His Trophy Mistress. Daphne Clair

      “Try it on,” Jager said.

      Her fingers trembled. A small moth seemed to be fluttering in her throat. Paige let the dress drop back into the nest of tissue on the couch. “No,” she said.

      A frown appeared between his brows. “You don’t like it? Black suits you. Believe me, you’ll look great in that.”

      Paige knew she would. His instinct was unerring. In that dress she could be certain no one would be looking at her face.

      She would look like his mistress.

      DAPHNE CLAIR lives in subtropical New Zealand with her Dutch-born husband. They have five children. At eight years old she embarked on her first novel, about taming a tiger. This epic never reached a publisher, but metamorphosed male tigers still prowl the pages of her romances, of which she has written over thirty for Harlequin Mills & Boon^® and over fifty all told. Her other writing includes nonfiction, poetry and short stories, and she has won literary prizes in New Zealand and America.

      His Trophy Mistress

      Daphne Clair

      Contents

      CHAPTER ONE

      CHAPTER TWO

      CHAPTER THREE

      CHAPTER FOUR

      CHAPTER FIVE

      CHAPTER SIX

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      CHAPTER NINE

      CHAPTER TEN

      CHAPTER ONE

      THE bride and groom proceeded triumphantly down the aisle to the door of the church. Behind them Paige Camden, chief bridal attendant, kept her own smile in place and one eye on the five-year-old flower girl who seemed in danger of walking on the bride’s white satin train.

      Paige bent to place a restraining hand on the child’s shoulder. As she straightened, casting an idle look at the nearer pews, her hazel eyes met a glittering jewel-green gaze that jerked her shoulders back and instantly eliminated her smile.

      What the hell was Jager Jeffries doing at her sister’s wedding?

      And still as stunningly handsome as ever. Those astonishing eyes under well-defined brows contrasted with naturally olive skin; the stubborn masculine mouth and proud warrior’s nose hinted at an unknown connection to some Maori ancestor.

      The dark, luxuriantly waving hair was somewhat tamed by a surely expensive cut. An even more expensive suit hugged broad shoulders, tapered hips and long, muscular legs, its perfect fit and exquisite tailoring proclaiming how far the mature thirty-one-year-old had come from the wild young tearaway Paige had once known. And loved—with a passion so intense it was inevitably self-destructive, burning up in its own heat until only gray, dusty ashes remained.

      “Paige?” The best man’s hand was on her arm. “Are you okay?” he murmured, bending toward her.

      The bridal party had forged ahead and guests were pressing from behind.

      “Yes,” Paige lied, resurrecting the smile. “I just stood on my dress, that’s all.”

      She wrenched her gaze away from the piercing green one, unnecessarily shook out the violet floor-length skirt of her dress and stumbled forward, glad of the best man’s supporting arm.

      They reached the steps and the sunshine pouring out of a clear late-winter Auckland sky. A photographer motioned them into place beside the happy couple.

      Paige kept the smile all through the photo session, and was still wearing it when they arrived at the crowded reception and she took her assigned place at the main table.

      By that time her jaw was aching and her nerves humming like fine, overtensioned wires. When the best man poured her a glass of ruby-red wine she grabbed it with a shaking hand and downed half of it before she realized she’d spilled a drop on her satin gown.

      Surreptitiously she dipped a corner of a linen table napkin into the crystal glass of iced water before her and dabbed at the stain. The wine color faded, and she rubbed the spreading watermark with the dry part of the napkin. At least at a distance it would be less noticeable than the wine.

      She fixed a glazed stare on the table before her, telling herself it was imagination that she could feel Jager’s gaze on her, that the hot prickling of sensation that assailed her skin was a by-product of long-buried memories that seeing him again had brought to the surface.

      The succulent chicken and crisp salads on her plate might have been old rope and grass. She scarcely managed half a dozen mouthfuls, trusting the wine to stop them sticking in her throat.

      Somehow she replied to her neighbors’ efforts at conversation, and raised her glass and applauded the speeches at the right moments. And finally, despite her limited vision without her glasses, was unable to resist the urge to sweep her gaze about the red-carpeted, white-pillared reception lounge with its gilded decor and lavish floral arrangements, and find out if Jager really was there.

      He was.

      He sat at one of the nearer tables, leaning back in his half-turned chair and looking infuriatingly relaxed. As if he’d been waiting for her to find him, he lifted his glass to her in a mocking little gesture and drank, his eyes holding hers. Although the people around him were just a blur to Paige, and he was slightly out of focus, she felt the full force of his eyes.

      Her hand tightened around her own glass, but she didn’t return the silent toast, instead staring at him accusingly. How dare you! her eyes demanded. How dare you turn up at Maddie’s wedding and ruin the day for me?

      He must have been invited. Not by Maddie—her sister would never have done that to her. So the invitation had come from Glen Provost, Maddie’s new husband, or his family. How did he know Glen? Was Maddie aware of the connection, whatever it was? Why hadn’t she warned Paige?

      Jager replaced his glass on the white cloth. His long fingers twirled the fragile glass stem, and the corners of his mouth lifted in a faint smile while he continued to hold Paige’s eyes.

      Who was staring back at him, she realized, like a rabbit at a snake.

      For the second time that day she dragged her gaze from him. She could feel the increased beat of her heart against the low-cut, fitted bodice of her dress, that seemed too tight. Drawing in a deep breath, she saw the best man’s newly aroused interest in her bosom, his eyes first lingering, then in surprise flicking up to her face.

      Not nearly as interesting, she mentally told him with grimly cynical humor. Her face would never be her fortune, not that she needed one, since she and Maddie were her father’s only heirs.

      There was nothing particularly wrong with ordinary hazel-green eyes, an unremarkable no-nonsense nose and a clear but hardly milk-and-roses complexion. They just didn’t add up to the kind of eye-catching, man-snaring feminine prettiness that blessed her younger sister.

      Maddie’s eyes were blue and wide, her mouth a classic full-lipped bow, her nose cutely retroussé. And her hair was a tumble of blond natural curls that Paige would have killed for if she hadn’t been so fond of her sister.

      After years of trying to make hers curl, or fluff up, or even stay pinned in a style of any sort, Paige had despaired of persuading it to do anything but hang straight and fine, au naturel. Now she kept it neatly and boringly cropped to just below her ears, brushed it briskly to a satiny sheen every night, and after unsuccessfully experimenting with bleaches and rinses, allowed it to retain its own unexciting nut-brown color.

      Long ago she had decided against competing with Maddie or any other pretty