Emma Darcy - The Billionaire's Scandalous Marriage

Free her for himself.

THE night sky bloomed with magnificent bursts of colour, erupting over the spectacular white sails that roofed the opera house and above the great sandstone pylons of the bridge. The massive cascades of light were beautiful, awesome, yet the joy Charlotte had expected to feel in them was somehow sucked away by the presence of Damien Wynter.

Which was totally, totally wrong.

And upsetting.

Mark was holding her. Mark was talking to her, sharing his delight in the fantastic display, pointing out the marvellous special effects that particularly impressed him. Mark should have her undivided attention. And she tried to give it, tried to respond as she should be responding quite naturally.

Yet she was still bridling over how Damien Wynter had been looking at her just before the countdown started, taking in every detail of her appearance as though measuring it against some standard in his mind. She told herself he probably did the same to any woman who came into his firing line and it was totally irrelevant how he scored her in his estimation of female attraction. What he thought simply didn’t matter. Which made it all the more intensely irritating that he’d set her nerves so much on edge.

Even his voice distracted her from what Mark was saying, her ears suddenly super-sensitive to the deep timbre of it as he made comments to Peter, comments that told her he was enjoying the show.

And why not?

No other city in the world had a more fabulous setting for such a night as this and the Sea Lion gave them a dress-circle view of everything. She was probably the only spectator wishing for the end of the fireworks. Only then would her brother lead Damien Wynter away and she’d be rid of this horribly acute awareness of him.

A crescendo of rockets built up to the fifteen-minute finale. A golden rain fell from the bridge and just below the centre of the arch, a huge red heart appeared, pulsing with graduations of light.

“The heart of Sydney,” she murmured appreciatively.

“The heart of love,” Mark breathed into her ear.

Which should have made her own heart beat with happiness, but her mind was too busy being sceptical about how much heart Damien Wynter had. No doubt he gave a sizeable slice of his wealth to charities, as a tax deduction, which didn’t actually mean caring. Did he care about anything beyond staking out his territory and increasing it at every opportunity—all he could get?

“That’s it for now,” Peter told him. “There’ll be a bigger show at midnight.”

“Hard to top that,” Damien commented. “Leaving the heart glowing is a nice touch.”

“Yes, it really stands out in the darkness,” Peter replied.

“A reminder to give,” Charlotte couldn’t resist tossing at them.

A mistake.

Damien Wynter’s dark eyes instantly locked onto hers, glittering with speculative interest. He smiled, slowly and sensually, his teeth so white, the old saying, all the better to bite you with, slid straight into Charlotte’s mind.

“Instead of to get?” he asked, provocatively raising her issue with him.

She tried to shrug it off, inwardly cursing herself for opening another conversation with him. “The two should go hand in hand, don’t you think?” she answered blandly.

“Yes, I do.” The quick agreement was instantly followed by a challenge. “Does that surprise you, Charlotte?”

Peter saved her from answering, chiming in with, “Damien gives an enormous amount to self-help development programs for Africa.”

It surprised her enough to ask, “Why Africa?”

“Have you been there?” Damien queried.

“No. I’ve always thought of Africa as a scary, violent place, best avoided.”

“Then let me take you. You’d be safe under my protection and you could see for yourself how I do my giving.”

A part of her actually wanted to. Dangerous curiosity, she told herself, and retreated to safe ground. “Thank you for the invitation but Mark and I are getting married in a couple of weeks…”

“And I understand you’re busy right now, but when it’s convenient…” He smiled at Mark. “Would touring Africa as my guest appeal?”

“Absolutely,” Mark rushed in, without discussing the choice with her.

They didn’t know the man. Why would Mark want to be his guest on a tour through Africa? It wasn’t on. Not with Damien Wynter. It felt wrong. Apart from anything else, no way could she feel comfortable in his company.

“You’d better take Damien down to the saloon if you’re playing poker with Dad, Peter,” she reminded her brother, wanting this encounter ended.

“Are you playing, Mark?” Damien asked, apparently happy to have her fiancé included in the poker party.

Charlotte resented the gambit to separate them as though she didn’t count. Mark wouldn’t desert her for some all male fun. Certainly not on the first New Year’s Eve they were spending together.

“Not my game, I’m afraid,” he said, which wasn’t as positive about remaining with her as she would have liked. In fact, Mark had sounded downright rueful over missing out.

Damien’s compelling dark eyes targeted her again. “What about you, Charlotte?”

The impertinence of the question left her momentarily speechless. As if she would when Mark couldn’t!

Peter laughed, clapping his friend on the back. “Believe me, Damien, you don’t want to play with Charlotte.”

“Oh? Why not?”

“Because she’ll take you. My sister is a killer player.”

His mouth formed a very sexy moue. His eyes, which hadn’t left hers for a second, simmered a sexy challenge. “I think I’d like the experience of being taken by your sister, Peter.”

Charlotte burned.

Damien Wynter wasn’t talking poker. He’d looked her over, decided he found her desirable, liked the spice that she was engaged to another man and supposedly unattainable, and was now laying out his line, dangling the bait of beating him at a game based on taking chances.

The outrageous arrogance of the man was insufferable. Her mind sizzled with ways to puncture his ego. Before she could come up with the perfect putdown, Mark intervened.

“You know, I’d like to watch that,” he said musingly. “Are spectators allowed at this game?”

Annoyance sharpened her tongue. “Mark, I don’t want to play. I want to be with you.”

“Mark can come and watch, Charlotte,” Peter put in, suddenly eager to oblige his friend’s whim. “He can sit right at your shoulder.”

“That’s not the same,” she shot at her brother.

“Truly, I would enjoy it, darling,” Mark pushed, smiling persuasively as he added, “It’s a part of your life that’s still a mystery to me. I’d like the chance to watch and understand what you were talking about…the percentages.”

“I thought we were going to dance,” she protested, hating his unwitting collusion with a man who would take her if the opportunity presented itself.

“We can dance any night,” he soothed.

“Course you can,” Peter said dismissively. “Come on, Charlotte. You know you love to play. It’s in your blood.”

The sense of being railroaded increased the angry tension Damien Wynter had evoked, and Peter sounded so like their father with his blood comment, she almost stamped her foot in exasperation. “It’s just a game, Peter. I can choose to play or not. I don’t need it in my life!”

“Sorry, darling,” Mark back-pedalled in concern. “Of course, it’s your choice.”

“But it would please all of us if you played,” Damien slid in silkily.

Painting her as a selfish spoilt brat if she refused.

Charlotte grimly took stock. Mark could watch a poker match on television if he was so keen to understand percentages. That seemed like a very specious argument to her. More likely, the drawcard for him was being with Peter and Damien Wynter—part of the privileged circle at her father’s poker game.