‘Dance with me?’
Say no! Every instinct screamed the warning at her, every nerve instantly thrown into panic mode. Say no—back away—just turn—run! Anything other than expose her already weakened defences to the potent onslaught of his sensual appeal. She already knew how vulnerable she was to the sight, the sound, the scent of him. How her body reacted to just the slightest touch. She couldn’t risk…
‘Yes, okay.’
How had that happened? Just what was she doing? Grace could find no answers for her outraged sense of self-preservation. She was acting on a far deeper, more primitive level, responding purely on instinct, unable to force her mind into any form of rational thought.
So she let Constantine take her hand and draw her towards the part of the room that had been cleared for dancing. And when the music changed just as they started to dance, turning from a rhythmic beat to a slow, seductive number, she made no objection to the way he turned to her and took her into his arms, drawing her close to the warmth and strength of his body.
She fitted into his arms as if she’d been born there. And it felt like coming home. The rest of the room, the noise and all the people around her, blurred into one indecipherable mass. There was no one in the world but herself and this man, whose strength enclosed her, whose heart beat under her cheek, the strong wall of his chest rising and falling with every breath he took.
‘Grace…’ he murmured softly, her name just a sigh against her hair.
‘Don’t talk…’ Grace heard herself whisper back. ‘Just hold me…’
She had no idea whether it was simply one dance that seemed to last for ever, or if there were many such dances, impossible to count, while she was lost in a dreamy haze of sensual delight. She only knew that when at last the music faded into silence and the world around her righted itself again she was no longer in the big main room where the party was centred, but had been subtly manoeuvred out into the hall beyond.
‘Where…?’ she began in confusion.
As her eyes focused again she discovered that she and Constantine were in the shelter of the wide flight of stairs up to the next floor, hidden from everyone.
Immediately the dream world that had enclosed her vanished, evaporating swiftly like a mist before the sun. Reality came rushing back with a speed and force that rocked her on her feet, made her shiver convulsively.
‘What are we doing here? I can’t—’
‘Grace…’ Constantine silenced her by laying strong tanned fingers across her mouth. ‘I want some time alone with you.’
‘You!’
Grace wrenched her head away from the gentle pressure of his hand, grey eyes blazing up into his black ones, seeing the way that the heavy lids came down over them, concealing his feelings from her.
‘You want! You want! Isn’t that always the way with you? What you want comes before everything else. “Dance with me…”’
Deliberately she mimicked his own words of earlier, emphasising the autocratic note, the lack of any ‘please’ that had turned the phrase into a command rather than a request.
“‘I want some time alone with you.”’
‘I got the impression that was what you wanted too.’
‘And how, precisely, did you come to that conclusion?’
Constantine’s proud head bent until his mouth was level with her ear, and his voice was softly husky, his warmth breath caressing her skin as he whispered, “‘Don’t talk… Just hold me.”’
His echoing of her own foolish reaction was uncannily accurate, making her head go back in shock.
Had she really been so stupid? Had she really let her feelings get the better of her? Had she been so weak as to put that pleading note into her voice, the one that Constantine had just reproduced with merciless exactness? How could she have betrayed herself in that way?
‘I—I was enjoying the dance,’ she blustered frantically, desperately trying to cover her tracks. ‘But that doesn’t mean I wanted anything more.’
‘No?’
The lazy lifting of one dark brow questioned the truth of her spluttered declaration.
‘You must forgive me if I don’t believe—’
‘You can believe or not as you want!’ Grace tossed back at him, ignoring the ominous thread of warning that shaded the softly accented voice. ‘I don’t care. I know my own mind, and I don’t want anything more to do with you! As a matter of fact, what I really want right now is to go home.’
‘Then I will take you,’ Constantine returned smoothly.
‘No!’
That was definitely not what she had in mind. Desperately she shook her head, so that her fair hair flew out wildly.
‘I can make my own way home. It’s just a short walk.’
‘You no longer live with your father?’
‘No.’
Living at home would have meant living with Paula, and that was something neither of them could have handled.
‘I have my own place now—about ten minutes away from here. I can walk.’
‘And I will escort you.’
Grace groaned inwardly. She knew this mood of old. When Constantine set his mind on something like this, he was immoveable. A dog with a bone had nothing on him. But she couldn’t give in to him. If she did, then he would only take it as evidence that his own interpretation of events was the real one.
And wasn’t it? her own unforgiving conscience threw at her, refusing to let her off the hook, no matter how much she mentally squirmed. Hadn’t she admitted to herself that she wanted…’
But what she wanted and what was safe were two very different things. She might dream of more time with Constantine, of letting him know her feelings for him, but to do any such thing would be emotional suicide.
Whatever feelings he might once have had for her, they were obviously now all dead. All, that was, except for the burning sexual attraction that had once flared between them, and which time had not dimmed at all. Weakly, stupidly, she had let Constantine see that it was still there, and with characteristic opportunism he had decided to turn that fact to his advantage.
‘Grace, I have never in my life let a woman walk home alone at this time of night. I don’t intend to start now. Get your coat. I am coming with you.’
‘Do I have any choice?’ Wearily she accepted that, short of creating the sort of scene that would have everyone at the party talking for weeks to come, she had no option but to do as he said.
‘None at all,’ Constantine returned on a note of satisfaction that sounded rich as a tiger’s purr. ‘I know that we’ve only just met, but I must insist that you humour me in this.’
Only just met. What…?
It took Grace a moment or two to realise exactly what Constantine meant.
Grace, this is meant to be a Turn Back the Clock party. His words sounded inside her head like a lifeline as she went reluctantly to fetch her coat from the bedroom. Five years ago we would have been complete strangers.
So Constantine was still playing according to the rules they had laid down earlier that evening. They were still pretending that they were complete strangers who had met for the first time tonight.
That being so, perhaps she could cope with letting him take her home after all. Surely even Constantine wouldn’t pounce on what was supposedly their very first meeting?