Page 25 of Consequences of Their Wedding Charade
‘I don’t think anyone could call two metres a“head start.”’ But she was laughing as they headed inside the hotel, where various employees rushed to assist them in shedding coats and ski boots. ‘And who’s to say I didn’tletyou win? Hmm?’ She had half turned to look at him. She almost felt that she’d imagined that pensive expression on his face moments before because he was back to normal now, grinning, eyebrows raised.
‘I mean,’ she teased huskily, one hundred per cent of her straining towards him, caught in the moment, ‘everyoneknows that men enjoy thinking that they can win at everything, including skiing down black runs...’
‘Is that a fact...?’
He glanced to one side, moving those green eyes away from hers just for a moment.
She felt breathless, wired. He’d never looked sexier than when he’d been hurtling down that steep gradient slope just ahead of her, every muscle in his body ultra-confident in his own abilities. She could come close to catching him because she was such a proficient skier, but he would always outpace her.
This was what having fun felt like. She could go on dates with guys who all sounded perfectly suitable and were perfectly nice, but Curtis Hamilton was top of the leader board when it came to fun and excitement and making her heart beat so fast it felt as if it could burst out of her ribcage.
And now, as he turned to look at her, eyes boring into her until she felt heady and even more breathless, she felt his intense focus and purpose like the feathery brush of a finger against her skin.
He was going to kiss her. She knew it. She saw the way his breathing changed and the way his eyes darkened and when he lowered his head she was, oh, so ready for him.
She inched closer and arched up and the cool of his lips against hers was like nectar. Without having to think about it, she reached up and clasped her fingers together behind his neck, pulling him towards her. His tongue slid against hers and he shifted, bringing their bodies closer, deepening his kiss.
There was no one else around them. The entire world had disappeared, leaving just the two of them, immersed in a never-ending kiss.
It was rudely interrupted by a woman’s voice. Even so, it took a few seconds for Jess to register Caitlin’s presence next to them and it was with reluctance that she flattened her hands against his chest and took a shaky step back.
Several things came together in her head in the space of time it took to break away from that devastating kiss and turn to a manifestly upset Caitlin.
The first was that he had obviously seen the other woman to the side and had engineered a kiss because that was what they had agreed... Keep up a show so that no ugly scenes with a volatile ex spoiled what should be the happiest day of John and Philippa’s life.
And so he had kissed her.
But the second thing to enter her head was that she had kissed him back with every ounce of pent-up passion and desire inside her. She had thrown herself into that kiss as though her life depended on it and what, exactly, had been the message she had sent to him?
Definitely not the message that she was reluctantly resigned to having to display some kind of physical show of affection for the sake of appearances, lest his ex ruin the fun with her antics.
In a daze, she took a back seat while Curtis, polite to a fault, had a hushed and rapid conversation with Caitlin and then managed to steer her towards the grand front door, where a barely visible nod to one of the uniformed men on duty had the desirable effect and she was politely but firmly escorted out of the hotel and into whatever taxi happened to be waiting outside.
Jess had barely taken in a word of what had been said between them.
‘I can’t deal with this, Curtis.’
His eyes were still dark, still slumberous, still burning with what felt very much like real desire as they rested on her, but Jess wasn’t going to fall prey to any illusions on that score. She’d made enough of a fool of herself already.
‘You won’t have to,’ he told her huskily. ‘She won’t be around for the wedding.’
CHAPTER SIX
THIRTY-SIXHOURSOFunremitting battle against temptation, Curtis thought.
He’d managed to ensure Caitlin disappeared back to the UK, suitable excuses made to the host and hostess. No fuss, nothing to see here, a discreet exit, leaving the bride and groom-to-be free to enjoy their nuptials without asking any awkward questions or thinking, in any way, that her departure had anything to do with them at all.
Having sleepwalked into an engagement with her on the back of an outrageous and unforgivable lie, he had gone against all better judgement to keep open some lines of communication because he’d felt sorry for her, because, in a strange way, he’d understood.
But enough was enough.
He’d been chilled to the bone by the very real prospect of being stalked and, worse, for Jess to suffer the fallout because of him, because he’d been loose in his dealings with his ex.
‘You need more intensive therapy,’he had told her coldly,‘and that will mean a residential facility. I will foot the bill, however long it takes, but you need to get your life back on track and eliminate me from it. Sadly, should you not do so...’
Had there been any need to go into details? Not really. He wielded great power and that power stretched into all sorts of circles, ones that could impact her in a great many ways, and he had tabulated a few of them for her. He had seen comprehension dawning in her eyes.
She had a job for starters, thanks to him. A nine-to-five job, he had reckoned in the wake of their breakup, would confer a certain amount of stability and open her eyes to the process of co-operation and working with different people. She’d been in fashion, and fashion editing had been right up her street.
