Christine Bell - A Valentine from Harlequin: Six Degrees of Romance

“Appealing to my better nature isn’t going to work, John,” she said flatly. “I have questions begging to be answered, and I’m not going to disappear into the woodwork until my curiosity’s been satisfied. That much, at least, you do owe me. So either make your excuses to the future Mrs. Weatherby and afford me the courtesy of a few more minutes of your time, or else we can have this conversation inside and let everyone listen in. I can’t speak for you, of course, but I don’t have anything shameful to hide.”

He pursed his lips—lips Charlotte had once found acceptably kissable. But she doubted that would have been the case if he’d pinched them together in the sort of tight disapproval directed at her now. It must, she decided, have had something to do with too much tropical moonlight, rum punch, and hypnotic steel bands.

“Wait here,” he said, wrenching open the balcony doors. “I’ll be right back.”

Not until he’d disappeared into the house did aftershock set in. The self-control which had carried her this far seeped away. Numbly, she staggered to the guardrail edging the balcony and fought to draw breath into her beleaguered lungs.

She thought she was alone. That no one had witnessed her humiliation.

She was wrong. From the deep shadows at the other end of the balcony came the sound of slow, deliberate applause. “Very good!” a baritone voice, laced with amusement and a slight Italian accent, declared. “After a performance like that, cara, I can hardly wait for Act Two.”

Another bombshell, following so close after the first, was one more than Charlotte could handle. Practically jumping out of her skin, she gave vent to a tiny shriek and collapsed weakly against the balustrade. A sob popped out of nowhere and hung in the still night air like a waterlogged bubble.

Footsteps approached. A darker shadow, imposingly tall and broad, emerged from the obscurity cloaking the far end of the balcony. “No tears, please!” that same deep voice ordered. “Crying’s not going to change anything.”

“I don’t know who you think you are, dishing out unsolicited advice,” she choked, surreptitiously wiping away a tear, which owed everything to humiliation and nothing to grief. “And in case no one’s ever told you this before, gentlemen don’t stoop to eavesdropping.”

“This one does when a couple puts on a floor show such as just happened here. Furthermore, if the specimen who just slithered back inside is anything to go by, I suspect you wouldn’t know a gentleman if you fell over one.”

He’d stepped into the bright glow spilling through the French doors by then, allowing Charlotte to get her first good look at him. The play of light and shadow on his face emphasized the sweeping curve of his dark eyebrows and lean, square jaw, and stippled his aristocratic cheekbones with the reflected imprint of lashes so long and dense, they ought to have been outlawed. Right on the heels of that observation, though, came another: that she knew him from somewhere—not well, but such a face was too striking to be easily forgotten.

“Have we met—before tonight, I mean?” she asked. “You look…” Magnificent! Mesmerizing! Too devastatingly handsome to be real! “…familiar.”

His smile, brilliant in the semigloom, shot a thrill of awareness from her throat to her thighs. “I’m flattered you remember. The recently-resurrected John Weatherby monopolized you so thoroughly, we barely exchanged a dozen words the only other time we found ourselves at the same party.”

Of course! Memory flooded back: Barbados, early last fall, and her last off-shore assignment for her former employer; the grand old plantation house; the well-bred murmur of guests flocking around a banquet table set on a terrace; a velvet night sky spattered with stars. John, flattering her with his attention, overwhelming her with his charm…

And this man, regarding her now with ironic amusement. Yes, she remembered him! His height and sheer physical presence had been enough to make him stand out from the crowd, even without the flock of hangers-on dogging him and inhaling his every word.

That he’d noticed her had been unexpected. She’d happened to look up from some checklist or other to find him staring at her across the room and, just for a moment, everything else—the mob of people, the noise—had melted away and it had seemed there was no one else in the world but the two of them, connected in a glance so riveting she’d hardly known how to draw her gaze away. The next morning, he’d passed her on his way to the breakfast room and complimented her on the fine job she’d done the night before.

“The banquet,” he’d said, “was a triumph. Whoever hired you deserves a medal.” His gaze had lingered on her face, drifted past her bare, sun-kissed shoulders and all the way down to her legs, then returned to dwell with unsettling intent on her lips. He’d cleared his throat, opened his mouth…and she’d been filled with a sense of expectancy, of elation.

But before he could speak again, his followers had closed ranks around him. He must, she’d decided, swallowing her disappointment as they’d spirited him away, wield a great deal of corporate clout for them to guard him so diligently.

“We met at the Jacoby Plantation,” she said now. “How could I have forgotten?”

“You had a great deal on your mind. And we never were formally introduced.” He offered his hand. “I’m Paolo Angelli, and you’re Charlie.”

“Charlotte,” she said. “Charlotte Fraser. I really don’t care for ‘Charlie.’”

His fingers closed around hers. “Charlotte Fraser.” The syllables rolled off his tongue, rich and warm as Demerara sugar left melting in the Caribbean sun. “Well, Charlotte Fraser, wait until you’ve dispatched the deplorable Mr. Weatherby before you fall apart—unless you want to leave him with the impression that you’re still carrying a torch for him?”

“Good grief, no!” She hiccupped, aghast at the idea. “That’s what makes this whole incident so absurd. If he wanted rid of me, he didn’t have to go to such extreme lengths. A simple ‘I’ve changed my mind about us’ would have sufficed. It’s not as if we were ever really engaged.”

“He never gave you a ring?”

“No. He died before things progressed that far. At least, I thought he did.”

Paolo Angelli’s gaze scoured her face. “And were you terribly grief-stricken?”

She averted her eyes and searched for the right words. She didn’t want to come across as cold and heartless, but nor did she wish to convey the wrong impression. He, though, misunderstood her hesitation, let go her hand, and stepped back.

“Forgive me,” he said, and there was no missing the reserve cloaking his voice. “I had no right to ask such a question, nor do I wish to revive memories that you obviously find painful.”

“It’s not that,” she began, anxious to set the record straight.

But he waved her to silence and nodded toward the French doors behind her. “Your not-so-dead fiancé is headed back this way. Save your explanations for him.”

And with that, he melted into the shadows again.

“All right, let’s get this over with!” John leaned against the balcony doors and folded his arms. “And make it fast. I don’t want to arouse Louella’s suspicions any more than I already have.”

“Louella being your latest fiancée, I assume?”

“My only fiancée, Charlie,” he snapped. “I never made it official with you.”

“Some might consider that to be a mere technicality, John. A less forgiving woman than I might even go so far as to sue you for breach of promise.”

He flushed with anger. “Don’t even think about threatening me! You’ll merely make a laughing stock of yourself and—”

“Oh, relax!” she said, disgust sour on her tongue. “You’re not worth the effort it would entail. Nor have I any more wish to prolong this meeting than you have. I’d merely like you to clarify a few things, that’s all.”

“If I must.” He buffed his fingernails on the sleeve of his dinner jacket. If body language really did speak volumes, his shouted boredom to high heaven.

Refusing to be put off, she said, “For a start, how did you persuade your friend to write and tell me you’d died?”

“There was no friend, dear.” He inspected his nails and gave them a final polish. “I wrote the letter myself.”

And clearly did so without a twinge of conscience. Was quite proud of himself, in fact. “And I suppose your ski cabin didn’t burn to the ground, either?”

“Certainly it did. I made sure of that. Overloaded the woodstove and left its door open. The place went up like a rocket in 30 minutes flat.”

Puzzled, she shook her head. “Why on earth would you take such drastic and risky measures just to end your involvement with me?”

“Oh, you really are naive, Charlie!” he sneered. “You played no part in it, at least not directly. I did it for the insurance.”

More mystified by the second, she said, “I don’t understand.”

He gave a long-suffering sigh. “I’m a high-maintenance man. The kind of lifestyle I enjoy costs money. More, I’m afraid, than I’m willing to go out and earn. When I first met you, I thought you might be the solution to my problem.”

“You thought I was well-off?”

“No, dear. I thought you were loaded. Filthy rich.”

“But why?” Astonished, she stared at him. “I never gave you reason to believe that.”

“Not in so many words, perhaps. But there you were, on a first-name basis with half the bigwigs at that conference. Consulting with titans of industry dripping with old money. Naturally, I assumed you were somebody. So I made my move before anyone else got his foot in your door. You’re not all that bad-looking, you know, especially when you do yourself up, although I have to say that dress you’re wearing tonight makes you look a bit like a black widow spider. But I’ve come across a lot worse. Being married to you would have been tolerable, if only you hadn’t turned out not to be a member of society at all, but a corporate social convener working for someone else, for Pete’s sake!”

Charlotte didn’t often lose her temper but his scorn left her foaming with rage. “Not any longer, you arrogant stoat!” she spat, sorely tempted to wipe the smug expression off his face with the back of her hand. “Unlike you, I don’t mind working for a living—and hard enough that I’m my own boss now and doing very well. But you…! You are, without question, the most despicable excuse for a man I’ve ever had the misfortune to come across. And to think I was taken in by you for even an instant!”

“Well, there you have it, dearie. I played you like a violin, and you bought every second of it. As I said before, you’re so hopelessly naive, it’s laughable.”

“Not quite as naive as you’d like to think,” she told him acidly. “At risk of denting your oversize ego, you should know that I’d already had second thoughts about continuing our association, long before your letter arrived. Unlike you, though, I prefer to be more direct, so I planned to tell you to your face when we met at Thanksgiving.”

He laughed scornfully. “So you say! But if that’s the case, how come you’re making such an issue now of a situation that withered on the vine before it properly took root?”

“Because, you insensitive clod, thanks to you, I’ve been carrying around a load of guilt that was completely unnecessary! I soon realized that two weeks of fun in the sunny Caribbean wasn’t enough on which to base any sort of relationship, but I don’t enjoy letting people down and wasn’t looking forward to having to tell you I’d changed my mind, especially since you gave the impression you were totally besotted with me.”

“Appearances can be deceiving, Charlie.”

“With you, they certainly can! But I didn’t know that then, and I was ashamed of the relief I felt when I learned I wouldn’t have to hurt you. Ashamed at how soon I recovered from the shocking news of your ‘death.’”

“That’s just your pride talking,” he said imperturbably. “The truth is, you’re really eaten up with envy because I’ve found true love and you’re still looking for it. Which reminds me, Louella’s waiting. So if you’ve finished your inquisition…?”

“Heavens, yes!” She wiped a weary hand across her eyes. “Go. Please! Before the sight of you makes me sick!”

He complied with unflattering haste. She heard the French doors bang shut, followed within seconds from the other end of the balcony by the faint, expensive chime of cobweb-fine crystal.