GREEK HUSBAND

Chapter 8

'Irish?' Edward quirked a brow.

'My mother was but I'm from London.'

Edward asked her what she would like to drink.

'Something plain and simple. This...' Bella indicated the glass in her hand with its elaborate green concoction and umbrella with a faint wrinkling of her nose '...is like a sugar bomb.'

After introducing her to Rahim, Edward informed her that they owned the club. Bella told him that she was a student on holiday with her cousin. A waiter arrived with a tray and champagne was served with a flourish. The first waiter was closely followed by two more, who presented plates of delicate little snacks. Edward asked her what music she would like and within the minute the DJ himself was surging upstairs and standing right in front of her while she told him.

At first, Bella was entranced by the heady of Edward's full attention and she sipped and she nibbled, leaning closer to politely listen to the two men discuss the couples-only complex that Rahim wanted to design. By the time the older man had extracted a plan from an inner pocket along with photos of the site and its superb beach, Bella was getting bored, what was more, by then her favorite song was playing and she scrambled up off her seat to stand at the rail, her feet shifting in time to the throbbing beat of the music.

'Dance?' she directed hopefully at Edward, who was welded to the spot by the luscious view of her swaying ass.

He grimaced. 'I don't,' he told her without apology, fighting the swelling at his groin.

'No problem,' Bella told him with an easy smile and a glint in her green eyes as she headed back down the stairs to the dance floor. Just for one night, she thought rebelliously, her thoughts still dwelling on Jenna's humiliating attacks, she was going to be herself, her real self that she never dared to show at home. And that meant that she would do and say what she wanted, rather than maintaining her usual quiet role in which she worked to politely conform and meet other people's expectations.

Edward was stunned by her departure. There had been no fuss, no drama, just an unobtrusive determination to do as she liked rather than try to please him. She hadn't flirted or flattered either. His straight brows pleated in frank bewilderment. Women didn't behave like that around Edward. Even Marina, who liked her own way, tailored herself to a neat fit of his preferences while in his company.

'I believe you have met a woman with a mind of her own,' Rahim remarked. 'And talking about such women, I am married to one and if I am not home soon, I will be unpopular.'

Edward stood at the rail, broad shoulders straight as an axe blade and rigid with tension until he relocated Bella again. He noted that she was dancing just at the edge of the floor and he wondered if she planned to join him again. Or was she expecting him to chase after her? Edward didn't chase: he had never had to go to that much effort with a woman. Consequently, he should've been irritated by her behavior but he was not and he didn't understand that.

What was it about her? She had extraordinary eyes, he recalled, as pale and translucent a green as a piece of sea glass he had once picked up off a beach as a boy. And just as the sea fascinated him, she did as well. He was down the stairs before he even knew he was planning to retrieve her.

'Can't...' he informed her with a wry look when she studied him expectantly. 'No sense of rhythm.'

Edward stood there in front of Bella like a very large statue frozen in place. Her breath hitched in her throat as she looked up into his exotically dark eyes, noting the luxuriance of his black lashes. He was gorgeous. Did he really need to dance? a little voice enquired wryly in her head.

'Anyone can dance,' Bella told him softly.

He bent his arrogant dark head, his big body still infuriatingly rigid instance. 'I don't do anything that I can't do superlatively well.'

Bella grinned at that Alpha male excuse and planted her hands on his lean shoulder 'Move,' she urged him, amused against her will by his frozen stance. 'Feel the beat...'

The only thing Edward felt as she tugged him to her to demonstrate that elusive rhythm was the punch of lust that almost left him light-headed as he looked down into her laughing sea-glass eyes. Women didn't ever laugh at Edward. They laughed with him. He shifted his lean shoulder in response to her guidance, but only to take advantage of the opportunity to yank her closer and line up that teasing, tantalizing mouth of hers with his own.