Black Widow Bride. Tessa Radley

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СКАЧАТЬ forget the thrust of Damon’s anger, his contempt…or his furious passion…as long as she lived. Not even the gallons of red wine she’d consumed later had dimmed the pain, the knowledge of what that one last desperate shot had cost.

      “Fliss,” she said gently as Damon’s hand enfolded hers—trapping her—as he led her into the waltz.

      Damon glared down at her, uncomprehending.

      “She likes to be called Fliss. Or hasn’t she told you that yet?”

      His black eyebrows drew together, and she was terribly aware of the heat of his hand on her waist, of the intimate pressure of his palm against hers, of his hot, sexy scent.

      “Her name is Felicity,” he said repressively. “It’s beautiful. A happy name. The other sounds insubstantial, like fairy floss.”

      “But she hates it. Or don’t her wishes matter to you?”

      The name reminded Fliss of less happy times, of a childhood where she’d been shy, small for her age—of the bullying she’d endured at school as the child of a foster home, of the stark discipline meted out by foster parents who had their own two daughters to love. Rebecca knew because she’d been there, raised by the same distant but well-meaning couple. How could she explain it to Damon? She couldn’t! Rebecca reminded herself she was no longer the rock in Fliss’s life. It was up to Fliss to tell her husband what she chose.

      Momentarily Damon looked taken aback, but already his face was hardening. “It has nothing to do with you what I call my wife. All I ask is that you refrain from ruining this day.”

      My wife.

      Again the agonising sharpness pierced her heart. Rebecca pushed the pain away. She’d deal with it later, much later, when this appalling day was over and she was alone.

      “And how would I do that?” She raised a brow, pretending an insouciance she was far from feeling, here, trapped within the heat of his arms, mindless of the other dancing couples surrounding them. “Savvas told me that everything is stunning—the flowers…the wedding dress…the wedding cake—that it’s a Dream Occasion. How could I possibly ruin it?” Each word she uttered was another blow to her already battered heart.

      But he didn’t smile at her intentional pun on her business’s name. Instead his glower darkened. “Don’t be obtuse. I’m not doubting your professional ability, it’s your penchant for stirring up trouble that has me worried.”

      If only she could hate him.

      Damon despised her. And, at this moment, she didn’t like him much either. To be quite honest, more than anything in the world she wanted to kill Damon Asteriades, business tycoon, billionaire…and the blindest, most stubborn, most controlling man she’d ever met. If he’d been more attuned to her, he would’ve known that Fliss would be safe, that there’d be no catfight on the dance floor tonight. Rebellion stirred within Rebecca. Perhaps she should give him cause to worry. Punish him a little.

      She gave her slowest, most sultry smile. “Trouble? People say that’s my middle name.”

      “You are trouble.” His lips barely moved. His eyes were harder than the diamonds that graced Fliss’s neck. “I don’t want you talking to Savvas. Leave him alone. You’re not getting your talons into my brother.”

      Her defiance wavered. Damon’s brutal reaction was predictable. Before she’d met him, she’d heard tales about him. Of his business successes, his clever, decisive mind, his devastating good looks. But she’d never expected the raw, primal emotion he’d aroused in her. They’d met at a wedding she and Fliss had organised for a business colleague of his. She’d taken one look at the gorgeous guy with the dark, brooding magnetism and fallen. Hard.

      He’d been charming, attentive, interested—she’d thought. Until he’d learned her name, figured out that she was Aaron Grainger’s scandalous widow. In an instant he’d changed. Withdrawn. Become distant and, worse, disinterested. She’d watched his eyes narrow, and with one raking glance he’d stripped her to the soul, then he’d dismissed her and stepped past her to congratulate the groom. But it had been far too late for caution. She’d been lost.

      Caught up in her thoughts, Rebecca let her hips move fluidly to the rhythm of the music. For a moment his body responded and they moved as one, dipping and swaying. But an instant later he tensed and moved away.

      Always it had been so.

      After that first encounter, she’d searched him out shamelessly, using business acquaintances and her connections as Aaron Grainger’s widow to secure invitations to places he frequented, inexorably driven by a raw attraction that had gone to the heart of her. How hard she’d tried to recapture that magical moment. Always she imagined a moment of softening, a flash of heat, then it was gone—and the man of steel returned. Until finally she’d realised the overwhelming attraction existed only in her own mind.

      Damon hadn’t seemed to feel anything.

      The discovery crushed her.

      Even now, as they danced, his body was rigid, unbending, his gaze fixed on something over her shoulder. Totally removed from her. Her mouth twisted. So much for fate. Nothing in her life had ever been easy, so why should falling in love be any different?

      But she’d never expected fate’s final cruel twist: that Damon would take one look at Fliss’s sweet blond gentleness and want it for himself. Or how much that would devastate her.

      And there was nothing she could do about it.

      Last night had proved that.

      Oh, God, last night…

      She stared at his mouth pressed into a hard line, remembered the hard, seeking pressure against her lips, remembered how…

      No, no, don’t think about it!

      So Rebecca said the first thing that came into her head. “Both you and Savvas dance well. Did you attend lessons?”

      “Forget about how well Savvas dances, you little troublemaker,” he ground out. “I want you to stay away from him, he’s too young.”

      Troublemaker?

      Why the hell not. What did she have to lose? Rebecca blocked out his disparaging voice and, humming the refrain of the waltz, let her body brush his, heard his breath catch and repeated the fleeting brush of body against body.

      “Theos. Stop it!” The hand on her waist moved to her shoulder, a manacle, holding her at bay.

      She resisted the urge to sag in his arms as despair overwhelmed her. Forced herself not to crumple, to stay tall and straight and move lightly, with grace, on feet that felt leaden. She gave him a mocking little smile. He glared back, more than angry now.

      His disgust, his distrust, seared her.

      What was she doing? She sagged against him, the struggle going out of her. His body tightened, then firm hands pushed her away, holding her at a distance. The ache inside intensified. What was she trying to prove? Damon was right. This was wrong. However much he’d hurt her, however much she felt he deserved her bad behaviour, Fliss’s wedding was not the place for it. Nor was it worth losing the only thing she had left—her self-respect.

      But СКАЧАТЬ