The Night that Changed Everything Read Free

bedroom.”
    “And I’d have been pleased to show them to you,” he said gallantly.
    Edie’s jaw dropped. She slammed it shut at once. Rhiannon didn’t notice. She gave them both a little wave and tripped gaily off toward the doors to the Great Hall where, please God, she would call Andrew and make up with him.
    Edie watched her go, holding her breath until Rhiannon was out of sight. Then she turned to make her excuses and disappear, only to discover that the man Rhiannon had been pawing wasn’t looking in the direction Rhiannon had gone.
    His dark eyes were now on her. A slow smile touched his lips. And then he winked at her.
    Winked!
    Something kicked over in her chest. It was almost electric, as if she’d been dead and was suddenly jerked back to life.
    Like Sleeping Beauty and the prince? she sneered at herself. But the sensation was so real and caught her so totally unaware that for a moment she couldn’t speak. She hadn’t felt this sort of awareness since Ben.
    When she did finally find her voice, she said, “Architectural renovations in your bedroom?”
    Next thing you knew he’d say he’d been going to show Rhiannon his etchings.
    But Mr. Trouble just grinned at her and she felt another jolt. “Scout’s honor,” he said, eyes alight with amusement.
    Edie refused to think it was funny. She glowered at him.
    “You don’t believe me? I’ll show them to you.” He offered her his arm.
    Instantly Edie folded hers across her chest. “Don’t be ridiculous! I’m not going to your room. And Rhiannon wouldn’t have, either,” she lied a second later, needing for some reason she didn’t quite understand to deflect the focus back to her sister. “She does love Andrew. They just had a disagreement. And she … lost her head.” Not to mention her sense of propriety. “She wasn’t offering,” she added firmly.
    “No?” His brow lifted. “Apparently you didn’t hear as much of the conversation as I did.”
    Edie’s cheeks burned. “She wouldn’t have—have …”
    “Slept with me?” He was laughing at her now. “You don’t think so?”
    “No!” At least Edie hoped not.
    “Well, don’t worry, I wouldn’t have slept with her.”
    Edie’s eyes widened, and she was surprised again by another unexpected feeling, this time one of something akin to relief. “You … wouldn’t?”
    He shook his head, meeting her gaze. “Not on your life. She’s a child.”
    “She’s twenty.”
    He nodded. “Like I said, not my type.”
    “You have a type.” It wasn’t a question.
    Of course he had a type. Men like him always did.
    “Well, um, good,” Edie said, because she felt obliged to say something in the face of the steady assessing look he was giving her. She started to back away.
    He followed. “Who are you?” he demanded. His gaze was intent now, his eyes so dark they were almost black.
    “Rhiannon’s sister.” No one ever believed it until Mona swore on a stack of Bibles that she’d given birth to them both. Her sister was blonde and busty, all curves and come-on. Edie was all angles, elbows and knees. Always had been. With nondescript brown hair and green eyes. Not the color of jade. Not the color of emeralds. Pretty much the color of grass. “Half sister,” she corrected.
    “Do you have a name, half sister?”
    “Edie Daley.”
    Something else she and Rhiannon didn’t have in common. Her sister was named after some ethereal mythological Welsh goddess. Edie was named after her father’s mother.
    “Ah. Edie.” He grinned and reached out and tugged one of her nondescript locks of hair. “My grandmother’s name.”
    Exactly.
    “I’m Nick.”
    As in “up to the old nick,” no doubt—as
her
grandmother used to say when describing the family’s mischief makers.
    “Nick Savas.”
    “Demetrios’s brother?” Edie knew he had several, but she hadn’t been introduced to any of them. She just knew that almost all of the tall dark-haired, sinfully gorgeous men at the wedding