was a disarming little speech, opening up what could have been used as an attack on his integrity where his relationship with an heiress was concerned, then turning the picture around by making the principle a general one.
“We avoid boring people,” he went on, “and naturally gravitate to those who make our lives more interesting and pleasurable.”
He smiled at Charlotte, giving her the sense that she was at the centre of these last sentiments, and Damien felt a surprisingly strong urge to kick him. The man was a master of manipulation, a first-rate charmer, and the smile now lighting up the face that had refused him any positive personal response twisted something in Damien’s gut.
He stared at her—this woman who was stirring feelings in him that demanded action to change the status quo. Was it because she was Peter’s sister and he empathised with his friend’s dislike of her being taken in by a user? Was it because she wouldn’t give him what she was readily giving to her fiancé?
He had met many more beautiful women, yet her smile for Mark Freedman illumined her own unique attraction, making it immeasurably stronger. The graceful turn of her long bare neck struck his eye. Her throat was bare of jewellery and its nakedness somehow evoked a vulnerability that stirred some very primitive instincts. The aggressive hunter and the protector leapt to battle readiness inside him and Damien knew he wouldn’t step back from involving himself with Charlotte Ramsey.
His gaze skated down the dress she had chosen for tonight. It was bright orange—a colour not many women could wear successfully, a colour that reinforced his initial impression that she was confident about herself.
Challengingly confident.
The style was a simple sheath attached to a beaded yoke. Very elegant. Again not overtly sexy yet all the more alluring because it subtly skimmed her curves instead of flaunting them in his face. Damien decided she was a woman who cared more about being seen as a person rather than a sexual object.
Had Mark Freedman played that card to win her?
“Countdown to the fireworks is starting,” Peter said, waving Damien to join him at the deck railing as other guests automatically moved to make space for them.
Millions of voices around the harbour rose in the chant, “Ten, nine, eight…”
Charlotte broke apart from her fiancé to swing around and face the famous coat-hanger bridge that would obviously form the centrepiece of the display. Mark Freedman turned, as well, sliding his arm around her waist to hold her close. Damien stepped up between Peter and Charlotte, determined on making her aware of him whether she liked it or not.
“…three, two, one…”
The great arch of the bridge was brilliantly outlined as white fireworks sprayed up from the entire span.
The start of something big, Damien thought, the excitement of this first explosive burst fuelling anticipation for what was to come. It reflected precisely how he was feeling about Charlotte Ramsey. One way or another he would take her from Mark Freedman, free her of a bad mistake.
Free her for himself.
THE night sky bloomed with magnificent bursts of colour, erupting over the spectacular white sails that roofed the opera house and above the great sandstone pylons of the bridge. The massive cascades of light were beautiful, awesome, yet the joy Charlotte had expected to feel in them was somehow sucked away by the presence of Damien Wynter.
Which was totally, totally wrong.
And upsetting.
Mark was holding her. Mark was talking to her, sharing his delight in the fantastic display, pointing out the marvellous special effects that particularly impressed him. Mark should have her undivided attention. And she tried to give it, tried to respond as she should be responding quite naturally.
Yet she was still bridling over how Damien Wynter had been looking at her just before the countdown started, taking in every detail of her appearance as though measuring it against some standard in his mind. She told herself he probably did the same to any woman who came into his firing line and it was totally irrelevant how he scored her in his estimation of female attraction. What he thought simply didn’t matter. Which made it all the more intensely irritating that he’d set her nerves so much on edge.
Even his voice distracted her from what Mark was saying, her ears suddenly super-sensitive to the deep timbre of it as he made comments to Peter, comments that told her he was enjoying the show.
And why not?
No other city in the world had a more fabulous setting for such a night as this and the Sea Lion gave them a dress-circle view of everything. She was probably the only spectator wishing for the end of the fireworks. Only then would her brother lead Damien Wynter away and she’d be rid of this horribly acute awareness of him.
A crescendo of rockets built up to the fifteen-minute finale. A golden rain fell from the bridge and just below the centre of the arch, a huge red heart appeared, pulsing with graduations of light.
“The heart of Sydney,” she murmured appreciatively.
“The heart of love,” Mark breathed into her ear.
Which should have made her own heart beat with happiness, but her mind was too busy being sceptical about how much heart Damien Wynter had. No doubt he gave a sizeable slice of his wealth to charities, as a tax deduction, which didn’t actually mean caring. Did he care about anything beyond staking out his territory and increasing it at every opportunity—all he could get?
“That’s it for now,” Peter told him. “There’ll be a bigger show at midnight.”
“Hard to top that,” Damien commented. “Leaving the heart glowing is a nice touch.”
“Yes, it really stands out in the darkness,” Peter replied.
“A reminder to give,” Charlotte couldn’t resist tossing at them.
A mistake.
Damien Wynter’s dark eyes instantly locked onto hers, glittering with speculative interest. He smiled, slowly and sensually, his teeth so white, the old saying, all the better to bite you with, slid straight into Charlotte’s mind.
“Instead of to get?” he asked, provocatively raising her issue with him.
She tried to shrug it off, inwardly cursing herself for opening another conversation with him. “The two should go hand in hand, don’t you think?” she answered blandly.
“Yes, I do.” The quick agreement was instantly followed by a challenge. “Does that surprise you, Charlotte?”
Peter saved her from answering, chiming in with, “Damien gives an enormous amount to self-help development programs for Africa.”
It surprised her enough to ask, “Why Africa?”
“Have you been there?” Damien queried.
“No. I’ve
