by Tami Hoag
Many nights Isabella accompanied them, but they had managed to get a few evenings all to themselves, and those had been magic. Christian was a wonderful lover. Under his devoted tutelage Alex found herself rediscovering her sexuality and reveling in it. She found herself falling more in love with him every day.
But with the love came a vague, distant sense of apprehension. She was afraid of becoming too dependent on him, too devoted to him. Experience had taught her to rely on no one and nothing, save herself. She couldn’t afford to let Christian run her life or her business, because there was no guarantee that he would always be there. To Michael DeGrazia she had pledged her love and trust unto death, but he was now more than two thousand miles away, as far removed from her life as the moon.
“Look at the time,” Maggie said, checking her watch. “I have to get out of here before Christian comes. The sight of that man in a tuxedo is enough to make me swoon.” She leaned over and gave Alex an affectionate hug, made awkward by her bulk. “Y’all have fun now, honey, and that’s an order—as my daddy the admiral always says.”
“Thanks, Maggie. Katie, you’re sure Isabella won’t be an imposition?”
“Don’t be silly,” Katie said, rising with the baby in her arms. “We’ll have a great time with her. Besides, it’ll be good practice. Nick and I are on a waiting list to adopt.”
That was apparently a bombshell, if the startled look on Maggie’s face was anything to go by, but there was no time to discuss it. The screen door banged, and Christian’s voice called out.
“Alex?”
With Isabella perched on her slim hip, Katie led the way out of the bedroom, as calm as if she’d just said she and Nick were getting a puppy. Maggie followed, bubbling over with curiosity. Alex trailed behind with a stomach full of butterflies.
Christian looked the part of the consummate gentleman in his pleated white dress shirt and black bow tie. No one would have guessed by looking at him that it was ninety-plus degrees. He looked cool and sophisticated, too well-bred to sweat. His tuxedo was the absolute latest in chic European styles with a double-breasted jacket that enhanced his lean handsomeness. He definitely belonged somewhere more glamorous than her shabby little kitchen with its cracked gray linoleum and outdated appliances, Alex thought.
Her breath fluttered out of her as their gazes locked. Christian smiled, a slow, devastatingly sexy smile. It generated a fire inside Alex that made the hot day seem like a day in Antarctica.
“Exquisite,” he murmured, his sapphire eyes glowing with male appreciation as they scanned Alex from head to toe.
“Don’t mind us homely stepsisters,” Katie said, grabbing up Alex’s diaper bag from the Formica tabletop. “We were just leaving. Come on along now, Mary Margaret.”
Maggie was swaying on her feet, staring raptly at Christian and fanning herself with a pot holder she’d picked up from the counter.
“Maggie?” Katie called, tugging at the short sleeve of her friend’s pink T-shirt. “Oh, Maggie!”
“You’ll have to drive, sugar,” she mumbled, fishing in her patch pocket for her keys. “I feel positively overcome.”
Isabella took the keys and rattled them merrily.
“Say good-bye, Maggie,” Katie said, heading for the door.
“Good-bye, Maggie.”
“Bye-bye!” Isabella called, shaking the keys.
Tearing herself away from Christian’s magnetism, Alex rushed to the door to thank her friends again and to kiss her daughter good-bye. Feeling the return of the jitters, she watched through the screen door as they drove away in Maggie’s blue station wagon.
“I hope Isabella is good for Katie and Nick. She hasn’t been sleeping well.”
“She’ll be fine,” Christian murmured, slipping his arms around her from behind and bending down to kiss her neck. “And so will you, darling.”
Sometimes the man was too darn perceptive for his own good, Alex thought. He knew she was nervous about attending the Hills’ party. Everybody who was anybody in show jumping would be there. She was gradually getting over the feeling that everybody in the world knew about her past, but the equestrian community was a relatively small one. There was a very good chance that she would eventually run into someone who knew. She dreaded the thought.
“I am so very anxious to show you off,” Christian murmured, taking his arms from around her waist. A few seconds later he was fastening a necklace around her throat.
“Christian!” Alex said in protest as she fingered the beautiful piece. A vee of dark sapphires rested against her skin just above the neckline of her dress. The gold herringbone chain gleamed against her dark skin. “You’ve given me way too much already!”
Turning her, he took her in his arms again and bent toward her lips. “I haven’t given you even half of what’s in my heart,” he murmured as he settled his mouth over hers and kissed her deeply, with a hunger that never left him.
A low, rapturous sound rumbled deep in his throat as Alex rose up on tiptoe and twined her arms around his neck, tilting her head to give him better access. He trailed the kiss down the slender column of her throat to the spot where it joined her shoulder and nibbled at her smooth skin around the chain of necklace. Passion leapt to life instantly, a flame that would never be extinguished between them, but with it came something sweeter and softer—the glow of love.
There was still a part of him that shuddered at the thought of committing himself to one woman. But the tremors were gradually becoming weaker as his old rakish tendencies gave way to other feelings. With a certain sense of resignation Christian realized that he was becoming positively domestic.
As he held Alex to him, he murmured a little apology to dearly departed Uncle Dicky. The last of the Atherton black sheep was fading into respectability.
The lawn at Green Hills looked like an emerald carpet liberally dotted with the colors of partygoers—men in their formal black and white, women standing out like jewels among them in their richly colored evening wear. There was indeed an enormous green-and-white-striped tent, the sides of which had been rolled up to let through whatever cooling breeze the evening might bring. Under the big top was a lavish buffet with barbecued beef and pork, platters of fresh fruit, and seafood presented on beds of shaved ice. The bar had been set up directly across from the buffet and was doing a lively business, the heat and the conversation drumming up thirsts all around. One end of the shelter held a number of long tables draped in white and adorned with trailing green ivy plants for centerpieces. The remainder of the space beneath the tent was taken up by a portable dance floor. A five-piece combo nestled into one corner, playing contemporary hits, classics, and standards.
The level of energy and opulence about the place was impressive and infectious. The following day the show horses would take center stage. At present it was their owners and trainers who provided the spectacle.
Alex recognized some of the faces from the smaller shows she had been attending. Others she knew on sight from their photographs in the magazines—Katie Prudent and Debbie Shaffner, Greg Best and George Morris and Rodney Jenkins. Hayden Hill’s party was a virtual Who’s Who of show jumping. It was a thrill to rub shoulders with them, and an even bigger thrill to remember that Christian resided at the top of their ranks.
The pair of them turned a lot of heads. It became apparent very quickly to Alex that more than one of the ladies in attendance coveted her date. Feminine gazes followed them with interest and envy, clinging to Christian’s elegant person. He either didn’t notice or had grown so accustomed to female scrutiny that it no longer fazed him. It certainly fazed Alex. She didn’t like the idea of other women homing in on her date. And she felt a horrendous surge of jealousy when she realized that more than one of those ladies probably knew Christian on intimate terms, given his reputation.
I’m in love with him, she thought with renewed wonder as she watched him laugh at something Carter Hill had said. She’d known it for days, of course. If she was honest with he
rself, she would have to say she’d been in love with him since that day in the meadow, or even before that. She’d been attracted to him from the first. The day he’d held her after she told him about her past had tipped her heart over the edge. How could she not love him when he had given her the kind of unqualified support not even her husband had been able to manage? He hadn’t rejected her or blamed her or found her fundamentally flawed in some irreparable way.
He had told her he loved her, but she hadn’t quite let herself believe it. Words like love came easily to men like Christian. And a part of Alex just couldn’t quite believe her life could include the handsome, wealthy son of an earl. It was just too good. What had she done to deserve him? She kept thinking there had to be a catch, that eventually the other shoe would drop. But what if he really meant it? What if what they had between them was truly something special?
A shiver of hope ran through her, pebbling her skin in spite of the heat of the Virginia evening.
“All set for tomorrow, honey?” Tully Haskell’s voice boomed down on her from above.
Alex jolted out of her trance and turned to look up at him. Tully’s version of black tie was a black, western-cut suit and a bolo tie snugged up to his flabby throat. The overall effect might have been trendy and stylish on a younger, trimmer man. Tully tainted it toward the vulgar. He clutched a champagne glass and one of his omnipresent cigars in one hand, leaving the other free to pat Alex’s bare shoulder.
She moved away from his touch on the pretense of changing position and gave him the most businesslike smile she could scrape together. “I hope so, Mr. Haskell. Duchess will handle everything well. I’m afraid we may be asking Terminator to do too much too soon.”
“Nonsense,” Tully barked, his mouth tightening, eyes flashing for the briefest instant.
Alex didn’t miss the look, though she erased it quickly. Tully didn’t like her questioning his authority. He had been determined his horses would perform in the Green Hills show. They were his ticket into the realm of the sport’s elite. He didn’t care how his decision affected the horses. With Tully the end always justified the means. So went the relationship between owners and trainers. Some were reasonable and understanding. The majority wanted miracles worked at bargain rates.
“Don’t you look pretty tonight, Alex,” he said, eyeing her appreciatively. “By golly, I believe this is the first time I’ve seen you dressed up like a woman. Looks damn good on you.”
The backhanded compliment couldn’t inspire a thank you from Alex. Every doubt she’d had about wearing the dress rushed back to her with a vengeance. Instead of feeling lovely and special, she felt cheap. She was suddenly overcome by the feeling that the makeup she had applied so sparingly was as overdone as a ten-dollar tramp’s.
Christian turned toward her to say something, but the words died on his tongue as he took in the look on her face. All he had to do was glance up to find the root cause of her tension.
“I say,” he drawled, lifting his nose in disdain. “Aren’t they checking the invitations at the gate?”
“Read it and weep, you arrogant limey bastard,” Tully growled, plucking his engraved invitation out of the inner pocket of his jacket and waving it tauntingly in Christian’s face.
“Really,” Christian said, putting on every snobbish air that had been bred into countless generations of Athertons, “the alarming decline of social standards is truly appalling.”
Haskell sneered at him, handing his champagne glass to a passing waiter without even glancing at the man. “Yeah? Well, I don’t give a rat’s rump what you think. Eat that with your tea and crumpets, your lordship, while Alex gives me the pleasure of this next dance.”
Alarm slammed Alex’s heart against her breastbone like a paddle ball. Dance with Tully Haskell? Let Tully Haskell put his meaty paws all over her? Her throat constricted as she fought the urge to gag. The last thing she wanted to do was let down the trainer/owner barrier she had struggled to maintain, even if it was only long enough for one brief turn around the dance floor. But how could she refuse the man without offending him?
He reached for her wrist, but Christian stopped him, his fingers closing forcefully on Haskell’s forearm. All traces of the dandy fell away from Christian like a crumbling shield. He radiated power and authority. The intense dislike he felt for the older man was more than evident in the curl of his lip and the steel in his eyes.
“Not if you value your precious, tenuous standing in this group,” he said with deadly quiet.
There was no need for him to raise his voice, Alex thought with awe. The force of his personality was enough to turn the heads of a number of people nearby. Haskell might have been physically larger, but he was no match for Christian in this kind of a fight, and the quick darting of the man’s dark little eyes betrayed the fact that he knew it.
Contempt added another facet to Christian’s expression as he spoke again. “My connections make yours look like so many knots in a ratty bootlace, Haskell. I wouldn’t think twice about getting you chucked out of here for trying to steal my date.”
“Why don’t you let the lady decide?” Tully said, his eyes sliding to Alex with a mean gleam in them.
It was a classic damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t situation. Alex looked from one man to the other and took the only option that made any sense at all.
“If you gentlemen will excuse me, I have to go powder my nose.”
She crossed the lawn with the steady flow of guests going to and from the Hills’ red-brick Georgian mansion. Taking her time, she browsed through the entry hall, eventually making her way to the line for the rest room, where she exchanged idle chat with several ladies about the ruinous effects of heat and humidity on hairdos. When she hiked back toward the tent some time later, her heels punching down into the finely manicured lawn, she hoped cooler male heads had prevailed.
Tully had taken root where she’d left him, no doubt awaiting her return. But before he could spot her, Christian intercepted her and steered her in a different direction.
Alex frowned at him, her full lower lip pouting in disapproval. “I wish you wouldn’t bait Haskell that way.”
Christian made a face. “He’s a pompous, over-blown bully—”
“Who pays his training bills on time.”
“You know how I feel about that.”
“Yes. And you know how I feel about it.”
“Then there’s no point in discussing it, is there?” He shrugged off his bad mood and treated her to one of his fabulous smiles, complete with twinkling blue eyes. “You can’t blame me for wanting you all to myself, can you, darling? You are, by far, the most dazzling beauty here tonight.”
“You’re a liar,” Alex said, sparkling at his compliment, “but I love the way you do it.”
“Do you?” The heat in his gaze went up ten degrees as he pulled her closer, one hand settling possessively on the small of her back. “Well, we both have something to look forward to later on then, don’t we?” he murmured, the slow curving of his mouth so frankly sensual, it made Alex’s pulse rate pick up a beat. He stared at her as if there weren’t two hundred other people milling around them talking and laughing, as if he wanted to take her right there and then and make wild, sweet love to her.
Alex’s nerve endings hummed with sexual awareness. All it ever took from him was a look, a word, a touch, and she was on fire for him. It was an addiction, an obsession, and she was powerless to stop it, helpless even to fight against it.
“Dance with me,” he commanded, taking her hands in his.
Alex glanced toward the band. “But there’s no one else dancing.”
“Good.”
He led her onto the dance floor, not allowing her to bow to her fears of drawing attention to herself. Still holding her hand, he leaned toward the female singer of the group, a woman with Jessica Lange’s looks and Bette Midler’s voice, and whispered a few words in her ear. When he drew back, the woman was smiling warmly.
�
��Everyone is staring at us,” Alex muttered as Christian drew her reluctant body into his arms. She held herself formally stiff, refusing to snuggle against him the way he wanted her to.
“So they are,” he said with an arrogant shrug. “Let them look their fill. What do I care? I only have eyes for you.”
Looking up at him Alex nibbled at her lip, destroying her lipstick and not caring. She knew what he was saying, and she loved him for it. He didn’t care who saw them or who knew about her past or what they thought about it. Her importance in his life far overshadowed theirs.
The band started the number with the slow, bluesy strains of a piano. And Alex’s eyes filled with tears as the singer’s voice started in, strong and smoky, singing from her soul. “When a Man Loves a Woman.”
Christian began moving, sensually, drawing Alex to him with his body and with the intensity of his gaze. His hands splayed over her hips, guiding her, inviting her.
As the drum and bass joined in, Alex slid her arms up around his neck and began moving with him, without reservation, without a thought to what anyone else might be thinking.
Everyone else had ceased to exist, had faded away into the heat of the night. There were only Christian and herself and the sexy, heartfelt music that surrounded them with its sensual, steady beat. There were only the two of them and the music and the feelings that flowed between them and twined around them. And when the song faded away, she leaned up into his kiss, giving him her thanks without words, giving him her love.
What better time to tell him, she thought as her feet settled onto the floor. Her heart thumped with anticipation as she looked up at him. Her hands twisted themselves into a knot. “Christian, I—”
“Well, by golly, you did it, pal,” a slightly inebriated Robert Braddock said as he slapped Christian on the shoulder. “Honest to Pete, I didn’t think even you could pull it off, but you did.”
