Ella turned to the oversized garment bag the housekeeper had hung in Donato’s dressing room. She didn’t want to look. She knew it would be a mistake. There would be no wedding. Yet...how could she resist peeking at the dress created for her by one of the country’s top designers?
She pulled off the protective covers and stood back.
This was the dress the renowned Aurelio had designed? He’d conceived this based on the clothes she’d left at her father’s the night of his party?
Ella cringed when she thought of her uniform trousers and shirt being measured and assessed by someone who worked only with the finest materials, the most glamorous women.
This had to be a joke.
Yet the full-length, full-skirted wedding dress mesmerised her. Strapless, it was ruched to a point at one hip and fitted to reveal an hourglass figure. Feminine contours were accentuated by a dusting of glitter from breast to knee on one side. Despite being fitted, the dress featured a ballooning froth of satin skirt that turned the gown from sultry into sultry fairy tale princess.
Ella’s breath sucked in, air lodging like a weight in her lungs.
This dress was not her. It was ostentatiously feminine and graceful. Alluring.
True, you’d need height to carry off a dress like this. She definitely had height, but that was all.
She’d never wear such a dress. Even if she were getting married, which she wasn’t. Severely she squashed the what if in her head, the daydream of her and Donato as a real couple, not just short-term.
Atavistic warning flared as she lifted a hand. Surely it was unlucky to try on a bridal gown for a wedding that wouldn’t take place?
Curiosity won out. She’d never again get to try a designer original.
Ten minutes later she stood, her hair pinned up off her shoulders, her arms extended from her body so as not to mar the lustrous satin, soft as butter, that draped her. The fabric was slippery and fine and if she didn’t know better she’d think that was a starburst of diamonds, not rhinestones, rippling down from her breast.
The dress was too long when worn barefoot and a little big. She hitched it up to cover her breasts as it sagged, but still... Ella shook her head, disbelieving. She looked—
‘You’re gorgeous, cari?o. Stunning.’ The low voice wrapped around her, liquefying her knees.
In the mirror her eyes met Donato’s and shock reverberated. The floor moved. Surely there was a seismic shift, not simply the impact of that fathomless indigo gaze.
Ella’s pulse became a thud, her breathing shallow as her mouth dried and her mind struggled to believe her eyes.
She didn’t want to turn because she knew in reality that look would be surprise and lust. Yet as she watched him in the mirror, her stupid heart imagined more than desire on Donato’s face. It imagined tenderness, possessiveness and something yet more profound. Something that made her tremble from her knees to her knocking heart. Something like what she felt.
She’d fought it for weeks, the knowledge that she wanted far more than sex and companionship from Donato. That she cared for him more deeply than she should.
That she’d fallen head over heels for him.
Donato advanced slowly, his eyes eating her up. She didn’t turn. Here, away from the window’s bright light, the fantasy lingered that he felt the same as she did.
‘It’s just the dress,’ she croaked.
She felt more vulnerable in this wedding dress than she ever had naked. The white satin, the embodiment of all those little-girl dreams she’d never allowed herself to harbour, had undone her. Her emotions were too close to the surface. It grew harder to hide her feelings.
Yet the way he treated her, the tenderness and joy, the way he’d begun to open himself to her...all had made her hope.
Donato stopped behind her. Had he read the yearning in her eyes? Her shiver of excitement?
‘It’s not the dress. It’s you. You’re beautiful.’
Finally Ella tore her gaze away. Enough was enough. ‘I shouldn’t have put it on. I don’t want to damage it, but I was curious. I’ll send it straight back.’
‘No! Leave it.’
Ella’s head jerked up, her gaze snagging on his in the mirror. ‘Why? I can’t keep it.’ She brushed her palm down the petal-soft fabric. The dress was ridiculously unsuitable for her, even without the fact she had no occasion to wear it. ‘I’ll tell my father.’
‘Don’t.’ Donato frowned, his expression so forbidding she swung around to face him, layers of material swishing and swaying around her. The soft, unfamiliar weight of it reminded her she had no business playing pretend.