Under the Millionaire's Mistletoe(23)

Meg glanced down. There were only two red items in her arms and neither of them was a T-shirt.





Four




Meg paused and wrapped her fingers around the polished wood of the  banister. She'd made a point of staying out of the caterers'-and  Luke's-way while she showered and dressed and put up her hair. But now  she barely recognized the entranceway that she'd last seen just a few  hours ago. Her homemade decorations were gone. The stairs were twined  with ivy, among which nestled hundreds of glinting fairy lights. Below  her, an enormous Christmas tree, topped with a star, glittered and  sparkled in silver and gold in the entranceway, scenting the air with  the fragrance of pine. Tall candelabra stood either side of the front  door. The house was filled with the delicate notes of a string quartet  playing Christmas music. It was as though someone had waved a wand and  transformed the already graceful foyer into something magical.

Luke strode through the doors thrown wide from the next room and had a  foot on the bottom step before he looked up and stilled. A slow, knowing  smile spread across his face. "I was just coming to get you. Our guests  are starting to arrive, darling."

The wand must have touched Luke as well. Before now, she'd only ever  seen him dressed casually. Even then, and even when ill, he'd looked  striking, had an undeniable charisma. But now, in an elegant tuxedo, its  cut and custom tailoring accentuating the breadth of his shoulders and  his lean strength, he looked devastating. A surge of possessiveness and  pride swept through her. This man was her husband.                       
       
           



       

She quashed both the possessiveness and the pride. She had no right to  feel possessive of a man who wasn't in any way hers. And she had no  right to the pride. He'd had to believe he was dying to offer marriage.  Even so, he waited expectantly for her. And she couldn't quite calm the  leap of her pulse.

Part of his attraction was the way when he looked at her she felt like  he only saw her, only thought of her, as though she fascinated him every  bit as much as he fascinated her.

Meg held a little tighter to the banister. She had only one dress  suitable for a dinner like this. And it was red. Now Luke would think,  and he'd be right, that she wore the red lace beneath it. Or worse, and  he'd be wrong, that she wore it for him.

She descended the stairs. Wearing the demure but fitted dress and  too-high heels, she was well out of her comfort zone. Or maybe it was  his silver gaze steady on her that made her hyperaware of her every  movement.

Tonight. She just had to get through tonight without succumbing to his  pull. When she was away from him again she'd be fine, but when he was  near, he scrambled her thought processes till she didn't know what she  wanted, or till she wanted things she knew she oughtn't.

She stopped a step above him and finally, defiantly, met his gaze. And  looked quickly away, her defiance doused. Heat. She'd read heat in his  eyes. For her.

It was insane.

As insane as the heat of the response deep within her that his gaze had ignited.

He needed to get back out into the real world, remember the type of  woman he was attracted to, the type of woman who belonged in his world,  and stop playing games with her.

Except it didn't feel like a game.

She looked back at him, he waited, his hand extended. Trapped by his  gaze, Meg swallowed and put her hand in his, felt his fingers fold  around hers. And at that touch, that gentle, unerring connection,  something shifted and changed, including Meg in this evening's magic.

Hope flickered. Might she be entitled to one enchanted evening?

She did her best to quash the thoughts. A childhood spent lost in books  and fairy tales was now having the unwanted repercussions her  grandmother had warned of.

Luke smiled, that same smile he had back up in her-his-bedroom as his  fingers tightened around hers. "Let's go, Mrs. Maitland, we're having a  party." His tone was light, teasing. Maybe she'd imagined the heat.

The living room was now decorated in silver and gold, with enough  candles to keep them going for months if the power ever went out. Luke  paused in the doorway and glanced up. Mistletoe hung from the door  frame. In full view of those guests who'd already arrived, he planted a  quick, hard kiss on her lips. Then he put his mouth close to her ear and  whispered, "I knew you'd look good in red." His words and his warm  breath on the bare skin of her neck sent a shiver through her.

Pretending she hadn't heard, hadn't been affected by his words or his  kiss, Meg dredged up a bright, but possibly vacant, smile as guests  approached.

"Wyatt, Martha, good to see you. You've met my wife, Meg?" Luke released  her hand but rested it instead at the curve of her waist. She wasn't  sure which disturbed her composure more.

He stayed by her side almost all evening as he worked the room with  skill and ease. As head of Maitland Corporation, he left the running of  the foundation to Blake, the director, but he spoke with knowledge and  passion about the foundation's work. He talked to almost everyone,  smiling and magnanimous, while at the same time ensuring Meg was  included in conversations, asking her opinion on whatever topic came up.  But he also took advantage of every opportunity, and created more than a  few of his own, to touch her: to take her hand, or touch her arm, to  curve his palm around her waist, to cup her shoulder. Once, claiming she  had a crumb of pastry from a canapé on her cheek, he'd turned to her  and brushed his thumb across her face, letting her see the heat in his  eyes, making her want him.

And if he wasn't at her side, he was watching her, making her think  about him, about their promise. The evening became an exquisite torture.

A bejeweled woman, who'd just promised the foundation a hefty donation,  turned away, her parting words See you both at the New Year's Eve  cocktail party, ringing in Meg's ears and Luke's gaze pinning her. He  lifted two champagne flutes from the tray of a circulating waiter and  passed one to Meg. He led her to a somewhat quiet corner of the room and  she took a sip of the sparkling liquid.                       
       
           



       

"I was going to tell you about the cocktail party."

"Clearly I need to take a look at our social calendar and see what's expected of me. It's not in my house, is it?"

"No."

"Then I'll deal."

They watched the mingling crush. By then she'd be long gone. "I didn't realize you were such a people person."

"I'm not," he said softly. "But I know how to play the game." He turned  his back on the room so that only she could see his face and hear his  words. "The only person I'm thinking about is you and how good you look  in red. And how good you'll look out of it."

His words, blatant and seductive, shocked her. How had they got to this  point and, more importantly, how did she stop it? Because while she was  certain it was all just a part of the "game" to him, if affected her  differently, more deeply than he could know. "Don't do that."

"Do what?"

"What you've been doing all evening. I'm trying to concentrate, to listen to what people are saying and you're making me think … "

"Think what, Meg?" His low voice seemed to sink through her to her core.  "About the things I might like to do with you? Because I've been  thinking about my husbandly privileges."

She backed a little farther into the corner. "You're not really my  husband." But he'd caught what she'd been thinking and she hated that he  knew it. That she was that transparent. Because being married to  someone carried connotations regardless of the reasons for the marriage.

He leaned closer. "That's the thing, Meg, I really am your husband. And you know it. And you think about it."

"Stop it, Luke. Please."

Something in her tone or her words stilled him. He backed off a little,  easing her need to either reach for him or run from him. "If you want me  to."

She nodded. "I do. Thank you." She was Meg. She wasn't allowed to want  him. Not in the real world. She looked past him to see Sally  approaching, glowing with the success of the evening so far.

"You two make a gorgeous couple." Sally kissed both Meg and Luke. "I'm  so pleased you finally found a good woman, Luke, and had the sense to  marry her. I foresee a long and happy union    ."

If only in my dreams. The line from the Christmas song popped into Meg's  head. Now clearly wasn't the time to tell Sally that she was leaving  and that Luke would be starting divorce proceedings as soon as possible.

Luke smiled and raised his glass to Sally, which could look like he was  agreeing with her. It could, if you were Meg, also look like he was  avoiding commenting on what she'd said.