by Fiona Brand
It didn’t feel that way right now, though. She lifted up on her toes and fitted herself against him as if their last passionate encounter had been just hours ago and the past year of separation hadn’t happened. Close enough that there was no way she could miss exactly how much he still wanted her.
“I’ve changed my mind,” Sophie murmured, a husky catch to her voice.
Ben’s body tightened on a powerful surge of desire. Maybe he could have kept his perspective, he thought grimly, if he hadn’t seen her on Tobias Hunt’s arm. Something fierce and primal had risen up inside him. And it had only grown worse when he learned who Tobias was. Ben’s cool, controlled plan to seduce Sophie Messena in order to put to rest the fatal attraction he had so far failed to shake had crashed and burned.
If Hunt had been one of the normal run of men Sophie had been dating—soft, manicured men who took orders and drove desks—Ben could have maintained his aloofness. However, there was nothing ordinary or even remotely domesticated about Hunt despite the fact that he had spent several months working for Gabriel Messena, presumably to gain experience with playing the financial market. Aside from being the scion of an international manufacturing conglomerate, which, among other things specialized in high-tech military equipment, Hunt was ex-military.
Even though Ben was aware that he was being seduced, his hands, of their own volition, settled at her hips, pulling her closer still. There was his problem, he thought. This encounter with Sophie was following a familiar, conflicted pattern. He couldn’t resist her, and he couldn’t trust her.
But damned if he’d stand tamely aside and let Hunt move in on her.
Sophie’s gaze was oddly considering, giving him the inescapable feeling that he was being evaluated in some way. She brushed her lips against his, sending a rush of heat through him that tightened every muscle in his body.
“About that glass,” she said huskily. “Half a glass will do for now.”
* * *
Francesca stepped out onto the terrace and stopped dead. Sophie was kissing Ben Sabin, and it was not just a casual peck.
For long seconds she was frozen in place, not knowing what to do. Usually, Sophie was extremely careful with men. She almost never let any of the men she dated so much as kiss her. Francesca knew for a fact that Sophie had not slept with anyone until Ben. She also understood why Sophie was so picky.
Ever since their father had been killed in a car accident with his alleged mistress, Sophie had been fragile about relationships. Maybe that was because Sophie had always had an unusual character. She tended to be black-and-white in her thinking. When it came to trust it was all or nothing. Added to that, she had been Daddy’s girl, then the father she had adored had tipped her world upside down by betraying her twice. The first time by dying, the second by apparently having a mistress, which Sophie had viewed as an utter betrayal of the entire family.
Consequently, when it came to relationships, she practically interviewed a potential date before she committed. Then she micromanaged the “relationships” because she hated anything unscripted or creative happening.
The droves of men who fell for her didn’t understand what they were letting themselves in for. It was like watching an assembly line, with no hope that any of them would make the grade.
Until Ben.
A little anxiously Francesca skulked in the shadows of a large potted ficus, trying to stay out of sight. She was glaringly aware that with her platinum-blond hair, it was terminally difficult to hide because she practically glowed in the dark. She tucked herself more firmly behind the plant, ignoring the discomfort as a branch scraped her jaw and caught in her hair. Her stomach tightened as one kiss morphed into a second, then a third.
Seconds later, Sophie took Ben’s hand and led him down the steps into the garden. Francesca had to steel herself against rushing after Sophie. The only thing that stopped her was that Sophie seemed to be taking the lead and not Ben She frowned, tossing up whether or not to call Sophie and try to talk some sense into her. Although, given the way they had kissed, she didn’t hold out much hope!
A faint sound made Francesca straighten with a start. She almost died on the spot when she realized that the person who had busted her for spying on Sophie was the guy she’d had a crush on for the past couple of years, John Atraeus. She attempted to shuffle out from behind the tree but a strand of hair had caught on a branch of the ficus.
She pulled on the strand, which stayed stubbornly tangled.
“Wait. Let me do that.” John stepped close enough that she could feel the warmth of his body, smell the tantalizing scent of his gorgeous cologne. His jaw brushed her forehead, sending a hot zing of awareness through her as he worked on the silky strand, which was so blond it still startled her.
“All done.” His gaze met hers for a long moment, then he frowned. “Damn. What have you done to your jaw?”
She registered the faint sting, touched the area and felt the dampness of blood. She vaguely remembered a scrape from one of the branches, but she had been so intent on worrying about Sophie she hadn’t paid it much attention.
As she stepped away from the tree, John produced a snow-white handkerchief. She stared at the beautifully folded linen and embarrassment burned through her, along with an uncharacteristic thread of panic. This was not the way it was supposed to be. She had wanted to be cool and sophisticated, more like Sophie, less like Jane of the jungle with pieces of tree caught in her hair. “I can’t use that.”
John glanced around the terrace, which held a few scattered groups of people. “The only entrance to the bathrooms is inside, which means you’ll have to walk back through a party crowd that’s crawling with media.” He lifted a brow. “If you’ll hold still for a second or two, I’ll press the handkerchief against the cut until it at least stops bleeding.”
Horror struck Francesca at the thought of how many media personalities and reporters there were, every one of them with a camera and longing to catch her looking bad. “Okay.”
Another half step, and he tilted her head slightly to one side and pressed the folded handkerchief against her jaw. Francesca knew she should be concentrating on how happy she was to have a practical solution to fixing her face, but with John’s fingers firm on the sensitive skin of her jaw and the clean scent of him in her nostrils, all she could think of was that finally, even if it hadn’t happened exactly as she’d planned, she was close to John.
John lifted the pad, refolded it, then pressed it against her skin again. His breath feathered across her forehead, and for a long, dizzying moment she wondered what would happen if she closed the oh-so-tiny gap between them, clutched the lapels of his jacket, went up on her toes and kissed him on the mouth.
Taking a deep breath, she met his gaze boldly, but in the instant that she made the quarter step toward him, a vibrating sound emanated from his jacket pocket.
“That’ll be the call I was waiting for.” Leaving her holding the handkerchief, John stepped away, cell held to one ear.
Francesca teetered, just a little off balance. She had actually been on the verge of kissing him. Her cheeks burned even hotter. Had he noticed? she wondered. In any event, she no longer had to die wondering why John had been on the terrace. He had not come looking for her as she had hoped; he had been waiting for a call.
Feeling embarrassed and flustered because she had been a split second away from humiliating herself completely, Francesca remembered her jaw. She found her compact and peered at the scratch, which was absurdly small yet had bled quite a lot. Luckily, her dress was red and, thankfully, the pressure had worked, stopping the bleeding. Refolding the once pristine handkerchief, she stuffed it in her clutch and resolved to launder and return it to John. Probably by post.
A few paces away, leaning on the wrought iron railing, one hand thrust casually in the pocket of his narrow dark pants, phone to his ear, John was speaking not in English,
but in liquid, totally sexy Medinian.
Francesca knew she should cut and run now, before she did make an utter fool of herself. Instead, she lingered near John, while she soaked in the liquid cadences of his deep voice and the romance of a language that their families shared and which she now wished she’d made more of an effort to learn.
Using the excuse of needing to tidy herself before she went back to the party as a reason for staying out on the terrace, she extracted another twig from her hair and tossed it into the midst of the tree branches. Searching through her beaded evening bag, she found a comb and began running it through her hair with slow, systematic strokes.
When her hair felt smooth and sleek, she deposited the comb back in her bag and snapped the clutch closed. As she did so a thought made her mood plummet. She was probably wasting her time waiting out here with John. Even though his last flame, a gorgeous blonde model, was finally out of the picture, and there did seem to be a momentary vacuum of blondes, it was entirely possible that John had brought someone else to the party.
Every other time she had been at the same social event with John, he’d had a beautiful girl on his arm. She didn’t know why she hadn’t considered that possibility before now.
Feeling both annoyed and depressed, she dragged her gaze from the mouthwatering cut of John’s cheekbones and the intriguing hollows beneath, the totally sexy dimple that flashed out as he grinned. She scanned the terrace, half-expecting to see his beautiful new girlfriend waiting for him.
Suddenly, changing her hair color to blond so she could level the playing field and give herself a fighting chance seemed a little desperate. She had been certain that the attraction she felt was mutual, but now her thinking seemed horribly flawed and any hope that she would finally end up in John’s arms practically nonexistent.
John terminated the call and straightened away from the wrought iron railing. He slipped the cell back into his jacket pocket, and suddenly nerves she normally never felt with a man kicked in.
She was used to being in charge, to picking and choosing and being the one who said no. But for reasons she could not quite pin down, John Atraeus was important. Every time she bumped into him, she got the feeling, and tonight it was stronger than ever, tingling through her like an electrical charge and reaffirming a conviction that had stayed steady for almost two years: that John Atraeus belonged to her, and she to him.
John glanced at her hair, a faint frown of puzzlement making him look even more handsome. “So, why were you hiding behind the ficus? A new life as a private detective?”
“Just looking out for my sister. She’s with someone who—well, I’m not so sure he’s good for her—”
“Ben Sabin. He’s hard to miss.”
Francesca’s fingers tightened on her clutch. For some reason John seemed disposed to stick with her and talk, which was putting her on edge. Was he just being friendly? Or did he mean something more by it?
Now that she finally had the one-on-one time with him she had craved, contrarily, all she wanted to do now was hurry back to the room Nick had reserved for her at the resort, find some chocolate and try to pretend that tonight had never happened. “What about you?” She rubbed her palms over her upper arms, which now felt slightly chilled. “I’m guessing this is a work visit, since I saw you in Nick’s office.”
As soon as the words were out, she wished she could snatch them back because it sounded like she had also been spying on John.
John lifted a brow, informing her that that was exactly what he’d thought.
He shrugged. “You’ll know soon enough, anyway. Your brother, Ben and I decided to go into business together on Sail Fish Key. We finalized the agreement tonight.”
John’s attendance at the launch of Nick’s new resort now made perfect sense. She already knew that Ben, who owned the largely undeveloped Sail Fish Key, had gone into partnership with Nick to complete the build on a luxury resort that his uncle had started before he died. All the nearly completed resort needed was a retail complex, which was where Atraeus came in. He had made billions building luxury malls and securing high-end brands to populate them.
Determined to make her escape before she embarrassed herself further, Francesca forced a bright smile. “Well, thanks for the rescue, but I think I’ll have an early night—” And try to get hold of Sophie on her phone before she made another dreadful mistake with Ben.
“Why did you change this?” John picked up a strand of her hair, preventing her from stepping away.
Fiery awareness zinged through Francesca, making her heart pound. She could have prevaricated, could have shrugged and kept the conversation light, but she was suddenly aware of an intensity in John’s gaze that seemed to go beyond a mere interest in her hair color.
A pulse pounding on one side of John’s jaw riveted her attention. She realized that he was as nervous as she. Suddenly her plan to try to save Sophie from her fatal attraction to Ben—a plan that she instinctively knew had little chance of succeeding—went on the back burner. Sophie was going to have to look after herself!
She had come here tonight to take a risk on John Atraeus, and that was exactly what she was going to do. Lifting her chin, she met his gaze boldly. “I changed it because I thought you liked blondes.”
He wound the strand of hair slowly around his finger, taking a half step closer as he did so. “I like brunettes, too. I’ve liked you for a long time, but you’ve always got some guy in tow.”
Francesca’s gaze dropped to that riveting pulse along the line of John’s jaw. “I’ve got a lot of...um...friends.”
“Just friends?”
“No one serious.” She met his gaze, drew a deep breath and took the final revealing plunge. “And I don’t have a date tonight.”
The words rushed out, creating a curious moment of silence during which she wondered frantically if John was now going to draw back and stop flirting with her because he was with someone.
Instead, he released her hair, picked up her hand and linked his fingers with hers. The glint of masculine satisfaction in his dark gaze made her heart beat even faster. “Ditto. So, what do we do next?”
Heat and sensation poured through Francesca from that one small point of contact. John didn’t have a date, and she was now very clear on the fact that he was attracted to her.
Relinquishing his hold on her hand, she stepped close enough that she could feel the heat of his body. Lifting up on her toes, she rested her palms on the hard, pliant muscle of his broad shoulders. His swiftly indrawn breath sent pleasure cascading through her.
Finally, after two years of wanting and dreaming about a man who was always off-limits because he was with another woman—and of hoping for the kind of incandescent love that seemed doomed to remain only in her dreams—it seemed that she and John were finally going to be together.
Feeling as giddy as a teenager, she looped her arms lightly around his neck. “Let’s start with a kiss.”
Four
Sophie pulled Ben into the hotel room Nick had booked for her. The second the door clicked closed and they were finally alone together, her nerves kicked back in. Up until this point she had been on autopilot, following her natural instinct for managing a situation. She had made the executive decision that they would make love and, accordingly, had brought Ben to her room. En route she had gone to the trouble of ordering champagne, which should get here any moment.
Not that she really felt like any more alcohol. But an elegant, frosted bottle of champagne would set the scene nicely and cue Ben that this was not just about sex, as it had clearly been the last time.
A year ago she had made the mistake of allowing emotion to sweep her off her feet. She had been so captivated by what she was feeling that she had stopped thinking and simply reacted. Consequently, Ben had taken the lead and in his usual no-frills masculine way, he’d bypassed romance. They had ended up in bed
within moments of entering his suite, which had been totally exciting but, in retrospect, a serious mistake. She had allowed him to sweep her off her feet; she had allowed him to make all the decisions. This time, things were going to be different.
In terms of creating a positive starting point for a relationship that wouldn’t hinge only on wild, crazy, fabulous sex, the fact that she had managed to slow things down and bring some order to the process felt like progress.
She sent Ben a brilliant smile, but now that they were alone she felt slightly panicky. Her management skills had carried her this far, and now she was aware of a powerful and undermining emotion she didn’t often experience: vulnerability. Maybe that was because when they had made love before, even though it had been significant and special for her, Ben had treated the event as a one-night stand and nothing more.
A knock on the door provided a welcome relief to the tension that had sprung up between them, and the churning feeling in the pit of her stomach, as if she was on the verge of making another terrible mistake. Determined to ignore the attack of nerves and get the seduction back on track, Sophie opened the door and directed the attendant to wheel the trolley into the sitting room. The festive pop of the champagne cork and the fizz of an expensive vintage as it was poured into two flutes was a welcome distraction.
Still on edge, not least because after a year she was actually on the verge of making love with Ben again, Sophie tipped the attendant and hustled him out the door. Taking a deep breath, she strolled to the trolley, picked up both flutes and handed one to Ben. She cast around for something to say that wasn’t clichéd and that would mask her nervousness. There was really only one option. They would talk business until the awkwardness dissipated, then she would move things into the bedroom. She gave Ben the kind of neutral professional smile that usually worked to smooth the way with her clients. “So—here’s to your new business venture in Miami.”
