Chapter 3

Charley made herself walk forward, stingingly aware of how his hand remained exactly where it was this time—as if he were taunting her for her silly reaction to him. The first person her eyes focused on was Adelina’s mother, looking stunning in sparkling diamonds and unrelieved black.

"Oh, there you are, Charley," she said, hurrying towards them with an anxious expression threatening to ruin her perfectly made-up face.

"Damiano," she greeted, her dark eyes skimming warily over her future son-in-law’s face before she returned them to Charley. "I need a quick word with you, Cara," she begged.

‘Of course.’ Charley smiled, automatically softening her tone for this tiny, elegant woman whose nervous disposition made her worry about everything—and everything usually encompassed her beautiful daughter. "What’s Adelina done now?" she asked.

It was only when the man standing behind her said coolly, "Nothing, I hope," that she realized she’d spoken out of turn in front of him.

Carina Alonzo went pale. Charley got defensive on Adelina’s mother’s behalf because she’d noticed before that Carina was not comfortable in Dami’s presence.

"It was a joke," she said sharply—too sharply, given the sudden stillness she felt hit the man behind her and the flick of tension she felt play along the length of her spine until it gathered beneath the light pressure of his hand.

Next second, he was leaning past her to brush kisses onto Carina’s cheeks. Having to stand here, trapped between the hard warmth of his body and Carina’s delicate one, Charley felt a twinge of remorse because his gesture was so obviously offered as a gentle soothe to his future mother-in-law’s frazzled nerves.

"I will leave you both to—confide together," he murmured then, and his hand slid away from Charley’s back.

He strode away towards the bar to greet some friends, the loose-limbed elegance with which he moved holding Charley’s gaze, though she didn’t want it to.

"Charley, you have to tell me what’s wrong with Adelina," Carina Alonzo insisted, setting Charley’s eyelashes flickering as she moved them away from Dami. "She is behaving strangely, and I cannot seem to get a pleasant word out of her." She should be down here by now, standing with Damiano to greet their guests, but when I went to her suite after I knocked on your door, she wasn’t even dressed!

"She had a headache at lunch and went to her room to rest," Charley recalled with a frown. "Perhaps she fell asleep."

"Which would explain the rumpled bed," Adelina’s mother said tensely, "and the way she looked like she’d just fallen out of it and the way she snapped off my head!"

"Give her a few more minutes to get herself together," Charley suggested soothingly. "If she still hasn’t put in an appearance, I’ll go up and chivvy her on."

"In the bad mood she’s in, only you dare to do it, Cara," Adelina’s mother said tautly.

Not Adelina’s betrothed? Charley wondered dryly as she linked her arm through Mrs. Alonzo’s and led her back to where the rest of the guests were gathered. A few seconds later, she was being warmly greeted by Adelina’s father, Alberto, and introduced to a cousin of Adelina she hadn’t met before.

Estelio Alonzo was about her own age and blessed with the Alonzo family's dark good looks and a pair of laughing blue eyes. "So you’re Charlotte," he said. "I’ve been hearing a lot about you since I arrived here this afternoon."

‘Who from?’ Charley demanded.

"My dear cousin, of course." Estelio grinned. "Adelina insists you are the one person who saved her from a life of rebellion and wickedness when she had to leave Sydney to live in the UK and attend the "stuffiest school around."

Ah. "You’re one of the Sydney Alonzos," Charley realized. "I recognize the accent now."

"I used to be Adelina’s partner in crime before you took my place," he explained.

"You’re that cousin?" She laughed at him. "I’ve heard all about you too."

"That’s my pulling power shot to death." Estelio sighed.

A long, fluted glass of fizzing champagne appeared in front of Charley, and she glanced up as she accepted it to find Dami standing over her like some dark, towering giant.

"Oh, thank you," she murmured.

He just nodded his dark head, sent an acknowledging nod towards Estelio, and drifted away again, leaving Charley feeling—odd.

Then Estelio said something, and with a mental shrug, she pushed Dami De Santis to one side and wished to goodness he would stay there for good. The minutes wore on, the mezzanine bar slowly filled with guests, and still there was no sign of Adelina. Eventually people began to get restless, checking the time on their watches.

Charley’s gaze drifted toward Dami De Santis. He was standing apart from everyone else, talking into his cell phone,  and I was not very happy by the stern look on his face.

Was he talking to Adelina? She would not be surprised because she’d seen him angered before by Adelina’s habit of always being late.

Well, get used to it, she told him silently as she watched him hag up the call and slide the phone into his jacket pocket. Adelina’s blithe lack of awareness of time and space was the constant bane of her mother’s and Charley’s lives. He could count himself lucky if she managed to show up on time at the church next week.

As the minutes dragged on, though, even Charley found she had to fight the need to keep checking her watch, and Carina Alonzo was sending her pleading looks. She was about to excuse herself to go and find out what Adelina was doing when there was a sudden stir in the lifts.

Everyone turned to look like one. The following silence held like a shaken heartbeat because there, at last, was Adelina, looking an absolute vision dressed in billowing gold silk. Her long, dark hair was up in a dramatically simple style that showed off the sweetness of her face and the slender length of her creamy, smooth neck. Diamonds sparkled at her ears and her throat.

Thread a tiara into her hair and she could be a princess, Charley thought fondly as eyes like huge pools of liquid dark chocolate scanned her audience, then her soft mouth took on an apologetic tilt.

"Sorry I’m so late, everyone," Adelina chanted quietly, and the mezzanine bar stirred to the sound of a beautifully directed indulgent response.

"That’s my brave girl," Charley thought she heard Estelio murmur beneath his breath, and she glanced at him sharply but saw nothing in his expression to warrant such a strange remark.