The Wedding Party Collection. Кейт Хьюит

brooding. ‘Not that I have any objection to what you’re wearing but what happened to your clothes?’

      ‘They’re coming up. You might have wanted me to take them back off.’ There was that hunted look again. ‘Guess not.’

      ‘Well, not immediately. I figured you might like to try the food first. And the wine.’ He headed for the table and put it between them. ‘Champagne?’ The champagne cork popped and Trig poured bubbly yellow liquid into delicate crystal flutes engraved with grape leaves and clusters. He poured himself one and drained it in one swift swallow.

      Lena sipped at hers. ‘I’ve never seen anyone do champagne flute shots before.’

      ‘First time for everything,’ he murmured, looking anywhere but at her. ‘And I need to shower now. Right now. A lot. Really not clean.’ He nodded far too enthusiastically and disappeared back inside.

      Lena watched him go and sighed. Cleanliness was indeed a virtue, but still...

      She found the shopping bag with the dress Trig had chosen for her and peeked inside. She put her hand in and pulled out a mass of cobalt-blue chiffon.

      The dress had a fitted strapless bodice and layers of gauzy skirt that flared out gently from the waist and ended in a mass of ruffles.

      ‘Do I do ruffles?’ she murmured. ‘‘I don’t recall that I do.’

      She ditched the robe, slipped into the lilac strapless bra and matching panties that she’d bought earlier, and then slipped the dress over her head. The bodice fitted neatly once she’d found the zip. The skirt fell in soft waves to mid-calf and she grabbed onto a bedpost and swooshed her leg up through the layers, pointed toe and all. It was an altogether feminine creation and gloriously light and soft against her skin.

      She did do ruffles.

      But she’d forgotten to ask for shoes.

      Never mind; they didn’t have to go out dancing tonight. Nothing wrong with dancing barefoot here.

      Her body felt good—as good as it was going to get. She reached for her make-up bag and painted her face in a tiny mirror pinned to the wall above three flying plaster ducks. Crowded, this room full of curiosities.

      If her husband ran out of things to do to her and wanted to go exploring, he could always start opening drawers. He’d probably fall down a rabbit hole.

      Twenty minutes later, Lena had done all the primping she could think of to do and her husband still hadn’t emerged from the bathroom. Lena pounded on the door. ‘Adrian, honey. You’d better not be in there taking the edge off. I have plans for that.’

      Trig groaned.

      ‘Really not reassuring,’ she offered next. ‘Is anything wrong?’

      ‘Lena, I know what you want.’ He had a great voice and he knew just how to drop it an octave and make it all husky and awkward. ‘I just don’t know that I can deliver the magical wedding-night experience you’re after.’

      Lena leaned her shoulder against the door and her hip soon followed. ‘Why not?’

      ‘Performance pressure,’ came the husky reply.

      ‘Seriously? You? I mean—you’re the biggest show-off I know and you’re not exactly inexperienced.’ Or underendowed. She looked down at her rings and damned if they didn’t start blurring on account of unshed tears. ‘Didn’t see that coming.’

      Trig said nothing.

      ‘If it helps any, I’m hardly Little Miss Confident when it comes to that area of our relationship,’ she offered haltingly. ‘I have body parts that aren’t all that flexible any more. Not sure how that works when you get thrown into the mix. I mean... It does work between us, doesn’t it? Sexually? You know this, even if I don’t?’

      ‘Yeah.’ Inside the bathroom Trig stared at his reflection in the mirror and prayed for mercy. ‘Works fine.’

      What the hell else could he say? Tell her he had no idea and let her worry about that too?

      ‘So, are you nearly done in there?’

      ‘Yeah.’ He’d been staring blankly at the mosaic on the floor for the last ten minutes, with the water beating down on his back and no idea how he was going to get through this night. ‘I’ll be out in a minute, and there’ll be dancing and, y’know, amazing conversation and food and stuff. But not bed stuff. Not yet. I want to woo you first.’ Woo? Woo? Who in this day and age said woo? He was losing his mind.

      ‘You want another champagne?’ she asked.

      ‘That’d be good.’ Maybe he could drink his way out of this. Or drink Lena under the table. No sex after that, just hangovers from hell and a Lena who’d know he’d sabotaged the evening deliberately. That was assuming that he could get Lena to drink heavily in the first place.

      Bad idea. ‘Actually, I don’t want another drink right now. Maybe later.’

      He heard her sigh, clear through the door.

      He could always say he’d come down with a contagious social disease. Trig shuddered and thunked his head gently against the mirror. Not sure he really wanted to explore that one.

      An argument, then. A rip-roaring quarrel that ended with Lena relegating him to the doghouse. He and Lena had argument down to a fine art. There’d be muscle memory, and synapse memory and maybe she’d regain her memory and then it’d really be on.

      But he didn’t want to argue with her either.

      ‘We should go out tonight,’ he said. ‘We should go out right now and see the sights. You could seduce me while we’re doing that. Or you could, y’know, get interested in the sights and leave the seduction for later. We could dine out, go dancing. Make it like a date. I bet you don’t remember any of our dates.’

      Mainly because they’d never been on one.

      ‘I remember the first time you took me kite surfing,’ she offered.

      ‘It doesn’t count if your brother was there. Bodrum has a castle. They turned it into a maritime museum. Don’t you want to go and see the castle? I bet it has turrets.’ Lena liked turrets.

      ‘Would it make you lose the performance anxiety?’

      ‘Couldn’t hurt. It’d also help if you didn’t mention the performance anxiety.’

      ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Got it. So...sightseeing and then a dinner date?’

      ‘Yes.’ Maybe he could tire her out completely. Now there was a thought.

      ‘Should I wear my dress?’

      ‘Not for the sightseeing part.’

      ‘So, we’re coming back here before we go for dinner?’

      ‘Not sure.’

      ‘I’m taking that as a yes. We could have dinner here if we didn’t feel like going out again.’

      Or not. He could arrange it so that they didn’t come back here. Avoiding that would mean avoiding the problem of Lena’s near nakedness while she got changed, not to mention the wearing of that frothy blue dress the saleswoman had persuaded him to buy this morning.

      Lena in that dress in this place was just courting trouble. He eyed his reflection in the mirror and took a deep breath. ‘I’ll be out in a minute. And then we’ll go.’

      ‘There’s no hurry.’ She sounded a little bit wistful. ‘I still have to get changed.’

      * * *

      So it took her husband half an hour to shower, shave and throw on a T-shirt and a pair of faded jeans. So she’d changed out of the pretty blue dress and thrown on a pair of grey shorts and another one of those simple cotton T-shirts that her suitcase seemed to be full of, and then she’d helped herself to more