Bought: One Bride

He said nothing in reply, just turned his eyes back onto the road and continued on, almost as though nothing had happened between them.

Lord, but she felt out of her depth with this man. His mother’s warning popped back into her head, urging her to be careful. But she didn’t want to be careful. She wanted to be reckless, and wicked. And she wanted him to be wicked.

She wanted his eyes back on her again. And his mouth. And his hands.

The wanting was acute and intense, a hunger that wasn’t going to go away till it was satisfied.

Holly sucked in a deep breath, glancing at the clock on the dash as she slowly exhaled. Ten past eight. It wouldn’t take all that long to get from Strathfield to East Balmain. Both were on the western side of the city. Balmain was a lot closer to the CBD than Strathfield, of course. A very trendy suburb these days. Very “in”.

She needed to be there, to be surrounded by other people, to not feel the way she was suddenly feeling, as if she was in danger of losing total control of her life.

There she’d been last weekend, trying so hard to make sensible plans for the future, and along had come Richard Crawford, blowing them all out of the water. She couldn’t think about a new job or a new place to live when all she could think about was him. She hadn’t had her résumé done yet, let alone applied for any position. Instead, she’d gone out and blown nearly two thousand dollars on what she was wearing tonight.

Her perfume alone had cost over a hundred dollars, an exotic scent that was supposed to be irresistible to men. That was what it was called. Irresistible. She’d resisted the temptation to practically bathe in it, but she’d sprayed it in places she’d never sprayed perfume before.

Oh, God, some conversation was definitely called for.

“How many people know about Reece finding his wife through that introduction agency?” she blurted out.

“Only myself and Mike. So please don’t spread that around. Reece told me in confidence.”

Holly felt flattered now that he’d told her. He must really like her, and trust her, to tell her such sensitive information.

“I won’t breathe a word. Who’s Mike?”

“A computer genius friend of mine,” Richard said. “And a very bad boy. So you keep right away from him, beautiful.”

“I don’t think there’s any danger of my going off with some other man,” she said rather ruefully. Didn’t he realise how crazy she was about him? And how much she wanted him?

“You haven’t met Mike.”

“He must be a real charmer for you to be worried.”

Richard laughed. “Mike has no charm whatsoever. Which for some weird and wonderful reason is his charm. I’m not sure what the attraction is for the ladies. He’s not a pretty boy by any means. Looks like an escapee from the Russian Mafia. Always needs a haircut. Usually sports a five-day growth on his chin. But, for all that, there are some women—usually the oddest ones—who take one look at Mike and literally throw themselves at him. Maybe it’s the challenge. Maybe they think they can change him. Little do they know, but he’ll never change. Women are just rest and recreation to Mike. His life is his work, and making money.”

“So why do you like him?”

“I guess it’s because he’s dead honest. And damn hard-working. You always know where you stand with Mike.”

“Honesty is a good quality in a man,” she admitted. “And rare as hen’s teeth. But, from the sounds of things, I don’t think you need worry about my going off with this Mike.”

“Any man would be worried with you looking the way you look tonight,” he said with a searing glance that set her skin breaking out into goose-bumps. “That has to be a designer dress.”

“It’s an Orsini,” she confessed.

“Expensive?”

“Horribly.”

“You should let me pay for it,” he said. “You shouldn’t be out of pocket, just because of me.”

“I told you before, Richard. I like to pay my own way.”

“I’ll bet you let Dave buy you things.”

Laughter burst from her lips. “You have to be joking. Dave never bought me a darned thing. No, I won’t lie. He did buy me something once. A gold-plated pendant for my birthday last year. Must have cost him all of twenty dollars.”

“The more I hear about this Dave, the worse he sounds. Whatever did you see in him?”

Holly shrugged. “Dave’s a good salesman. As the saying goes, he could sell ice to Eskimos. He sold himself to me at a time when I was very lonely. My dad hadn’t long died and I was beginning to see that my stepmother wasn’t as fond of me as she’d pretended whilst he was alive. I’d always known Katie didn’t like me, but I honestly thought Connie did. More fool me. I guess you could say I was ripe and ready to be conned.”