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 dancing as well as dining, and because Estelio kept on filling her wineglass, Charley was tipsy by the time Dami De Santis arrived by her chair to invite her to dance.
There was a hovering second while she hunted around for an excuse to refuse him, then his hand arrived beneath her elbow to propel her to her feet. "Come on," he said dryly. "It is expected that the groom dances at least once with his bride’s maid of honor."
Charley thought that was supposed to happen after the wedding, but the telling quiver struck again, making her too tense and too breathless to say it as he drew her against him on the dance floor and smoothly urged her to dance.
The lights were low, the music a slow, romantic ballad accompanied by a female singer with a stirringly deep and sensual voice. She felt her heart begin to pump to a heavier beat as they moved together, and she absorbed the full, disturbing impact of his masculine warmth and his muscular hardness pressing against her tense, softer shape.
"Relax," he prompted after a few seconds. "This is supposed to be an enjoyable pastime."
Charley looked up, caught the mocking glow in his eyes, and felt the sting of heat flush her cheeks. "I’m just not used to—"
"Being held this close to a man?" he mocked.
"Dancing in these shoes!" she corrected loudly. "And that wasn’t a very nice thing to say."
He just laughed; the sound was low and deep and disturbingly intimate in the way it resonated against the tips of her breasts. "You are an unusual creature, Charlotte Jones," he informed her then. "You are very beautiful, but you don’t like to be told so." You are tense and defensive around me, yet you can completely relax with a serial womanizer like Estelio Alonzo.
"Estelio isn’t a womanizer," Charley rejected. "He’s too laid-back to be a womanizer."
"Ring any telephone number in Sydney and just mention his name."
And that was cynicism, not mockery, she noted. "Well, I like him," she stated stubbornly.
"Ah, I see he is beginning to reel you in."
"And that wasn’t very nice, either!"
His dark head suddenly dipped, bringing his lips very close to her cheek. "I’ll let you in on a secret, Mia Bella—I am not very nice."
He was so close now that she could smell the masculine pull of his tangy scent. Charley jerked her head back. "Well, you had better be nice to Adelina," she warned loyally.
He just laughed as he straightened up again, then drew her even closer so he could control her movements with a cool, casual strength. He was taller than her by several impactful inches, which put her eyes on a level with his strong, chiseled chin. They didn’t speak again, and as the dance wore on, maybe it was the fault of too many recklessly consumed glasses of wine that made her so aware of everything about him. Even the smooth feel of his silk lapel beneath her fingers fascinated her, as did the bright whiteness of his shirt against the natural olive tones of his throat.
He was gorgeous. There was just no use in trying to deny it. Everything about him was so perfectly presented, from the neatly styled gloss of his satin black hair to the length of his very Italian nose and the truly beautiful shape of his mouth.
And the singer droned on, low and soulful. Charley felt the sensual pull of the melody percolate through her system as potently as the wine she had been drinking all evening, and like a fool, she closed her eyes and just let the sensation carry her away. One set of his long, golden fingers lightly clasped her pale, slender fingers; the other set rested low in the arch of her back. She had no idea how her fingers were stroking the silk lapel of his jacket or that she had moved in so close to him that her breath was softly feathering his throat. She just moved where he guided her, aware of the tingling tension affecting her body but unaware that it was affecting him too. His fingers moved slightly against her clasped fingers, and the hand at her back glided upwards to the center of her spine and gently urged her into even closer contact with him.
It was—nice. kind of tingly and floaty, and she hadn’t a clue as to how much she had relaxed into him until she felt the living warmth of taut skin brush against her lips and tasted it on the tip of her tongue.
With a jerk of shock, Charley flicked her eyes open and pulled back her head. Dismay instantly curled its way through her body, accompanied by a wave of mortified embarrassment that flooded like fire into her face when she realized what she had done.
She had just brushed her lips against Adelina’s fiancé’s throat and tasted him with her tongue!
"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
Charley gaped. "Who told you my sex life was—?""Adelina, who else?"Her best friend, Adelina, had said that about her—to him?"She gave you two different lovers, neither of whom lasted beyond the first venture between the sheets." "Englishmen, of course," he said, "with a fumbling lack of finesse.""And you think speaking to me like this shows finesse?" The heat of dismay and the sharp sting of hurt were crawling all over her. She had never felt so let down by Adelina in their ten-year friendship! How dared she speak to him about Charley’s personal life—how dared she tell such wicked lies about it? "Well, I don’t," she said grimly. "And I am not going to listen to any more of it."She turned once again to leave.But that relentlessly cool voice was not going to let her go. "Marry me next week and I will bail your father out of debt, pay off his loan, and send in my own team of experts to help oversee the recovery of his company," it continued, bringing her to yet another quivering st