I stood up straighter and pushed my chest out (good job I was wearing his jacket). ‘Excuse me, but what gives you the right to judge my decisions?’
‘We could start with the fact you’re currently naked from the waist up under my jacket. Fix the dress. I’m the best man. I have duties to perform.’
And I was willing to bet he’d perform them well.
Oh, God, I had to stop thinking like that.
‘The dress is unfixable. And I couldn’t refuse to wear it. This was what Cressida wanted.’
‘Your half-naked body on display? I don’t think so.’ He threw me a look that would have terrified an entire army into immediate surrender. ‘But you’re just a girl who can’t say no.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ I exploded, which considering I was half-naked wasn’t a good idea. Because I was quite physical I tended to add emphasis to what I was saying by using my hands. Up until a moment ago my hands had been holding the front of his jacket together. Now they were waving around wildly, preparing to act in my defense. Unfortunately they were not the only part of me to be waving around wildly.
His eyes darkened and I realized that he had stopped looking at my face.
Suddenly there were four of us in the room.
Me, him and my breasts.
I saw a tiny muscle move in his jaw and then his gaze lifted to mine and that was the moment I discovered that looking at someone could make you burn inside.
‘I can say no.’ My voice came out croaky and I realized the timing of that sentence wasn’t great because I knew, I just knew, that both of us were thinking about sex.
‘What the hell are you doing here, Hayley? At this wedding? Have you no pride?’
‘Pride is the reason I’m here. If I’d stayed away everyone would have thought I was broken-hearted.’
‘And are you?’ His question surprised me as much as the roughness of his voice.
We didn’t exactly have the sort of relationship that included an exchange of confidences and that was a deeply personal question. I had no intention of answering it.
I hadn’t even told Rosie how bad I felt, although she knew of course. That was why she was here. Solidarity even in the absence of confession. That was one of the unspoken rules of true sisterhood.
The second was that we were going to leave at the first possible moment, scoot back to our apartment in London and drown the memories of today in a large bottle of wine while we wrapped presents and finished decorating our apartment for Christmas.
Not that I was broken-hearted about Charlie—I wasn’t. It was more the misery of being forced to confront yet more evidence of how utterly impossible relationships were.
I was mourning the fairy tale, which was ridiculous when I thought about it because I’d never believed in the fairy tale.
‘Hayley? Cristo, answer the question.’ His voice was raw and thickened by an emotion I didn’t recognize. I assumed it was anger, since that was the only emotion he ever seemed to feel around me. ‘Are you broken-hearted?’
The question hung between us in an atmosphere that was heavy and sweaty. A moment ago I’d been freezing. Someone needed to open a window. It was stifling in here.
‘Unless you’re a cardiologist, the condition of my heart is none of your business.’ I might have been hiding my feelings but I wasn’t hiding anything else. I lifted my hands to close my jacket but he was there before me. Strong male fingers tangled with mine and the backs of his fingers brushed against my breasts. His hands were warm and chemistry shot through me. It was like falling on an electric fence.
Both of us froze.
The only sound in the room was his breathing. Or maybe it was my breathing.
He was standing really close to me, so close I had a magnified view of hot masculinity. My eyes were level with that darkened jaw, that unsmiling mouth and those incredible bed me if you’re lucky eyes.
Right at the moment I so, so wanted to get that lucky.
I knew he wouldn’t be good for me. He’d probably be a bit like junk food—something you could crave even while knowing it had no nutritional value and might make you feel sick later.
I didn’t care about the wedding. I didn’t care that I’d be gossiped about for the next two decades. All I wanted was to feel that mouth on mine and find out whether kissing him would be as good as I thought it would.
Oh, God, why not?
Today had been such a total disaster I might as well try and extract one decent memory to comfort me in the hours of cringing flashbacks that were bound to follow.
Telling myself I was doing us both a favor, I grabbed the front of his shirt and was about to pull him towards me when he muttered something in Italian and dragged me towards him by the lapels of his jacket.
We collided, locked together like wild animals in the mating season.
Bodies, mouths, every part of us that could touch were touching, and although I had no idea who made the first move I didn’t care any more because his mouth was warm and skilled and his kiss confirmed what I’d already suspected—
That he was the hottest man on the face of the earth.
Whatever else it was, this wasn’t a scripted kiss.
I doubted either of us would have known or cared if anyone else was watching. We were so wrapped up in each other, so absorbed in the moment, we wouldn’t have noticed if a horse had leapt from one of the paintings and started galloping around the room.
I felt the erotic slide of his tongue in my mouth and moaned aloud because what he was doing connected a million tiny circuits inside me and set off a chain reaction until I was fairly sure my body was close to meltdown. I didn’t care that he never smiled because I knew now his mouth was made for kissing and he proved it with every delicious, skilled stroke of his tongue. My arms were round his neck, my body pressed against his—and his was hard, muscular and just about perfect. Under that shockingly expensive suit, the man was ripped. Everything was ripped. My dress, his body and my reputation.
I couldn’t help myself. I covered the front of his trousers with the flat of my hand and felt him, hard and thick against my palm.
‘Cristo—’ he muttered against my lips and slammed me back against the wall, his mouth hot and demanding on mine. His hands had moved from the jacket to my breasts and I felt a thrill of delicious excitement as his thumbs grazed my nipples.
Usually I closed my eyes when I kissed, but not this time.
His eyes were fixed on mine, dark with heat and raw desire. It was the sexiest experience of my life and I didn’t want to miss a single moment of it.
My mind wasn’t capable of much coherent thought, but I knew I’d been wrong about one thing—
Nico Rossi wasn’t a good boy. He was a bad boy dressed in a good suit.
Heat pulsed between us, the chemistry screaming, scorching and intense. His fingers drove into my hair, which tumbled out of its clip and slid over his hand. His mouth was pressing hot, sensual kisses against my neck and lower.
He murmured something in Italian and I was about to ask him to translate when I realized I didn’t want him to. Knowing what he was saying might spoil everything. There was no way I was ever going to understand what was going on here anyway, so what was the point in trying?
I felt the thrust of his hard thigh between