Trial By Seduction

It was an order from a man accustomed to giving orders. Surprised, Glenna obeyed without thinking and watched as he picked up the phone and waited for the concierge to answer.

“Easton, it’s Mark,” he said succinctly. “Send someone up to the suite ASAP.” He glanced at the door again. “No, I don’t think we need an RN, but do make sure it’s a woman. I want her here until Edgerton comes up.”

No argument ensued from the other end apparently, because in two seconds Mark had hung up the phone and turned to Glenna.

“Now,” he said, a hint of a smile returning to his lips, “you were saying?”

Glenna hardly remembered what she had been going to say. She felt a little as if she had just stepped into a very strange dream where nothing looked or sounded as she expected it to. She knew ten years was a long time but...

Things certainly had changed around here. Philip’s manner downstairs had stunned her. He had seemed rather sweet and simple ten years ago, perhaps the most “normal” of the three Connelly boys. When had he changed from boyish charmer to sloppy drunk?

Now this. When had Deanna Fitzwilliam faded from trophy bride to shadow wife? And even more amazingly, how had Mark Connelly made the transformation from poor relation to power broker?

He was waiting. Desperately she found her train of thought and grabbed it. “I said I probably ought to go now. You have things to do—”

“You can’t leave yet,” he said, but the authoritative bite was gone from his voice. In its place was the old playful tone, the teasing note of cat and mouse. “You still owe me a dance.”

“I do?” He just smiled. She looked around. “Well, even if I do, I don’t see how we can—”

A soft rap interrupted her, and she closed her mouth, frustrated. Mark must think she was an airhead. She felt as if she hadn’t finished a single sentence in his presence tonight.

Without comment, he answered the door, ushered in a no-nonsense woman in a white uniform, exchanged a few inaudible sentences with her and then held out his hand to Glenna. “Come with me,” he said, his grin back in full force. “And I’ll show you how.”

She resisted, but only a little, dragging ever so slightly on his hand as he strode toward the elevator, plunged them down three stories and then swept her out onto the wide second-floor veranda.

He took her acquiescence for granted. And with good reason, she had to admit, wondering at herself. Her resistance was purely token. As his pace accelerated, her feet hurried after him as if her evening slippers had come equipped with wings.

But why? What was happening to her? She had felt slightly on edge, different somehow, ever since her fit of weeping on the beach this morning. Was it possible that letting go of some of her bottled-up grief had been therapeutic—inching aside an emotional boulder that had been blocking her for years? Or was it just the primitive animal appeal of Mark himself? His personality was so vibrant, his nature so recklessly vital, that she was drawn to it and afraid of it in equal measures.

But when she had seen him standing next to that tragic, washed-out Deanna Connelly—well, somehow in that moment the balance had shifted, and Glenna had felt a sudden piercing craving for...for the life force he represented.

Across the veranda then and around the western corner of the hotel, to where a small minaret jutted out, an architectural whimsy that had clearly been included primarily to offer an appropriate nook for clandestine assignations. Open to the night air, it overhung the first-floor ballroom, and the music floated up easily, filling the tiny tower with haunting, half-heard melodies.

Glenna looked around, suddenly disconcerted. This might have been a mistake. The orchestra was playing the “Moonlight Sonata”. Of course. What else?

She tried to make a joke, something lame about Mark’s impeccable timing and how much he must have paid the pianist to play that song on cue, but she couldn’t quite find the right words. When she reached for a sentenceful of bracing cynicism, she came up mute. So instead, buying time, she went to the edge of the tower, looked out—and felt herself tumble over the last razor edge of resistance.

“Oh, look,” she said, as breathless as a debutante herself. “How beautiful it is!”

No, not even sensible Glenna McBride could resist such a night. The sky was like a dowager wearing all her jewels at once—a thousand diamond-chip stars glittering across her dark blue velvet breast.

As Glenna watched, the round moon smiled, then retreated behind a drifting veil of silver lace. And below, more beautiful than all the rest, lay the black satin Gulf, dancing a silent, erotic waltz with the wind.

“Yes, it is.” Mark was right behind her. Her pulse sped slightly as he put his hands on her shoulders. “Very, very beautiful,” he murmured, and turned her toward him.

Did they dance? Perhaps. But her body was registering so many rhythms at once it was difficult to know which one to follow. The heavy rolling sweep as the tide stroked the shore; the soundless, measured throb of Mark’s heart against her hand; the languorous trickle of moonlight through the piano keys.

No dance she’d ever learned could encompass all of that. They moved slowly. Sometimes not at all.

“Relax.” His voice was low, insistent, very near her ear. “Remember—it’s only a dance.”

But how could she? It was so strange to hold him like this—sweet and dangerous at the same time. Without taking a single physical liberty, he made it an act of amazing intimacy.

She stiffened her spine, which seemed to want to melt into itself. No. She might have surrendered to the beauty of the night, but she hadn’t relinquished her soul to him. Yes, that was right, hold something back. She was determined to keep one part of herself untouched, one corner of her mind that the music and his scent couldn’t infiltrate. Outside is...safer.

But it was so difficult. Her fingers trembled against his back from the effort. She felt as if she’d never really heard the sonata before—had there always been such a deep, insistent counterpoint below the softer, rippling treble notes? Where once she had heard lovely sadness, lovers parting beneath the moon, she now heard something different. They were not parting—they were coming together, and the experience was both glory and despair, death and redemption....

It’s only a dance.

But now his firm, long fingers were tracing the contours of her spine—the muscles contracted in his wake, arcing her toward him. Her eyes drifted shut; her skin warmed where it met the ridged wall of his chest.

She felt his power slipping inside her defenses; the safe corner of her mind buckled dangerously under the pressure. He wasn’t a man who tolerated locked places. He wanted it all, expected it all, whether it was for the length of a sonata or for a lifetime.

It’s only a dance.

Somehow, by sheer will, she held on, and when the music stopped, she pulled back slowly. She looked at him, bewildered by how depleted she felt. She touched two fingers to her temple as if she could corral her thoughts. But it was like trying to force rain back into the clouds, tears back into your heart.

“That was...lovely.” She tried to smile lightly. “Your orchestra is very good.” She pushed a few stray hairs back into her French knot. “You know, though, I really do think I should go back downstairs now.”

“Let me guess.” His tone was softly mocking. “Purcell needs you?”

She laughed awkwardly. “Well, yes. Surely by now the senator has come to claim his wife—”

“I hope not. The senator died ten years ago.” Mark leaned against the balustrade. The full moon rimmed his dark hair in silver. “We call Maggie the senator’s wife out of habit. No, actually I suspect she probably has Purcell lounging on a chaise on the beach right now, watching the moon and drinking sangria.”