The Inconvenient Bride - By Anne McAllister Page 0,52

there, a wry grin on his face and a reckless look in his eyes.

She swallowed. “Dare me to what?”

“Dance with me.” He took her hand, but he didn’t lead her to the dance floor. Instead he drew her up the steps, not to the next deck or the next, but to the very top open air deck where there was no one else, just the music drifting up to them. And then he shut the door.

He held out his arms. “Dance?”

Sierra blinked. “Oh, yes. Yes, please.” And she stepped into them again, felt one slide around her back and draw her close, felt the other close around her right hand, tucking it against his chest. Her hat bumped his nose.

He laughed. It was a strained laugh, rough with desire. And when she took the hat off and tossed it away, he wrapped his arms around her and they watched it float on the night sky into the water below.

Then he turned her in his arms and they danced. Alone. Together.

Then Dominic said, “I wonder if maybe we ought to go on a honeymoon after all.”

Sierra’s heart leapt. She stepped back and looked up at him, trying to see his heart in his eyes. But there were too many shadows. The night was too dark.

But not too dark to hope.

CHAPTER NINE

“A HONEYMOON?” Douglas looked surprised. He stopped fidgeting in Dominic’s office and regarded his son with curiosity. “Where?”

“I don’t know where,” Dominic said irritably. He just knew it was a good idea. If he and Sierra were ever going to make anything out of this marriage, they needed some time alone together, to concentrate on each other.

He didn’t stop to think when he’d decided that it was necessary that he and Sierra make something out of their marriage—something more than he’d originally thought, at least. He just knew it was. He knew she’d been right.

He only hoped he hadn’t waited too long and blown it.

He didn’t think he had. She had looked surprised but happy when he’d suggested it last night, which was why he was in the office on Saturday. He was trying to get things squared away, sorted out, finished up.

“You really want to put the past behind you and move on?” Nathan asked. He was lounging on the sofa, leafing through a magazine while he waited for their father. The two of them were going out to the old family home on Long Island to go fishing. They’d stopped by Dominic’s place to see if he and Sierra wanted to go. Sierra had told them he was at the office.

“Idiot,” Douglas had said when he’d first burst in. “What are you doing here, leaving your wife home on the Saturday after your wedding reception? You’ll lose that girl, Dominic!”

“I’m trying not to lose her, damn it!” Dominic had retorted, jabbing a pencil in his father’s direction. “I’m trying to get things sorted out so I can take her away from here.”

“You should go to our place in the Bahamas,” Nathan said.

Dominic snapped the pencil in half. He glared at his brother. “That’s the stupidest damn suggestion I ever heard! Take her where I got jilted last time?”

“Have you ever been back?” Nathan asked him.

Dominic raked a hand through his hair. “Hell, no. And why should I have?”

Nathan shrugged. “To get over it?”

Dominic slammed his hand on the desk. “I am over it!”

“I can tell,” Nathan murmured. He got up and paced the room, then tossed the magazine onto the coffee table, then glanced at his watch. “Come on, Dad. He’s not going with us, and I want to get some fishing in. I’m only going to be here a week, then it’s off to Antarctica.”

“Right,” Douglas said. He hoisted himself out of his chair, then regarded his son across Dominic’s wide desk. “The honeymoon is a good idea.” He turned and started for the door, then stopped and looked back. “The Bahamas is a good idea, too. For a marriage to work, it needs a clean slate.”

She’d only been to the Bahamas twice.

In all the traveling she’d done on photo shoots all over the world, she’d only managed a week in Nassau.

“Nassau?” she’d said eagerly when he mentioned the Bahamas.

Dominic had shaken his head. “We have a place on one of the out islands. There’s a small town, a fishing harbor, and a few houses scattered along the windward beach. Three miles of pink sand and usually deserted.”

“Sounds heavenly,” Sierra had said.

And now she knew it was.

They’d flown