He’d called her Sibyl but this wasn’t Colin.
Not at all.
It was Royce.
“Trust me,” he repeated.
She gulped.
As she stared, close up, into his beautiful eyes, her heart fluttered again, dangerously, but the feeling had a soft edge which was a weak sense of hope.
Sibyl latched onto the hope.
Then she leaped off her second precipice in a month, leaped into the great unknown.
And she nodded and, even in front of her parents, his parents, their sisters and Mrs. Byrne, Colin came even closer and brushed his lips tenderly against hers.
Chapter Seventeen
The Story Comes Out
Throughout the introductions to Sibyl’s family, Colin kept her close by holding her hand. Then his father gave him a gin and tonic and Colin stood drinking it, keeping her close with an arm about her waist. He also kept her close, his arm consistently wrapped around her, as he chatted amiably with everyone. Even though she was struck practically mute while everyone else seemed bright and cheery (irrationally so), Colin seemed to make little of all this and behaved as if this was your normal, average, everyday dinner party.
Which it most definitely was not.
He was Royce, though he answered to the name Colin, he was someone else.
Relaxed, amused at Mags and Scarlett’s hilarious behaviour (which seemed somewhat desperately hilarious), respectful to her father (regardless of Bertie’s expression, which lapsed consistently into one that could only be described as astonished), familiar with his family and possessively demonstrative to Sibyl – this was not mercurial Colin, this was loverly Royce who couldn’t get enough of her and didn’t care who knew it.
Somehow, Royce had taken over Colin.
Completely.
They eventually headed in to dinner, Colin/Royce allowing the others to precede them. While they wandered ahead, Colin pulled her back down the hall a few steps and then did the first Colin Act of the entire evening. He pushed her against the wall and kissed her breathless.
The kiss was definitely different, far more loverly-sexy-Royce than sexy-lover-Colin and Sibyl’s heart started racing.
She’d done it. She hadn’t meant to do it but with her mystical powers, she’d nearly obliterated Colin and replaced him with a dream lover.
When he lifted his head, he murmured, “I’ve been wanting to do that since the minute I saw you in that very charming dress.”
Sibyl, recovering from the kiss and the inconceivable knowledge that she could change a man’s personality with her magical powers, blinked at him.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
He smiled, a white flash against tanned skin. All his smiles tended to be disarming in one way or another, but she was not certain he’d ever smiled at her the way he was doing now. He was smiling like the cat who managed to snag a couple of field mice, a juicy bird and came home and got his cream.
Her racing heart skipped a beat.
“Perfect,” he responded, his deep voice like velvet.
“You’re not…?” she began to ask him if he was having another episode but he wouldn’t know. The last time he didn’t remember a thing. Though the last time it had lasted minutes, this seemed to be going on forever.
What if he came back to Colin in the middle of dinner, spitting mad and wondering who all these people were and why they were eating his food?
She was uncertain what to do or say, thinking he might be unstable. Thinking she should call a doctor. Wondering how she could find a witch doctor. She laid her hand against the side of his face (a thoughtful gesture that masked her checking his temperature, just to be sure he wasn’t in the throes of some kind of walking, talking fever that rendered him partially delirious).
“You’re sure you’re okay?” she asked.
“I’ll explain later.” Then he moved into her, pressing her against the wall. “Stay with me tonight,” he whispered, his voice smoothing along her skin like a silken caress but the words sounded like a request, not an order.
“I… is that an order?” she queried, confused at how to proceed.
He smiled his devastating smile again and shook his head. “No, I’m asking you to stay the night.”
Her heart skipped to a stuttering halt and then started beating again, double time. She was going to have a heart attack, at thirty-two years old, in the hallway of a National Trust property.
Definitely Royce.
“My family –” she started.
“I’ll have the car take them home and return in the morning for you, early if you like.”
If she liked?
She opened her mouth and then closed it. What could she say? She wanted to be with this Colin. She knew it wasn’t fair and it wasn’t right, she was practising an insidious voodoo against her will and his (well, maybe not against hers).
Perhaps she was going to have to bring Mags into deal with it after all. Her mother couldn’t actually do anything but she might know someone in her loopy collective that had some knowledge of how to exorcise a dream man from a real, flesh and blood man.
“Sibyl?” he prompted.
“Colin?” she returned.
She was testing him, saying his name to see his response. His head tilted and he watched her with an expression on his face that even blind Annie could have seen showed he thought she was adorable.
Her heart still racing, she now caught her breath.
“Now that we’ve ascertained we remember each other’s names, perhaps you’ll promise me that you’ll spend the night with me, here at Lacybourne, in my bed, no matter what happens tonight.”
She’d stopped listening on the word “bed”.
She let her breath out in a gush. “Where’s your family staying?”
“Here.”
“I can’t stay with you while your family –”
“Trust me, they don’t mind.”
This was a bizarre statement in a bizarre evening. They were both consenting adults but it wasn’t seemly, especially not the first night she’d met his family. They’d think she was a screaming slut.
She was, of course, his paid for sexual partner but his parents didn’t know that.
“Colin.”
“Sibyl, promise me.”
His voice was silk. His eyes were warm. His lips were less than an inch away.
She was no match for that combination.
“Okay.”
He grinned, his grin filled with triumph and then he kissed her breathless.
Again.
When he released her mouth, he turned and guided her to the dining room. Distractedly, she heard the hushed conversation but, the minute they entered hand-in-hand, all talk ceased and everyone stared at them. Then, covering, they rushed on with what seemed like great determination to appear natural and at any other time in her life Sibyl would have found it curious and, probably, hilarious.