The Night that Changed Everything. Anne McAllister
Her knees wobbled. Nick held her closer still.
“I’m not a very good dancer,” she apologized, trying to straighten and pull back.
But Nick didn’t let go. “I’m enjoying it. Best part of the evening so far.” His voice was a purr in her ear. The vibration sent a tingle all the way down her spine. And her brain leaped ahead, going exactly where she didn’t want it to go.
So far?
How far was he expecting it to go?
“Now what?” he murmured as he must have felt her stiffen in his arms.
Edie gave a little shake of her head. “Nothing. I … I’m fine. I just thought of something.”
“You need to stop thinking.” She could hear the smile in his voice and as he turned his head, she thought she felt his lips against her hair. The shiver was back, sliding down her spine.
What on earth was wrong with her?
She hadn’t felt like this in years. Hadn’t felt the least flicker of interest in a man since Ben.
Her mother’s insistence that she “get back on the horse” had fallen on deaf ears because she didn’t feel any need to. And she refused to force things. But this wasn’t forced. It was entirely in-voluntary—and very very compelling as Nick steered her closer to the orchestra. The music enveloped her, wrapping her in a ridiculous Cinderella fantasy.
Danger! her sensible self whispered.
But her dancing self, her wiggling-toes self, countered just as quickly: as long as she knew it was a fantasy, where was the harm?
It wasn’t as if she believed in fairy-tale endings.
She’d learned at eighteen when heartthrob actor, Kyle Robbins, had broken her heart that fairy tales were fantasies, that real life romances didn’t end in happily ever after. And if she’d dared to think that her marriage to Ben disproved that, well, she had only to remember the devastation of losing him.
So, she knew you couldn’t count on happily ever after. She was immune.
So go ahead, she told herself. Take it for what it is—a few minutes of enjoyment. It won’t last, but who cares? It’s one dance, one night. Nothing more.
For the first time tonight her brain and her feet were in agreement. She smiled up at Nick Savas, wiggled her toes and gave herself over to the dance.
Nick Savas didn’t do weddings.
Hadn’t in years.
He hadn’t wanted to come to this one, either. But when you were the cousin of the groom, on the one hand, and were currently restoring a wing of the bride’s family’s castle, on the other, you knew you didn’t have a choice.
There was no way he could have continued working right through the royal wedding day—even though he would have preferred it. He didn’t want to watch another happy couple make vows to each other for the rest of their lives. He didn’t want to see the way they looked at each other with hope in their eyes and dreams in their hearts. Maybe it was selfish—all right, it damned well was selfish—but he didn’t want to witness other people getting what he’d been denied.
Ever since his fiancée, Amy, had died two days before their own wedding, he’d turned his back on all that.
Savas weddings were particularly to be avoided not just because he would have to watch another of his cousins plight their troth, but because every single relative there seemed to consider it their responsibility to point out eligible women for him to meet. To marry.
Nick had no interest in marrying anyone.
No one seemed to get that. So ordinarily he took care to be on a different continent. But working on Mont Chamion’s castle, meant he was here today. He’d had no choice.
“It will be lovely,” his aunt Malena had assured him yesterday afternoon. “I think Gloria is bringing two of Philip’s assistants. They’re both young and unmarried,” she added brightly, confirming his worst fears.
“Oh, yes,” his aunt Ophelia gushed. “There will be lots of absolutely gorgeous women. You can take your pick.”
But Nick didn’t want his pick. So he’d arrived at the last minute, then sat in the back, avoiding the myriad Savas aunts, uncles and cousins, who, seeing him in attendance, would put one and one together. It was what they did. They couldn’t help it. They had an ark mentality—the world was best arranged by twos.
Nick didn’t dispute that. Hell, he absolutely believed it.
But there was no “best” for him anymore. Never would be.
When he heard the priest intone, “Do you take this woman …” his throat had tightened.
He shut his mind off, determinedly focusing instead on the various cherubim and seraphim floating above the congregation, studying them as if he were going to be tested on them which, once up on a time he had been, in a course on period architectural detail.
These were mid-seventeenth century from the look of them. Very baroque. Bernini would have been right at home.
“I now pronounce you man and wife.”
Nick breathed a sigh of relief.
He would have escaped then, except his uncle Orestes had latched on to him before he could, determined to talk to him to see if he wouldn’t like to come and restore the moldering gazebo on his Connecticut property.
At least it hadn’t been an offer to introduce him to the new office girl. Silently Nick had counted his blessings as he went along the receiving line, congratulated his cousin, Demetrios, and kissed the glowing bride.
After the dinner, which he had contrived to eat in the company of his uncle Philip’s triplet daughters because no one could expect him to be interested in them, he had propped himself against a wall near the dance floor where conversation would be difficult and no one would suggest that he dance.
He’d been counting the minutes until he could politely leave, when an eager young blonde had latched on to him.
“Rhiannon Evans,” she’d announced breathlessly. And she’d looked at him as if expecting him to know who she was.
She was young, definitely stunning and determinedly sparkling. “I’m an actress,” she’d explained, forgiving him because he admitted he didn’t know the first thing about movies. Wasn’t really interested. Didn’t watch them.
He should, she’d told him. He could start with hers.
She was getting billing now—”though still below the title,” she admitted—and bigger and better parts. She told him she was serious about her craft and that she didn’t want to be known simply for being beautiful—she said this last with no self-consciousness whatsoever—but for being good at her work.
There was an edge to her bright girlish chatter. Nick was well-versed in female body language and he could see she had An Agenda.
First there was the hand on his arm, then hers somehow linked around his. She leaned into him. She patted his lapel, then touched his cheek.
“I’m determined not to ride on my mother’s coattails, either.” And that was when he’d learned she was Mona Tremayne’s daughter.
At least he knew who Mona was.
Nick doubted there was a male breathing who hadn’t fantasized about Mona Tremayne at some point in his life—her early sex goddess movies had seen to that. Heaven knew as a young man he had, even if she was nearly old enough to be his mother.
He’d met her a few days ago at a dinner Demetrios had hosted. She’d been without her daughter then, thank God. Mona was still strikingly beautiful, still worthy of fantasies if he’d been so inclined. She was also warm and friendly, interested in