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Memories of his passionate kisses in Greece on the night of the storm were rarely out of her mind. Jace had made it clear that he would not force her into his bed. If they had not been interrupted she would have made love with him because she couldn’t resist him, Eleanor thought ruefully. Why shouldn’t she take what Jace was offering? whispered a voice of temptation in her head. She wanted to have sex with him, but she would not confuse lust for love, and she was strong enough to walk away from him when the fire between them died.
‘Please give me a chance.’ Lissa’s voice pulled Eleanor back to the present.
She frowned, remembering how Mark had said the same thing. But her little sister had grown up and was a stronger character than their brother. Eleanor was shocked that Lissa had been jealous of her relationship with their grandfather. ‘I thought you wanted to be an actress,’ she murmured.
‘I realised in California that I don’t have enough talent. And I refused to sleep with the film director who invited me to dinner to discuss a possible role in his film.’ Lissa gave her a pleading look. ‘I won’t let you down.’
‘Well... Craig doesn’t go to Canada for two months. You could shadow him and...’
‘Oh, thanks, El.’ Lissa beamed. ‘You won’t regret it. Now you can stop worrying about Francine’s and get on with preparations for your wedding.’ She picked up a bridal magazine from Eleanor’s desk. ‘Have you chosen a wedding dress?’
‘Not yet. What do you think of the one on the front cover?’
Her sister shook her head. ‘It will make you look like a meringue. She flicked through the pages and showed Eleanor an overtly sexy fitted gown with a plunging neckline and a fishtail skirt. ‘This would suit you. If you wear a dress like this on your wedding day, your hunky fiancé will be impatient to rip it off you.’
Eleanor could not restrain a little shiver as she imagined Jace’s hands caressing her body on their wedding night. ‘Will you come shopping with me?’ she asked Lissa. ‘I need to buy a trousseau and I’d appreciate your advice.’
CHAPTER FIVE
FOLLOWINGTHESATNAV’Sinstructions, Jace drove along a narrow lane on the outskirts of Oxford and through a gate into a field. Although it was early in the morning, a crowd of people were milling about. Not for the first time he asked himself why he had interrupted his flight back to Greece from New York, where he’d had a series of business meetings, and instructed his pilot to make a stopover in England.
On the passenger seat of his car was a bouquet of pink roses that he had impulsively bought at the airport for Eleanor. Jace never did anything by impulse. He planned every aspect of his life with calculated detachment, and in the past when he’d given flowers to a lover his PA had ordered them from a florist.
He frowned as he recalled his conversation with Eleanor’s sister when he’d arrived at Francine’s hotel. Lissa had looked at him curiously. ‘Eleanor has gone to a balloon event with her friend Nigel and she left me in charge of the hotel for the weekend. I’m going to be the General Manager of Francine’s after my sister marries you and moves to Greece,’ Lissa had said with pride in her voice.
Perhaps Lissa Buchanan wasn’t as superficial as his first opinion of her, Jace had mused before he’d dismissed Eleanor’s sister from his mind. He hadn’t understood what Lissa had meant by a balloon event, but as he drove across the field he saw that people were grouped around hot-air balloons which were being inflated. He had no idea why Eleanor had got up at the crack of dawn to watch balloons. More to the point, what was the exact nature of her relationship with ‘her friend’ who she planned to spend the weekend with? Jace wondered as he parked the car and strolled over to some people.
‘Sure, Eleanor is here with Nigel. They never miss a club event,’ someone told Jace, pointing to a blue and white balloon.
He headed across the field in the direction of the group standing around a wicker basket attached to a striped balloon. His steps slowed when he spotted Eleanor and he felt an inexplicable tug in his chest as he studied her. She was delectable in tight-fitting jeans and a bubblegum-pink tee shirt that moulded her high, firm breasts. Her hair was caught in a loose knot on top of her head and she looked natural and wholesome, and at the same time achingly desirable.
Jace’s attention had been riveted on Eleanor, but he shifted his gaze to the lanky guy with hair flopping into his eyes who she was with. Eleanor was smiling as she chatted animatedly to the guy. Suddenly she threw her arms around his neck and the two of them hugged.
Jace was unprepared for the sensation of an iron band wrapping around his chest and squeezing the air out of his lungs. A lead weight dropped into his stomach and there was a bitter taste in his mouth. He might have suspected that what he was feeling was jealousy if the idea wasn’t laughable. Since Katerina had shown her true colours many years ago, he hadn’t allowed himself to get close to any woman on an emotional level and he kept his affairs purely physical.
Eleanor had been different. Their courtship had been gentle but with simmering chemistry below the surface. Jace acknowledged that it was not surprising if she had replaced him in her affections with a new boyfriend. But seeing her wrapped around Mr Floppy-Hair infuriated him. She had agreed to marryhim,and part of the deal was that neither of them would stray outside of the marriage.
Jace dismissed as irrelevant the fact that Eleanor was not his wife yet. Their wedding was in a week’s time. He had put a diamond the size of a rock on her finger, and he had every right to demand to know what the hell was going on.
He strode across the dew-damp grass, frowning as he watched Eleanor climb into the basket, above which the balloon was now inflated. The guy she had been hugging climbed into the basket with her.
‘Jace!’ Her eyes widened when she saw him. ‘What are you doing here? I wasn’t expecting you to come to Oxford.’
‘Evidently not,’ he drawled, looking pointedly from Eleanor to her companion.
‘This is Nigel.’ She looked puzzled when Jace hooked his leg over the side of the wicker basket. ‘You can’t come in. There is only room for two people.’
‘In that case one of us will have to get out.’ He glowered at the other man.
‘I’ll leave you to it,’ Nigel said hurriedly and climbed out of the basket.
Jace decided that if looks could kill, the glare Eleanor directed at him would make him a dead man.
‘What was that about?’ she demanded frostily.
His eyes narrowed on her flushed cheeks and his body reacted predictably to the sight of her breasts rising and falling swiftly beneath her tight tee shirt. ‘Is Mr Floppy your lover?’
‘Mr Flop...? Oh, you mean Nigel. He’s a friend, nothing more.’
