Page 6 of Consequences of Their Wedding Charade
‘What?’ She looked at him briefly, then back at her egg as a shiver of awareness threatened to bring way too much tell-tale colour to her cheeks. She’d always been aware of him but never so much as now. The fine balance between friendship and illicit, forbidden attraction had tipped far and fast into the illicit, forbidden attraction side, and the friendship element was struggling to keep pace.
‘I’m best man at a wedding in two weeks’ time. John Jones, a youthful Lord, as it happens. Have you heard of him?’
‘Are you going to get to the point?’
‘What would I do without you?’ He grinned and reached forward and absently stroked her wrist with his finger.
An unthinking gesture and yet it fired up a response in her that was terrifyingly dramatic. She felt dampness pool between her legs and her breasts were suddenly heavy, her nipples stiff with a tingling sensation. Had he touched her before? Of course he had. A hug on her birthday, a peck on the cheek at Christmas. Once, and she burned when she remembered this, a kiss on the lips when they had been caught out under the mistletoe. She had been nineteen, he twenty-two. Afterwards he had pulled back and laughed and everyone around them had clapped but that kiss had burned for weeks afterwards.
If she’d wised up a little earlier to just how deep she had dived when it came to Curtis Hamilton she might have got her act together a little sooner instead of something like an engagement having to force her to confront her issues.
She subtly removed her hand and knew that he actually hadn’t noticed that evasive withdrawal.
‘So?’ she asked politely, but her heart was still thumping and her skin was still tingling because her body had, just for a minute, gone AWOL.
‘The point is that I want you to come with me.’
‘You want me to come with you? I’m not following.’
‘The invite includes a plus one,’ Curtis explained, ‘and I want you to be my plus one.’ He looked away briefly before returning the full glare of his undivided attention to her.
‘Why?’
‘I think it would be nice for you,’ he replied smoothly, his slow smile so coaxing, so seductive, so...temptingthat Jess had to count to ten to clear her head.
‘Nice for me...’ she parroted, for want of anything better to say.
‘As you’ve told me several times in the space of...’ he made a show of consulting his luxury watch ‘...a little over an hour, you’ve been run ragged, barely able to function.’
‘I don’t think I actually used those words,’ Jess pointed out, a little dazed.
‘It’s easy to become disillusioned with one’s profession when you find yourself in a position of having no leisure time to yourself. There’s a thin line between positivity at all hands to the tiller in a moment of crisisto negativity at the suspicion that you’re being taken advantage of. And yes, I know you’re going to tell me that you’ve been out and about on dates...’ he paused, left a door ajar through which he invited her to step; Jess ignored him and he continued with a concerned sigh ‘...but you’ve barely stopped recently. I know that because William mentioned you haven’t been coming as often to help out with the memoirs...’
‘Yes, I admit I’ve been busy but...’
‘But nothing, Jess. You need a break and I’m here to provide just such a break for you. One weekend and it’ll be somewhere you’ll love...’
‘Curtis, I can’t just...’
‘Courchevel.’ He produced that with a flourish, like a magician producing a rabbit from a hat. ‘A much-deserved weekend away at a lavish, all-expenses-paid five-star hotel doing the one thing in the world you love doing most. Skiing. Additionally, you’d be doing me a huge favour, Jess. You know my thoughts on weddings...’
‘Yes,’ Jess retorted with sarcasm, ‘you think you’re going to be a number one target for women with dreams of happy-ever-afters brought on by wedding contagion.’
‘Exactly. I need you there to make the whole damn experience more bearable. A couple of hours I can deal with, but four days might become a little challenging.’
‘You want a chaperone, in other words.’
A chaperone he knew wouldn’t be foolish enough to get any wild ideas in her head—a chaperone who was a good pal and therefore immune to all thoughts of happy-ever-afters with a guy like him.
‘And, tempting though you make it sound, Curtis Hamilton, the answer is an emphaticno!’
CHAPTER TWO
‘WHYNOT?’
He looked genuinely startled and Jess could understand why. In his well-organised world, she had her place. She was his friend, probably the only woman on the planet he could count on as being hisfriend, with no annoying, unwelcome agenda. Why on earth, he was probably wondering, would she flatly reject his offer of an all-expenses-paid holiday which would give her a real battery-recharge after months of hard work trying to raise funds for the school?
She hadn’t even bothered to offer any kind of explanation! She had rejected his offer out of hand.
