The Wedding Party Collection. Кейт Хьюит
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her!
Damon stepped up to the pool’s edge. It was late, well past midnight. But he was too charged to sleep. Rebecca. The child. And the worry of visiting his mother in hospital and demanding answers from the physician on duty. All the events of the day had knotted the tension so tight that now his head threatened to explode. The water lay like a sheet of blackened silver under the moonlight. A moist sea breeze swept his torso and whispered across his thighs but failed to cool the heat that coursed through his naked body.
Upstairs, when Rebecca had tilted up her face, breathed his name…he’d almost drowned in the spell of her beauty. Then she’d touched him….
Tingles bolted through him as he recalled how her electrifying sensuality had wrapped around him. He stared into the flat water and decided she was definitely a witch.
A beautiful, seductive-as-sin witch.
And an avaricious one. For all her talk that she didn’t do weddings anymore, couldn’t leave her business, in those moments before his mother called, money had finally swayed Rebecca, negating her lofty claim that she was immune to bribery. He snorted in disgust, the sound rupturing the silence of the night.
He was now committed to paying double what he’d planned. But what did it matter? The relief that flooded his mother’s face at the news that Rebecca was in Auckland made it worth every dollar Rebecca was going screw out of him. Worth even the temporary loss of his own equanimity.
Damon launched himself into space and hit the dark water in a perfect arc, cutting through the silken chill with barely a splash. He surfaced halfway down the length of the black pool and started the long strokes to take him to the other end. Yet, instead of subsiding with each pull of his arms, the seething heat inside him grew.
He should never have asked her to come back.
Rebecca was trouble.
Years ago, from the first time he’d sensed her black, gleaming eyes on him and turned to see her glowing face, incandescent with desire, his interest had been snared. Discovering her name—that she was Grainger’s widow—he’d known he was cursed.
It would have been so easy to succumb to the temptation in her beckoning eyes. But he would’ve despised himself. Instead he’d followed the dictates of his brain, turned his back on Rebecca’s highly tempting but indisputably tarnished charms and chosen Felicity, never expecting a day’s trouble.
Damon executed a tight racing turn and drove his body faster through the water. What foolishness had caused this ravaging attraction to reignite inside him? The child? Had it been the unexpected shock of discovering that wild, outrageous Rebecca had a child? The first time he’d seen her cradling the boy he’d felt hot and tense and…betrayed.
Mother of God! Rebecca must never discover she’d breached his defences. A gasping breath and he dived down, down, plunging to the depths of the pool, streaking along the bottom, where the moonbeams were dim, to escape the fear that he would get no rest until he held her lush body naked against his.
Through the window Rebecca stared at the dark, churning water, the image of Damon’s naked beauty imprinted on her mind. Every arch of muscle, every hollow of his body had been floodlit by the ghostly moon. She closed her eyes to block out the startling, stomach-tightening images. Desire twisted inside her.
No other man had ever affected her in this way.
Not even Aaron, whom she’d loved for his nurturing succour. Aaron, who’d given her the strength and courage to live her dreams, the support and know-how to start Dream Occasions—and later Chocolatique. But he’d never stirred a fraction of the emotion that Damon did merely by existing.
Oh, God.
Her soul recognised something elemental in Damon. Something that until tonight she’d thought wholly unrequited. Until she’d heard his ragged breathing, seen the shocked realization, the unwanted knowledge in his eyes and known that he felt it, too. In a flash the future was alight with hope. Then he’d turned away, broken the golden thread of awareness that bound them. Leaving her trapped in the fire of desire.
Rebecca slept badly, and by the time she and T.J. came down to breakfast the following morning, Damon was already eating, engrossed in the business section of the morning paper lying open beside him. Clad in Armani corporate armour, his impressive nakedness hidden, he was every inch the powerful, remote billionaire Rebecca all too often scoured the country’s top financial magazines to find. No hint remained of the primal, naked man from last night.
She hurtled into speech. “I’m sorry, we overslept. Are we very late?”
“No. I told Johnny to wait until you arrived so that you could have a hot breakfast.” Damon’s glance was cool, but he flashed a smile at T.J. before returning to his paper.
Suppressing her hurt at his offhand attitude, Rebecca busied herself with stacking two cushions onto a chair and helped T.J. to clamber up before seating herself beside him.
“I don’t want to put your staff to any trouble,” she said flatly.
Damon’s face was wiped clean of all expression when he finally looked up. “Feeding the boy won’t be any trouble.”
Rebecca noted wryly that he didn’t include her in the assessment. Her mouth slanting, she said, “Well, I don’t want to be any trouble. A little fruit, sliced apple perhaps, and coffee would be fine for m—”
“The boy will require more sustenance than that,” he interrupted.
A humiliating flush heated her cheeks at the rebuke. “Of course I wouldn’t expect T.J. to eat only that. But he doesn’t need a cooked breakfast either. Fruit and cereal will be fine.”
T.J. chose that moment to utter hopefully, “Sc’ambed eggs, Mum? On toast?”
The look Damon gave her spoke volumes.
She ignored it and said firmly to T.J., “And apple slices.”
“Okay.” T.J. gave her a sunny smile, aware of his small victory.
Little monkey! She ruffled his curls. When she looked up, Damon was staring at her, a strange expression on his face. Before she could break the volatile silence, the door burst open and a petite wiry-haired brunette clad in jeans and a floral shirt rushed into the room.
“You must be…Rebecca?” The newcomer’s English was accented, overlaid with an American drawl.
With a shock Rebecca realised this had to be Demetra. She’d expected someone more restrained—more obviously Greek—than the young woman whose freckled, makeup-free face shone with good health. Rebecca smiled at her and got an answering grin. Then Demetra said, “And who is this handsome guy?”
“My son, T.J.” Tensely Rebecca waited for the inevitable questions to follow.
None did. Instead Demetra bolted around the table and sank down beside T.J. “What do you like doing most in the whole wide world?”
“Playing trains.” T.J. gave her a euphoric smile and started making chuff-chuff sounds.
“Uh, I don’t know that much about trains, but I betcha I’ll learn. I like digging in the garden more than anything else in the world.”
“I like digging in the garden, also. But I like trains more.”
Demetra laughed. “You’ll have to help me dig sometime. What kind of trains do you like?”
“Thomas and Gordon are bestest—they’re blue.”
“And blue is your favourite colour, right?”
T.J. nodded.
“You’ll have to introduce me to Thomas and Gordon right after you’ve had breakfast. For now, I’ll go chase Jane up.”
“Jane?” Rebecca queried.
“Damon’s chef. She comes in daily and cooks like a dream. Wait