Charley made herself walk forward, stingingly aware of how his hand remained exactly where it was this time—as if he were taunting her for her silly reaction to him. The first person her eyes focused on was Adelina’s mother, looking stunning in sparkling diamonds and unrelieved black.
"Oh, there you are, Charley," she said, hurrying towards them with an anxious expression threatening to ruin her perfectly made-up face.
"Damiano," she greeted, her dark eyes skimming warily over her future son-in-law’s face before she returned them to Charley. "I need a quick word with you, Cara," she begged.
‘Of course.’ Charley smiled, automatically softening her tone for this tiny, elegant woman whose nervous disposition made her worry about everything—and everything usually encompassed her beautiful daughter. "What’s Adelina done now?" she asked.
It was only when the man standing behind her said coolly, "Nothing, I hope," that she realized she’d spoken out of turn in front of him.
Carina Alonzo went pale. Charley got defensive on Adelina’s mother’s behalf because she’d noticed before that Carina was not comfortable in Dami’s presence.
"It was a joke," she said sharply—too sharply, given the sudden stillness she felt hit the man behind her and the flick of tension she felt play along the length of her spine until it gathered beneath the light pressure of his hand.
Next second, he was leaning past her to brush kisses onto Carina’s cheeks. Having to stand here, trapped between the hard warmth of his body and Carina’s delicate one, Charley felt a twinge of remorse because his gesture was so obviously offered as a gentle soothe to his future mother-in-law’s frazzled nerves.
"I will leave you both to—confide together," he murmured then, and his hand slid away from Charley’s back.
He strode away towards the bar to greet some friends, the loose-limbed elegance with which he moved holding Charley’s gaze, though she didn’t want it to.
"Charley, you have to tell me what’s wrong with Adelina," Carina Alonzo insisted, setting Charley’s eyelashes flickering as she moved them away from Dami. "She is behaving strangely, and I cannot seem to get a pleasant word out of her." She should be down here by now, standing with Damiano to greet their guests, but when I went to her suite after I knocked on your door, she wasn’t even dressed!
"She had a headache at lunch and went to her room to rest," Charley recalled with a frown. "Perhaps she fell asleep."
"Which would explain the rumpled bed," Adelina’s mother said tensely, "and the way she looked like she’d just fallen out of it and the way she snapped off my head!"
"Give her a few more minutes to get herself together," Charley suggested soothingly. "If she still hasn’t put in an appearance, I’ll go up and chivvy her on."
"In the bad mood she’s in, only you dare to do it, Cara," Adelina’s mother said tautly.
Not Adelina’s betrothed? Charley wondered dryly as she linked her arm through Mrs. Alonzo’s and led her back to where the rest of the guests were gathered. A few seconds later, she was being warmly greeted by Adelina’s father, Alberto, and introduced to a cousin of Adelina she hadn’t met before.
Estelio Alonzo was about her own age and blessed with the Alonzo family's dark good looks and a pair of laughing blue eyes. "So you’re Charlotte," he said. "I’ve been hearing a lot about you since I arrived here this afternoon."
‘Who from?’ Charley demanded.
"My dear cousin, of course." Estelio grinned. "Adelina insists you are the one person who saved her from a life of rebellion and wickedness when she had to leave Sydney to live in the UK and attend the "stuffiest school around."
Ah. "You’re one of the Sydney Alonzos," Charley realized. "I recognize the accent now."
"I used to be Adelina’s partner in crime before you took my place," he explained.
"You’re that cousin?" She laughed at him. "I’ve heard all about you too."
"That’s my pulling power shot to death." Estelio sighed.
A long, fluted glass of fizzing champagne appeared in front of Charley, and she glanced up as she accepted it to find Dami standing over her like some dark, towering giant.
"Oh, thank you," she murmured.
He just nodded his dark head, sent an acknowledging nod towards Estelio, and drifted away again, leaving Charley feeling—odd.
Then Estelio said something, and with a mental shrug, she pushed Dami De Santis to one side and wished to goodness he would stay there for good. The minutes wore on, the mezzanine bar slowly filled with guests, and still there was no sign of Adelina. Eventually people began to get restless, checking the time on their watches.
Charley’s gaze drifted toward Dami De Santis. He was standing apart from everyone else, talking into his cell phone, and I was not very happy by the stern look on his face.
Was he talking to Adelina? She would not be surprised because she’d seen him angered before by Adelina’s habit of always being late.
Well, get used to it, she told him silently as she watched him hag up the call and slide the phone into his jacket pocket. Adelina’s blithe lack of awareness of time and space was the constant bane of her mother’s and Charley’s lives. He could count himself lucky if she managed to show up on time at the church next week.
As the minutes dragged on, though, even Charley found she had to fight the need to keep checking her watch, and Carina Alonzo was sending her pleading looks. She was about to excuse herself to go and find out what Adelina was doing when there was a sudden stir in the lifts.
Everyone turned to look like one. The following silence held like a shaken heartbeat because there, at last, was Adelina, looking an absolute vision dressed in billowing gold silk. Her long, dark hair was up in a dramatically simple style that showed off the sweetness of her face and the slender length of her creamy, smooth neck. Diamonds sparkled at her ears and her throat.
Thread a tiara into her hair and she could be a princess, Charley thought fondly as eyes like huge pools of liquid dark chocolate scanned her audience, then her soft mouth took on an apologetic tilt.
"Sorry I’m so late, everyone," Adelina chanted quietly, and the mezzanine bar stirred to the sound of a beautifully directed indulgent response.
"That’s my brave girl," Charley thought she heard Estelio murmur beneath his breath, and she glanced at him sharply but saw nothing in his expression to warrant such a strange remark.
Then Dami was striding forward to take hold of Adelina’s slender fingers and lift them to his lips. Whatever he said to his betrothed brought a sheen to Adelina’s eyes and a vulnerable tremor to her oh, so beautiful mouth. He loves her; Charley realized that in that moment. An odd little sensation clutched at her chest. Frowning slightly, she turned away from the two lovers and was relieved to feel the sensation fade. They were ferried to the opera in a fleet of sleek limousines. Estelio Alonzo was obviously meant to partner her tonight, and he made her laugh, which made her relax more and more as the evening wore on. La Scala was fabulous, an experience Charley really enjoyed—mainly because she’d successfully managed to avoid being placed anywhere near her best friend’s disturbing fiancé. Afterwards, they moved on to have dinner in a beautiful sixteenth-century palazzo on the outskirts of Milan. It was all very stylish, very much a glimpse of how the richer half lived. There was d
"Oh, my God," Charley gasped in skin-quivering consternation. They weren’t even dancing any longer! And he was looking down at her with one of those dreadful mocking smiles tugging at the corners of his mouth! Dropping her eyes to his throat, Charley wished with all her pounding heart that the ground would just open up and swallow her whole. "I’m so sorry!" She whispered, stepping back from him so violently that she almost went over on the spindly heels of her shoes. "In truth, I was rather flattered by the compliment." His hand snaked out to steady her. Fortunately, I sensed it coming, which is why we are now standing outside on the terrace away from curious eyes... Outside—? Glancing dizzily around her, sure enough, Charley discovered that they were indeed standing on a shadowy terrace she had not even known was here! The realization hit as to how engrossed she must have been in him that he’d been able to maneuver her through a pair of open French windows out into the cooler ev
Estelio’s company in the car made the journey a whole lot easier for Charley because she could pretend to doze while he and Adelina talked. It vaguely occurred to her that the conversation was hushed and heated, but she assumed Adelina was keeping her promise to give him a hard time for the trick with the wine, so she didn’t listen.And anyway, she did have a headache, one of those dull, throbbing aches that came when you didn’t like yourself and knew the feeling was not going to change any time soon. When the two cousins decided to have a last drink in the bar before they went to their rooms, Charley made her escape and spent the night with her head stuffed beneath her pillow, trying not to remember what she had done.But she should have listened to what the other two had been saying, as she discovered early the next morning when hell arrived with the sound of urgent knocking on her door. If she’d listened, she might have been able to stop Adelina from making the biggest mistake of h
Tension instantly grabbed hold of her throat and sent her heart sinking to her toes. Charley realized that he already knew about Adelina sent her heart sinking to her toes. It was stamped right there on his grimly cold face."You have a letter for me, I believe," Dami De Santis prompted. There was no greeting, no attempt whatsoever to make this easier for her.But then why should he—? "How did you know?" Charley dared to ask him.His eyes made a brief flick down her front, then away again. "She was to be my wife." The position made her vulnerable to a certain kind of low-life out on the street, so of course I had a security team watching her.But they didn’t stop her from running away with Charles? Charley would have loved to have asked the question, but the way he was standing there in a steel-dark, razor-sharp business suit and with his face carved into such cold, hard angles, the question remained just a thick lump in her throat as she made herself walk forward, feeling as if she w
"I..I suppose you’re wondering where your engagement ring is," she blurted out, needing to say something to fill in the unbearably tense empty space, and the ring had come up in discussion when Adelina’s mother had said the same thing."No," he denied without any inflection whatsoever. I would imagine that running off with a poor man has already sealed the ring’s fate.Charley winced, her cheeks heating at this cool reminder of the other issue in all of this she was having to deal with—the fact that the man Adelina had run off with also happened to be her very own brother."Charles isn’t poor." She felt compelled to defend Charles’s middle-class earnings. It was, after all, the only thing about him she felt she could defend right now."In your estimation or mine?"Oh, that was so very arrogant of him. Charley felt anger begin to rise, even though she knew she didn’t have the right to let it. "Look," with a tense twist, she turned to the door, "I think I had better leave you to—""Runn
"Let me test that," he offered. "You have known all along what they were planning."It was not a question. "No," Charley insisted. "I told you I did not know."But even as she said it, her insides were creasing guiltily because perhaps she had seen it coming, only if it had been so much simpler to just block it out."I did not have you down as a liar, Charlotte," he said coolly."I’m not lying!" Frowning, annoyed with herself as well as with him and this horrible position she’d been put in, "I did not see it coming," she insisted a second time, "but I admit I feel some responsibility because I think I should have done.""Because you knew they were lovers?"Did he have to put it as calmly as that? Shifting her tense stance, "Yes," she answered, deciding to be blunt with him since he didn’t seem to possess a single sensitive nerve in his body. "For a while, several years ago."‘Childhood sweethearts.’ His hard mouth flicked out the semblance of a smile.A bit more than that, she thought
Charley flushed. "Charles wanted to be an artist.""Oh, how romantically right for him," her persecutor mocked. "With his golden good looks and his ravaged sensibilities, he makes the perfect rescue for an impressionable thing like Adelina—whereas you," he went on before Charley could say anything, "make the perfect level-headed foil to keep Adelina’s starry eyes blinded to what your brother is really about."Charley straightened her trembling, tense shoulders. "Have you quite finished slaughtering my family?" she demanded, wanting to slap his face."Haughty," he remarked. "I like it.""Well, I don’t like you!" she hit back. "Adelina and I have been friends since we were twelve years old—her wealth or my lack of it has never been an issue between us because that’s not what true friendship is about! "My family works hard for its living," she said proudly. "All of us work hard!" My father did not waste his life swanning around the world enjoying the useless life of an overindulged playb
For goodness’ sake! She jumped to her feet. "Don’t you think this situation is bad enough without you trying to fly to the moon?"He laughed! Charley couldn’t believe she was hearing it! "You have a quaint way of expressing yourself."If the desk hadn’t been between them, she would have thrown herself at him in fury! "I am not marrying you!" she had to make do with shouting out.‘Why not?’ Throwing himself into the chair behind the desk, he gave her a challenging look. "Is there something wrong with me?""Don’t ask me to make a list," Charley muttered, wrapping her arms around her body and glaring at him while her mind shot off in all directions trying to make sense of this mad situation. "You’ve got the eyes of a lion," she then heard herself murmur out of absolutely nowhere!"Lions mark their territory and jealously protect their women, but they do not hunt," he responded lazily."Is that supposed to mean something?" Charley snapped, wishing she’d kept her silly mouth shut about his