Bride at Briar's Ridge

He saw the shadow that crossed her face. ‘Sounds like this vacation is more like an escape?’ He was following a gut feeling. Chuck always did say he was good at interpreting vibes. Besides, one could learn crucial things through instinct and gut feelings.

She said nothing. She reached out to pick another flower, twirling it beneath her small straight nose. ‘You told me you were interested in the Callaghan place—Briar’s Ridge?’ She changed the subject.

He nodded. ‘Very much so. I have Alana’s okay; now I have to get her brother’s. I only met Kieran today, and we haven’t had time to talk. I heard he’s become a real someone in the art world, and I know Alex is involved. Guy and I went to the same school, where he was sort of like my mentor. Anyway, he kept me in check.’

‘You were a bad boy?’ She looked up into his undeniably handsome, charismatic face.

He gave a twisted smile, deepening those dimples. ‘In some ways, yes.’

‘I have observed your dark side,’ she commented, pausing to admire a stone cupid. Someone had placed a mixed bouquet of flowers in the cupid’s lap. A romantic touch.

‘Now, how the heck did you manage to do that?’ he asked wryly.

‘A woman’s instinct,’ she said, turning to allow her eyes to roam his face.

‘Maybe you would have made a good psychologist, had you followed that path.’

‘Maybe I would. Do…do you have a girlfriend? Someone you care about?’

‘Is this simple curiosity, Daniela?’ His silvery green gaze, made even more startling against his darkly tanned skin, openly mocked her.

She walked on, picking up pace. ‘All right, don’t tell me.’

He caught her up easily. ‘Like most guys, I’ve had plenty of girlfriends, but no one in particular. Tell me about the guy in London. The one you’re on the run from.’

She felt a violent thrill of shock. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘It would explain why you’re so wary.’ He spoke tautly, angry at the very thought some guy might have been hassling her.

‘You’re way off the mark.’ She wasn’t going to tell him he had scored a bullseye.

‘Am I? You’re a beautiful woman. A lot of beautiful women feed on their own self-regard. At least that’s been my experience. You’re not like that. You don’t see your beauty as something special, more a danger. Am I right?’

What else had he learned about her? ‘Maybe I’m beautiful only by your set of criteria?’ she suggested evasively.

‘Nonsense,’ he clipped off. ‘You’d warrant a double take anywhere. Unfortunately it’s in some men’s nature to hunt beautiful women.’

She stood looking up at him, trying to hide her emotions. ‘Why are you speaking to me like this? You don’t know anything about me.’

‘You don’t know anything about me,’ he countered. ‘Yet you said I have a dark side. I assure you, hunting beautiful women is not my style. So you can relax. I had a mother I adored. I would hate to throw a scare into any woman.’

She believed him. He would never do so deliberately. ‘You said had?’ She changed the subject again. ‘Your mother is dead?’

‘Breast cancer.’ His tone, considering how he felt, was extraordinarily level—even matter-of-fact.

It didn’t fool her. ‘And after she died you didn’t know how you were going to go on with life?’ she suggested gently. ‘You must have been a boy?’

There was definitely something between the two of them now. ‘Are you deliberately turning the tables, Daniela? I was twelve, my brother Charles eighteen months older. Sad, sad times for both of us.’

She kept her eyes on him, fascinated and disturbed by his dark good looks and magnetic presence. ‘And your father? Was he able to offer much love and support? He, too, must have been devastated.’

‘Oh, he was!’ He could hear the cutting cynicism in his own voice. ‘He remarried barely two years later.’

‘A younger woman?’ She felt his world of anger, pain and bitter resentment.

‘Young women are nectar to older men,’ he said with a twisted smile, ‘but my dad’s second wife, Valerie, was in the same age group. She’d been a long-time acquaintance of both my parents. Cheryl, on the other hand, is around Chuck’s age.’

‘I see,’ she said quietly. ‘It sounds like Cheryl is the wrong kind of woman?’ The raven loop of hair had fallen forward on his tanned forehead again. She saw it annoyed him, but she thought it very dashing.

‘It sounds like your womanly instincts are far too acute,’ he drawled. ‘Are you going to dance with me?’

She shook her head and walked on. Guests were spread out across the magnificent grounds, all laughing and talking, thoroughly enjoying their beautiful surroundings and the magic of the day. ‘No.’

‘Isn’t that a bit harsh?’

‘Maybe,’ she said calmly. ‘But I have serious reservations about becoming too friendly with you, Carl Mastermann.’

That didn’t surprise him. He had concerns himself. ‘Well, at least you don’t fool around. You get right to the point. Is it because I have a dark side?’

Now she did smile at him. The first real smile he had received. It was so beautiful it took his breath away. ‘Because you also have a light side,’ she said. ‘Maybe it’s even brilliant on occasions. You’re a mixture of both.’

‘And this makes it impossible for us to be friends?’

‘Is that what this is? Friendship that is passing between us?’ she asked with a gentle air of melancholy.

‘Maybe not.’ Both of them seemed caught in a whirlpool. ‘But if I’m a mix, so are you.’

‘No, no!’ She shook her blond hair so the heavier side fell forward to hide her profile. ‘I have always been a very happy person, much cared for by a loving family.’

‘Only someone came along to change all that?’

It was a troubling challenge. He saw too much. ‘Let’s drop it, shall we?’

‘Certainly,’ he assented, ‘as it clearly bothers you. Just one condition. You break your newly established set of rules and dance with me. It need only be one time.’

In an instant he knew she was going to consent.

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