Read Online Black Widow Bride by Tessa Radley - Free Book Online Page A

He’d picked out the wedding dress he’d wanted Fliss to wear. It had been perfect, enhancing her prettiness to almost become beauty—a far cry from the girlish flounces Fliss would have chosen.
    “I’m honoured that you recognise my redeeming qualities.” Irony tinged his voice.
    Rebecca didn’t respond.
    A rough sigh came from behind her. “Again I must apologise. That was not necessary. You agreed to come, to help my mother with this infernal wedding that has her so worked up for some reason. Enough, it appears, to put her in hospital. The least I can do is extend true Greek hospitality.”
    “It’s all right, Damon.” She spoke to her faint reflection in the dark window. “I don’t expect anything from you. Your feelings for me have always been plain.”
    He shifted behind her. “Have I been that bad?”
    Rebecca drew a quivering breath, fortifying herself against the almost playful note in his voice. The last thing she needed was Damon extending false friendship because he felt obligated. Where would that leave her?
    Head over heels in love?
    God, no! Honest dislike was far, far better than false hopes.
    “No reply? Not what I’d expect from you, Rebecca. What are you thinking, standing there so silent?”
    That was a first. Damon had never been interested in her views, her thoughts. Too often he’d stifled her opinions with a harsh look, his mouth drawn into a sneer.
    “Lost for words, hmm?” Again that hint of playfulness. “Or too polite to tell me that you think I’ve been worse than I suggest?”
    She lifted a negligent shoulder and dropped it, refusing to be drawn…or charmed.
    The silence stretched. She inhaled and became sharply aware of the heady fragrance of the orange blossom—and her awareness of the man behind her soared. She heard the soft rustle of silk as he shifted, heard the tempo of his breathing change. The tension started to wind tighter until Rebecca could stand it no longer and swung around.
    He was standing much closer than she’d anticipated. The thick carpet must have muffled his approach. And there was something in his eyes—something elemental, something that she recognised.
    Her heart leaped, and speeded to a gallop.
    The air sizzled, charged. Rebecca wanted to fling her arms around him, pull him to her, feel his lips on hers. She tried to remember all the reasons it would be a bad idea.
    He hated her. He was overwrought, worried by his mother’s collapse. He’d been her best friend’s husband.
    It would be dangerous to T.J.—heck, it would be dangerous for her. There was no chance of a happy ending. Only heartbreak would come from this.
    Yet none of it mattered. She didn’t care. About any of it.
    If only he would touch her. Kiss her. Set her on fire.
    And when he moved, she closed the rest of the space between them. Breathing his name, she met his gaze, saw the flare of emotion, felt his response leap through her.
    Then, as she stretched out her hand and her fingertips touched the firm muscle of his upper arm, he cursed, loudly, violently, and reeled away. But not before she’d glimpsed confusion in his eyes.
    A stark, tormented uncertainty.
    Rebecca held her breath as he stumbled to the door, and she did not release it until the door slammed shut behind him louder than a crack of thunder.

Four
    D amn her!
    Damon stepped up to the pool’s edge. It was late, well past midnight. But he was too charged to sleep. Rebecca. The child. And the worry of visiting his mother in hospital and demanding answers from the physician on duty. All the events of the day had knotted the tension so tight that now his head threatened to explode. The water lay like a sheet of blackened silver under the moonlight. A moist sea breeze swept his torso and whispered across his thighs but failed to cool the heat that coursed through his naked body.
    Upstairs, when Rebecca had tilted up her face, breathed his name…he’d almost drowned in the spell of her beauty. Then she’d touched