Stand-In Bride's Seduction

Rina shrugged. “I had to do something or I’d have gone mad. I’m not used to doing nothing.”

“I thought that was the purpose of a holiday? Especially one on a Mediterranean island,” he said with a quirk of one brow.

Inwardly, she cringed. Sara would never have worked in the garden. It wasn’t as if she wasn’t prepared to work hard at the things that interested her, especially her horses, but gardens? She’d made a terrible faux pas in finding a relief for her boredom today.

Hoping like mad that she could carry it off, she gave Rey a bright smile and waved a hand in the general direction of the garden. “Well, you know me. Once I get my mind fixed on something I won’t let up.”

Rey gave a short laugh. “Isn’t that the truth,” he agreed. “Come here and let me see you properly. I haven’t seen you wear that color before. It really suits you. Especially with the color you’ve caught in your skin today.”

He took one of her hands in his and gave her a gentle twirl—not an easy feat in her high heels on the cobbled path.

“There was a stain on my other outfit, so I improvised,” Rina said, averting her eyes and hoping a telltale flush wouldn’t blotch her chest and neck at the lie.

“I’m glad,” he said giving her a longer, more appreciative look that sent a sizzle of awareness straight through her. “I like this better. The color—” he paused a moment “—is more you.”

Rina felt a trickle of unease creep along her spine. His ever so slight emphasis on the word “you” made her wonder if she’d taken too much of a risk in choosing to wear something that so completely reflected her real personality. Not something that Jacob would have approved of, not something that Sara, in her flamboyance, would have chosen—something that was unmistakably her. But then Rey tugged her hand and pulled her along the path to the car waiting outside the gate and settled her into the passenger seat.

She was being fanciful, she rationalized. Her own guilt at taking advantage of him, and his relationship with her sister, was making her see things in statements that were simply not there at all.

Rina cast a sideways glance at him as he dropped into his seat and put on his seat belt. He was wearing sharply creased black trousers that tautened across his thighs as he eased the car into gear. Beneath the finely woven fabric she could almost make out the delineation of his quad muscles, their lean strength a fluid movement beneath the material. In normal circumstances, as his real fiancée, she’d have the palm of her hand resting just there—be feeling the flex and release of those muscles as he changed gears on the high performance engine.

Her palm tingled just thinking about it, and she forced herself to turn her head away and stare out the side window at the scenery as they passed by. Sara would kill her. It wasn’t part of the plan that she should be so powerfully attracted to him. It made no logical sense at all. He wasn’t her type. He was too…too everything.

She tried to pull a picture of Jacob into her mind, to overprint the finely boned features of Rey’s face and his fascinating hazel eyes with Jacob’s fairer skin, broader forehead and pale blue eyes. It had only been three weeks since they’d shared that last meal together, since they’d ended their plans to marry on such a painfully civilized note.

Rina couldn’t imagine Rey being quite so civilized if the situation had been his. There’d be fire in his eyes, rather than relief that she hadn’t made a scene. There’d be challenge—demand. He wouldn’t have made their five year relationship sound like a board meeting when encapsulating the reasons why he’d found it necessary to have a last minute fling. A fling that had rapidly turned into something more. A fling that had signaled the end of the plans they’d so painstakingly made together.

No, Reynard del Castillo was a different kettle of fish altogether. Rina risked another glance in his direction, and a warm flush of something she didn’t want to name pulsed through her as he met her gaze and gave her a half smile before giving his attention back to the road.

For the first time in days she realized that thinking about Jacob didn’t hurt anymore and that, despite her initial shock and pain, he’d done the right thing in ending their engagement. Of course, his method and timing still left a great deal to be desired, but could she honestly tell herself that a single glance from him had ever—in all the time they’d been together—had the power to elicit a reaction like the one still thrumming through her from Rey’s smile? She’d be lying if she said yes.