one of his sister’s mischievous kids tapped their water glasses with a spoon. She pushed a few bites of Raoul’s excellent food into her mouth when it seemed expected. She stood in front of the beautiful confection of a cake that Raoul wheeled out to cut the first slice to share with Rourke. She went through the motions with a smile on her face until she wanted to scream. But she didn’t drop that smile until hours later, when the last guest had finally departed and even Raoul and his son, Tonio, and daughter, Maria, had left through a separate entrance off the kitchen that Lisa had yet to even see.
Only then, when it was just Rourke and Lisa left in that high-ceilinged living room scented by irises and filled with the soft sounds of a low guitar, did she finally, finally let the smile fade.
Her cheeks actually hurt.
She pulled off the fine shrug that matched her gown and dropped it on the end of one of the couches before sitting down to peel her feet out of the strappy designer torture devices otherwise known as sandals and wriggled her toes.
“Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves.” Rourke slid off his jacket and tossed it next to her.
She automatically reached for it, her fingers smoothing out the finely pinstriped charcoal over the back of the couch so it wouldn’t wrinkle. “Everyone but us.”
His smile was faint. He pulled on his tie. “I wouldn’t have minded everyone leaving an hour sooner than they did, but I thought it was okay. Food was good.”
She realized she was staring at his strong throat where his fingers were loosening the collar of his shirt and quickly looked away. “Raoul doesn’t disappoint.” Though she would have been hard-pressed to remember what the menu had been.
She pushed to her feet only to nearly trip over her gown when she walked toward the windows. She lifted her skirts. “This is quite a view you have here. The skyline. The park.”
“It’s a place to sleep.”
She made a soft sound. How easily he dismissed the million-dollar view. “Right.” Her fingers toyed nervously with the diamond hanging just below her throat. The necklace had been a gift from her father when she’d graduated from college. Aside from Rourke’s rings, it was the only other piece of jewelry that she was wearing. From the corner of her eye she saw him toss his tie aside as cavalierly as he had his jacket.
It made her even more acutely aware of how alone they were.
“That was, um, nice news Chance shared before they left,” she said, feeling a little desperate. “About him adopting Jenny’s daughter, Annie.” Not until she’d seen Rourke slapping Chance on the back and kissing Jenny’s face had she realized he was almost as good a friend with Chance as he was with Ted. She was still wearing her veil and the whisper-light silk tulle tickled her back. She reached back to unfasten it. “She’s a sweetie.”
“Yeah, she is. Chance’ll be a good dad. He and Jenny are great together. Here. Let me.”
A sharp wave of unease rolled through her. She sternly dismissed it. Theirs was a marriage of convenience. It didn’t involve sex. Just because she couldn’t get her mind off it didn’t mean a thing.
She swallowed and turned her back toward him. “It’s got more pins in it than you’d think,” she warned.
“I’ll find them.” His fingers grazed against her head.
She closed her eyes, trying not to jump like some virgin on her wedding night.
It was almost laughable.
She wasn’t a virgin, though she might as well have been for all of the experience she didn’t really have.
And it was her wedding night.
But for them, those two things were not even relevant. It wasn’t as if they’d need to sleep together to make a baby. They had the institute for that.
With surprising gentleness, he worked the handful of pins free, then unfastened the jeweled clasp of the veil and handed it over her shoulder to her. His bare forearm brushed against her.
When had he rolled up his shirtsleeves?
Feeling treacherously close to the edge of hysteria, she took the veil and quickly stepped away. “Bath and a bed,” she blurted, only to feel her cheeks turn hot. “That’s, um, that’s what I think I need.” She waved her hand, which also managed to wave the floating, silky veil. “Just point the way. I’ll find it.”
He looked amused. “Bedroom’s down that hall.”
“Great.” She took a step only to tangle her bare foot in her skirt again. She hauled everything up in her arm. “Um… thanks.” Her cheeks went even hotter. She was acting like an absolute idiot and knew it and before she made a bigger spectacle out of herself, she nearly ran down the hall. She found the bedroom with no difficulty, and closed herself behind the door with relief.
The furnishings there were just as sleekly designed, with a mile-wide pedestal bed and nightstands that seemed to grow right out of the wall on either side of it. There were acres of unused space, yet the room didn’t feel stark or barren. Maybe because of the large fireplace that was opposite the bed, or the expanse of windows—again unadorned—that lined one wall.
Behind one of the doors the room possessed, she found her suitcase sitting on a luggage rack in the sizable closet. The closet then led to the en suite bathroom that, even in her exhausted state, was enough to make her swoon a little.
She flipped on the water over the massive tub and tossed in a generous measure of amber-colored salt from one of the heavy crystal containers decorating one corner of the stone ledge surrounding it. Immediately, lush, fragrant bubbles began to bloom beneath the rush of water and she reached for the buttons on the back of her dress only to realize with chagrin that there was no way that she would be able to undo enough of them on her own to even get the gown past her hips. Not even sliding her shoulders out of the narrow, fancily knotted chiffon that served as straps helped.
“Great.” She eyed herself in the reflection of the wood-framed mirror that hung above the rectangular-shaped vessel sink. Her eyes looked wild and, thanks to pulling the pins from her veil loose, her hair was falling down.
“Lisa?”
She jerked, staring at a second door that led into the bathroom as it slowly opened. “What?”
Rourke stuck his head through. “I figured you’d need help with the dress.”
She hated, absolutely hated, the fact that he’d realized that problem, too. But she walked over to him, presenting him with her back. “I do.”
“Not the first time you’ve said those words today.” His fingers grazed her back between her shoulder blades.
“Not the first time I didn’t want to say those words today, either,” she pointed out coolly. “Just get on with it.” She pressed her hand against the bodice of the dress to hold it in place against her breasts as, centimeter by centimeter, she felt it loosening at the back.
“You know that telling me something like that just makes me want to take my time, right?”
She ignored him. It wasn’t so easy, however, to ignore the feel of his fingers moving against her back.
