Just One More Night. Fiona Brand
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she crushed the old overgenerous Elena: the doormat.
According to Giorgio her fatal weakness was that she liked to please men. The reason she had rushed around and done so much for her Atraeus bosses was that it satisfied her need to be needed. She was substituting pleasing powerful men for a genuine love relationship in which she was entitled to receive care and nurturing.
The discovery had been life altering. On the strength of it, she intended to quit her job as a PA, because she figured that the temptation to revert to her old habit of rushing to please would be so ingrained it would be hard to resist. Instead, she planned to branch out in a new, more creative direction. Now that she’d come this far, she couldn’t go back to being the old, downtrodden Elena.
Aware that Nick was waiting for an answer she crushed the impulse to say an outright yes. “I don’t think you’ll find anything, but since you’re so insistent, I’m willing for you to come and have a look through the house for yourself.”
“When? I’m flying out early tomorrow morning and I won’t be back for a month.”
In which time, if she accepted the offer she was considering, the villa could be sold. She frowned at the way Nick had neatly cornered her. “I suppose I could spare a couple of hours tonight. If I help you sort through the final trunks, one hour should do it.”
“Done.” Nick lifted a hand in brief acknowledgment of an elderly man Elena recognized as Mario Atraeus. Seated next to him was a gorgeous brunette, Eva Atraeus, Mario’s adopted daughter.
Elena’s hand tightened on Nick’s arm in a weird, instant reflex. Nick’s gaze clashed with hers. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” She had just remembered a photograph she stumbled across a couple of months ago in a glossy women’s magazine of Nick partnering Eva at a charity function. They had looked perfect together. Nick with his strong masculine good looks, Eva, with her olive skin and tawny hair, looking like an exotic flower by his side.
The music swelled to a crescendo as Gabriel and Gemma, with Sanchia in tow, stopped to greet an elderly matriarch of the Messena clan instead of leaving the church.
Pressed forward by people behind, Elena found herself impelled onto the front steps of the church, into a shower of confetti and rice.
A dark-haired young man wearing a checked shirt loomed out of the waiting crowd. He lifted a large camera and began snapping them as if they were the married couple. Embarrassment clutched at Elena. It wasn’t the official photographer, which meant he was probably a journalist. “He’s making a mistake.”
Another wave of confetti had Nick tucking her in closer against his side. “A reporter making a mistake? It won’t be the first time.”
“Aren’t you worried?”
“Not particularly.”
A cluster of guests exiting the church jostled Elena, so that she found herself plastered against Nick’s chest.
“I said I wasn’t going to do this,” he muttered.
A split second later his head dipped and his mouth came down on hers.
Four
Instead of pulling away as she should have, Elena froze, an odd feminine delight flowing through her at the softness of his mouth, the faint abrasion of his jaw. Nick’s hands settled at her waist, steadying her against him as he angled his jaw and deepened the kiss.
She registered that Nick was aroused. For a dizzying moment time seemed to slow, stop, then an eruption of applause, a raft of excited comments and the motorized click of the reporter’s camera brought her back to her senses.
Nick lifted his head. “We need to move.”
His arm closed around her waist, urging her off the steps. At that moment Gemma and Gabriel appeared in the doors of the church, and the attention of the reporter and the guests shifted.
Someone clapped Nick on the shoulder. “For a minute there I thought I was attending the wrong wedding, but as soon as I recognized you I knew you couldn’t be the groom.”
Relieved by the distraction, Elena freed herself from Nick’s hold and the haze of unscripted passion.
Nick half turned to shake hands with a large, tanned man wearing a sleek suit teamed with an Akubra hat, the Australian equivalent of a cowboy. “You know me, Nate. Married to the job.”
Elena noticed that the young guy in the checked shirt who had been snapping photos had sidled close and seemed to be listening. Before she could decide whether he was lingering with deliberate intent or if it was sheer coincidence, Nick introduced her to Nate Cavendish.
As soon as Elena heard the name she recognized Cavendish as an Australian cattleman with a legendary reputation as one of the richest and most elusive bachelors in Australia.
Feeling flustered and unsettled, her mind still locked on Nick’s statement that he was married to the job, she shook Nate’s hand.
Nate gave her a curious look as if he found her familiar but couldn’t quite place her. Not surprising, since she had bumped into him at Atraeus parties a couple of times in the past when she had been the “old” Elena. “You must be Nick’s new girl.”
“No,” she said blandly. “I’m not that interested. Too busy shopping around.”
Nick’s gaze touched on hers, promising retribution. “It’s what you might call an interesting arrangement.”
Nate shook his head. “Sounds like she’s got you on your knees.”
Nick shrugged, his expression cooling as he noticed the journalist. “Another one bites the dust.”
“That’s for sure.” Nate tipped his hat at Elena and walked toward the guests clustered around Gabriel and Gemma.
Nick’s gaze was glacially cold as he watched the reporter jog toward a car and drive away at speed.
Elena’s stomach sank. After working years for the Atraeus family, she had an instinct about the press. The only reason the reporter was leaving was because he had a story.
Nick’s palm landed in the small of her back. He moved her out of the way of the crowd as Gemma and Gabriel strolled toward their waiting limousine. But the effect that one small touch had on Elena was far from casual, zapping her straight back to the unsettling heat of the kiss.
Nick’s brows jerked together as she instantly moved away from his touch. A split second later a vibrating sound distracted him.
Sliding his phone out of his pocket, he stepped a couple of paces away to answer the call.
While he conducted a discussion about closing some deal on a resort purchase, Elena struggled to compose herself as she watched the bridal car leave.
A second limousine slid into place. The one that would transport her, Nick and Kyle to the Dolphin Bay Resort for the wedding photographs.
Her stomach churned at the thought. There was no quick exit today. She would have to share the intimate space of the limousine with Nick then, sit with him at the reception.
Too late to wish she hadn’t allowed that kiss or the conversation that had followed. Before today she would have said she didn’t have a flirtatious bone in her body. But sometime between the altar and the church gate she had learned to flirt.
Because she was still fatally attracted to Nick.
Elena drew a breath and let it out slowly.
She should never have allowed Nick to kiss her.
Her only excuse was that she had been so distracted by Gemma finally getting her happy-ever-after ending that she had dropped her guard.
But Nick had just reminded her of exactly why she couldn’t afford him in her life.
Nick