A Dangerous Game Read Free Page A

together—particularly unmarried people who continually thumbed their nose at convention and did what they wanted, when they wanted, and made no apologies.
    “That is absolute rubbish,” he replied, holding her tighter. Even now he could see others watching the two of them. No one else in the room held each other so close. He glanced at Darian, to find him among the audience, scowling. So, Darian was jealous, was he? No doubt his brother wished he could hold Nicolette as tightly, or as intimately as he did now. For a moment he gloried in his small victory. The other man yearned for what Salvatore had.
    Excellent.
    “I didn’t expect him to be so...attractive. True, his nose is a bit too large for his face, but his eyes and lips are very nice.” Nicolette released a long-winded sigh. “What if I fall in love with him?”
    Salvatore’s stomach rolled. He stopped in midstep and looked into her eyes. Relief washed over him seeing that she was trying to refrain from laughing, but without success.
    Jest or no jest, he wondered why he had never considered that Nicolette might actually find Darian attractive. What if she did fall in love with him? Women loved harder than men. Once they became intimate with a man, they wanted his heart as well. His mind raced with the possibility. What if Nic lost her heart to Darian, and what if Darian fell hopelessly in love with Nicolette?
    Nicolette lifted a finely shaped brow. “What’s the matter?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “You’re frowning.”
    He shook his head. “It must have been the wine. I have a headache.”
    Concern flashed in her eyes and she put a hand to his brow. She always turned maternal toward him when he complained of the slightest ailment, acting more like a mother than his own ever had. “Perhaps we should take our leave.”
    They had stopped in the middle of the floor, amidst the dancers who all turned to look at them.
    Nicolette seemed not to notice. Instead, she took him by the hand and led him off the dance floor. “Let’s go home, and put you to bed.”
    Salvatore followed behind Nicolette. He glanced over at Darian, and noted that his brother did not look happy in the least. If he was not mistaken, that was jealousy in the other man’s dark eyes.
    It seemed he had already gotten what he wanted. The game had just begun.

Chapter Two

    One Week Later
    Kedgwick Hall—The Engagement Party

    “There it is, Kedgwick Hall,” Salvatore said, his voice missing its usual zeal. Nicolette guessed the cause. This was his first glimpse of his ancestral home.
    Nicolette set her book aside and looked out the window. The enormous three-story structure built of dark gray stone seemed out of place in the serene countryside. It had been built to take one’s breath away, and the architect had succeeded in doing so by adding an elaborate wrought iron gate embellished with gold that, at the moment, was being opened by uniformed guards.
    And all this luxury belonged to the Earl of Kedgwick, Darian Tremayne.
    The very man she must seduce this week.
    How she despised the arrogant man.
    She must push aside the misgivings that were plaguing her and appear calm and composed. Since meeting Darian last weekend, she had slept very little, her mind too occupied with ways to lure him.
    As the carriage came to a stop before the entrance staircase, Salvatore sat forward. “Well, it looks like the game is about to begin.”
    “Indeed,” she replied with a forced smile, willing the butterflies in her stomach to stop.
    As Salvatore exited the coach, Nicolette inhaled a deep breath and took the hand of the footman who stood at the ready. Once her feet were firmly planted on the ground, Nicolette looked up at the stone manor where Corinthian pilasters stood below a flat roof. An enormous flag of the family’s coat-of-arms waved proudly in the wind.
    Walking up the steps Nicolette could see Salvatore’s demeanor slip further. No doubt he wondered what it would have been like to have