fell on her. Luc had to admit she looked gorgeous. Every inch the kind of woman a man like him married. Had he already told her she looked gorgeous? He couldn’t remember. Wonder of wonders, his mind had been somewhere else. On someone else, the way it stubbornly strayed these days.
Dammit. Why couldn’t he—
“Wasn’t the ceremony wonderful?” Rachel gushed.
He looked down at the woman in his arms. The woman he’d asked to marry him. He needed to stop thinking about the other woman, concentrate on this one.
“Uh-huh.”
She smiled. “Their vows were divine. I thought they’d go another way, make it really personal, but I guess Thom’s little speech was great, too. Do you think we should do that? Have personalized speeches?”
Luc shrugged. “Sure, why not?” he muttered.
“Hmm, I don’t know if I want to go down that route. My family are sticklers for tradition. They’ll probably want the ancient verse, right down to the honor-and-obey bit,” she said with a cute wrinkle of her nose.
“Whatever you want, baby,” he said, only half listening.
She slid her arms around his neck and pressed her body against his. “I’ll do it if you want, but the only place I intend to obey is in the bedroom. I’ll let you be my master there any time you want, Luc.”
Another brush of her body against his refocused his wayward thoughts. He wasn’t made of wood, after all. He settled his hands on her narrow waist and swayed with her, even managed a smile. He needed to pay her more attention. More compliments. Rachel loved that. He needed to remember that his girlfriend—no, fiancée—got sulky when she thought she had competition. She especially didn’t do well around other women more entitled to the limelight than she was. Like a bride. Or a certain housekeeper.
He opened his mouth to do just that.
And swallowed a curse when Vanessa and her date glided by. Where the hell did she even find him? And what the hell was he saying to her to make her smile like that? Laugh like that?
Luc’s stomach clenched against the husky sound of her laughter as they danced past.
She didn’t once glance Luc’s way, although he was less than three feet away. It was as if he didn’t fucking exist for her. Jealousy and anger congealed in his stomach.
He felt Rachel wince and realized his fingers had tightened around her. He opened his mouth to apologize, then thought the better of it. Doing so would invite questions he didn’t want to answer.
So he pulled his fiancée even closer, pressed his cheek to hers. And danced them away from the woman he couldn’t get out of his head.
* * *
“Dance with your mama, querido.”
The words, whispered in his right ear from behind him, made Gabe’s spine tense.
Shit. He’d been too busy watching Thom and a few key people in the room that he hadn’t clocked Ana heading his way until it was too late. A second later, she sashayed to a stop in front of him, blocking his view of everyone else in the room.
“Stop calling me that,” he said under his breath, thankful the music was too loud for them to be overheard.
A crestfallen expression drifted down her face. All practiced, right down to the tail end of the wince that followed. Gabe wasn’t moved. Nothing about this woman moved him. What did surprise him, though, was that she’d stuck around in Santa Barbara this long. On the few occasions she visited, she tended to split as soon as Harrison or Mariella scrawled a handful of zeros on a check.
She was up to something. He was almost sure of it.
But he had too much to deal with tonight to include the woman who’d given birth to him on his to-do list. He’d find out soon enough.
Also, he needed her to stop looking at him with those mournful eyes before she sparked another torrent of rumors.
Resigned, he held out his hand and watched her brighten dramatically.
Her pleasure seemed so genuine that, as he led her to the dance floor, Gabe wondered if perhaps his mother had gained a tiny fraction of humanity.
* * *
“Are you happy?”
It took concerted effort for Mariella not to startle as she waltzed across the floor in Joe’s arms.
There were so many ways she wanted to answer that question. A few short weeks ago, she would’ve said yes, with perhaps a hint of cynicism. Hell, a few days ago she would’ve imagined herself happy enough to be incapable of doing what she’d done with Joe on the beach, and last night in his room. So much had changed, while so much remained the same. Was she happy? Hell, no.
The scales had been cruelly peeled from her eyes.
But this was her only daughter’s wedding. So Mariella chose the most obvious answer as her daughter and new son-in-law glided across the dance floor, complemented by their bridesmaids and groomsmen.
Elana was smiling, but Mariella knew it, too, was a facade, not the happily-ever-after smile of a blissful bride. Had there ever been such a thing, she thought cynically. Had any woman ever found a love that lasted forever? Who was truly, madly, deeply happy without an ounce of heartache or disappointment?
“Mariella?”
She blinked and refocused on Joe as his arm tightened around her a fraction with the question. This close, she could feel his hard torso, his powerful thighs. The outline of his cock. The memory of what he’d done to her mere hours ago dragged slowly across her senses. Firing her up. She wanted to sway closer still. Brush her own thighs against his and deepen the intimacy.
But. No.
“I’m happy my Elana is married,” she replied to his first question. “Now I have one less thing to worry about when I go to sleep at night. Thom is dependable. He’s successful, ambitious and rich.” She shrugged. “What else can a mother ask for?” she asked.
A look passed over Joe’s face. She knew she hadn’t answered to his satisfaction. But she didn’t intend to. Not here. Not now. Maybe never. How could she, when she had no clue herself?
His answer was to smile down at her, the arm around her waist drawing her a fraction closer.
She sighed.
A few familiar faces were staring at them from the edge of the dance floor. Her sister, as she danced with Gabe.
Teresa St. Claire, the wedding planner and MSM team member, looked refreshingly different in a dress despite her customary headset attached.
A few of the women from the handful of specially selected charities who she hadn’t been able to not invite, despite despising them.
Gossipmongers and carrion lovers. One or two were even brazen enough to openly gossip about her, their rabid eyes fixed on her and Joe as they sipped the vintage Krug Clos d’Ambonnay and nibbled on Iranian Almas caviar on crackers she’d provided.
She should care about the gossip.
She should create some distance between herself and Joe, or she risked inviting the kind of speculation she couldn’t afford right now, when her whole world seemed to be poised on the edge of an abyss.
She would.
As soon as the song ended.
* * *
Look at them, gliding around in their ten-thousand-dollar dresses and priceless diamonds. Self-absorbed. Pampered and primped and made to think they were kings and queens. Not a care in the world.
The urge to bare her teeth and scream out her secret rose like a tidal wave within Nora. She could march onto that dance floor right now, drop her grenade in the middle of their snobbish existence and watch their world detonate.
And