A Vow of Obligation (Marriage by Command 3)

One freakin’ kiss, Tawny thought with furious resentment, and she had fallen apart at the seams. He hadn’t even made a pass at her. She had to be fair, he wasn’t the pawing type, indeed he never laid a finger on her without good reason, but even so, when he got close, every skin cell in her body leapt and dived as if she were a dizzy teenager in the grip of her first crush.

‘Are you always this tense?’ Navarre enquired.

‘Only around you,’ she told him, knowing that there was more than one way to read that reply.

Trailing adoring hangers-on like a vibrant kite followed by fluttering ribbons, Tia surged up to them as soon as they entered the function room and complained that Luke had already taken off and abandoned her.

‘He hates these things,’ she complained ruefully as Navarre immediately took on the task of ushering her to her prominently placed table.

Tia was very much what Tawny would have expected of a beautiful international star. She had to have constant attention and wasn’t too fussy about how she went about getting it. She was very familiar with Navarre, touching his arm continually as she talked, smiling sexily up at him, employing every weapon in the considerable armoury of her beauty to keep him by her side and hold his interest. A proper fiancée, Tawny reflected wryly, would have wanted to shoot Tia and bury her deep.

‘You should tell him you don’t like it,’ Luke whispered mockingly in Tawny’s ear, making her jump because she had not realised he had come to stand beside her.

‘I’ve got no complaints. Your wife is the life and soul of the party,’ Tawny answered lightly, as if she were quite unconcerned when in fact she had felt invisible in Tia’s radius.

‘No, she likes handsome men around her,’ Luke Convery contradicted, watching the Italian blonde hold court at her table surrounded by attentive males, his demeanour a resentful combination of admiration and annoyance. As if he was determined to defy that view he draped an arm round Tawny’s taut shoulders and she stiffened in surprise.

Across the room, Navarre’s glittering green gaze narrowed to rest on Tawny, watching her lift her face to look up into Luke Convery’s eyes and suddenly laugh. They looked remarkably intimate, he noted in surprise. How had that happened between virtual strangers? Or was the luscious redhead a quick study when it came to impressing rich and famous men? Anger broke like a river bursting its banks through Navarre’s usual rock-solid self-discipline and he vaulted upright to take immediate action.

‘You should try staying by Tia’s side,’ Tawny was saying warily to Luke Convery.

‘Been there, done that. It doesn’t work but you might have more luck with that angle.’ The musician shot her a challenging appraisal from brooding dark eyes. ‘If you’re engaged to the guy, why are you letting Tia take over?’

Reminded of her role, Tawny flushed and headed off to the cloakroom to escape the awkward exchange. How was she supposed to react when a household name with a face that could have given Helen of Troy a run for her money was flirting like mad with her supposed fiancé? When she returned to the party, she was taken aback to see Navarre poised near the doors, evidently awaiting her reappearance. When he saw her, he immediately frowned and jerked his arrogant head to urge her over to him.

‘What have you been doing? Where have you been?’ he demanded curtly.

Resenting his attitude, Tawny rolled her eyes. ‘I was in the cloakroom, trying to discreetly avoid coming between you and the object of your affections.’

He followed her meaningful sidewise glance in the direction of Tia Castelli’s table and his strong jawline clenched as though Tawny had insulted him. His eyes narrowed to rake over her with scorn. ‘Drôle d’excuse … what an excuse! Tia and I are old friends, nothing more. But I saw you giggling with Convery—’

‘What do you mean by you “saw” me with Luke?’ Tawny pressed hotly, hostile to both his intonation and his attitude. ‘And I’m not the giggly type.’

Navarre flattened his wide sensual mouth into a forbidding line. ‘We are supposed to be newly engaged. You are not here to amuse yourself. Stay by my side.’

‘As long as you appreciate that I’m only doing it for the money,’ Tawny shot back at him in an angry hiss, her face stiff with chagrin at his criticism of her behaviour.

‘I’m unlikely to forget the fact that I’m paying for the pleasure of your company,’ he retorted crushingly. ‘That’s a first for me!’

‘You do surprise me.’ Hot pink adorning her cheeks at that cutting retaliation, Tawny stuck to him like glue for the rest of the party. He circulated, one arm attached to Tawny as he made a point of introducing her as his future wife.

Tawny played up to the label, clinging to his arm, smiling up at him, laughing slavishly at the mildest joke or story and generally behaving as if he were the centre of her world. And for what he was paying for the show, she told herself ruefully, he deserved to be.

‘Did you have to behave like a bimbo?’ Navarre growled as she climbed back into the limousine at the end of the evening, shoulders drooping as exhaustion threatened to claim her.

‘In this scenario it works. As you said yourself, if we seem unsuited, nobody will be surprised when the engagement only lasts for five minutes,’ Tawny retorted, thoroughly irritated at receiving yet more vilification from his corner. Could she do nothing right in his eyes? What exactly did he want from her? ‘Personally, I think I put in a pretty good performance.’

A silence that implied he had been less than impressed stretched between them all the way back to the hotel. In the lift he stabbed the button for a lower floor. ‘Elise has offered to share her room with you tonight so that you don’t have to use the sofa again,’ he informed her glacially. ‘I believe she already has had your belongings moved for your convenience.’

Relief filled Tawny as she stepped out of the lift and found the tall blonde bodyguard waiting to greet her. With Elise, she could take off her fancy glad rags, climb into her pjs and relax, which was exactly what she was most longing to do at that instant.

Navarre absorbed the alacrity of Tawny’s departure from the lift, frowning at the strangely appealing sound of the giggling she had said she didn’t do trilling down the corridor just before the lift doors closed again. He had never had a woman walk away from him before without a word or a glance and his eyes momentarily flashed as though someone had lit a fire behind them. He could not accuse Tawny Baxter of attempting to ensnare him, but he recalled the manner in which she had melted into that kiss and smiled

, ego soothed. It was not a very nice smile.

CHAPTER FIVE

‘OH … my … goodness!’ Tawny squealed in Navarre’s ear as she squashed her face up against the window of the helicopter to get a better view of the medieval fortress they were flying over, a sixteenth-century tower house complete with a Victorian gothic extension. It was late afternoon. ‘It’s a castle, a real castle! Are we really going to be staying there?’