hard to imagine. A less likely sister to the ethereally beautiful Rhiannon was hard to imagine, too.

They looked nothing alike. Though Nick supposed he could detect the Mona Tremayne cheekbones in both her daughters’ faces. But the similarity ended there. Where Rhiannon determinedly emphasized those bones with makeup, Edie did nothing to highlight them at all.

The little makeup she wore seemed more designed to cover up than accentuate. Though he suspected that what she was covering up were freckles.

He thought he would prefer the freckles.

He certainly preferred her flashing gray-green eyes and tart tongue to her sister’s blue eyes and breathless babbling. Edie didn’t charm, she didn’t flatter. She didn’t paw, either. She kept her distance.

And she got right to the business at hand, which was clearly making sure that her sister had nothing to do with him. Used to having women thrown at his head, Nick found Edie’s portrayal of a determined mother hen, intent on extracting her chick from danger, oddly appealing. Her words to her sister, though, revealed that she understood that Nick was not the entire source of the danger. Clearly she realized that her sister was capable of disaster with very little help at all.

Nick didn’t envy whoever Rhiannon’s fiancé was. The poor guy would have his hands full with her—which made Edie’s ability to direct her back onto the straight and narrow all the more impressive. Obviously she was a woman to be reckoned with.

She had presence. And character.

While she may not have had the perfect ageless features of her mother or the ethereal beauty of her younger sister, Edie had the kind of bone structure a camera would love, as well as the liveliest eyes he’d ever seen.

Nick liked lively eyes. He liked her take-charge, no-nonsense personality. He liked the fact that she was intent on backing away from him.

It made him want to get closer.

And once her sister had disappeared, Nick stopped trying to think of ways to escape the reception and instead tried to find ways to keep Edie Daley talking.

For the first time he began to enjoy himself as he drew her out, got her talking, even teased her a bit. She responded, then backed off. He didn’t want her backing off.

So he asked her to dance.

The request probably shocked him more than it had her. Nick didn’t dance. Hadn’t for years.

The last woman he’d danced with had been Amy, three nights before their wedding, the night before she’d died. He’d danced with Amy and it had been the last time he’d held her in his arms.

It wasn’t the same, he assured himself. Nothing like the same.

This was a one-off, a turn around the dance floor with a pretty, vivacious woman. He was at a wedding, for God’s sake. Dancing was expected! Just because he hadn’t done it in eight years … It meant nothing.

Dancing was only moving your feet to music. Hardly something to hold sacred. He should have done it years ago, would have if it had ever occurred to him.

So he was shocked again when Edie said no.

In all his thirty-three years Nikolas Savas had never been turned down for a dance—which was undoubtedly why he’d demanded, “Why not?”

Her unexpected, yet honest answer had made him laugh. Her feet hurt.

No woman he’d ever met—not even Amy—had actually admitted that those stupid pointy-toed shoes women wore hurt their feet.

When he’d knelt to ease hers off, they were so tight he couldn’t believe she’d even got them on. He wasn’t surprised when she’d said they belonged to her sister. No wonder she didn’t want to dance. It was astonishing she could even walk.

But once he’d freed her feet and tossed the offending footwear under the table—so she wouldn’t dare crawl under and rescue them—she let him take her into his arms and swirl her onto the dance floor.

It was like riding a bike. Once you learned how to dance, you never forgot.

But it wasn’t like dancing with Amy.

Amy had been tiny, the top of her head barely reaching his shoulder. Edie’s nose would have bumped his chin if she’d come that close. She didn’t. She kept her distance and periodically glanced down at her stocking-clad toes.

So did he. They charmed him. She seemed shocked by them. Shocked to be dancing with him.

But she moved well, except for the fact that every once in a while she would stiffen and start to pull away.

When she did, he drew her closer, enjoying the feel of her soft breasts against his chest, of the silky dark hair that brushed his jaw when she turned her head. He brushed his lips against her hair.

She stiffened again. “Are you staring?”

No, that wasn’t what he was doing. He grinned. “No.”

“You are, too. You’re ogling my feet.”

He laughed and pulled her even closer. “There. Now I can’t see them. Better?”

“Er, um,” she muttered into the wool of his lapel. He felt her body stiffen again, but she didn’t pull away. And seconds later, the tension seemed to ease, her body settled against his as they moved together.

Much better, he decided. Except that his body was becoming increasingly aware of how very appealing she was. Nick might have sworn off the idea of marrying after Amy’s death, but he hadn’t sworn off sex.

And thoughts of taking Edie Daley to bed were very appealing.

She seemed to fit in his arms, and as they moved together, he rested his cheek on her hair. She had amazing hair, not at all like the straight platinum curtain Rhiannon wore. Edie’s was thick and dark and wavy. He suspected it had started out the evening tamed by a pair of gold hair clips just above her ears. But it was a long while since those clips had done their job. Even as she danced, her hair was escaping, curling wildly with a life of its own.

He wanted to thread his fingers through it, bury his face in it. He imagined what it would look like spread out against the sheets. He began to consider again how to get her there when the last strains of the waltz died away and the orchestra segued into something louder, faster and with a pounding of drums, which matched the thrum of his blood coursing through his veins.

“Well,” Edie said, abruptly drawing back and pulling her hand out of his. “That was nice.”

Nice? Nick stared at her, jolted.

She nodded, dimpling as she smiled. “Very nice. Thank you for the dance.” There was something almost impishly polite in her tone, as if she knew the effect she was having on him—and wasn’t going to even give him a chance to try his moves.

But Nick wasn’t going to give up without an effort.

“I can do better than nice,” he promised, holding out his hand, silently urging her to take it, to come with him.

Resolutely Edie shook her head. “Thank you, but no. And it isn’t impolite to refuse a second dance,” she informed him before he could claim otherwise.

“How about a glass of wine? We can sit this one out.”

But again she shook her head. “It’s been a pleasure, Mr. Savas. Thank you for being kind to my sister. And thank you for the dance. I … enjoyed it.”

Had he heard an infinitesimal hesitation in her words? Before Nick could decide, Edie held out her hand and shook his politely. “Good night.”

No!

He didn’t say it. Blessedly his mouth stayed firmly shut. But a thousand things ran through his mind that he might say to stop her, to prolong the moment, to keep her there.

That he wanted to so badly surprised him. He wasn’t used to feeling any such compulsion. Didn’t want to feel it.

Bedding her, yes, he’d like to do that. But just keep her there to talk to him? There was no point.

So he tucked his hands into his trouser pockets and nodded.

“Good night, Ms. Daley,” he said equally politely. “Thank you for the dance.”

She turned away. But as she did so, he couldn’t resist. “If you ever do want to see the architectural renovations in my bedroom, Ms. Daley …”

She spun back, her eyes flashing green fire.

Nick’s heart kicked over. He turned on his best millionmegawatt come-hither grin. Edie turned and, with a toss of her head, disappeared into the milling dancing crowd.

Only when the crowd had swallowed her up did he turn away. He felt oddly flat.

He should have gone back to his room then. It was nearly midnight. He’d done his duty. Showed up. Even danced. No one would remark on his vanishing now.

But he didn’t go. He prowled the edges of the dance floor, restless and out of sorts. Edgy. Hungry. And not for food. His body was still aware of how neatly Edie Daley had fit into his arms.

“Damn it.” Abruptly he turned and asked the nearest unattached female for a dance.

Why not? He’d danced once tonight already. It was just more of the same.

But it wasn’t the same. This woman was nothing like Edie Daley.

She didn’t settle into his arms with a reluctance that gave way to rightness. She plastered herself against him, locked her fingers together behind his neck and nibbled on his jaw. She didn’t so much dance as slither and move against him until at last the music ended and Nick was finally able to peel her off again.

“Another?” she murmured.

“No.” He’d had enough. More than. “I’m done dancing,” he said firmly, though years of having good manners drilled into him made him try to look regretful as he stepped away. “I’m calling it a night.”

Even as he did so, someone’s hand touched his arm from behind. “I’m glad to hear it,” an unexpected female voice said.

Nick spun around—and stared with shock into Edie Daley’s gray-green eyes. She linked her arm firmly through his and gave him a blinding smile. “Because I’ve just decided that I’d love to see those architectural renovations.”

Chapter Two

NICK’S brows shot up. So did his heartbeat. And the spark of interest that had vanished when she had was back in spades.

But even as his libido was in favor of her suggestion, his brain was saying, Hang on a minute.

“Change your mind?” he asked her, careful not to sound too eager even though he damned well was.

Edie’s smile, if possible, grew brighter. “Yes.” Her voice was firm and clear. No hesitation at all. But he spotted a glitter in her eyes that he hadn’t seen before. And was that a bit of her sister’s desperation in her tone? He narrowed his gaze on her.

Her lashes flickered rapidly. Her smile amped up a bit more. Yes, this was desperation. And defiance, too. He could see that now. But exactly who or what had inspired it, he had no idea.

Carefully he let out a breath, drew another as he studied her from her flyaway hair to the tips of her stocking-clad toes. He wanted to take the stockings off those toes.

Would she let him?

Whatever was going on, taking her to his bedroom couldn’t be a bad thing. Could it?

Nick guessed he’d find out.

Putting his hand over hers, he smiled down at her. “By all means.” Then he turned to the blonde he’d danced with, the one who was still standing there and whom he’d completely forgotten about. “Thank you for the dance,” he said to her politely. “Good night.”

Then he laced Edie’s fingers through his and started to lead her back to where they’d first met.

“The door is that way.” Edie was practically dragging her feet.

“Shoes,” he said and dived beneath the table. The miserable things were still there. He grabbed them and rose again, then slanted Edie a glance.

“You don’t want to wear them, do you?”

She laughed, but it was a more brittle laugh than she’d shared with him before. Something had indeed happened. “I certainly don’t,” she said.

Nick tucked the shoes in his coat pockets so only the spiky mauve heels protruded. Then he offered her his arm. With no hesitation at all, Edie linked her arm through his and walked, head held high, along beside him, her bearing more regal than the queen of Mont Chamion.

Her posture was stiff and far more tense than when they’d danced, and she didn’t speak again. But Nick knew better than to ask about it now. Edie kept her gaze straight ahead until they had nearly reached the door.

Then, near the door they came upon Mona and the small but inevitable knot of men clustered around her. Edie barely glanced their way, but she turned her gaze on him, focused a melting smile right at him and fluttered her lashes.

Nick almost laughed. He did smile at raised brows on Mona’s face. There was a look of surprise and something else—consternation?—on Edie’s mother’s face. Whatever had sparked Edie’s return, it had something to do with her mother.

Or, Nick realized as Mona said something to the man standing next to her who was staring at Edie and frowning, did it have something to do with him?

He was about Nick’s age, fair-haired and handsome in a young Robert Redford sort of way. Familiar looking, but Nick couldn’t put a name on him.

An actor, no doubt. Actor friends of Demetrios’s were thick on the ground tonight.

This one transformed his frown into an engaging grin and stepped forward to intercept them as they approached. “Edie! Long time no see. I was so glad when Mona said you were here.”

Edie’s fingers tensed against his arm, but she smiled, too. “Not here for long,” she said, still moving. “We’re just leaving.”

“But we haven’t danced.”

She kept smiling, but Nick could see it was tight. “Nice to see you again, Kyle. Good night.”

“I’ll see you in the morning, then,” the man called Kyle said.

But they were already past him and headed toward the door when Edie said brightly to Nick in tones that were certainly loud enough to be overheard, “Which wing is your room in?”

Nick didn’t think he imagined the sound of several people sucking air behind them. His own brows arched, but he said cheerfully, “I’ll show you,” gave her a melting smile for good measure and held the door so she could sail through it ahead of him.

Only when the door closed behind them did Edie seem to sag. But almost at once she pulled herself up straight and tall again, and kept right on walking until they’d left the reception area totally and were in one of the long walnut-paneled corridors. There at last she stopped and took a deep breath, then looked up at him.

“Thank you,” she said, all her previous brightness gone. But the brittle tone had vanished, too.

Nick liked that. “My pleasure.” She looked pale suddenly and he said, “Do you need to sit down?”

She gave him a wan smile, but shook her head. “I’m all right.”

Still she looked rattled. Not at all like the Edie Daley who had come running to defend her baby sister. “What am I missing?” he asked her.

She looked down at her feet, then rubbed the bottom of one stocking-clad foot against the top of the other. They looked as vulnerable as she did. He wondered if she was going to deny that he was missing anything.

But at last she looked up at him and made a wry face. “My mother’s heavy-handed attempt at matchmaking, I fear.”

“The blond guy with the hundred-dollar haircut?”

Edie looked startled, then sighed and nodded. “Yes.”

“You’re not interested in him?” Nick was surprised how glad he was to hear it.

“No!” she said with a force that indicated more than indifference. She seemed to realize it because she muttered, “I’m not. I was just—I was afraid she’d try something like this.”

“She being your mother?”

Edie nodded.

“She often sets you up?”

“She hints.”

“And you don’t like that?” He supposed she had a right to dislike matchmaking relatives as much as he did. But most women he knew welcomed the meddling. “Matchmaking is a bad thing?”

“Yes, it is,” Edie said flatly. She didn’t elaborate at first, and he thought she was going to change the subject. But then she sighed, “She thinks I need to start dating again.”

“Again?” Nick prompted when she didn’t explain.

There was another pause, as if she were deciding how much to say. Finally she looked around, then back at him and said impatiently, “Where are these architectural renovations?”

His brows lifted. “You really want to see them?”

“Do they really exist? Or were you flirting with my sister?”

“They really exist. And I wasn’t flirting with your sister. Coming to see them was her idea.”

“But you invited me—”

“I was flirting with you.” And not giving her a chance to respond, not waiting to see what her reaction to that actually was, Nick grasped her hand in his and led her toward the tower.

She didn’t speak as they walked, and Nick didn’t say anything, either. He was too busy trying to assess the situation, trying to decide if she had been merely using him to avoid an unpleasant confrontation, no more no less? Or had she been angling for something else considerably more intimate.

He knew which he would prefer.

What she wanted he guessed he’d find out, he thought as he stopped and unlocked the east tower wing door. There was no one else staying in it but him so he’d only left a few lights burning, and the hall was cast in gloom when he pushed open the heavy door.

Edie paused at the entrance to peer into the shadows.

“Having second thoughts?” Nick asked. He wouldn’t have blamed her.

But she took a quick breath. “No.” There was a moment’s pause and then she turned her head and met his gaze. “Are you?”

The question caught Nick off guard.

He’d slept with other women since Amy’s death. It had been eight years, after all, and he had never claimed he would be a monk.

But it hadn’t meant anything. Not the way it had with Amy. It was an itch he scratched. But only with women who considered it the same way he did.

He looked intently at the woman beside him now and wondered how Edie Daley considered it—she who wasn’t even dating. That was when he realized that she was still looking at him, waiting for an answer.

Quickly Nick cleared his throat. “No,” he said just as firmly as she had.

Edie smiled. It wasn’t the smile she’d given her mother or the man named Kyle. It wasn’t the brittle smile she’d given him when she’d reappeared and taken his arm. It was the smile he’d coaxed out of her before they’d danced—a genuine smile, he thought, and one that wasn’t reluctant. It sent a shaft of desire right through him.

He wanted more of those smiles. More of her.

“Let me show you my renovations,” he said, and he began to talk about the structure of the building. Several sentences later he realized that she was staring at him, wide-eyed, and he stopped. “What?”

“You really know all this stuff?” She sounded amazed.

Nick laughed. “It’s what I do. My job. Why I’m here.”

“I thought … the wedding …”

“I didn’t come for the wedding. I came to restore the east tower.”

And suddenly the smile he’d been hoping for lit her face. “How wonderful,” she exclaimed. “Show me. Tell me everything.”

He thought she might just be being polite, but as he turned on more lights and walked her through the main rooms, which were already finished, all the time telling her about the history of the place, explaining when it had originally been built and which parts were added on later, she asked eager, interested questions.

She didn’t endure his lecture as her sister had done, but demanded to know more. Of course, to be fair, he’d deliberately droned on when he’d described his work to Rhiannon. He took pains to interest her sister.

But it wasn’t long before he realized he needn’t have bothered. Edie was clearly interested in the castle and in the work he’d done on it. She had studied history in college, she told him. She’d thought she might be a teacher.

“A teacher? Far cry from being your mother’s business manager, isn’t it?”

Her lips twisted. “One of those times when life happened while I was making other plans.”

What plans? Nick wondered, but he didn’t ask as there was something in the expression on her face that told him to leave it alone. So instead he asked, “Did you ever want to go into acting?”

She shook her head. “Never. That’s not my world.”

“But you work in it every day.”

“In the business part of things. Not the glitz and glamour part. Not the movie star bit,” she said adamantly.

“You don’t like the ‘movie star bit’?”