One Night in the Orient

Too late, she remembered that Nick came from a dysfunctional marriage, and flushed, furious with herself. She was so foolishly conscious of him she couldn’t even organise her thoughts.

Nick gave her a narrow smile. “And I don’t?”

“I wasn’t referring to you.” She apologised. “I’m sorry—it was a crass comment.”

“But entirely correct,” he drawled. Once again he glanced down at her ring. “So when is the wedding?”

“We haven’t settled on a date yet,” she said, “but almost certainly in the spring next year.”

He looked curious. “A long time off. Are you living together?”

“No.” The heat in her cheeks flared up again. Her thoughtless comment had been returned with interest and cool deliberation.

Nick looked over her shoulder and rose to his feet, his expression well under control.

Expecting her parents, Siena was surprised by the woman who stopped at the table, but only for a second.

As Nick got to his feet she realised this had to be his latest lover.

CHAPTER TWO

ASSAILED by an emotion perilously close to jealousy—no, Siena corrected hastily, envy—she took in the newcomer’s tall blonde beauty with something like resignation.

“Nicholas,” the new arrival said in a modulated voice. “You see, I wasn’t away long.”

“Portia, this is Siena Blake,” he said negligently, and introduced her.

A pale, expert gaze appraised Siena’s blue silk. Appraised—and then dismissed it as a chain store irrelevance. A spark of rebellion lifted Siena’s chin a fraction.

Nick finished the introductions. “You met Siena’s parents a couple of nights ago,” he told the newcomer.

The blonde said smoothly, “I remember. Your fellow New Zealanders.” Dismissing them too, she gazed down an aristocratic nose at Siena. “So you and your sister are the—” Her brow crinkled a moment before she laughed softly and directed an arch, long-lashed glance at the man beside her. “I think the words Nicholas used were ‘the nearest things I have to sisters.’ Is that right, darling?”

“When I was young, yes,” Nick said.

Siena stopped herself from casting him a swift look. Although his tone was perfectly pleasant she detected an edge to it she hadn’t heard before.

He finished, “However, it’s been some time since I thought of either Siena or her twin as sisters.”

“And I’m sure neither of them ever thought of you as a brother.” Portia’s voice had lowered and she smiled at him.

It wasn’t exactly a possessive smile, nor an openly desirous one, but there was a proprietorial gleam mixed with the feminine appreciation. And it cut through Siena’s composure like a sword.

What’s happening to me? she thought worriedly.

Not that she blamed Nick’s lover. Several inches taller than the blonde woman, his black head gleaming in the lights, Nick radiated the cool, leashed assurance Siena always associated with him—as though he could take on the world and win.

Which was exactly what he had done—and on his own terms.

He looked at Siena, his eyes hooded. “Both Siena and her sister considered me an intruder.”

Lighten up, Siena told herself. It took an effort to produce a soft laugh. “Especially when you tried to teach us chess.”

His grin flashed white. “I was endeavouring not to remember that.”

“I’m sure you were an excellent teacher,” Portia said a little abruptly, as though somehow Siena had cast aspersions on his intelligence.

“Siena beat me,” he told her.

“Because you let me,” Siena objected.

She recognised the smile he gave her—amused yet tinged with cynicism. “For the first half of the game, yes,” he conceded. “After that I was desperately trying to regain ground.”

Portia produced a tinkling little laugh. “And was your sister a prodigy too?”

Nick said, “Gemma was definitely not into board games.”

He glanced up as Siena’s parents returned, their arrival followed by a flurry of congratulations. In answer to a glance from Nick a waiter glided up to take his order for more champagne, and while that lasted they all made conversation.

Eventually he and Portia went back to their table out of sight. Strung tense as taut wire, Siena forced herself to lean back in her chair and look around the room.

“How lovely to see Nick again,” Diane said once they were safely out of earshot. “He was such a tightly buttoned boy I used to worry about him, but things have worked out so well for him.” She patted her husband fondly on the arm. “Thanks in no small measure to you, Hugh.”

“He’d have got there by himself,” Hugh said confidently. “What we did for him, I think, was to show him what a happy household was like.”

Surprised, Siena said, “Do you think so? I wouldn’t have thought he’d seen enough of us to do that. From what I remember he spent most of his time doing boy things with you.”

Hugh shook his head. “Oh, he knew. Nick’s always been extremely astute. When his parents’ marriage ended his father was awarded custody at first, then somehow his mother regained it. Shortly after that the father died. I thought it was interesting that Nick never spoke of him.”

Diane said quietly, “He did—once—to me. In a chilling, very adult way. He told me he’d never allow himself to be like his father. I wondered if his father had beaten him, but he didn’t react like a child who feared physical harm.”

Siena was horrified. Her comment to Nick about family dynamics couldn’t have been more unfortunate. “Do you think he beat Nick’s mother?”

“Possibly,” Diane said.

Shocked, Siena tried to reconcile this new information with what she knew of Nick. Somehow—by osmosis, perhaps—she’d absorbed knowledge that his family hadn’t been a happy one, but her parents had never discussed him and she’d had no idea his childhood had been traumatic.

Had that trauma something to do with the shattering end to their—their what? Romance?

Hardly. Although she’d prayed it might become one. Ever hopeful at nineteen, she thought grimly. Not a romance and neither had it been an affair, because that implied something more important than several weeks of flirtation followed by one night together.

One-night stand she refused to accept. It had been—at least on her side—more than that. She’d been so sure she was in love with him.

Interlude, she decided.

Yes, that fitted the situation perfectly—reduced it to insignificance.

Her mother broke into her thoughts with an inconsequential remark. “It’s time Nick got married. He was—what?—thirty in October?”