One Night with Prince Charming (Aristocratic Grooms 2)

After a half hour of searching, she discovered that Hawk’s reputation didn’t disappoint. He’d dated models, actresses and even a chanteuse or two. He’d been part of the social whirl of people with money to spare even before his recent incarnation as a top financier.

How unworldly she’d been to expect more than one night with him. How stupidly trusting.

And yet, she reminded herself, it hadn’t only been naiveté. She’d been tricked—duped—and used by a practiced player.

She pushed away from the computer screen and padded into her bedroom. Her mind on autopilot, she removed her brown satin dress and slipped into cotton striped pajama bottoms and a peach-colored sleeveless top. In the bathroom, she removed her makeup, moisturized her face and brushed her teeth.

Walking back into the bedroom again, she began to take the pins from her hair as she moved to her dressing table—bought used at a flea market—and sat down. When her hair was loose, she ran a brush through it and stared at herself in the mirror.

She’d never been glamorously beautiful, but she’d been able to lay some claim—if the occasional comments she’d received since high school were to be believed—to being a sort of cute pretty. Now, though, she forced herself to be more critical.

Was there something about her that screamed Take advantage of me? Did her face sing I’m a pushover?

She sighed as she stood, switched off the bedside lamp and slid into bed. She felt Mr. Darcy spring onto the bed and curl his warm weight next to her leg.

Pia turned her face to the window, where rain had begun to pelt the glass, blurring the illumination cast by the city lights outside.

It had been a long, too eventful day, and she was bone-tired. But instead of weariness overtaking her, she found herself awake.

In the privacy of her bedroom, in her own bed and covered by the shadows of the night, she was surprised by the sudden moisture of tears on her face—a reflection of the rain outside. She hadn’t cried over Hawk in a long time.

Since she’d switched apartments, Hawk had never invaded this sanctum. But he’d slept in this bed.

Drat Hawk.

With any luck, she’d never have to see him again. She was over him, and this would be the absolute last time that she’d shed tears about him.

Déjà vu. Hawk looked around him at Melton’s picturesque Gloucestershire estate, which wasn’t so different from his own family seat in Oxford. The centuries-old limestone estate was surrounded by acres of pastoral countryside, which was in full greenery in the August warmth. They could and did set period movies in places like this.

Except his friend Sawyer Langsford, Earl of Melton, was going to have a very real wedding to The Honorable Tamara Kincaid, a woman who could barely be persuaded to dance with him at the Wentworth-Dillingham near-miss of a wedding two months ago.

At the thought of weddings, Hawk admitted to himself that he’d reached a point in his life when his professional life had quieted down a bit, and at age thirty-six, the responsibility to beget an heir for the dukedom had begun to weigh on him.

In his younger, more carefree days, he’d dated a lot of women. In fact, he’d reveled in distinguishing himself as the bon vivant younger son—in spite of his steady job in finance—in contrast to his more responsible older brother, the heir.

And now one of his closest friends was getting married. Hawk had come at Sawyer’s request for what was to be a small wedding in the presence of family and close friends. Easterbridge would also be present, and heaven help them, at the bride’s invitation, so would his wife, Belinda Wentworth—without, however, her almost-husband, Tod Dillingham.

And Hawk had it on good authority that none other than Pia Lumley would be the wedding planner today. He’d been forewarned by Sawyer. For, as circumstances would have it, Tamara Kincaid was another good friend of Pia’s.

As if conjured by his thoughts, Pia walked out from the French doors leading to the stone terrace at the back of the house, and then down to the grassy lawn where Hawk stood.

She looked young, fresh and innocent, and Hawk felt a sudden pang. She’d been all those things three years ago when he’d first met her—and left her.

She was wearing a white shirt with cuffs rolled back beyond her elbows and lime-green cotton pants paired with pink ballet flats. The pants hugged her curves, and just a hint of cleavage was visible at the open collar of her shirt. Her smooth blond hair was caught in a ponytail, a

nd her lips looked shiny and full.

Hawk felt a tightening in his gut.

Despite having been plastered with eggplant at their last meeting, he felt drawn to her. She had sex appeal without being contrived—so different from many of the women in his social circle.

She was everything he wanted, and everything he couldn’t have. It would throw him off track from the life that he was supposed to be living now if he got involved with her again. He had put his playboy days behind him.

He was thirty-six, and he’d never been more aware of his responsibilities than since he’d succeeded to the dukedom. Among other things, he had a duty to produce an heir to secure a centuries-old title. And in the normal course of events, he would be expected to marry someone of his class and social station—certainly his mother expected that of him.

In the past year, his mother had taken it upon herself to bring him into contact with eligible women, including, particularly, Michelene Ward-Fombley—a woman whom some had speculated would have made a wonderful duchess for his older brother, before William’s untimely death.

He pushed aside thoughts about his most recent transatlantic phone conversation with his mother, and the unspoken expectations that had been alluded to…