‘You look amazing, cara,’ he murmured with gruff honesty.
Nerves threatening to spill over, and frantically aware of the popping of camera bulbs and the rapt attention of people who were so far removed from her world that they could have been from another planet, Katy serenely gazed up at him and smiled in her most confident manner.
‘Thank you, and so do you. Shall we go in?’
CHAPTER NINE
KATY HAD TO call upon every ounce of showmanship and self-confidence acquired down the years to deal with the evening.
Blinded by the flash of cameras, which was only slightly more uncomfortable than the inquisitive eyes of the hundred or so people who had been selectively invited to celebrate the engagement of the year, she held on to Lucas’s hand and her fixed, glassy smile didn’t waver as she was led like a queen into the hotel.
Lucas had told her that she looked amazing, and that buoyed her up, but her heart was still hammering like a drum beating against her ribcage as she took in the flamboyant décor of the five-star hotel.
It was exquisite. She had no idea how something of this calibre could be rustled up at a moment’s notice, but then money could move mountains, and Lucas had oodles of it.
In a daze, she took in the acres of pale marble, the impeccable line of waiting staff in attendance, the dazzling glitter of chandeliers and an informal bar area dominated by an impressive ice sculpture, around which was an even more impressive array of canapés for those who couldn’t wait for the waitresses to swing by. There was a buzz of interest and curiosity all around them.
‘You’ll be fine,’ Lucas bent to murmur into her ear. ‘After an hour, you’ll probably be bored stiff and we’ll make our departure.’
‘How can we?’ Katy queried, genuinely bewildered. ‘Aren’t we the leading actors in the production?’
‘I can do whatever I like.’ Lucas didn’t crack a smile but she could hear the rich amusement in his lowered voice. ‘And, if you feel nervous, rest assured that you outshine every other woman here.’
‘You’re just saying that...they’ll all be wondering how on earth you and I have ended up engaged.’
‘Then we’d better provide them with an explanation, hadn’t we?’ He lowered his head and kissed her. His hand was placed protectively on the small of her back and his mouth on hers was warm, fleeting and, oh, so good. Everything and everyone disappeared and Katy surfaced, blinking, ensnared by his dark gaze, her body keening towards his.
She wanted to cling and carry on clinging. Instead, she stroked his cheek briefly with her fingers and then stepped back, recalling the way he had reminded her earlier that what was happening here was just a show.
‘Perhaps you could introduce me to the man you’re doing the deal with.’ She smiled, looking around her and doing her best to blank out the sea of beautiful faces. ‘And thanks,’ she added in a low voice, while her body continued to sizzle in the aftermath of that kiss. ‘That was an inspired way to provide an explanation. I think you’re going to be far better at this than I could ever hope to be.’
‘I’ll take that as a compliment,’ Lucas drawled, wanting nothing more than to escort her right back into his limo and take her to his bed. ‘Although I’m not entirely sure whether it was meant to be. Now, shall we get this party started?’
Having been introduced to Ken Huang, who was there with his family and two men who looked very much like bodyguards, Katy gradually edged away from the protective zone around Lucas.
Curiosity warred with nerves and won. She was surrounded by the beautiful people you saw in the gossip magazines and, after a while, she found that she was actually enjoying the experience of talking to some of those famous faces, discovering that they were either more normal than she had thought or far less so.
Every so often she would find herself drifting back towards Lucas but, even when she wasn’t by his side, she was very much aware of his dark gaze on her, following her movements, and that made her tingle all over. There was something wonderfully possessive about that gaze and she had to constantly stop herself from luxuriating in the fallacy that it was heartfelt rather than a deliberate show of what was expected from a man supposedly in love with the woman wearing his ring.
Katy longed to glue herself to his side but she knew that circulating would not only remind Lucas that she was independent and happy to get on with the business of putting on a good show for the assembled crowd, just as he was, but would also shore up the barriers she knew she should mentally be erecting between them.
Everything had been so straightforward when she had been living with the illusion that what she felt for him was desire and nothing more.
With that illusion stripped away, she felt achingly vulnerable, and more than once she wondered how she was going to hold on to this so-called relationship for the period of time they had allotted to it.
In theory, she would have her window, during which she could allow herself to really enjoy him, even if she knew that her enjoyment was going to be short-lived.
In practice, she was already quailing at the prospect of walking away from him. He would probably pat her on the back and tell her that they could remain good friends. The truth was that she wasn’t built to live in the moment, to heck with what happened next. Investing in a future was a by-product of her upbringing and, even though she could admit to the down side of that approach, she still feverishly wondered whether she would be able to adopt the right attitude, an attitude that would allow her to live from one moment to the next.
Thoughts buzzing in her head like a horde of hornets released from their nest, she swirled the champagne in her glass and stared down at the golden liquid while she pictured that last conversation between them. She dearly wished that she had the experience and the temperament to enjoy what she had now, instead of succumbing to dark thoughts about a future that was never going to be.
From across the crowded room, Lucas found his fiancée with the unerring accuracy of a heat-seeking missile. No matter where she was, he seemed to possess the uncanny ability to locate her. She wasn’t taller than everyone else, and her outfit didn’t stand out as being materially different from every other fancy long, designer dress, but somehow she emanated a light that beckoned to him from wherever she was. It was as if he was tuned into her on a wave length that was inaudible to everyone except him.
Right now, and for the first time that evening, she was on her own, thoughtfully staring down into a flute of champagne as though looking for answers to something in the liquid.
Abruptly bringing his conversation with two top financiers to an end, Lucas weaved his way towards her, approaching her from behind.
‘You’re thinking,’ he murmured, leaning down so that he could whisper into her ear.
Katy started and spun round, and her heart began to beat faster. Thud, thud, thud.
She had shyly told the three colleagues who’d been invited to the ball about Lucas, glossing over how they had met and focusing instead on how they had been irresistibly drawn towards one another.
‘You know how it is,’ she had laughed coquettishly, knowing that she was telling nothing but the absolute truth, ‘Sometimes you get hit by something and, before you know it, you’re going along for the ride and nothing else matters.’
Lucas’s stunning eyes on her now really did make her feel as though she had been hit head-on by a speeding train and she had to look down just in case he caught the ghost of an expression that might alert him to the way she really felt about him.
‘Tired?’ Lucas asked, drawing her towards the dance floor.
A jazz band had been playing for the past forty-five minutes, the music forming a perfect backdrop to the sound of voices and laughter. The musicians were on a podium, in classic coat and tails, and they very much looked as though they had stepped straight out of a twenties movie set.
‘A little,’ Katy admitted. His fingers were linked through hers and his thumb was absently stroking the side of hers. It made her w
hole body feel hot and she was conscious of her bare nipples rubbing against the silky fabric of her dress. The tips were stiff and sensitive and, the more his thumb idly stroked hers, the more her body went into melt down.
This was what he did to her and she knew that if she had any sense at all she would enjoy it while she had it. Instead of tormenting herself with thoughts of what life would be like when he disappeared from it, she should be relishing the prospect of climbing into bed with him later and making love until she was too exhausted to move a muscle.
‘It’s really tiring talking to loads of people you don’t know,’ she added breathlessly as he drew her to the side of the dance floor and turned her to face him.
The lighting had been dimmed and his gorgeous face was all shadows and angles.
‘But you’ve been doing a pretty good job of it,’ Lucas assured her with a wry smile. ‘And here I was imagining that you would be a little out of your depth.’
Katy laughed, eyes dancing as she looked up at him. ‘That must have been a blessed relief for you.’
‘What makes you say that?’ After spending the past hour or so doing the rounds, Lucas felt relaxed for the first time that evening. No one had dared ask him any direct questions about the engagement that had sprung from nowhere, and he had not enlightened anyone, aside from offering a measured explanation to Ken Huang and his wife, both of whom, he had been amused to note, were full of praise for the romance of the situation. He had thought them far too contained for flowery congratulations but he’d been wrong on that point.
Under normal circumstances, he would have used the time to talk business. There were a number of influential financiers there, as well as several political figures with whom interesting conversations could have been initiated. However, his attention had been far too taken up with Katy and following her progress through the room.
People were keen to talk to her; he had no idea what she’d told them, but whatever it was, she had obviously struck the right note.
With women and men alike. Indeed, he hadn’t failed to notice that some of the men had seemed a lot busier sizing her up than listening to whatever she had had to say. From a distance, Lucas had had to swallow down the urge to muscle in on the scene and claim his property—because she wasn’t his and that was exactly how it ought to be. Possessiveness was a trait he had no time for and he refused to allow it to enter into the arrangement they had between them.
But several times he had felt his jaw tighten at the way her personal space had been invaded by men who probably had wives or girlfriends somewhere in the room, creeps with fancy jobs and flash cars who figured that they could do what they wanted with whomever they chose. Arrangement or no arrangement, Lucas had been quite prepared to land a punch if need be, but he knew that not a single man in the room would dare cross him by overstepping the mark.
Still.
Had she even noticed the over-familiarity of some of those guys? Should he have warned her that she might encounter the sort of men who made her odious ex pale in comparison?
‘I can’t imagine you would have wanted to spend the evening holding my hand,’ she teased with a catch in her voice. ‘That kiss of yours did the trick, and I have to say no one expressed any doubt about the fact that the most unlikely two people in the world decided to get engaged.’
‘Even the men who had their eyes on stalks when they were talking to you?’
Katy looked at him, startled. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’
‘Forget it,’ Lucas muttered gruffly, flushing.
‘Are you jealous?’
‘I’m not the jealous type.’ He downed his whisky in one long swallow and dumped the empty glass, along with her champagne flute, on a tray carried by one of the glamorous waitresses who seemed to know just where to be at the right time to relieve important guests of their empty glasses.
‘No.’ Katy was forced to agree because he really wasn’t, and anyway, jealousy was the domain of the person who actually felt something. She smiled but it was strained. ‘No need to point out the obvious!’
Lucas frowned even though she was actually saying all the right things. ‘That kiss, by the way,’ he murmured, shifting his hand to cup the nape of her neck, keen to get off a subject that was going nowhere, ‘Wasn’t just about making the right impression.’
‘It wasn’t?’
‘Have you stopped to consider that I might actually have wanted to kiss you?’
Katy blushed and said with genuine honesty, ‘I thought it was more of a tactical gesture.’
‘Then you obviously underestimated the impact of your dress,’ Lucas delivered huskily. ‘When I saw you get out of the back of my limo, my basic instinct was to get in with you, slam the door and get my driver to take us back to my apartment.’
‘I don’t think your guests would have been too impressed.’ But every word sent a powerful charge of awareness racing through her already heated body. He was just talking about sex, she told herself weakly. Okay, so he was looking at her as though she was a feast for the eyes, but that had nothing to do with anything other than desire.
Lucas was excellent when it came to sex. He was just lousy when it came to emotion. Not only was he uninterested in exploring anything at all beyond the physical, but he was proud of his control in that arena. If he had foresworn involvement on an emotional level because of one bad experience with a woman, then Katy knew that somehow she would have tried to find a way of making herself indispensable to him. A bad experience left scars, just as Duncan had left her with scars, but scars healed over, because time moved on and one poor experience would always end up buried under layers of day-to-day life.
But Lucas wasn’t like that. He wasn’t a guy who had had one bad experience but was essentially still interested in having a meaningful relationship with a woman. He wasn’t a guy who, even deep down, had faith in the power of love.
Lucas’s cynicism stemmed from a darker place and it had been formed at so young an age that it was now an embedded part of his personality.
‘Do I look like the kind of man who lives his life to impress other people?’ he asked, libido kicking fast into gear as his eyes drifted down to her breasts. Knowing what those breasts looked like and tasted like added to the pulsing ache in his groin. ‘Quite honestly, I can’t think of anything I’d rather do than leave this room right now and head back to my apartment. Failing that, rent a bloody room in the hotel and use it for an hour.’
‘That would be rude.’ But her eyes were slumberous as she looked at him from under her lashes. ‘We should dance instead.’
‘You think that dancing is a good substitute for having mind-blowing sex?’
‘Stop that!’ She pulled him onto the dance floor. The music’s tempo had slowed and the couples who were dancing in the half-light were entwined with one another.
It was almost midnight. Where on earth had the time gone? Lucas pulled Katy onto the dance floor and then held her so close to him that she could feel the steady beat of his heart and the pressure of his body, warm and so, so tempting.
She rested her head on his chest and he curled his fingers into her hair and leant into her.
This was heaven. For the duration of this dance, with his arms around her, she could forget that she wasn’t living the dream.
Lucas looked down and saw the glitter of the diamond on her finger. The ring had fitted her perfectly, no need to be altered. He had slipped it onto her finger and it had belonged there.
Except, it didn’t. Did it?
They had started something in full knowledge of how and when it would end. Katy had proposed a course of action that had been beneficial to them both and at the time, which was only a matter of days ago, Lucas had admired the utter practicality of the proposal.
She had assured him that involvement was not an issue for either of them because they were little more than two people from different planets who had collided because of the peculiar circumstances that had hurled them into t
he same orbit.
They had an arrangement and it was an arrangement that both of them had under control.
Except, was it?
Lucas didn’t want to give house room to doubt, but that ring quietly glittering on her finger was posing questions that left him feeling uneasy and a little panicked, if truth be known.
The song came to an end and he drew away from her.
‘We should go and say goodbye to Huang and his family. I’ve spotted them out of the corner of my eye and they’ve gathered by the exit. Mission accomplished, I think.’
Katy blinked, abruptly yanked out of the pleasant little cloud in which she had been nestled.
For all that common sense was telling her to be wary of this beautiful man who had stolen her heart like a thief in the night, her heart was rebelling at every practical step forward she tried to take.
She should pull back, yet here she was, wanting nothing more than to linger in his arms and for the music to never end.
She should remember Duncan and the hurt he had caused because, however upset she had been—and she now realised it had been on the mild end of the scale—whatever she had thought at the time, it would be nothing compared to what she would suffer when Lucas walked away from her. But nothing could have been less important in that moment than her cheating ex. In fact, she could barely remember what he looked like, and it had been that way for ages.
She had weeks of this farce to go through! She should steel herself against her own cowardly emotions and do what her head was telling her made sense—which was appreciate him while she could; which was gorge herself on everything he had to offer and look for no more than that.
But her own silly romanticism undermined her at every turn.
She gazed up at him helplessly. ‘Mission accomplished?’
Cipriani's Innocent Captive Page 13
