‘The dress looks spectacular on you, my dear…’
Ellie’s gaze connected with Elsa Parker, Tali’s mum, in the mirror of the suite where they’d been getting ready together for the past two hours. Tali had arranged for them all to have their hair and make-up done by a team of beauticians and stylists.
‘Thank you, Mrs Parker,’ Ellie murmured, aware of the confidential look in the woman’s eyes—which had been there ever since Ellie had declined a glass of champagne while they dressed.
Had Tali’s mum guessed her secret?
God, she hoped not, because her stomach was already wobbly enough.
The way it had been all evening… She hadn’t had any morning sickness yet, and had thought she’d dodged that bullet, because the doctor said it usually hit in the first three months of pregnancy – and she was past that now. Maybe it was just anxiety and guilt making her feel queasy… And the emotional overload of seeing herself in the silver gown, which clung to her curves and made her feel beautiful for the first time since she’d walked into the Talbot Arms all those months ago and Baz had looked at her with fierce longing in his eyes.
She swallowed down the new wave of anxiety. And thanked Elsa again for the compliment.
This couldn’t be morning sickness. She’d just got so overwrought about Brody—who’d no doubt forgotten all about her the minute he’d left her—she’d managed to make herself ill.
‘You all look fabulous,’ Tali said re-entering the suite in the stunning purple gown that made her look like a queen, to Ellie’s way of thinking. ‘Let’s go and break some hearts.’
As they headed down the wide marble staircase, Ellie caught sight of the party outside, the terrace full of beautiful people looking so far out of her league it wasn’t even funny. The anxiety in her stomach knotted.
Then she spotted the dark head of a man standing talking to Lorenti. He had his back to her, but even so Ellie’s heart pushed into her already raw throat as she walked onto the terrace.
Brody Kane? No way… It couldn’t be.
She blinked.
Good god she was hallucinating now, as well as making herself sick. He’d mentioned he knew Lorenti that night, and of course he’d lied about the nature of their relationship, because she knew now they’d done business together more than once, as equals… But why would he be here? As far as she knew Lorenti and Brody weren’t friends.
As they crossed the terrace, though, and Tali headed through the crowd towards her husband, Ellie held back. Panic and dread echoed in her abdomen, right alongside a wave of heat, that radiated out through her whole body—her bloated, exhausted, oversensitive body—as she stared at the man with Lorenti, absorbing every detail, unable to take her eyes off him…
His muscular back, that innate grace, the trim waist and long legs accentuated by the expertly tailored tuxedo had her confused emotions tangling with the familiar heat, and made her wobbly stomach churn.
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