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Holy hell.
He stared down at her as though awakening from a dream—the best dream he’d ever had, a dream that had crept up on him out of nowhere, that had dragged him into its centre before he realised what was happening. Or was it a nightmare? A nightmare because this was exactly what Luca had told him not to do, exactly what he’d sworn to himself he could control? His best friend deserved more from him, damn it, and Alejandro wasn’t the kind of man to ignore his sense of loyalty—no matter the temptation.
‘Now who is casting a spell over whom?’ he muttered, reaching down and dislodging her grip from his throbbing, painfully tightened cock, staring at her with a sinking feeling that he was putting an end to something that was overwhelming him with the power of his need. But need be damned. He wasn’t going to be this man. For Luca to have been so strenuous in warning Alejandro away from Sienna, there must have been good reason. And he could see that clearly for himself: she was nice.Too nice for him. Gentle and sweet and kind, exactly the kind of woman he avoided like the plague, because nice women were ripe to being hurt by men like him, and he refused to be an instrument of pain. Luca knew that, and so he’d warned Alejandro. None of which was Sienna’s fault.
‘I—’ Disappointment and surprise crossed her features and then, unmistakably, hurt, so he wanted to undo the last thirty seconds, replace her hand on his arousal, and kiss her again until she was moaning beneath him, those sweet, soft little noises just exactly what he wanted to hear right now.
‘I got carried away,’ he said, quietly, the understatement shaming him.
‘We both did.’ She stepped down from the balustrade, ignoring the hand he held out in a gesture of help, fixing him with a cool stare that was only slightly undermined by the shaking of her lower lip.
He watched as she straightened her dress—it didn’t even occur to him to turn away until much later—and the way her hands ran over her body, making sure everything was in place, was its own special torment, because while she touched her body all he could think about was his own hands following that exact course. He balled fists at his sides then thrust them into his pockets.
‘Listen, Sienna—’ But what could he say? How could he explain that he’d made a promise to his friend not to touch her? How could he say that without making her feel like a piece of meat two men had negotiated over? Anger flared in his belly—Luca had asked him for a favour and it hadn’t occurred to Alejandro to mind, until he’d met Sienna. Now, the idea of being prohibited from being with her was burning through him like acid.
‘Excuse me.’ Her tone was like ice, her imminent departure making the decision for him. ‘I think I hear my mother calling for me.’
She’d made up the excuse to get away, before she evaporated into a cloud of embarrassment or, worse, begged him to kiss her again, because she liked it so bloody much, but the moment she rejoined the wedding party Angelica wrapped her hand around Sienna’s wrist, halting her in her tracks.
‘There you are,’ Angelica hissed. ‘What in the world have you been doing? You look like you’ve been dragged through the bush backwards.’ Disapproval lined Angelica’s beautiful, slightly lined face as she reached up and began to neaten Sienna’s unruly hair. ‘Honestly, the best stylist in Europe worked on you all afternoon and this is what you end up with?’
Sienna felt as though she’d just had a head-on collision with a runaway freight train.
‘Leave it, Mother. It’s fine.’
‘It is not fine,’ Angelica responded curtly. ‘This is your sister’s wedding and for whatever reason—charity, I suppose—she’s chosen you to be her maid of honour. You can’t possibly be photographed with her looking like this.’
Sienna ground her teeth together, so used to her mother’s harsh put-downs that she barely flinched now. ‘I was beyond the terrace. It was breezy.’
‘This is useless. We’ll have to go and fix it in the ladies’ room.’
‘Mother?’ Sienna reached up and grabbed her mother’s wrist, pulling it away from her hair. ‘I can do it. This is Olivia’s wedding. You shouldn’t disappear. Stay with the guests. Mingle.’
It was exactly the right thing to suggest—and not by accident. Sienna knew enough of her mother’s vanity and preening instincts to know that what she wanted, most of all, was to be the centre of attention herself—and if she couldn’t manage that, to get as close as possible to it. Olivia was where the spotlight shone brightest, not Sienna.
‘Fix yourself up,’ Angelica insisted, as a parting shot. ‘This is not the time to show the world the real you.’
Sienna sighed, so her hair lifted a little at the front, and she turned to do exactly that, but a moment later her wrist was yet again imprisoned by another equally strong grip, and she was being drawn away from the party.
‘Hey,’ she muttered, but Alejandro didn’t let go until they were on the fringes of the guests, and then he drew her even further away, towards the river once more.
‘You do not look like you’ve been drawn backwards through a bush,’ he said with barely controlled anger. ‘Instead, you look like a woman who’s been thoroughly ravished and, God help me, I want to finish what we started.’
Sienna’s lips fell apart. She gaped at him, in what she was sure was her least Olivia look yet. She scrambled for something to say. ‘You stopped what we were doing,’ was about as clever as she could manage.
‘Yes.’ He put his hands on his hips, staring at her, a muscle pulsing in the base of his jaw. ‘Does she often speak to you like that?’
Sienna’s cheeks paled. ‘Forget about it.’
He moved closer and she trembled, her emotions overwrought, her body incapable of doing anything but responding to his nearness.
‘But she’s right. I should go and make myself presentable.’
‘You are very presentable.’ He took a step closer.
‘What are you doing?’
‘I don’t know.’ He stared at her, complex emotions darkening his eyes to a stormy grey.
