Emma Darcy - Ruthless Billionaire, Forbidden Baby

‘Forget it! The brain took over from the body and it wasn’t to my liking. Hunk is not everything!’

They ruefully agreed with this declaration and the subject was dropped. There was so much else to comment on: the wedding decor, the dressing of the guests, the food, the speeches—which Tammy privately decided Fletcher would consider a whole lot of sentimental claptrap, but which she thought were beautifully heartfelt and heart touching.

She smiled, clapped, laughed in all the right places, though no matter how hard she tried to enjoy herself, there was this weird leaden weight on her heart—something she’d never felt before, not over a man. Fletcher had stirred a lot of new feelings in her today. Had she been too hasty in taking such decisive umbrage against him? Was this the weight of disappointment because he wasn’t how she’d wanted him to be, or of regret for cutting herself off before exploring the experience further?

Fortunately, when the bridal party all trooped off to the powder room before the cutting of the cake, Celine cleared up some of the turmoil in Tammy’s mind.

‘Did I detect something going on between you and my brother, Tammy?’ she asked with a little frown of concern.

‘Just a bit of flirtation. You didn’t tell me he was so handsome.’

Celine grimaced. ‘Alpha male at its best and worst—that’s Fletcher. Didn’t he put you off with his supposedly superior intellect?’

Tammy shrugged. ‘I had to cut him down a few times.’

‘Well, I’m glad to hear you’re not completely bowled over by him. Fletcher is only into very casual relationships, and I mean casual. No woman is good enough to keep his interest. Besides which he flies back to London on Monday. He’ll be out of your life before you even begin to know him properly.’

‘No problem,’ Tammy answered airily and concentrated on renewing her lipstick, telling herself to stop maundering over what might have been with Fletcher Stanton. He was definitely not the right man for her.

Her body, however, staged a highly unsettling rebellion against that edict when she had to dance with him.

The bridal waltz followed the cutting of the cake. The bridesmaids and groomsmen were scheduled to join in after Celine’s and Andrew’s showpiece solo performance. There was no avoiding it. As the fifth bridesmaid, Tammy had to line up with the fifth groomsman. They stood together, waiting for their turn to step onto the floor, Tammy looking studiously ahead, acutely aware that her pulse was racing and her female hormones were zinging into a merry dance of their own at the prospect of physical connection with the man beside her.

‘Ready?’ he asked.

She glanced up and caught a devilish twinkle in his dark eyes. ‘I hope you can waltz,’ she answered, trying to dampen the rush of heat through her bloodstream.

‘Counting one, two, three, is not beyond me’ was his sardonic reply.

‘Mathematical skill does not guarantee a natural rhythm,’ she instantly countered, bristling at his arrogance again. ‘Some people have it. Some don’t.’

‘Do you have it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then we should move well together,’ he said with such sexy satisfaction, Tammy told herself to keep her smart mouth shut because it was only giving him ammunition to light a fire she had to put out.

This attraction was going nowhere.

She was not going to be a casual, meaningless one-night stand for Fletcher Stanton. Pride forbade it. She deserved more from a man than to be left to herself after an intimate connection.

‘Our turn now,’ he said, and swept her onto the dance floor, one arm clamping her lower body to his, his powerful thighs pushing hers into the slow sensual rhythm of ‘Moon River,’ the jazz waltz Celine had chosen.

He held her so closely, her breasts pressed to his chest, she had to put her arm up around his neck, and he didn’t just hold her other hand. He intertwined their fingers, fueling the hot sense he was claiming possession of her and had no intention of letting go. Tammy couldn’t stop herself from virtually melting into him. He danced divinely. Never had she had such a masterful partner. The question started raging through her mind—what would he be like in bed?

Mercifully the music stopped and she pulled herself back from the brink of floating into dangerous places with Fletcher Stanton. ‘I have to go and serve cake now,’ she said, demanding release.

‘It can wait. The other guests have just been invited to join us on the dance floor,’ he argued, his eyes simmering with temptations that had to be denied or she might end up where she was determined not to be.

‘Many of them won’t. It’s the bridesmaids’ duty to take around trays of cake,’ she stated categorically.

‘How many more duties do you have to perform tonight?’

‘This is the last one,’ she had to admit.

‘Good! Then I’ll catch up with you after it’s done.’

He slowly untwined his hand from hers and removed his arm from around her waist, his dark gaze holding hers with an intensity of purpose that sent little shivers down her spine. She took a deep breath, knowing she had to make a fighting stand.

‘This was a duty dance, you know. I don’t have to do anything more with you.’

‘But we have such perfect rhythm together. Why deny the pleasure of pursuing it further?’

Because it was a straight-out case of dancing with the devil. But Tammy couldn’t say that since it would reveal how tempted she was.

‘What’s your favourite dance?’ he pressed.

‘The salsa,’ she answered, half hoping he couldn’t do it, half wanting him to be brilliant at it because she loved it so much.

He grinned with wicked confidence. ‘I’ll salsa you off your feet.’

‘Maybe. Maybe not,’ she said archly, trying her utmost to stay cool. ‘Please excuse me. Duty calls.’

She could feel his eyes burning into her back as she walked away. He was a terribly sexy beast. Could she risk the excitement of doing the salsa with him? Better not. No doubt it would tease more lustful desires, and she might not feel strong enough to resist them.

As it turned out she found the best possible excuse to escape any pursuit from Fletcher for the rest of the evening. Celine’s ten-year-old cousin, Ryan, had disgraced himself, surreptitiously drinking alcohol, throwing up and feeling wretched. Tammy offered to sit with him on the downstairs verandah so his parents could continue enjoying their niece’s wedding reception. Knowing she was a qualified nurse, they were happily relieved to let her take care of him.

Ryan curled up on her lap and dropped off to sleep. Tammy was grateful for the cool night air. It helped dispel the feverish physical yearning that had almost pulled her down a very stupid course. Hadn’t she learnt from her mother’s life that rich arrogant men didn’t stick around after they’d got what they wanted? Fletcher Stanton wouldn’t be any different. His own sister had spelled that out. If she let her deeply set principles be swept aside by his powerful attraction, she’d be disgusted with herself when he flew away on Monday.

Attraction for men like him was a very temporary thing. If she hadn’t looked exotic today, would he have shown any interest in her, felt any desire for her? Tammy doubted it. She didn’t understand why she’d felt such a strong connection to him. The feeling couldn’t be trusted, anyway. Better to set it aside than risk her heart on a man who had such a cynical view of love and marriage—a man who wasn’t looking for anything more than casual sex with a woman.

Ryan’s parents came to collect him when the bride was about to leave. Tammy joined the other bridesmaids just in time for the throwing of the bouquet. Kirsty caught it. They all laughingly trailed after the bride and groom, making their exit from Boronia House. Fletcher caught up with her outside where the limousines were lined up, ready to transport their designated passengers.

‘Where have you been?’ he demanded, frustrated at having his desires thwarted by her absence.

‘Looking after a sick guest,’ she answered, thrusting out a hand to him for a coolly formal farewell. ‘Goodbye, Fletcher. I hope you have a smooth flight back to London on Monday.’

The finality in her voice triggered a savage glitter of mockery in his eyes. ‘I take it you’re on duty again tomorrow.’

‘Yes,’ she said firmly.

He wasn’t used to rejection, didn’t like it, but it was clearly beneath him to fight it. He cloaked himself with an unprickable air of arrogance as he took her hand, enveloping it in the heat and strength of his, making it feel small and fragile—too little for him—everything she was…too little to take him on.

‘It was a pleasure meeting you, Tamalyn,’ he rolled out with the same cool politeness she had dealt to him, then surprised her by sardonically adding, ‘Thunderbolts don’t come my way very often.’

It was on the tip of her tongue to say he probably needed more of them to puncture his arrogance on a regular basis. She clamped down on the comment, not wanting to be provocative at this point. He was going away. There was no future for her with Celine’s brother. His life was elsewhere. But despite all her sensible reasoning, the leaden weight was back on her heart.

‘Another time. Another place. Who knows? We might strike each other again,’ she replied, determinedly wriggling her hand free so she could leave.

His eyes bored into hers, striking hard right now. ‘It’s a waste…not using the present.’

‘Nothing’s a waste…if you learn from it,’ she said back. ‘Life is one long experience and meeting you today has been part of it. Thank you and goodbye, Fletcher.’

She turned away before regret at not having the experience of going to bed with him could tear at her conviction that it would be wrong for her.

She was only twenty-three.

The promise of one night with Fletcher Stanton was not enough to compromise her ideals on how a relationship between a man and woman should work.

CHAPTER THREE

The Second Wedding

WAS Fletcher Stanton going to be there?

The question was like a squirrel on a treadmill running through Tammy’s mind. Had been for months. Ever since Kirsty had announced her engagement to Paul Hathaway and it came out in conversation that Paul’s brother, Max, was the mathematical super-brain in Canberra who was an integral member of Fletcher’s high-tech team. Which was one of those coincidences in life that seemed to make the world very small.

A close professional connection didn’t mean a social one, Tammy had told herself a hundred times. Even if Fletcher and Max Hathaway were friends as well as colleagues, Paul was based in Sydney, an IT specialist for an international bank with his own circle of friends to invite to the wedding. It was highly unlikely that a brother’s friend who lived and worked overseas would be invited to the wedding.

Of course, the question could have been settled once and for all if she’d simply asked Kirsty if Fletcher’s name was on the Hathaways’ confirmed guest list, but she hadn’t been able to bring herself to do it. There was something really pathetic about showing an interest in a man who had not pursued any interest in her beyond the one encounter at Celine’s wedding, and that had been six months ago.

Though she had rejected him.

Very pointedly.

What man would pursue a woman after that?

He probably hadn’t even returned to Australia since then.

Sometimes she cursed having met Fletcher Stanton at all. Regardless of everything that had been wrong about him, he’d made too big an impact on her to forget. The memory of the sexual chemistry which had sizzled between them still bothered her. Other men she’d dated over the years—nice men, good guys—had never lit that spark in her. Nor had she ever felt challenged by them in any vital way.