Miranda Lee – One Passionate Night: His Bride for One Night / One Night at Parenga / His One-Night Mistress (страница 3)

Charlotte swiftly brushed that no longer relevant thought aside.

She was getting married. Tomorrow. And in considerable style.

Charlotte hoped Gary wouldn’t mind. He’d requested a simple wedding. No church. Just a celebrant, and only a small guest list. He himself had no close family; his parents had been killed in a tragic house fire when he was a teenager.

But Charlotte’s father hadn’t waited thirty-three years to give his youngest daughter away in anything less than a white wedding with all the trimmings.

Secretly, Charlotte had been glad her father had insisted on this. Her two older sisters had both been beautiful brides with white wedding gowns, and Charlotte hadn’t really wanted to settle for anything less. The church part she’d managed to skirt around, her parents reluctantly agreeing to a celebrant. But everything else was to be very traditional, complete with a proper reception, a three-tiered wedding cake, the bridal waltz. The lot!

Charlotte hadn’t informed Gary of any of this. She reasoned that once he was here, she could explain that it wasn’t her doing. It was her parents’ idea. And it wasn’t as though he had to pay for any of it. Her father had footed the bill, dear sweet man that he was. All Gary had to do was be fitted with a rental tux today—a fitting had been arranged for this afternoon—then show up in it tomorrow.

Charlotte didn’t think that was too much to ask. Not of a man who really loved her. And he did. He must really love her, otherwise he wouldn’t be coming all this way to marry her. Or have sent her such a lovely sapphire and diamond engagement ring.

Just the sight of it on her ring finger was reassuring.

Half an hour later, Charlotte was pacing back and forth outside the arrivals gate to which Gary’s flight had been allotted, her eyes darting continuously to the ramp down which her fiancé would walk any moment now. His plane had only touched down ten minutes earlier—it had been late landing—but business class passengers were rarely held up in Customs.

She couldn’t stand still. Nerves had her stomach in knots. But was she excited or afraid, afraid that she was about to rush into marriage with a man she hadn’t even been to bed with?

Still, maybe that was a good thing. She’d eventually slept with most of her other boyfriends and none of them had proposed marriage. Perhaps because she’d always ultimately disappointed them, sexually. Her lack of enjoyment seemed to bother her boyfriends more than it did her.

She’d been totally honest with Gary and he’d reassured her he wasn’t marrying her because she was a sexpot, but because she was beautiful and warm and sweet and wanted what he wanted. A family. At the same time, he seemed extremely confident that everything would turn out fine on their wedding night.

Charlotte hoped so, hoped that this time she would feel the earth move the way Louise was always talking about.

If she didn’t? Well…as Gary said, they would work on it together.

There! There he was!

She started jumping up and down, waving and smiling.

‘Here! Here! Over here!’

When he turned his darkly handsome head from where he’d been looking over to one side, Charlotte’s hand froze mid-air, her smile instantly fading.

Because it wasn’t Gary at all. Just someone who looked like him. In broad strokes, that was. About the same height. Gary was over six feet. Similar hair. Dark brown. Short. No parting. Rather similar in profile as well. High forehead, strong nose, square jaw.

But when this man stared straight at her, Charlotte could see his eyes were nothing like Gary’s. This man’s were deeper set, and very penetrating. Not blue, either, but brown. Almost black when they narrowed underneath his dark straight brows.

They were narrowed right now. On her.

Never in her life had Charlotte been looked at the way this man was looking at her. The focused intensity in his gaze was nothing short of blistering.

When he started pushing his luggage trolley towards her, Charlotte’s arm dropped back down to clutch her shoulder bag across her chest in a strangely defensive fashion. Despite her stomach curling with embarrassment, she found she could not look away from him, but kept on staring back into those darkly magnetic eyes.

‘Did Beth send you to meet me?’ he asked as he ground to a halt in front of her, his accent not dissimilar to Gary’s.

Dear God, Gary! In her fluster, she’d forgotten all about him.

‘I’m sorry, no,’ she apologised swiftly, dragging her eyes away from the disturbing stranger to see if Gary had made an appearance. ‘I don’t know anyone named Beth. I… I thought you were my fiancé for a moment,’ she rattled on, her eyes agitatedly searching the now constant line of exiting passengers.

But Gary wasn’t amongst them.

She glanced back at the American, who was still standing there. He was still staring at her as well, but now with an air of curiosity, whereas before his eyes had carried…what, exactly?

She wasn’t sure.

‘You…um… look like him. Sort of.’ In truth, Gary was not quite in this man’s league. Gary was good-looking. This man was heart-thumpingly handsome.

‘Aah,’ he said. ‘I see.’

The obvious disappointment in his voice and eyes rattled Charlotte. What had he been thinking? Or hoping?

‘We’re getting married tomorrow,’ she added, for goodness knew what reason. She’d already explained why she’d waved and smiled at him.

‘Lucky man,’ he murmured, his gaze moving slowly over her from head to toe.

Suddenly she knew what she’d seen in his eyes earlier, and why he’d sounded disappointed just now.

Charlotte had encountered desire in lots of men before, but never had the message been delivered with such high voltage, and by such incredible eyes. They weren’t just beautiful, but intelligent and intriguing, and very sexy.

Her feminine antennae quivered as his message was received once more, the current charging through her veins heating her body from the inside out.

Charlotte could not have been more shocked when her face actually flamed. Why, she hadn’t blushed in years!

‘If you’ll excuse me,’ she said, and forced her legs to carry her away from his disturbing presence. But even as she went back to searching for Gary, her mind still lingered on the handsome stranger. Who was he? What was he? And what was he doing here in Sydney?

CHAPTER THREE

DANIEL was almost grateful when she gave him the brush-off. What on earth had he been doing, staring at her like that?

Hitting on women had never been his style. On top of that, she was a blonde. One of the bottled variety. Daniel had an aversion to bottled blondes.

To be fair to himself, she wasn’t the usual bottle blonde, the kind his father married. The kind Daniel often met in LA, the ones whose over-bleached, over-teased hair was not the only thing false about them.

Despite the dark roots, this girl’s hair was sleek and simply styled, falling in a straight curtain halfway down her back. There was nothing even remotely false about her face, either, which was as beautiful as it was refreshingly natural. If she was wearing make-up, it had been applied with a light hand. Her skin didn’t need enhancement, anyway, being fine and clear and olive-toned. Her eyes were just as naturally beautiful. Big and blue as the Pacific, with the longest, darkest lashes.

She did have lip gloss on. Her lips had definitely looked extra shiny when he’d stared at them. Shiny and wet and full. The kind of lips made for kissing, and for being kissed by, and for…

Daniel pulled himself up sharply and whirled away from where he’d been standing, still staring after her. It had been a long time since he’d been knocked for six by a woman at first sight. And an even longer time since he had no chance at all in being successful with one he fancied as much as he’d instantly fancied this one.

An intelligent man had to know when a female target was worth pursuing, and when she was not. This girl was getting married tomorrow. He couldn’t expect her to fall at his feet. Couldn’t expect her to respond to him in any way.

Which perhaps was what was still bothering him. Because she had responded to him, hadn’t she? He’d seen the flash of sexual connection in her eyes. He’d spotted the telling tension in her body language. Sensed that she’d been as startled by her attraction to him as he’d been by his for her.

The way she’d blushed when he’d looked her up and down might have been embarrassment. But he suspected not. She was a woman, not some naive young girl.

No, she’d responded to him all right, which was a source of great irritation.

Daniel was not a man who liked to lose at anything in life. But this time, he had to accept defeat gracefully. Had to ignore the signs of mutual attraction and move on. Literally.

With a sigh, he started searching the crowded arrivals area for his sister, deliberately making sure he didn’t go back the way the blonde had gone. The last thing he wanted was to see her throwing her arms around some other man. His male ego was still smarting. His male body wasn’t feeling crash hot, either.

But Beth was nowhere to be found. Yet she should have been here. The plane had been late enough landing.