had been alert to his presence the entire evening. Every small glimpse had set her pulses thumping.
She blinked away the effect of his emerald eyes boring into her and the drumming effect playing in her head, echoes from her thundering heart. ‘That’s kind, but I don’t drink when I’m working.’
‘You are officially off the clock as of now.’
She rolled her eyes and strove to keep her voice light-hearted. ‘I’ll be off the clock at four in the morning when the ball finishes.’
‘I have spoken to Giannis. He is exceptionally pleased with how well everything is going. Now is the time for you to turn your work head off and enjoy yourself.’
‘Is that what you’ve been doing?’ she asked. ‘Enjoying yourself? Because I haven’t seen you do anything that looks like work.’
‘Dance with me and I’ll tell you all about it.’
‘Valente, I’m working. I can’t dance.’
‘I told you, you are officially off the clock. Your work is done. Your assistant can take charge. Your instructions now are to enjoy yourself.’
‘Is that an official order?’
‘Assolutamente.’ A wicked gleam flashed in his eyes that made her belly melt all over again. ‘And the first official order for enjoying yourself is to drink this glass of champagne. The second is to dance with me.’
Valente was the intermediary between Beth and Giannis. He spoke for the Greek billionaire. If he said she was off duty then it had to be true.
Romance filled the air within the palace. The thought of joining the happy revellers on the dance floor with the most handsome man there was far more appealing than it should be.
When he offered the champagne to her a second time, she took it from him and brought the flute to her lips. The bubbles exploded in her mouth. ‘If you’re lying to me and I get a rollicking for skiving off, you can pay the bonus I’ll forfeit.’
‘You will not forfeit the bonus.’
He sounded so confident in this assertion that Beth relaxed enough to laugh.
Lines appeared on his handsome face as he grinned, the only imperfections on a face that could have been designed by a renaissance master. And the lines weren’t even imperfections, serving to enhance the gorgeous face she could not help herself from drinking in.
He held his flute to hers.
She chinked hers to it. In unison, they drank.
Valente placed the empty flutes on the tray of a passing waiter then held his hand out to her. ‘Time to dance.’
But still she hesitated.
She wanted to dance with him. She wanted it more than she should. And that was the cause of her hesitation.
What if he wanted more than just a dance?
And why did that thought make her skin tingle as if a thousand electric ants were zipping through her veins?
Through the years Beth had been asked to dance by countless numbers of men. Valente was the first man she had wanted to say yes to.
She reminded herself about all the event staff she’d seen through the years involve themselves with rich clients or the client’s staff or guests. When alcohol flowed freely, inhibitions loosened and hedonistic pleasure became the aim. She would not be like the poor events staff she’d observed through the years fall for the practised patter, kidding themselves that the attention was anything more than an eye for the chance of a willing body for a night’s pleasure, discarded and forgotten when the sun came up.
Beth had come to distrust rich, powerful men. In her experience, they were the worst for treating women as commodities.
Domenico had been the only rich man she’d met who hadn’t treated women like that. He’d loved Caroline and had treated her with the utmost respect.
But Domenico had forfeited his riches out of loathing for his rich, powerful family. He’d preferred to be poor and happy than rich and cruel like his brother, Alessio. His stories about what went on behind the closed doors of the rich and powerful had only hardened Beth’s distrust of the elite.
Valente was not a rich man. The power he exuded was a figment of her imagination.
The dance had finished, the guests pairing off again for the next one.
‘Enough stalling,’ he scolded. He took the matter out of her control by taking hold of her hand and marching her to the dance floor.
‘I really can’t dance,’ she warned, laughing, although unable to understand why she was laughing.
What harm would one dance do? It wasn’t as if she were agreeing to marry him!
He guided her to possibly the only empty space on the floor. ‘It is easy. I will teach you.’
‘You can dance?’
‘Si. Follow my lead and you will be fine.’ He bowed. ‘Now you must curtsey.’
Laughing again, she curtsied then allowed him to take her right hand in his left.
She took a quick peek at where the other women were placing their left hands and placed hers on Valente’s bicep. It was rock-hard.
The laughter died in her throat when he slipped his right hand around her waist and pulled her to him. Her nose was level with his neck. The scent of his cologne coiled through her and something else, something like warm treacle, pooled low in her abdomen and with it came a flash of the dream she’d had of him, of them...
Slowly she raised her head to meet his eyes. The amusement that had been in the emerald gaze just moments ago had died.
After a long, silent beat passed between them, the faintest of smiles curved his lips. Her own lips tingled and she felt a sudden yearn to press them to his, a yearn that dissolved when the first note of the music rang out and suddenly she was being spun around the room in the most heavenly of arms.
For such a tall, muscular man, Valente danced with an elegance that made her dazed mind think he’d done this many times. His assured grace and utter control allowed her to relax into the dance and, as he spun her around the great ballroom, weaving seamlessly between the other dancing couples, she imagined herself as a princess from days gone by waltzing in the arms of her very own Prince Charming.
When the dance ended, Alessio kept tight hold of her. ‘One more,’ he murmured into her ear.
The rays from her answering smile beamed straight into his loins.
Impulse had driven him to ask her to dance. He’d spent the evening observing her, the desire to have her in his arms growing with every passing minute.
The compulsory ballroom dancing lessons he’d endured at his English boarding school were finally paying off.
‘Where did you learn to dance?’ she asked when they were
