instead of stepping out to confront him...
“Yes?” he said.
His voice, low and touched with a slight accent, was a perfect match for the chilly removal of his gaze.
The church was empty now. A few feet away, just beyond the doors, Laurel could hear the sounds of laughter but here, in the silence and the lengthening shadows of late afternoon, she could hear only the thump-thump of her heart.
“Was there something you wished to say to me?”
His words were polite but the coldness in them made Laurel’s breath catch. For a second, she thought of turning and running but she’d never run from anything in her life. Besides, why should she let this stranger get the best of her?
There was nothing to be afraid of, nothing at all.
So she drew herself up to her full five foot ten, tossed her hair back from her face and fixed him with a look of cool hauteur, the same one she wore like a mask when she was on public display, and that had helped make her a star on runways from here to Milan.
“Only that you look pathetic,” she said regally, “toying with that little girl.”
“Toying with...?”
“Really,” she said, permitting her voice to take on a purr of amusement, “don’t you think you ought to play games with someone who’s old enough to recognize you for what you are?”
The man looked at her for a long moment, so long that she foolishly began to think she’d scored a couple of points. Then he smiled in a way that sent her heart skidding up into her throat and he stepped forward, until he was only a hand’s span away.
“What is your name?”
“Laurel,” she said, “Laurel Bennett, but I don’t see—”
“I agree completely, Miss Bennett. The game is far more enjoyable when it is played by equals.”
She saw what was coming next in his eyes, but it was too late. Before Laurel could move or even draw back, he reached out, took her in his arms and kissed her.
CHAPTER TWO
LAUREL SHOT a surreptitious glance at her watch.
Another hour, and she could leave without attracting attention. Only another hour—assuming she could last that long.
The man beside her at the pink-and-white swathed table for six, Evan Something-or-Other, was telling a joke. Dr. Evan Something-or-Other, as Annie, ever the matchmaker, had pointedly said, when she’d come around earlier to greet her guests.
He was a nice enough man, even if his pink-tipped nose and slight overbite did remind Laurel of a rabbit. It was just that this was the doctor’s joke number nine or maybe nine thousand for the evening. She’d lost count somewhere between the shrimp cocktail and the Beouf aux Chanterelles.
Not that it mattered. Laurel would have had trouble keeping her mind on anything this evening. Her thoughts kept traveling in only one direction, straight towards Damian Skouras, who was sitting at the table on the dais with an expensively dressed blond windup doll by his side—not that the presence of the woman was keeping him from watching Laurel.
She knew he was, even though she hadn’t turned to confirm it. There was no need. She could feel the force of his eyes on her shoulder blades. If she looked at him, she half expected to see a pair of blue laser beams blazing from that proud, arrogant face.
The one thing she had confirmed was that he was definitely Damian Skouras, and he was Nicholas’s guardian. Former guardian, anyway; Nick was twenty-one, three years past needing to ask anyone’s permission to marry. Laurel knew that her sister hadn’t wanted the wedding to take place. Dawn and Nick were too young, she’d said. Laurel had kept her own counsel but now that she’d met the man who’d raised Nick, she was amazed her sister hadn’t raised yet a second objection.
Who would want a son-in-law with an egotistical SOB like Damian Skouras for a role model?
That was how she thought of him, as an Egotistical SOB. and in capital letters. She’d told him so the next time she’d seen him, after that kiss, when they’d come face-to-face on the receiving line. She’d tried breezing past him as if he didn’t exist, but he’d made that impossible, capturing her hand in his, introducing himself as politely as if they’d never set eyes on each other until that second.
Flushed with indignation, Laurel had tried to twist her hand free. That had made him laugh.
“Relax, Miss Bennett,” he’d said in a low, mocking tone. “You don’t want to make another scene, do you? Surely one such performance a day is enough, even for you.”
“I’m not the one who made a scene, you—you—”
“My name is Damian Skouras.”
He was laughing at her, damn him, and enjoying every second of her embarrassment.
“Perhaps you enjoy attracting attention,” he’d said. “If so, by all means, go on as you are. But if you believe, as I do, that today belongs to Nicholas and his bride, then be a good girl, smile prettily and pretend you’re having a good time, him?”
He was right, and she knew it. The line had bogged down behind her and people were beginning to crane their necks with interest, trying to see who and what was holding things up. So she’d smiled, not just prettily but brilliantly, as if she were on a set instead of at a wedding, and said, in a voice meant to be heard by no one but him, that she was hardly surprised he still thought it appropriate to address a woman as a girl and that she’d have an even better time if she pretended he’d vanished from the face of the earth.
His hand had tightened on hers and his eyes had glinted with a sudden darkness that almost made her wish she’d kept her mouth shut.
“You’ll never be able to pretend anything when it comes to me,” he’d said softly, “or have you forgotten what happened when I kissed you?”
Color had shot into her face. He’d smiled, let her snatch her hand from his, and she’d swept past him.
No, she hadn’t forgotten. How could she? There’d been that first instant of shocked rage and then, following hard on its heels, the dizzying realization that she was suddenly clinging to his broad shoulders, that her mouth was softening and parting under his, that she was making a little sound in the back of her throat and moving against him...
“...well,” Evan Something-or-Other droned, “if that’s the case, said the chicken, I guess there’s not much point crossing to the other side!”
Everybody at the table laughed. Laurel laughed, too, if a beat too late.
“Great story,” someone chuckled.
Evan smiled, lifted his glass of wine, and turned to Laurel.
“I guess you heard that one before,” he said apologet ically.
“No,” she said quickly, “no, I haven’t. I’m just—I think it must be jet lag. I was in Paris just yesterday and I don’t think my head’s caught up to the clock.” She smiled. “Or vice versa.”
“Paris, huh? Wonderful city. I was there last year. A business conference.”
“Ah.”
“Were you there on business? Or was it a vacation?”
“Oh, it was business.”
“I guess you’re there a lot.”
“Well...”
“For showings. That’s what they call them, right?”
“Well, yes, but how did you—”
“I recognized you.” Evan grinned. “Besides, Annie told me. I’m her dentist, hers and Dawn’s, and the last time she came by for a checkup she said. ‘Wait