The Billionaire's Captive Bride(6)

He sipped the chardonnay-a fine Margaret River wine that he hoped would  be to Erin's taste. He wanted to please her, wanted her to be pleased  with him. This meeting place virtually shouted that to her mind, any  romance between them was out of the question. No doubt, the Ramsey name  had intimidated her into thinking that. A smile of happy anticipation  spread across his face. He relished the challenge of overriding that  barrier with a full-on charm offensive.

Except it wasn't needed.

That realisation hit him the moment Erin walked into his line of vision.  There was nothing casual about her appearance. It was a full-on female  offensive.

Desire to take what she was offering instantly kicked in. Erin Lavelle  was an outstandingly gorgeous babe, long silky black hair swinging free,  lush breasts free, too, playing peekaboo from a very sexy bodice. The  dress she was wearing was a knockout-a stunning combination of colours  that brought out the green in her eyes, and was styled to stir the  juices of any red-blooded male.

Yes reverberated around in Peter's brain.

But it was tinged with disappointment-the challenge had just been snuffed out.

And laced with cynicism-was this a reaction to his name and all it stood  for? Had rainbow girl decided to take a crack at the pot of gold?



Mistake!

Elation had bubbled through Erin as Peter Ramsey rose from the table to  greet her, looking stunned by this more glamorous version of herself,  but there was something wrong with his smile. It didn't reach his eyes.  And it curled into a twist of irony.

Her fluttering heart closed its wings and shrunk inside itself. Her mind  cringed with embarrassment. She'd misread his invitation to dinner. The  attraction she felt towards him wasn't mutual and she'd just made a  gigantic fool of herself.         

     



 

Defence instincts sprang into action. The fertile creativity in her mind  was fast-tracked into finding a scenario that would wipe out his  impression of availability signals being flaunted.

"Hi!" she said brightly, quickening her step towards him, holding out  her hand, fixing a wry little smile on her mouth. "Excuse the glad rags.  A bit out of place here. But I'm going on to a party afterwards and it  was easier not to have to do a change of clothes later."

"Please don't apologise. No man could look at you tonight without  feeling a sense of pleasure," he rolled out, politely intent on putting  her at ease, though the hand holding hers made that impossible. It  gripped hard, almost possessively, sending a charge of heat into her  bloodstream. "Meeting up with your boyfriend?" he asked, a  laser-intensity in the blue eyes scanning hers, jolting her into giving  up the truth.

"I don't have a boyfriend."

An arched eyebrow expressed surprise. "Then I'm sure there'll be plenty of contenders for the position at the party."

She wasn't sure if that was a compliment or not, given the blatant  sexiness of her dress. "But will I click with any of them?" she tossed  out a touch ruefully, knowing how very rare that had been in her life,  and the one possibility of it happening tonight was distancing himself  from her.

"Very elusive, that click," he remarked dryly.

"You find that, too?" She was babbling-babbling because she was so knotted up inside, any words were better than silence.

"Why wouldn't I?"

The hard challenge in his eyes made her feel silly. It derided any  assumption that everything was easy for him. She really had no idea what  his life was like, had come to find out, but … this wasn't why he was  here and she was putting every foot wrong.

"I'm sure you have a bigger choice of candidates for the click than I have," she shot out defensively.

"Believe me, that doesn't make it any less elusive."

"I'm told you've had a lot of women, Peter."

"Trial and error. How many errors have you made, Erin?"

She shook her head, completely rattled by the swift riposte and the  highly personal probing in his eyes. "I'm sorry. I don't know how we  moved onto this stuff. You wanted to know about Mrs Harper."

"And the errors made there," he agreed, releasing her hand and gesturing  to the chair opposite his. "Are you in a hurry to get this dinner over  with?"

The question flustered her. Everything about this meeting seemed to be  going hopelessly awry, including her fiction about a party, which he  naturally assumed would put a limit on this meeting. "No. No. Time  doesn't matter," she muttered, settling on the chair and shooting him a  look of appeal for a less pressured feeling to this meeting. "It's  Thomas who matters. His life is being screwed up by warring parents."

"You care more about the child than the father?" Peter queried as he resumed his seat.

It made Erin pause to consider. "I guess I empathise more with Thomas. My own parents divorced when I was seven."

"Were you the only child?"

"Yes." She grimaced, remembering all too well the sense of being deserted. "A very lonely only child."

"Who got custody of you?"

"My mother."

"Was that what you wanted?"

"I wanted them to stay together." She flashed him a look of burning  conviction. "You shouldn't have children if the marriage isn't rock  solid."

"Is that why you haven't married? You've never felt secure enough in a relationship?"

This conversation was going right off the rails. She didn't want to  analyse herself, not to him or anyone else. As it was, he'd drawn stuff  from her she never talked about and it was none of his business. "We're  not here to talk about me," she tersely reminded him.

"Just curious about where you're coming from," he said amiably, reaching  for the bottle of wine, which was resting in an ice-bucket. "This is a  Margaret River Chardonnay. Would you like to share it with me?"

No way was she going to add alcohol to the volatile mix of feeling  emotionally torn up by this man. Her tongue was running out of control  and she needed to put a guard on it. She nodded to the corked bottle on  the table. "I'll stick to water, thank you."

"Saving yourself for party drinks."

Erin paused to take stock of what was happening here. The party lie kept  spawning questions that were pricking at her private life. Why was  Peter Ramsey putting her so much on the spot if he had no personal  interest in her?         

     



 

His reaction to her attempt to look as attractive as she could had  definitely been negative, yet since she'd dismissed her dressed up  appearance as nothing to do with him, he seemed intent on finding out  more about her than the main purpose of this meeting warranted.

Feeling uncomfortably confused with the situation, she looked him  straight in the eye and belligerently stated, "No. I just prefer water. I  like to keep a clear head."

"Even at a party?"

"Especially at a party."

"Had a bad experience," he assumed.

"No. And I don't want to invite one."

"Sounds like being in control is of prime importance to you."

He was boring in again, the piercing blue eyes focused so intensely on  hers, answers to his questions had been spilling out as though drawn  from her by a magnet. Despite being stone cold sober, Erin felt  hopelessly out of control with Peter Ramsey. Her pulse was racing and  her mind was struggling to keep up with his.

"I will not give control of my life to someone else," burst from her  lips before she even realised how revealing that was about herself.

He zoomed straight in on it. "Being independent is safer than trusting anyone, Erin?"

"When the people you should be able to count on keep shuffling you  around for their convenience, you learn independence pretty darned  quick," she answered with considerable heat, feeling him burrowing under  her skin, going deeper and deeper. "And that's probably what's in store  for Thomas Harper," she added emphatically, trying to move this  conversation onto the track it should be taking.

Needing action to break the highly charged current flowing between them,  she turned and grabbed the bottle of water, proceeding to fill one of  the glasses provided with a long, cool drink.

"I'm sorry. I should have done that for you."

The apology grated on her frayed nerves. "Why?" she shot at him.

He shrugged, his mouth twitching into a bemused little smile. "It's what a gentleman does for a lady."

"And what does a lady do for a gentleman in your world, Peter?"

She goes to bed with him.

The cynical thought was in her mind, even as she posed the question.  Nevertheless, it came as a shock when she read it in his eyes, the  sudden simmer of desire directed straight at her.

Even his smile seemed sensually seductive as he answered, "In my world a gentleman looks after a lady who answers his needs."

Her mind was in an absolute whirl. "What need am I answering?" shot straight out of her mouth.

"My need to talk with you."