Winter Blockbuster 2012 (25 page)

Susannah put a hand on Laurel’s arm and bowed her head close to say softly, “I know you’ve been carrying a lot of the
stress of the past few months, more than we probably realize. I remember it was you who called to let Matt know Elizabeth had been taken into custody.”

“All of us have been under strain,” Laurel responded in a low voice, so that her mother didn’t hear. “I know that Matt has been incredibly worried about—generating new business to stanch the losses Jack Sinclair caused.”

Susannah shrugged. “There are rumors of fresh defections all the time. But they can only be dealt with one at a time. Nothing you can do right now. You’ve done your bit. I know that like RJ, you’ve kept in close touch with the police and kept us all informed of developments. You need a break.”

Then her mother was beside her. “I heard the end of that—and I agree with Susannah. Take some time off. It’s your life.?… Live it.” Elizabeth directed a private smile to Laurel. “You deserve some fun.”

“Ah, Mom.” In gratitude of her mother’s unexpected understanding, Laurel flung her arms around the older woman. Coming from the always correct Elizabeth, the words meant a great deal. “Thank you!”

At the back of her mind had been the thought that her mother would need her. With her other daughters now married, Laurel was the obvious choice to cosset her after her traumatic arrest for Reginald’s murder. But her sisters—and Susannah and Brooke—had relieved her of the responsibility. The final—and most weighty—mental block had been removed. There was no reason for Laurel to decline Rakin’s invitation.

“Now you have no excuse,” Kara said with satisfaction—and Laurel didn’t even try to stop the laughter that overflowed as her sister’s words echoed her own thoughts.

Instead she said, “I should be mad at you. But how can
I be? It’s your wedding day—and you’re matchmaking as many of us as you can.”

Kara looked mystified at that. “What do you mean?”

“You can take all the credit—since you talked Eli into introducing Rakin to me.”

But Kara was shaking her head. “Honestly, it wasn’t me.”

Her sister’s reply left Laurel lost for words.

Laurel came toward him, her step light and buoyant, causing the silver-gray fabric of her dress to swirl around her long legs. Her lips were curved up and her face alight with what Rakin could only describe as happiness. It gave her an inner glow, and accentuated her beauty… and his heart missed a beat.

“Excuse me.” Without a backward look to the group he’d been conversing with about the state of the shipping industry, he went to meet her. “Would you like to dance?”

She nodded.

A hand clapped his shoulder; then Matt’s voice broke in. “Rakin, we’ll catch up again, I’d like to find out more about some of those Diyafan market players.”

For once, money and business were not at the forefront of Rakin’s mind. He said something to Matt that must have satisfied the other man, but he didn’t take his eyes off Laurel.

He sensed he was walking a thin line.

Pleasure was threatening to overwhelm business. It would do him well to take care and not to confuse his priorities. Then he came to his senses. He was Rakin Whitcomb Abdellah. He controlled a billion-dollar business empire. His grandfather ruled Diyafa. He’d never been the kind of man to let his heart rule his head. Never.

Laurel Kincaid was business. He would not forget that.

“Let’s dance,” he said gruffly, and swept the most beautiful woman he’d ever met into his arms.

The rhythm of the jazz was rich and deep, smoldering with the passions of the South.

Laurel’s body brushed against his, and involuntarily Rakin’s arms tightened. She was so soft and lush and incredibly feminine. A man could forget his resolve.

She stiffened, and he instantly eased his hold.

Business
, he reminded himself.

“What’s Flynn doing on the dance floor?”

She’d come to a standstill, and Rakin followed her gaze. He might’ve been considering letting pleasure overwhelm him, but Laurel clearly had her feet firmly on the ground. The ring bearer from the wedding ceremony was weaving his way determinedly through the dancing guests. It hadn’t been his close hold that had caused her to stiffen, Rakin realized with relief. It was the child. Wearing a pair of sky-blue summer pajamas with his dark hair slicked down, Rakin suspected the kid was supposed to be tucked up in bed.

“Hey!” Laurel slipped out of his arms in a whisper of silver satin, and caught the youngster’s hand.

The boy’s face lit up. “Aunt Laurel, you didn’t catch the flowers Aunt Kara threw at you.”

“You were watching?”

“When’s Aunt Kara going to cut the cake? She said I could have some.”

“This handsome rapscallion is Matt’s son, my nephew, Flynn.” Laurel told Rakin. Then she turned her attention back to the little boy. “I don’t think they’ll be cutting the cake for a while. Shouldn’t you be in bed?”

He nodded, his blue eyes round with innocence. “Pamela told me a bedtime story.”

“Mom’s housekeeper,” Laurel explained to Rakin. To Flynn, she said, “You should be asleep.”

“I was excited… and I want some cake.”

“So you escaped.” Laurel grinned at him conspiratorially. “I tell you what, you can have one dance with us, then I’ll take you back to bed. I promise I’ll save you a ginormous piece of cake and give it to you in the morning. Deal?”

Flynn looked uncertain.

“Take it,” Rakin advised. “You won’t get a better offer tonight.”

He held out a hand at a height Flynn could reach. Flynn’s eyes lit up as he recognized the game. “High five,” he crowed and slapped Rakin’s hand.

“Deal,” said Rakin.

Rakin watched with amusement as Flynn started to gyrate his limbs alongside them. He had the lack of inhibitions of the very young and threw his heart into every move. But, by the time the melody had faded, he looked exhausted.

A short, silver-haired woman hurried up to claim him.

“He gave me the slip,” she told Laurel, after passing a lightning-swift glance over Rakin. “I’ll put him back to bed.”

As Flynn gave them a wave over his shoulder, the music struck up again. Rakin moved forward and gathered Laurel back into his arms. She didn’t protest.

“Pamela, I take it?”

Laurel nodded. “Sorry, I should’ve introduced you, but I imagined she wanted to get Flynn off to bed before Susannah starts to worry about him.”

The rapid once-over the housekeeper had given him had told Rakin that she was clearly an established part of the Kincaid family. It wasn’t only Flynn and Susannah she was looking out for—there’d been a warning in that glance:
Be
honorable, or have me to deal with
. Rakin smiled to himself. Pamela had nothing to fear.?…

Against his shoulder, Laurel murmured, “It’s wonderful to see Flynn looking so much better, even though he’s still thin.”

Spinning her deftly around to avoid colliding with a couple who had come to a standstill in the midst of dancers, Rakin said, “He’s been ill?”

“Very. For the past two months Matt and Susannah have had to be careful about allowing him out—to limit his exposure to germs. But he’s had the green flag—he’s well on his way to full recovery. Tonight is the biggest crowd he’s been in since he got ill.”

“No wonder he’s excited. He’s a great kid.”

“I think so.” Laurel laughed up at him. “We all do.”

Her green eyes sparkled like precious gems. Emeralds. A sultan’s prize. Rakin dismissed the fanciful notion. “Your nephew was right—you didn’t catch the bridal bouquet.”

He’d been amused how she’d lithely leapt out of the way of the bunch of flowers the bride had tossed at her. If he had any doubt about the veracity of her claim earlier that she wasn’t looking for love, he certainly believed it now. She couldn’t have chosen a more public place to make her lack of interest in romantic commitment clear. Laurel might as well have taken out an ad in the society pages to proclaim she wasn’t interested in marriage.

“No, I didn’t catch it.”

Despite her polite smile, and the carefully enunciated “No,” the dangerous glint he detected in her eyes told another story. The laugh started low in his belly. He did his best to contain it—to no avail. Her glint turned to a glare. Biting back his mirth, before they became the focus of attention of those other than her two sisters-in-law, who were trying to look as though they were not following their dance,
he said, “I thought every maid of honor dreamed of being the next bride.”

“Not me. I want—”

“Excitement… adventure.”

That wrested a reluctant laugh from her. “You whipped the words right out of my mouth.”

Rakin forgot all about her watching relatives. His gaze dropped down to her lips.

Why hadn’t he noticed how perfectly they were shaped? The flowing curve of the top lip was a work of art, while the plump bottom one promised pure sin.

Instantly the mood changed, vibrating with suppressed tension. Her annoyance, his teasing, their laughter, all vanished. Rakin was no longer conscious of anyone in the room—except the woman in his arms.

Her lips parted, and she drew a quick breath.

“I’ll do it,” she told him in a rush. “I’ll come with you to Vegas.”

He hadn’t expected a reply so soon.

He’d been summoning his powers of persuasion. Now there was no need. Tension Rakin hadn’t even known existed eased. Had he really believed she would refuse? The way his muscles relaxed suggested he hadn’t been as certain of Laurel as he would’ve liked.

His gaze lifted—and clashed with eyes alive with excitement.

“This is only the start of the adventure,” he promised her.

Triumph filled him. Laurel Kincaid was going to make the perfect trophy wife.?…

CHAPTER FOUR

L
AUREL’S
expression grew increasingly bemused as the limousine that had collected them from McCarran International Airport cruised along Las Vegas’s famous Strip.

“There’s no where else in the world like Vegas,” Rakin told Laurel, watching as she tried to assimilate the staggering visual impact of the city.

“It’s like a Hollywood set.” She twisted around to look out of a small window. “I don’t remember any of this from back when I was here as a child.”

“Then I shall have to show you everything.”

“I can’t wait.” Even under the tawdry neon lights of the limousine interior her eyes shone with excitement.

By the time the white limousine nosed into the forecourt of the luxury hotel he’d booked for them, Rakin half-regretted not reserving a suite in one of the more over-the-top resorts.

“There are more outrageous hotels.” Rakin stood at the door as she emerged from the limousine. “But I thought you might appreciate somewhere more peaceful when a retreat from the madness becomes necessary.”

Laurel clambered out to stand beside him. Dressed in a pair of white linen trousers and a taupe shell top she looked
cool and comfortable. Pulling her sunglasses down from where they rested on the top of her head to shade her eyes, she said, “I can’t imagine that ‘peace’ is a word one often associates with Vegas.”

“Believe it or not, there are peaceful places to be found not far from here.”

“Like where?”

“Eli and I came here a couple of times during vacations while we were at Harvard. The desert is vast and undisturbed. Beautiful. Sometimes we’d hike through Red Rock Canyon.”

There was a long pause as she examined him.

“You were homesick,” she said after a moment, a peculiar note in her voice. “You missed Diyafa… and your family.”

Rakin didn’t reply. But he was relieved he couldn’t see her expression behind the dark, opaque veil of the sunglasses. He suspected it would be too kind for comfort. Pity was the very last thing he wanted from this woman he was determined to marry.

He certainly wasn’t going to explain the complicated relationship he shared with his family. The overwhelming expectations of his grandfather that had started when he was barely out the cradle and set him forever at odds with his cousins. His father’s fits of anger, which had caused his mother to weep inconsolably. His own growing resentment against his father that had increased after he’d been sent to boarding school in England. And the lingering guilt for abandoning his mother to deal with his father which had not been eased by the bravely stoic letters written in her perfect, flowing handwriting.

By his thirteenth birthday his parents had been dead—and by the time he and Eli had first hiked Red Rock Canyon they’d been buried for a decade.

So Laurel was wrong. The pilgrimages he and Eli had
made to Vegas had nothing to do with missing Diyafa—or his family.

No need for her to know there were no nostalgic, happy memories for him to hanker after—or at least, not until he successfully talked her into marrying him to nullify Prince Ahmeer’s latest round of threats. For now, he’d promised his Southern rebel fun and adventure—and he intended to ensure she experienced plenty of both.

Cupping her elbow, he ushered her in the porter’s wake into the quiet, discreet luxury of the hotel lobby. A hostess rushed forward and offered them each a glass of champagne. Before Rakin could refuse, Laurel shook her head.

She flashed him a rueful glance. “I want a clear head—I’m not missing a moment of this.”

Her humor caused his mood to lighten. “I like you tipsy,” he said softly.

A flush swept along her cheekbones. “It’s not gentlemanly of you to remind me.”

Coming from his lady-turned-rebel, the statement caused him to chuckle. “I thought you were tired of social constraints?”

“Not so tired that I’ll get tipsy again any time soon.”

They’d reached the reservations desk. Laurel leaned forward to answer a question from the reservations clerk and Rakin was instantly all too aware of the taut, lean lines of her body. Her bare arms rested on the polished counter and she spread her hands drawing his attention to the rings that decorated her graceful fingers.

Her ring finger was bare. His gaze lingered on the band of pale skin that evidenced her broken engagement to Eli.

A light, summery scent floated to him. Rakin inhaled deeply. Could one get tipsy on perfume? he wondered, then shook off the absurd notion.