Dear Reader Title Page CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SIX CHAPTER SEVEN CHAPTER EIGHT CHAPTER NINE CHAPTER TEN CHAPTER ELEVEN CHAPTER TWELVE EPILOGUE Copyright

Dear Reader,

I’m delighted to be part of the twenty-fifth birthday celebration of Harlequin Presents®! My very first Presents was published twelve years ago. Since then, I’ve had the pleasure of meeting some of you and of hearing from many others. You and I have a lot in common. We both love exciting heroes, strong heroines and stories that make us laugh and cry. My warmest thanks to you for enjoying my books, and my best wishes to Presents. May we all celebrate many more birthdays together!

With love,

Sandra Marton

P.S. Look out next month for The Divorcee Said Yes!, the second funny, tender and exciting tale in my new series of three terrific stories, THE WEDDING OF THE YEAR.

The Bride Said Never!

Sandra Marton

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

DAMIAN SKOURAS did not like weddings.

A man and a woman, standing before clergy, friends and family while they pledged vows of love and fidelity no human being could possibly keep, was the impossible stuff of weepy women’s novels and fairy tales.

It was surely not reality.

And yet, here he was, standing in front of a flower-bedecked altar while the church organ shook the rafters with Mendelssohn’s triumphal march and a hundred people oohed and ahhed as a blushing bride made her way up the aisle toward him.

She was, he had to admit, quite beautiful, but he knew the old saying. All brides were beautiful. Still, this one, regal in an old-fashioned gown of white satin and lace and clutching a bouquet of tiny purple and white orchids in her trembling hands, had an aura about her that made her more than beautiful. Her smile, just visible through her sheer, fingertip-length veil, was radiant as she reached the altar.

Her father kissed her. She smiled, let go of his arm, then looked lovingly into the eyes of her waiting groom, and Damian sent up a silent prayer of thanks to the gods of his ancestors that it was not he.

It was just too damned bad that it was Nicholas, instead.

Beside him, Nicholas gave a sudden, unsteady lurch. Damian looked at the young man who’d been his ward until three years ago. Nick’s handsome face was pale.

Damian frowned. “Are you all right?” he murmured.

Nick’s adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed. “Sure.”

It’s not too late, boy, Damian wanted to say, but he knew better. Nick was twenty-one; he wasn’t a boy any longer. And it was too late, because he fancied himself in love.

That was what he’d said the night he’d come to Damian’s apartment to tell him that he and the girl he’d met not two months before were getting married.

Damian had been patient. He’d chosen his words carefully. He’d enumerated a dozen reasons why marrying so quickly and so young were mistakes. But Nick had a ready answer for every argument, and finally Damian had lost his temper.

“You damned young fool,” he’d growled, “what happened? Did you knock her up?”

Nick had slugged him. Damian almost smiled at the memory. It was more accurate to say that Nick had tried to slug him but at six foot two, Damian was taller than the boy, and faster on his feet, even if Nicholas was seventeen years younger. The hard lessons he’d learned on the streets of Athens in his boyhood had never quite deserted him.

“She’s not pregnant,” Nick had said furiously, as Damian held him at arm’s length. “I keep telling you, we’re in love.”

“Love,” Damian had said with disdain, and the boy’s eyes had darkened with anger.

“That’s right. Love. Dammit, Damian, can’t you understand that?”

He’d understood, all right. Nick was in lust, not love; he’d almost told him so but by then he’d calmed down enough to realize that saying it would only result in another scuffle. Besides, he wasn’t a complete fool. All this arguing was only making the boy more and more determined to have things his own way.

So he’d spoken calmly, the way he assumed his sister and her husband would have done if they’d lived. He talked about Responsibility and Maturity and the value in Waiting a Few Years, and when he’d finished, Nick had grinned and said yeah, he’d heard that stuff already, from both of Dawn’s parents, and while that might be good advice for some, it had nothing to do with him or Dawn or what they felt for each other.

Damian, who had made his fortune by knowing not just when to be aggressive but when to yield, had gritted his teeth, accepted the inevitable and said in that case, he wished Nick well.

Still, he’d kept hoping that either Dawn or Nick would come to their senses. But they hadn’t, and now here they all were, listening to a soft-voiced clergyman drone on and on about life and love while a bunch of silly women, the bride’s mother included, wept quietly into their hankies. And for what reason? She had been divorced. Hell, he had been divorced, and if you wanted to go back a generation and be foolish enough to consider his parents’ marriage as anything but a farce, they were part of the dismal breakup statistics, too. Half the people here probably had severed marriages behind them including, for all he knew, the mealymouthed clergyman conducting this pallid, non-Greek ceremony.

All this pomp and circumstance, and for what? It was nonsense.

At least his own memorable and mercifully brief foray into the matrimonial wars a dozen years ago had never felt like a real marriage. There’d been no hushed assembly of guests, no organ music or baskets overflowing with flowers. There’d been no words chanted in Greek nor even the vapid sighing of a minister like this one.

His wedding had been what the tabloids called a quickie, an impulsive flight to Vegas after a weekend spent celebrating his first big corporate takeover with too much sex and champagne and not enough common sense. Unfortunately he’d made that assessment twenty-four hours too late. The quickie marriage had led to a not-so-quickie divorce, once his avaricious bride and a retinue of overpriced attorneys had gotten involved.

So much for the lust Nick couldn’t imagine might masquerade as love.

A frown appeared between Damian’s ice-blue eyes. This was hardly the time to think about such things. Perhaps a miracle would occur and it would all work out. Perhaps, years from now, he’d look back and admit he’d been wrong.

Lord, he hoped so.

He loved Nick as if he were his own flesh and blood. The boy was the son he’d never had and probably never would have, given the realities of marriage. That was why he’d agreed to stand here and pretend to be interested in the mumbo jumbo of the ceremony, to smile at Nick and even to dance with the plump child who was one of the bridesmaids and treat her with all the kindness he could manage because, Nick had said, she was Dawn’s best friend and not just overweight but shy, too, and desperately afraid of being a wallflower at the reception afterward.

Oh, yes, he would do all the things a surrogate father was supposed to do. And when the day ended, he’d drive to the inn on the lake where he and Gabriella had stayed the night before and take her to bed.

It would be the best possible way to get over his disappointment at not having taught Nick well enough to protect him from the pain that surely lay ahead, and it would purge his mind of all this useless, sentimental claptrap.

Damian looked at his current mistress, seated in a pew in the third row. Gabriella wasn’t taken in by any of it. Like him, she had tried marriage and found it not to her liking. Marriage was just another word for slavery, she’d said, early in their relationship...though lately, he’d sensed a change. She’d become less loving, more proprietorial. “Where have you been, Damian?” she’d say, when a day passed without a phone call. She’d taken his move to a new apartment personally, too; he’d only just in time stopped her from ordering furniture for him as a “surprise.”

She hadn’t liked that. Her reaction had been sharp and angry; there’d been a brittleness to her he’d never seen before—though today, she was all sweetness and light.

Even last night, during the rehearsal, there’d been a suspicious glint in her dark brown eyes. She’d looked up and smiled at him. It had been a tremulous smile. And, as he’d watched, she’d touched a lace handkerchief to her eyes.

Damian felt a twinge of regret. Perhaps it was time to move on. They’d had, what, almost six months together but when a woman got that look about her...

“Damian?”

Damian blinked. Nicholas was hissing at him out of the side of his mouth. Had the boy come to his senses and changed his mind?

“The ring, Damian!”

The ring. Of course. The best man was searching his pockets frantically, but he wouldn’t find it. Nick had asked Damian to have it engraved and he had, but he’d forgotten to hand it over.

He dug in his pocket, pulled out the simple gold band and dropped it into Nick’s outstretched hand. Across the narrow aisle, the maid of honor choked back a sob; the bride’s mother, tears spilling down her cheeks, reached for her ex-husband’s hand, clutched it tightly, then dropped it like a hot potato.

Ah, the joys of matrimony.

Damian forced himself to concentrate on the minister’s words.

“And now,” he said, in an appropriately solemn voice, “If there is anyone among us who can offer a reason why Nicolas Skouras Babbitt and Dawn Elizabeth Cooper should not be wed, let that person speak or forever—”

Bang!

The double doors at the rear of the church flew open and slammed against the whitewashed walls. There was a rustle of cloth as the guests shifted in the pews and turned to see what was happening. Even the bride and groom swung around in surprise.

A woman stood in the open doorway, silhouetted against the sunlight of the spring afternoon. The wind, which had torn the doors from her hands, ruffled her hair wildly around her head and sent her skirt swirling around her thighs.

A murmur of shocked delight spread through the church. The minister cleared his throat.

The woman stepped forward, out of the brilliance of the light and into the shadowed interior. The excited murmur of voices, which had begun to die away, rose again.

And no wonder, Damian thought. The latecomer was incredibly beautiful.

She looked familiar, but surely if he’d met her before, he’d know her name. A man didn’t forget a woman who looked like this.

Her hair was the color of autumn, a deep auburn shot with gold, and curled around her oval, high-cheekboned face. Her eyes were widely spaced and enormous. They were...what? Gray, or perhaps blue. He couldn’t tell at this distance. She wore no jewelry but then, jewelry would only have distracted from her beauty. Even her dress, the color of the sky just before a storm, was simple. It was a shade he’d always thought of as violet but the fashion police surely had a better name for it. The cut was simple, too: a rounded neckline, long, full sleeves and a short, full skirt, but there was nothing simple about the body beneath the dress.

His gaze slid over the woman, taking in the high, rounded breasts, the slim waist, the gentle curve of her hips. She was a strange combination of sexuality and innocence, though the innocence was certainly manufactured. It had to be. She was not a child. And she was too stunning, too aware of herself, for it not to be.

Another gust of wind swept in through the open doors. She clutched at her skirt but not before he had a look at legs as long and shapely as any man’s dream, topped by a flash of something black and lacy.

The crowd’s whispers grew louder. Someone gave a silvery laugh. The woman heard it, he was certain, but instead of showing embarrassment at the attention she was getting, she straightened her shoulders and her lovely face assumed a look of disdain.

I could wipe that look from your face, Damian thought suddenly, and desire, as hot and swift as molten lava, flooded his veins.

Oh, yes, he could. He had only to stride down the aisle, lift her into his arms and carry her out into the meadow that unrolled like a bright green carpet into the low hills behind the church. He’d climb to the top of those hills, lay her down in the soft grass, drink the sweetness of her mouth while he undid the zipper on that pale violet dress and then taste every inch of her as he kissed his way down her body. He imagined burying himself between her thighs and entering her, moving within her heat until she cried out in passion.

Damian’s mouth went dry. What was the matter with him? He was not a randy teenager. He wasn’t given to fantasizing about women he didn’t know, not since he’d been, what, fifteen, sixteen years old, tucked away in his bed at night, breathing heavily over a copy of a men’s magazine.

This was nonsense, he thought brusquely, and just then, the woman’s head lifted. She looked directly up the aisle, her gaze unwavering as it sought his. She stared at him while his heartbeat raced, and then she smiled again.

I know what you’re thinking, her smile said, and I find it terribly amusing.

Damian heard a roaring in his ears. His hands knotted at his sides; he took a step forward.

“Damian?” Nick whispered, and just at that minute, the wind caught the doors again and slammed them against the whitewashed walls of the old church.

The sound seemed to break the spell that had held the congregants captive. Someone cleared a throat, someone else coughed, and finally a man in the last pew rose from his seat, made his way to the doors and drew them shut. He smiled pleasantly at the woman, as if to say there, that’s taken care of, but she ignored both the man and the smile as she looked around for the nearest vacant seat. Slipping into it, she crossed those long legs, folded her hands in her lap and assumed an expression of polite boredom.

What, she seemed to ask, was the delay?

The minister cleared his throat. Slowly, almost reluctantly, the congregants turned and faced the altar.

“If there is no one present who can offer a reason why Nicolas and Dawn should not be wed,” he said briskly, as if fearing another interruption, “then, in accordance with the laws of God and the State of Connecticut, I pronounce them husband and wife.”

Nick turned to his bride, took her in his arms and kissed her. The organist struck a triumphant chord, the guests rose to their feet and Damian lost sight of the woman in a blur of faces and bodies.

Saved by the bell, Laurel thought, though it was more accurate to say she’d been saved by a C major chord played on an organ.

What an awful entrance to have made! It was bad enough she’d arrived late for Dawn’s wedding, but to have interrupted it, to have drawn every eye to her...

Laurel swallowed a groan.

Just last week, during lunch, Dawn had predicted that was exactly what would happen.

Annie had brought her daughter to New York for the final fitting on her gown, and they’d all met for lunch at Tavern on the Green. Dawn, with all the drama in her eighteen-year-old heart, had looked at Laurel and sighed over her Pasta Primavera.

“Oh, Aunt Laurel,” she’d said, “you are so beautiful! I wish I looked like you.”

Laurel had looked across the table at the girl’s lovely face, innocent of makeup and of the rough road that was life, and she’d smiled.

“If I looked like you,” she’d said gently, “I’d still be on the cover of Vogue.”

That had turned the conversation elsewhere, to Laurel’s declining career, which Annie and Dawn stoutly insisted wasn’t declining at all, and then to Laurel’s plans for the future, which she’d managed to make sound far more exciting than they so far were.

And, inevitably, they’d talked about Dawn’s forthcoming wedding.

“You are going to be the most beautiful bride in the world,” Laurel had said, and Dawn had blushed, smiled and said well, she certainly hoped Nick would agree, but that the most beautiful woman at the wedding would undoubtedly be her aunt Laurel.

Laurel had determined in that moment that she would not, even inadvertently, steal the spotlight. When you had a famous face—well, a once-famous face, anyway—you could do that just by entering a room, and that was the last thing she wanted to do to the people she loved.

So this morning, she’d dressed with that in mind. Instead of the pale pink Chanel suit she’d bought for the occasion, she’d put on a periwinkle blue silk dress that was a couple of years old. Instead of doing her hair in the style that she’d made famous—whisked back and knotted loosely on the crown, with sexy little curls tumbling down her neck—she’d simply run a brush through it and let it fall naturally around her shoulders. She hadn’t put on any jewelry and she’d even omitted the touch of lip gloss and mascara that was the only makeup she wore except when she was on a runway or in front of a camera.

She’d even left early, catching a train at Penn Station that was supposed to have gotten her into Stratham a good hour before the ceremony was scheduled to begin. But the train had broken down in New Haven and Laurel had started to look for a taxi when the station public address system announced that there’d be a new train coming along to pick up the stranded passengers in just a few minutes. The clerk at the ticket counter confirmed it, and said the train would be lots faster than a taxi.

And so she’d waited, for almost half an hour, only to find that it wasn’t a train that had been sent to pick up the passengers at all. It was a bus and, of course, it had taken longer than the train ever would have, longer than a taxi would have, too, had she taken one when the train had first ground to a halt. The icing on the cake had come when they’d finally reached Stratham and for endless minutes, there hadn’t been a cab in sight.

“Aunt Laurel?”

Laurel looked up. Dawn and her handsome young groom had reached her row of pews.

“Baby,” she said, fixing a bright smile to her face as she reached out and gave the girl a quick hug.

“That was some entrance,” Dawn said, laughing.

“Oh, Dawn, I’m so sorry about—”

Too late. The bridal couple was already moving past her, toward the now-open doors and the steps that led down from the church.

Laurel winced. Dawn had been teasing, she knew, but Lord, if she could only go back and redo that awful entrance.

As it was, she’d stood outside the little church after the cab had dropped her off, trying to decide which was preferable, coming in late or missing the ceremony, until she’d decided that missing the ceremony was far worse. So she’d carefully cracked the doors open, only to have the wind pull them from her hands, and the next thing she’d known she’d been standing stage-center, with every eye in the place on her.

Including his. That man. That awful, smug-faced, egotistical man.

Was he Nicholas’s guardian? Well, former guardian. Damian Skouras, wasn’t that the name? That had to be him, considering where he’d been standing.

One look, and she’d known everything she needed to know about Damian Skouras. Unfortunately she knew the type well. He had the kind of looks women went crazy for: wide shoulders, narrow waist, a hard body and a handsome face with eyes that seemed to blaze like blue flame against his olive skin. His hair swept back from his face like the waves on a midnight sea, and a tiny gold stud glittered in one ear.

Looks and money, both, Laurel thought bitterly. It wasn’t just the Armani dinner jacket and black trousers draped down those long, muscled legs that had told her so, it was the way he held himself, with careless, masculine arrogance. It was also the way he’d looked at her, as if she were a new toy, all gift-wrapped and served up for his pleasure. His smile had been polite but his eyes had said it all.

“Baby,” those eyes said, “I’d like to peel off that dress and see what’s underneath.”

Not in this lifetime, Laurel thought coldly.

She was tired of it, sick of it, if the truth were told. The world was filled with too many insolent men who’d let money and power go to their heads.

Hadn’t she spent almost a year playing the fool for one of them?

The rest of the wedding party was passing by now, bridesmaids giggling among themselves in a pastel Hurry of blues and pinks, the groomsmen grinning foolishly, impossibly young and good-looking in their formal wear. Annie went by with her ex and paused only long enough for a quick hug after which Laurel fell back into the crowd, letting it surge past her because she knew he’d be coming along next, the jerk who’d stared at her and stripped her naked with his eyes...and yes, there he was, bringing up the rear of the little procession with one of the bridesmaids, a child no more than half his age, clinging to his arm like a limpet.

The girl was staring up at him with eyes like saucers while he treated her to a full measure of his charm, smiling at her with his too-white teeth glinting against his too-tanned skin. Laurel frowned. The child was positively transfixed by the body-by-health club, tan-by-sunlamp and attitude-by-bank-balance. And Mr. Macho was eating up the adulation.

Bastard, Laurel thought coldly, eyeing him through the crowd, and before she had time to think about it, she stepped out in the aisle in front of him.

The bridesmaid was so busy making goo-goo eyes at her dazzling escort that she had to skid to a stop when he halted.

“What’s the matter?” the girl asked.

“Nothing,” he answered, his eyes never leaving Laurel’s.

The girl looked at Laurel. Young as she was, awareness glinted in her eyes.

“Come on, Damian. We have to catch up to the others.”

He nodded. “You go on, Elaine. “I’ll be right along.”

“It’s Aileen.”

“Aileen,” he said, his eyes still on Laurel. “Go ahead. I’ll be just behind you.”

The girl shot Laurel a sullen glare. “Sure.” Then she picked up her skirts and hurried along after the others.

Close up, Laurel could see that the man’s eyes were a shade of blue she’d never seen before, cool and pale, the irises as black-ringed as if they’d been circled with kohl. Ice, she thought, chips of polar sea ice.

A pulse began to pound in her throat. I should have stayed where I was, she thought suddenly, instead of stepping out to confront him...

“Yes?” he said.

His voice, low and touched with a slight accent, was a perfect match for the chilly removal of his gaze.

The church was empty now. A few feet away, just beyond the doors, Laurel could hear the sounds of laughter but here, in the silence and the lengthening shadows of late afternoon, she could hear only the thump-thump of her heart.

“Was there something you wished to say to me?”

His words were polite but the coldness in them made Laurel’s breath catch. For a second, she thought of turning and running but she’d never run from anything in her life. Besides, why should she let this stranger get the best of her?

There was nothing to be afraid of, nothing at all.

So she drew herself up to her full five foot ten, tossed her hair back from her face and fixed him with a look of cool hauteur, the same one she wore like a mask when she was on public display, and that had helped make her a star on runways from here to Milan.

“Only that you look pathetic,” she said regally, “toying with that little girl.”

“Toying with...?”

“Really,” she said, permitting her voice to take on a purr of amusement, “don’t you think you ought to play games with someone who’s old enough to recognize you for what you are?”

The man looked at her for a long moment, so long that she foolishly began to think she’d scored a couple of points. Then he smiled in a way that sent her heart skidding up into her throat and he stepped forward, until he was only a hand’s span away.

“What is your name?”

“Laurel,” she said, “Laurel Bennett, but I don’t see—”

“I agree completely, Miss Bennett. The game is far more enjoyable when it is played by equals.”

She saw what was coming next in his eyes, but it was too late. Before Laurel could move or even draw back, he reached out, took her in his arms and kissed her.

CHAPTER TWO

LAUREL SHOT a surreptitious glance at her watch.

Another hour, and she could leave without attracting attention. Only another hour—assuming she could last that long.

The man beside her at the pink-and-white swathed table for six, Evan Something-or-Other, was telling a joke. Dr. Evan Something-or-Other, as Annie, ever the matchmaker, had pointedly said, when she’d come around earlier to greet her guests.

He was a nice enough man, even if his pink-tipped nose and slight overbite did remind Laurel of a rabbit. It was just that this was the doctor’s joke number nine or maybe nine thousand for the evening. She’d lost count somewhere between the shrimp cocktail and the Beouf aux Chanterelles.

Not that it mattered. Laurel would have had trouble keeping her mind on anything this evening. Her thoughts kept traveling in only one direction, straight towards Damian Skouras, who was sitting at the table on the dais with an expensively dressed blond windup doll by his side—not that the presence of the woman was keeping him from watching Laurel.

She knew he was, even though she hadn’t turned to confirm it. There was no need. She could feel the force of his eyes on her shoulder blades. If she looked at him, she half expected to see a pair of blue laser beams blazing from that proud, arrogant face.

The one thing she had confirmed was that he was definitely Damian Skouras, and he was Nicholas’s guardian. Former guardian, anyway; Nick was twenty-one, three years past needing to ask anyone’s permission to marry. Laurel knew that her sister hadn’t wanted the wedding to take place. Dawn and Nick were too young, she’d said. Laurel had kept her own counsel but now that she’d met the man who’d raised Nick, she was amazed her sister hadn’t raised yet a second objection.

Who would want a son-in-law with an egotistical SOB like Damian Skouras for a role model?

That was how she thought of him, as an Egotistical SOB. and in capital letters. She’d told him so the next time she’d seen him, after that kiss, when they’d come face-to-face on the receiving line. She’d tried breezing past him as if he didn’t exist, but he’d made that impossible, capturing her hand in his, introducing himself as politely as if they’d never set eyes on each other until that second.

Flushed with indignation, Laurel had tried to twist her hand free. That had made him laugh.

“Relax, Miss Bennett,” he’d said in a low, mocking tone. “You don’t want to make another scene, do you? Surely one such performance a day is enough, even for you.”

“I’m not the one who made a scene, you—you—”

“My name is Damian Skouras.”

He was laughing at her, damn him, and enjoying every second of her embarrassment.

“Perhaps you enjoy attracting attention,” he’d said. “If so, by all means, go on as you are. But if you believe, as I do, that today belongs to Nicholas and his bride, then be a good girl, smile prettily and pretend you’re having a good time, him?”

He was right, and she knew it. The line had bogged down behind her and people were beginning to crane their necks with interest, trying to see who and what was holding things up. So she’d smiled, not just prettily but brilliantly, as if she were on a set instead of at a wedding, and said, in a voice meant to be heard by no one but him, that she was hardly surprised he still thought it appropriate to address a woman as a girl and that she’d have an even better time if she pretended he’d vanished from the face of the earth.

His hand had tightened on hers and his eyes had glinted with a sudden darkness that almost made her wish she’d kept her mouth shut.

“You’ll never be able to pretend anything when it comes to me,” he’d said softly, “or have you forgotten what happened when I kissed you?”

Color had shot into her face. He’d smiled, let her snatch her hand from his, and she’d swept past him.

No, she hadn’t forgotten. How could she? There’d been that first instant of shocked rage and then, following hard on its heels, the dizzying realization that she was suddenly clinging to his broad shoulders, that her mouth was softening and parting under his, that she was making a little sound in the back of her throat and moving against him...

“...well,” Evan Something-or-Other droned, “if that’s the case, said the chicken, I guess there’s not much point crossing to the other side!”

Everybody at the table laughed. Laurel laughed, too, if a beat too late.

“Great story,” someone chuckled.

Evan smiled, lifted his glass of wine, and turned to Laurel.

“I guess you heard that one before,” he said apologet ically.

“No,” she said quickly, “no, I haven’t. I’m just—I think it must be jet lag. I was in Paris just yesterday and I don’t think my head’s caught up to the clock.” She smiled. “Or vice versa.”

“Paris, huh? Wonderful city. I was there last year. A business conference.”

“Ah.”

“Were you there on business? Or was it a vacation?”

“Oh, it was business.”

“I guess you’re there a lot.”

“Well...”

“For showings. That’s what they call them, right?”

“Well, yes, but how did you—”

“I recognized you.” Evan grinned. “Besides, Annie told me. I’m her dentist, hers and Dawn’s, and the last time she came by for a checkup she said. ‘Wait until you meet my baby sister at the wedding. She’s the most gorgeous model in the world.”’ His grin tilted. “But she was wrong.”

“Was she?” Laurel asked, trying to sound interested. She knew what came next. If the doctor thought this was a new approach, he was sadly mistaken.

“Absolutely. You’re not the most gorgeous model in the world, you’re the most gorgeous woman, hands down.”

Drum roll, lights up, Laurel thought, and laughed politely. “You’ll have to forgive Annie. She’s an inveterate matchmaker.”

“At least she didn’t exaggerate.” He chuckled and leaned closer. “You should see some of the so-called ‘dream dates’ I’ve been conned into.”

“This isn’t a date, Doctor.”

His face crumpled just a little and Laurel winced. There was no reason to let her bad mood out on him.

“I meant,” she said with an apologetic smile, “I know what you’re saying. I’ve been a victim of some pretty sneaky setups, myself.”

“Matchmakers.” Evan shook his head. “They never let up, do they? And I wish you’d call me ‘Evan.’”

“Evan,” Laurel said. “And you’re right, they never do.”

“Annie wasn’t wrong, though, was she?” Evan cleared his throat. “I mean, you are, ah, uninvolved and unattached?”

Annie, Laurel thought wearily, what am I going to do with you? Her sister had been trying to marry her off for years. She’d really gone into overdrive after Laurel had finally walked out on Kirk.

“Okay,” Annie had said, “so at first, you didn’t want to settle down because you had to build your career. Then you convinced yourself that jerk would pop the question, but, big surprise, he didn’t.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Laurel had replied, but Annie had plowed on, laying out the joys of matrimony as if she hadn’t untied her own marriage vows years before, and eventually Laurel had silenced her by lying through her teeth and saying that if the right man ever came along, she supposed she’d agree to tie the knot....

But not in this lifetime. Laurel’s mouth firmed. So far as she could see, the only things a woman needed a man for was to muscle open ajar and provide sex. Well, there were gizmos on the market that dealt with tight jar lids. As for sex...it was overrated. That was something else she’d learned during her time with Kirk. Maybe it meant more to women who didn’t have careers. Maybe there was a woman somewhere who heard music and saw fireworks when she was in bed with a man but if you had a life, sex was really nothing more than a biological urge, like eating or drinking, and certainly not anywhere near as important.

“Sorry,” Evan said, “I guess I shouldn’t have asked.”

Laurel blinked. “Shouldn’t have...?

“If you were, you know, involved.”

“Oh.” She cleared her throat. “Oh, no, don’t apologize. I’m, ah, I’m flattered you’d ask. It’s just that, well, what with all the traveling I do—”

“Miss Bennett?”

Laurel stiffened. She didn’t have to turn around to know who’d come up behind her. Nobody could have put such a world of meaning into the simple use of her name—nobody but Damian Skouras.

She looked up. He was standing beside her chair, smiling pleasantly.

“Yes?” she said coldly.

“I thought you might like to dance.”

“You thought wrong.”

“Ah, but they’re playing our song.”

Laurel stared at him. For the most part, she’d been ignoring the band. Now, she realized that a medley of sixties hits had given way to a waltz.

“Our sort of song, at any rate,” Damian said. “An old-fashioned waltz, for an old-fashioned girl.” His smile tilted. “Sorry. I suppose I should say ‘woman.’”

“You suppose correctly, Mr. Skouras. Not that it matters. Girl or woman, I’m not interested.”

“In waltzing?”

“Waltzing is fine.” Laurel’s smile was the polite equal of his. “It’s you I’m not interested in, on the dance floor or off it.”

Across the table, there was a delighted intake of breath. Every eye had to be on her now and she knew it, but she didn’t care. Not anymore. Damian Skouras had taken this as far as she was going to allow.

“You must move in very strange circles, Miss Bennett. In my world, a dance is hardly a request for an assignation.”

Damn the man! He wasn’t put off by what she’d said, or even embarrassed. He was amused by it, smiling first at her and then at the woman who’d gasped, and somehow managing to turn things around so that it was Laurel who looked foolish.

It wasn’t easy, but she managed to dredge up a smile.

“And in mine,” she said sweetly, “a man who brings his girlfriend to a party and then spends his time hitting on another woman is called a—”

“Hey,” a cheerful voice said, “how’s it going here? Everybody having a good time?”

Laurel looked over her shoulder. The bride and groom had come up on her other side and were beaming at the tableful of guests.

“Yes,” someone finally said, after some throat-clearing, “we’re having a splendid time, Nicholas.”

“Great. Glad to hear it.” Nick grinned. “One thing I learned, watching the ladies set up the seating chart, is that you never know how these table arrangements are going to work out.” He looked at Laurel, then at Damian, and his grin broadened. “Terrific! I see that you guys managed to meet on your own.”

The woman opposite Laurel made a choked sound and lifted her napkin to her lips.

Damian nodded. “We did, indeed.” he said smoothly.

Dawn leaned her head against her groom’s shoulder. “We just knew you two would have a lot to talk about.”

I don’t believe this, Laurel thought. I’m trapped in a room filled with matchmakers.

“Really,” she said politely.

“Uh-huh.”

“Name one thing.”

Dawn’s brows lifted. “Sorry?”

“Name one thing we’d have to talk about,” Laurel said pleasantly, even while a little voice inside her warned her it was time to shut up.

The woman across the table made another choking sound. Dawn shot Nick a puzzled glance. Gallantly he picked up the slack.

“Well,” he said, “the both of you do a lot of traveling.”

“Indeed?”

“Take France, for instance.”

“France?”

“Yeah. Damian just bought an apartment in Paris. We figured you could clue him in on the best places to buy stuff. You know, furniture, whatever, considering that you spend so much time there.”

“I don’t,” Laurel said quickly. She looked at Evan, sitting beside her, and she cleared her throat. “I mean, I don’t spend half as much time in Paris as I used to.”

“Where do you spend your time, then?” Damian asked politely.

Where didn’t he spend his? Laurel made a quick mental inventory of all the European cities a man like this would probably frequent.

“New York,” she said, and knew instantly it had been the wrong choice.

“What a coincidence,” Damian said with a little smile. “I’ve just bought a condominium in Manhattan.”

“You said it was Paris.”

“Paris, Manhattan...” His shoulders lifted, then fell, in an elegant shrug. “My business interests take me to many places, Miss Bennett, and I much prefer coming home to my own things at night.”

“Like the blonde who came with you today?” Laurel said sweetly.

“Aunt Laurrr-el!” Dawn said, with a breathless laugh.

“It’s quite all right, Dawn,” Damian said softly, his eyes on Laurel’s. “Your aunt and I understand each other—don’t we, Miss Bennett?”

“Absolutely, Mr. Skouras.” Laurel turned to the dentist, who was sitting openmouthed, a copy of virtually everyone else at the table. “Would you like to dance, Evan?”

A flush rose on his face. He looked up at Damian.

“But—I mean, I thought...”

“You thought wrong, sir.” Damian’s tone was polite but Laurel wasn’t fooled. Anger glinted in his eyes. “While we’ve all been listening to Miss Bennett’s interesting views, I’ve had the chance to reconsider.” He turned to Dawn and smiled pleasantly. “My dear, I would be honored if you would desert Nicholas long enough to grant me the honor of this dance.”

Dawn smiled with relief. “I’d be thrilled.”

She went into his arms at the same time Laurel went into Evan’s. Nick pulled out Evan’s chair, spun it around and sat down. He draped his arms over the back and made some light remark about families and family members that diverted the attention of the others and set them laughing.

So much for Damian Skouras, Laurel thought with satisfaction as she looked over Evan’s shoulder. Perhaps next time, he’d think twice before trying to play what were certainly his usual games with a woman.

Gabriella Boldini crossed and recrossed her long legs under the dashboard of Damian’s rented Saab.

“Honestly, Damian,” she said crossly, “I don’t know why you didn’t arrange for a limousine.”

Damian sighed, kept his attention focused on the winding mountain road and decided there was no point in responding to the remark she’d already made half a dozen times since they’d left Stratham.

“We’ll be at the inn soon,” he said. “Why don’t you put your head back and try and get some sleep?”

“I am not tired, Damian, I’m simply saying—”

“I know what you’re saying. You’d have preferred a different car.”

Gabriella folded her arms. “That’s right.”

“A Cadillac, or a Lincoln, with a chauffeur.”

“Yes. Or you could have had Stevens drive us up here. There’s no reason we couldn’t have been comfortable, even though we’re trapped all the way out in the sticks.”

Damian laughed. “We’re hardly in the ‘sticks’, Gaby. The inn’s just forty miles from Boston.”

“For goodness’ sakes, must you take me so literally? I know where it is. We spent last night there, didn’t we?” Gabriella crossed her legs again. If the skirt of her black silk dress rode any higher on her thighs, Damian thought idly, it would disappear. “Which reminds me. Since that place doesn’t have room service—”

“It has room service.”

“There you go again, taking me literally. It doesn’t have room service, not after ten o’clock at night. Don’t you remember what happened when I tried to order a pot of tea last night?”

Damian’s hands flexed on the steering wheel. “I remember, Gaby. The manager offered to brew you some tea and bring it up to our suite himself.”

“Nonsense. I wanted herbal tea, not that stuff in a bag. And I’ve told you over and over, I don’t like it when you call me Gaby.”

What the hell is this? Damian thought wearily. He was not married to this woman but anyone listening to them now would think they’d been at each other’s throats for at least a decade of blissful wedlock.

Not that a little sharp-tongued give-and-take wasn’t sometimes amusing. The woman at Nicholas’s wedding, for instance. Laurel Bennett had infuriated him, at the end, doing her damnedest to make him look foolish in front of Nicholas and all the others, but he had to admit, she was clever and quick.

“‘Gaby’ always makes me think of some stupid character in a bad Western.”

She was stunning, too. The more he’d seen of her, the more he’d become convinced he’d never seen a more exquisite face. She was a model, Dawn had told him, and he’d always thought models were androgynous things, all bones and no flesh, but Laurel Bennett had been rounded and very definitely feminine. Had that been the real reason he’d asked her to dance, so he could hold that sweetly curved body in his arms and see for himself if she felt as soft as she looked?

“Must you drive so fast? I can barely see where we’re going, it’s so miserably dark outside.”

Damian’s jaw tightened. He pressed down just a little harder on the gas.

“I like to drive fast,” he said. “And since I’m the one at the wheel, you don’t have to see outside, now do you?”

He waited for her to respond, but not even Gabriella was that foolish. She sat back instead, arms still folded under her breasts, her head lifted in a way he’d come to know meant she was angry.

The car filled with silence. Damian was just beginning to relax and enjoy it when she spoke again.

“Honestly,” she said, “you’d think people would use some common sense.”

Damian shot her a quick look. “Yes,” he said, grimly, “you would.”

“Imagine the nerve of that woman.”

“What woman?”

“The one who made that grand entrance. You know, the woman with that mass of dyed red hair.”

Damian almost laughed. Now, at least, he knew what this was all about.

“Was it dyed?” he asked casually. “I didn’t think so.”

“You wouldn’t,” Gabriella snapped. “Men never do. You’re all so easily taken in.”

We are, indeed, he thought. What had happened to Gabriella’s sweet nature and charming Italian accent? The first had begun disappearing over the past few weeks; the second had slipped away gradually during the past hour.

“And that dress. Honestly, if that skirt had been any shorter...”

Damian glanced at Gabriella’s legs. Her own skirt, which had never done more than flirt with the tops of her thighs, had vanished along with what was left of her pleasant disposition and sexy accent.

“She’s Dawn’s aunt, I understand.”

“Who?” Damian said pleasantly.

“Don’t be dense.” Gabriella took a deep breath. “That woman,” she said, more calmly, “the one with the cheap-looking outfit and the peroxide hair.”

“Ah,” he said. The turnoff for the inn was just ahead. He slowed the car, signaled and started up the long gravel driveway. “The model.”

“Model, indeed. Everyone knows what those women are like. That one, especially.” Gabriella was stiff with indignation. “They say she’s had dozens of lovers.”

The car hit a rut in the road. Damian, eyes narrowed, gave the wheel a vicious twist.

“Really,” he said calmly.

“Honestly, Damian, I wish you’d slow—”

“What else do they say about her?”

“About...?” Gabriella shot him a quick glance. Then she reached forward, yanked down the sun visor and peered into the mirror on its reverse side. “I don’t pay attention to gossip,” she said coolly, as she fluffed her fingers through her artfully arranged hair. “But what is there to say about someone who poses nude?”

A flash fire image of Laurel Bennett, naked and flushed in his bed, seared the mental canvas of Damian’s mind. He forced himself to concentrate on the final few yards of the curving road.

“Nude?” he said calmly.

“To all intents and purposes. She did an ad for Calvin Klein—it’s in this month’s Chic or maybe Femme, I’m not sure which.” Gabriella snapped the visor back into place. “Oh, it was all very elegant and posh, you know, one of those la-di-da arty shots taken through whatever it is they use, gauze, I suppose.” Her voice fairly purred with satisfaction. “She’d need it, wouldn’t she, seeing that she’s a bit long in the tooth? Still, gauze or no gauze, when you came right down to it, there she was, stark naked.”

The picture of Laurel burned in his brain again. Damian cleared his throat. “Interesting.”

“Cheap is a better word. Totally cheap...which is why I just don’t understand what made you bother with her.”

“You’re talking nonsense, Gabriella.”

“I saw the way you looked at her and let me tell you, I didn’t much like it. You have an obligation to me.”

Damian pulled up at the entrance to the inn, shut off the engine and turned toward her.

“Obligation?” he said carefully.

“That’s right. We’ve been together for a long time now. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

“I have not been unfaithful to you.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about and you know it.” She took a deep breath. “Can you really tell me you sat through that entire wedding without feeling a thing?”

“I felt what I always feel at weddings,” he said quietly. “Disbelief that two people should willingly subject themselves to such nonsense along with the hope, however useless, that they make a success of what is basically an unnatural arrangement.”

Gabriella’s mouth thinned. “How can you say such a thing?”

“I say it because it’s true. You knew that was how I felt, from the start. You said your attitude mirrored mine.”

“Never mind what I said,” Gabriella said sharply. “And you haven’t answered my question. Why did you keep looking at that woman?”

Because I chose to. Because you don’t own me. Because Laurel Bennett intrigues me as you never did, not even when our affair first began.

Damian blew out his breath. It was late, they were both tired and this wasn’t the time to talk or make decisions. He ran his knuckles lightly over Gabriella’s cheek, then reached across her lap and opened her door.

“Go on,” he said gently. “Wait in the lobby while I park the car.”

“You see what I mean? If we’d come by limousine, you wouldn’t have to drop me off here, in the middle of nowhere. But no, you had to do things your way, with no regard for me or my feelings.”

Damian glanced past Gabriella, to the brightly lit entrance to the inn. Then he looked at his mistress’s face, illuminated by the cruel fluorescent light that washed into the car, and saw that it wasn’t as lovely as he’d once thought, especially not with petulance and undisguised jealousy etched into every feature.

“Gaby,” he said quietly, “it’s late. Let’s not argue about this now.”

“Don’t think you can shut me up by sounding sincere, Damian. And I keep telling you, my name’s not Gaby!”

A muscle knotted in his jaw. He reached past her again, grasped the handle, slammed the door closed and put the Saab in gear.

“Wait just a minute! I’m not going with you while you park the car. If you think I have any intention of walking through that gravel in these shoes...” Gabriella frowned as Damian pulled through the circular driveway and headed downhill. “Damian? What are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing?” He kept his eyes straight ahead, on the road. “I’m driving to New York.”

“Tonight? But it’s late. And what about my things? My clothes and my makeup? Damian, this is ridiculous!”

“I’ll phone the inn and tell them to pack everything and forward it, as soon as I’ve dropped you off.”

“Dropped me off?” Gabriella twisted toward him. “What do you mean? I never go back to my own apartment on weekends, you know that.”

“What you said was true, a few minutes ago,” he said, almost gently, “I do have an obligation to you.” He looked across the console at her, then back at the road. “An obligation to tell you the truth, which is that I’ve enjoyed our time together, but—”

“But what? What is this, huh? The big brush-off?”

“Gabriella, calm down.”

“Don’t you tell me to calm down,” she said shrilly. “Listen here, Mr. Skouras, maybe you can play high-and-mighty with the people who work for you but you can’t pull that act with me!”

“I’d like us to end this like civilized adults. We both knew our relationship wouldn’t last forever.”

“Well, I changed my mind! How dare you toss me aside, just because you found yourself some two-bit—”

“I’ve found myself nothing.” His voice cut across hers, harsh and cold. “I’m simply telling you that our relationship has run its course.”

“That’s what you think! What I think is that you led me to have certain expectations. My lawyer says...”

Gabriella stopped in midsentence, her mouth opening and closing as if she were a fish, but it was too late. Damian had already pulled onto the shoulder of the road. He swung toward her, and she shrank back in her seat at the expression on his face.

“Your lawyer says?” His voice was low, his tone dangerous. “You mean, you’ve already discussed our relationship with an attorney?”

“No. Well, I mean, I had a little chat with—look, Damian, I was just trying to protect myself.” In the passing headlights of an oncoming automobile, he could see her face harden. “And it looks as if I had every reason to! Here you are, trying to dump me without so much as a by-your-leave—”

Damian reached out and turned on the radio. He punched buttons until he found a station playing something loud enough to drown out Gabriella’s voice. Then he swung back onto the road and stepped down, hard, on the gas.

Less than three hours later, they were in Manhattan. Sunday night traffic was sparse, and it took only minutes for him to reach Gabriella’s apartment building on Park Avenue.

The doorman hurried up. Gabriella snarled at him to leave her alone as she stepped from the car.

“Bastard,” she hissed, as Damian gunned the engine.

For all he knew, she was still staring after him and spewing venom as he drove off. Not that it mattered. She was already part of the past.

CHAPTER THREE

JEAN KAPLAN had been Damian Skouras’s personal assistant for a long time.

She was middle-aged, happily married and dedicated to her job. She was also unflappable. Nothing fazed her.

Still, she couldn’t quite mask her surprise when her boss strode into the office Monday morning, said a brisk, “Hello,” and then instructed her to personally go down to the newsstand on the corner and purchase copies of every fashion magazine on display.

“Fashion magazines, Mr. Skouras?”

“Fashion magazines, Ms. Kaplan.” Damian’s expression was completely noncommittal. “I’m sure you know the sort of thing I mean. Femme, Chic...all of them.”

Jean nodded. “Certainly, sir.”

Well, she thought as she hurried to the elevator, her boss had never been anyone’s idea of a conventional executive. She permitted herself a faint smile as the doors whisked open at the lobby level. When you headed up what the press loved to refer to as the Skouras Empire, you didn’t have to worry about that kind of thing.

Maybe he was thinking of buying a magazine. Or two, or three, she thought as she swept up an armload of glossy publications, made her way back to her employer’s thirtieth floor office and neatly deposited them on his pale oak desk.

“Here you are, Mr. Skouras. I hope the assortment is what you wanted.”

Damian nodded. “I’m sure it is.”

“And shall I send the usual roses to Miss Boldini?”

He looked up and she saw in his eyes a flash of the Arctic coldness that was faced by those who were foolish enough to oppose him in business.

“That won’t be necessary.”

“Oh. I’m sorry, sir. I just thought...”

“In fact, if Miss Boldini calls, tell her I’m not in.”

“Yes, sir. Will that be all?”

Damian’s dark head was already bent over the stack of magazines.

“That’s all. Hold my calls until I ring you, please.”

Jean nodded and shut the door behind her.

So, she thought with some satisfaction, Gabriella Boldini, she of the catlike smile and claws to match, had reached the end of her stay. Not a minute too soon, as far as she was concerned. Jean had seen a lot of women flounce through her employer’s life, all of them beautiful and most of them charming or at least clever enough to show a pleasant face to her. But Gabriella Boldini had set her teeth on edge from day one.

Jean settled herself at her desk and turned on her computer. Perhaps that was why Mr. Skouras had wanted all those magazines. He’d be living like a monk for the next couple of months; he always did, after an affair ended. What better time to research a new business venture? Soon enough, though, another stunning female would step into his life, knowing she was just a temporary diversion but still hoping to snare a prize catch like him.

They always hoped, even though he never seemed to know it.

Jean gave a motherly sigh. As for herself, she’d given up hoping. There’d been a time she’d clung to the belief that her boss would find himself a good woman to love. Not anymore. He’d had one disastrous marriage that he never talked about and it had left him a confirmed loner.

Amazing, how a man so willing to risk everything making millions could refuse to take any risks at all, in matters of the heart.

Damian frowned as he looked over the magazines spilling across his desk.

Headlines screamed at him.

Are You Sexy Enough to Keep Your Man Interested?

Ten Ways to Turn Him On

Sexy Styles for Summer

The Perfect Tan Starts Now

Was there really a market for such drivel? He’d seen Gabriella curled up in a chair, leafing through magazines like these, but he’d never paid any attention to the print on the covers.

Or to the models, he thought, his frown deepening as he leafed through the glossy pages. Why did so many of them look as if they hadn’t eaten in weeks? Surely, no real man could find women like these attractive, with their bones almost protruding through their skin.

And those pouting faces. He paused, staring at an emaciated-looking waif with a heavily made-up face who looked up from the page with an expression that made her appear to have sucked on one lemon too many.

Who would find such a face attractive?

After a moment, he sighed, closed the magazine and reached for another. Laurel’s photograph wasn’t where Gabriella had said it would be. Not that it mattered. There’d been no good reason to want to see the picture; he’d directed his secretary to buy these silly things on a whim.

Come on, man, who are you kidding?

It hadn’t been a whim at all. The truth was that he’d slept poorly, awakening just after dawn from a fragmented dream filled with the kinds of images he hadn’t had in years, his loins heavy and aching with need...

And there it was. The photograph of Laurel Bennett.

Gabriella had been wrong. Laurel wasn’t nude, and he tried to ignore the sense of relief that welled so fiercely inside him at the realization.

She’d been posed with her back to the camera, her head turned, angled so that she was looking over her shoulder at the viewer. Her back and shoulders were bare; a long length of ivory silk was draped from her hips, dipping low enough to expose the delicate tracery of her spine almost to its base. Her hair, that incredible mane of sun-streaked mahogany, tumbled over her creamy skin like tongues of dark flame.

Damian stared at the picture. All right, he told himself coldly, there she is. A woman, nothing more and nothing less. Beautiful, yes, and very desirable, but hardly worth the heated dreams that had disturbed his night.

He closed the magazine, tossed it on top of the others and carried the entire stack to a low table that was part of a conversational grouping at the other end of his office. Jean could dispose of them later, either toss them out or give them to one of the clerks. He certainly had no need for them, nor had he any further interest in Laurel Bennett.

That was settled, then. Damian relaxed, basking in the satisfaction that came of closure.

His morning was filled with opportunities for that same feeling, but it never came again.

There was a problem with a small investment firm Skouras International had recently acquired. Damian’s CPAs had defined it but they hadn’t been able to solve it. He did, during a two-hour brainstorming session. A short while later, he held a teleconference with his bankers in Paris and Hamburg, and firmed up a multimillion dollar deal that had been languishing for months.

At twenty of twelve, he began going through the notes Jean had placed on a corner of his desk in preparation for his one o’clock business luncheon, but he couldn’t concentrate. Words kept repeating themselves, and entire sentences.

He gave up, pushed back his chair and frowned.

Suddenly he felt restless.

He rose and paced across the spacious room. There was always a carafe of freshly brewed coffee waiting for him on a corner shelf near the sofas that flanked the low table where he’d dumped the magazines.

He paused, frowning as he looked down at the stack. The magazine containing Laurel’s photo was on top and he picked it up, opened it to that page and stared at the picture. Her hair looked like silk. Would it feel that way, or would it be stiff with hair spray when he touched it, the way Gabriella’s had always been? How would her skin smell, when he put his face to that graceful curve where her shoulder and her neck joined? How would it taste?

Hell, what was the matter with him? He wasn’t going to smell this woman, or taste her, or touch her.

His eyes fastened on her face. There was a hands-off coolness in her eyes that seemed at odds with her mouth, which looked soft, sexy, and heart-stoppingly vulnerable. It had felt that way, too, beneath his own, after she’d stopped fighting the passion that suddenly had gripped them both and given herself up to him. and to the kiss.

His belly knotted as he remembered the heat and hardness that had curled through his body. He couldn’t remember ever feeling so caught up in a kiss or in the memory of what had been, after all, a simple encounter.

So caught up, and out of control.

Damian’s jaw knotted. This was ridiculous. He was never out of control.

What he had, he thought coldly, was an itch, and it needed scratching.

One night, and that would be the end of it.

He could call Laurel, ask her to have drinks or dinner. It wouldn’t be hard; he had learned early on that information was easy to come by, if you knew how to go about getting it.

She was stubborn, though. Her response to him had been fiery and he knew she wanted him as badly as he wanted her, but she’d deny it. He looked down at the ad again. She’d probably hang up the phone before he had the chance to—

A smile tilted at the corner of his mouth. Until this minute, he hadn’t paid any attention to the advertisement itself. If pressed, he’d have said it was for perfume, or cosmetics. Perhaps furs.

Now he saw just how wrong he’d have been. Laurel was offering the siren song to customers in the market for laptop computers. And the company was one that Skouras International had bought only a couple of months ago.

Damian reached for the phone.

Luck was with him. Ten minutes later, he was in his car, his luncheon appointment canceled, forging through midday traffic on his way to a studio in Soho, where the next in the series of ads was being shot.

“Darling Laurel,” Haskell said, “that’s not a good angle. Turn your head to the right, please.”

Laurel did.

“Now tilt toward me. Good.”

What was good about it? she wondered. Not the day, surely. Not what she was doing. Why did everything, from toothpaste to tugboats, have to be advertised with sex?

“A little more. Yes, like that. Could you make it a bigger smile, please?”

She couldn’t. Smiling didn’t suit her mood.

“Laurel, baby, you’ve got to get into the swing of things. You look utterly, totally bored.”

She was bored. But that was better than being angry. Don’t think about it anymore, she told herself, just don’t think about it.

Or him.

“Ah, Laurel, you’re starting to scowl. Bad for the face, darling. Relax. Think about the scene. You’re on the deck of a private yacht in, I don’t know, the Aegean.”

“The Caribbean,” she snapped.

“What’s the matter, you got something against the Greeks? Sure. The Caribbean. Whatever does it for you. Just get into it, darling. There you are, on a ship off the coast of Madagascar.”

“Madagascar’s in Africa.”

“Jeez, give me a break, will you? Forget geography, okay? You’re on a ship wherever you want, you’re stretched out in the hot sun, using your Redwood laptop to write postcards to all your pals back home.”

“That’s ridiculous, Haskell. You don’t write postcards on a computer.”

Haskell glared at her. “Frankly, Laurel, I don’t give a flying fig what you’re using that thing for. Maybe you’re writing your memoirs. Or tallying up the millions in your Swiss bank account. Whatever. Just get that imagination working and give us a smile.”

Laurel sighed. He was right. She was a pro, this was her job, and that was all there was to it. Unfortunately she’d slept badly and awakened in a foul mood. It didn’t help that she felt like a ninny, posing in a bikini in front of a silly backdrop that simulated sea and sky. What did bikinis, sea and sky have to do with selling computers?

“Laurel, for heaven’s sake, I’m losing you again. Concentrate, darling. Think of something pleasant and hang on to it. Where you’re going to have supper tonight, for instance. How you spent your weekend. I know it’s Monday, but there’s got to be something you can imagine that’s a turn-on.”

Where she was having supper tonight? Laurel almost laughed. At the kitchen counter, that was where, and on the menu was cottage cheese, a green salad and, as a special treat, a new mystery novel with her coffee.

As for how she’d spent the weekend—if Haskell only knew. That was the last thing he’d want her to think about.

To think she’d let Damian Skouras humiliate her like that!

“Hey, what’s happening? Laurel, babe, you’ve gone from glum to grim in the blink of an eye. Come on, girl. Grab a happy thought and hang on.”

A happy thought? A right cross, straight to Damian Skouras’s jaw.

“Good!”

A knee, right where it would do the most good.

“Great!” Haskell began moving around her, his camera at his eye. “Hold that image, whatever it is, because it’s working.”

A nice, stiff-armed jab into his solar plexus.

“Wonderful stuff, Laurel. That’s my girl!”

Why hadn’t she done it? Because there’d already been too many eyes on them, that was why. Because if she’d done what she’d wanted to do, she’d have drawn the attention of everyone in the room, to say nothing of ruining Dawn’s day.

“Look up, darling. That’s it. Tilt your head. Good. This time, I want something that smolders. A smile that says your wonderful computer’s what’s made it possible for you to be out here instead of in your office, that in a couple of minutes you’ll leave behind this glorious sun and sea, traipse down to the cabin and tumble into the arms of a gorgeous man.” Haskell leaned toward her, camera whirring. “You do know a gorgeous man, don’t you?”

Damian Skouras.

Laurel stiffened. Had she said the words aloud? No, thank goodness. Haskell was still dancing around her, his eye glued to his camera.

Damian Skouras, gorgeous? Don’t be silly. Men weren’t “gorgeous.”

But he was. That masculine body. That incredible face, with the features seemingly hewn out of granite. The eyes that were a blue she’d never seen before. And that mouth, looking as if it had been chiseled from a cold slab of marble but instead feeling warm and soft and exciting as it took hers.

“Now you’ve got it!” Haskell’s camera whirred and clicked until the roll of film was done. Then he dumped the camera on his worktable and held out his hand. “Baby, that was great. The look on your face...” He sighed dramatically. “All I can say is, wow!”

Laurel put the computer on the floor, took Haskell’s hand, rose to her feet and reached for the terry-cloth robe she’d left over the back of a chair.

“Are we finished?”

“We are, thanks to whatever flashed through your head just now.” Haskell chuckled. “I don’t suppose you’d like to tell me who he was?”

“It wasn’t a ‘he’ at all,” Laurel said, forcing a smile to her lips. “It was just what you suggested. I thought about what I was having for dinner tonight.”

“No steak ever made a woman look like that,” Haskell said with a lecherous grin. “Who’s the lucky man, and why isn’t it me?”

“Perhaps Miss Bennett’s telling you the truth.”

Laurel spun around. The slightly amused male voice had come from a corner of the cavernous loft, but where? The brightly lit set only deepened the darkness that lurked in the corners.

“After all, it’s well past lunchtime.”

Laurel’s heart skipped a beat. No. No, it couldn’t be...

Damian Skouras emerged from the shadows like a man stepping out of the mist.

“Hello, Miss Bennett.”

For a minute, she could only gape at this man she’d hoped never to see again. Then she straightened, drew the robe more closely around her and narrowed her eyes.

“This isn’t funny, Mr. Skouras.”

“I’m glad to hear it, Miss Bennett, since comedy’s not my forte.”

“Laurel?” Haskell turned toward her. “You know this guy? I mean, you asked him to meet you here?”

“I do not know him,” Laurel said coldly.

Damian smiled. “Of course she knows me. You heard her greet me by name just now, didn’t you?”

“I don’t know him, and I certainly didn’t ask him to meet me here.”

Haskell moved forward. “Okay, pal, you heard the lady. This isn’t a public gallery. You want to do business with me, give my agent a call.”

“My business is with Miss Bennett.”

“Hey, what is it with you, buddy? You deaf? I just told you—”

“And I just told you,” Damian said softly. He looked at the photographer. “This has nothing to do with you. I suggest you stay out of it.”

Haskell’s face turned red and he stepped forward. “Who’s gonna make me?”

“No,” Laurel said quickly, “Haskell, don’t.”

She knew Haskell was said to have a short fuse and a propensity for barroom brawls. She’d never seen him in action but she’d seen the results, cuts and bruises and once a black eye. Not that Damian Skouras didn’t deserve everything Haskell could dish out, but she didn’t want him beaten up, not on her account.

She needn’t have worried. Even as she watched, the photographer looked into Damian’s face, saw something that made him blanch and step back.

“I don’t want any trouble in my studio,” he muttered.

“There won’t be any.” Damian smiled tightly. “If it makes you feel better, I have every right to be here. Put in a call to the ad agency, tell them my name and they’ll confirm it.”

Laurel laughed. “You’re unbelievable, do you know that?” She jabbed her hands on her hips and stepped around Haskell. “What will they confirm? That you’re God?”

Damian looked at her. “That I own Redwood Computers.”

“You’re that Skouras?” Haskell said.

“I am.”

“Don’t be a fool, Haskell,” Laurel snapped, her eyes locked on Damian’s face. “Just because he claims he owns the computer company doesn’t mean he does.”

“Trust me,” Haskell muttered, “I read about it in the paper. He bought the company.”

Laurel’s chin rose. “How nice for you, Mr. Skouras. That still doesn’t give you the right to come bursting in here as if you owned this place, too.”

Damian smiled. “That’s true.”

“It doesn’t give you the right to badger me, either.”

“I’m not badgering you, Miss Bennett. I heard there was a shoot here today, I was curious, and so I decided to come by.”

Laurel’s eyes narrowed. “It had nothing to do with me?”

“No,” Damian said, lying through his teeth.

“In that case,” she said, “you won’t mind if I...”

He caught her arm as she started past him. “Have lunch with me.”

“No.”

“The Four Seasons? Or The Water’s Edge? It’s a beautiful day out, Miss Bennett.”

“It was,” she said pointedly, “until you showed up.”

Haskell cleared his throat. “Well, listen,” he said, as he backed away, “long as you two don’t need me here...”

“Wait,” Laurel said, “Haskell, you don’t have to...”

But he was already gone. The sound of his footsteps echoed across the wooden floor. A door slammed, and then

there was silence.

“Why must you make this so difficult?” Damian said softly.

“I’m not the one making this difficult,” Laurel said coldly. She looked down at her wrist, still encircled by his hand, and then at him. “Let go of me, please.”

Damian’s gaze followed hers. Hell, he thought, what was he doing? This wasn’t his style at all. When you came down to it, nothing he’d done since he’d laid eyes on this woman was in character. The way he’d gone after her yesterday, like a bull in rut. And what he’d done moments ago, challenging that photographer like a street corner punk when the man had only been coming to Laurel’s rescue. All he’d been able to think, watching the man’s face, was, Go on, take your best shot at me, so I can beat you to a pulp.

And that was crazy. He wasn’t a man who settled things with his fists. Not anymore; not in the years since he’d worked his way up from summer jobs on the Brooklyn docks to a Park Avenue penthouse.

He wasn’t a man who went after a woman with such single-minded determination, either. Why would he, when there were always more women than he could possibly want, ready and waiting to be singled out for his attention?

That was it. That was what was keeping his interest in the Bennett woman. She was uninterested, or playing at being uninterested, though he didn’t believe it, not after the way she’d kissed him yesterday. Either way, the cure was the same. Bed her, then forget her. Satisfy this most primitive of urges and she’d be out of his system, once and for all.

But dammit, man, be civilized about it.

Damian let go of her wrist, took a breath and began again.

“Miss Bennett. Laurel. I know we got off to a poor start—”

“You’re wrong. We didn’t get off to any start. You’re playing cat-and-mouse games but as far as I’m concerned, we never even met.”

“Well, we can remedy that. Have dinner with me this evening.”

“I’m busy.”

“Tomorrow night, then.”

“Still busy. And, before you ask, I’m busy for the foreseeable future.”

He laughed, and her eyes flashed with indignation.

“Did I say something funny, Mr. Skouras?”

“It’s Damian. And I was only wondering which of us is pretending what?”

“Which of us...” Color flew into her face. “My God, what an insufferable ego you must have! Do you think this is a game? That I’m playing hard to get?”

He leaned back against the edge of the photographer’s worktable, his jacket open and his hands tucked into the pockets of his trousers.

“The thought crossed my mind, yes.”

“Listen here, Mr. Skouras...”

“Damian.”

“Mr. Skouras.” Laurel’s eyes narrowed. “Let me put this in words so simple even you’ll understand. One, I do not like you. Two, I do not like you. And three, I am not interested in lunch. Or dinner. Or anything else.”

“Too many men already on the string?”

God, she itched to slap that smug little smile from his face!

“Yes,” she said, “exactly. I’ve got them lined up for mornings, afternoons and evenings, and there’re even a couple of special ones I manage to tuck in at teatime. So as you can see, I’ve no time at all for you in my schedule.”

He was laughing openly now, amusement glinting in his eyes, and it was driving her over the edge. She would slug him, any second, or punch him in the very center of that oh-so-masculine chest...

Or throw her arms around his neck, drag his head down to hers and kiss him until he swung her into his arms and carried her off into the shadows that rimmed the lighted set...

“Laurel?” Damian said, and their eyes met.

He knew. She could see it in the way he was looking at her. He’d stopped laughing and he knew what she’d thought, what she’d almost done.

“No,” she said, and she swung away blindly. She heard him call her name but she didn’t turn back, didn’t pause.