The Greek's Unwilling Bride Read Free Page B

name?”
    â€œLaurel,” she said, “Laurel Bennett, but I don’t see—”
    â€œI agree completely, Miss Bennett. The game is far more enjoyable when it is played by equals.”
    She saw what was coming next in his eyes, but it was too late. Before Laurel could move or even draw back, he reached out, took her in his arms and kissed her.

CHAPTER TWO
    L AUREL SHOT a surreptitious glance at her watch.
    Another hour, and she could leave without attracting attention. Only another hour—assuming she could last that long.
    The man beside her at the pink-and-white swathed table for six, Evan Something-or-Other, was telling a joke. Dr. Evan Something-or-Other, as Annie, ever the matchmaker, had pointedly said, when she’d come around earlier to greet her guests.
    He was a nice enough man, even if his pink-tipped nose and slight overbite did remind Laurel of a rabbit. It was just that this was the doctor’s joke number nine or maybe nine thousand for the evening. She’d lost count somewhere between the shrimp cocktail and the Beouf aux Chanterelles.
    Not that it mattered. Laurel would have had trouble keeping her mind on anything this evening. Her thoughts kept traveling in only one direction, straight towards Damian Skouras, who was sitting at the table on the dais with an expensively dressed blond windup doll by his side—not that the presence of the woman was keeping him from watching Laurel.
    She knew he was, even though she hadn’t turned to confirm it. There was no need. She could feel the force of his eyes on her shoulder blades. If she looked at him, she half expected to see a pair of blue laser beams blazing from that proud, arrogant face.
    The one thing she had confirmed was that he was definitely Damian Skouras, and he was Nicholas’s guardian. Former guardian, anyway; Nick was twenty-one, three years past needing to ask anyone’s permission to marry. Laurel knew that her sister hadn’t wanted the wedding to take place. Dawn and Nick were too young, she’d said. Laurel had kept her own counsel but now that she’d met the man who’d raised Nick, she was amazed her sister hadn’t raised yet a second objection.
    Who would want a son-in-law with an egotistical SOB like Damian Skouras for a role model?
    That was how she thought of him, as an Egotistical SOB. and in capital letters. She’d told him so the next time she’d seen him, after that kiss, when they’d come face-to-face on the receiving line. She’d tried breezing past him as if he didn’t exist, but he’d made that impossible, capturing her hand in his, introducing himself as politely as if they’d never set eyes on each other until that second.
    Flushed with indignation, Laurel had tried to twist her hand free. That had made him laugh.
    â€œRelax, Miss Bennett,” he’d said in a low, mocking tone. “You don’t want to make another scene, do you? Surely one such performance a day is enough, even for you.”
    â€œI’m not the one who made a scene, you—you—”
    â€œMy name is Damian Skouras.”
    He was laughing at her, damn him, and enjoying every second of her embarrassment.
    â€œPerhaps you enjoy attracting attention,” he’d said. “If so, by all means, go on as you are. But if you believe, as I do, that today belongs to Nicholas and his bride, then be a good girl, smile prettily and pretend you’re having a good time, him?”
    He was right, and she knew it. The line had bogged down behind her and people were beginning to crane their necks with interest, trying to see who and what was holding things up. So she’d smiled, not just prettily but brilliantly, as if she were on a set instead of at a wedding, and said, in a voice meant to be heard by no one but him, that she was hardly surprised he still thought it appropriate to address a woman as a girl and that she’d have an even better time if