The Notorious Pagan Jones by Nina Berry

Author:Nina Berry
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2015-05-27T16:00:00+00:00

In spite of the growing mass of diners, dancers, and gawkers pressing in from every side, regardless of Thomas looming helpfully by her side, Jimmy Brennan smirking on the fringe, and Bennie’s look of alarm, the world had narrowed down to the empty corridor of space between Pagan and Nicky.

He’d lost some weight. His cheeks were more hollow than she remembered, his once-beefy shoulders leaner, his waist narrower in a tight black Oleg Cassini tuxedo. The thick brown hair, however much gel he used, still threatened to break loose over his forehead, dark eyebrows like commas over his heavy-lidded eyes, He had a strong, once-broken nose and a sensuously full lower lip she could well remember nibbling on. It was a friendly face, open, casual, and usually so at ease. Every inch of him was like coming home.

Only he wasn’t hers to come home to. Not anymore.

“How are you?” he asked, and looked over his shoulder nervously. “It’s good to see you.”

A lie. And yet, she hadn’t imagined that look of desire in his eyes when he had first seen her.

“I’m great,” Pagan said automatically. “How—”

A tall blonde woman in a powder-blue Empire-waist gown squeezed past Jimmy Brennan and took Nicky’s arm, glancing around with a smile until her eyes, pale blue like the dress, stopped on Pagan. Her happy expression suspended, like an unanswered question, over the halted conversation.

“My wife, Donna Raven,” Nicky said into the silence. “Donna, you know Bennie Wexler, of course. And this is Pagan Jones. I’m sorry, I don’t know this gentleman.” He nodded toward Thomas.

“Thomas Kruger,” Pagan blurted out, slipping her arm into the crook of Thomas’s elbow for support. So this was Donna. She was more lushly fleshed out than Pagan, with opulent cleavage, a heart-shaped face and plump lips shining in their glossy red paint.

“I apologize for not introducing him sooner,” Pagan continued, forcing herself to smile and skating her gaze over Nicky’s face, over the pair of them, over the drink in Nicky’s hand, over the shiny diamond and narrow gold band on Donna’s ring finger. “Thomas is my costar in Bennie’s movie, and quite a celebrity here in Europe.”

“Glad to meet you,” Thomas said, holding out his hand.

After a brief hesitation, Nicky shook it, eyes darting back and forth between Thomas and Pagan. Bennie also greeted him, and to break the tension, turned to Donna, taking her gloved hand in his.

“Donna, my dear. We weren’t expecting you, but how nice,” Bennie said, casting a brief glare at Jimmy. “You’re glowing.”

“We flew in from Paris yesterday,” Donna said. Her voice was higher than Pagan’s, more girlish, but sweet. “Never thought we’d run into people we know.” She managed a smile that wasn’t sour, but Pagan could see she wasn’t thrilled to be standing in front of her husband’s ex. That made two of them. “On Monday we head off to Venice, then Rome.”

“Gotta pay homage to the family homeland,” Nicky said. “Might visit my cousins in Naples.”

An awkward pause developed. Pagan

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