To Catch a Groom. Rebecca Winters

bark of laughter escaped his throat, the first unorchestrated response to come out of him. In that millisecond of time she was allowed a glimpse of what lay beneath the polished veneer and felt an emotional tug totally foreign to her.

      Not wishing to delve any deeper into her suddenly confused emotions, she arched backward to escape his grasp and struck out for the shallow end. That way she could use the steps and retain some semblance of dignity.

      However he managed to get there first. In a surprisingly protective gesture, he placed the extended white toweling robe around her shoulders. She was quite amazed at the speed with which the waiter had obeyed the stranger’s command without question.

      She raised violet eyes to meet the smoldering depths of his. “Thank you. I was feeling a little vulnerable.”

      “Like Venus rising from the sea?” he suggested.

      The second the words came out of his mouth, Greer could picture the famous painting of the Roman goddess of beauty awakening from a seashell without any clothes on.

      Greer blushed at the shocking analogy and turned her head away. But he made the situation even more explosive and intimate by lifting the pendant and lowering his head to kiss the tiny pulse fluttering madly beneath it.

      “One day soon when we have no audience except the sun on our skin and the sand beneath our bodies, I hope to see you exactly as Botticelli created her,” he murmured against her scented throat.

      Between the sensuality of his remark and the brush of his lips branding her heated flesh, she drew in an audible breath before wheeling away from his grasp.

      Trembling, she plucked her watch and purse from the table where she’d left them. Before she could decide whether to wear or carry her high heels, he’d looped his index finger through the gold straps.

      “I’ll escort you to your room. Not even the Splendido can guarantee the safety of a woman on her own who looks like you. In your exhausted state you would be no match for someone who would like to spirit you away to some secret lagoon for the night…”

      The image he’d created sent another shiver through her body, part ecstasy, part fright.

      Before this trip, the playboys Greer had pictured in her mind were likable. Manageable. Easy come, easy go.

      Maybe a little miffed to recognize they’d been conned, but gallant enough to salute the girls as worthy adversaries who’d pulled off a well-executed charade. No hard feelings as they made their charming retreat from the playing field.

      Up until this moment she’d been enjoying a game that had its nascence back in Kingston two months earlier. But just now when he’d kissed her and whispered his daring remark, she’d sensed a power shift.

      Now he was the one dangling her as surely as he dangled her shoes from his fingers.

      Instinct told her this was a dangerous man, the kind you didn’t lure back to a youth hostel to tell him “sorry, wrong duchess.” He would be the one to decide when he was tired of playing, then he would move in for the kill. Until then he would keep her trapped in his sights, and there’d be no place for her to hide.

      A thrill of alarm caused her to walk faster.

      When they reached the elevator where other guests were coming and going, she was in a state of panic and used the brief interim to extricate the hotel room key from her purse.

      However by the time they’d exited onto the third floor, reason had reasserted itself. She told herself it was lack of sleep that had made her so uneasy. She would be leaving the hotel tomorrow and since she had no intention of ever seeing him again, she was even able to smile up at him with renewed confidence.

      After the long transatlantic flight followed by a grueling three hours detainment at the hands of the police, she hadn’t been herself at all. Otherwise she wouldn’t have given a perfect stranger the green light to pursue her.

      For a woman to plunge into the pool with her clothes on in order to sink her hooks into him, what else was a man like him supposed to think?

      Tonight had been an experiment. A dry run. Whoops. A wet one, she mused nervously to herself, realizing her emotions bordered on hysteria.

      She’d blown it, but she’d learned from it. Tomorrow would be a new day filled with more playboys and fresh possibilities.

      The hotel room door was in sight. With one fluid movement she unlocked it, but before she could slip inside, he left a kiss on the side of her neck that set her whole body on fire. “Until tomorrow.”

      His promise sounded more like an avowal.

      “Goodbye,” she announced through the crack in the door before shutting it hard and locking it.

      Congratulating herself on making it safely to her room, she staggered over to the nearest chair and held on while she attempted to recover from her fright. Her clutch bag fell to the floor with a soft thud.

      Too late she remembered he still had her shoes. No matter. She didn’t need them. In truth, she never wanted to see them again. She never wanted to see him again.

      CHAPTER THREE

      THE lights went on.

      “Greer?” The second her sisters saw the condition she was in, they scrambled out of their beds toward her.

      “How come your dress is wet?”

      “Where did you get that robe?

      “Where are your shoes?”

      The questions pelting her one after the other stripped her down to the bare bones. This was no laughing matter. The only reason she’d escaped at all was that he’d allowed it.

      She could still see the mixture of triumph and mockery glinting from the black depths of his eyes before the door closed, keeping him momentarily at bay.

      “Guys?” Never in her life had their faces been more dear to her. “I’m in big trouble. We’ve got to get out of here now! I’ll tell you about it when we’re in the taxi.” She removed the robe and wet sundress.

      “They only have chauffeur driven cars here at the hotel.”

      “Well we’re going to call for a taxi. Will one of you do it please?” she begged. “Tell them to be here in fifteen minutes.”

      “Where are we going in such an all-fired hurry?”

      “Across the border to France. We’ll drive to the nearest airport and take the first flight leaving for anywhere that puts as much distance as possible between us and hi—Italy,” she amended.

      “You’ve got to be kidding.”

      She shook her damp head at Olivia.

      “I’ve seen that look before. She’s not kidding,” Piper whispered. They followed her to the bathroom. “Does this have something to do with what happened today when the police kept us so long?”

      “No.” She removed her watch, then her necklace, her skin still seemed to burn where he’d kissed her.

      “I detect the scent of a man.”

      At Olivia’s adroit surmise, a distinct blush covered every particle of Greer’s skin. She was thankful for the protection of the elaborate sculptured design on the glass shower door, although it reminded her of the one on the floor of the pool.

      The floor she never got to inspect at close range because she was snatched away by a force that still caused her to tremble.

      “I didn’t think there was a man alive who could make you run.”

      “If you must know, I tangled with a shark.”

      “In the pool?” Piper blurted incredulously.

      “This one had arms and legs…” And a masculine appeal that ought to be banned from existence Greer groaned inwardly