Chapter 1 #2
Gui glanced around the reception, which was being held at the most fashionable hotel in Manhattan.
In a while he’d be stepping up to give the toast to Sheri and Tristan, and he should be concentrating on that.
Instead, he was fixated on a woman—Elvira.
He’d been obsessed with her since he was eighteen.
“See something you like?”
He glanced over at Christos, who’d come up next to him and was handing him a glass of champagne.
Christos had recently married as well. And though the institution had always been one Gui dreaded, he had to admit that his friend looked happier than he had in years.
In fact, if pressed, Gui would be forced to say that marriage had changed Christos for the better.
“Yes.”
“Which one?” Christos asked.
Gui knew better than to admit he’d been watching Elvira, so he skimmed the crowd and spotted Kara deMontaine.
“Um…tall, thick curly hair…” he said.
“Ah, the younger deMontaine girl. Kerri?”
“Kara. Do you know her?”
“Not well. I do know Rina fairly well. She’s very protective of the girl.”
“Really?”
“Yes. She tore someone to shreds once for a comment they made about her.”
Gui said nothing, just took a sip of his drink, pretending he was unable to take his eyes off Kara.
Her hair was thick and black, and it curled around her face like a Botticelli angel’s.
She was tall, at least five-ten. And her figure was full.
Her curves were generous, but she could never be called fat.
He’d been sincere when he’d complimented her.
She wasn’t a classically beautiful woman like Elvira, and she’d never draw men to her the way that his ex-lover did, but there was an innocence about Kara that was refreshing.
“Gui?”
“Hmm?” Gui tried not to dwell on the fact that he actually was having trouble taking his eyes off Kara.
“You okay?” Christos asked.
“Why wouldn’t I be? Weddings are a single man’s best friend.” The band was playing a lively number. And he was going to find a single woman to go home with him tonight. Not Elvira. And not an innocent like Kara.
“No reason,” Christos said.
“You are being vague. What’s up?” It wasn’t like Christos to beat around the bush.
“Ava thinks you are…”
“What?” he asked, distracted. “What are you getting at?”
“Ah, hell, I feel stupid even saying it.”
“Just say it.”
“She thinks that with Tristan and I both married, you’re going to feel isolated.”
Gui smiled. Ava Niarchos was a deeply caring and compassionate woman. And she worried over Christos’s friends as if they were her own. She’d told him at Tristan’s engagement party that she wanted him and Tristan settled down, so that Christos, Tristan and he could raise families together.
But in all honesty, that wasn’t a lifestyle that Gui wanted. “I’m not isolated. You and Tristan are my mates and that’s not going to change because you’re married.”
Christos rubbed the back of his neck. “I told you—”
“Amigo, it’s okay. I understand. Tell Ava thank you for worrying about me.”
“She’d worry less if the rumors about you and Elvira would go away.”
“She’s worried about Elvira?” he asked, wondering how Ava had even heard the other woman’s name. Probably the tabloids, which were Sheri’s favorite vice. Sheri and Ava had become close.
Christos shrugged.
“I am not interested in married women. You know I take vows seriously.”
“Indeed. So why are you looking at her when you think no one will notice?”
“I’m not.”
“Juan is watching you like he’s going to confront you.”
“Where is he?”
“The bar.”
Juan couldn’t handle his liquor. He’d been asked to leave events at the Spanish Court before. Gui’s sister-in-law, Dulcinea, the Enfanta, was worried about Juan, who was her first cousin.
“I’m not looking at Elvira more than I am any other woman.”
“Gui—”
“Christos, I’ve never interfered in your personal life.”
Christos snorted. “So when you showed up on Mykonos to meet Ava before our wedding, that wasn’t interfering?” Gui shrugged, and Christos laughed. “I’ll leave it be. Just watch your back.”
Gui nodded and walked away from Christos, trying to remember that his life was a happy one. He wasn’t like Tristan, who’d mourned the death of his first love for too long before meeting Sheri, or like Christos, who had felt betrayed by the woman he loved before they worked out their differences.
He was a bachelor. He liked the lifestyle and the women. He’d learned long ago that a man with passions like his was better suited to short-term relationships.
The one woman he’d opened his heart to had married out of spite to make him jealous, and Gui had learned the hard way that love wasn’t all hearts and flowers. Love was also painful and vindictive.
He glanced at the bar, catching Juan’s glare. He needed to do something. Anything that would make Juan believe that he wasn’t still attracted to Elvira. It didn’t help matters that at some point, Elvira would seek him out. She always did. And he always waited for her.
“Care to dance?”
Kara had a light buzz going from all the pomegranate martinis she’d drunk. She was surrounded by her friends and really enjoying herself. And those were good enough reasons for asking Gui to dance.
Those, and the fact that her friend Courtney had been certain that Kara didn’t know him. Didn’t really know the gorgeous and most sought-after bachelor in the room.
“Pardon?”
She cleared her throat. Man, if he turned her down, she was going to die. “I asked you to dance.”
“Dance?”
“Unless there is something official you should be doing.”
“I have a few moments. Enough time to dance with a beautiful woman.” He smiled at her, his expression very charming. “It would be my pleasure to dance with you.”
She flushed as a totally inappropriate thought drifted through her mind. Then she shook her head and led him to the dance floor and her group of friends. “Do you know everyone?”
He shook his head. “Hello, ladies.”
Kara introduced him to Emily, Katie and Courtney. They were her best friends and some of the only people she was truly comfortable around.
“This is Count…Gui. I’m sorry I don’t remember your entire title.”
He smiled at that. “I’m Count Guillermo de Cuaron y Bautista de la Cruz. But please, just Gui.”
He bowed and the girls all dropped into low curtsies as they’d been taught long ago. Gui smiled at them and Katie giggled.
The music changed from lively to a slow ballad. Kara started edging her way off the dance floor but Gui stopped her with his hand on her arm.
“I believe you asked me to dance.”
“Yes,” she said.
He drew her back toward the center of the dance floor and into his arms. Even in her heels he was taller than she was. He smoothed his hands down her back, resting them just above the curve of her hips.
He was a good dancer, which made sense. He owned several nightclubs and had probably spent a fair amount of time frequenting the trendy nightspots. Each with a different woman.
She sighed. Why had her thoughts turned to that?
“What are you thinking?”
She shook her head. There weren’t enough martinis in this room to get her to admit what she’d been thinking. “Nothing.”
“You sighed.”
“I did.”
“So…”
“Gui?”
“Yes, Kara.”
“Stop being charming.”
He laughed and lifted his head. “I can’t. It’s a curse of mine.”
“And you use it very well.”
“You say that as if it were a bad thing.”
“Well, it makes you seem like the kind of man who always knows the right thing to say.”
“Fake?” he asked.
She bit her lower lip. “Yes. Fake. I mean, you say things to me that sound like you really care, but you hardly know me.”
“Perhaps you’re easier to care about than you think.”
She shook her head. “I know I’m not. No man ever sees me as anything other than an heiress.”
“Then they aren’t really looking at you,” Guillermo said.
Kara felt something shift inside her as she looked at Gui. He drew her even more closely to him until her breasts brushed his chest and her head rested on his shoulder.
She feared this was a martini-induced dream, but it felt incredibly real to her and she wanted it to last for a little while longer. Tomorrow she could go back to being the pudgy heiress. Tonight, she wanted to revel in the feeling of being a fairy-tale princess with her count.
“Guillermo, querido?”
The voice was low and husky and very feminine. And there was a hint of possessiveness in that voice as its owner spoke to Gui.
He stiffened and his features tightened, but she didn’t know him well enough to really read his reaction. “Si, Elvira.”
“Introduce me to your lovely friend,” the woman named Elvira said.
Kara heard the criticism in the other woman’s voice. That note that said, why are you dancing with this pudgy girl instead of me? It was a tone that Kara had heard often enough over the years.
“Countess Elvira de Castillo y Perez, meet Kara deMontaine. Kara, this is the Countess Elvira.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Kara said, curtsying to the older woman.
“Aren’t you a sweet child,” the countess said. “Run along and play with your friends. I’d like a word with Guillermo.”
Kara started to step away but Gui’s hand tightened on her arm. “Kara is my fiancée, Elvira. Anything you have to say to me can be said in front of her.”