Читать книгу The Wedding Party And Holiday Escapes Ultimate Collection - Кейт Хьюит, Aimee Carson - Страница 29

Rebecca nosed the little yellow hatchback into the drive of the neat compact unit that had been her home since she’d sold Dream Occasions almost four years ago and relocated north.

In the small front garden the cheerful daffodils had finished flowering. The petunias and calendulas she and T.J. had planted were starting to bud. Soon the garden would be awash with colour and summer would be here in full swing. A large pohutukawa tree shaded the grassy spot where she and T.J. often played during the day. By the time Christmas came the massive tree would be covered with showers of flame-red flowers.

She switched the engine off and, turning, saw that T.J. had fallen asleep cradled in the car seat in the rear. His dark curly head drooped sideways and his mouth parted in an O.

Tenderness expanded inside her until she felt she would explode with emotion.

How dearly she loved him.

They were a family. No, more than family. In a relatively short time he’d become her whole world. All her reservations about what a poor mother she’d make given her lack of loving example had long since evaporated. She loved T.J. with all the fierce adoration of a lioness. He was hers. All hers. For once in her life she had someone that nothing and no one could take from her. Today she’d kept her silent promise and had rushed through her tasks at Chocolatique to spend some quality time with T.J. this afternoon. Except for dark shadows beneath his eyes, little sign remained of yesterday’s illness.

With a still-sleeping T.J. bundled in her arms, Rebecca made for the unit, her stride quickening under his leaden weight. As she stepped onto the deck, a tall man straightened from where he’d been leaning against the wisteria-covered pergola that shaded the deck. Rebecca froze.

“You have a child!” Damon’s voice was accusing, his face blank with shock.

Her grip on T.J. tightened. “Yes,” she bit out and, radiating defiance, she faced him down over T.J.’s head.

A muscle worked in Damon’s jaw. He looked odd, shaken. She frowned. If he suspected…

No. It wasn’t possible. She’d taken such care.

She swivelled away, keeping T.J. screened from his line of sight.

Damon stepped out of the shadows formed by the tangle of ivy and wisteria. “I didn’t know.”

“And why should you? I don’t count you among my intimates.”

His head snapped back as she parroted his response from this morning back at him, and Rebecca watched over her shoulder with feline satisfaction as his pupils flared at her sharp tone.

Good! Let him know what rejection felt like.

Her gaze swept the street. “I don’t see your car.” The sleek silver Mercedes would’ve been difficult to miss in the empty street.

“I parked around the corner.”

“Oh?” Had he suspected she might run if she knew he was lying in wait for her? Had he already known about T.J.? Was this a trap? But then, why play out the shocked charade pretending that he didn’t know the child existed? Thoughts whipped back and forth until her head started to ache.

“T.J. hasn’t been well. He needs rest. So you’ll have to excuse me.” Rebecca hitched T.J. higher, measuring the distance to her front door, anxious to escape.

“Wait a minute.” Before she could reach the wooden door, Damon barred the entrance and took the keys from her nerveless fingers.

“What’s the matter with him? And what the hell kind of name is T.J.?”

“What’s wrong with T.J. need not concern you.”

Ignoring the second part of the question, she shouldered her way past Damon and made for the carpeted stairs, determined to evade him. But the sound of his footsteps hard at her heels told her she’d failed.

Rebecca halted in the doorway of T.J.’s bedroom, keeping her back firmly to Damon. “You don’t need to come in. You can wait downstairs.”

He ignored the obstruction she’d attempted to create and stepped past her, his gaze roaming the room, taking in the sunny yellow walls, the mound of soft toys at the foot of the bed, the wooden tracks and brightly coloured trains in the corner.

The room shrank, Damon’s powerful presence reducing it to the size of a closet. Rebecca was uncomfortably aware of his unwelcome proximity…of her rapid, shallow breathing.

Why couldn’t he have stayed downstairs? And why did her body still respond to him with such irrational intensity? Rebecca ground her teeth with frustration. “Look, T.J. needs his sleep. The last thing I want is for him to awaken and find some strange man in his room.”

Damon swung his attention away from the train-station mural she’d painted in bold colours on the wall above the bed, his gaze clashing with hers, his sensuous mouth askew with mockery. “He’s not accustomed to waking to find strange men in his house? Now that amazes me, Rebecca.”

The inference took her breath away.

“Now listen to me,” she huffed. “I don’t give a f…fluff what you think of me. But in my house, around my son, you will address me with respect. Right now I’m tired and T.J.’s been unwell. I need to put him to bed.”

All at once the tension that had been throbbing inside her became too much. She bit her lip and looked away, blinking furiously, determined not to let the unaccustomed prick of tears show.

“I’m sorry.”

For some reason, his unexpected apology was the last straw. Her throat thickened unbearably. She swallowed and shot him a desperate look. “Please…”

“Just go?” he finished, giving her a strange, whimsical smile, and crossing to the bed, he pulled the Thomas the Tank Engine cover back. “That’s not the first time I’ve heard that today.”

She moved closer, T.J. heavy as a block of lead in her arms. “Then I’m sorry to bore you,” she said in a thin, high voice that sounded totally foreign compared to her usual husky tones.

“Bore me?” His mouth dropped open, his eyes glinting with something she didn’t quite recognise. “Bore me?”

The sudden silence rang in her ears. Damon was standing so close she was conscious of his height, of the solid breadth of him. If she stretched her hand out around T.J.’s sleeping body, she could touch Damon’s chest, feel the strong, vibrant beat of his heart.

“I think boring is one thing you could never be guilty of, Rebecca.” He blew out hard, muttered something softly in Greek, then said with a touch of roughness, “Here, let me take the boy.”

She jerked away as his fingers brushed her arm.

At once, the hands reaching for T.J. pulled back and Damon spread his palms. “Okay, okay, I get the message! I’ll wait downstairs.” He threw her a hard, glittering look. “Never give an inch, never show any weakness, hmm?”

Rebecca ducked her head, refusing to meet his angry eyes, reluctant to reveal how much the electrical charge of the accidental touch had unnerved her. After a moment Damon’s footsteps retreated, and for a wild instant she felt a sudden stupid sense of loss. Shaking, she hugged T.J. tightly against her breasts and inhaled his special baby smell until her turmoil calmed.

Then she gently deposited T.J. onto the royal-blue sheet and held her breath as he rolled over and gave a short grunt. He didn’t waken. Instead his breathing steadied into the deep rhythm of sleep.

For a minute Rebecca stared at his sleeping face, the soft baby skin, the tousled dark curls, and pride and love stretched her heart to a tender pain.

T.J.

T.J. was her priority now.

Not her career. Not Damon. Not the wild, all-consuming attraction that had once upon a time nearly destroyed her. The most important thing in her life was T.J. And he rewarded her devotion with an uncritical, unconditional love that she would never, ever consider trading for the ferocious and destructive passion Damon had once stirred.

Damon’s narrowed gaze and the sheer, untrammelled intensity emanating from him as he stood legs apart, arms folded, caused Rebecca’s nerve endings to prickle warningly as she entered the living room.

“The boy is sleeping, yes?”

“Yes,” she replied, pausing inside the doorway, more unsettled by his speculative stare than she cared to admit. Her gaze slid away. Took in the tailored suit that accentuated the hard, sleek lines of his body. His trademark white silk shirt was open at the neck, tie gone, the top button undone to reveal a glimpse of his tanned throat. She yanked her gaze back up to his face.

“I’m sorry he is not well. Is it something serious?”

The genuine concern in those devastating eyes forced Rebecca to say, “Just a routine ear infection.”

He frowned. “I understand ear infections can be dangerous—that they can lead to permanent hearing loss.”

Damon was vocalising her worst fears. Only yesterday she’d expressed the very same concerns to T.J.’s doctor—not that she’d ever admit that to Damon. Instead she tossed her head and said casually, “The doctor assured me a course of antibiotics will do the trick.”

“So where is the child’s father?”

The indolent question fell like a heavy rock into a tranquil pool, destroying any pretense of neutrality.

Rebecca stiffened.

“No longer in my life,” she said, deliberately vague, avoiding the blue eyes that she was certain would be blazing with disapproval. The pause that followed stretched until her palms started to sweat. Fighting the urge to steal a fleeting glance at him, she kept her gaze lowered, uneasy with the turn the conversation had taken.

“Do you even know who his father is?”

Her head shot up, her affronted gaze colliding with his, and all at once she was too angry to fret about what she might give away. “What the hell kind of question is that? Of course I know who T.J.’s father is!”

She forced her expression into impassivity. Keep your cool, she counselled herself and then said aloud, “This is my home. I’d thank you to keep your…observations…to yourself. Now what can I do for you?”

“I ask no more than that you arrange Savvas’s wedding,” he replied, echoing her studied civility.

“I’ve already told you—I can’t!”

“Rebecca,” he said through gritted teeth, the false courtesy vanishing, his face darkening. “You know I’m a very wealthy man—”

Rolling her eyes, she interrupted him. “I already told you this morning I can’t do the wedding and I’m not going to accept payment. You’ve done the bribery and corruption thing to death. Cutting the insults would be a good move, too.” She held her breath and waited for him to explode.

His eyes flashed. His chest rose and fell under his crossed arms as he sucked in a deep breath. Then he sighed heavily. Unfolding his arms, he spread them wide. “Okay, whatever it takes to get you to do this damned wedding thing, I’ll do it. So I can get back to Auckland and put my mother’s mind at rest.”

Rebecca blinked, stunned by his sudden capitulation. Damon did not negotiate, he issued ultimatums—and expected them to be met. A fresh wave of guilt rolled over her. Soula had always been kind to her. But helping Soula with the wedding was out of the question.

“What? No clever comeback?” Damon stared at her, his jaw clenched.

All at once, Rebecca recognised the truth of what he’d just said. Years ago, when they first met, she might have reacted to his statement that he’d do whatever it took with a risqué taunt like Kiss me and I might consider it. Comments that had drawn derision, followed by a closed, cold expression that shut her out. Totally.

Contrarily, it had been his very lack of response that had egged her on, demanding his attention by whatever means she could. And then had come the dawning realization that he was interested in Fliss. While Rebecca burned anything she touched, Fliss cooked like a dream—a legacy of her Cordon Bleu training—and Damon had savoured rich slices of Sachertorte with half-closed eyes, his face alive with pleasure. Her heart breaking, Rebecca had watched him smile at Fliss with warm approval, his face reflecting an intent admiration he’d never shown toward her. Pretty, sweet Fliss, who was as different from Rebecca as a rabbit from a lioness.

Rebecca had backed off, waiting for Fliss to spurn him. But she hadn’t. Fliss had had no right—

Stupid! Why did she keep getting tangled in the web of the past? She shook her head wildly, trying to dislodge the memories that still tortured her. No. That was all old history. Fliss was dead.

Instantly the urge to provoke Damon withered. Inside she felt flat and empty, worn out by the toll the emotional day had taken.

“Don’t shake your head. Think about it. You can use the money for your business…for the boy.” His gaze roved pointedly around the room, highlighting the tired carpets that needed replacing, the lounge suite that was showing signs of wear. “Surely money won’t come amiss in jazzing up your lifestyle in this dull town. I can’t see why you stay.”

Rebecca stared expressionlessly at him. Going back to Auckland would simply reopen the old wounds. But for a lingering instant she considered the cheque Damon had dangled in front of her this morning. Now he was making it clear that the sky was the limit.

She couldn’t accept payment to arrange Savvas’s wedding. It wouldn’t be right.

But, said a little evil, tempting voice at the back of her head, what might it mean to T.J.?

Although Chocolatique made them a fair living, it was a relatively new business that demanded time and all her resources. And, yes, she had a reasonable lump sum squirreled away in T.J.’s name that she intended to release to him on his twenty-fifth birthday. But what Damon was offering would eliminate years of worrying….

No! Rebecca thrust the temptation away. She couldn’t accept his money, not for arranging an exclusive Auckland wedding. And she certainly had no intention of being in Damon’s debt. Ever.

“My place is here,” she said firmly. “I have T.J. to look after.”

Damon looked flummoxed. It was obvious he hadn’t factored a child into his calculations. But the confusion that clouded his brilliant blue eyes cleared almost immediately. “No problem. Bring the boy, too.”

Rebecca laughed, a light, tinkling social laugh that carefully hid the sudden tightening around her heart. Bring T.J.? That was the last thing in the world she wanted!

“Get real, Damon. What would a child do in the Asteriades household? Destroy the antiques? Wreck the formal borders in the garden?”

Damon stared down his battered nose at her. “Demetra happens to like children. I’m sure she’ll give you a hand if you ask nicely.”

Demetra? His obvious fondness for the woman struck a raw nerve.

“And exactly who is Demetra?”

“I told you.” He sounded impatient. “She is Savvas’s fiancée.”

“I’d forgotten her name was Demetra.” Rebecca tried to ignore the relief that scalded her. And then annoyance kicked in. What did it matter who Damon’s latest lover was?

Damon gave her a level stare. “Demetra is perfect for Savvas. She’s kind, respectable, well brought up….”

Everything she wasn’t. Each word landed like a well-placed barb. Recklessness flooded Rebecca. “Does she know what she’s letting herself in for, marrying into the Asteriades clan?” she lashed out. “At least she’s clever enough to realise what a bigot you are and how much nicer Savvas is.”

“Ah, and you would know, wouldn’t you?” He drilled her with narrowed, bitter eyes. “Savvas told me that the two of you dated after the wedding. How…nice—” he sneered “—were you to my brother, hmm?”

She flashed a wide white smile that didn’t reveal any of the mix of emotions churning within her.

Anger.

Excitement.

And the thrill of danger that sparring with Damon always brought.

Softly, provocatively, she said, “You warned me to stay away from him, but Savvas called, said he wanted to see me. Your little brother liked me for myself. After the way you’d humiliated me, that was…nice.” Staring through her eyelashes at him, she held her breath and waited for his response to the pointed mockery.

He didn’t disappoint her.

His eyes flared brighter. “You little tramp…” He stepped abruptly closer. “You slept with my brother to get revenge on me. Because I married your best friend!”

Pain blossomed, but Rebecca refused to let him intimidate her. “Perhaps you place too much importance on yourself, your effect on the behaviour of others. Savvas lacks your arrogance—another reason why he is worth a million of you.”

“Your mouth drips poison.” He stalked closer still, his eyes blazing. “But I will deal with that.”

The air had become electric, pulsing. Rebecca stood her ground. “Why the double standard? You can insult me with impunity, but when I retaliate…”

After a humming moment that pulsed with old resentments, latent attraction and myriad unspoken emotions, Damon spun on his heel, strode across the worn carpet and dropped down onto the homely sofa. For a long moment Rebecca stared at large, tanned hands clenching and unclenching between his thighs. Hands that could touch with the softness of silk or the cruelty of steel. Hands that made her shiver…and burn.

She forced her gaze back to his masklike face. He’d withdrawn. How she hated that.

“Forget it. I am not coming to Auckland.” Rebecca spoke with finality, and when a sense of calm filled her, she knew she had made the right decision.

Turning away so she didn’t need to see his expression when he realised that he had failed his mother, she closed off her mind to guilt. Damon had a dangerous effect on her. He aroused such reckless cravings she dared not risk being close to him.

“Look, I’m sorry.”

She jumped as he spoke behind her; she hadn’t heard him rise, or cross the room. She swung around. A dark lock had fallen onto his forehead. He brushed it back and sighed. More guilt stirred when she took in the unaccustomed tiredness in his eyes, the deep lines scored beside his mouth.

“I don’t know what came over me. I swore I wouldn’t let—” he shot her a hooded glance “—what happened in the past affect my dealings with you. I meant to be amenable.” He flashed her a smile that might’ve been described as irresistible if it hadn’t been directed at her.

Rebecca’s mind started to click over. “You intended—” her breath caught “—to be nice to me.”

His eyes flickered and a dull, red flush spread across his high cheekbones.

Bingo! Fury rose within her. “How far were you prepared to go, damn you?”

“Wait.” He drew a breath. “Right now Mama is my only concern. She needs—”

She cut across before he could defend himself with clever words. “So you would’ve done anything,” she said in a bitter little voice. “Used charm, seduced silly Rebecca?”

“No,” he burst out. “I wouldn’t have taken it that far.”

Of course not. Sleeping with her was beneath the powerful, oh-so-perfect Damon Asteriades. “Well, fortunately for you it won’t be necessary to go to such extremes. I can give you the name of someone who will plan a wonderful wedding for Savvas. Two someones, in fact. I’m sure the sisters who bought Dream Occasions would love the chance—”

“No!” The look he gave her burned with frustration. “I tried all that, but Mama insists on you. She trusts you and she’s too on edge for me to risk arguing with her.” He raked long fingers through his hair, but the recalcitrant locks fell forward again, dispelling the powerful-billionaire image.

Rebecca closed her mind to his boyish vulnerability and focused instead on the fact that Damon had tried to argue Soula out of asking for her help, on the fact that he truly seemed to believe his mother couldn’t cope.

The trap was closing around her.

“Please help Mama. The child won’t be a problem,” he was saying. “We can work something out.”

He was desperate.

As much as she wanted to slap him, punish him, Rebecca felt increasingly guilty that she had refused. Soula must be very unwell for him to go to such extremes. But how could she help? She had to put T.J.—and herself—first.

He’s seen T.J., a little evil voice whispered. He hasn’t put it together.

Dared she risk it? Rebecca chewed her bottom lip, thinking furiously. “It’s not only a case of T.J. What will happen to my business while I’m away?”

Sensing her weakening, his blue eyes sharpened. “Surely your business can survive your absence for a couple of weeks? Later on, a lot of the wedding arrangements could be made from here. The move to Auckland won’t be permanent.”

“I don’t know….” For a thread of time she wavered, and then all her misgivings crashed back. What would happen if the truth came out?

“Look, I’ll double the amount of that cheque I offered this morn—” The jangle of Damon’s cell phone caused him to break off.

The interruption made her hiss with relief. What was she thinking? She was mad even to consider it. Nothing, not even obscene amounts of money, would make her go back.

Almost. He’d almost had her!

Damon snarled a string of curses in Greek as he checked the caller ID. At the familiar number, a cold frisson ran down his spine and he stopped cursing abruptly. He rose, tension coiling in his gut, and stalked away from Rebecca, toward the blankness of the dark window.

“Mama? What is it?”

“Damon, I’ve been having pains in my chest. Savvas and Demetra are taking me to the hospital.”

“Has Savvas called the doctor?”

“He’s meeting us at the hospital. He says I’m going to have to stay there for a couple of days. My son, what am I to do?”

“Rest,” Damon responded succinctly and stared out the window into the darkening night. Through the gloom he could barely make out the shape of the large tree rustling in the front garden.

“But what about the wedding? What about—”

“Don’t give it another thought. I’ve got it all under control.” Over his shoulder he shot the stubborn, maddening woman on the other side of the room a smouldering glance.

“Rebecca’s going to do it? Oh, that’s wonderful! I can’t tell you how much peace of mind that brings me! Bring her to the hospital—I need to tell her what I’ve done, who I’ve spoken to, the venues I’ve considered.”

He couldn’t admit to his mother that he had failed. She had to believe he’d succeeded. For the sake of her heart. He’d handle what he’d tell her when he arrived back in Auckland, without Rebecca, later. Damon wondered for the thousandth time why his mother was so fixated on Rebecca. The women who had bought Dream Occasions from Rebecca would have leaped at the chance to arrange an Asteriades wedding.

It burned him that out of all the women in the world, his mother had to choose the one who had killed his marriage. Yet his mother refused to accept that Rebecca was to blame—had always insisted that Fliss must have left of her own accord. Damon didn’t—couldn’t—accept that. But how could he refute it? He’d never told anyone, least of all his mother, about what had happened on the eve of his wedding….

All he could do now was murmur, “I will bring her. Hush now. I want you to relax. Do not worry about anything, I will take care of everything.”

Rebecca found herself holding her breath as she listened to the one-sided conversation. With every sentence Damon’s cheekbones stood out more starkly under tightly stretched skin, his tan draining to an unflattering putty shade.

Something twisted deep inside her as those rough fingers raked back the dark spikes of hair that had fallen forward over his eyes. And when he stared so helplessly into the night, his shoulders hunched, she had to force herself to be still, not to rush to his side, not to rest her hand on his arm, touch him…anything to banish the stark shock and bewilderment as he uttered frantic words of comfort.

“Mama? Mama…” He now called with desperation. “Can you hear me?” A shaking hand jabbed through his hair. “No, no, don’t answer. Just get to the hospital. I will meet you there.”

He ended the call and turned to Rebecca, his eyes dark sunken pits in his bleak face.

“I have to go back to Auckland. My mother—” He wheeled away, placing a fisted hand against his temple.

Rebecca felt terrible. He hadn’t lied. All the time he’d wasted trying to convince her, time he should have spent in Auckland, near his mother.

What if Soula died? What if Damon didn’t make it in time, never saw his mother again?

She would never forgive herself! And if Soula died, who would take the hurt from Damon’s eyes? Damon always looked after his family—who would be there for him?

Full of remorse, she hurried toward him and touched his sleeve. He started. “Damon, I’ll come with you. I’ll take care of…of…Savvas’s wedding.”

At the back of her mind lurked the awful thought that if Soula died, there would be no wedding, at least not until the mourning period was over. Please, Rebecca prayed, please let Soula live to celebrate a wedding.

The Asteriades mansion hadn’t changed one iota, Rebecca saw as Damon swept into the formal curved driveway four hours later. The beam from the headlights illuminated neatly trimmed box hedges and large pots planted with bay trees that flanked the front door.

Back in Tohunga, a frantic rush had ensued before they’d left. In a matter of minutes Rebecca had made several necessarily brief phone calls. Miranda—with the help of her sister—would take care of Chocolatique until Rebecca returned. A call to her doctor assured her that T.J. was fit to travel, so all that was left was for Rebecca to arrange for the local handyman to mow her lawn and to pack.

During the journey Damon had made countless calls to Savvas and the doctors to check on his mother’s progress. And although Savvas had repeatedly assured him that Soula was in good hands, that the heart attack had been arrested, under Damon’s tightly leashed control Rebecca sensed his terror. That he might lose Soula, as he had already lost his father.

Oh, God, how well she understood his fear of loss. For once in his life Damon faced something he couldn’t control. And she had no defence against his anguish. She could no more turn her back on him than she could cut off her arm.

Now, facing the imposing Georgian-style facade that loomed against the night sky, Rebecca shivered. It wasn’t only Auckland’s cooler night air that caused the ripples of gooseflesh. This house held memories she desperately wanted to forget. For a short time Fliss had lived here with Damon. Even the elderly man who removed her suitcases from the trunk was familiar. Johnny, Damon’s live-in butler.

“This way.”

Rebecca turned at Damon’s voice. T.J. was slung across his shoulder, fast asleep. She rushed over. “I’ll take him. You go to the hospital.”

But Damon carried on up the wide stairs lit by brass lamps to the front door. “Never fear, mama bear, I won’t drop your baby. I’ll show you your rooms, then I will go to the hospital. Savvas says Mama is sleeping peacefully.”

Inside, Rebecca saw that the passage of time had wrought changes. She halted and stared with confusion at the three corridors that led from the spacious double-height lobby with its pale, glossy marble floor. Ahead, she recognised the stairs that led to Soula’s rooms, but the red carpet had been pulled out and replaced with pale wool carpeting in an elegant oyster shade.

“I converted the wing Savvas and I shared on the ground floor into a suite of rooms for my mother after her heart attack. It made things easier—she didn’t have to worry about the stairs.”

That strong streak of protectiveness, Rebecca recognised. Damon took care of his own.

He headed for the staircase. “Demetra is staying in Mama’s suite until the wedding.”

Her heart fluttering, Rebecca asked, “And T.J. and me? Where will we be staying?”

“In my quarters.”

Rebecca faltered. “Your quarters?”

Ahead of her, Damon paused on a landing. “Savvas and I had Mama’s old suite extended and refurbished. But now Savvas has moved out—he bought a house where he and Demetra will live after the wedding—so it is mine alone.”

Rebecca forced herself to follow him down a well-lit corridor glassed from floor to ceiling on the left. Through vast sheets of glass she could see a darkened courtyard where the flat gleam of water glittered blackly below.

He caught her sideways glance. “I replaced the old pool. The new one is more practical.”

She remembered the fussy, elaborate pool with pockets of frothing water connected by artificial waterfalls and fountains decorated with fawning statues. A previous owner had possessed terrible taste. “You swim laps?”

“Every morning.”

Rebecca made a mental note to keep away at that time. Then she thought of T.J.’s fascination with water. “Is the pool fenced?”

“The only access is through the house—and a gate in the garden which stays locked. I will give instructions to the staff to secure the ranch sliders at all times.”

“Thank you.”

“This will be your room.” He opened a door to a room decorated in restful shades of cream. Curtains of heavy damask complemented a bedcover fashioned of rich ivory silk. On the wall hung a Monet print—or it might even be an original—the pale water lilies drifting on a pond adding to the restful mood of the room.

“And T.J.? Where will he sleep?”

“Through here.”

She followed Damon into the adjoining room. It was smaller, clearly intended to be a dressing room, but a bed had been set up with bright, crisp new linen, while a selection of brand-new toys crowded the floor.

She pulled back the covers and he lowered T.J. so gently that her baby didn’t even sigh. Deciding that T.J. could sleep in his clothes on this one occasion, Rebecca pulled his sandals off and fussed with the covers.

“There are bigger rooms, but I thought you would want the boy near you.”

“Thank you.” His thoughtfulness surprised her. Her gaze lingered on the array of toys. “But you didn’t need to go to so much trouble—or expense.”

“There wasn’t much time. Johnny had a little over an hour before the stores closed this evening. But I wanted your son to be settled, happy, while you are in Auckland. I don’t want you fretting. If a few toys make the adjustment a little easier, then so be it.” He gave a shrug.

Rebecca’s heart contracted. That shrug—it was so intrinsically Damon.

She straightened, desperate to escape the sudden claustrophobia that cocooned them in the small, cosy room. Rapidly she made her way across the bigger bedroom to the large curtained windows. Pulling the heavy drapes aside, she stared out into the night.

In the courtyard below, the long, narrow pool mirrored the ripe moon, and through the open side windows Rebecca detected the scent of orange blossom and a whiff of jasmine on the night air.

“I need to go to the hospital. I’ll leave you to settle in.” Damon’s voice sounded husky.

“Thank you.”

But she heard no sound of footsteps, no thud of the door shutting behind him.

Driven by curiosity, she turned. He was watching her, an unreadable expression on his dark pirate face. The intense blue eyes were full of shadows, caused by the anxiety and concern for his mother, no doubt. But despite his uncharacteristic vulnerability she could still feel the pull that he’d always exerted.

She swung back to the window and stared blindly out, her back as tense as steel wire, her pulse hammering.

“It is too dark now to see how much better the courtyard looks with the lap pool and the landscaping I had done.” His voice was low.

She wished he’d leave. Before she made a fool of herself. All over again.

“You always had a good eye,” she admitted, her spine stiff. Old memories stirred. He’d picked out the wedding dress he’d wanted Fliss to wear. It had been perfect, enhancing her prettiness to almost become beauty—a far cry from the girlish flounces Fliss would have chosen.

“I’m honoured that you recognise my redeeming qualities.” Irony tinged his voice.

Rebecca didn’t respond.

A rough sigh came from behind her. “Again I must apologise. That was not necessary. You agreed to come, to help my mother with this infernal wedding that has her so worked up for some reason. Enough, it appears, to put her in hospital. The least I can do is extend true Greek hospitality.”

“It’s all right, Damon.” She spoke to her faint reflection in the dark window. “I don’t expect anything from you. Your feelings for me have always been plain.”

He shifted behind her. “Have I been that bad?”

Rebecca drew a quivering breath, fortifying herself against the almost playful note in his voice. The last thing she needed was Damon extending false friendship because he felt obligated. Where would that leave her?

Head over heels in love?

God, no! Honest dislike was far, far better than false hopes.

“No reply? Not what I’d expect from you, Rebecca. What are you thinking, standing there so silent?”

That was a first. Damon had never been interested in her views, her thoughts. Too often he’d stifled her opinions with a harsh look, his mouth drawn into a sneer.

“Lost for words, hmm?” Again that hint of playfulness. “Or too polite to tell me that you think I’ve been worse than I suggest?”

She lifted a negligent shoulder and dropped it, refusing to be drawn…or charmed.

The silence stretched. She inhaled and became sharply aware of the heady fragrance of the orange blossom—and her awareness of the man behind her soared. She heard the soft rustle of silk as he shifted, heard the tempo of his breathing change. The tension started to wind tighter until Rebecca could stand it no longer and swung around.

He was standing much closer than she’d anticipated. The thick carpet must have muffled his approach. And there was something in his eyes—something elemental, something that she recognised.

Her heart leaped, and speeded to a gallop.

The air sizzled, charged. Rebecca wanted to fling her arms around him, pull him to her, feel his lips on hers. She tried to remember all the reasons it would be a bad idea.

He hated her. He was overwrought, worried by his mother’s collapse. He’d been her best friend’s husband.

It would be dangerous to T.J.—heck, it would be dangerous for her. There was no chance of a happy ending. Only heartbreak would come from this.

Yet none of it mattered. She didn’t care. About any of it.

If only he would touch her. Kiss her. Set her on fire.

And when he moved, she closed the rest of the space between them. Breathing his name, she met his gaze, saw the flare of emotion, felt his response leap through her.

Then, as she stretched out her hand and her fingertips touched the firm muscle of his upper arm, he cursed, loudly, violently, and reeled away. But not before she’d glimpsed confusion in his eyes.

A stark, tormented uncertainty.

Rebecca held her breath as he stumbled to the door, and she did not release it until the door slammed shut behind him louder than a crack of thunder.