It Happened in Sydney: In the Australian Billionaire's Arms / Three Times A Bridesmaid... / Expecting Miracle Twins

He shook his dark head. “But someone is bound to have let them know, Sonya. My parents know everybody. Most of them were at the gala. Women love to pass on gossip. You made quite an impact. But you would have known that. In fact you invited it. Which is a bit of a paradox, given your extreme reserve. Then if that weren’t enough you were wearing Lucy’s emeralds.”

“As lovely as they are, they are not the most beautiful emeralds in the world,” she said with one of her elegant shoulder shrugs.

More role playing! He wondered. At times when her composure threatened to fail her, her slight accent became more pronounced.

“You’ve worn better?” he asked, his expression frankly sardonic.

She had the foolish impulse to run down to her bedroom and take the Madonna from its hiding place. She would show it to him: diamonds, rubies, emeralds, pearls, extravagantly beautiful, extravagantly precious. The Wainwrights, for all their wealth, had nothing like that.

“Hard for you to believe but maybe I have seen better.”

“In the display windows of leading European jewellers, no doubt. The problem is, Sonya, they belonged to Lucy. My mother loved Lucy. They were great friends. It was an extraordinary thing for Marcus to offer them to you to wear.”

“I’d never contemplated he would do such a thing.” She was driven to defend herself. “He made it almost impossible for me to refuse. He was intent on my wearing them. More to the point, he would have known what effect that would have on all of you.”

His chiselled mouth tightened. “It’s time they never looked better,” he added ironically.

“I wish now I’d offered a strong refusal. So I must expect your parents will be predisposed to dislike me?”

“I’m afraid so, Sonya.” He couldn’t deny it. “And dislike is the least of it. We’re all very protective of Marcus. My father, extremely so.”

“So, it’s a catastrophe if Marcus falls in love with me?” She issued the challenge.

“The perceived catastrophe would be you don’t love him,” he retorted. “He’s thirty years your senior. We’ve been over this, Sonya.”

“I very much dislike the way you treat me.” Her green eyes turned stormy. “Is a big age difference all that important? Surely what is important is that Marcus finds happiness. All this emphasis on sex—a sex life surely isn’t the be-all and end-all of a marriage?”

“Of course it isn’t, but it’s a great help to be hungry for each other.” His vibrant voice deepened. “You don’t get it, do you? A lot of people are going to hate you, Sonya.”

“Well, I think you and they are very very stupid!” She spoke with sudden fire, rising to her feet again, her willowy back ramrod straight.

From where did this woman get her class, her style, her apparently natural air of superiority? Her previous life couldn’t have been one of tranquillity. She was forever on her guard. “I wish you to go.” She gave an imperious flourish of her hand towards the door.

“Certainly.” He rose to his splendid height, torn between anger and amusement. “You can show me out.”

“I will!” There was an extraordinary intensity in her green eyes. Her head was spinning. Her body was alive with excitements, hungers. She moved swiftly ahead of him, so swiftly the tiny bow on one of her silver ballet shoes hooked on the fringe of the rug. She pitched forward, cursing her haste, only he caught her up from behind.

His strong arms encircled her for the second time that day. Surrounded her like a force field. Her heart leapt into her throat as he pulled her back against him, both of them facing the door.

“Tell me again you hate me,” he murmured in a dark velvety voice.

The polished skin of his cheek rasped thrillingly against hers. Every ounce of strength, physical and mental, seemed to be draining out of her body. “You are hateful!” He was reading her reactions, she knew it. He was taking her to a place she had never gone before. Man, the traditional manipulator of women!

“Don’t lie to me,” he whispered against her ear.

The very air was spitting, crackling, with tension. “Don’t you realize what you’re doing?” Her mind was crashing. Her heart was crashing. For these brief moments she was beset by intolerable yearnings, abruptly made aware of the passionate red blood in her.

“David?” She tried to wrest away from him, but he held firm.

A certain contempt he felt for himself was no match for his desire for her. The heady incense of sex was an inciting vapour that hung in the air. There had to be countless instances of overwhelming temptation but he had never felt anything remotely like this before. There were only two possible options available to him. Let her go. Or give into this furious passion. She was bent forward over his arm. His arms had effectively locked her in. The tips of his fingers were pressing into the undersides of her beautiful high breasts. Still he didn’t release her. It was almost as though he were under a spell with all his senses inflamed.

Sonya was frantic to settle on a course of action. Her knees were buckling under the onslaught. Heat had turned to scorch. The delta between her legs had turned moist. “David, you mustn’t do this.”

True. True. True.

The two of them were locked into an impossible attraction. He could feel her trembling. “I know,” he said harshly, turning her to face him. It was a mistake. He had her exactly where he wanted her, only he knew he had to let her go. The pity was he couldn’t find the time or space to regain control. With a half-maddened exclamation, he brought his dark head down low over hers, furious with himself that he wanted her so badly. The voice of reason had quietened into nothingness …

His kiss was fierce. He had her beautiful body in his arms, their two bodies, male and female, connecting in an extravagantly erotic way. His strong male drive was urging him on, fuelling him with energy. At some point he realized she was having difficulty coping with such an onslaught. He lifted his mouth fractionally from hers, allowing her to take breath … only he was back to kissing her. He had never kissed a woman so passionately. He hadn’t even known he could reach such a level of wanting, needing. He was desperate for her response. His fingers twined in a handful of her hair, holding her face up to him. Her mouth was so sweetly, so silkily lush he couldn’t drag his own away.

Stop. You’ve got to stop. Or be damned.

The voice in his head had increased to a warning blast.

This is the woman Marcus has come to love.

Madness to continue to hold her, but he was losing the battling against this wild rage of emotion. He wanted to sweep her up and carry her down the corridor to her bedroom. He wanted to strip her dress from her, ablaze with the desire to feel skin on skin. He wanted to kiss and caress her all over her naked body with its satiny white skin. For minutes there it had felt so completely right.

But it was hopelessly wrong. The verdict cold and hard.

How could he see people hurt? The future of the three of them was in jeopardy. The eternal triangle. Marcus, himself and Sonya, the woman they both wanted. Yet hadn’t it been inevitable from the first moment their eyes met?

With a monumental effort he forced himself to let her go, aware he was breathing as heavily as if he had run the four-minute mile. Her beautiful hair was in total disarray, fanning out like a halo around her emotion charged face. She looked so vulnerable, so young, his heart smote him.

“Sonya, forgive me. I hadn’t meant that to happen.” They were like a pair of conspiratorial lovers filled with as much agony as ecstasy.

Her voice shook so badly, it betrayed her. Could it be possible he had deliberately engineered this, seeking her reaction? “You rich people are so ruthless!” Her distressed mind turned to tactics. “Who are you to drag me into your arms? What is your agenda? We both know you have one.” She had lost sight of her own.

“Agenda? Don’t talk rubbish.” His response was curt. “You know damned well I’m attracted to you.” He could have laughed at the sheer inadequacy of the word. Magnetized? Mesmerized? Spellbound?

“Now this is very interesting.” She was transformed into a state of the utmost hostility. “You’re attracted to me!” The entrenched defence mechanisms were back in place.

“Neither of us sought it,” he said. “Neither of us wanted it. It just happened.”

“Just happened?” she cried. “Oh, you’re very convincing.”

“So were you, just then, beautiful Sonya. Okay, I admit my mistake. I was the aggressor. But it’s too late now to make a fuss. I’m sorry if I hurt you.” His dark eyes moved slowly over her body.

She took a deep shaky breath, feeling weak and ashamed. “You are mad, mad, mad!”

“You’re so damned right,” he agreed tonelessly, his handsome face taut.

“You are leaving.”

It was a statement, not a question.

Still he turned back. “You’d prefer me to stay?” There was hard mockery in his brilliant eyes when the temptation to stay was overwhelming.

“You are leaving,” she repeated. ‘This is not your finest hour, David Wainwright.”

“I agree. I’m afraid I overestimated my powers of self-control. So how do I go about making reparation? I’m too much of a gentleman to ask you to account for your behaviour. There’s a lot of passion dammed up behind the Ice Princess façade, isn’t there, Sonya? Floods of it!”

She felt as if she were thrashing about in a cage. “I’ve had enough! I know what you’re up to. You are not exonerated. You are wanting me to fall in love with you. That is your strategy. I should have been prepared. After all, men have been preying on the weakness of women since the dawn of time. Your precious Marcus would be safe from my greedy clutches. How could dear sweet Marcus compare to you? I can’t deny your sexual power. But I can refuse to succumb to it. I’ve had no ordinary life. I’ve had years and years of—” She had to break off, sick with herself, sick with him. She took a strangled intake of breath. “Don’t ever touch me again!”

“But we can’t forget the here and now.” Some demon was in him. The way she spoke to him. The combative glitter in her emerald eyes. Who did she think she was? She affected him so powerfully in all the right ways. And all the wrong ways. Anger engulfed him. He pulled her back into his arms, outrage overcoming his natural protective feelings towards women. His sexual power? he thought grimly. What about hers?

His kiss was like a brand. Sonya tried to grit her teeth, but his tongue forced entry into her mouth. An avalanche of dark pleasure had her near collapsing against him.

Equally furiously he drew back. “I’d say you returned my kisses, you little fraud.”

Without a second’s hesitation she lifted her arm, hellbent on leaving the imprint of her fingers on his handsome, hateful face.

He caught her wrist mid-flight. “Don’t mess with me, Sonya,” he rasped.

“And blessings on you too!” she cried. “Maybe I will marry your Marcus. Outrage your entire family, Lady Palmerston who has been so kind to me, your friends, your whole circle, that witch of a Paula Rowlands. Go grab her if you want to grab a woman. She’s desperate for you to do it. But you can’t have me.”

He shot out a hand to grasp the door knob. “You sure about that?” he asked with a lick of contempt. “Are you sure you can cross me?”

She laughed, throwing up her chin. “Trust me, David Wainwright. I’ve had plenty of experience of villains.”

It was an admission that sobered him entirely. “I suggest if one shows up, Sonya, you give me a ring.” He couldn’t have been more serious.

“What use are you to me?” The stormy expression in her green eyes became uncertain.

He opened the door. “If you’re in trouble—any kind of trouble—you had better contact me,” he said. “Whatever else I am, Sonya, I’m no villain.”

CHAPTER FIVE

SONYA had never thought to see Paula Rowlands come into her shop, given Paula’s vehement promise that would never happen, but lo and behold there she was!

Another catastrophic day?

And the timing was terrible! She was having lunch with Camilla in just over a half-hour. Paula wasn’t alone. An older woman was with her, both of them stern faced, dressed to the nines. This was the mother from hell obviously. Family resemblance was apparent; the expressions were identical. They might have been called as witnesses in an unsavoury court case involving her.

Sonya acknowledged them with a calm nod, although her stomach muscles were tensing. She finished off wrapping a large bunch of stunning yellow heliconias. She had added some ginger foliage that had very interesting yellow strips for effect. She passed them across to her valued customer with a smile. “There you are, Mrs Thomas. You might use a few dark philodendron leaves if you have them at home,” she suggested. “See how it goes.”

Maureen Thomas nodded, very happy with the unusual selection. “These are splendid, thank you so much.”

“My pleasure.”

Mrs Thomas glanced in pleasant fashion at the two very uppity looking women as she walked to the door. She might have been invisible. It amused her.

Marilyn Rowlands swooped to the counter, a mother protecting her young. “Look here, young lady,” she said without preamble, “it’s wrong what you’re doing. You’re only creating serious problems for yourself.”

“Do I know you?” Sonya’s brows arched.

Breathe deeply. Keep calm.

Marilyn’s face clouded. “You know me. I’m Paula’s mother.” She might have been as easily recognisable as the Queen of England.

“Paula can’t speak for herself, then?” Sonya asked politely.

“No cheek, young lady,” Marilyn Rowlands said, thinking this girl was a whole lot more than she had been led to expect. She was amazingly beautiful, with an ultra-refined look. “I take insolence from no one,” she warned, placing a heavily be-ringed hand on the counter.

A blue cloisonne bowl full of exquisite gardenias jumped. Sonya settled it.

What was it the Buddhists intoned to calm them?

Om … om … om.

“Do I have a need for concern here, Mrs Rowlands?” she asked. “There is a security guard who patrols these shops.”

Marilyn’s coiffed head shot back in outrage. “Are you threatening me?”

“I have a perfect right to refuse service to difficult people who come into my shop, Mrs Rowlands.”

Paula belatedly entered the fray. “No one speaks to my mother like that. My father could have you out of here in no time.”

“I doubt that,” Sonya said. “You leave my husband out of this,” Marilyn Rowlands ordered, not averse to a slanging match.

Sonya was. “Mrs Rowlands, I’m asking you quietly to leave.”

Marilyn Rowlands stood her ground. “First I need you to promise me you’ll stop your little games.”

“What games exactly?’

“You know very well. You’re an opportunist.”

“So what’s in it for me?” Sonya asked.

Paula threw up her hands in triumph. “I knew it! Didn’t I tell you, Mummy?” she cried as though her low opinion of Sonya had been vindicated.

Marilyn opened her Chanel handbag, and then pulled out a cheque book. “Don’t attempt to double cross me, young lady. How much?”

“What’s the best you can offer?” Sonya asked.

“Why, you’re no better than a con woman,” Marilyn Rowlands said with an overlay of contempt.

“Five hundred thousand dollars!” Sonya named a ridiculous figure. Who cared?

Marilyn frowned ferociously. “That’s a bit steep.”

“David, or Marcus?” Sonya asked, covering up her sick feeling.

“Both. Holt adores Paula.”

“So I can’t have Marcus?”

Marilyn Rowlands frowned as if a massive migraine was coming on. “How long have you been on the make? I repeat, you can have neither. They’re way out of your league.”

“And I know for certain Holt is going to marry me,” Paula threw in for good measure.

Her mother focused on Sonya with eyes as cold and round as marbles. “Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, my last offer. It would be a fortune to someone like you. Quit the flower shop. Get yourself an education. Move on. Take the money. Shut up shop. Head for sunny Queensland. Lots of lotus eaters up there. We want you gone.” She looked in her bag, found her Mont Blanc pen. “A lot of people want you gone. Especially the Wainwright clan.”

“Listen to me a moment, Mrs Rowlands.” Sonya spoke very quietly, but with a note in her voice that stopped Marilyn Rowlands in her tracks. “I’ve been leading you on. I’m not interested in you or your money. I find this whole episode extremely distasteful. What I want you to do now is walk quietly out of my shop. And never return.”

“Excuse me!” Marilyn Rowlands gave vent to a growl she could well have learned from her Chihuahua.

“You have my word I won’t mention this visit or the offensive things you’ve said.”

Paula broke in again. Seething with jealousy. “Why don’t you go back to where you came from? Some dingy European dump, I expect.”

“Perhaps I should call the security man.”

Marilyn Rowlands put up her hand. “That’s enough, Paula,” she said sternly. “Wherever this young woman came from, it was no dump.” She looked back to Sonya. “Turn my proposal over in your head, Ms Erickson. You’re no fool. You could see the sense of it some time soon. Holt’s parents are due home soon. I’m a pussy cat compared to Holt’s mother. As for his father! You poor girl, it would be a horrendous thing to cross him. I highly recommend you don’t do it. Holt is everything in the world to them. You have no chance in the world of gaining admittance to that family, believe me.”

Sonya gave Marilyn Rowlands a straight look. “The question is do I want to gain admittance, Mrs Rowlands.

I haven’t as yet decided the answer.”

At the weekend Marcus suggested she come out on his boat. Local weather was holding gloriously calm and fine. “It hasn’t been out for ages,” he told her. “You must come.”

The “boat” turned out to be a svelte and racy 128 yacht designed years before by a famous ex-patriot who went on to become a world legend. Marcus, looking a good ten years younger in his tailored jeans and blue sports shirt beneath a gold buttoned navy blazer, showed her around the Lucille Anne with careless pride. “I used to be a good sailor in my day. Let it go. I’m sorry about that now. David is a brilliant sailor. He should take you out some time. You don’t get seasick?’

“I’m sure one couldn’t get seasick on this magnificent yacht.” She smiled.

The Lucille Anne had three decks of cabins and saloons. The main saloon, marvellously comfortable, was panelled in walnut with touches of macassar ebony. Apart from the plush master suite there were four guest staterooms. On the teak laid aft deck reached by a gleaming stainless steel stairway with a balustrade, there was casual furniture and a swimming platform Sonya wasn’t about to use any time soon.

“Lucy and I used to take it to the Mediterranean when young David was on holidays,” Marcus told her with a smile of remembrance. “We looked on him as our own child. He was a remarkable boy. A remarkable young man.”

“You love him?”

“Oh, yes!” Marcus confirmed quietly. “David is every inch the man we all wanted him to be.”

It turned out to be a relaxing day spent in total luxury. A superb seafood lunch was served on the glass-topped oak table accented in ebony in the dining saloon. Afterwards they adjoined to the aft deck with its comfortable arrangements of chairs and wide teak table that held a low black bowl filled with pink and yellow hibiscus.

“You look happy.” Marcus spoke in such a deep tender voice it was a clear giveaway. Sonya was wearing navy jeans with a navy and white T-shirt, white sneakers on her feet. A casual outfit on a beautiful young woman with a willowy body. She could have earned a fortune modelling clothes. Apparently that held little allure for her. She was seemingly content in her world of flowers.

Sonya turned her head lazily. “I am. You’re lovely company, Marcus. Thank you so much for asking me.”

“I want to do everything you want, Sonya,” he announced, in a fervent voice. “And I want to do it now. I know you don’t love me. I couldn’t ask for that, but you are fond of me?”

Sonya sat straight, her heart thudding. This was an opportunity most women would give their eye teeth for. Only she wasn’t at all sure she was one of them. It wasn’t an everyday event to be proposed to by a millionaire. Some would be ecstatic. Only she had developed a taste of passion, shameful though the memory was. Affection was at the heart of her very real feelings for Marcus. Never passion.

Shove all thoughts of David Wainwright from your mind. Do it now, her inner voice instructed.

Marilyn Rowlands had made a point of telling her she would never fit into David Wainwright’s world. In all probability she had spoken the truth. His parents would have their own ideas about their adored son’s future.

“No, let me finish,” Marcus said, sensing her perturbation. “I’m a rich man. But with no woman in my life to love, I might as well be dirt poor. I fell in love with you the instant I walked into your shop.”

“Marcus! “ She held out her hands like a supplicant, palms up. How could she hurt this gentle man? He wanted her. More importantly he could protect her if ever the time came. She knew Laszlo wouldn’t rest until he had tracked her down; made certain she wasn’t in possession of the Andrassy Madonna. She had lived with the fear he would eventually find her. He could already be closing in.

“Please listen,” Marcus begged. “You don’t talk about yourself. In my experience people who have suffered deep traumas never talk. Maybe they can’t. I know you have a story, but I’m content to wait until you’re ready to tell me about it. I don’t care what it is. I don’t care what you’ve done—if indeed you’ve done anything. I want to marry you, Sonya. I want to look after you. There is still time for me to father a child. You will want for nothing.”

Except passionate love.

Is that so bad? Don’t you read the headlines, girl? Celebrities passionately in love one moment suddenly spitting venom and selling their stories to the magazines. They move on to someone else to fuel their tank. I ask you, what is love? Where does the love go?

“You don’t have to answer me now. I can see I’ve stunned you. You can have all the time you want.”

She had to control a desire to weep. “Marcus, you’ve honoured me.” At the same time she couldn’t help thinking maybe what he really wanted was a daughter. This man was terribly lonely.

Marcus must have guessed her thoughts. “Sonya, I love you as a woman,” he said. “A beautiful, gifted woman, and most hopefully the mother of our child. You needn’t fear I couldn’t give you a child. My poor little Lucy couldn’t get pregnant. She was never strong. Lucy would want me to be happy. She was the sweetest human being.”

All sorts of emotions tugged at her. She had to remember what her life had been. Marcus could change all that. She spoke earnestly. “Marcus, your family might very well see me as an opportunist. You’re a rich man. You’re years older than I am. They would question that.”

“Let them!” he said scornfully. “As long as you don’t question it. I don’t give a damn what anyone thinks. I’m in love with you. I don’t even care David has his concerns. That’s how much I want you.”

So David, traitor, has spoken of his concerns!

“No Wainwright has power over me, Sonya,” Marcus said firmly. “You, however, do.”

Say something. Say something. Silence will give him hope.