Vows & a Vengeful Groom / Pride & a Pregnancy Secret: Vows & a Vengeful Groom

“Things change in ten years,” he said now.

“Some things. Others stay the same.”

Stationary at a traffic light, Ric leaned his forearm on the wheel and turned to study her profile more closely. She’d tied her hair back, worn minimal makeup and jewellery and one of those blend-into-the-background dresses whose only plus was the fact it ended short of her knees. Rather than diminishing her beauty, the austere look drew all attention to her face. With that amazing, contrary combination of fire and ice, of strength and vulnerability, of have-me mouth and hands-off eyes, Kim Blackstone would never blend into any background.

“What hasn’t changed?” he asked softly.

For a moment he thought she would ignore his question, but then she rolled her head against the seat and the answer was there in her eyes, in that moment, in the crackle of sexual awareness.

This hasn’t changed.

From the moment she’d strutted into his life, fresh from a two-year apprenticeship with a diamond master in Antwerp and bursting with a passionate impatience to overhaul the marketing of Janderra’s rare coloured diamonds, she’d lit his senses with white-hot desire. For seven and a half weeks she’d kept him at bay with her sharp tongue and cutting lines. That hadn’t changed, either. The same distrust, the same defence mechanisms, the same defiance that put her in the beige background dress instead of the stunner Sonya had described her buying today.

The light changed to green and Ric urged the Maserati forward. The engine’s smooth growl reverberated low in his belly. If Kim didn’t feel threatened by this undiminished sexual spark between them, then she wouldn’t feel a need to employ those obvious defences. She was working to keep him at arm’s length, he realised with a delayed jolt of perception. She tried to keep her own desires in check.

First time around he’d allowed her time and space while he enjoyed the challenge, the pursuit, the anticipation. This time the stakes were higher. He wasn’t playing games; he was playing for keeps.

From the corner of his eye he caught the almost imperceptible lift of her chin. Defence mechanism number one. A precursor to speech, used when preparing for verbal battle.

Deep inside Ric smiled in anticipation. Bring it on, babe. I’m ready.

“I may not have learned how to cook,” she said, circling back to her earlier comment about kitchen helpfulness. “But I have changed in other ways.”

“How?”

“I’m more cautious now. I don’t make snap decisions. I weigh my options so I can make an informed choice.”

With the position on the Blackstone’s board, for example. That’s where she wanted to lead the conversation; that’s why she’d taken her time in choosing her words so cleverly. A pity and a waste, since he wasn’t ready to go there. They were within five minutes of their destination and an inevitable disruption. Their long, involved and probably heated discussion was for later, without interruption, so he let her leading comment take this conversation in another direction. “Such as deciding to wear that dress—” his gaze swept over her before returning to the road “—instead of the new one?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“The new dress you picked out in Double Bay this afternoon.”

“Sonya,” she said on an accusatory note. “I can’t believe she told you about that!”

“Not nearly enough, as it happens. Why don’t you fill in the gaps.”

“You want to hear about our shopping expedition?”

The incredulous look on her face was priceless. Ric stifled a grin. “I want to hear about the dress and why you decided not to wear it.” He let his eyes drift over her in lazy speculation. “Was it too short? Too low-cut? Too revealing?”

“All of those things,” she replied without missing a beat.

“Then I can’t wait to see you in it,” he murmured.

“I doubt that will happen.”

“Spoilsport.”

The start of a smile lurked around the corners of her mouth but she looked away quickly, peering out the side window in sudden rapt interest. He noticed the exact second her pseudo-interest turned real. Her shoulders stiffened, her head snapped around. “Where are you taking me?”

“My place. Is that a problem?”

“You said dinner. I assumed you meant at a restaurant.”

“I could get a table at Icebergs if you’d prefer,” he said mildly. “Although I can’t promise we’ll have privacy to talk or that our tête-à-tête won’t appear in a society column tomorrow.”

Indecision ghosted across her expression.

“Which wouldn’t be all bad,” he mused. “It’d give them something to talk about other than Howard and Marise.” Flicking on an indicator, he pulled over to the side of the road and reached for his mobile phone. “I can call ahead and secure a table if you don’t mind being noticed dining with me. Or we can eat at my place, as planned, with the privacy to talk business and no risk of interruption.

“Your decision, Kim. What’s it to be?”

Six

Perrini was too damn clever by half! Kimberley quietly simmered while she chose privacy, just as he’d set her up to do. They had business to discuss and if he tried baiting her again as he’d done over the dress and just now over the restaurant, then she might feel inclined to throw something at him. She would prefer if that didn’t appear in any society columns, thank you very much.

Which didn’t mean she felt comfortable returning to the house where they’d spent so many nights and weekends of their affair, plus their short, drama-filled ten days of marriage. During the days they’d worked side by side with cool, professional restraint, and in the evenings they’d driven into this street, this driveway, this garage, and torn into each other with a fevered passion that could not wait a second longer.

“You’re not nervous about coming here?”

Kimberley blinked herself out of the minefield of memories. Carefully she relaxed her fisted fingers and moistened her lips. “Should I be?”

“I don’t see why.”

But there was a dangerous glint of heat in his eyes as they rested briefly on her mouth, and she wondered if he, too, was recalling the times they hadn’t made it upstairs with all their clothes on. When they’d slaked their hunger for each other here in his car, or in the foyer leading off the garage, or in the slick elevator that glided between the three floors of this uniquely designed contemporary town house.

“Do you live here alone?” she asked.

The question had been brewing, unacknowledged and unspoken, ever since the day by the pool when he’d told her he still lived here. Now seemed the time to ask. Before he took her inside.

“At the moment,” he said after a beat of pause, “yes.”

Now, what was that supposed to mean? Had there been a live-in lover, one who’d recently packed her bags and departed? Or did he have someone waiting in the wings, all primed and ready to park her stilettos under his bed?

The thought crept up like a thief and ambushed her with unbidden images. Perrini with a faceless, nameless woman. Her hands sliding inside his shirt. Her mouth opening to his kiss. Her arms pulling him down to the bed.

No. Kimberley shut down the visuals with a vicious shake of her head. And while he opened the passenger door and ushered her from the car to the foyer and into the elevator, she struggled to tamp down the impact of her irrational possessiveness. She had no right to it. She had no claim on him.

Business, she reminded herself. It’s not about us.

But in the confines of the closet-size lift, she became hyper-aware of the whipcord tension in his body and the heat emanating from his skin despite the layers of fine Italian tailoring separating their shoulders, their arms, their hips. Those ten-year-old memories of greedy mouths and impatient hands and swiftly shed clothes worked back into her consciousness, blurring the imagery until the nameless woman’s face became hers.

Her hands, her mouth, her arms drawing him onto the bed and into her body.

“Hungry?”

The velvet murmur of his voice spent a moment meandering through her fantasy before Kimberley snapped her errant mind back into focus. “Yes, I am.” Cool. Somehow she managed to sound very cool. “What are we eating?”

“Seafood. For expedience I ordered ahead. I hope you don’t mind.”

“That would depend on what you ordered.”

“Blue swimmer crab. Roasted scallops. Ocean trout. Catch of the day with aioli and Murray River salt.”

Although her taste buds had started to shimmy in anticipation, Kimberley merely nodded. The real test was in the final course. “And for dessert?”

“Ah, so you still start your order from the bottom of the menu? That hasn’t changed?”

She tilted her head, enough that she could favour him with a silly-question look.

Amusement kicked up the corner of his mouth. “Zabaglione and Roberto’s signature gelato.”

“Which is?”

“Good. Very good.”

Her taste buds broke into a dance just as the elevator doors slid open at the top level. And she realised with a jolt of shock how little notice she’d taken of her surroundings downstairs. Here the changes hit her full in the face.

Ten years ago the house had been newly built and decorated in stark white to play up the clean lines and irregular angles. But with the open plan and abundant windows, light had bounced off every wall with blinding impact. Many times she’d teased him about the need to don sunglasses before entering his house.

Not anymore.

Evening sunlight still beamed through the glass doors that opened onto a large curved balcony, but the effect had been softened with earthy tones of cream and pale salmon and rich moss green. Kimberley paused in the centre of the living room to take in all the changes. In the dining room one feature wall was painted with a mottled sponging of peachy cream. The artwork, the plants, the polished timber floors and terracotta sofas packed with plumped cushions, even the gilded shades on the unusual light fittings, all complemented the warm palette.

She finished her slow 360-degree inspection to find Perrini watching her from behind the kitchen bar. A bottle of wine and two glasses sat before him on the waist-high counter.

“What do you think?” he asked. “Did I get it right?”

There was something in his stillness, in the deliberate casualness of his question, that caused her heart to thump hard against her ribs.

He’d listened. The night she lay on one of the matched pair of snow-white couches with her head in his lap and described how she would decorate this area. He’d remembered.

She completed another turn as if she was still making up her mind, and then she lifted her arms and let them fall with the same fake casualness. “It works for me. Do you like it?”

“Overall, yes.” The hawklike intensity of his expression softened as he switched his attention to opening the wine. “I could have done without the peachy colours but Madeleine insisted.”

Kimberley’s heart stopped for a beat. Of course he hadn’t done it himself. How stupid to imagine him matching colours and cushions with her long-ago Sunday musings.

She wandered over to inspect a large abstract canvas, then on to the glass doors where she stared blindly out at the view. “Madeleine?” she asked.

“The decorator. She had her own interpretations on the brief I gave her.”

Not the live-in lover stewing in her imagination, but a professional. It was nothing personal, nothing to do with Kimberley at all, which was a very good thing. It was bad enough that she still felt an intense sexual pull every time he got too near, she didn’t need the emotional resonance of discovering he’d decorated to her specifications, to please her, to welcome her home. It was much better to acknowledge that he’d taken her overall idea and used it to inspire the overhaul. She couldn’t be disappointed. She would not allow herself that weakness.

When Perrini arrived at her side and handed her a glass of white wine, she thanked him with a smile. “Even if you painted the walls lime-green, it wouldn’t matter. This—” she raised her glass to indicate the view “—would always be the focus.”

He opened the doors and Kimberley wandered out to stand at the wrought-iron railing. Low down to her left Sydney’s most famous beach was littered with people despite the late hour. Some swam, some strolled, others sat on the golden slice of sand and scanned the horizon, as Kimberley did now, for a sailboat or a cruiser or a cargo ship chugging out to sea.

It wasn’t quiet, thanks to the traffic on Campbell Parade and the summer tourists cruising the beach promenade—but Kimberley welcomed the sounds and sensations that regaled her body, even the sensual buzz when Perrini came to stand close by her side. The past week sequestered at Miramare and focussed so completely on the plane crash and its deadly consequences had numbed her to the wider world. She’d needed to get out, somewhere like this, a place that breathed life into her senses.

“I love this aspect,” she said with soft reverence. “Not to mention the view.”

“Is that why you bought your town house in One Tree Hill?” he asked after a moment.

Unable to make the connection, Kimberley shook her head. “What do you mean?”

“Its similarity to this place. The high aspect, the view, the architecture.”

“I don’t think they’re even close to alike. My total floor space would fit on one of your levels with room to spare. And as for the view—” she expelled a breath that was part wry laughter, part disbelief “—how can you compare? You have a version of this postcard panorama from every window. I have to stand on tiptoes in my highest heels to get the tiniest glimpse of Manukau Harbour, and that’s only from my deck.”

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