Kept at the Argentine's Command

The other girls’ gossip, which had battered her a moment before, now sent her stomach cold.

Dieu, was that how he viewed last night? Some desperate woman chasing him because he was famous?

‘He dates the most beautiful women in the world—he wouldn’t be interested in any of us.’ Trixie sighed.

‘He does have a reputation for slaying some pretty impressive names,’ agreed Adele. ‘His last girlfriend was the daughter of a high-profile British politician—she worked for the UN.’

The UN?

Trixie slipped an arm through Lulu’s. ‘You weren’t feeling too crash-hot when you got here, were you, darl? How are you feeling now?’

‘Better.’ The other two bridesmaids were looking at her expectantly. ‘I’m getting over a virus,’ she trotted out, feeling wretched.

‘Something happened,’ she heard Trixie say as she went into the next room to change.

‘Nothing happened,’ came back Susie’s response. ‘We’re talking about Lulu.’

Everything happened, Lulu thought, hanging her head, only it wouldn’t happen again.

Dressed an hour later, with her hair drawn up in an Edwardian-style bandeau—the dress code for today was Downton Abbey—Lulu walked the vast corridors, went down the stairs and into the dining room, where they would be assembling in half an hour.

With each step she compounded her doubts. She’d barely kept it together after her disastrous arrival. Stumbling out of the helicopter, making it a few paces and then crumpling like cellophane.

If Alejandro hadn’t already wiped his hands of her he wouldn’t be looking her up after this.

What was worse was that she couldn’t talk to Gigi about any of it.

Tomorrow was the Big Day.

It had to be perfect. It had to be all about the bride.

And what had she done on arrival? Set the tone for the whole weekend with her mother running to her rescue.

She understood why her maman was so protective. After leaning on her when she was at a young age, now Félicienne only wanted her to have the best of everything and to be safe. But her cossetting wasn’t helping her overcome her anxiety. It only added to it.

And this morning she’d been so scared of what her parents might say or do, and of how Alejandro would react. So she’d insulted him and wrecked any chances of them being together at all this weekend, and then she’d leaned on Gigi and used her to handle her mother.

Nothing had changed. And nothing would ever change if she didn’t face her fears.

She’d come here this weekend determined to change her life and she’d been doing so well. Last night she had moved past her fear and it had been wonderful. And yet this morning she’d fallen back into the old patterns.

Lulu pulled out the chair she’d be seated in this evening and sank onto it, resting her head in her hands. What was she going to do?

Her phone began to play its jaunty tune and, stirred from her painful thoughts, Lulu reached into her purse.

It was just a text from her mother, telling her she’d come to her room and seen she wasn’t there, and she wanted to know where she was and if she was all right.

Lulu was tempted to throw the phone across the room when she sensed movement behind her.

A group of men were passing the dining room and Lulu’s ears pricked up. She recognised those rich, low tones. Holding on tight to the phone she’d wanted to hurl, she edged towards the doorway and watched Alejandro, magnificent in formal evening attire that was tailored to his powerful body like a glove, as he and Khaled and several other men she didn’t know vanished into the billiards room.

He looked nothing like the laid-back guy who had lowered his aviators to meet her gaze at the airport yesterday, or the generous, tender lover who had made her body known to her in ways she’d never even suspected existed last night.

Instead he looked polished, powerful and predatory. The kind of man she would have shuffled to the back of the chorus line to avoid eye contact with back in Paris, because sh

e could never have handled him.

There was surely something dangerous about physical intimacy. It had done something to her usual reserve, shaken everything she believed in, and Lulu found herself following him down the corridor.