Courting Disaster. Kathleen O'Reilly

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СКАЧАТЬ the moonlight flickered through the trees, bathing the veranda in a soft glow. Demetri handed her a glass, then clinked it once, toasting to absolutely nothing.

      “What are you afraid of?” he said, as if he didn’t know. The dreamy eyes narrowed to sapphire slits of death. He didn’t even mind.

      “You don’t have one single move that hasn’t been tried before. Don’t think I can’t take care of myself.”

      But he could do such a better job, Demetri thought to himself, studying the full upper lip, and the tiny depression there that was made to be savored. “You’re Hugh’s niece?”

      “Great-niece, but not by blood. My aunt Jenna married into the Preston family, but he doesn’t mind when I call him uncle, and I protect him just like he was my own,” she answered, eyeing him over the rim of the glass. There was suspicion and disdain, but there was a flicker of other things in those eyes, too. Things that gave a man hope.

      “I’ve been trying to help them,” he told her, hoping to erase some of the suspicion. “Just like you.”

      “But they turned you down. Smart of them,” she answered, suspicion still the emotion du jour.

      “Do you always make up your mind so fast?” he asked, as if he didn’t live and die by snap judgments as a race-car driver.

      “Not normally, no, but your track record isn’t so stellar, Mr. Lucas.”

      “You know?”

      “Maybe,” she said, shrugging carelessly.

      “Why didn’t Thomas and Hugh accept your offer?” he asked, needing to talk about her, not his past indiscretions. His past wasn’t interesting. She, on the other hand, was fascinating.

      “They don’t want my help,” she answered quietly, the perpetually smiling mouth pulled into a frown. Demetri wanted the smile back in place.

      “Ah…”

      “And you don’t need to be ahhing here, like you understand everything, because you don’t.”

      “Why don’t you tell me?” he invited, because he wanted to understand everything about her.

      She studied him for a minute, and he must have passed some test, because she shook her head, resigned. “Do you really want to know why I’m mad?”

      “I’m dying to know.”

      Then she started to pace around the space, high heels clicking on the stones, green skirts twirling, exposing a long length of leg. His attention was torn between watching the sway of her hips and the restless way she circled the champagne flute in the air. “I have tried every which way to get my family to take money, ever since I heard about the problems with Leopold’s Legacy, but nobody will listen. A few years back I had…some financial issues, and the Prestons wanted to help. I told them all no, that I didn’t need it. I could take care of myself. I wasn’t some poor cousin looking for charity handouts. And now, well, who knew that they’d listen to my own words so well. I have money, but oh, no, I’m not in the horsey business, I’m in the ‘music’ business. Elizabeth, she’s just a simple little thing.” She downed her glass in one gulp, and he handed her his.

      “They turned me down, too. That should make you feel better.” She polished off his glass, too. “And that’s the only reason I’m still dancing with you, Mr. Lucas.”

      “Technically, we’re not still dancing.”

      “Don’t get all particular on me. I get enough of that when I’m working, thank you very much.” She lifted herself up on the edge of one of the wooden railings, crossing one delectable leg over the other, exposing more thigh than he thought she realized. Wisely he didn’t say a word.

      “Sorry,” he answered, trying to keep his gaze firmly fixed on her face.

      “Apology accepted,” she said, her mind still firmly fixed on helping her family.

      “Do you know your way around Louisville?” he asked, his mind firmly fixed on other things.

      “Some.”

      “Enough to show me around?”

      She shook her head once. “I bet there’re a lot of women that would be interested in showing you around, Mr. Lucas. Fast women who aren’t a thing like me. I’m not your type.”

      He crossed his arms across his chest, sensing a depressing change in the infamous Lucas luck with women. “Why does everyone keep telling me I have a type?”

      “If the shoe fits….” she answered, one heel bobbing up and down.

      “I’m trying to reform,” he said. It was not quite the truth, but if he thought it’d earn him a dinner, drinks and long hours in her bed, he’d be willing to try.

      “Ha!” Her arms crossed her chest, plumping her breasts nicely.

      “Don’t be so skeptical,” he answered, his eyes glued to her face as if his life depended on it. Currently he thought it might.

      She watched him, noticed that his gaze kept dipping down. “Sorry. Skeptical is my nature.”

      Reluctantly, he looked up from her cleavage. “No, that’s not even close to your nature. You don’t have a skeptical bone in that luscious body—excuse me, that slipped out, but it’s true. The nonskeptical part. Actually, the luscious part is, too.” Demetri stopped. “Sorry.”

      She started to smile. “That’s all right. I liked you better, then.”

      Humility seemed to work with her. He would remember that. “Why can’t I take you to dinner?”

      “I don’t think that’d be wise.”

      “Why not?” he answered, although he knew there were one hundred and one reasons that it wouldn’t be wise. That wouldn’t stop him from trying.

      “Trust me,” she replied, and he knew people did. Contrary to trusting him, people would trust her with their life.

      “You crash into my life, and one dance is all I’m going to get?” he asked, not hiding the disappointment in his voice.

      She nodded.

      From the distance, he could hear the sounds of music once again, but he didn’t want to go back to the crowd. He could stay here forever. Alone with her, listening to the soft music of her voice, drowning in the teasing light of her eyes. Forever wasn’t normally a word in Demetri’s vocabulary. He drove fast cars for a reason. When the world went by in a blur, you never knew what you missed, and Demetri had a feeling that he missed a lot. Yet sitting here, doing nothing more than talking with this woman, made him want to slow down.

      “I don’t know if I’ll survive with only one dance,” he told her, the words harmless enough, but deep down, he wondered if it was the truth. He’d never felt this before. This obsessive need to do nothing more than sit in her presence and breathe.

      “You certainly turn a lady’s head.”

      “But СКАЧАТЬ