“I’d had a couple of drinks—”
“One Kamikaze?” he queried.
“The name says it all. And don’t forget most of a Sex on the Beach.”
He waved away her response. “It was hours earlier.”
“They created a nice buzz.”
Colin smiled. “It wasn’t sex on the beach, but it was close, wasn’t it? There was the scent of sun and surf. Then I realized it was you.”
She resisted putting her hands over her ears. “Don’t remind me!”
She’d never worn that perfume again. It carried too many memories.
She wasn’t sure whether to take him seriously. He would say anything to win, except she wasn’t quite sure what the endgame was.
“Why are you doing this?” she blurted.
She’d demanded an answer to that question before, but this time it was a metaphorical stamping of the foot.
“Perhaps I enjoy the challenge of going where no Granville has gone before.”
“Straight to hell?” she asked sweetly.
Colin laughed.
“One of your villainous ancestors seduced a Wentworth heiress,” she reminded him.
“Seduction—is that what she claimed?” he scoffed. “More likely, she had fallen for the handsome lad before her family packed her off to God knows where.”
“Of course that story would be the Granville version.”
“Sad to say, the poor lad ultimately didn’t get a chance to marry her. I’ve accomplished what no Granville has before.”
“It’ll be a Pyrrhic victory.”
Colin smiled. “I’ll be the judge of that.”
Belinda felt his words like a caress.
He suddenly straightened and then walked over to a nearby console table.
No doubt the table was an original eighteenth-century piece, Belinda thought with bemusement. The Granville wealth dwarfed the Wentworths’ and probably had as well in her ancestors’ heyday. She admired now the strength of her forebears in standing up to—some would say, running afoul of—the highest-ranking nobility in the vicinity.
Colin slid open a drawer and withdrew a small velvet pouch. Then he crossed to her.
Belinda found herself holding her breath as Colin loosened the pouch by its drawstring and then neatly deposit its contents into the palm of his hand.
She widened her eyes. He held two simple gold bands, one a large plain one with a slight groove at the edges and the other a smaller one etched with a feminine pattern.
They’d picked those rings out together just before their Vegas wedding ceremony.
Colin’s gaze met hers, and she felt heat and promise in his look.
Then the side of his mouth teased upward. “To seal our bargain.”
Belinda watched with sudden dry mouth as he slipped the bigger band on his finger. Then he slid the empty pouch into one of his pockets.