Bought for His Bed: Virgin Bought and Paid For / Bought for Her Baby / Sold to the Highest Bidder!

‘Very much,’ she returned with a tight smile. ‘I’ve just been hearing what an adventurous childhood you had. Your parents must have been thankful when you finally grew up still in one piece.’

‘My mother was. My father was apparently just as reckless.’ He paused, letting his gaze drift down to the pearl around her throat. ‘What else have you learned?’

‘That this pretty thing is rare and very precious.’

‘Very suitable,’ he said, his flat, lethal tone contradicting the words.

What the hell had got into him? Temper brought swift colour to her cheeks. She took a deep breath and returned sweetly, ‘How kind.’

He laughed and put his hand over her clenched one on the table. Shocked at a gesture so public, she tried to pull away, but his fingers tightened. He didn’t hurt; his cool gaze let her know that any release would be his decision.

And then she was free and he said in a different voice, ‘Did he happen to mention that I have a nasty temper?’

‘No, but I know now,’ she said sweetly, refusing to give an inch.

Luke’s laughter sounded genuinely unforced. Fleur watched him and something inside her melted and dissolved, and she realised that it was too late to worry about the state of her heart. It was already dangerously compromised.

When Luke sobered she asked quietly, ‘What was that all about?’

‘I think it must be that emotion we’re not allowed to feel,’ he said, looking at her with what must have appeared to anyone watching to be amusement mixed with a certain spice of lust and affection.

Jealousy? Fleur’s skin tightened, but he turned to his partner and the moment was over.

In the car on the way to the after-dinner function, Lauren Bagaton said, ‘Luke, that was a fabulous meal. And such fun! What a terrific way to make money for charity—a dinner with good friends in the most romantic place in the world. Well, apart from Dacia, of course!’

‘I’m glad you enjoyed it, and we have Fleur to thank for saving it from disaster,’ he said dryly.

Fleur said, ‘Nonsense!’

But Lauren demanded to know what had happened, her laughter pealing out when Luke obliged.

Her husband Guy asked, ‘Where are we going?’

‘It’s a deep, dark secret,’ Luke said lightly.

‘On Fala’isi? Don’t expect us to believe that—you know everything that happens here.’

Luke smiled. ‘I’ve been sworn to discretion. You’ll just have to wait until we get there. It’s not far now.’

And although Lauren coaxed, he refused to say anything more. ‘It’s a surprise,’ he said, adding, ‘If I tell you I’ll be hung, drawn and quartered by the committee of women who’ve worked so hard to make the evening a success.’

‘You’re afraid of a committee?’ Lauren asked, laughing.

‘You don’t know these women,’ Luke told her cheerfully. ‘You’ll just have to wait until we get there.’

There turned out to be a pavilion overlooking a magnificent beach. Built and decorated just for this occasion, a dance floor shrouded by white silk walls had been looped with garlands of golden-hearted frangipani and hibiscus. Tables under the stars overlooked the lagoon, and a band tuned up for the hundred or so people who’d been brought there from dinner parties all over the island. Light from hundreds of candles warmed the moonlight.

Lauren said to Fleur, ‘We can get our make-up touched up in that tent over there. Coming?’

‘Yes,’ she said, fascinated by this intimate glimpse into social life amongst the very powerful.

In the tent several women from a famous cosmetics firm were working their esoteric magic.

One took Lauren and another whisked Fleur into a chair. ‘With skin like that you don’t need more cosmetics, but how about a little extra something to bring out the green in your eyes?’

‘Not green eyeshadow, please!’ Fleur implored.

The woman laughed. ‘I swear, no green eyeshadow.’

She worked skilfully for several minutes, and then held up a mirror. ‘There.’

Fleur stared at her reflection. Her lips were sinfully exotic in a coral that she’d never have dared to wear because it should have clashed with her hair. And her eyes—oh, her eyes were greener than she’d ever seen them, the clear, mysterious green of the wild ocean, and they seemed bigger and darker and infinitely more inviting.

‘How did you do that?’ she asked, amazed.

‘Come to the salon one day and I’ll show you.’ The woman brushed aside her thanks and turned to the next eager partygoer.

Lauren was waiting for her, looking brighter than she had before. ‘Aren’t they clever?’

‘She said she could teach me how to do this.’ Immediately after Fleur said the words she wished she hadn’t—they made her sound naïve and out of place.

But Lauren smiled and took her arm. ‘Then let her. Makeup is fun. Now, where are our men?’ Taller than Fleur, she looked around. ‘Ah, here they come.’

The two men materialised through the throng of people, both turning heads as they came. For the first time in her life Fleur was the recipient of envious looks from other women. A forbidden excitement unfurled from the tight knot of anticipation in her chest. Soon there would be dancing…

She accepted a glass of champagne and sipped it, looking around.

‘What are you thinking?’ Luke’s voice was for her ears only.

‘That it looks like a film set,’ she said without thinking.

Irony tinged his smile. ‘With us as the extras?’

She nodded. ‘It’s so…everything’s right. It’s like a romantic fantasy.’

‘Good,’ he said. ‘The committee who organised it worked extremely hard to make it exactly that. Our table’s over here.’

The band struck up and the MC walked into the centre of the empty dance floor and welcomed them, telling them of the amazing amount of money the evening had earned. Everyone cheered and clapped, and then the MC announced the first dance, making a wry comment about the difference between old Europe where the tune was composed and this tropical paradise.

Fleur kept her gaze fixed on the dance floor as the band swung into a waltz.

‘May I have this dance?’ Luke asked formally.

She tried for an airy tone, but to her dismay it came out tense and somewhat forced. ‘Of course.’

Hand in the small of her back once again, he guided her onto the floor.

Fleur blessed the high school in New Zealand that had run dancing lessons before each midwinter ball; she wasn’t an expert, but at least she knew how to waltz. Luke, however, possessed both the knowledge and that intangible something that translated into grace on the dance floor.