He slid into his seat and offered both Luke and Aurelie a tight-lipped smile. He couldn’t manage much more; his mind was buzzing with the stress of work and the half-dozen crises that were poised to explode into true chaos. A woman came to sit next to him and Aaron glanced at her without interest.
Zoe Parker, Millie’s sister and maid of honour. He hadn’t spoken to her last night or this morning, but he supposed he’d have to make some conversation over the meal. She was pretty enough, with wide grey eyes and long, dark hair, although her skinny, sinewy figure wasn’t generally his preference. She glanced at him now, her lips curving in a strangely knowing smile.
‘How are things, Aaron? You don’t mind if I call you Aaron?’
‘Of course not.’ He forced a small smile back. ‘We’re practically family, after all.’
‘Practically family,’ she repeated thoughtfully. ‘That’s right.’ She flicked her long, almost-black hair over her shoulders and gave him another smile. Flirtatious? No—knowing. Like she knew something about him, some secret.
Absurd.
Dismissing her, Aaron turned to the walnut and blue-cheese salad artfully arranged on the plate in front of him. He’d just taken his first bite when he heard a familiar buzz—an incoming text or voicemail. Instinctively he reached into his pocket, only to silently curse. It couldn’t be his phone that was buzzing. He heard the sound again, and saw it was coming from Zoe’s lacy little clutch bag that she’d left by the side of her plate.
He nodded towards it. ‘I think your phone is ringing.’
She glanced at him, eyebrows raised. ‘I didn’t bring my phone.’
Aaron stared at her, completely nonplussed. ‘Well,’ he said, turning back to his salad, ‘something’s buzzing in your bag.’
‘That sounds like an interesting euphemism.’ Aaron didn’t reply, although he felt a surprising little kick of something. Not lust, precisely; interest, perhaps, but no more than a flicker. ‘Anyway,’ she continued, her tone breezy, ‘that’s not my phone.’
There was something about the way she said it, so knowingly, so provocatively, that Aaron turned towards her sharply, suspicion hardening inside him. She smiled with saccharine sweetness, her eyes glinting with mischief.
‘Whose phone is it, then?’ Aaron asked pleasantly, or at least he hoped he sounded pleasant. This woman was starting to seriously annoy him.
Zoe wasn’t able to reply for someone had tapped their fork against their wine glass and, with a round of cheers, Millie and Chase bowed to popular demand and kissed. Aaron turned back to his salad, determined to ignore her.
The phone buzzed again. Zoe made a tsking noise and reached for her bag. ‘Someone gets a lot of messages,’ she said and, opening the little clutch, she took out his mobile.
The expression on Aaron Bryant’s face was, Zoe decided, priceless. His mouth had dropped open and he stared slack-jawed at the sight of his phone in her hand. She glanced at the screen, saw there were now fourteen texts and nine voicemails, and with a shake of her head she slipped it back into her bag.
She glanced back at Aaron and saw he’d recovered his composure. His eyes were narrowed to black slits, his mouth compressed into a very hard line. He looked as if he were carved from marble, hewn from granite—hard and unyielding and, yes, maybe even a little scary. But beautiful too, like a darkly terrifying angel.
Zoe felt her heart give a little tremor and she reached for her bread roll as if she hadn’t a care in the world. ‘Where,’ Aaron asked in a low voice that thrummed through his chest and through Zoe, ‘did you get that phone?’
She swallowed a piece of roll and smiled. ‘Where do you think I got it?’
His eyes blazed dark fire as he glared at her. ‘From my pocket.’
‘Bingo.’
He shook his head slowly. ‘So you’re a thief.’
She tilted her head to one side as if considering his statement, although her heart was beating hard and adrenalin pumped through her. ‘That’s a bit harsh.’
‘You stole my phone.’
‘I prefer to think of it as borrowing.’
‘Borrowing.’
She leaned forward, anger replacing any alarm she’d felt. ‘Yes, borrowing it—for the duration of my sister and your brother’s wedding reception. Because, no matter how much of a bigwig business tycoon you might be, Aaron Bryant, you don’t text during a wedding ceremony. And I don’t want you ruining this day for Millie and Chase.’
He stared at her, colour washing his high cheekbones, his eyes glittering darkly. He was furious, utterly furious, and Zoe felt a little frisson of—fear? Maybe, but something else too. Something like excitement. Smiling, she patted her bag with the still-buzzing phone. Good Lord, he received a lot of calls. ‘You can have it back after Millie and Chase leave for their honeymoon.’
Aaron’s expression turned thunderous and he leaned forward, every taut line of his body radiating tightly leashed anger. ‘I’ll have it back now.’
‘I don’t think so.’
She saw him reach for the bag and quickly she grabbed it and put it in her lap. Aaron arched an incredulous eyebrow.
‘You think that’s going to stop me?’ he murmured, and it sounded almost seductive. Zoe felt a sudden, prickling awareness raise goosebumps all over her body. Before she could make any answer, Aaron slid his hand under the table. Zoe stiffened as she felt his hand slide along her thigh. The man was audacious, she had to give him that. Audacious and fearless.
She felt his fingers slide along her inner thigh, his palm warm through the thin silk of her dress. To her own annoyance and shame she could not keep a very basic and overwhelming desire from flooding through her, turning her insides warm and liquid. She shifted in her seat, and just as Aaron’s hand reached the bag in her lap she slid the phone out of it.
‘Give me that phone, Zoe.’ His hand was clenched in her lap and, even though seduction had to be the last thing on his mind, Zoe could still feel her body’s pulsing awareness of him. All he’d done was touch her leg. She had to get a grip and remember this was about the phone. Nothing else.
She raised her hand above the table, the phone still clutched in it, and slowly shook her head. ‘No.’
Aaron’s lips thinned. ‘I could take it from you by force.’ She had no doubt he could. ‘That would cause a scene.’
‘You think I care?’
No, Zoe realised, she didn’t think he did. Considering his behaviour so far, she didn’t think he cared at all. She imagined him prying the phone from her hand. It would be like taking candy from a baby. She was no match for his strength, and she couldn’t stand the thought of enduring Aaron’s mocking triumph for the rest of the evening.
Impulsively, her gaze locked on Aaron’s, she slid the phone down the front of her dress. he stared back at her and something flared in his eyes that made the awareness inside her pulse harder.
‘That looks a little…strange,’ he remarked, and Zoe glanced down to see her cleavage obscured by a bulky object in the middle of the dress. It did, indeed, look a bit strange.
‘Easily fixed,’ she replied breezily, and with a bit of pushing and pulling of the strapless dress she managed to get the phone to lie flat under the shelf of her breasts. Still a little strange, but not too bad. And totally impossible for Aaron to access.
He sat back in his chair, shook his head slowly. ‘You really are a piece of work.’
‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’
‘It wasn’t meant as one.’
‘Even so.’
He chuckled softly, the sound hard and without humour, and leaned forward again. ‘You think,’ he murmured, his voice stealing right inside her, ‘I can’t get that phone out of your dress?’
Zoe glanced at him, tried for haughty amusement. ‘Not easily.’
‘You have no idea what I’m capable of.’
‘Actually, based on your behaviour so far, I think I have a fairly good idea of the level of boorishness you’re willing to sink to,’ she replied. ‘But even you, I believe, would draw the line at mauling the maid of honour in the middle of a wedding reception.’
Aaron stared at her for a few seconds, his gaze flicking over her face, seeming to assess her. His face had turned blank, expressionless, which made Zoe uneasy. She couldn’t read him at all. Then he shrugged and turned back to his meal. ‘Fine,’ he said, and he sounded completely bored, utterly dismissive. ‘Give it back to me in a couple of hours.’
Zoe sat there, the phone hot and a little sweaty against her chest, and felt weirdly deflated. She’d enjoyed sparring with him, she realised. It had been invigorating and, yes, a tiny bit flirtatious. But, based on the way Aaron was now focused completely on his salad, she was now the furthest thing from his thoughts. Well, she thought with a sigh, wriggling a little to make herself a bit more comfortable with a phone inside her dress, at least she’d taught him a lesson.
Aaron knew about patience. It was a lesson he’d learned from childhood, when his father would summon him to his study only to make him wait standing by the door for an hour or more, while he concluded some trivial piece of business.