Commander's Little Surprise. Mollie Molay
told him Victoria could be the very woman she’d denied being. Why else had he felt her heart beat wildly against his chest a moment ago? And why had she stiffened when she’d realized she’d actually allowed herself to melt into his arms?
He was about to apologize again when Victoria pulled out of his arms and rushed through the French doors onto an outdoor patio. Tables and chairs had been set out to accommodate guests. A crescent moon hung overhead, just as it had almost two years ago. An omen, he thought as he caught up with Victoria.
“Hold up! Was it something I said?” Dan asked when he caught up with her. “All I really meant to say was that you remind me of someone who meant a lot to me.”
“I’m sorry I’ve disappointed you, but I’ve already told you I’m not the woman you are looking for.” She took a step away from him. “It is true my home was in Baronovia, but I haven’t lived there for some time.”
Dan looked into her expressive eyes and at lips that were surely meant to be kissed. Desire ran through him. Victoria might not be his mystery woman, but he was as attracted to her as he had been to her double. He had to kiss her.
“Don’t go, stay here with me,” he said. He couldn’t hold off any longer. Not only for the proof she and the woman he remembered were one and the same, but for the kiss he ached to take from her tantalizing lips.
He held her face in his hands and lifted her face to his. “Victoria,” he whispered when their eyes met. “I’m not sure if you were the woman in the palace garden that night or not, but I’m still hooked. I can’t seem to get enough of you.”
“What are you doing?” Victoria gasped as she tried to pull out of his grasp. “I…”
“I only want to show you how I feel,” Dan said, his lips only inches away from hers. “I have a feeling that tonight has to be one of the most important nights of our lives.”
He was prepared for her anger, but he wasn’t prepared for the stricken look that came into her eyes. He should have known she was too vulnerable to try to seduce into a confession. “How can I make it up to you for being so rude?” he said against her sweet-smelling hair—hair that was shorter and lighter than the auburn tresses of the woman he remembered, but just as beautiful.
“Victoria,” he murmured when he couldn’t wait any longer. “Victoria,” he said again. “Look at me. Look at me and tell me the truth. Tell me you don’t want me to kiss you.”
Slowly, as if she were reluctant to answer him, let alone have him kiss her, Victoria ran her tongue over her dry lips. “What…What did you say?”
“Only this.” He held her head between his hands and slowly lowered his mouth to hers. “You were meant to be kissed tonight—let it be me,” he murmured as their lips met.
To her dismay, Victoria felt a surge of desire at the pull of his lips. His warm breath was tinged with the pungent scent of wine, his tongue eager to invade her mouth. The tender look in his eyes as he gazed at her and the hands that tightened around her waist as he drew her closer to him were too magnetic for her to deny. Reality vanished as Dan drew her deep, deep and still deeper into a sea of sensuality.
She fought the desire to loop her arms around his neck and kiss him with all the frustrated passion pent up inside her. How could she continue to deny him when she had yearned for him so long?
Would she be admitting she was his mystery woman if she did kiss him? More important, how could she continue to deny herself the truth? She had unwittingly fallen in love with him long ago and, heaven help her, she was in love with him now.
Just as Dan moved on to the sensitive place between her breasts, Victoria heard a small voice whisper caution in her ear.
She whimpered a protest, placed her hands on Dan’s chest and pushed herself out of his embrace. She’d gone down that exciting, sensuous path eighteen months ago, but she couldn’t afford to go down that road with him again. Not only for her sake, but for her daughter’s.
Dan sensed Victoria’s emotional withdrawal. He ached to kiss her again and yet again, but the anxious look in her eyes stopped him. Reluctant to let her go, he murmured a protest and held her against him long enough for his arousal to pass.
“Under the circumstances,” he said wryly, “it might be wiser to keep my distance from now on, but right now I need a moment or two.”
“Well?” he finally said softly. “Now do you remember me?”
Victoria shook her head and touched her lips with trembling fingers. “No. I’m still convinced you have the wrong woman.”
“Coward.” He gently outlined her lips with his thumb. “Is it because you really don’t remember me? Or is it that, for some reason, you’re afraid to admit it?”
Victoria shook her head. “I still don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, distracted by the yearning in Dan’s eyes but firm in her resolve to keep him from guessing the truth.
“Victoria! There you are!” Wade Stevens called through the French doors. “Lydia just called. She’s worried that your first social outing since your husband died is going okay. I told her you were fine.”
Dan clasped his hands behind him to keep from reaching for Victoria again. “Why didn’t your cousin introduce you as a married woman?”
Victoria shrugged to hide the way her heart was breaking at the reminder she had been married to the late Rolande Bernard. “It was only a social introduction. There was no need to tell you I have recently been widowed.”
He looked shocked, but there was no other way to get him to back off and leave her alone.
Dan knew he had to let Victoria go. A recent widow, he had no right to be attracted to her. Even if it was damn clear he was on the verge of falling head over heels for her again. She not only didn’t fit into his five-year plan, she was part of royal family. Wade, he thought again, had been lucky in his choice of a wife, but he didn’t intend to take the same chance.
But what did bother the hell out of him was that he was jealous of a deceased man.
“Under the circumstances, it was gracious of you to come here tonight.” He tried but he couldn’t keep the disappointment out of his voice.
“It’s more of a family thing. I didn’t want to disappoint May, so I came here tonight.”
She straightened the neckline of her dress, smiled politely and turned away to leave. But not before she paused a long moment and glanced back at him.
Shivers ran up and down Dan’s spine again as he read the unhappy message in her eyes. She was trying to tell him they would never meet again.
He was sure Victoria had been about to say something to him before she left. Instead, there had only been that brief flash of sadness in her eyes before she disappeared through the French doors.
Dan’s mental antenna tingled. He was ready to stake his life on the fact that she was hiding her true identity. She had to be afraid of admitting they had been together.
Afraid? God, he thought and raked his fingers through his hair. Why would she be afraid of him? All he’d wanted to do was to prove she had been the woman he’d made love to in Baronovia. To show her how much he’d cared for her then and even now.
Widow or not, he made up his mind not to let her leave before she told him why she had looked at him that way. Muttering to himself, he made his way through the ballroom and across the hall. Waiters were still passing trays of canapés, champagne was flowing freely and May Stevens was greeting latecomers. He drew her aside.
He’d never been the kind of man to mince words and he didn’t intend to start now. “Sorry, duchess, I know you set me and your cousin up, no…don’t deny it. What I want to know now is, why. And when you’re finished explaining, I would like you to tell me where Victoria has disappeared to!”
May looked