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Fear is a choice.
So hours later, when rails upon rails of dresses in every shape and hue lined her rooms, she duelled with the bouts of anxiety and doubt and managed to conquer each and every one.
For years she’d vowed that her past would not define her. Yet it had. All along. Well, no more.
A strong woman would pursue what she desired. If Finn was prowling for some female company to take to his bed tonight Serena wanted to be it.
They could still be friends afterwards. She’d just have to prove it to him.
* * *
‘I’m in the cocktail bar. Come for me?’
Finn strolled into the bar of the swanky Country Club and made a quick sweep of the softly lit circular lounge.
Designed in a sinuous art nouveau style, the architecture was a showcase for curvy lines where no shadows could lurk and deep furniture made from exotic woods, lending a warmth that pervaded his bones. A warmth that grew hotter as his eyes snagged on his prey, her back facing him, perched on a high stool at a central island bar made of iridescent glass.
Whoosh. His blood surged through his veins, drowning out a soft croon.
For one, two, three beats he stared. Because something was different and he certainty had faltered. Then she leaned towards the barman as if she hung on his every word...tipped her head back with infectious laughter and graced him with her exquisite profile.
‘Holy...’
Confidence. She was incandescent with it.
His heart cramped, stopped and started again, as if he were crashed out on a gurney in need of some chest paddle action.
Commanding his feet to move, he ordered himself to be calm—not to pick her up, twirl her around the floor, tell her she looked every inch the stunning beauty she was. Not to kiss her hard on the mouth before taking her upstairs to slake this crazy lust and devour her gorgeous body for days.
Instead he scoured his mind for an appropriate Finn St George comment that would do the job whilst ensuring they slept between separate sheets—because his control was as treacherous as an oil slick.
This thing, this friendship between them, was taking on a dangerous bent, and losing the precarious hold on his sanity wouldn’t be pretty.
The dilemma being, he couldn’t disengage himself from her heavenly pull.
When the moon rose so too did his demons, and there he lay, tormented, although adamant that his endless procrastinating would cease with the rising sun. Then she appeared, all fire and dazzle, with her snarky wit and her beautiful smile, dragging him from the darkness into the light more magnificently than any sunrise could ever do. Leaving him torn asunder once more, frustrated and infuriated with the ugly little corner he’d found himself in.
Keeping her in the dark had been an easy enough decision to make after Singapore, when he’d still been able to taste the metallic tang of blood and they hadn’t been face-to-face. All black and white, his reasoning had been crystal clear. Protect her at all costs. No harm done.
But as one day had overtaken another simple had accelerated to beyond complicated.
Now Finn was loath to tamper with her contentment, to substitute the happiness in her eyes with hate and betrayal. At the same time he was selfish enough to want her to look at him that way a while longer. As if he was a good man. As if he hadn’t led her brother to his death. As if his day of reckoning wasn’t hurtling towards him.
Before he even reached her side she stilled. Curled her fingers around the beaded purse on the glass bar-top. Closed her eyes and just...breathed.
Honest to God, what they did to each other defied logic. It was a car bomb waiting to detonate if he didn’t defuse it somehow.
Gripping the back rail of her stool, he became enraptured by her fiery river of hair—the way the sides were loosely pinned back to create a cascade of soft, decadent curls down her back.
Thought fled and he dipped his head to kiss her bare shoulder. But he slammed on the brakes in the nick of time, making do with a long, deep inhale. In place of her usual fruity undertones there was an evocative note of something dark and distinctly passionate, reminiscent of her arousal.
His body quaked as that scent registered in his brain like a Class A narcotic and he growled in her ear, ‘Looking good, baby.’
A slight tremble passed over her before she swivelled on her bottom and slipped off the stool. Then he got a really good look, and his heart started doing that palpitation thing again. Wow, she was filling out. That over-thin look of Monaco was being replaced with subtle curves.
Her pewter dress was snug, held up by one heavily beaded shoulder strap which trailed down the side of a boned bodice, cupping her breasts, moving down to a small bustle at her hip. Her skirts were frothily layered, plunging to the floor in swathes of a lighter toned silver, the hue turning darker by degrees to charcoal and finally edged in ebony. It was a sexy version of rock-chick princess, with Serena lending it her own unique kick.
