The Best Of The Year - Modern Romance 2016. Кейт Хьюит
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mission to avoid leading the sort of life you were expected to lead?’
‘I’m not into expensive jewellery. Do you come here with your girlfriends?’
She was acutely conscious of his fingers, still in her hair, absently stroking her neck. It sent shivers racing up and down her spine, and she had to forcibly remind herself just how over the moon she was that he would be disappearing to salvage his business deal and she wouldn’t have to put up with these public shows of phoney affection.
Theo paused. ‘Quite some time ago a woman I was dating dragged me here and made a point of telling me how exquisite and expensive the jewellery was.’
‘So you bought her a diamond ring?’ Alexa squeaked.
‘Quite some time ago’ implied that the woman he had been dating might have been her age, and she was struck again at just how sheltered a life she had led—more interested in her studies than in getting a guy to buy her baubles and trinkets...waiting for love to knock on her door and refusing to spread herself thin in the meanwhile...
‘I broke off the relationship,’ Theo returned wryly. ‘I didn’t like the direction it was taking.’
Alexa stopped dead in her tracks. ‘You must hate this,’ she said with sudden force. ‘Being trapped into marrying me.’
‘The rewards outweigh the inconvenience,’ Theo said, fighting an urge to brush the hair blowing softly around her face from her eyes. ‘And your dowry is certainly a healthy incentive.’
Feeling like cattle that had been successfully bartered to a new master, Alexa spun round on her heels and pushed open the door to the jewellery shop—which was as unprepossessing on the inside as it was on the outside.
‘Take your time,’ Theo urged as they were ushered into comfortable chairs and the process of displaying rings began.
The owner of the shop was small, thin and extremely knowledgeable. He seemed to know everything there was to know about diamonds, and tray after tray was brought, with rings nestling in beds of velvet, unpriced and therefore probably priceless.
Since it wasn’t a real engagement Alexa didn’t care which ring she wore, but it would be ridiculous to choose something that was big and ostentatious.
‘What is your preference?’ She turned to look at Theo, who was lounging in the chair, his long legs stretched out to one side, lightly crossed at the ankles. ‘Why don’t you choose?’
Theo linked his fingers on his washboard-flat stomach and looked at the proprietor with a knowing, man-to-man grin.
‘Women!’ He shook his head with an expression of rueful indulgence. ‘As if my opinion would count for anything!’
He stroked her back with one possessive hand and his fingers lingered for fractionally too long on her bra strap. Alexa kept a smile pinned to her face and wriggled a little to dislodge his over-inquisitive hand.
‘The women do usually take the lead when it comes to choosing jewellery, sir.’
The proprietor returned Theo’s smile and Alexa gritted her teeth as Theo patted her a couple of times on her back and then linked his fingers lightly on his lap once again.
‘And this feisty little lady knows that she can have whatever she wants! So what do you want?’ He looked at her with lazy, sexy bedroom eyes. ‘Your wish is my command...’
‘If only that were true,’ Alexa returned pointedly.
She bared her teeth in a smile and hoped that he was sharp enough to read the hidden message, which was along the lines of If my wish was your command, you would be on the other side of the world...
Without warning, Theo leaned forward and quickly, but far too effectively, planted a kiss on her mouth.
Their eyes tangled and she realised, heart beating frantically, that he knew exactly what she had been implying and had duly punished her with that kiss.
To add insult to injury, as she returned her attention to the tray in front of her, she felt his big hand rest on her leg and then, shockingly, move upwards, curving over the sensitive skin of her inner thigh and sending a frisson of electric response through her.
Perspiration beaded her upper lip. She snapped her legs shut and pointed to any ring on the tray—she didn’t even notice which one she had chosen.
‘That’ll do!’
Theo’s hand on her thigh tightened.
‘Perfect choice, if I may say so myself...’
The proprietor reverently removed it from its velvet bed and they listened to his rhapsodies about the purity of the diamond and the rarity of its setting. They were asked to pay attention to the tiny details in the band, which marked it out as a one-off. Alexa was made to try it on. Measurements were painstakingly taken.
The ring cost a small fortune, so it wasn’t hard to understand why the whole process was taking for ever.
‘That’ll do...?’ It was the first thing Theo said as they made their way out of the shop.
‘Your hand was on my leg,’ Alexa said stiffly. And his arm was around her shoulders now. The public face of unity was back in place, although her body was as rigid as a plank of wood.
‘Perfectly natural,’ Theo purred, giving her shoulder a little squeeze as he guided her to one of the hippest cafés in the area—a place where people went to be seen. ‘You’re my fiancée. Of course I’m going to want to touch you. Frankly, I can’t keep my hands off you...’
It was a load of nonsense, but Alexa still shivered with an illicit little thrill.
Her treacherous mind wondered what it must be like to have this sinfully sexy guy say those words and mean them...
What would it feel like to actually know that he couldn’t keep his hands off her...?
Her eyes skittered across to him—a quick glance at his face, once again shielded behind his sunglasses. Then, rebelling against all common sense, she noted the width of his shoulders, the lean muscularity of his body, the strength of his forearms and the way his dark hair curled around the dull metal of his watch strap.
She found herself drinking him in and felt her nervous system ratcheting up a notch.
In a couple of days she would be wearing a large diamond rock on her finger. Speculation, such as there was, would be over and she would be officially engaged to the guy now attracting stares from every single woman under the age of eighty and over the age of eighteen.
She was short and unspectacular. He was physical perfection. Even if he did get under her skin in ways that made her want to scream, there was no way that she could deny the sheer beauty of the man.
Was it any wonder that he was taking all this in his stride? He was accustomed to women. A phoney engagement wouldn’t faze him and he would be particularly incentivised by the carrot at the end of the stick. He didn’t need yet more money, but since when did the wealthy ever turn down the opportunity to add to their bank vaults? Never.
As expected, every head swivelled in their direction, and Alexa saw one very leggy blonde disengage herself from her group of friends and make a beeline in their direction.
She stifled a groan.
The blonde stalked towards them, her sharp bob expertly cut and dropping squarely to her shoulders. Even in flats she was close to six foot, and wearing next to nothing. She was rake-thin, flat as a pancake, and had the longest legs Alexa had ever seen—and most of those long legs were exposed because her skirt barely covered her underwear.
Her body language said it all as she chose to ignore Alexa completely, focusing one hundred per cent of her blue-eyed attention on Theo. Surely it couldn’t be true? The blonde ran her china blue eyes dismissively over Alexa. The press had it all wrong, hadn’t they?
‘I mean, I just