The Return of Antonides: Christmas at the Castello(7)

Deliberately Holly had turned a deaf ear. "What do you care?" she'd asked.

If he'd said, "I love you," what would she have done? Holly laughed at  herself for just thinking it. Lukas love her? Ha! Lukas had been going  through girls for years!

He'd scowled then. "I don't want you making a mistake."

"I'm not making a mistake."

But Lukas didn't seem to agree. As winter turned to spring, he'd found  ways to keep them apart. In February he and Matt had bought the battered  old sailboat in New Haven. It wasn't seaworthy. It would have sunk in a  bathtub, but Lukas had convinced Matt they could repair it.

"It will take months," Holly had pointed out. And that would be if they  worked on it every weekend, which would mean Matt would have less time  for her.

"We can sail around the world after we graduate," Lukas had gone on, undaunted.

"I'm getting married when I graduate," Matt had reminded him.

Lukas had shrugged dismissively. "Who knows what will happen in a  couple of years. You can at least help me work on it," he'd said to  Matt.

So, good friend that he was, every weekend that spring, Matt had worked  with Lukas on the boat. Holly had barely seen him. The one weekend he  had said he would come home turned out to be the weekend she was doing  the final fittings on her prom dress.

"No problem," Matt had said. "Lukas wants to go to Katahdin."

Feeling hard done by, Holly had said shortly, "Let him."

"He wants me to go, too. It'll be a change from working on the boat. And you're going to be busy anyway."

So Matt had gone-and had broken his leg. Which was how Holly had ended up with Lukas as her date to her senior prom.

"I won't go," she'd told Matt. "No way."

Matt had looked at her from his hospital bed, foggy-eyed with  anesthetic. "Of course you have to go. You already have your dress," he  reminded her the day after he'd had half a dozen screws and a plate put  in his left leg. "You've been counting on it."

"I don't mind staying home. Truly. Lukas doesn't want to go with me. He doesn't even like me."

"Of course he likes you. He's just..."

"Bossy? Opinionated? Wrong?"

And though she could still see the strain and pain on Matt's face, he  had laughed. "All of the above. It's just the way he is. Ignore it. It's  your prom. And Lukas should take you," he added grimly. "It was his  idea to go climbing. He owes me."

No doubt about that. But Holly was sure Lukas would refuse. She was stunned when he didn't.

"Why?" she'd demanded suspiciously.

"Because he understands responsibility," Matt said, looking completely serious.                       
       
           



       

She should have said no then. She hadn't, telling herself that arguing  with Matt would make him unhappy. It might also make him wonder why she  was protesting so much. Holly wouldn't even let herself think about why  she was protesting so much.

She didn't want to think about Lukas, about how when he wasn't  irritating her, the very sight of his muscular chest, lopsided grin and  sun-tipped shaggy hair made her blood run hot in her veins.

It meant nothing. She was engaged to Matt.

Still, she wasn't prepared two weeks later when she opened the door to  Lukas, drop-dead gorgeous in a dark suit, pristine white shirt and deep  red tie, for the impact of six feet of walking testosterone. The sheer  animal magnetism of the man made all Holly's female hormones flutter in  appreciation while her brain screamed, No! No, no, no!

But she could hardly send him home. What would she tell Matt?

So she pasted her best proper smile on her face and tried to pretend  she was completely indifferent. Yes, he was gorgeous. Yes, he smiled and  chatted and charmed her mother. Yes, he brought her a corsage, which he  fastened just above her left breast, standing far too close for  comfort, so close that she could smell a hint of pine in his aftershave  and see the tiny cut on his jaw where he'd nicked himself shaving.

She leaned toward it instinctively, then jerked back, practically  getting herself stabbed by a florist's pin in the process. "Sorry," she  muttered, mortified. "Sorry."

He just smiled his engaging Lukas smile, the I'm-so-sexy one she had  seen him turn on other girls but which until that moment he had, thank  God, never turned on her.

"It looks good on you," he said. It was a spray of tiny deep red roses.  Delicate and aromatic. She drew a breath, trying to draw in the scent  of roses to blot out the pine of his aftershave, to blot out Lukas.

But Lukas wouldn't be blotted.

Worse, he unnerved her by being a perfect gentleman the whole time. He  didn't tease, he didn't mock. He didn't mention Matt or their engagement  at all. He took her to dinner before the dance. It was expected. And  Holly had thought they would go to one of the trendy upscale local  places where most of her classmates went to see and be seen. But Lukas  took her to a quiet romantic Italian place where he seemed to know  everyone.

Holly couldn't help looking surprised.

"We don't have to go here," Lukas said. "But I like it. It's a little lower-key."

Since when was Lukas lower-key? But Holly had nodded, glad they weren't  in the midst of a crowd. There might have been safety in numbers, but  there would also have been lots of questions about what she was doing  with Lukas, why she wasn't with Matt.

They'd get asked at the dance, of course, but they wouldn't become a  conversation piece there. Holly didn't want to be a conversation piece.  "It's fine," she said. "I like it." She managed her first real smile of  the evening then, one that didn't feel as if it had been welded to her  lips.

Lukas smiled, too. Electricity arced between them-sharp and frighteningly genuine. "I'm glad," Lukas said.

Holly wasn't sure if she was glad or not. Tonight Lukas was everything  Matt had assured her he would be: polite, charming, an easy  conversationalist. When the waitress brought their menus, he didn't tell  her what she ought to order. He asked what she'd like to eat.

It was a sort of dream date-an intoxicating, heady experience. Unreal,  almost. Holly kept waiting for him to revert to the Lukas she was  accustomed to, but he never did.

At the dance, when she expected he would do his duty, dance once or  twice with her, then disappear with the more interesting, flashier  girls, he stayed by her side all evening. She wondered aloud whether he  wouldn't rather dance with other girls, but Lukas simply shook his head.

"I'm happy," he said as the music started again. Without another word,  he swept her into a dance while Holly's mind spun and her body responded  instinctively to Lukas's powerful lead. One of her hands was gripped in  his hard, warm fingers, more callused than Matt's, rougher to the  touch, giving her another tiny stab of awareness. Her other hand,  resting on his shoulder beneath the smooth, dark wool of his suit coat,  felt the shift and flex of strong muscles.

When she danced with Lukas, her eyes were on a level with his lips.  Instinctively she licked hers and stumbled, red-faced, at where her  thoughts were going.

"What's wrong?" Lukas pulled her up and held her closer.

"N-nothing." She tried to put space between them, averted her gaze from  his lips. "What're you doing?" she demanded as Lukas only drew her  closer.                       
       
           



       

"It's called leading." The soft, almost teasing murmur in her ear sent a shiver to the base of her spine.

He led. She followed. Their bodies touched. The experience was nothing  like the warm, slightly zingy buzz she experienced when she and Matt  danced. No, each touch with Lukas felt electric, a shock to the system, a  different sort of awareness altogether.

"Relax." He breathed the word in her ear on a warm breath that did  anything but relax her. She felt alert, aware, awake as she'd never been  awake before. Expectant-though what she was expecting, she would not  have dared to think.

Lukas didn't say anything else, just moved with the music, drawing her  with him, easing her closer. His hand slid to her hip, but went no  farther. And gradually, unable to remain alert and wary every moment,  Holly realized that she was relaxing. She found joy in the movement, in  the rhythm, in the warm nearness of Lukas's body. He made her feel oddly  protected.

They danced almost every dance, far more than she ever would have with  Matt, who much preferred to stand on the sidelines and watch while he  talked sports with the guys. But Lukas danced. And eventually he began  to talk, too, recounting what they had been accomplishing on the boat,  then telling her what they had seen mountain climbing in Maine.