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Then, with a little demur, she slipped her hands away and gave a tiny shake of her head. ‘It’s the gown,’ she said. ‘It’s a work of art in its own right.’
‘Then it needs a toast of its own!’ Nikos laughed.
A servant was hovering, waiting to open the champagne, and Nikos nodded his assent. A moment later he was handing Diana a softly beaded flute and raising his own.
‘To your gown—to its exquisite beauty.’ He paused. A smile lurked at his mouth, and his eyes were not on the gown. They were on Diana. ‘And to you, Diana, my most exquisitely beautiful bride.’
She gazed up at him, her own glass motionless, and met his dark, lustrous eyes, so warm, so speaking...
And suddenly out of nowhere, out of the soft desert night that was slowly sweeping towards them from the east, as the burning sun sank down amongst the golden dunes, she felt a sense of helplessness take her over. She hadn’t wanted to come to this place—this jewel-like desert hideaway, this royal love-nest dedicated to sensual love—but she was here. Here and now—with this man who, alone of all the men she had ever encountered, seemed to have the ability to make her shimmer with awareness of his overpowering masculinity.
She simply could not bring herself to remember that he was the man who was saving Greymont for her, to whom she was to be only a society wife, playing the role that he wanted her to play at his side.
How could she think of things like new roofs for Greymont and rewiring, restoring stonework and all the bills that came with that? How could she think of being just a useful means for Nikos Tramontes to move in circles he had not been born into? And how could she think of things like marriages of convenience that were nothing more than business deals?
It was impossible to think of such things! Not standing here, in this priceless precious gown, with a glass of vintage champagne between her fingers as she stood looking out over the darkening desert, miles and miles from anywhere, alone with Nikos.
So she raised her glass to him, took a first sip, savouring the delicate mousse of the champagne.
‘To you, Nikos,’ she said softly. ‘Because I would not be here were it not for you.’ Her eyes held his still. ‘And, as you say, this is an experience of a lifetime...’
Something changed in his eyes—a fleck of gold like flame, deep within. ‘It is indeed, my most beautiful bride.’
A frisson went through her and she was powerless to stop it. Powerless to do anything but look back at him and smile. Drink him in. Her eyes swept over him. He was wearing narrow-cut evening trousers, but not a dinner jacket. His dress shirt, made of silk, was tieless, open at the neck, his cuffs turned back and fastened with gold links that caught the last of the setting sun and exposed his strong wrists.
He looked cool, elegant and—she gulped silently—de
vastatingly attractive. His freshly shaved jawline, the sable hair feathering at his nape and brow, the strong planes of his features and those dark, deep-set, inky-lashed eyes that were meeting her gaze, unreadable and yet with a message in them that she could not deny.
Did not wish to deny...
Emotion fluttered in her again. How far away she was from the reality of her life—how immersed she was, here, in this fairytale place, so remote, so private, so utterly different from anything she had known.
It’s just me and Nikos—just the two of us.
The real world seemed very far away.
She felt a quiver in her blood, her pulse, felt sudden breathlessness. Something was happening to her and she did not know what.
Except that she did...
She took another mouthful of the rare-vintage champagne, feeling the rush of effervescence in the costly liquid create an answering rush in herself. She felt as light as air suddenly, breathless.
She became aware that the silent-footed servants were there again, placing tempting delicacies on golden platters on an inlaid table, bowing and then seeming to disappear as noiselessly as they had appeared.
‘How do they do that?’ Diana murmured as she leant forward to pick at the delicate slivers of what, she did not know—knew only that they tasted delicious and melted in her mouth like fairy food.
‘I suspect a magic lamp may be involved,’ Nikos answered dryly, and Diana laughed. Then he smiled again—a smile that was only for her—and met her eyes. He raised his glass again. ‘To an extraordinary experience,’ he said, his slight nod indicating their surroundings.
She raised her own glass and then turned her attention to the darkening desert. ‘I shall certainly remember this all my life,’ she agreed. Her gaze swept on upwards. ‘Oh, look—stars!’
‘There’ll be a whole lot more later on,’ Nikos said. ‘For now, let’s just watch the night arrive.’
She moved beside him, careful not to lean on the balustrade lest the work of art she was wearing was marked or creased in any way. Her mood was strange.
She had given herself over to the murmuring attentions of what she could only refer to as handmaidens, letting them do what they willed with her. It had started with them bathing her, in water perfumed with aromatic oils, and gone on from there until she’d walked out on to the terrace feeling almost as if she were in a dream.
Because surely it must be a dream—standing here beside Nikos, watching the night darken over the dunes, hearing the strange, alien noises of night creatures waking and walking, feeling the air start to cool, the air pressure change. How far away from the real world they seemed. How far away from everything that was familiar. How far away from everything that was not herself and Nikos.
