by JoAnn Ross
Realizing that he was behaving impulsively again, Burke decided to locate Sonny Darling’s collection and return it to the man’s family. He tried to tell himself that his decision was not due to his feelings for Sabrina, but merely an understanding of tradition and the belief that certain things, no matter their monetary cost, were far more valuable as family keepsakes.
“I didn’t invite you here to bring up unpleasant memories,” he said. “Rather, I wanted you to see this.”
Cupping her elbow in his hand, he led her across the tartan flooring to the opposite wall. There, resplendently surrounded by a heavy gilt frame, hung a life-size full-length portrait of a young woman clad in a traditional scarlet flamenco dress trimmed in an ebony lace flounce. Her dark hair was a wild tangle around her bare shoulders, and her eyes—more black than brown—flashed with tempestuous fire.
“She’s absolutely stunning.”
“That’s Katia Giraudeau, Phillipe’s Spanish wife. And my grandmother.”
“The gypsy.” Sabrina looked into the expressive face and imagined she could hear the staccato clatter of castanets, smell the smoke of the fire.
“Katia was born with second sight,” Burke divulged. “Unfortunately Montacroix has always had its share of superstitious citizens, and a few of them accused her of being a witch. Her family, however, learned to trust her uncanny intuition.”
Sabrina studied the picture, her attention riveted on those flashing dark gypsy eyes. “Do you believe in clairvoyance?”
Burke shrugged. “It’s an intriguing notion, but entirely unsubstantiated by evidence. However,” he surprisingly revealed, “although intellectually, I find extrasensory perception difficult to explain, having grown up with Katia as a grandmother, I can’t deny the possibility.”
Burke decided not to mention that his half sister Noel had inherited their grandmother’s gift. Such personal information was Noel’s to share.
“Well, it’s certainly a wonderfully vivid portrait.”
“It is, isn’t it? From the night you arrived, I have been thinking of how much Katia reminds me of you. Which is why I wanted you to see the painting.”
It was also a not-very-subtle excuse to get Sabrina alone. Away from her sisters and mother and his family and the bodyguards that constantly hovered around them all.
“Me?” Sabrina glanced at him in surprise. “We don’t look anything alike.”
“Perhaps you don’t resemble each other physically,” he allowed. “But you both possess the same fire,” he said in a husky tone, “the same energy, the same joie de vivre.” The same dangerous ability to stir a man’s blood.
Sabrina let out a long breath.
“I have been remiss,” Burke said.
“Oh?” Her mouth was suddenly very, very dry.
“I failed to tell you how lovely you look tonight.” A sheath of gold lamé skimmed her body; the side slits revealed her long and shapely legs.
“Thank you.”
He wished he’d been in her bedroom, when she’d performed her predinner rituals—those feminine tricks with creams and scents designed to entice a man.
“Monique informed Chantal that you sent her away earlier this evening.”
Tattletale, Sabrina thought. She was also discomfited to learn that Burke and his sister had been talking about her.
“Monique is very efficient and very nice, but when she wanted to draw my bath, I merely suggested that she find something else to occupy her time.”
“Drawing your bath is part of her duty.”
“I realize that. I just didn’t like it.”
“You don’t like servants?”
“Of course I do. And I’m sure I’d come to like Monique, once I got to know her. It’s having her hovering around, waiting on me that makes me nervous.”
“Most women in my experience enjoy being waited on.”
She tilted her chin. Her gray eyes darkened to the hue of a stormy sea. “I feel obliged to point out that is a highly sexist remark, Your Highness. Besides, I’m not most women.”
“No.” He gave her a long considering look. “You are most definitely not.”
Their gazes met in a flash of shared intimacy like nothing Burke had ever known. As he struggled to regain control of himself and the situation, he tried to remember who—and what he was.
When she felt her face growing warm, Sabrina tried to lower her gaze, but couldn’t.
It was as if his dark eyes were undressing her mind and she was powerless to resist.
“Don’t you think we should be getting back to the dining room, Your Highness?” Although it took every ounce of restraint she possessed, she didn’t back away.
“Don’t you think it’s time you dropped the formality and called me Burke?”
Giving in to temptation, he cupped her chin in his fingers and brushed his thumb over her delicate jawline, pleased when Sabrina didn’t flinch or turn away.
“What is it about you?” he murmured. “What dark magic do you possess that makes me unable to get you out of my mind?”
While she was attempting to come up with an answer to that startling question, he slowly, deliberately lowered his head. All it took was the warm flutter of his breath to make Sabrina’s lips part and her concentration waver.
And then he touched his lips to hers. Testing. Tasting.
Sabrina never would have expected that his firm, uncompromising mouth could be so tender. Or feel so right. She sighed in soft, shimmering pleasure even as she told herself she should not allow this.
He used no pressure. No power. Only soft, patient persuasion. His hands moved up her bare arms, creating a trail of heat before cupping her face between his palms.
“I knew it,” he murmured. His long fingers combed through her hair, tilting her head so he could look deep into her eyes.
“Knew what?” His gaze was making her knees weak; seeking support, she grasped on to his broad shoulders.
“That you would taste every bit as good as you looked.”
Gently, and with infinite care, his lips plucked at hers, tempting, teasing, soothing Sabrina’s tension and making her forget all her reasons why this was wrong.
And then slowly, degree by glorious degree, he deepened the kiss, drawing it out until she linked her fingers around his neck, closed her eyes and let her body meld to his.
Urgency rose; desire flared. Her soft lips moved avidly, instinctively beneath his, her arms wrapped around him and clung. They both felt it—the need to touch. And be touched.
It was no longer a tentative, exploratory first kiss. Feelings flared. Emotions erupted.
When Burke’s lips skimmed up her face to loiter at her temple, she sighed. When they pressed against the ragged pulse at the base of her throat, she moaned. And when he brushed a series of stinging kisses along the ridge of her collarbone, she moaned again and clung.
He’d stopped thinking. In some distant corner of his mind, Burke told himself that he was in danger of risking everything for this one fleeting moment’s insanity. Even as he warned himself that his behavior was sheer madness, he found himself wanting more.
More, she thought, as his tongue slid seductively over hers. A jagged need sliced through her. Every pore of her body seemed to be crying out with it. Desperation pounded in her, hot and heavy, with each heartbeat. She wanted—needed—more. So very much more.
His lips burned their way down her throat, his hand skimmed down her back to find some hitherto undiscovered point near the base of her backbone. A perfectly placed finger pressing against it caused flames to shoot up her spine.
“No. Please.” Sabrina drew in a quick, harsh breath as the deep-seated instinct for survival finally kicked in.
Pulling free, she dragged an unsteady hand through her now-tumbled hair and stared at him.
“I think we’d better rejoin the others,” she insisted quietly.
Need roared inside him; Burke struggled for calm. Another minute and she would have had him on his knees. He wa
nted to curse her for making him feel like a teenager; he wanted to rip that little gold dress away and take her here and now, satisfying the hunger that had tormented both body and mind for days.
“Whatever you wish.” His dark eyes took a slow tour of her flushed face. Burke tried to remember when any woman had taken him so far, so deep, with merely a kiss, and came up blank. “Should I apologize?”
Her eyes flashed with renewed spirit. “Don’t you dare.”
“Bien. I won’t.” Burke had never begged for a woman; with Sabrina he feared that begging might be inevitable. It might also be worth it. “Would it make you feel safer if I gave you my word that I will be on my best behavior for the remainder of the evening?”
“Perhaps.”
She could trust him, Sabrina determined as they returned to the dining room. But what about herself?
They’d just finished dinner when Burke surprised Sabrina once again.
“Madame Darling,” he said, addressing Dixie, who was seated at the end of the table, to Eduard’s right, “I feel that having been so immersed in my preparations for the race, I have been neglecting my hosting duties. It would be my honor if you—and your lovely daughters, of course—permitted me to escort you to the casino this evening.”
Sonny had teased his wife of single-handedly keeping Nashville’s Our Lady of Mercy Catholic church afloat with her unwavering devotion to the parish’s Wednesday-night bingo games. That being the case, Sabrina was not surprised when Dixie’s face lighted up like a Christmas tree at the prince’s suggestion.
“Why, the honor would be ours, Your Highness.”
Raven and Ariel also expressed a desire to visit the renowned playground of the world’s rich and famous.
Which left Sabrina to demur.
“Don’t you have some official function to attend?”
“There was a prerace cocktail party,” he agreed. “And some mention of a late-night get-together. But I’m certain that the other drivers and their guests will muddle through quite well without me.”
“But you have another time trial tomorrow.”
“Oui. But the car is in perfect running order. There is nothing left for me to do but to show up on time.”
“I’d think you’d want a good night’s sleep.”
“It is still early. And some time at the tables will undoubtedly relax me.”
But Sabrina knew that time spent with the playboy prince would prove anything but relaxing for her. She was about to pass on the entire idea when she saw the faintest flicker of a challenge in Burke’s dark eyes. It was a mirror of the one she’d tossed his way earlier today.
“I don’t gamble.”
“Everyone gambles,” Burke argued easily.
“I don’t.”
“Life is a gamble.”
“Not mine.” She could feel the interested gazes of the two families watching her exchange with Burke. She also knew she was being unreasonably uncooperative, but couldn’t seem to stop herself.
He looked at her for a long, silent time, his dark eyes inscrutable. “Then perhaps it is time that you took a risk.”
And he was not referring to any game found in the casino.
“I wouldn’t know how to play the game.” She too, was not referring to baccarat or roulette, but to whatever was happening between her and the prince.
Burke nodded his silent acceptance of her complaint. “That is easily overcome. Our croupiers are extremely helpful.”
He had just deftly cut off her escape route.
“It sounds delightful,” she said, lying through her teeth. Her tone was that of a woman who knew that to resist any longer would be to invite speculation.
“Parfait,” Burke said. His tone was that of a man totally accustomed to getting his way.
For not the first time since meeting Montacroix’s prince, Sabrina was left with the impression that although he possessed a great deal more charm than her former husband, in his own way, Burke Giraudeau was every bit as controlling.
* * *
LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE in the country, the royal casino—with its rococo turrets and green copper cupolas illuminated by bright spotlights—could have come from the illustrated pages of a fairy tale.
As he escorted the quartet up the marble steps, Burke stopped before a bronze statue of a man in full battle dress seated astride a prancing stallion.
“This is Prince Léon,” he revealed. “He is the reason that our detractors claim that we have more statues in Montacroix than we do citizens. That is, of course, an exaggeration. However, during his reign, more than two hundred statues were commissioned. It is impossible to drive through the countryside without seeing one of Léon’s statues.”
“The pigeons must love him,” Sabrina said dryly.
Burke smiled. “My own feelings, exactly. Custom has it that rubbing the knee of Léon’s horse will bring one luck.”
“Well,” Ariel drawled, reaching out a perfectly manicured hand to stroke the burnished bronze horse, “far be it from me to buck custom.”
Dixie followed her daughter’s example, as did Raven, although her expression suggested that she was far too sensible for such superstition and was merely humoring the others.
“Sabrina?” Burke invited with an arched brow.
Some perverse instinct had her resist his request. “I’ve always believed in making my own luck.”
When her lovely, stubborn jaw pointed his way again, Burke’s fingers practically itched with the desire to curl around it and hold its owner to another one of those mind-blinding kisses. With a self-control that was rapidly slipping away, like sands between his fingers, he managed, with a Herculean effort, to resist.
“Once again we are in perfect accord,” he said on a husky voice that affected her nearly as much as his earlier kiss.
Accustomed to the bright lights and glitter of Las Vegas or Atlantic City, where Sonny had so often headlined, the Montacroix casino had an old-fashioned, upper-class atmosphere.
Hand-cut prisms of crystal chandeliers sparkled from the ceiling, so unlike the garish neon usually associated with American casinos. The arched ceilings boasted gilt frescoes, and priceless Impressionist paintings adorned the walls of the softly lighted salons where stunningly beautiful, silk clad female croupiers oversaw games of roulette, blackjack and baccarat. The marble-patterned carpeting continued the elegance of the Italian marble foyer, while muffling the sounds in the vast room.
The gamblers, too, were different from the eclectic mix of Americans who frequented the Nevada and New Jersey casinos. In those gambling halls, one could find gamblers dressed in everything from faded jeans to expensive designer original evening gowns, all pressed together in absolute equality.
Here, democracy had been abandoned for an atmosphere of elegant chic where the world’s highest rollers risked the odd few million while deciding what European hotel or department store to buy next. The women wore their exquisite jewels proudly and openly, something they were no longer safe to do in so many of the other European playgrounds. Although not one to keep up on the comings and goings of the glitterati, Sabrina recognized several celebrities.
There were no exuberant cries of victory as fortunes were won, no mournful cries or shouted expletives as others were lost. There was only the steady hum of subdued, cultured voices.
The main gallery shushed as Burke passed through with his guests. Following in their wake was the hum of murmured curious voices. From the way he’d placed his hand lightly on her back, ostensibly guiding her through the throng of gamblers, Sabrina suspected that much of that interest was directed toward her.
“This is the Salon Privé,” Burke informed the little group as they entered a room that was smaller, but even more exquisitely decorated than the main gallery.
When he smiled toward a lovely young blonde in her early twenties, clad in a long black beaded sheath that hugged every voluptuous curve, Sabrina felt that same unwelcome stab of jealousy she’d experienced when she’d seen
the newspaper photo of the prince with Princess Caroline.
The woman glided across the vermilion-and-gold carpeting, somehow managing, despite the snugness of her gown, a perfect curtsy. “Your Highness,” she greeted him in French-accented English. “I’ve arranged things for your guests, exactly as you’ve requested.”
“Bien.” His pleased smile was warm, admiring and intimate. Sabrina hated the woman without even knowing her. “I’ve arranged for each of you to have a credit with the bank.”
The overly generous amount he stated drew surprised, pleased gasps from Dixie, Raven and Ariel. But not Sabrina. She had already decided that there was nothing Prince Burke could do that would surprise her. And although it was an unpalatable thought, Sabrina also suspected that such generosity was merely a way to buy Dixie’s compliance for a dalliance with the eldest Darling daughter.
If that was his plan, it was definitely working. After turning the others over to the beautiful salon hostess he’d introduced as Dominique, he turned to Sabrina.
“Since you stated you don’t gamble, I will be pleased to assist you in learning the game.”
“Oh, isn’t that nice,” Dixie enthused. “Go along, Sabrina, darling. And have a good time.” From her mother’s overt delight, as well as the amused expression on both her sisters’ faces, Sabrina realized that she was not going to receive any help from that quarter.
“All right,” she grumbled as she allowed herself to be guided to the far side of the salon. “But I hope you won’t be too annoyed when I lose every franc.”
Burke stopped, gazed down at her for a heart stoppingly long time, then ran the back of his hand down her cheek. “I doubt that there is anything you could do to annoy me, Sabrina.”
A silken net had drifted over them. They could have been the only two people in the room.
The mere touch of his hand against her skin had turned her mouth as arid as an Arabian desert. Sabrina had a sudden urge to lick her dry lips. An urge she resisted.
“You never know,” she quipped on a shaky voice. “The night’s still young.”
He laughed at that, another one of those deep rich laughs that thankfully succeeded in breaking the seductive spell.