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‘If you’re doing it for old times’ sake, shouldn’t you be asking Royal to dance?’ he sneered.
Duncan bestirred himself from his lazy-eyed perusal of Kalera. ‘I thought I’d keep your fiancée from feeling lonely while you two took your waltz down memory lane.’
Stephen’s muscles bunched under the sleek dinner jacket. ‘Shut up, you bastard—unless you’re asking for a punch in the mouth!’
Terri laid a gold-tipped finger on his arm. ‘For goodness’ sake, Stephen, all I’m suggesting is that you act like a civilised human being. You’ve already drawn everyone’s attention; what do you want them to see—a boringly amiable encounter between exes, or a knockdown, drag-out fight that will have people gossiping for weeks?’
As a choice it was no choice at all and soon Kalera found herself standing alone with Duncan watching her tense-jawed fiancé and his scheming ex-wife dancing off into the crowd.
‘She does know how to manage him,’ Duncan remarked admiringly. ‘Now if only he could learn to manage himself half as well…’ He paused before adding, ‘Attractive couple, aren’t they?’
The fact that they were rubbed salt in the wound.
‘Ex-couple,’ corrected Kalera tartly, giving him a fulminating look, and he reached over and guided her glass to his mouth, his hand covering hers as he took a sip, watching her over the narrow rim.
Other people were probably watching them, too, and Kalera fought to keep her dainty features serenely unembarrassed. She tried to ease away, but he merely followed, still sipping, until she inadvertently backed into a pillar and knew herself squarely trapped.
‘Delicious,’ he said, smacking his lips as he released the glass, and she knew he wasn’t talking about the champagne. He wore a large ruby stud in the Nehru collar of his shirt and a thick hoop of gold in his ear, and with his long midnight hair and swarthy skin he looked as if he would have been every bit as comfortable plying a nefarious trade in the Spanish Main as he was today at conjuring computers to do his bidding.
‘I’m glad you wore my sexy little dress,’ he told her softly, propping one hand on the pillar above her golden head. ‘I was afraid you might resist the temptation and swaddle yourself from head to toe in something pretty, but sadly unadventurous.’
A perfect description of her blue dress!
‘I wore this for Stephen,’ she said quickly. ‘Not for you.’
‘You wore it for the man who gave it to you, whoever you might have thought it was—and that’s me,’ he said with satisfaction, hooking a glass of champagne for himself from a passing waiter. ‘I spent ages hunting for exactly the right one…one that would warm your skin and furl your body like a half-opened rose…perfumed, velvety-soft, sensual, and alluring…’
God, he was so good with words! Kalera took a deep, steadying breath and his navy eyes dropped to her breasts, the upper curves so pale that the blue veins were visible through her translucent skin. ‘I think I can see your heart beating,’ he murmured in quick fascination. ‘See that little throb there, just below that tiny freckle…’
Kalera was amazed her heart wasn’t leaping out of her chest. ‘Will you stop leering at me like that?’ she choked, blushing like the rose he had described. ‘People will notice.’
‘I wasn’t leering, I was looking.’
‘Well, look somewhere else, then!’ she hissed.
He grinned down at her. ‘You’re rather asking for trouble inviting me to do that, aren’t you? There are all sorts of delectable parts of you that I’d love to stare at for hours. Like your cute little—’
‘Duncan!’ She passed off a weak smile to a passing legal bigwig, hoping he hadn’t heard that last remark.
He touched her hair, lightly, as if he couldn’t help himself, and then her drop-pearl earring, making it swing from her velvety lobe. ‘Well, how about a dance, then, if you don’t want to talk?’ he invited huskily. ‘Then I won’t be able to look any further than your face. Or we can both just close our eyes and hold each other.’
The idea filled her with panic. The few times he had got his arms around her she had completely lost her head and ended up in a turmoil of guilt and self-contempt.
‘Look, I know you’re just playing an agent provocateur—’ she began raggedly.
‘Is that really what you think of me?’ he interrupted. ‘You think I’m the kind of man who would tempt you to illegal acts solely in order to disgrace you?’
He actually sounded hurt. ‘Not illegal, but certainly immoral,’ she said, shaken by the thought of her causing him pain.
‘There’s nothing immoral about love—it’s one of the truly great splendours of life…’
Kalera’s grey eyes clouded as she fought off the seductive notion of Duncan splendidly in love. He was talking about the physical act between lovers, not the deep emotional commitment between two people, she reminded herself, and it was an attitude she would never let herself share. ‘There’s a personal sense of right and wrong that governs everything we do…’
She looked away, trying to escape the hypnotic intensity of his concentration, and her whole body tensed with alarm.
‘Oh, God!’
Duncan followed her gaze to where Stephen and Terri were squaring off again, this time in the middle of the dance-floor.
