One Winter's Sunrise: Gift-Wrapped in Her Wedding Dress

She listened to Gemma, then spoke again. ‘Yes. We are...romantically involved. In fact...well...we’re engaged.’ She held the phone out from her ear and even Dominic could hear the excited squeals coming from Gemma.

When the squeals had subsided, Andie spoke again. ‘Yes. It is sudden. I know that. But...well...you see I’ve learned that you have to grab your chance at happiness when you can. I... I’ve had it snatched away from me before.’ She paused as she listened. ‘Yes, that’s it. I didn’t want to wait. Neither did he. Gemma, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone just yet. Eliza? Well, okay, you can tell Eliza. I’d just like to tell my family first. What was that? Yes, I’ll tell him.’ She shut down her phone.

‘So it’s out,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘No denying it now.’

‘What did Gemma ask you to tell me?’

She looked up at him. ‘That she hoped you knew what a lucky guy you are to...to catch me.’

He looked down at her. ‘I know very well how lucky I am. You’re wonderful in every way and I appreciate what you’re doing to help me.’

For a long moment he looked down into her face—still, serious, even sombre without her usual animated expression. Her eyes were full of something he couldn’t put a name to. But not, he hoped, regret.

‘Thank you, Andie.’

He stepped closer. For a long moment her gaze met his and held it. He saw wariness but he also saw the stirrings of what he could only read as invitation. To kiss his pretend fiancée would probably be a mistake. But it was a mistake he badly wanted to make.

He lifted his hand to her face, brushed first the smooth skin of her cheek and then the warm softness of her lips with the back of his knuckles. She stilled. Her lips parted under his touch and he could feel the tremor that ran through her body. He dropped his hand to her shoulder, then dipped his head and claimed her mouth in a firm gentle kiss. She murmured her surprise and pleasure as she kissed him back.

CHAPTER TEN (#ulink_a90fcf4b-ff33-57e2-b0b7-3f2af1fc91f6)

DOMINIC WAS KISSING her and it was more wonderful than Andie ever could have imagined. His firm, sensuous mouth was sure and certain on hers and she welcomed the intimate caress, the nudging of his tongue against the seam of her lips as she opened her mouth to his. His beard growth scratched her face but it was a pleasurable kind of pain. The man knew how to kiss.

But as he kissed her and she kissed him back she was shocked by the sudden explosion of chemistry between them that turned something gentle into something urgent and demanding. She wound her arms around his neck to bring him closer in a wild tangle of tongues and lips as she pressed herself against his hard muscular chest. He tasted of coffee and hot male and desire. Passion this instant, this insistent was a surprise.

But it was too soon.

She knew she wanted him. But she hadn’t realised until now just how much she wanted him. And how careful she would have to be to guard her heart. Because these thrilling kisses told her that intimate contact with Dominic Hunt might just become an addiction she would find very difficult to live without. To him, this pretend engagement was a business ploy that might also develop into an entertaining game on the side. She did not want to be a fake fiancée with benefits.

When it came down to it, while she had dated over the last few years, her only serious relationship had been with a boy who had adored her, and whom she had loved with all her heart. Not a man like Dominic, who had sworn off marriage and viewed commitment so lightly he could pretend to be engaged. Her common sense urged her to stop but her body wanted more, more, more of him.

With a great effort she broke away from the kiss. Her heart was pounding in triple time, her breath coming in painful gasps. She took a deep steadying breath. And then another.

‘That...that was a great start on Condition Number Six,’ she managed to choke out.

Dominic towered over her; his breath came in ragged gasps. He looked so darkly sensual, her heart seemed to flip right over in her chest. ‘What?’ he demanded. ‘Stopping when we’d just started?’

‘No. I... I mean the actual kiss.’

He put his hand on her shoulder, lightly stroking her in a caress that ignited shivers of delight all through her.

‘So tell me about your sixth condition,’ he said, his deep voice with a broken edge to it as he struggled to control his breathing.

‘Condition Number Six is that we...we have to look the part.’

He frowned. ‘And that means...?’

‘I mean we have to act like a genuine couple. To seem to other people as if we’re...we’re crazy about each other. Because it would have to be...something very powerful between us for us to get engaged so quickly. In...real life, I mean.’

She found it difficult to meet his eyes. ‘I was going to say we needed to get physical. And we just did...get physical. So we...uh...know that there’s chemistry between us. And that...that it works.’

He dropped his hand from her shoulder to tilt her chin upwards with his finger so she was forced to meet his gaze. ‘There was never any doubt about that.’

His words thrummed through her body. That sexual attraction had been there for her the first time she’d met him. Had he felt it too?

‘So the sixth condition is somewhat superfluous,’ she said, her voice racing as she tried to ignore the hunger for him his kiss had ignited. ‘I think we might be okay, there. You know, holding hands, arms around each other. Appropriate Public Displays of Affection.’ It was an effort to force herself to sound matter of fact.

‘This just got to be my favourite of all your conditions,’ he said slowly, his eyes narrowing in a way she found incredibly sexy. ‘Shall we practise some more?’

Her traitorous body wrestled down her hopelessly outmatched common sense. ‘Why not?’ she murmured, desperate to be in his arms again. He pulled her close and their body contact made her aware he wanted her as much as she wanted him. She sighed as she pressed her mouth to his.

Then her phone sang out its ringtone of a piano sonata.

‘Leave it,’ growled Dominic.

She ignored the musical tone until it stopped. But it had brought her back to reality. There was nothing she wanted more than to take Dominic by the hand and lead him up the stairs to her bedroom. She intended to have him before this contract between them came to an end.

But that intuition she usually trusted screamed at her that to make love with him on the first day of their fake engagement would be a mistake. It would change the dynamic of their relationship to something she did not feel confident of being able to handle.

No sooner had the ringtone stopped than it started again.

Andie untangled herself from Dominic’s embrace and stepped right back from him, back from the seductive reach of his muscular arms.

‘I... I have to take this,’ she said.

She answered the phone but had to rest against the kitchen countertop to support knees that had gone shaky and weak. Dominic leaned back against the wall opposite her and crossed his arms against his powerful chest. His muscles flexed as he did so and she had to force herself to concentrate on the phone call.

‘Yes, Eliza, it’s true. I know—it must have been a surprise to you. A party?’ Andie looked up to Dominic and shook her head. He nodded. She spoke to Eliza. ‘No. We don’t want an engagement party. Yes, I know we’re party queens and it’s what we do.’ She rolled her eyes at Dominic and, to her relief, he smiled. ‘The Christmas party is more than enough to handle at the moment,’ she said to Eliza.

We. She and Dominic were a couple now. A fake couple. It would take some getting used to. So would handling the physical attraction between them.

‘The wedding?’ Eliza’s question about the timing of the wedding flustered her. ‘We...we...uh...next year some time. Yes, I know next year is only next month. The wedding won’t be next month, that’s for sure.’ The wedding—wouldn’t a loved-up fiancée have said our wedding?

She finished the call to Eliza and realised her hands were clammy. ‘This is not going to be easy,’ she said to Dominic.

‘I never thought it would be,’ he said. Was there a double meaning there?

‘I have no experience in this kind of deception. The first thing Eliza asked me was when are we getting married. She put me on the spot. I... I struggled to find an answer.’

He nodded slowly. ‘I suggest we say we’ve decided on a long engagement. That we’re committed but want to use the engagement time to get to know each other better.’

‘That sounds good,’ she said.

The deceptive words came so easily to him while she was so flustered she could scarcely think. She realised how hopelessly mismatched they were: he was more experienced, wealthier, from a completely different background. And so willing to lie.

And yet... That kiss had only confirmed how much she wanted him.