‘You don’t want to know.’
He laughs. ‘Come on. I want you to meet my brother.’ Before I can protest he puts his hand on my elbow and steers me along toward his brother and the beauty in the ivory dress. She has coffee-colored hair and empty silver eyes.
‘Jake, I want you to meet Lily.’
Jake turns stiffly toward me. ‘We’ve already met,’ he says dryly.
‘Oh! When?’
‘Moments ago.’ He seems cold and uninterested.
Shane looks at me quizzically.
‘You didn’t give me a chance to tell you,’ I say weakly.
‘Aren’t you going to introduce me, darling?’ the woman says adoringly, as she slides her hand up his black shirt. Her hand dislodges his jacket and I see its pale blue lining. Jealousy shoots like quicksilver into my blood, scorching it. I look up and meet his eyes. They are dark and carefully veiled.
‘Andrea Mornington, Lily Hart,’ he says curtly, then very deliberately curls his arm around her waist.
‘Hello, Lily,’ Andrea says, turning her empty eyes toward me, except they are no longer empty but precise and direct, like a key turning in a lock. She perfectly understands what has not been spoken.
I force a smile. ‘Please excuse me, I need to find a washroom.’ As I turn away, Shane’s hand falls on my wrist. ‘Are you OK?’
I look into his eyes. Already I can see the weight of responsibility he has taken for my well-being. It warms and saddens me. ‘Yes. I’ll be back soon.’
I don’t have to look at his brother to know he is watching me. I feel it like a dagger in my back or an act of fate.
I don’t find the washroom. Instead I drift inconspicuously into an adjoining room. It seems to be a salon of some kind. As with everything else in the house it is beautiful. There is nobody in there. I close the door and lean against it.
The attraction is so inconvenient, so absurd that I had never even considered the possibility. And yet here it is. I want him so bad it is like an ache. I push away from the door, put my glass of champagne on a low table, and walk to a tall window. I stare out of it into the dark and see only my ghostly reflection.
A dozen thoughts come and go. I know I should be going back to Shane, but the part of me that loathes to see them together is the stronger. My thoughts are interrupted by
a sound at the door.
I whirl around in surprise.
For God’s sake! An emerald suit and a diamond encrusted ring on his pinkie! He should have looked ridiculous, but he does not. He starts walking toward me—sure, confident, leonine. Dazzling.
There is an arrogance and authority to the set of his jaw that is not at all to my liking. His gaze is aggressively bold and virile. His eyes travel down my body.
‘Lost?’
‘No, I was trying to be alone.’
His eyes dip down and linger suggestively and I am certain deliberately on my breasts. The mental disrobing is meant to unruffle me.
‘Positively breathtaking,’ he murmurs softly, but with a hint of sardonic amusement.
‘Insufferably arrogant, aren’t you?’
‘It has been said,’ he concedes with a wry grin.
‘What do you want?’ I ask. My voice rings out like a bell in the vast room. I hear the panic in it, the revelation that I do not trust myself.
He stands in front of me, his cheekbones flushed with sexual heat. ‘Isn’t it perfectly obvious what I want?’
‘Not to me.’