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‘If you think it will suit her,’ she offered, turning her head fractionally towards him at last, while still directing her eyes anywhere but on his face.
‘Oh, yes,’ he said, his voice low and husky. ‘I think it will be perfect…’
She lifted her eyes to his and her mouth went dry.
‘Just perfect.’
He was close. Too close. So close she could taste his breath on hers. So close she could see herself reflected in the dark mirror of his eyes. So close she had cause to wonder whether Paolo’s warnings hadn’t been somewhere near the mark. This was no ordinary man. Had she done the wrong thing by coming after all?
Yet why did she seem to freeze when she should be doing something—anything? And he wasn’t pulling away. If she wasn’t mistaken, he was getting even closer…
This wasn’t happening! She jerked her head away and leaned forward, scrabbling with the papers on the table in a poor interpretation of organising them. ‘That’s great,’ she said. ‘I’ll keep working on that design if it suits you. And as soon as I have some measurements, I’ll make some real progress.’
She knew she was babbling but it kept her mouth busy and right now that seemed the most important thing on earth. The way he’d looked at her lips. Surely he hadn’t been going to kiss her? He was a man about to get married after all.
She must have been imagining it. Paolo’s words had poisoned her. Was it possible to suffer altitude sickness in a pressurised aircraft?
She was aware of him standing upright and his hand left her shoulder at last. Strange, it had been there so long, it almost felt cold now that he’d removed it.
‘This calls for champagne,’ he said, gesturing to the stewards. He sat down in the chair alongside her as if nothing had just happened as a steward delivered two champagne flutes and an ice bucket containing a chilled bottle of sparkling wine. She recognised the label instantly.
‘Australian wine?’
He dipped his head a fraction. ‘In your honour. I thought you might like a taste of your homeland, seeing as I was taking you away even from your adopted city.’
A swell of warmth moved through her as she was strangely touched by the gesture. She’d expected, from the luxury of the plane, that for him it would be Dom Perignon or nothing. To choose an Australian wine, a simply stunning Australian wine none the less, was something she’d never expected. And he’d done it to make her feel at home?
How did he do this to her? How could he make her feel so on edge one minute, so considered the next?
The sparkling wine was poured and he handed her a flute. ‘I propose a toast,’ he said. ‘To a gown that is going to be as breathtaking as the astonishing woman who designs it.’
He raised his glass to her, his eyes half shuttered, smiling at her purposefully before lifting the glass to his lips. His eyes never left her, even as his chin kicked up, his eyes stayed with her, dark, intent.
She swallowed before even taking as much as a sip as her feelings of comfort rocked into uncertainty again. Maybe it was time to remind him of another woman who would play a part in this wedding, a woman who, it now occurred to her, he barely spoke about.
‘Thank you,’ she said softly. ‘And if I may, I’d like to propose a toast to the woman who will wear the dress, for without her, the dress is nothing. To your bride.’
She took a sip from her crystal flute, satisfied that she’d put their relationship back into some kind of perspective. Whether or not he’d intended to kiss her just then, he’d at least know that she wasn’t likely to forget he was about to marry another woman.
But, watching him over the rim of her glass, she could see her words didn’t faze him in the least. If anything, they just served to increase the width of his smile, the dark intent in his eyes.
‘Absolutely,’ he said. ‘Let us drink to the woman who will be my wife. To my bride.’
He raised his flute and held it up to her again, still smiling, holding her gaze firm and square, and just for one moment she sensed she was missing something.
Something had happened—oh, yes, he’d acknowledged his bride and he’d done it without missing a beat. But there was something else, curious and intriguing, that she couldn’t quite pin down. Something that didn’t feel quite right.
Her glass moved to her lips mechanically and she had her first taste of the sparkling wine, the tiny bead bursting with the essence of yeast and fruit and neither too sweet nor too dry. But her appreciation of the wine came a poor second to the continued machinations of her mind. Just what was Sheikh Khaled about? She didn’t want to give credence to Paolo’s concerns but there was something about him that disturbed her on the deepest level.
