She was so consumed by his kiss she no longer heard the swish and slap and sigh of the waves as they lapped and sucked at the shore. No longer aware of the ocean breeze stirring the fronds on the palm trees, no longer aware of the fine grains of sand beneath her feet or the sun shining down on her head.
The sound of the witnesses clapping seemed to snap Logan out of the moment. He lifted his mouth off hers and gave a crooked smile that said everything and yet nothing.
Layla licked her lips and tasted him, wanted him with a deep ache that vibrated in her core like a plucked cello string. Her heart was still racing, her pulse off the charts, her legs trembling. Now, that was a kiss. She felt dazed, stunned, spinning with lingering sensations. Her mouth still felt sensitive, her lips slightly swollen. She searched his gaze for any sign he was as affected by their kiss as she was but his gaze was like the ocean beside them with its mysterious depths and shifting shadows.
They were soon swept up in the hearty congratulations of Makani and Ken, followed by the official signing of the register. Logan had organised refreshments back at the villa but things had to be cut short when Makani got a call from her mother, who was babysitting their children, that the youngest was running a temperature.
‘Sorry to leave so soon,’ Makani said, and added with a twinkling smile, ‘But just you wait until you have kids. Life will never be the same, but in a totally good way.’
‘Now, now, honey,’ Ken said, looping an arm around his wife’s waist. ‘Don’t go putting baby ideas in their heads just yet. Let them enjoy their honeymoon.’
Honeymoon.
The word was enough to send another shiver shooting through Layla’s body.
* * *
Logan saw his guests out and came back to where Layla was sipping a glass of champagne on one of the sofas overlooking the ocean view. If he closed his eyes, he could take himself back to the moment of their kiss at the ceremony. Damn it—he didn’t even need to close his eyes. He could still taste the milk and honey sweetness of her mouth—could still feel the thrum of lust deep in his body.
He was relieved he was good at concealing his emotions because that kiss had rocked him to the core. He hadn’t wanted it to end. He had lost track of where they were and why they were there. All he’d cared about, all he’d craved was the smooth, soft, sweet delicacy of her mouth moving against his. The shy playfulness of her tongue had sent a rocket blast of need to his groin. Triggering a need that was still humming in the background—a low, persistent hum he was doing his level best to ignore.
Their marriage was on paper. That was the deal. It was for one year and one year only and then it would be over.
No damage done.
But that kiss had already done damage because he wanted to kiss her again. Their kiss had made him think about taking things further, doing things he had no business doing with her. Things he had no business doing with anyone. He didn’t do long-term intimate relationships.
Not again.
But that kiss had stirred something inside him—something that until now had been lying dormant, in a coma, dead. The touch of Layla’s pillow-soft lips had sent electrodes of awareness to every part of his body, jolting it awake, making his flesh hungry, greedy for sensual satiation. Not for the quick-fix, hook-up type sex he had indulged in during the last seven years. He would be fooling himself if he said he had enjoyed those encounters beyond the brief physical relief they had provided.
But he suspected making love with Layla would be entirely different, which was why he couldn’t allow himself to go there. Couldn’t allow himself permission to even think about the possibility. There would be too many complications when it came to ending their arrangement. The sort of complications he could well do without.
Layla turned her head to look at him, still cradling her champagne, her expression bland. ‘So, here we are, then.’
Logan fought to keep a frown off his face and tried a crooked smile instead but wasn’t sure it was too convincing. ‘Yes...’ He picked up the bottle of champagne in the ice bucket and brought it over to where she was sitting to refill her glass. ‘More?’
She placed her hand over the top of the glass. ‘Better not. I might start saying things I wouldn’t normally say.’ She gave a twisted smile and added, ‘In vino veritas and all that.’
‘In the wine lies the truth.’ Logan grunted in agreement, topping up his own glass, and then put the champagne bottle back in the ice bucket with a rattle against the ice cubes and continued, ‘Drunk words, sober thoughts.’ He wondered what she would say if he told her what he was thinking. What he’d been thinking ever since he’d kissed her. No, even before that—when he’d encountered her in the north tower at Bellbrae. Something had happened, something had changed between them and he wasn’t sure how to change it back.
There was a beat or two of silence.
Logan turned back to look at her. ‘Feel free to speak your mind with me, Layla. I don’t expect you to have to drink to excess in order to do it.’
She leaned forward to put her glass on the coffee table, her eyes slipping out of reach of his. She sat back and smoothed a crease out of her dress before returning her gaze to his with disquieting intensity. ‘Why did you kiss me like that at the ceremony?’
Logan took a sip of his champagne before responding. Not because he needed alcohol but because he didn’t know how to answer without betraying himself. He wanted to kiss her again. Now. And not just kiss her but explore her beautiful body with the same thoroughness. He wanted to run his hands through the silk cloud of her hair. He wanted to kiss the soft creamy skin at the base of her throat, to trail his tongue along the contours of her collarbones, to breathe in the flowery scent of her until he was drunk with it.
‘It seemed the right thing to do at the time.’ Logan’s tone held no trace of the battle going on inside him. ‘Malaki and Ken, and indeed the celebrant, would have thought it strange if we hadn’t kissed.’
A tiny frown wrinkled her brow. ‘True. But you kissed me as if you didn’t want to stop.’ Her teeth snagged her bottom lip and she added, ‘Was that...just acting?’ Her voice had a note of uncertainty that was strangely touching.
Logan put his champagne glass down and released a long breath. ‘No. It wasn’t just acting.’ He closed his eyes in a slow blink and dragged a hand down his face. ‘It was a moment of foolishness that won’t be repeated.’
Must not be repeated. Must not. Must not. Must not. He drummed it into his head but his body was offline. Off-script.
There was a silence broken only by the sound of waves pulsing against the shore.
Layla rose from the sofa and wandered over to look out of the open balcony doors to the beach below. Her arms were around her mid-section, her posture stiff and guarded as if she was shielding herself from an expected insult. ‘So, you didn’t enjoy it, then?’ Her voice still echoed with self-doubt.
Logan told himself to stay where he was—to keep his distance. To not tempt himself beyond his endurance by crossing the floor to her. But step by step he went, programmed by a force he had no way of countering. He placed his hands on the tops of her shoulders, turning her to face him. Her grey-green gaze assiduously avoided his so he tipped up her chin with one of his fingers so she had no choice but to meet his eyes. ‘I enjoyed it way too much and therein lies our problem.’
She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue, making them even more unbearably tempting. ‘Why is that a problem?’ Her voice was as low and husky as a whispered secret and it sent shivers racing down his spine.
Logan stroked his thumb across her cheek, marvelling at the creamy softness of her skin. ‘You know why.’ His tone was so low and rough it sounded like he’d been filing his tonsils with a blacksmith’s rasp.
‘Because of our paper marriage?’ Her eyes reminded him of cloudy sea glass.
He couldn’t seem to stop his thumb f
rom stroking her cheek, couldn’t stop his gaze from drinking in every nuance of her features. Couldn’t stop the thrum of lust that assailed his body like an invisible invader. Marching through every inch of his flesh, aching, wanting, needing. ‘We have to be sensible about this, Layla.’
I have to be sensible. I have to be in control.
She reached up with her hand and stroked his jaw from his cheekbone to his chin, her eyes luminous. ‘I think I must have already had too much champagne because right now I want you to kiss me again. I want to know if the first time was a fluke or...or something else.’
It was the ‘something else’ that most worried Logan. He fought every aroused cell in his body but it was a battle he was worried he might not win, or at least not in the long run. One year of this level of temptation and he would be a certifiable mess. How much temptation could a man endure? Especially for a man who had actively avoided contact as intimate as this.
Kissing a hook-up date was one thing, kissing someone he had known for years and was currently married to was another. Their paper marriage would be incinerated, obliterated if he gave in to the temptation to kiss her again. One taste of her mouth had already unleashed something feral inside him, something he wasn’t sure he could control for too much longer.
Calling on every bit of willpower he possessed, Logan dropped his hand from her face and took a step back. ‘I’m sorry, Layla, but this can’t happen. I made the rules for a reason.’
Her gaze reminded him of the still surface of a lake. Calm. Controlled. But there was a faint ripple of disappointment around the edges. ‘Okey-dokey.’ Her words and tone were flippant given the topic under discussion. So too her overly bright, breezy smile. ‘We’ll leave it at that, then.’ She moved across the room to where the champagne bottle was and topped up her glass. She turned and held her glass up in a toast, her expression faintly mocking. ‘Long live the rules.’
Logan ground his teeth so hard he mentally apologised to his dentist. ‘Listen—I’m not doing this to insult you. It’s not personal.’
‘Isn’t it?’ Her eyes were glittering as brightly as the diamonds on her left hand next to her wedding ring. Not glittering with tears but with anger.
He let out a slowly controlled breath, anchoring his hands on his hips like he was about to deliver an important lecture. Which he was, but he suspected he was the one who needed to hear it most. ‘Think about it. If we were to have a normal relationship, it would be much more complicated to end it when the year was up. This way we can get an annulment and leave it at that. No harm done.’ He dropped his hands from his hips. ‘I’m not saying it will be an easy year. But we’re both mature adults, and I want us to remain friends at the end of it.’
She rolled her lips together, her arms crossed, with her champagne glass tilted at a threatening-to-spill angle. ‘What have you told your brother about us? Does he know it’s just a paper marriage?’
Logan folded back the cuffs of his shirt for something to do with his hands. ‘I haven’t spoken to him yet. He hasn’t answered any of my calls or texts or emails.’ Which, unfortunately, wasn’t unusual when Robbie was on one of his gambling sprees.
‘But what will you tell him?’
It was a question Logan had been asking himself for the last few days. He hadn’t been able to contact his younger brother to talk about anything, much less his sudden marriage to Layla Campbell, the housekeeper’s great-niece. ‘He will have seen the will by now but I’m hoping he’ll accept our marriage as the real deal. It’s not as if you and I are complete strangers and he knows my grandfather always had a soft spot for you.’
‘It might be tricky convincing Robbie we’re a genuine couple when he comes home to Bellbrae sometime. You know what he’s like—he often arrives unannounced. If we’re sleeping on opposite sides of the castle it will look kind of odd.’
Logan could see her point. His brother might be immature and reckless but he wasn’t a total fool. It wouldn’t take Robbie long to pick up on any irregularities in Logan’s relationship with Layla, and their living arrangements in particular. ‘We could move into the west tower. The large suite that has the connecting bedrooms.’ He would be far closer to her than he’d intended—sleeping with just a door between them.
A door he would keep locked—literally and mentally.
‘Fine,’ Layla said, draining her glass. ‘But can I make a request?’
‘Sure.’
She put her glass down and faced him squarely. ‘When we’re pretending to be happily married to Robbie and anyone else, will you use terms of endearment or just call me Layla?’
‘What would you prefer?’
‘You can call me anything but babe.’ She gave a faint shudder as if even saying the word upset her.
‘Why not babe?’
A hard light came into her eyes and her expression set like fast-acting glue. ‘Someone I used to know used it a lot. I’ve loathed it ever since.’
Before Logan could ask her to elaborate, she turned and walked out of the room, leaving him with just the lingering fragrance of her perfume.
CHAPTER FIVE
ARGH! WHY HAD she drunk that second glass of champagne? Their beach wedding had got to her, that was why. She had been swept away by the romantic setting, swept away by Logan’s kiss. The kiss that had sent shivers up and down her spine and driven silly ideas into her head. Ideas of him wanting things to go further, him wanting her. Not just physically but intellectually and emotionally.
But he had drawn a line in the sand. Do Not Cross.
Layla plonked herself down on the bed in her room with a despondent sigh. She’d made a class-A fool of herself, practically begging Logan to kiss her. Shame washed through her at how gauche she had been—how unworldly and foolish to think he might want to tweak the rules on their relationship.
But his kiss had been so...so genuine. So authentic. So powerfully passionate she could feel it on her lips even now. She only had to close her eyes and she was back there on the warm grainy sand, with the waves washing against the shore with their fringe of white lace, and Logan’s mouth clamped to hers as if he never wanted to let her go. The need he had stirred in her was still humming in her body—a faint background ache she couldn’t ignore.
Layla hitched up the hem of her dress and wriggled her feet and curled her toes. The white jagged scars on her left leg a jarring reminder of her past. The past that contained memories she wished she could forget. Painful memories that were embedded so deeply into her brain she still had nightmares.
Babe. The word she loathed because her father had used it to address her mother in love and hate and everything in between. The word her father had said in the moments before the car had slammed into the tree.
Layla pushed herself off the bed and walked over to the windows overlooking the beach. She hugged her arms around her body, trying to contain the disturbing images that flashed into her brain every time she thought of the accident. Accident? What a misnomer that was. It had been no accident. Her father had wanted to kill them all and had just about succeeded in doing so. He and her mother had died at the scene but Layla had been saved by a passing motorist—an off-duty nurse who had controlled the bleeding until the paramedics had arrived. Lucky Layla. That was what she’d heard the medical staff call her at the hospital.
Why, then, didn’t she feel it?
Layla blinked away the past and focussed on the beach below. The turquoise water beckoned but she hadn’t swum since rehab after the accident. And you could hardly call that swimming. She wasn’t sure she could even do it anymore. And she couldn’t imagine doing it without a body suit on, because going out in public with her scars on show drew too many stares, too many pitying looks, too many intrusive questions.
But on a whim she still couldn’t explain, she had bought a swimsuit when she’d bought her wedding dress. It was a strapless emerald-green one-piece wit
h a ruched panel in the front and a matching sarong. It was still in her suitcase—she hadn’t bothered unpacking it—because taking it out would be admitting she longed to swim, to feel the cool caress of ocean around her body, to be lifted weightless in its embrace. Free to move with perfect symmetry instead of her syncopated gait.
Layla narrowed her gaze when she saw a tall figure walking to the water. Logan had changed into a black hipster swimming costume, which showcased his athletic physique to perfection. Lean and taut with well-trained muscles, his skin tanned from numerous trips abroad, he turned every female head on the beach but seemed completely unaware of it. He waded through the waves until he got to deeper water and began striking out beyond the breakers in an effortless freestyle that was both graceful and powerful.
She turned away from the window with another sigh. She was on beautiful Maui in Hawaii with her brand-new husband who didn’t want her other than as a means to an end.
Where was Lucky Layla now?
* * *
Logan towelled off on the beach after his swim, but the restlessness in him hadn’t gone away in spite of the punishing exercise. He’d considered asking Layla to join him for a swim but had decided against it. This was not a honeymoon. They didn’t have to spend every minute of the day together—even if he wanted to a lot more than he should.
He walked back to the villa and found Layla sitting on one of the sun lounge chairs on the terrace overlooking the beach. She was wearing blue denim jeans and ballet flats and an untucked white cotton shirt. Her head was shaded by a wide-brimmed hat and her eyes screened behind a pair of sunglasses. She looked up from the magazine she was flicking through and lowered her sunglasses a fraction to look at him. ‘How was the water?’
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