She gave her slowest, most sultry smile. “Trouble? People say that’s my middle name.”
“You are trouble.” His lips barely moved. His eyes were harder than the diamonds that graced Fliss’s neck. “I don’t want you talking to Savvas. Leave him alone. You’re not getting your talons into my brother.”
Her defiance wavered. Damon’s brutal reaction was predictable. Before she’d met him, she’d heard tales about him. Of his business successes, his clever, decisive mind, his devastating good looks. But she’d never expected the raw, primal emotion he’d aroused in her. They’d met at a wedding she and Fliss had organised for a business colleague of his. She’d taken one look at the gorgeous guy with the dark, brooding magnetism and fallen. Hard.
He’d been charming, attentive, interested—she’d thought. Until he’d learned her name, figured out that she was Aaron Grainger’s scandalous widow. In an instant he’d changed. Withdrawn. Become distant and, worse, disinterested. She’d watched his eyes narrow, and with one raking glance he’d stripped her to the soul, then he’d dismissed her and stepped past her to congratulate the groom. But it had been far too late for caution. She’d been lost.
Caught up in her thoughts, Rebecca let her hips move fluidly to the rhythm of the music. For a moment his body responded and they moved as one, dipping and swaying. But an instant later he tensed and moved away.
Always it had been so.
After that first encounter, she’d searched him out shamelessly, using business acquaintances and her connections as Aaron Grainger’s widow to secure invitations to places he frequented, inexorably driven by a raw attraction that had gone to the heart of her. How hard she’d tried to recapture that magical moment. Always she imagined a moment of softening, a flash of heat, then it was gone—and the man of steel returned. Until finally she’d realised the overwhelming attraction existed only in her own mind.
Damon hadn’t seemed to feel anything.
The discovery crushed her.
Even now, as they danced, his body was rigid, unbending, his gaze fixed on something over her shoulder. Totally removed from her. Her mouth twisted. So much for fate. Nothing in her life had ever been easy, so why should falling in love be any different?
But she’d never expected fate’s final cruel twist: that Damon would take one look at Fliss’s sweet blond gentleness and want it for himself. Or how much that would devastate her.
And there was nothing she could do about it.
Last night had proved that.
Oh, God, last night…
She stared at his mouth pressed into a hard line, remembered the hard, seeking pressure against her lips, remembered how…
No, no, don’t think about it!
So Rebecca said the first thing that came into her head. “Both you and Savvas dance well. Did you attend lessons?”
“Forget about how well Savvas dances, you little troublemaker,” he ground out. “I want you to stay away from him, he’s too young.”
Troublemaker?
Why the hell not. What did she have to lose? Rebecca blocked out his disparaging voice and, humming the refrain of the waltz, let her body brush his, heard his breath catch and repeated the fleeting brush of body against body.
“Theos. Stop it!” The hand on her waist moved to her shoulder, a manacle, holding her at bay.
She resisted the urge to sag in his arms as despair overwhelmed her. Forced herself not to crumple, to stay tall and straight and move lightly, with grace, on feet that felt leaden. She gave him a mocking little smile. He glared back, more than angry now.
His disgust, his distrust, seared her.
What was she doing? She sagged against him, the struggle going out of her. His body tightened, then firm hands pushed her away, holding her at a distance. The ache inside intensified. What was she trying to prove? Damon was right. This was wrong. However much he’d hurt her, however much she felt he deserved her bad behaviour, Fliss’s wedding was not the place for it. Nor was it worth losing the only thing she had left—her self-respect.
But there was no reason she shouldn’t needle him just a teeny-weeny little bit.
Her spine stiffened. She shot him a swift upward glance. “Savvas told me he’s twenty-seven. That’s three years older than me. I’d say he’s the perfect age for me.”
“Listen to me!” Damon sounded at the end of his tether. “My brother is light-years younger in experience. No match for a woman like you.”
The words stung.
“A woman like me?”
Anger swirled through her at the injustice of it all.
Damon Asteriades didn’t even know what kind of woman she was. How could he be so blind? How dare he fail to recognise—refuse to recognise—what lay between them? He should not be marrying Fliss today—or any other woman for that matter. Damn him, there was only one woman on earth he should ever have contemplated marrying. Her.
There. She’d admitted it.
Admitted what lay at the heart of her pain. What he’d always refused to recognise. And now it was too late.
He was married.
To her best friend.
Yet still this thing…this force…burned with a life of its own, bigger than both of them. And sometimes, like now, she almost convinced herself he was aware of it—even feared it. Experimentally Rebecca let her fingers slide along the shoulder of his wedding suit, over the fine fabric of his white shirt collar, until she touched the bare skin of his neck. She thought—dreamed—she detected the smallest of shudders.
“Shame on you! You know nothing about me,” she whispered and blew gently into the soft hollow beside his clenched jaw. “You never chose to find out anything about me.”
He started. “For God’s sake! What’s to find out? I know more than I ever wanted.” Bitterness spilled from him. “You’re a black widow. You grasp and demand and devour and leave nothing behind.”
“That’s a—”
“Lie? Is it? But there’s nothing to disprove my words, is there? You married Aaron Grainger for his fortune, and when everything was gone you drove him to suicide.”
She gasped. “You know, no one has ever dared say that to my face before.” Helplessly she flapped the hand that a moment ago had stroked his neck. “I heard the rumors existed, but I never thought anyone of substance believed them. I certainly never thought you the type to believe gossip.”
The hand on her waist tightened. The tempo of the music quickened. The dancing speeded up, building to the finale.
“Yes, but I’ve got more than gossip to go on, haven’t I? Haven’t I?” His face was pressed up against hers now. She could see her reflection glittering in his eyes, could smell the heat of his fury. “I know exactly the kind of woman you are. The kind that kisses her best friend’s man, begs him to—”
“Shut up!”
He spun her around, pulled her close to avoid another couple. “You promise sin and desire and deliver nothing but carnal delight. I know the temptation you are. Only last night—”
She froze in his arms and came to a sudden jarring halt.
“I said shut up,” she huffed. “Or do you want me to cause that scene you’re so terrified of? Here, on Fliss’s big day?” Standing dead still on the dance floor, no longer able to move, she watched the realization dawn as he became aware of where they both stood,