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They’d spent the whole night together. Not in bed or anything like that. Charlotte had never been the sort of girl to jump into bed at the drop of a hat, especially with some smooth-talking American out here on holiday. There was no doubt Gary wouldn’t have minded, but he’d seemed impressed when she’d resisted his advances to have sex. Instead, they’d walked along the beach for hours, hand in hand, just talking. As they’d watched the sun come up together, he told her she was the girl he’d waited for all his life.
Later that day she’d accompanied Gary to the airport, where he’d promised to call her as soon as he got home. His passionate goodbye kiss had sent her head spinning, repairing some of the damage Dwayne had perpetrated on her battered self-esteem.
Louise had warned her when she came back to Sydney that men met on holiday rarely contacted you afterwards. But Gary had. He’d called Charlotte as soon as he’d returned to Los Angeles and they’d been in constant contact ever since, sometimes by phone, but mostly by email.
Charlotte felt she knew Gary much better than she’d even known Dwayne, the rat on whom she’d wasted the previous two years of her life. He’d eventually dumped her for some gym bunny, whom he’d got pregnant.
When Gary asked her to marry him last November, Charlotte hadn’t hesitated to say yes.
Maybe she would have hesitated if he hadn’t been prepared to marry her here in Sydney, and make his life here.
Or if you weren’t thirty-three, another nasty little voice whispered in her head. And beginning to believethat you would never find a husband.
Charlotte swiftly brushed that no longer relevant thought aside.
She was getting married. Tomorrow. And in considerable style.
Charlotte hoped Gary wouldn’t mind. He’d requested a simple wedding. No church. Just a celebrant, and only a small guest list. He himself had no close family; his parents had been killed in a tragic house fire when he was a teenager.
But Charlotte’s father hadn’t waited thirty-three years to give his youngest daughter away in anything less than a white wedding with all the trimmings.
Secretly, Charlotte had been glad her father had insisted on this. Her two older sisters had both been beautiful brides with white wedding gowns, and Charlotte hadn’t really wanted to settle for anything less. The church part she’d managed to skirt around, her parents reluctantly agreeing to a celebrant. But everything else was to be very traditional, complete with a proper reception, a three-tiered wedding cake, the bridal waltz. The lot!
Charlotte hadn’t informed Gary of any of this. She reasoned that once he was here, she could explain that it wasn’t her doing. It was her parents’ idea. And it wasn’t as though he had to pay for any of it. Her father had footed the bill, dear sweet man that he was. All Gary had to do was be fitted with a rental tux today—a fitting had been arranged for this afternoon—then show up in it tomorrow.
Charlotte didn’t think that was too much to ask. Not of a man who really loved her. And he did. He must really love her, otherwise he wouldn’t be coming all this way to marry her. Or have sent her such a lovely sapphire and diamond engagement ring.
Just the sight of it on her ring finger was reassuring.
Half an hour later, Charlotte was pacing back and forth outside the arrivals gate to which Gary’s flight had been allotted, her eyes darting continuously to the ramp down which her fiancé would walk any moment now. His plane had only touched down ten minutes earlier—it had been late landing—but business class passengers were rarely held up in Customs.
She couldn’t stand still. Nerves had her stomach in knots. But was she excited or afraid, afraid that she was about to rush into marriage with a man she hadn’t even been to bed with?
Still, maybe that was a good thing. She’d eventually slept with most of her other boyfriends and none of them had proposed marriage. Perhaps because she’d always ultimately disappointed them, sexually. Her lack of enjoyment seemed to bother her boyfriends more than it did her.
She’d been totally honest with Gary and he’d reassured her he wasn’t marrying her because she was a sexpot, but because she was beautiful and warm and sweet and wanted what he wanted. A family. At the same time, he seemed extremely confident that everything would turn out fine on their wedding night.
Charlotte hoped so, hoped that this time she would feel the earth move the way Louise was always talking about.
If she didn’t? Well…as Gary said, they would work on it together.
There! There he was!
She started jumping up and down, waving and smiling.
‘Here! Here! Over here!’
When he turned his darkly handsome head from where he’d been looking over to one side, Charlotte’s hand froze mid-air, her smile instantly fading.
Because it wasn’t Gary at all. Just someone who looked like him. In broad strokes, that was. About the same height. Gary was over six feet. Similar hair. Dark brown. Short. No parting. Rather similar in profile as well. High forehead, strong nose, square jaw.
But when this man stared straight at her, Charlotte could see his eyes were nothing like Gary’s. This man’s were deeper set, and very penetrating. Not blue, either, but brown. Almost black when they narrowed underneath his dark straight brows.
They were narrowed right now. On her.
Never in her life had Charlotte been looked at the way this man was looking at her. The focused intensity in his gaze was nothing short of blistering.
When he started pushing his luggage trolley towards her, Charlotte’s arm dropped back down to clutch her shoulder bag across her chest in a strangely defensive fashion. Despite her stomach curling with embarrassment, she found she could not look away from him, but kept on staring back into those darkly magnetic eyes.
‘Did Beth send you to meet me?’ he asked as he ground to a halt in front of her, his accent not dissimilar to Gary’s.
Dear God, Gary! In her fluster, she’d forgotten all about him.
‘I’m sorry, no,’ she apologised swiftly, dragging her eyes away from the disturbing stranger to see if Gary had made an appearance. ‘I don’t know anyone named Beth. I… I thought you were my fiancé for a moment,’ she rattled on, her eyes agitatedly searching the now constant line of exiting passengers.
But Gary wasn’t amongst them.
She glanced back at the American, who was still standing there. He was still staring at her as well, but now with an air of curiosity, whereas before his eyes had carried…what, exactly?
She wasn’t sure.
‘You…um… look like him. Sort of.’ In truth, Gary was not quite in this man’s league. Gary was good-looking. This man was heart-thumpingly handsome.
‘Aah,’ he said. ‘I see.’
The obvious disappointment in his voice and eyes rattled Charlotte. What had he been thinking? Or hoping?
‘We’re getting married tomorrow,’ she added, for goodness knew what reason. She’d already explained why she’d waved and smiled at him.
‘Lucky man,’ he murmured, his gaze moving slowly over her from head to toe.
Suddenly she knew what she’d seen in his eyes earlier, and why he’d sounded disappointed just now.
Charlotte had encountered desire in lots of men before, but never had the message been delivered with such high voltage, and by such incredible eyes. They weren’t just beautiful, but intelligent and intriguing, and very sexy.
Her feminine antennae quivered as his message was received once more, the current charging through her veins heating her body from the inside out.
Charlotte could not have been more shocked when her face actually flamed. Why, she hadn’t blushed in years!
‘If you’ll excuse me,’ she said, and forced her legs to carry her away from his disturbing presence. But even as she went back to searching for Gary, her mind still lingered on the handsome stranger. Who was he? What was he? And what was he doing here in Sydney?
CHAPTER THREE
DANIEL was almost grateful when she gave him the brush-off. What on earth had he been doing, staring at her like that?
Hitting on women had never been his style. On top of that, she was a blonde. One of the bottled variety. Daniel had an aversion to bottled blondes.
To be fair to himself, she wasn’t the usual bottle blonde, the kind his father married. The kind Daniel often met in LA, the ones whose over-bleached, over-teased hair was not the only thing false about them.
Despite the dark roots, this girl’s hair was sleek and simply styled, falling in a straight curtain halfway down her back. There was nothing even remotely false about her face, either, which was as beautiful as it was refreshingly natural. If she was wearing make-up, it had been applied with a light hand. Her skin didn’t need enhancement, anyway, being fine and clear and olive-toned. Her eyes were just as naturally beautiful. Big and blue as the Pacific, with the longest, darkest lashes.
She did have lip gloss on. Her lips had definitely looked extra shiny when he’d stared at them. Shiny and wet and full. The kind of lips made for kissing, and for being kissed by, and for…
Daniel pulled himself up sharply and whirled away from where he’d been standing, still staring after her. It had been a long time since he’d been knocked for six by a woman at first sight. And an even longer time since he had no chance at all in being successful with one he fancied as much as he’d instantly fancied this one.
An intelligent man had to know when a female target was worth pursuing, and when she was not. This girl was getting married tomorrow. He couldn’t expect her to fall at his feet. Couldn’t expect her to respond to him in any way.
Which perhaps was what was still bothering him. Because she had responded to him, hadn’t she? He’d seen the flash of sexual connection in her eyes. He’d spotted the telling tension in her body language. Sensed that she’d been as startled by her attraction to him as he’d been by his for her.
The way she’d blushed when he’d looked her up and down might have been embarrassment. But he suspected not. She was a woman, not some naive young girl.
No, she’d responded to him all right, which was a source of great irritation.
Daniel was not a man who liked to lose at anything in life. But this time, he had to accept defeat gracefully. Had to ignore the signs of mutual attraction and move on. Literally.
With a sigh, he started searching the crowded arrivals area for his sister, deliberately making sure he didn’t go back the way the blonde had gone. The last thing he wanted was to see her throwing her arms around some other man. His male ego was still smarting. His male body wasn’t feeling crash hot, either.
But Beth was nowhere to be found. Yet she should have been here. The plane had been late enough landing.
If Beth had one flaw it was chronic tardiness.
The beeping of his cellphone had Daniel pulling it out and putting it to his ear.
‘Yes, Beth,’ he said drily.
‘I’m sorry, Daniel, but I overslept. I was so excited to see you today that I couldn’t sleep at first last night. So I lay down on the sofa to watch TV and I must have drifted off there. So I wasn’t in my bed to hear the alarm and Vince, of course, would have just banged the button down and gone back to sleep.’
‘Fine. I’ll catch a taxi.’
‘No, no, don’t do that. I am on my way. Have some breakfast in the coffee shop down the far end of Arrivals and I’ll be there in around twenty minutes, OK?’
‘OK,’ he agreed, resignation in his voice.
‘You’re not mad at me?’
‘No.’
‘I’m amazed!’
‘I decided on the plane to be more relaxed in future,’ he informed her with a somewhat ironic smile. Relaxed was not how he was feeling at this moment. Clearly, he needed more practice at being laid-back. And in handling sexual frustration.
‘No kidding. That’ll be a first. Look, I have to hang up. I can’t risk being booked talking on my mobile whilst driving. I’ve already lost three points on my licence for speeding. See you soon. Bye.’
‘Bye,’ Daniel replied into an already dead phone.
Smiling wryly to himself, he slipped the phone into his pocket, then pushed his luggage trolley down to the coffee shop Beth had directed him to. Once he’d ordered a mug of flat white at the counter—he’d had breakfast on the plane—he settled himself at a clean table, stretched his legs out, crossed his arms and started surveying the world passing by.
Bad idea.
For who should be coming towards him but the gorgeous blonde, without a fiancé by her side? She was walking very slowly, with a cute little pink cellphone clamped to her ear, totally unaware of him, her lovely head down, her concentration on the conversation she was having.
Once again, Daniel could not take his eyes off her. Not her face so much this time, but her body, which in slow motion was a sight to behold. His first visual port of call were her breasts—especially in that tight pink top. Full and lush, with perky nipples which even the confines of a bra could not hide. There was nothing wrong with her lower half, either. Small waist. Womanly hips. Flat stomach. Long legs. Slender ankles.
Daniel liked shapely girls in tight jeans, especially hipster jeans that hugged their legs all the way down. He hated flares on a female. He liked to see their ankles. And their feet.
He noticed that she had pretty little feet, shown to advantage in open-toed, high-heeled sandals, her toenails painted the same candy-pink as her top. And her phone.
As she came closer he saw that she was looking pale. Pale and somewhat shaken. Clearly, she was receiving some bad news.
She ground to a halt within listening distance of Daniel’s table. ‘I don’t believe it!’ she cried out. ‘Life couldn’t be that cruel to me!’
Oh-oh. Something serious must have happened to her missing fiancé. As much as Daniel would like the blonde to be footloose and fancy-free, he wasn’t selfish enough to hope her boyfriend had had an accident, or anything horrible like that.
‘The bastard!’ the blonde suddenly spat, and Daniel’s eyebrows shot up.
Nope. Not an accident. The cad just hadn’t shown up. By the sounds of things, he wasn’t about to, either.
Despite his feeling sorry for the girl, all sorts of sexual vistas suddenly opened up before Daniel’s eyes. When his conscience pricked, he ignored it. He was a normal, red-blooded male, after all, not a saint.
‘No, I’ll be all right,’ the blonde said in clipped tones. ‘No, I’m tougher than that. No, of course I’m not going to start crying. I’m in public, for pity’s sake. I’ll wait till I get home first. Or at least in the car.’
But she didn’t wait till she got home. Or even in the car. No sooner had she said goodbye to whoever she was talking to than she burst into tears. Not quiet tears, either. Great, shoulder-racking sobs.
He could understand why the person on the other end of the phone had been worried about her crying.
Thanking fate, Daniel jumped to his feet and rushed to the rescue.
‘Is there anything I can do to help?’ he asked as he laid a firm, but gentle hand on one of her shaking shoulders.
Charlotte stiffened, then glanced up through her sodden lashes.
It was him, the handsome American she’d encountered earlier, the one she’d mistaken for Gary, the one who’d stared at her with hot, hungry eyes.
But they weren’t hot, or hungry at the moment. They were looking at her with kindness and concern.
‘Bad news, I gather.’
‘You could say that,’ Charlotte mumbled as she pulled a tissue out of her bag and dabbed at her nose.
‘Look, why don’t you come over and have some coffee with me?’ the American invited, indicating a nearby table. ‘I’m stuck here, waiting for my sister to arrive, and wouldn’t mind a bit of company. Meanwhile, you can tell me why your fiancé didn’t show up.’
Shock made her blink, then blink again. ‘How on earth did you know that?’
‘You told me yourself you’d mistaken me for your fiancé back at the exit gate,’ he explained. ‘There’s no man by your side and you were just crying. It doesn’t take much intelligence to put two and two together.’
‘Oh. Yes, I see,’ she said as she wiped her nose again, then took a deep, gathering breath.
‘So, have you been temporarily stood up?’ he asked. ‘Or fully jilted?’
