The Morning After

He was dressed almost entirely in white himself. White trousers of the finest, finest cotton. White cotton over-shirt with a mandarin collar fastened from tanned throat to waist by what looked like sapphire studs—the genuine article, she assumed, knowing who he was. No tie—the shirt did not warrant a tie. It was as he turned slightly to close the door behind him that she saw the white silk ribbon holding his jet-black hair in place.

‘The accepted dress of a Venezuelan,’ he answered her curious look. ‘It is called a Liqui-Liqui.’

Strange man, she found herself thinking achingly. An unconventional man. A man with such conflicting sides to his character that she found it impossible to work him out. Sometimes proud, coldly conventional, sometimes so avant-garde that he shocked her—like now.

My God, she thought hectically. He’s really a complete stranger to me. And I’m about to marry him!

A shudder ran through her—of horror or fear or excitement she wasn’t sure, because he had her so confused that she really could not be sure of anything any more.

He had come to a standstill one long stride into the room, his green gaze narrowed on her as it travelled slowly from the dainty white satin shoes on her feet to the top of her golden head. Annie waited in mute defiance for him to make some remark about the distinct lack of decoration on her head.

Sheer habit had made her dress her hair to suit the garment she was wearing; the long hair had been caught up in a sil

ky twist at her crown, then she’d teased fine silken strands to fall around her face so that they accentuated the delicate line of her long, slender neck, but she’d drawn the line at adding the lace veil with its circlet of blue rosebuds—a crowning hypocrisy she refused to comply with.

‘You look beautiful,’ he said gruffly.

She didn’t bother to answer. She was Annie Lacey, after all—professional model. She knew how good she looked.

So a short silence followed, one which oddly caught at the tiny muscles in her stomach and tied them into knots. This should not be happening, she told herself wretchedly. Neither of us wants it. None of it is real.

‘Here.’ He broke the silence, walking towards her with a flat velvet box in his hand.

Annie instantly recognised it for what it was, and snapped her hands behind her back. ‘No, I won’t wear whatever it is,’ she refused.

‘Why not?’ A sleek black brow rose in question.

She gave a stubborn shake of her head. ‘I don’t need your jewels, Mr Adamas,’ she used the name bitingly. ‘Only your real name for appearance’s sake.’

‘Still fighting me, Annie?’ He smiled. But it wasn’t the teasing note in his voice that made her quiver, it was the use of her pet name falling for the first time from his beautifully sculptured lips that did it.

She struggled for breath. ‘I think I’ve been remarkably compliant, if you must know,’ she told him. ‘But I draw the line at looking as if you bought me with—those.’ Her eyes flicked a contemptuous glance at the unopened box. ‘Keep them for your next wife,’ she suggested tartly. ‘Since this one is already praying for deliverance before the rest of this month is out.’

He should have got angry. She’d certainly intended provoking him into it. But he didn’t; his green gaze studied her stiff face for a moment before he said quite gently, ‘Five million dollars is a lot to pay for a wife, Angelica.’ And as her mouth dropped open in stunned disbelief he tossed the velvet case onto the bed behind her. ‘But I am willing to pay it for just one kiss from your sweet lips.’

She was still too busy struggling with the cost of whatever was in the box to realise his intentions. So when his mouth closed gently over her own she found herself returning the kiss without really being aware that she was doing it.

‘You just earned your prize,’ he murmured gruffly as he lifted his head. Then he added tauntingly, ‘Or were you too busy counting dollar signs to notice?’

She blinked up at him, taking a moment or two to realise just what he was getting at. Then her blue eyes flared on a surge of anger and she spun around, lurching to grab at the velvet case then twisting to thrust it right back at the arrogant swine.

But he was already over by the door. ‘Five minutes,’ he warned. ‘Wear them or not. I really do not care. They now belong to you.’

‘But I don’t want them!’ she shouted at his disappearing back.

‘And neither, querida, do I.’

She wore them in the end. Out of sheer cussedness or because she had the oddest feeling that she’d managed to offend him over the dratted things, she wasn’t sure. But it was certainly with a grudging defiance that she eventually opened the box and found herself staring at the most beautiful necklace she had ever seen in her life.

Sapphires—exquisite dark blue sapphire hearts circled by tiny diamonds and linked together by the finest white gold, each setting a perfect match to the next—and the next and the next! There were over a dozen of them in all, fashioned to balance the larger central stone that quite literally took her breath away.

But that wasn’t all. Nestled in the sensual curve of each sapphire heart sat a diamond—heart-shaped again, and seeming to flash a message at her that she refused to read. It had to be her imagination, she told herself breathlessly, because the white gold claw grips which held the two jewels together took on the shape of fingers to her mesmerised eyes, as though each pair of hearts rested in the palm of a delicate hand.

She couldn’t wear these! She couldn’t!

Yet, when a warning knock sounded at her door, she found herself tremulously fixing the necklace round her throat before she hurried from the room.

‘Thank you,’ he murmured when she eventually joined him, and once again she gained the impression that her compliance had actually managed to move him.