had married John Matthews twenty-seven years ago, Laurel born only a year later. And for eleven years she had been at the centre of that family, had adored her father. And then had come her parents’ divorce, her mother the one to tell her that the two of them had talked and decided Laurel should be left in her mother’s care. From being a happy, well-adjusted child she had suddenly been alone with Amanda, occasionally going to stay at her father’s flat. But it was never the same, a strain between them now that had never been there before. Then her father had been transferred to America by his firm, and even her occasional visits to him had stopped. Laurel had hated her father as much for that as she blamed her mother for the divorce.
Maybe if Dan hadn’t been taken from her, too, she may have been able to cope with the trauma, but he had gone, had become a stranger to her, no longer her adored Dan. He had visited her several years ago on his holiday from the oil rig he was working on at the time, but Laurel was sure the relief when the visit ended had been mutual. They still sent each other birthday and Christmas cards, but the spontaneous affection they had known was gone.
Giles respected her decision not to have children, didn’t want any himself, the two of them agreeing they didn’t need them in their marriage. She doubted she would have agreed to marry him if he hadn’t felt that way.
‘You know nothing of my engagement or what really happened in the past,’ she told Reece coldly. ‘So please don’t have the arrogance to assume you know anything about me.’
‘But I know quite a lot about you,’ he said softly. ‘Amanda is very proud of you.’
‘Amanda doesn’t really know me, either,’ she snapped.
‘She would like to.’
Laurel sighed. ‘This isn’t some old black-and-white film, and I’m too old for the happy ending. Amanda and I grew apart years ago, and I prefer it that way,’ she added hardly.
‘Scrooge is coming back,’ he gently mocked. ‘Don’t you know that Christmas is the time for forgiving and making up?’
‘Reece, what’s your purpose for coming here?’ she asked wearily. ‘I can’t believe you just wanted to reprimand me for not sending Amanda her invitation earlier.’
‘No,’ he straightened. ‘My father is in New York, there’s no way he can get back in time for your party tonight. I’ve offered to accompany Amanda in his place, but I wanted to make sure you were agreeable to the idea first.’ He watched her with narrowed dark eyes. Devil’s eyes, one minute dark and brooding, the next shining like gold.
‘I wouldn’t have caused a scene, Reece, if that’s what you thought.’ Her mouth twisted derisively. ‘When I was a child I never knew which “uncle” would be at my birthday party!’
His mouth thinned disapprovingly. ‘If you’re hoping to shock me, Laurel,’ he rasped, ‘I wouldn’t even bother to try. Amanda has been perfectly frank with us about her past relationships.’
‘And you and your father have forgiven her,’ she scorned bitterly. ‘Having lived through it all I don’t feel the same generosity!’
‘You’re a woman yourself now, Laurel,’ he spoke softly. ‘Can’t you see how anyone could have made the mistakes your mother did?’
‘Anyone as selfish as Amanda, yes,’ she acknowledged coldly. ‘Anyone who didn’t mind taking their happiness at the expense of innocent children!’ There were two bright red spots of colour in her cheeks.
Reece looked at her silently for several minutes, and then he gave a slight shake of his head. ‘Does Gilbraith know he’s marrying a block of ice?’ he finally asked contemptuously.
She met his gaze defiantly. ‘Giles knows exactly what he’s getting when he marries me!’
‘Your mother said you always used to feel so passionately about things, that you were a very intense little girl.’ He sounded as if he couldn’t believe that description had ever fitted her.
‘Everything I felt intensely about she took away from me.’ Fire made her eyes glitter angrily. ‘After she divorced my father we moved so many times that even my toys got left behind most of the time. Amanda said there wasn’t room for them.’ She remembered the hurt of often finding, after the latest move, that several more of her treasured toys had disappeared. In the end it had become so that she stopped becoming attached to anything.
‘Do you have any idea how hard things were for her after the divorce from your father?’ Reece asked impatiently. ‘It wasn’t easy for her——’
‘I’m sure that whatever Amanda has told you about that time sounded convincing,’ Laurel cut in dismissively. ‘But I was there, and I know what happened.’ She glanced down at the plain gold watch on her slender wrist. ‘By all means bring Amanda to the party tonight,’ she told him impatiently. ‘She looks young enough to be your wife anyway!’
‘She should, she’s only twelve years older than me,’ he rasped reprovingly.
‘And instead of looking the forty-nine that she is she looks at least ten years younger!’
‘Don’t tell me you resent her because of that, too?’ Reece scorned. ‘Is that why you haven’t introduced Gilbraith to your mother, because he might have found her the more attractive of the two of you?’
‘Why, you——’
‘Swine? Bastard?’ Reece easily caught her arm as her hand arced up to make contact with one lean cheek, using that hold to pull her up against the rigid hardness of his body. ‘You can show fire when you want to, can’t you?’ he grated as he looked into her furious face. ‘Is that the only fire you have, I wonder?’ he mused as his head lowered to hers.
Laurel was too stunned by the action to stop his mouth claiming hers. She was going to be an engaged woman in a few hours, they both knew it, and yet Reece held nothing back from the kiss, his lips moving gently over hers, temptingly, erotically, against her soft flesh, enticing her to respond as he sucked her bottom lip fully into his mouth.
She was shaking in reaction, leaning heavily into him, aware of the hard thud of his heart beneath her hand, the hardening of his thighs as he stirred in arousal. She moved up into him, her lips clinging to his now, his tongue moving gently along them but not venturing into the moist cavern beneath.
‘Show me you want me, Laurel,’ he urged raggedly, his lips on her throat now.
The mad trembling stopped as she looked up into Reece Harrington’s face. This wasn’t Giles, the man she was going to marry. ‘You’re wrong,’ she pushed away from him. ‘I don’t want you.’
He released her slowly, the gold in his eyes just as slowly changing back to a dark brooding brown. ‘Are you sure about that?’ he asked huskily. ‘Maybe you should think again before committing yourself to an engagement.’
Her mouth twisted, fully in control of her emotions now. ‘I don’t need to think about anything, Giles is the man I intend to marry.’
‘Do you love him?’
‘I don’t have to——’
‘How can you love him and yet still kiss another man the way you did me?’ he derided hardly.
‘You
