Read Online Wedding Night with a Stranger by Anna Cleary - Free Book Online

upon the world, for the moment this small table, in this pool of light, with this smoothly determined, dangerous and—she had to admit—extremely attractive man, was all she had to cling to.
    It was risky though, feeling this rocky and emotional in the presence of a handsome man and a bottle of champagne. Heartsore, tired people with jet lag could easily switch from sexy enchanting laughter to tears. To prove it, there was a small jazz band across the room, and a singer with a voice like dark honey plucked at her heartstrings with every line of every plaintive old love ballad she sang. Cry me a river, she sobbed. Willow weep for me.
    The setting might have been exciting, and picturesque, with the constantly changing light show on the harbour as traffic streamed across the bridge, and ferries chugged in and out of the Quay lit up like Christmas, but she didn’t feel she belonged. She felt so out of place, it was no wonder she was finding solace in the company of her despised bridegroom. Aspiring bridegroom.
    Every so often she reminded herself this was her country too, but had trouble convincing herself.
    She withdrew her gaze from the harbour lights to contemplate Sebastian. If he was regretting transferring her to his table, he wasn’t showing it.
    His sexy mouth was grave, but there was an unsettling warmth in his dark eyes whenever they rested on her, making her insides curl over with an exhilarating suspense. Meeting his eyes ran her the risk of being scorched. She knew she was flirting with danger, yet she couldn’t seem to resist it.
    And what with the warm summer air floating in from the terrace, she was getting overheated. ‘It’s hot in here,’ she breathed to Sebastian. ‘Don’t you feel hot?’ She took off her feathery wrap and draped it over the back of her chair.
    When she did that an appreciative gleam lit his eyes that made her conscious of having crossed some sort of safety line.His glance made the skin of her chest and shoulders tingle and burn as if razed by a solar flare. Call her a needy tart, but the sensation felt thrilling to a woman that no man in Greece—probably Europe —would touch, even with a very long pole.
    Her sexual receptors were madly spinning. He would touch her if he got the chance, she felt sure.
    ‘You set this up, didn’t you?’ she challenged him, caressing the stem of her glass.
    He smiled in acknowledgement. ‘I’ve never really liked eating alone.’
    She glowered at him, hoping he didn’t guess how seriously that sexy smile was seeping into her bloodstream and melting her resistance. ‘How did you know I would be coming to the restaurant?’
    He considered her, his sensual gaze flickering with masculine expertise from her face and hair, down her throat to her breasts. ‘You’ve put your hair up. And the dress. You went to so much trouble to look gorgeous, I couldn’t see you wasting it all in your room. Even to spite me.’ Amusement warmed his eyes.
    ‘Oh.’ She flushed. ‘Well, I hope it cost you heaps.’
    Sebastian watched the delicate tide suffuse her neck, then rise to her soft cheeks, and felt a dangerous surge in his blood. The knowledge that he had the power to evoke such a response was seductive, to say the least.
    He restrained his eyes from wandering to her breasts, though he was aware of them with every fibre of his being.
    Now the thaw had set in, there was a sparkle in her blue eyes, brought about by the champagne, or the electric charge pulsing between them, he wasn’t sure which. Either way, tonight his edgy bride had shown him alluring glimpses of her true self. Bubbly, mischievous, funny, though every so often he heard the tip of some other emotion tinge her voice. Sometimes her smile had a feverish quality, as if her mood could be fragile. Or was she excited?
    His supposed bride, he corrected himself, watching her lips close over the chocolate-laden spoon while her lashes drifted down in utter bliss.
    Disturbed from her appreciation of