baffling rather than comforting.
It was hard to retain dignity barefoot, especially in this dress, which had not been this tight across her hips the last time she’d worn it. It was the price you paid when your drug of choice was chocolate. Even in her heels she would have needed to tilt her head back to look him in the eyes; with nothing between the soles of her feet and the stone floor she felt... Well, Mari had once or twice wondered what it felt like to be petite and delicate. Now she had an idea, and she didn’t like it.
Ignoring her stomach fluttering and her curling toes, she thought, What’s the worst he can do? And wished she hadn’t because her vivid imagination responded to the invite and kicked in big time!
Seb, his temper cooling, felt an unwelcome stab of admiration. Her regal attitude was totally at odds with her gloriously mussed hair and bare feet but, by God, she carried it off. His eyes of their own accord dropped, following the soft, undulating curves of her body that the blue silk dress she wore lovingly hugged. She had come to play the victim, but looking the way she did she had to have been typecast as sinful seductress.
‘I didn’t think she’d actually dump you.’
‘Is that an apology?’
‘No, it’s...’ She stopped, her eyes widening fractionally as a possible explanation for the bride’s reaction struck her. ‘Have you done it before...but for real?’
His expression grew cold and contemptuous. ‘It must be the company you keep, but a lot of people don’t cheat.’
But do you? she wondered, watching as he responded to the imperative hum of a phone, which he slid from his pocket. He scanned the screen before punching something in and returning it to his pocket.
‘I haven’t got long.’ He was not fooled by the polite request; underneath the diplomatic language it was a royal command—he was being asked to defend brand Defoe.
‘Don’t let me keep you.’
The pert reply caused his attention, which had drifted away, to focus back in on her. ‘Was what you said about your brother true?’
She was outraged by the question. ‘Why would I lie about that?’
‘Why would you lie about me fathering your child?’ he countered.
‘I’ve told you.’
‘I know, spoil my day, wasn’t it?’ He tipped his head and gave a slow handclap. ‘Well, you succeeded in more ways than you can imagine.’ He dropped his hands and subjected her to a scrutiny of skin-peeling intensity. ‘What exactly happened to your brother?’ Something that had triggered today’s stunt?
‘He...he...’ Hearing the helpless wobble in her voice, she swallowed and blinked back the emotional tears that sprang to her eyes. ‘Mark could end up in a wheelchair permanently.’ A lot was still unknown, and Mari refused to think the worst. ‘Why are you asking? You don’t give a damn about him, do you?’ she charged, glaring up at him with angry contempt.
‘I wouldn’t wish that on anyone,’ he replied, wondering how he would react in the other man’s position. He hoped to God he would never find out.
She gave a bitter laugh. ‘Not even someone who doesn’t have the right...right...bloodline to marry your sister?’
Seb’s dark brows drew together in an astonished straight line above his masterful nose as he looked down at her. ‘Back up...’
If only she could have, Mari thought wistfully, she would have responded quite literally to this request. A few more feet to distance herself from his overpowering physical presence would have been welcome but there was nowhere to go.
‘Marry?’
Her teeth clenched at this display of unconvincing innocence. ‘Don’t bother with the act—I know what you did.’
Well, that makes one of us, he thought with a sardonic grimace. Every time she opened her mouth he felt as though he were being led deeper into a maze.
He released a long, slow, hissing breath, controlling his temper and the desire to grab her—and the hell of it was that, whatever his intentions, the moment he laid his hands on her it would change what hovered unacknowledged between them, taunting him, the way her mouth taunted him.
He had known it from the moment he saw her standing there in the church denouncing him to everyone who knew him. He wanted this woman, and if he touched her now that want would wipe out everything else.
Wasn’t it supposed to be therapeutic to look into your heart? Not that his heart was the organ involved in this instance. Either way, he didn’t feel better—he felt frustrated self-disgust.
‘Work from the premise I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.’
‘They were in love.’ She paused, distracted by the muscle that was clenching and unclenching in his lean cheek. ‘Y...you,’ she stuttered, thinking he should come with a shipping warning to stop females drifting into his magnetic field. ‘You put an end to it because you’re an arrogant snob who passes judgement on people he doesn’t know. You have no heart!’
As the quivering accusation left her lips her scornful gaze slid to his chest. The image of her placing her hand on his warm skin, feeling his heart beat under her fingers, came from nowhere. Severely shaken, she shook her head to dislodge it and the warm feeling it induced.
His brows lifted. She was really rather glorious in full flow with that pouting mouth and those flashing eyes. ‘If they were...in love, surely that wouldn’t have been possible. Doesn’t love conquer all?’
While he was innocent of the charge, Seb privately acknowledged that had there been any actual danger of Fleur marrying the rather insipid young man he had met he would have done his utmost to stop it, but he liked to think he would have been more subtle.
The thought of Fleur’s reaction to an outright ban from him twitched the corners of his mouth upwards in the ghost of a wry smile.
Seeing it, Mari felt her temper fizz up all over again. ‘This is just a joke to you, isn’t it?’ she accused, overflowing with a sense of righteous outrage. ‘You don’t even have the guts to admit what you did was because my brother doesn’t have the right school tie and has worked for what he has rather than it being handed to him on a golden platter, and don’t deny it,’ she added breathlessly.
Nostrils flared, he gave a mirthless smile. ‘I wasn’t about to,’ he promised grimly. The idea of him explaining himself to this red-haired virago with a chip on her shoulder the size of a forest offended him on more levels than he could count.
‘Before she brought him home to meet you, everything was fine.’
‘Relationships end every day.’ He cut her off with an impatient gesture of his hand. ‘You have decided that I am responsible for your brother’s broken heart, I get that part of your delusion, but the rest? I’m a bit hazy where I fit in. He had an accident? What sort of accident?’
‘Mark came to see me after he and Fleur split up. He was distraught when he left—if he hadn’t been he’d never have been drinking.’
‘He drank?’
