Mediterranean Men Bundle

by MELANIE MILBURNE

  ‘Do you mind?’ she demanded in an undertone. ‘Can’t you see I’m in the middle of a lesson?’

  Kane looked down at her without speaking.

  Bryony checked over her shoulder to see if Ella was watching before turning back to him, leaning closer to whisper, ‘I said: do you mind?’

  He took his hands out of his trouser pockets and reached for her, pulling her into his chest and covering her startled mouth with his.

  It was a brief hard kiss but no less distracting than any of his others.

  He let her go and she wobbled, not unlike her young student, as she stepped backwards, her eyes flashing with instant fury.

  ‘If you don’t leave immediately, I will—’ Her harsh whisper was interrupted by the sound of Pauline’s voice calling out from the staff room door a few metres away.

  ‘So this is the man of your dreams!’ She came over and held out her hand to Kane. ‘I’m Pauline LeFray, Bryony’s teaching partner.’

  ‘Kane Kaproulias.’ He smiled and took her hand in his. ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you at last. Bryony has told me all about you.’

  Liar! She’d only mentioned her name once, Bryony seethed as he dished out his particularly lethal brand of charm, watching in disgust as Pauline almost melted into a pool at his feet.

  ‘I think it’s so terribly romantic, you sweeping her off her feet like that,’ Pauline gushed.

  ‘She deserves it,’ Kane said, his dark eyes gleaming.

  Bryony sent him a fulminating glare over the top of Pauline’s head, infuriated at his double meaning, knowing he was doing it deliberately just to goad her.

  Pauline turned to face her. ‘I’ll take over with Ella if you two lovebirds want to fly off.’

  ‘No, I—’

  ‘Oh, would you?’ Kane cut Bryony off with a grateful thousand watt smile towards Pauline. ‘I haven’t seen Bryony for a while and I’m getting rather impatient to be alone with her. You know how it is.’

  ‘I do indeed.’ Pauline beamed up at him in approval. ‘Take her away and paint the town.’ She flapped her fingers up and down in a little wave and left them to go to Ella, who was standing back at the barre trying to do a complicated stretch.

  Bryony turned a vitriolic look his way and, tossing her head, went towards the staff room, informing him as she stalked off, ‘I have to get changed.’

  ‘Don’t be too long, agape mou,’ he called after her.

  She turned at the door to look back at him, forcing her mouth into an overly sweet smile that didn’t match the anger sparkling in her eyes.

  ‘I won’t be too long…honeybunch.’ She blew him a kiss across the surface of her palm before she closed the staff room door behind her with a sharp little click.

  Bryony let out her breath as she leant against the back of the door, her fists clenched in fury at the way he had so cleverly manipulated the situation to force her into going out with him. She could just imagine him the other side of the door busily congratulating himself on yet another clever manoevre executed to serve his ends.

  She stuffed her leotard into a bag and pushed her feet into her shoes, not even bothering to tidy her long hair which had begun to slip from the high pony-tail she’d arranged earlier. She ignored her cosmetics and, snatching up her purse, went out to the studio, rearranging her outraged expression into one of pre-nuptial bliss entirely for Pauline’s and Ella’s sake.

  It was a pity they weren’t even watching, which meant Kane got the full benefit of her smile which annoyed her no end.

  ‘Shall we go?’ He took her hand and, shouldering open the door, led her outside.

  The warmth of the early evening hit her like a hot wet towel as soon as they stepped out of the building, the high humidity in the atmosphere instantly making her blouse begin to stick to her back.

  She walked beside him, incredibly conscious of his hand swallowing hers. She couldn’t stop thinking of that very same hand and its twin on her body, touching her…

  She pulled out of his hold in agitation and stared furiously at the pedestrian lights as if willing them to change so she didn’t have to stand beside him for any longer than necessary.

  ‘Where would you like to go?’ he asked.

  ‘Home, preferably alone,’ she said, striding out as the lights changed.

  He caught her in half a stride and took her hand again, this time making sure she couldn’t slip out of his grasp.

  ‘You’re crushing my fingers,’ she snapped at him irritably.

  ‘You’re crushing my ego,’ he returned.

  She flicked him a glance, blowing a loose strand of long blonde hair out of her face as she did so.

  ‘I’m sure it will make a complete recovery and come bouncing back bigger than ever.’

  He threw back his head and laughed.

  She sent him another caustic look but the edges of her mouth had already begun to twitch slightly and she eventually had to give in to the urge to smile. She turned her head away so he wouldn’t see it but it was too late.

  ‘Do you know that’s probably the first genuine smile you’ve ever given me?’

  Her smile faded as she considered his comment.

  Had she never smiled at him?

  She’d known him for much of her teenage life; how had it happened that she had not once considered him worthy of a smile?

  ‘I hope you made the most of it,’ she said tightly. ‘It won’t happen again.’

  ‘Don’t bet on it, agape mou,’ he drawled.

  ‘I wish you would stop calling me that.’

  ‘You’d better get used to it, for in a matter of a week we’ll be husband and wife. Such name-calling comes with the territory of the newly wedded.’

  ‘The only names I want to call you are socially unacceptable,’ she said.

  ‘I don’t care what you call me, Bryony, as long as you call me to bed.’

  ‘Dinner,’ she informed him coldly, her cheeks heating. ‘That’s how that saying goes—call me to dinner, not bed.’

  His smile was playful and totally disarming, so totally disarming that she had to look away immediately and pretend she hadn’t seen it.

  Careful, she warned herself. Don’t let your guard slip around such charm. Don’t mess with him.

  Kane took her to a small restaurant a short walk from the studio, the dimly lit interior suiting her need to keep her expressive face out of his reading zone.

  Bryony examined the menu wishing she could have the fettuccine carbonara but her quick mental tally of the calories put her off.

  ‘I’ll have the green salad, no dressing.’ She closed the menu firmly.

  Kane studied her for a long moment and then as the waiter approached informed him, ‘I’ll have the Porterhouse steak with forrestierre sauce and my fiancée will have the fettuccine carbonara.’

  ‘But—’ Bryony opened her mouth to protest but the waiter had already gone. She swivelled back to scowl at Kane, who was sitting as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth, and then thought with resentment that if it did his hard body wouldn’t suffer the consequences as hers would.

  ‘Do you know how much cream is in that dish?’ she asked.

  ‘You can afford a little indulgence now and again.’

  ‘I think I can be trusted to order my own meals,’ she said. ‘I have to watch my figure, every dancer does.’

  ‘I’ll watch it for you,’ he said and then let his eyes do exactly that by sliding over her lazily, lingering on the swell of her breasts.

  ‘Stop it!’ she hissed at him furiously, conscious of the other diners in the tiny restaurant. ‘What will people think?’

  ‘They’ll think I can’t wait to get you home and into bed, that’s what they’ll think.’

  She felt hot all over at his words. Her face flamed and her spine felt as if someone had just set a blowtorch to it, melting it like warmed honey.

  ‘You know I don’t want to sleep with you,’ she bit out.

  ‘I’m confident I can get you to ch
ange your mind.’

  ‘Your arrogance is misplaced for I won’t be changing my mind.’

  ‘You should run that by the rest of your body before you go backing yourself into such a tight corner.’ His eyes dipped back to the pointed peaks of her breasts where her nipples were clearly outlined. ‘Could be the rest of you might not agree.’

  She sent him a withering look and crossed her arms. ‘It’s cold in here.’

  The edge of his mouth lifted sceptically. ‘It’s close to thirty degrees. Mario warned me when I booked that the air-conditioning was playing up.’

  ‘You booked?’ She stared at him. ‘You were that confident I’d come?’

  He lifted his wineglass. ‘You’re a pushover, Bryony.’ Winking at her, he tossed the contents down his throat. He put the glass back down and added, ‘I promise you, I will always make you come.’

  She stared at him in a combination of outrage at his double entendre and fear that he would actually fulfill his promise.

  She couldn’t hold his gaze, even in the dim lighting.

  ‘You’re going to be very disappointed.’ She addressed the tablecloth rather than face the burning glitter of his dark eyes.

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Could we please talk about something else?’ she asked in desperation.

  ‘If you like.’

  She gnawed at her lip for a moment, hunting her brain for a suitable topic but before she could come up with something he leaned towards her and spoke in an undertone. ‘I think I should warn you there’s a woman making her way to our table to speak to me. Someone I used to date.’

  ‘Why are you telling me? Do you think I’m the least bit interested in who you’ve managed to bribe into your bed in the past?’

  He sat back in his seat and refilled his glass from the bottle on the table. ‘I just thought it would be polite to warn you.’

  ‘Well, you can take your version of politeness and stick it where—’

  ‘Kane!’ a husky feminine voice cooed just before a waft of heady, cloyingly cheap perfume hit Bryony’s flaring nostrils.

  Bryony turned her head to see a blonde sashay up to the table, leaning her glorious cleavage down so Kane could have an exclusive view as she purred at him, ‘You naughty man. You haven’t called me in ages.’

  ‘I’ve been otherwise engaged.’

  The brassy blonde totally ignored the real blonde sitting in silent fury at the table and continued in a breathy voice, ‘Well, you know my number if you’re ever at a loose end.’

  ‘I haven’t forgotten it,’ he said with a little smile.

  Bryony felt like slapping it from his face and had to thrust her hands in her lap to stop herself from giving in to the temptation.

  She sat silently seething at the disgusting little tableau being acted out in front of her, furious with him for allowing it to continue but equally annoyed with herself for even giving a damn.

  Of course he would have slept around.

  He was thirty-one years old.

  He was a man, wasn’t he?

  Wasn’t it imprinted in their genes to spread themselves as far and wide as they could?

  ‘I’ll be seeing you.’ The woman blew him a kiss that ruffled the flowers on the table with her nicotine-scented breath. ‘Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, will you?’

  ‘You have my word on that, Luna,’ he said.

  Luna?

  What was she, some kind of planet orbiting around him? Bryony gave a disgusted little snort as the woman made her way back to her noisy table of equally cosmetically and surgically enhanced revellers.

  ‘I did try to warn you,’ he said.

  ‘I’m not sure any type of warning would have been enough.’ She slanted a disparaging glance his way.

  ‘It was just sex.’

  She rolled her eyes. ‘When is it anything else?’

  ‘Good point,’ he acceded and refilled his glass.

  ‘All I can say is you’re definitely marrying up.’

  ‘Am I?’ One dark brow rose over his eye like a question mark.

  She opened her mouth to sling another stinging retort his way but the waiter appeared with their meals, the creamy garlicky fragrance of her fettuccine distracting her from her mission.

  ‘Enjoy.’ The waiter beamed as he sidled away.

  Bryony picked up her fork and, giving Kane one last resentful glare, dug her fork into the steaming dish in front of her without a single pang of guilt.

  After dinner was over Kane walked her back to her car where it was parked behind the studio, waiting until she was safely inside before hunkering down to speak to her through the still open door.

  ‘Want to have some fun with me on the weekend?’

  She tried not to stare into the depths of his brown-black eyes. ‘I’m…busy.’

  ‘How busy?’

  ‘Very busy.’

  ‘Doing what?’

  She thought for a moment. ‘I have to babysit my neighbour’s diabetic cat.’

  He chuckled and got to his feet, his hand on the door to stop her from closing it. ‘Can’t you think of a better excuse than that?’

  She turned over the engine and reached for the door handle. ‘I have to mop the floors.’

  ‘And that’s going to take you all weekend?’

  ‘I do it with my tongue.’

  The look he sent her was pure temptation but she resolutely pulled the door shut, turning her head to the road ahead.

  She gunned the engine and took off with a little squeal of brakes but it was several blocks before she could erase the vision of his slanted smile and even longer to stop her stomach tilting at the thought of being tied to him in marriage.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  AS SOON as Monday morning arrived Bryony felt as if she was on an out of control rollercoaster heading towards the weekend where the wedding loomed like a disaster just waiting to happen. There was nothing she could do to stop it. The invitations were out, the flowers ordered, the cake made, the dress hanging in her wardrobe.

  Pauline was effusive in her praise of her choice of groom when she arrived at the studio. Bryony didn’t have the heart to tell he wasn’t exactly her choice of bridegroom…

  ‘So handsome!’ Pauline clasped her hands together theatrically. ‘And that scar! Has he told you how he came by it? Isn’t it intriguing?’

  Bryony felt sick.

  ‘He’s so gorgeous!’ Pauline continued. ‘No wonder you fell for him so quickly. God, I would have dived into his bed even if it was filled with great white sharks.’

  Bryony couldn’t help laughing. ‘You’re seriously nuts, do you know that?’

  ‘He’s nuts about you,’ Pauline said, folding her arms across her chest. ‘That’s as plain as that scar on his face.’

  Bryony wished she wouldn’t keep referring to that scar.

  ‘He got it in a fight,’ she said, hoping to deflate her partner’s bubble of admiration.

  No such luck.

  ‘I thought as much,’ Pauline said, admiration colouring her tone. ‘What was he doing? Defending some girl’s honour?’

  ‘I…I’m not exactly sure of the details…’

  Pauline gave a deep dreamy sigh. ‘I wish I could find someone like him to defend me…’

  ‘Women can defend themselves,’ Bryony felt it necessary to point out. ‘Anyway, fighting is so…primitive.’

  ‘Give me a primitive man any day over one of those meterosexuals who think you’ve committed a heinous sin for borrowing their razor.’

  Bryony didn’t answer.

  Her mind was far too busy with a vision of Kane’s razor sliding up from her ankle to her thigh and beyond…

  Her mother phoned that evening, her tone lighter than Bryony had heard it in years.

  ‘Darling, I just had to tell you,’ Glenys said somewhat breathlessly. ‘Kane has settled all your father’s debts. He phoned a few minutes ago. Isn’t that nice?’

  Nice? What was nice about blackmailin
g her into marriage?

  ‘Yes,’ she said instead, inwardly seething. ‘He’s nothing if not nice.’

  ‘I’m so glad you think so,’ her mother said. ‘I mean…I did hope you would feel some sort of gratitude for what he’s done for us…’

  ‘Believe me, Mum, I’m extremely grateful,’ she said, trying to keep the sarcasm out of her tone.

  ‘I’m very relieved, darling, because I didn’t like to think of you marrying him when you hated him so much.’ There was a delicately timed pause. ‘You don’t hate him any more, do you?’

  Bryony found it difficult to answer with any degree of honesty. On one hand she hated him with every bone in her body, but then…

  ‘I’m not sure what I feel about him.’ She went for the middle ground.

  ‘He’s a good man,’ her mother said. ‘One sort of knows these things.’

  Bryony frowned. If her mother thought he was such an angel, why had she been complicit with her father in putting him behind bars ten years ago? None of it made any sense. Was there something they weren’t telling her?

  ‘Yes,’ she said by way of answer to her mother. ‘One does.’ But she didn’t believe it for a second.

  The day of the wedding was mostly fine but a storm loomed overhead in steel-grey clouds that frowned down upon the perfectly trimmed and tended gardens of Mercyfields like disapproving eyes on a scandalous scene.

  Bryony put the finishing touches to her face and hair and wished it would pour with rain to ease the tense atmosphere.

  ‘You look beautiful—’ her mother sniffed as she stood back to look at her ‘—radiant, in fact.’

  Radiant with rage, Bryony thought sourly as she flicked her veil over her face.

  ‘I’m ready,’ she lied and turned to the door.

  ‘I’m so proud of you…’ her mother gulped and picked up her train. ‘So very, very proud of you.’

  Bryony blinked back the sudden tears, hating Kane all over again for putting her through this.

  He was waiting for her at the end of the wisteria walk, his gaze unwavering as she approached with steps that were deliberately out of time with the music of the string quartet.