Switched At The Altar. Metsy Hingle

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      Two

      For a moment Alex couldn’t speak. He nearly choked on the fury rising inside him. “There isn’t going to be a wedding,” he finally managed to say.

      Desiree arched her brow. “No? I wouldn’t be so sure of that.”

      “I am sure of it. Kevin is not going to marry you.”

      “I believe that’s another one of those decisions that’s not yours to make.”

      “Trust me, Ms. Mason. You are not going to marry my brother.” Even if he was wrong and she wasn’t a gold-digging actress with her eye on Kevin’s trust fund as he suspected, he couldn’t tolerate the thought of her being married to his brother. Not when he could all too easily imagine her with him, in his bed, with her body naked beneath his. Just the thought of being with her had him growing hard with desire—and sent guilt stabbing through him like a knife. He shoved a hand through his hair. She was involved with his brother, for pity’s sake. Yet, not even that knowledge could ease the hungry, restless ache inside him that he experienced by just looking at her.

      “Like I said, that’s Kevin’s decision. And mine,” she amended a moment later, as though adding herself to the equation was an afterthought. “Now, you really will have to excuse me while I see if I can find out what happened to the actor Bernie was supposed to send over.”

      She smiled at him, and Alex’s brain turned to mush. He stared at her mouth, mesmerized by the bow shape of those rose-colored lips, remembering how warm and soft they’d felt against his own.

      “I believe you can find your way out.”

      He watched in silence as she scooped up the train of her wedding gown and walked down the hall. For a second he tracked the enticing sway of her hips as she moved down the corridor before she disappeared into one of the rooms.

      At the click of the door closing, Alex blinked. He shook his head to clear it. Muttering an oath, he started off after her. “The woman must be some kind of witch,” Alex grumbled, remembering the tales of voodoo and black magic that was supposedly still practiced in the New Orleans area. For a moment he’d been so mesmerized by her that he’d almost forgotten his reason for being here in the first place. Alex frowned at that realization. Try as he might to stop it, he couldn’t help thinking of his father.

      Eddie Stone had been a dashing, debonair ladies’ man with a hearty laugh, a lust for partying and the deep pockets to pay for it. He’d also been as irresponsible as hell. He’d been about to marry wife number five when he’d been killed in a skiing accident. Otherwise, Alex might have added a few more stepmothers to his family tree. While his memories of time spent with his father were good ones, they were far too few—primarily because of his string of ex-wives, three of whom had been ladies from the South.

      And now Kevin thought he was in love with Desiree Mason, another Southern belle. He conjured up an image of the green-eyed beauty in his mind and frowned. Maybe it was something in the water that drew men to women like her. Alex hesitated in front of the room he’d seen Desiree go into. Or maybe it was a weak gene in the Stone men that made them susceptible to a woman with a honeyed voice and magnolia-soft skin.

      Whatever the reason, Alex decided, he had no intention of allowing himself to fall under Desiree Mason’s or any woman’s spell. With that thought in mind, he rapped his knuckles on the door.

      “It’s open,” she called out in a distant, somewhat muf fled voice.

      Alex pushed the door open and stepped inside only to discover the room was empty. “Ms. Mason?”

      “Be right with you,” Desiree called out from an adjoining room.

      As he waited, Alex took the opportunity to study the room. Just like the rest of the house, this room boasted high ceilings that were accented by crown molding. Ivory silk wall coverings flecked with gold ran from ceiling to floor. What he suspected was either a genuine Aubusson rug or a good imitation covered the center of a wooden floor that was in dire need of polishing. A lovely watercolor of Magnolia House and the grounds, painted during earlier and obviously more prosperous times, hung crookedly on one wall alongside several framed theater posters of plays that he’d never heard of, let alone seen.

      On another wall damask drapes, in a faded shade of what once had probably been mint, were swept back from a massive window that served as a home to a half dozen flowering plants.

      Alex СКАЧАТЬ