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Anger sparked in her eyes. “But then, you’re not my fiancé, are you? And for the record, no man allows me to do anything. I do what I choose.”
He smiled with a complacency that made her very, very apprehensive. “And you’ve chosen to stay with me.”
“With Toni,” she amended.
He let her correction slide without comment. Folding his arms across his chest, he tilted his head to one side. “Have I told you how beautiful you look tonight?”
“Thank you.” More than anything she wanted to end this conversation and put some extra bodies between them. Nice, tall, protective bodies in the form of four Salvatore brothers. “Shall we join the others?” she suggested, standing.
To her distress, he didn’t move. He stood so close they were almost touching. Perhaps leaving the safety of the chair had been a mistake.
He lowered his head, asking softly, “Nervous,cara?”
She froze. “Not at all.” She glanced across the room, considering the logistics involved in edging around Luc and escaping through the door, all without coming into direct contact with him. “But as you’ve just pointed out, I am engaged, and this conversation isn’t appropriate.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “No? What’s inappropriate about it? The fact that I called you beautiful? Or the fact that we’re here. Alone. Together.” A smile edged across his mouth. “We’ll also be alone and together tonight, and yet you just said that wasn’t a problem.”
Her calm didn’t feel quite so calm anymore. “It’s not.”
“Then perhaps it’s that we’re standing so close.”
“Luc—”
“But that can’t be it. When we’re at work, we stand this close to each other all the time.” His gaze dropped to the rapid rise and fall of her breasts. “Though I don’t remember it having quite such an intense effect on you.” He captured her chin in his hand, his golden eyes once again on her face, watchful and dangerous. “Did it?”
“No!” she denied instantly. “It didn’t. It still doesn’t.”
He tilted his head to one side. “You’re lying,” he told her bluntly. “You know how I can tell? Your eyes. Those clear, bright green eyes cloud over like a stormy sky when you aren’t being honest. Is that why you wore glasses? How many other lies have you told while hiding behind a pair of tinted lenses, I wonder?”
“Luc, please,” she whispered.
“I want to please you.” His voice grew husky, deepening with an emotion she didn’t dare identify. “You don’t know how much I want to please you.”
She bit her lip. “Our lives are complicated enough. Don’t make it any worse.”
“Worse? I’ll make it better. Much, much better. Give it a chance, Grace. Givemea chance.”
She was so very, very tempted. She shut her eyes and instantly a picture leapt to life. A picture of her mother sewing bits of lace and ribbon to the clever little stuffed animals she so lovingly created. “Baby dreams,” she’d called them. And from that the idea for Baby Dream Toys had been born, a business they’d plotted and planned to someday open together. She shook her head. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t sacrifice something so precious for a fleeting instant of pleasure.
“No.” She spoke more forcefully this time and opened her eyes. “I can’t. Let go of me, Luc. Please.”
For a long moment he stood without speaking, his thoughtful gaze narrowed on her, as if trying to analyze something that defied analysis. His attention dropped briefly to her engagement ring and a small smile touched his mouth before he released her. “By all means. Join my brothers. They’re about to leave, anyway.” He moved toward the phone. “I want to make a quick call. I’ll join you in a minute.”
“All right.” She hesitated, something in his face setting off warning bells. But she couldn’t figure out why.
He picked up the phone and raised an eyebrow in question. “Anything else?” he asked.
She shook her head, and without another word went in search of Luc’s brothers. She found them grouped in the living room, slipping on coats and giving Toni goodbye hugs and kisses. Grace smiled. That little girl was going to grow up very spoiled and very much loved.
“Time to move out,” Angel announced, throwing open the front door and handing Grace the baby.
“Look!” Dante exclaimed. “She smiled at me.”
“So what?” his twin scoffed. “She’s been doing that to me all evening.”
“Only because she got the two of us mixed up.”
Luc suddenly appeared, bringing up the rear. “Quiet down,” he ordered. “And don’t forget. No one is to know Toni’s here. One run-in with the police was enough. We can’t risk another.”
