‘Where do you think you’re going?’
‘I’m leaving.’
‘You can’t leave yet.’
He had to be kidding. ‘I’m sorry, but I’ll do whatever I damn well like. So if you wouldn’t mind getting out of my way?’
‘It’s Rafe and Sienna’s rehearsal dinner.’
Now her breathing was more impatient than ever. ‘Don’t you think I know that? I was here for it, remember? I’m not the one who blew in late.’
A muscle tightened in his jaw. His eyes grew hard and even colder. ‘Maybe not, but that doesn’t mean you can avoid your responsibilities now.’ He gestured towards the dance floor. ‘Your brother clearly expects us to join them.’ He extended a reluctant arm to her. ‘Shall we?’
She blinked up at him, her head already moving into a shake. ‘You must be mad.’
And then he nodded in the direction of the dancing couple, and she followed his gaze to where Rafe was spinning his wife-to-be around the dance floor. ‘We are expected to join them.’
A lump lodged in her throat, and she swallowed, trying to shift it. He expected her to dance with him? To be escorted around the dance floor in those arms tonight? No way. It was one thing to be expected to do it at the formal reception, but there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that she would do it tonight. She didn’t have the stomach for it. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, clutching at her earlier excuse. ‘I’m afraid I have a blinder of a headache. I really have to go.’
One dark eyebrow arched as he frowned, disapproval and something else skating across his eyes. ‘You’re afraid.’
She stiffened at the accusation, resenting the challenge, resenting even more the glimmer of truth his words contained. ‘Afraid you’ll make my headache worse?’ she answered, twisting his words to her own purposes. ‘Oh, I’ll admit there’s every chance of that.’
A muscle in his jaw twitched. ‘I’m sure you can tolerate the inconvenience if I can.’ His words sounded like gravel on gravel, scraping away at the scars left all those years ago until the flesh was raw and tender and she could almost taste the blood seeping fresh from the wound. ‘And don’t think I would ask you if I didn’t have to, but others are waiting for us before they can dance, so tell me, are you coming willingly, or do I have to drag you to the dance floor?’
So he wanted to dance with her as much as she wanted to dance with him. She wanted the time to roll that thought around her mind, to find out why the concept wasn’t as satisfying as it should be. But there was no time because he was right—heads were turned, people were watching them expectantly, waiting for them to join the happy couple. She looked back at him, to the dark-as-night eyes that now held an ‘I told you so’ glimmer of triumph and she didn’t answer, couldn’t bring herself to. Instead she just strode past him, her chin held high, not caring if he chose to follow her or not, half wishing he wouldn’t so that in spite of the audience waiting, she could just keep walking.
He followed her. She didn’t need to turn around to know he was right behind her. She could sense his proximity, feel the heat generated by the man just as surely as she could feel the tide of her sapphire silk gown swirling around her ankles as she strode purposefully towards the dance floor.
She’d barely reached it when he captured one hand and swung her around so firmly that she collided hard against the wall of his chest, knocking the air from her lungs and the sense from her mind. He held onto her with a vice-like grip as if certain she would flee at any moment. ‘Dance,’ he ordered when she’d stood rigid too long, his legs forcing hers to follow suit, though protesting and awkward.
She didn’t want him so close, didn’t want to feel the press of his thigh or the heat of his chest. Didn’t want her hand wrapped so securely in his long, warm fingers, fingers that had come so close to taking her to paradise so many years ago…
Lost in the echo of sensations long gone, she stumbled, only to be abruptly righted by the man in front of her. And it occurred to her how different a picture their entrance on to the dance floor must look, forced and stiff and unnatural after Rafe and Sienna’s silken-smooth coupling.
She mangled still more steps before they managed to find some kind of uncomfortable rhythm. Uncomfortable to Marietta, anyway. There was no telling what Yannis thought or felt beyond his overwhelming aura of resentment.
‘Well, this is fun,’ she blurted, hating every second of it, resenting the grip he had on her hand and the feel of his large hand in the small of her back. Just being close to him was enough to set her skin on fire with awareness. Having to tolerate his touch—the touch of a man who hated her and made no effort to hide it—was too much to endure.
‘Nobody said it would be fun.’
He spun her around as easily as if she were made of balsa wood rather than flesh and blood, using his size to counteract her resistance and make her move with him the way he thought she should.
Exasperated, she took a breath and immediately wished she hadn’t, her lungs suddenly full of the scent of the man, the very essence of him captured in one ill-timed gasp for air. She turned her head away, so desperate to find somewhere unpolluted with his scent that she missed yet another step, and their feet collided and clashed. He answered by hauling her even closer so she was plastered from breast downwards against his body, her legs so close to his that she had no choice but to cede to his control. ‘What are you doing?’ she protested, pushing back her shoulders to try to reclaim some space between them.
‘Attempting to look like a couple.’
‘We’re not a couple.’
‘We could at least try to move in the same direction at the same time,’ he growled. ‘Just dance.’
He didn’t say anything after that, and for that she was grateful. So she tried to concentrate on the music and forget all about the way her skin tingled where their bodies met, tried to disregard the warm puff of air that signalled his breath teasing the coils of her hair around her ear. But there was no forgetting the feeling of skin against skin as he held tight to her hand, no ignoring how strong and warm the body plastered next to hers felt. And no amount of music would ever be enough to let her forget exactly who she was dancing with.
So she closed her eyes, wanting to shut off at least one of her senses. It was a mistake, the action just heightening her awareness of him until all she knew was the feel of their bodies swaying together to the music as he expertly guided her around the floor. Somehow, in the midst of flying sparks and backbiting, their bodies had found some kind of synchronicity, and in spite of him being the last person in the world she wanted to be with, the way his body moved against hers was intoxicating.
She could feel an underlying tension to his steps as if every movement was a battle, and yet his moves were masterful, long lean legs powering his big body around the floor as smoothly as a professional. And in spite of herself, in spite of her own deep-seated tension, she felt herself relaxing into him.
Why fight it? It was all for appearances, after all. Soon they could go back to being enemies. Soon this momentary respite in their battle would be over. But at least for now there was a kind of truce, where time and resentment were suspended in the magic of the music and the dance. And the thought came from nowhere that if it felt this good to dance with this man when he hated you and you hated him, how much better must it feel if they actually loved each other?
She jerked her head away from his shoulder, snapping her eyes open and her thoughts back from the brink. She had no right to ask such questions. No right to wonder anything except when this interminable ordeal of being in Yannis’s arms would be over. What she needed was a distraction from her thoughts, and conversation was the only tool she had to hand.
‘I take it you’ve never married.’
She felt his intake of breath rather than heard it, felt it in the brief falter in his step and the slight jerk of his head above hers. ‘Not yet.’
‘No