The Night that Changed Everything

These were mid-seventeenth century from the look of them. Very baroque. Bernini would have been right at home.

“I now pronounce you man and wife.”

Nick breathed a sigh of relief.

He would have escaped then, except his uncle Orestes had latched on to him before he could, determined to talk to him to see if he wouldn’t like to come and restore the moldering gazebo on his Connecticut property.

At least it hadn’t been an offer to introduce him to the new office girl. Silently Nick had counted his blessings as he went along the receiving line, congratulated his cousin, Demetrios, and kissed the glowing bride.

After the dinner, which he had contrived to eat in the company of his uncle Philip’s triplet daughters because no one could expect him to be interested in them, he had propped himself against a wall near the dance floor where conversation would be difficult and no one would suggest that he dance.

He’d been counting the minutes until he could politely leave, when an eager young blonde had latched on to him.

“Rhiannon Evans,” she’d announced breathlessly. And she’d looked at him as if expecting him to know who she was.

She was young, definitely stunning and determinedly sparkling. “I’m an actress,” she’d explained, forgiving him because he admitted he didn’t know the first thing about movies. Wasn’t really interested. Didn’t watch them.

He should, she’d told him. He could start with hers.

She was getting billing now—”though still below the title,” she admitted—and bigger and better parts. She told him she was serious about her craft and that she didn’t want to be known simply for being beautiful—she said this last with no self-consciousness whatsoever—but for being good at her work.

There was an edge to her bright girlish chatter. Nick was well-versed in female body language and he could see she had An Agenda.

First there was the hand on his arm, then hers somehow linked around his. She leaned into him. She patted his lapel, then touched his cheek.

“I’m determined not to ride on my mother’s coattails, either.” And that was when he’d learned she was Mona Tremayne’s daughter.

At least he knew who Mona was.

Nick doubted there was a male breathing who hadn’t fantasized about Mona Tremayne at some point in his life—her early sex goddess movies had seen to that. Heaven knew as a young man he had, even if she was nearly old enough to be his mother.

He’d met her a few days ago at a dinner Demetrios had hosted. She’d been without her daughter then, thank God. Mona was still strikingly beautiful, still worthy of fantasies if he’d been so inclined. She was also warm and friendly, interested in what he was doing at the palace.

When she learned he was here not for the wedding, but to oversee the restoration of part of the palace, she’d said, “You don’t do ranches, do you?”

“Never have.”

“You should consider it.” She’d smiled encouragingly. “I’ve got an old adobe on my property that needs to be restored before it crumbles back to primeval mud.”

He’d laughed. But because old buildings of any sort interested him he’d asked her a few questions, then offered to send her the names of some colleagues.

Rhiannon hadn’t been nearly as interesting. But as she kept on chattering. Nick contrived to look interested. At least she didn’t have marriage on her mind. He was sure of that.

There had been an edge of fragile desperation to her frenzied chatter, and the way her gaze roamed the room, he thought she was desperate for someone to see her with him.

He didn’t mind who saw them together. Nothing was happening.

Nothing was going to happen. And her presence kept the Savas matchmakers at bay.

Finally she paused and focused on him. “What do you do?” she asked.

And so he told her—at length—about architectural renovation and restoration. Served her right, he thought, for pawing him. It was clear that she didn’t care a whit. She had other things on her mind.

So he droned on about beams and joists, about weight-bearing walls, about matching the plaster using original techniques. He talked about dry rot and rising damp and wormy floorboards—which in the interest of her further education, he offered to show her as he was currently engaged in pulling up some in the palace’s east tower. He’d even gone so far as to say he’d taken a bedroom there so he could continue to work on the wormy floorboards at all hours.

He’d figured he might bore her enough that she’d go find someone more inclined to take her up on what she seemed to have in mind. Or maybe the suggestion would scare her off.

In fact, that was when she’d run her hand down his lapel, looked dreamily up into his eyes and told him how much she’d “simply adore” coming to his bedroom to see the renovations.

Nick began to think it might be a better idea to dance with her—and step on her toes.

But it hadn’t come to that.

He’d been saved. By Edie Daley.

A less likely savior would have been hard to imagine. A less likely sister to the ethereally beautiful Rhiannon was hard to imagine, too.

They looked nothing alike. Though Nick supposed he could detect the Mona Tremayne cheekbones in both her daughters’ faces. But the similarity ended there. Where Rhiannon determinedly emphasized those bones with makeup, Edie did nothing to highlight them at all.

The little makeup she wore seemed more designed to cover up than accentuate. Though he suspected that what she was covering up were freckles.

He thought he would prefer the freckles.

He certainly preferred her flashing gray-green eyes and tart tongue to her sister’s blue eyes and breathless babbling. Edie didn’t charm, she didn’t flatter. She didn’t paw, either. She kept her distance.

And she got right to the business at hand, which was clearly making sure that her sister had nothing to do with him. Used to having women thrown at his head, Nick found Edie’s portrayal of a determined mother hen, intent on extracting her chick from danger, oddly appealing. Her words to her sister, though, revealed that she understood that Nick was not the entire source of the danger. Clearly she realized that her sister was capable of disaster with very little help at all.

Nick didn’t envy whoever Rhiannon’s fiancе was. The poor guy would have his hands full with her—which made Edie’s ability to direct her back onto the straight and narrow all the more impressive. Obviously she was a woman to be reckoned with.

She had presence. And character.

While she may not have had the perfect ageless features of her mother or the ethereal beauty of her younger sister, Edie had the kind of bone structure a camera would love, as well as the liveliest eyes he’d ever seen.

Nick liked lively eyes. He liked her take-charge, no-nonsense personality. He liked the fact that she was intent on backing away from him.

It made him want to get closer.

And once her sister had disappeared, Nick stopped trying to think of ways to escape the reception and instead tried to find ways to keep Edie Daley talking.

For the first time he began to enjoy himself as he drew her out, got her talking, even teased her a bit. She responded, then backed off. He didn’t want her backing off.

So he asked her to dance.

The request probably shocked him more than it had her. Nick didn’t dance. Hadn’t for years.

The last woman he’d danced with had been Amy, three nights before their wedding, the night before she’d died. He’d danced with Amy and it had been the last time he’d held her in his arms.

It wasn’t the same, he assured himself. Nothing like the same.