Elizabeth Bevarly - The Billionaire Gets His Way / The Sarantos Secret Baby - The Billionaire Gets His Way / The Sarantos Secret Baby

Lowering his head to her ear, he said, very softly, “Don’t flinch when I touch you, Violet. And don’t pull away. You’re my date, which means we are intimately involved. Don’t do anything that will make others doubt that, or I’ll have to reconsider my offer.”

“Your offer was only to reconsider in the first place,” she replied without turning around, her voice as quiet as his. But she sounded a little breathless, which, for some reason, made Gavin feel a little breathless, too. “How can you reconsider a reconsideration?”

“You’ll find out if you do a bad job convincing everyone here that you’re crazy about me and that we’re only here long enough to make an appearance, after which we’ll be escaping to have sex for the rest of the night because you can’t keep your hands off me.”

Now she turned around to face him fully, splashes of pink blossoming on each cheek. The blush was back. The surprising, alluring, strangely erotic blush. Gavin managed to keep his breathing in check, but wasn’t quite as successful controlling another part of himself—a part he’d as soon not be losing control of at the moment, since the cut of his jacket was such that it wouldn’t hide his condition.

“Now wait just one minute,” she whispered. “There was nothing in this deal that said I had to pretend we’re sexually involved. I’m supposed to be your date.”

Gavin smiled at that. “Sweetheart, it’s a given that any woman who’s dating me is also sleeping with me. I assumed you knew that, since it’s the same thing you wrote about Ethan.”

She opened her mouth to respond to that, evidently thought better of what she had intended to say, and snapped her lips shut. Pity. He’d started to have all kinds of good ideas for that open mouth. Of course, none of them had involved talking.

He urged her forward, this time wrapping his arm around her waist and pulling her close. Screw the courtesies. It wasn’t like he’d ever been big on courtesies with other women. Why should Violet be any different? Especially since she wasn’t the sort of woman who commanded courtesy to begin with.

Ah, dammit, where was the bar?

He found it immediately, tucked into the same corner of the ballroom where the Steepletons always put it, and he steered Violet in that direction. Before he could even ask her what she wanted, she requested a glass of champagne from the bartender, who poured it with great flourish before handing it to her with a smile. She smiled and thanked him warmly, then lifted the glass to her lips for a sip before declaring it delicious and thanking the bartender again. When the man turned to Gavin, Gavin barked out an order for his favorite Scotch, taking it from the man’s extended hand without acknowledgment and guiding Violet toward a small pocket of people on the other side of the room.

“You know, you were very rude back there,” she said as they threaded their way through the crowd.

Gavin had no idea what she was talking about. “What? When?”

“The bartender,” she said. “You didn’t even thank him for your drink.”

“Why would I thank a bartender for doing his job?”

“Because it’s a nice gesture,” she said. “Because it makes someone in that position feel appreciated.”

“Who cares if he feels appreciated? He’s a bartender. It’s not like he’s trying to cure cancer or bring peace to a war-torn country.”

“No, but he made this party more enjoyable for you by fixing you a nice drink. Therefore, you should thank him.”

How could she possibly care about the hired help? Gavin wondered. Who even noticed the hired help? They were invisible. Or would be, if she would stop carping on them.

“Come on,” he said, striving to make the bartender invisible again. “There are some people over here who need to see you with me.”

He wasn’t sure, but he thought she growled under her breath at that. Which, truth be told, he found kind of erotic. But then, there was little about Violet tonight that he didn’t find erotic, so maybe that wasn’t surprising.

“This won’t take long,” he told her. “Nod and look sexy for a few minutes, and then we can move on to another group. If everything goes smoothly, and you play your part well, then I can have you out of here and home before midnight. Just like Cinderella.”

Cinderella. Yeah, Violet might feel like Cinderella this evening. If she were attending this party with Prince Charming instead of a big toad. Honestly, how had Gavin ever gotten any dates in the first place? Or, more to the point, how had he managed to have more than one with any given woman? Violet didn’t care how handsome or sexy or rich or sexy or powerful or sexy or hot or sexy or … or … or …

Where was she?

Oh, yeah. She didn’t care how whatever or sexy Gavin was. If this was the way he acted with women—with anyone—she wouldn’t have spent more than ten minutes with him. Unfortunately, if she had any hope of getting rid of him and his stupid lawsuit, she would have to tolerate him for the rest of the evening.

Then again, if she had to suffer in silence, she thought as she savored another sip of champagne, at least she was doing it in gorgeous surroundings. She couldn’t believe this place. The Steepletons must be soiled to their undergarments with their filthy lucre. As she and Gavin had made the lengthy journey from the front door to the ballroom, she’d thought the house really did look like something out of a fairy tale, complete with gold-limned wainscoting, marble floors and centuries-old oil-on-canvas renditions of peerage at play.

The ballroom was even more magnificent. Its satiny hardwood floor was inlaid with an intricate pattern of darker wood, and a massive crystal chandelier hung from the center of a ceiling that looked like a Renaissance rendition of heaven, right down to the chubby cherubs peeking over the clouds. The walls on three sides were papered to look like luscious gardens, and the fourth was composed of arched, beveled windows that looked out onto a massive courtyard below. Violet had just enough time to look outside and see that it was as beautifully landscaped as the wallpaper gardens were, lit by torchieres and candles, since some of the partygoers had spilled out there to chat and smoke.

Then Gavin was dragging her toward the group of people whom he’d deemed it so necessary must see them together. She figured out why immediately, since three members of the group were drop-dead beautiful women, all of them sporting form-fitting dresses of eye-popping color and gemstones that Violet was reasonably certain were real—and she wasn’t talking real cubic zirconium, either. She had thought Gavin would simply walk right up and insinuate himself into the conversation, so it took her by surprise when he stopped a good fifteen feet away from them, removed her champagne from her hand to place it alongside his drink on the tray of a passing waiter, then swept her into his arms and began to dance.

It took him by surprise, too, since she had no idea how to dance, something that became obvious when she immediately brought her foot down on top of his—hard.

“Ouch,” he muttered, halting at once. He glared at her. “Why the hell did you do that?”

“Well, I didn’t mean to. You might have warned me that you wanted to dance.”

“Half the people in the room are dancing. Why would you need a warning for that? “

She didn’t want to tell him it was because she didn’t know how to dance. She was suddenly embarrassed to be at a party like this, in a place like this, surrounded by people like this, and have no idea how to perform any of the customs that were a part of this world. She was already keenly aware of how much more stylish the other partygoers were, and she was confident none of them had stopped by Talk of the Town to rent a gown before coming. The way they smiled and chatted with each other, it was obvious they all knew each other—or at least knew of each other. Even their posture and the way they walked and sipped their drinks was different from the way normal people—people like Violet—performed such tasks.