To Catch a Groom

by Rebecca Winters

  Trembling, she plucked her watch and purse from the table where she’d left them. Before she could decide whether to wear or carry her high heels, he’d looped his index finger through the gold straps.

  “I’ll escort you to your room. Not even the Splendido can guarantee the safety of a woman on her own who looks like you. In your exhausted state you would be no match for someone who would like to spirit you away to some secret lagoon for the night…”

  The image he’d created sent another shiver through her body, part ecstasy, part fright.

  Before this trip, the playboys Greer had pictured in her mind were likable. Manageable. Easy come, easy go.

  Maybe a little miffed to recognize they’d been conned, but gallant enough to salute the girls as worthy adversaries who’d pulled off a well-executed charade. No hard feelings as they made their charming retreat from the playing field.

  Up until this moment she’d been enjoying a game that had its nascence back in Kingston two months earlier. But just now when he’d kissed her and whispered his daring remark, she’d sensed a power shift.

  Now he was the one dangling her as surely as he dangled her shoes from his fingers.

  Instinct told her this was a dangerous man, the kind you didn’t lure back to a youth hostel to tell him “sorry, wrong duchess.” He would be the one to decide when he was tired of playing, then he would move in for the kill. Until then he would keep her trapped in his sights, and there’d be no place for her to hide.

  A thrill of alarm caused her to walk faster.

  When they reached the elevator where other guests were coming and going, she was in a state of panic and used the brief interim to extricate the hotel room key from her purse.

  However by the time they’d exited onto the third floor, reason had reasserted itself. She told herself it was lack of sleep that had made her so uneasy. She would be leaving the hotel tomorrow and since she had no intention of ever seeing him again, she was even able to smile up at him with renewed confidence.

  After the long transatlantic flight followed by a grueling three hours detainment at the hands of the police, she hadn’t been herself at all. Otherwise she wouldn’t have given a perfect stranger the green light to pursue her.

  For a woman to plunge into the pool with her clothes on in order to sink her hooks into him, what else was a man like him supposed to think?

  Tonight had been an experiment. A dry run. Whoops. A wet one, she mused nervously to herself, realizing her emotions bordered on hysteria.

  She’d blown it, but she’d learned from it. Tomorrow would be a new day filled with more playboys and fresh possibilities.

  The hotel room door was in sight. With one fluid movement she unlocked it, but before she could slip inside, he left a kiss on the side of her neck that set her whole body on fire. “Until tomorrow.”

  His promise sounded more like an avowal.

  “Goodbye,” she announced through the crack in the door before shutting it hard and locking it.

  Congratulating herself on making it safely to her room, she staggered over to the nearest chair and held on while she attempted to recover from her fright. Her clutch bag fell to the floor with a soft thud.

  Too late she remembered he still had her shoes. No matter. She didn’t need them. In truth, she never wanted to see them again. She never wanted to see him again.

  CHAPTER THREE

  THE lights went on.

  “Greer?” The second her sisters saw the condition she was in, they scrambled out of their beds toward her.

  “How come your dress is wet?”

  “Where did you get that robe?

  “Where are your shoes?”

  The questions pelting her one after the other stripped her down to the bare bones. This was no laughing matter. The only reason she’d escaped at all was that he’d allowed it.

  She could still see the mixture of triumph and mockery glinting from the black depths of his eyes before the door closed, keeping him momentarily at bay.

  “Guys?” Never in her life had their faces been more dear to her. “I’m in big trouble. We’ve got to get out of here now! I’ll tell you about it when we’re in the taxi.” She removed the robe and wet sundress.

  “They only have chauffeur driven cars here at the hotel.”

  “Well we’re going to call for a taxi. Will one of you do it please?” she begged. “Tell them to be here in fifteen minutes.”

  “Where are we going in such an all-fired hurry?”

  “Across the border to France. We’ll drive to the nearest airport and take the first flight leaving for anywhere that puts as much distance as possible between us and hi—Italy,” she amended.

  “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  She shook her damp head at Olivia.

  “I’ve seen that look before. She’s not kidding,” Piper whispered. They followed her to the bathroom. “Does this have something to do with what happened today when the police kept us so long?”

  “No.” She removed her watch, then her necklace, her skin still seemed to burn where he’d kissed her.

  “I detect the scent of a man.”

  At Olivia’s adroit surmise, a distinct blush covered every particle of Greer’s skin. She was thankful for the protection of the elaborate sculptured design on the glass shower door, although it reminded her of the one on the floor of the pool.

  The floor she never got to inspect at close range because she was snatched away by a force that still caused her to tremble.

  “I didn’t think there was a man alive who could make you run.”

  “If you must know, I tangled with a shark.”

  “In the pool?” Piper blurted incredulously.

  “This one had arms and legs…” And a masculine appeal that ought to be banned from existence Greer groaned inwardly as she washed the suds out of her hair.

  “Did he manhandle you?”

  She reached for the tap to shut off the water. “Not exactly.”

  “Then he threatened you.”

  Greer shivered. “Not in so many words.”

  “If you expect us to check out of the hotel tonight when we’ve only had a couple of hours sleep, then you’d better tell us everything first.”

  Olivia was right.

  After they left the bathroom, Greer grabbed two fluffy towels. With one encircling her head, the other fastened around her body, she padded in the other room after them.

  Her sisters sat on their own beds cross-legged, waiting for her. She sank down on the side of hers. “I—I have this horrible feeling I’m not only in over my head, but there could be serious consequences. It’s my own fault of course.”

  She jumped to her feet, unable to relax. “In the beginning, the idea of turning the tables on an honest to goodness European playboy sounded very fun and challenging. That was until—”

  “Until you met up with a real one tonight,” Piper supplied.

  Greer nodded jerkily. “There was this black-haired Adonis in the pool who would put any Olympic swimmer to shame. When he got out—”

  Images flashed before Greer’s eyes. She couldn’t believe such an attractive man existed.

  “Since you can’t find the words, we get the picture.” Olivia steepled her fingers. “Did he throw you in the pool without your permission?”

  Her face went scarlet. “No.”

  Piper leaned forward. “Did you fall in by accident?”

  “No! It was nothing like that,” she confessed in a quieter tone.

  “Then what was it like?”

  “If you must know, he took one look at the pendant and asked me to swim with him. Everything happened just as we planned it back in Kingston. There was this gorgeous playboy who knew who the Duchess of Colorno was. He came on to me because of the pendant.”

  “So you just jumped in the pool with him?” By now their eyes had rounded.

  “The Duchess girls don’t jump, remember?”

  Olivia’s mouth broke into a grin. “Of course
not. Still wearing your clothes, you executed one of your graceful dives to make certain you captured his attention.”

  “I guess,” came her muffled admission.

  Laughter filled the room, but Greer didn’t join in. It was something they noticed.

  “So what happened next?” Piper urged her to keep talking.

  Greer kneaded her hands convulsively. “That’s when everything went wrong.”

  “What did he do? Come on,” Olivia prodded. “Let’s hear it all, no matter how embarrassing it might be. Otherwise we won’t know how much trouble you’re really in.”

  “It’s bad,” she whispered. “Trust me.”

  That wiped the smiles off their lovely faces. “He didn’t—”

  “No—” Greer blurted. “But he could have done anything. My dress was floating around my waist and he was so powerful and so…so—” Heat suffused her face.

  Piper slid off the bed. “And you think that if you’d been alone with him, he would have taken advantage of you whether you told him no or not?”

  She drew in a sharp breath. “What I think is, that man goes where he wants, when he wants, and does whatever he wants. Period. The pendant seemed to have particular significance for him.”

  In the next breath she told them about the conversation in the pool, leaving out the parts about both kisses which were too personal. They’d shaken her so badly she couldn’t discuss it, not even with her sisters.

  “What’s his name?”

  “I have no idea.”

  Olivia rolled her eyes. “Greer—”

  “I know,” she muttered in self-deprecation, rubbing her arms nervously. “It gets worse. I tried to outbluff him by pretending that I wasn’t in the most compromising position of my life. I flirted a little before telling him I wouldn’t be in Genoa after tomorrow because we were going to Vernazza.”

  “You told him we were going there?”

  “I’m a fool, Piper, and I know it, b-but that was before I realized how dangerous he was. And after what he said about a secret grotto and the sun and the sand and me rising au naturel from a seashell, my gut instinct says he’ll follow me there with the excuse he wanted to give me back my shoes.”

  After his words to her at the door, Greer just knew he was the type of man that would turn up again.

  “It sounds thrilling to me,” Piper murmured.

  Olivia nodded. “Me, too.”

  “Guys—” Greer cried in sheer panic, “this man invented the double-entendre. He’s…dangerous.”

  “You’re saying that because you’ve never met anyone so gorgeous in your life, and you don’t know how to handle your attraction to him.”

  “I’m not attracted, Piper!”

  “Yes, you are,” Olivia contradicted her.

  “All right. But even if I am, he’s the kind of man who’s off-limits!” her voice shook. “When we decided to spend the Husband Fund, we should have stuck to the movie version we saw in Mr. Carlson’s office and targeted sensible men. It would have been a lot safer than making ourselves the targets to wealthy playboys.”

  Olivia frowned. “Our plan worked in theory. You’re just not used to Italian men. It’s perfectly natural for him to have been forward with you. It’s the way they’re made.”

  “Olivia’s right,” Piper backed her sister up. “After all, you are very beautiful, Greer. Don can’t ever take his eyes off you, but he’s American, and American males aren’t as obvious. Look how long it took him to make his first move toward you.”

  “Try six months,” Olivia drawled. “Greer—maybe this stranger is totally unscrupulous. Then again, maybe he isn’t. You haven’t given him enough of a chance yet to find out.”

  “You had to be there, Olivia!” Greer snapped.

  “Not necessarily. You said he has black hair. With you being so blond, and having the most unusual violet eyes, it’s no surprise he was drawn to you. I noticed a ton of men staring at you all day today. He couldn’t help himself any more than they could. You did say he restrained himself.”

  Heat crept over Greer’s body. “Not completely,” she finally admitted. “He kissed me in the pool, a-and at the door.”

  “I thought so,” Olivia murmured.

  “Did you kiss him back?” Piper prodded.

  “Of course not! H-he didn’t kiss my lips.”

  Her sisters eyed each other before Piper said, “That explains everything.”

  “What do you mean?” Greer fired back.

  “You’re a take-charge kind of woman. He knew that and found his way around you. Sounds like you’ll be getting a marriage proposal out of him before long.”

  “I don’t want a marriage proposal. I just want to get away from him. Maybe we should just go home.”

  “We will, after our vacation is over,” Olivia placated her. “Since we’ve already paid the money for the boat and can’t get it back, I say we put the pendants away, drop the Duchess act and enjoy the rest of our trip like any normal tourists.”

  “I second the motion,” Piper concurred.

  “But I already told the stranger I was related to the Duchess of Colorno.”

  “It’s too late to worry about the fact that we made reservations for the boat in the name of the Duchess of Kingston,” Olivia advised. “We just won’t pull it on anyone else we meet.”

  “You’re overreacting. However if or when Signore Mysterioso does show up,” she mimicked Greer’s pronunciation, “and you still want protection, he’ll have to deal with all three of us.”

  “That’s right,” Piper chimed in. “Should he come around, we won’t let you out of our sight for a single second. How does that sound?”

  “In theory, it sounds fine.”

  “Good. Now that we’ve got everything settled, let’s go to bed and sleep in until they throw us out. Okay?”

  “Okay…” Greer’s voice trailed, not nearly as confident.

  Within a few minutes the lights had been extinguished and everyone had crawled under their covers. Soon Greer could tell her sisters were dead to the world.

  It took a lot longer for her to succumb to the fatigue draining her body. That was because neither Olivia nor Piper had ever been stalked by a shark.

  She kept feeling the spots where his mouth had scorched her throat and neck, imagining he’d actually taken little bites out of her.

  “Nic? It’s Max. I’ve got Luc on the line with me so we can have a three-way conference call.”

  “Luc?”

  “I’m here, Nic. Good to hear your voice.”

  “It’s like old times.”

  Max’s two cousins, Nic and Luc, the son’s of his father’s sisters, were as close to him as brothers.

  One aunt had married Carlos de Pastrana from Marbella, Spain. The other was married to Jean-Louis de Falcon from Monaco. All three parents were the direct descendants of the House of Parma-Bourbon and had married royalty. Max felt as at home at their residences as they felt at the Varano villa in Colorno.

  Being between the ages of thirty-three and thirty-four, the Varano cousins had spent every possible moment together growing up, be it at school or on vacation. But five months ago tragedy struck, killing Nic’s fiancée and almost causing Luc to lose his leg.

  The accident had robbed both cousins of the joie de vivre Max had thought inherent in their natures. Much as he hated to admit it, he, too, had been in a state of despondency even before the ghastly accident. As far as he was concerned, if the three of them weren’t careful, depression would turn them into old men before their time.

  He could use their company right now and was glad for any excuse to bring them together.

  “Forgive me for calling both of you at one in the morning, but this is important.”

  “What do you mean forgive?” Nic fired back. “As I recall, I kept you up half the night for weeks after the accident.”

  “And you spent the other half in my hospital room,” Luc reminded him. “Hearing your voice is like a much-longed-for bla
st of fresh air. Especially when all I do lately is go from bed to work, to physical therapy, and then back to bed again.”

  “I couldn’t agree more with Luc,” Nic assured Max. “Thank God you’ve called. Tell us what you need and you’ve got it!”

  Max was going to hold Nic to that. “Do you two think you could give me about ten days of your time?”

  “Starting when?” they both demanded with such telltale eagerness, Max had his answer. Gripping the phone tighter he said, “In about six hours from now. It’ll be a reunion I’ve needed.”

  Hard to believe there was a time when the three of them had been young, inseparable and immortal. They hadn’t believed the problems of ordinary men would ever touch their lives.

  “You want us to join you in Colorno?”

  Encouraged by Nic’s question he said, “No. Vernazza, aboard the Piccione. I need you to help me crew.”

  Luc made a gruntlike sound. “With this damn cane, I’m afraid cooking is the only thing I’m good for at the moment.”

  “You’re reading my mind, Luc. Since you’re still out of commission, that’s the job I’m assigning you. As we’ve learned from past experience, if preparing meals was left to me or Nic, we’d all starve to death. Nic can play captain.”

  “How come the Piccione?” Nic wanted to know. “You gave your boat to Fabio Moretti a couple of years ago.”

  “That’s true, and it’s his by right. I received the last payment on it several months ago.”

  “Good for him.” A pregnant silence ensued. “So, I used to be fairly adept at reading your mind, but this time I have to admit you’ve got me baffled. What’s going on?”

  “Where are the Morettis going to be?” Luc asked.

  “On an unexpected paid vacation.”

  “I take it this is some kind of emergency.”

  An image of the bewitching creature wearing what looked like their family’s prized pendant flashed through Max’s mind.

  Her gorgeous eyes could have been spilled drops from those very amethysts. He pursed lips that could still feel and taste the flawless, perfumed skin where her life’s blood throbbed close to the surface.