One Night: Sensual Bargains. Maureen Child

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       CHAPTER THREE

      WATER DRIPPED NOISILY from my raincoat to the flagstones as I walked nervously into the shadowy foyer of the castle. The thought of facing them all at once scared me to death.

      Edward, Madison and Jason.

      All at once.

      I couldn’t do it. I stopped, clenched my hands at my sides.

      Caesar loped up beside me in the foyer. With a sympathetic look, he shook his fur, splattering me with water and mud. I gasped as cold wet dirt hit my face, then gasped again as I looked down at my messed-up hair, my muddy raincoat and sneakers. I hadn’t buttoned the raincoat so even the T-shirt beneath, which Edward had recently groped, now had a splatter of mud across the front.

      If I thought I couldn’t face them before...!

      With a satisfied snort, Caesar trotted happily down the hall, no doubt intending to plunk himself in his nice spot on the rug in front of the fire. What did he have to fear? He wasn’t facing the firing squad.

      I heard voices down the hall, coming from the library. Madison’s high-pitched voice, two lower masculine ones. Sharing tea, or lying in ambush for me?

      Maybe I could make a run for it. If I tiptoed down the hall, I’d sneak by the library unseen. Then I’d pack my bag and flee for Tierra del Fuego.

      “What are you doing?” Edward said quietly.

      He was standing in the hallway, his face in silhouette. He’d showered and changed from his exercise clothes. His dark hair was still wet, slicked back against his head, and he was actually wearing a jacket and tie, button-up shirt and trousers. It was...sexy. I licked my lips. “Why are you dressed up?”

      “We have company.” Flickering firelight from the open doorway of the library cast shadows on his grim face. “Care to join us?”

      He was so handsome and sophisticated. Everything I was not. It seemed incredible to me now that he’d kissed me, for any reason whatsoever. I put my hand to my hair. Yup. Just as I thought, it was damp with rain, tangled as a bird’s nest. I put my hand down.

      “Well?”

      “I don’t think I can do this,” I whispered. My heart was pounding, my feet ready to take flight. “I thought about it on my walk. After all that’s happened, I’ve realized you don’t need me anymore and maybe it’s time for me to just—”

      “Is that you, Diana?” Madison’s voice carried sharply from the library. “Get in here!”

      Edward’s eyebrow lifted. He came closer, and I shivered as he pulled my raincoat off my body. I felt the brush of his fingertips. I breathed in his scent, masculine and clean, like a Bavarian forest. Hanging up the wet coat, he turned back to me.

      “You’re going to have to face them sooner or later, Diana,” he said quietly. His hand fell bracingly on my shoulder. “Might as well be now.”

      His camaraderie made me feel strangely comforted, even strengthened. That brief moment helped me square my shoulders, lift my chin and walk with my head held high into the library.

      The firelit room was impossibly elegant, two stories high, with leatherbound books on all sides, a ladder to reach them and an enormous white marble fireplace at one end. Not to mention two movie stars sitting on the white leather sofa near the fire.

      Madison looked beautiful as always. Her long blond hair was straight, her eyes huge beneath fake eyelashes, her cheekbones sharp enough to cut glass. Even casually dressed in a white cropped jacket of tousled fur, thousand-dollar silk blouse and size 0 toothpick jeans, no one could have mistaken her for anything but a movie star.

      Jason sat beside her, his hand protectively on her knee. Handsome, broad shouldered and corn-fed like the Texas farm boy he’d once been, he looked different than he had just six months ago. The gloss of success covered him now, like his newly expensive clothes.

      Looking at them, my body flashed hot, then cold. Jason started to rise to his feet, but Madison grabbed his hand, keeping him seated beside her.

      “Diana,” she said coolly. “It was rude of you to keep us waiting. But I don’t blame you for being afraid to face me after what you did.”

      I would have staggered back, except Edward was behind me, his hand supportively on my lower back. I felt his strength and somehow my knees steadied themselves.

      “What I did?” I queried dangerously.

      “You left me when I needed you most!”

      I gaped at her. “I went to California to give the reporter a tour of your house—as you asked me to!”

      She waved her hand dismissively. “That? All that happened ages ago. I’m talking about my movie premiere last night. You should have been there for me!”

      “Are you kidding?” I breathed.

      “You know how nervous I get, being at public events. You promised СКАЧАТЬ