Evening Star (Star Quartet 1)

“I shouldn’t care,” he said, and leaned down to capture her mouth.

Giana didn’t believe him, of course, but she clasped her arms tightly about his waist and closed her mind against what she knew to be the truth. For a few months, she could let herself enjoy him. It would have to last a lifetime.

It was only later when they sat opposite each other, with their dinner on a small table between them, that she asked him, “Why are you being so nice? You were such a ruthless ass in London.”

He grinned at her over his fork of fluffy potatoes. “I am only trying to lull your suspicions to get you to marry me, so I can finally have your fortune and rub your nose in it.”

The grin momentarily left his face when he felt a sprinkling of peas hit his cheek. “Must you always be so physical, Mrs. Saxton?” he said, throwing the peas, one by one, back at her.

“Clod,” she said.

“Poor Ellen,” he said. “She will wonder what kind of perverted games we play when she sees all the food on the floor tomorrow.” Embarrassed, Giana slipped out of her chair and scrambled about to pick them up, finishing on her hands and knees at Alex’s feet.

“Now, that, Giana, is a tempting position for a woman.”

He wished he had not teased her in that way, for her eyes flew to his face, and he knew she was remembering Rome, remembering Madame Lucienne’s girls on their knees before the men, pleasuring them with their mouths. She responded to him so naturally, so freely, that he had forgotten all she had seen.

He leaned down and pulled her up into his lap. “I did not mean to embarrass you, princess,” he said, forcing lightness into his words. “Forgive me.”

“I shouldn’t know about that,” she said against his shoulder. “I shouldn’t know about anything.” He stroked her back until he felt her relax against him. “I saw too much, Alex. It is hard to forget, sometimes.”

“Day by day it will fade, Giana, and you will forget.”

She straightened against his arm and gave him a crooked smile. “You will soothe it all away?”

“A husband, even a fake one, is good for something, princess.”

Chapter 18

“This is very spacious, Alex, and I love all the light your windows let in.”

“Thank you, ma’am, for your compliment. Not quite as impressive as your mother’s throne room, but I survive.”

“Jake is here, sir, about the mainmast,” said Anesley O’Leary, looking toward Mrs. Saxton, who seemed to be studying Mr. Saxton’s nautical books.

“Show him in, Anesley,” Alex said.

Jake Ransom, Alex’s foreman at the shipyard, reminded Giana of Lanson. His forearms were the size of her waist and his nose was off center, from one too many brawls in a barroom.

“Welcome home, sir,” Jake Ransom boomed out.

“Good to be back, Jake. My wife, Mrs. Saxton.?

??

“Ma’am.” Jake pulled on the shock of brown hair that fell over his forehead.

“Mr. Ransom. I understand the mast on the Eastern Star isn’t behaving as you expected.”

“Ma’am?” Jake regarded the young lady with an uncertain eye.

“Let’s sit down, Jake,” Alex said. “Giana, would you care to join us or accompany Anesley on a tour of the building?”

Giana’s eyes twinkled at the foreman’s obvious discomfort. “I shall be with Anesley, Alex, if you need me. Oh, Mr. Ransom,” she said over her shoulder in the doorway of Alex’s office, “it may help to relathe the Baltic lumber, before you dry it in your kiln, of course.”

“Huh? Oh, yes, ma’am.”

Alex firmly closed the door and turned back to his foreman, a grin on his face. “Well, Jake, have you done what Mrs. Saxton suggested?”