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She opened her mouth, looked over his shoulder.
The tinny voice boomed out again, calling people forward, making some kind of apology about her mother’s lack of appearance. Her fingers gripped his arm. Pressed into his flesh.
‘I’ve got to say, Princess, you’re sending out some very conflicting signals. So allow me to be clear...’
He put his hand over hers and slowly began to prise her fingers up.
The voice sounded again. Everyone was in position. She had to do this. She had to locate her breath, count in and out slowly, and then she’d be fine. She would be absolutely fine.
Her fingers, now free of his arm, hung in mid-air like a wizened claw.
‘I can’t go in there. I can’t be in front of all those people.’
He stepped back into her space, blotting out the view. ‘You can’t be in front of all those people? Hang on—is this your party? Are you Lady Lucinda?’
She clenched her eyes and nodded.
He looked behind him, as if expecting to see something horrifying, then turned back to face her. ‘What’s going on? Is this some kind of emotional blackmail?’
She could barely breathe now, the panic had gripped her so fiercely.
‘It’s the auction,’ she gasped.
‘You’re telling me that’s what’s got you like this? Is that what this is all about? Really? The auction?’
He was staring at her as if she was deranged. Which was exactly how she felt.
‘You might have thought of that before you organised it, then, wouldn’t you say?’
She nodded, swallowed, put her hand on her chest and tried hard to slow her furious heartbeat.
‘Just another example of your consideration for others? Impressive. Awesome. You really are something else, Princess.’
And he turned on his heel.
‘No—no, you can’t. Please!’ Lucie heard herself begging and saw herself reach out, grab his arm, pull him back. She really pulled him back.
He turned. Looked down at her, hands on hips.
‘Please? Please, what? What do you expect me to do? Help you? Are you serious? After the way you’ve acted?’
‘I can’t go in there.’ Her voice was little more than a whisper. ‘I simply can’t.’
She didn’t know herself what she expected him to do. All she knew was that for some reason his presence, his body—whatever it was—she felt warmed by it. And when she felt warm she was less likely to run away—or in this case swim away.
He turned to look at the room full of people. Restless people.
‘All these good people here are waiting patiently for you to go in there and start this off, aren’t they?’
Lucie nodded, held her head in her hands.
‘And you’re in no fit state to deliver. Are you?’
Her shoulders drooped as she shook her head. What an idiot she was. A gauche idiot with social anxiety as an extra talent.
Suddenly she felt her chin being lifted up.
‘Is it nerves? Is that it? You’re stressed out because your mother hasn’t turned up and suddenly the spotlight’s on you?’
She heard him murmur the words. Someone understood. Someone genuinely understood. How many times had she tried to explain to the people close to her that she simply couldn’t do the things they could? How many times had she heard the word ‘nonsense’ fired at her? And how many times had she seen her mother sweep past her, shaking her head and rolling her eyes, making her feel such an abject, worthless piece of garbage just because she wasn’t like her?
‘God only knows why I’d do anything other than get as far away from you as possible, but I don’t suppose it would kill me to help you out. And I can’t really stand back and watch you let all those people down...’
She stared up into that face. It was suddenly serious, the dimples subsumed into all that beautiful golden skin. His eyes were grave. And she felt again that strange sense of caring, of kindness, of being anchored.
Lucie nodded. She stood in the shelter of his warm, strong body and nodded.
He looked at her for a long second, then stepped away, shaking his head.
‘God only knows...’
She watched his back as he walked into the crowd, her breaths lengthening and her heart gradually steadying. Easy and lazy—no problem at all for him to go and stand before a crowd, all eyes trained on him.
Lucie’s gaze fixed on the breadth of his shoulders, the slight swing of his backside, so fabulously formed inside those trousers, the angle of each leg as he stepped so damn nonchalantly onto the podium, before the crowd of women who clearly thought exactly the same as she did closed over his path like waves of hungry harpies.
She might have solved one problem, but she had the feeling she had launched herself head-first into another.
CHAPTER FOUR (#u7b5f2591-93c5-51a0-a993-f73bb767fdcc)
SHE WAS OUT there on the deck, watching. He could feel her stare from time to time. He searched for that shimmer of green satin, or the glint of her golden hair. But there were far too many people in the room, pledging their money for things they really didn’t need, and he was working them as if his life depended on getting them to bid for each and every one of these glamorous trinkets.
When his own prize came up—the holiday in Dubai and tickets to the race day his team would be riding in—the air was electric. Of course it helped that he was there, and flirting with every one of those women, some of whom he was pretty sure he might have flirted with before. Maybe he’d even done more than flirt, but tonight, for sure, he only had eyes for Lady Lucinda Bond —‘Princess’ to him.
He saw her pass along the back of the salon, deckside. She looked as if she was back in the game—her shoulders were down and her chin was high. Her face was side-lit, but only flashes of those proud features appeared through the rows of women who waved their paddles at him. He knew he should leave well alone, but he was going to track her down as soon as the last item was sold—if only to give her the chance to apologise and to thank him.
He was feeling pretty good, to be fair. It wasn’t every day you got the chance to help raise two and a half million US dollars for charity. She should be stoked. So her glamorous mother hadn’t turned up? No bad thing as far as Dante could see. She came across as a bit self-obsessed anyway.
He exited the salon to a round of applause and several slaps on the back and kisses on the cheek. That was all he was offering.
Night on deck was thick and black, but the trail of the moon across the water that separated the Marengo from the Sea Devil was a silvery carpet of light topped with a veil of blinking stars. Even he couldn’t help but be struck by the prettiness of the scene, by the twinkling and bobbing of buoys and lights and the fairytale island of Petit Pierre in the background.
He rounded the deck, staring in at the other rooms that held the usual party suspects. Drink was flowing and chat was getting easier. On he moved, pausing at a tiny sweep of steps that led to a dance floor and a pulsating beat where bodies moved in time to the music. He scanned it. A few people waved him over. Friends. Raoul, for one. He’d join them shortly—as soon as he’d tracked down Her Ladyship.
They looked to be having a great time—there were some new faces, new bodies, and Raoul looked as if he was already predating on them. Normally that alone would have been enough to spur him on—the competition, the hunt. He glanced back, held up his hand—five minutes. Raoul grinned.
Someone in front of him turned. A blonde, about five seven, slim and sure, her long hair in a knot on top of her head.
Dante froze.
It couldn’t be.
A familiar sickening chill seeped through his body. It had been so long since he had felt that—so long. The cast of that jawline, the angle of that cheekbone...
But of course it couldn’t be. There were no such things as ghosts.
Still, he was rooted to the spot. A body bumped his, someone else spoke, yet another person touched his arm. He jerked it away angrily as he stared at the profile, waiting for her to turn, waiting for his eyes to tell him what his rational brain knew were the facts. The dead didn’t come back to life. And Celine di Rosso was well and truly dead. Hadn’t she made sure he would be the one to find her, after all?
Raoul was frowning. Tipping his chin up in question. The conversation stopped. The woman turned herself right around. Right around to face Dante.
The face of a stranger. The same angle of the jaw, hollow of those cheekbones, the same long neck and knot of blonde hair—but at least twenty years younger than Celine. Even thinking those words was like succumbing to the sickness again.
He blinked and the woman smiled. Raoul waved him over. And then he felt pressure on his arm again.
‘Señor Hermida?’
He turned and there she was. Lady Lucie. He came to as if he’d been out cold—as if she were standing there with smelling salts instead of a rigid arm held out in front for some kind of ceremonial handshake.
Her outline formed in the haze of long-ago horror that had descended all around him. He felt his smile slide back into place—more easily than he would ever have imagined, having just seen that doppelgänger. He could see her features. He scanned her. She looked questioningly at him and he knew he must look as if he’d been bludgeoned, or worse.
She was tight-mouthed, but she looked a damn sight better than when he’d last spoken to her. She hadn’t been pretending, that was for sure—that had been a panic attack if ever he’d seen one. And, hell, he’d seen more than a few. What on earth her own demons were was anyone’s guess, but he knew better than anyone that all was rarely as it seemed.
‘Princess?’ he replied, watching her eyes drifting to the smile that he knew warmed even the hardest of hearts.
She flashed her eyes right up into his and scowled. ‘I know you’re doing that simply to annoy me, but for the last time may I ask that when you use a title you use the correct one?’
He bowed, Walter Raleigh–style. ‘Yes. Whatever Your Ladyship says.’
He would have sworn she almost stamped her feet underneath the satin shimmer of the dress that skimmed down her body and even now had his hands twisting out of the bunched fists and flexing with the unspent touch of her. She had spirit. In spades. And it was back in abundance.
‘What I said was thank you,’ she delivered in clipped, sharp tones, and she tilted her nose up, as if he had come to the main entrance when he really should be using the servants’ door.
‘Thank you?’
She looked flustered now. But she was back to acting the princess and he’d be damned if he was going to let her wriggle away that easily.
‘Yes, thank you. For...you know...stepping up...’
Dante took a step back, let his smile do the work, let his eyes trail all over her the way he wanted to trail his hands. The glorious spill of her breasts, scooped and positioned for a man just to release into his hands, to tease with his mouth. The shoulders curved gently, the hips swelled from that tiny waist. She was a feast, a banquet, an image of woman he had rarely, if ever, seen before.
But she was trying to pull rank with him, and he for one was not going to play ball in that particular game of ego.
‘So, yes. Thank you. It...er...seems to have been a success.’
He watched a fan of colour seep all over her creamy chest and this time he didn’t move his eyes. She was too tempting, on so many different levels. And, yes, maybe seeing that image of Celine had aroused his passion, raised his ire, but he was going to make her apologise over and over again—and thank him in ways she’d never even dreamed of.
‘Lots of happy people back there, Princess, yes.’
She scowled.
‘And it was for them that I did it. I hate to see people getting short-changed when their expectations have been raised. You know, in a way it was a bit of a rescue situation... I saw someone in trouble and I dropped everything—and I mean everything—put my foot to the floor, put myself out there. I mean, what do I know about auctions?’
He lanced her with a stare and watched as her eyes widened like saucers. Then he gave her a little wink and a smile. She was thinking. She knew exactly what he meant and she was reliving those moments. The pretty pink bloom shifted further from her glorious cleavage to the column of her neck.
‘Is that where the jellyfish got you?’ he asked, nodding to the scattering of the rash all over her beautiful chest.
She looked down, then up. Opened her mouth. Looked even more embarrassed. He could let her off the hook now, but she really had been incredibly rude. And he really was incredibly angry.
‘I...I...’
He leaned in to her space, and her eyes widened even further as she leaned back. Then he placed a finger on her lips.
‘Shh, Princess. It’s okay. Apology accepted. I was happy to help out.’
He lifted his finger from the moist, soft pillow of her lips before he gave in to the temptation to slide it right inside and have her suck it. He tilted her chin up instead and leaned forward—just a tiny inch, just close enough to scent the luxury and the class that oozed from her pores. He lingered there, savouring in equal measure her surprise and her femininity. Letting her get caught up in the moment of thinking that he just might kiss her.
His hand slid out, all by itself, and lightly skimmed her waist. And just like that he felt her melt—felt all those thorns wilt and fall like petals to his feet. He nodded to her, telling her with a wink that he knew she was moments away from giving in completely.
And then he stepped back. ‘Really, I was happy to help—it was no problem at all.’
He slipped her a smile and let his hand slide off the side of her hip. She was hot. For him. Oh, yes.
He walked away.
‘Wait! I mean...’ She was literally pulling on his sleeve now.
He stopped. Raoul was watching closely, raising a shot glass with the others in his little circle of new blood, and downing it to a chorus of cheers.
Dante waited, then turned as slowly as he could, savouring every last moment.
‘You mean what, Princess?’
He glanced at her, one eyebrow raised in a jaunty, light-hearted way that belied every last emotion that coursed through his veins like trails of lit gasoline.
‘Okay, I’m sorry for the things I said earlier. I realise now that you were only trying to help. And thanks—thank you for then, and for now. You really...got me out of a hole.’
‘Forget it,’ he said, and moved away.
She moved with him. He felt the hand on his arm.
‘Look, let me make it up to you.’
Perfect, thought Dante, silently high-fiving himself, aware of the scrutiny from Raoul.
‘Okay,’ he said slowly. ‘Did you have something in mind?’
He turned right around now—slowly—moved ever so slightly back into her space, watched the telltale signs spill across her face.
‘Would you care to join me for a drink?’
