The Arranged Marriage (6 page)

Strange
how flat she felt now her performance was over. Gina knew she should be feeling exhilarated at how well it had gone. Peter Owen was delighted with her, suggesting they do more gigs together. Isabella King and the other people at her table had showered her with compliments. Yet she yearned to get away and be by herself.

Stupid to let seeing Alex King leading his fiancée straight onto the dance floor affect her like this. They’d been the first to join the bridal couple there after she’d finished her last song, Michelle shimmying seductively in a slinky red knock-out gown, Alex’s attention riveted on her. And why not? she fiercely berated herself. What else could she have expected?

“Peter, bring one of those empty chairs from the next table over for Gina,” Isabella directed. “She can sit with me while...”

“No, no, I really must be going now,” she quickly protested.

“Going?” Isabella frowned at her. “I intended for you to stay and enjoy the party. Marco is perfectly safe in the nursery quarters with Rosita watching over him.”

Isabella had pressed the invitation to stay overnight in the castle and Gina had been tempted into accepting it, not really admitting to herself that the main attraction had been the possibility of some further connection with Alex King. With that barely acknowledged fantasy now revealed as hopelessly askew, she sought a quick escape route.

“The surroundings are strange to him, Mrs. King. Should he wake...”

“If there’s any problem...”

The words floated past her, not sinking into her consciousness. She’d caught sight of Alex King carving a path through the crowd on the dance floor, heading straight for her. The couples seemed to roll aside like the Red Sea letting Moses through, reacting to a strength of purpose that willed them away from him. And she was the end destination. His eyes told her so. He didn’t so much as glance at anyone else, not even his grandmother.

Gina had the weirdest sense of her whole body being attacked by pins and needles. Her heart seemed to catapult around her chest. Her breath was caught in her throat. She stood absolutely still, waiting for him to reach her, hardly believing this was really happening and nothing was going to stop it. Did he really want to be with her? Did he want...

She didn’t dare finish that thought. Her mind was trembling with an anticipation that had shot beyond the real world. But his gaze
was
trained exclusively on her, projecting a need—or a desire—that was triggering all these wild responses, and every aggressive stride he took towards her made them clamour with a compelling intensity, shutting out everything else.

He looked incredibly handsome in his formal dinner suit. Somehow it made his tall, powerful physique even more imposingly male. She felt her inner muscles quivering and knew she was very much at risk of making a total fool of herself with this man. He struck at everything female in her, igniting a sexual chemistry she had never experienced before, not even with her husband.

As he skirted the table where his grandmother sat, Gina instinctively turned towards him, the people close to her fading into a grey area that held no importance. She wasn’t even aware of them anymore. He dominated, his brilliant blue eyes holding her captive to whatever he intended.

“Come with me,” he commanded more than asked.

“Yes.” The word spilled from her lips, more a submission to his will than any decision on her part.

He reached out and took her hand. Maybe she lifted it in response to his invitation. All she really knew was her hand was captured in his and her feet followed him towards the dance floor. The moment they were clear of the table and chairs, he gathered her into his embrace and they were together, hard muscular thighs pushing hers, the arm around her waist pressing an electric intimacy.

Her free hand rested on his shoulder. She stared at it, fighting the urge to slide it around his neck, to touch...where she shouldn’t if any sense of decorum was to be kept. Bad enough to be so aware of his physicality—and hers—with the barrier of clothes between them. To nakedly touch the nape of his neck, his hair...no. It was begging trouble. Bigger trouble than she already had. A struggling strain of common sense insisted a line had to be drawn somewhere.

Michelle was on this dance floor, too.

Michelle could be watching them.

But Alex didn’t seem to be caring about what his fiancée might think. Did he hold all his dance partners like this? She was close enough to smell the intriguingly attractive cologne he’d splashed around his jaw—an intoxicating scent that made her head swim with the wish to be even closer to him, to know what it might be like if only she had the freedom to pursue the wild desires he evoked in her.

Could he smell her perfume? Did he like it? His head was bent towards her ear, near enough for his cheek to be brushing against her hair. What was he thinking... feeling? She had the sense of him breathing her in, absorbing all he could, wanting more.

He didn’t speak. She was hopelessly tongue-tied. The silence seemed to magnify all the sensations of dancing with him, the rhythmic matching of every movement, the heat of friction making her thighs and breasts tingle with almost unbearable excitement, the possessive pressure of the hand on the pit of her back, denying her any release from him. Not that she wanted to be released. Yet every beat of the music heightened the sheer sexuality of their togetherness and she was not the only one aroused by it.

She felt him stir and harden and secretly revelled in his inability to hide the effect she was having on him, though he did loosen his hold on her, easing slightly away. Not quickly enough though. Reluctantly. Or perhaps that was wishful thinking.

Gina fiercely wanted this evidence of desire to mean more than a simple response to stimulation. It was madness ... forbidden pleasure... dangerously seductive... yet she couldn’t stop herself from hoping he couldn’t help himself, either, that this overwhelming attraction was mutual.

The rather slow track they’d been dancing to came to an end. The music continued almost, seamlessly into a much faster number. The couples around them responded to it, but Alex remained still. A sharp stab of panic cramped Gina’s heart. Was it over? Would he let her go now? Take her back to his grandmother and return to Michelle?

The turbulent questions forced her to look up, to read whatever the expression on his face revealed. She caught an air of grim decision, his jawline tense, his mouth slightly compressed. Then his eyes were blazing into hers, seemingly demanding answers he didn’t have and the need for them was just as intense as hers.

“Let’s get some air,” he bit out.

He didn’t wait for a reply, taking her agreement for granted as he scooped her with him, hugging her to his side while he carved another path from the dance floor. Gina fixed her gaze on the exit he was making for, the exit that would take them out to the loggia. Her heart was skittering nervously. She was letting him sweep her out of the ballroom, away from watching eyes, and she probably should be stopping him but she couldn’t bring herself to listen to caution.

The hand clamped on the curve of her waist and hip insisted he wanted to keep her with him. She had to know what this was leading to. There was no turning back from it. If he wasn’t worrying about what other people thought, why should she? Maybe he did simply want a breath of cooler air.

Certainly there was a sobering pause, once they had emerged from the ballroom. Had the fever of the moment passed for him? A quick glance at his face showed it turned towards the fountain. He set off again, still apparently intent on getting her away from the crowd of guests and having her to himself.

The few people who had stepped outside remained close to the ballroom. No one had wandered as far as the fountain. Although there was lighting in the grounds, this section of the loggia was in shadow, and Gina was extremely conscious that Alex was seeking privacy. Yet once it was attained, he seemed to hesitate over what to do next. Having come to a halt, he audibly dragged in a deep breath, then gestured jerkily towards a bench seat.

“Best sit down.”

He watched her settle on it but made no move to sit beside her. He stood barely a metre away, his tension so palpable Gina found it impossible to relax. Every nerve in her body was in taut waiting for what would come next. She had the eerie sense of being at the edge of something momentous to her life, yet she felt powerless to take any step on her own.

The silence stretched... seconds, minutes... as he brooded on his decisions, his gaze slightly hooded, yet burning a trail over the bare roundness of her shoulders and the slight swell of her breasts above the line of the lace bodice. She could feel herself blushing although the neckline was not daringly low. In fact, a band of the bronze organza under the lace was joined to shoulder straps that stopped any slippage. There was only a hint of cleavage.

“How old are you, Gina?” he gruffly asked.

“Twenty-six.” It was a husky whisper. Her mouth was completely dry.

“I’m thirty-four. Thirty-four,” he repeated, as though it was some critical indictment of his behaviour with her.

Age had nothing to do with feelings, Gina thought. Yet he shook his head as though the eight-year gap between them mattered in some way. She didn’t understand the inner conflict that chased across his face as he moved to put more distance between them, walking to the space between the next two columns of the colonnade and standing in profile to her, staring out at the grounds.

“Tell me about your life.”

Again it was a command, yet the need to know was strained through it. What answers he was looking for Gina couldn’t even guess. She could only relate the truth and hope it satisfied him.

“I was brought up on a cane farm. My parents still own and run it.”

“Where?”

“Near Edmonton, just the other side of Cairns.”

“Their name?”

“Salvatori. Frank and Elena.”

He nodded. “I know of your father.”

“My older brother, John, and his family live on the farm, too. My younger brother, Danny, works in the tourist trade.”

“The toad races.”

“Yes. Amongst other things.”

He turned to look quizzically at her. “No sisters?”

She shook her head. “Just the three of us.”

“Where did you go to school?”

“The local primary at Edmonton. Then to St. Joseph’s in Cairns.”

An ironic curl tilted his mouth. “A convent girl.”

Gina held her tongue, unsure how to take that comment.

He continued the inquisition. “Did you hold a job before you married?”

“I worked in a florist shop. I’ve always loved flowers.” Not exactly a high-flying career but it had satisfied her so she wasn’t about to apologise for it.

“How old were you when you married Angelo Terlizzi?”

“Twenty-two.”

“Very young,” he muttered.

“It felt right,” she asserted, needing to justify the decision in the face of this far stronger attraction that seemed to just reach out and seize her. She had loved Angelo for many, many reasons. There was no reason at all behind what she was experiencing now with a man she barely knew on any personal level. Yet his compelling tug on her had a vibrant life of its own, impossible to ignore or deny.

She should be asking him questions. But would any more knowledge of him make any difference? Why was he asking these questions of her? Was he trying to reason away an attraction he didn’t want, that he found inconvenient? Maybe he was trying to convince himself she was totally unsuitable for him anyway, that Michelle was a much better match.

An angry pride stirred in Gina. She hadn’t asked for this. She wasn’t
chasing
him. He’d made all the moves, stirring what shouldn’t be stirred if he didn’t want to explore it further.

“Did you go on working after you were married?” he went on.

“Not in the florist shop. I used to do the lunches for Angelo’s deep-sea fishing charters.”

And I was more a helpmate to my husband than Michelle Banks will ever be to you,
she thought on a wave of fierce resentment over whatever judgements he was making.

“You played hostess to his clients on board?”

“Yes. I enjoyed that, too,” she said on a wave of belligerence. “Until I fell pregnant and started getting seasick. Then I did the lunches at home and Angelo served them on board.”

Most work was about service to other people, she argued. Even dress designing catered to clients. She didn’t see that what she’d done was any more lowly than what his fiancée did. It certainly didn’t make as much money but so what? She had nothing to be ashamed of.

“So you’ve been a stay-at-home mother since you had Marco.”

“Not completely.”

She didn’t want to recall the time of empty nothingness—the shock, the grief, the numbness about any future at all—following on from Angelo’s death. Only Marco had been left from the plans they’d made for a big happy family, her wonderful little son who was both a comfort and a reminder of what had been taken away from her. She didn’t try to foresee a future anymore, perhaps from a fear of tempting fate.

In a way she’d been drifting, just taking each day as it came, coping more than making opportunities for herself. Isabella King had opened another door for her. Peter Owen might open up more, but suddenly they didn’t seem important. Alex King had taken centre stage and she couldn’t think of anything else, yet she still had no real idea of where she stood with him. This fever in her blood probably
was
madness.