Chapter 1 #2
With the operation only a couple of months away now, Peyton was determined to keep McKenzie healthy and avoid any more delays. It had been rescheduled three times already.
No more.
The phone vibrated in her hand and Peyton opened the message.
I’m switching the phone off now. Go and have fun. That’s an order.
Peyton smiled. She’d obviously stretched her mother’s patience enough for one night. Thank God for her parents. She would never have got through the past few years without them.
A nearby tinkling of cutlery on glass cut through the low murmur in the reception room and Peyton glanced to her side to see Alessandro and Nat at their places, ready to address their guests.
Determinedly, she pushed all thoughts of the outside world aside and motioned for the waiter to bring her another glass of champagne.
Half an hour later, Peyton was sitting again at the bridal table after politely circulating for a while when the man she hadn’t been able to stop staring at pulled up the chair beside her, brandishing a bottle of champagne.
‘So,’ he said, leaning in a little as he topped up her half-full glass with some more sparkles, ‘I believe it is a custom in your country for the best man and the maid of honour to dance the bridal waltz together.’
His voice was low and far too close to her ear, his barely noticeable accent lending a slight burr to his tone, and Peyton’s body reacted as if he had suggested something much more risqué than a customary dance in front of a room full of people.
It took all her willpower not to melt into a puddle.
Not to smile and let free her inner flirt.
She used to be a good flirt. About a million years ago. Peyton was pretty sure she wouldn’t have a clue how to go about it now. And why would she choose to do so with a man who was so clearly a player, after her experience with Arnie?
The bitter burn of memories was never far from reach.
‘That’s right,’ she said, refusing to look at him, focusing instead on the bubbles meandering to the surface of her champagne.
‘Eccellente. I’m looking forward to that.’
Well, that made one of them. The thought of them dancing, his arm around her practically bare back, their bodies close, was sending her heart into fibrillation.
Sitting next to him at the table, aware of his every move, every breath, their arms occasionally brushing, his deep voice resonating along every nerve fibre, was bad enough.
Being pressed along the magnificent tuxedoed length of him?
Frankly it scared the hell out of her.
She felt gauche and unsophisticated and totally out of her depth next to his man-of-the-world, model-dating perfection.
What if she stuffed up the steps? Or trod on his foot? What if she liked it too much?
‘You are worried your boyfriend will mind that we dance, yes?’
Valentino’s comment snapped her out of the vision of her clinging to him as he pressed kisses down her neck. She glanced at him, startled, which was a big mistake.
Thus far she’d managed not to look at him this close up and now she knew why.
He was simply dazzling.
Lustrous hair the colour of midnight waved in haphazard glory, thick without a hint of grey. It brushed his forehead and kissed his collar and Peyton’s fingers tingled with the urge to push into the unruly mass.
Jet-black eyebrows quirked at her as her gaze widened to take in his square jaw, heavy with five-o’clock shadow. His full lips curved upward and were bracketed by dimples that should be outlawed on anyone over five. His dark eyes, fringed by long, even darker lashes, promised fun and flirting.
A buzz coursed through her veins at the fifteen different kinds of sin that were doing the cha-cha in his umber gaze.
‘I see you texting all night,’ Valentino prompted when Peyton hadn’t said anything. ‘I figure a beautiful woman…’ He shrugged and shot her a flirty smile. ‘It must be a boyfriend?’
Peyton refused to let that practised smile muddle her senses. ‘I’m a little old for a boyfriend, don’t you think?’
‘Peyton. Are we ever too old for matters of the heart?’
The slight reprimand in his voice didn’t register. Nothing registered beyond the way he’d said her name. Peyton. He had softened the first syllable, making it sound a little wicked, and it had stroked across every nerve ending in her pelvis.
She shut her eyes. This was madness. He was just a man.
She hadn’t even thought about the opposite sex since her husband had walked out on her and upended her entire world – she sure as shit didn’t want another in her life upsetting the balance.
Especially not a model-dating Italian playboy who would be gone come tomorrow.
Although, maybe, it was exactly what she needed.
Wait. No. I am a single-mother of a high-needs child. I am a single mother of a high-needs child. I am a single-mother of a high-needs child.
Maybe if she said it often enough she’d believe it?
She turned back to her champagne and took a long, deep swallow, the bubbles pricking her throat as they slid down, matching the prick at the backs of her eyes. ‘I am.’
Tonight, as always, Peyton felt absolutely ancient – instead of thirty-three.
‘Excuse me,’ she murmured, rising and heading for the refuge of the bathroom.
Valentino watched his cousin dancing with his new wife, a gladness in his heart that Alessandro had finally found love after the train wreck of his first marriage.
It always humbled him when he saw two people ready to make a lifetime commitment. Sure, after an early broken relationship he’d worked out it wasn’t for him, but that didn’t mean he didn’t believe in it for others.
His parents were, after all, still blissfully married fifty years and counting.
He spotted Peyton making her way back to the table, his gaze drawn to her as it had been all day.
She was a most intriguing woman. The crimson dress outlined a figure that had more angles than curves.
Her breasts were small, her body one long, lean line, and she moved with purpose rather than grace.
Her eyes were grey and huge in her angular face, her cheekbones prominent, her mouth wide and her strawberry-blonde hair styled into a severe pixie cut.
No part of her gave off come-hither vibes.
Yet smoky silvery shadow on her lids turned her eyes luminous, highlighting the vulnerability Valentino could see lurking in her gaze.
Which should have had him running as far and as fast as he could in the other direction, not drawing him in like a moth to flame.
Because she certainly wasn’t his usual type. Valentino liked curvy women. Not rail thin like Peyton. More Sophia Loren than Nicole Kidman. He liked flirty women who smiled and were secure in their sexuality. Who were up for some fun and were more than fine with one and done.
And yet… she’d held his attention all goddamn night. Serious, frowny, keep out Peyton Donald – the only eligible female in the room who hadn’t clamoured to be closer.
Which definitely made her not his type.
Intrigued despite himself, Valentino was not above using traditional marriage customs like a bridal waltz to his advantage. Approaching her, he held out his hand. ‘I believe it’s our turn.’
Valentino smiled at the little frown that knitted Peyton’s caramel brows together and crinkled her forehead.
He half expected her to wrinkle her nose, but he could see in the swirling silvery mists of her eyes that a tug-of-war was going on.
Like she actually really wanted to take his hand. That she was tempted.
Curiouser and curiouser.
Sighing dramatically, like he was asking her to undertake some forty-year ordeal instead of passing a pleasant few minutes on the dance floor, she stood. Yep, it was official – Peyton Donald was hard on the ego.
Unluckily for her, Valentino’s ego was exceptionally healthy. Over-inflated was the word Alessandro had recently used.
She ignored his hand as she headed towards the dance floor and Valentino grinned at her resigned martyrdom. But if she thought for a moment that he hadn’t seen the battle in those large grey eyes, she was utterly deluded.
He followed her to the floor, his gaze glued to the elegant length of her naked spine and the knot of the halter neck that sat temptingly at her nape. What would happen if he pulled on that knot?
Would the dress just slither right off?
With the other bridal party members already on the floor doing their duty, she, rather stiffly, let him shepherd her into the circle of his arms and Valentino wasted no time getting comfortable.
He slid his hand low on her back, just above her butt and just this side of decent, her quick, sharp intake of breath satisfying on levels he didn’t know existed, as was the prickle of goose bumps against his palm.
‘Relax,’ he murmured against her temple, feeling her resistance as he tried to pull her a little closer.
Jerking her head back, she shot him a look that would have turned any other guy to stone. ‘Let’s just get through this, okay?’
Valentino chuckled at her stubborn refusal to give him an inch.
Another factor he was finding surprisingly appealing.
In his thirty-seven years of life, he’d never had to work for the attention of a woman – ever.
From his mother to his sisters and female cousins, to the girls at school and the women he’d had in his bed, he’d never had to try too hard.
He was starting to realise how boring, how predictable, his life had been.
They moved to the music even though Valentino barely heard it as his senses infused with her fresh scent.
Something light and floral in her hair. Frangipani, maybe?
But a spicier note wafted from her throat.
Chilli and rich dark chocolate, and it took all of his willpower not to nuzzle and inhale it deep into his lungs.
A small clearing of the throat was followed by a polite question. ‘So, Valentino… Nat tells me you’re a cochlear implant surgeon.’