A REASON FOR MARRIAGE

Okay, so maybe it was ruined already but he’d contributed a great deal to it and she needed someone to be mad at. Sara risked a look at her mirror knowing he was still behind her, and almost gasped to see him already watching her from inside his car. She stubbornly held his gaze for a few seconds before she looked away.

Her meeting canceled, she would just go straight home, she decided. A soak in the tub seemed like such a good idea, and thankfully she’d never have to see that jerk again.

__________

Sara McCall had never enjoyed cocktail parties, having been forced to attend far too many of them in the past…mostly by her brother, Scott McCall. She enjoyed those given by Senators even less. Most of the city’s rich and beautiful were filling to capacity the huge reception room at one of New York’s most prestigious hotels. The chatter was loud, the laughter even more so, and the jewels adorning the elegantly clad ladies’ wrists, throats and ears glittered and sparkled in the light given off by the dozen or so crystal chandeliers hanging overhead. At the same time Sara’s senses were being assaulted by the smell of dozens of expensive perfumes filling the air-conditioned room.

But, as her mother was so fond of saying, ‘What can’t be cured must be endured.’

It was taking all of Sara’s endurance to grit her teeth and get through this cocktail party hosted by none other than visiting Senator Robert Ashcroft. As her brother’s executive assistant, she’d been forced to attend, but even at that, Sara doubted she would have bothered accepting the invitation if she hadn’t known how much it would appeal to the man who was her date for this evening.

It was exactly the sort of social function Mark Forbes enjoyed. Which was fine. It just wasn’t the real reason she had wanted to see him again.

In truth, Sara had no idea how Mark was going to react when she found the opportunity to explain that she had absolutely no intentions of going to bed with him-ever-or with any other man, for that matter. Instead she was thinking of asking him if he would be the sperm donor if she went ahead with the IVF she was considering. A subject so delicate, so personal, was something she felt she had to lead up to slowly, rather than blurting it out at their first-or even second!-meeting.

__________

Senator Ashcroft’s drinks party was turning out to be every bit the crush of people Simon Hamilton had expected it might be. Most of them were already known to him after this past week of socializing, and a lot of the men wanted to renew their acquaintance with him. Their wives, daughters or girlfriends were making no secret of the fact that they found his dark and brooding looks attractive.

Not that Simon had any complaints about that last part. He had enjoyed a healthy sex life during his years of living and working in London, and he sincerely hoped to continue doing so now that he had moved to New York.

Nevertheless, even surrounded by beautiful women as he was, all seemingly vying for his attention, Simon still noticed the woman in the figure-hugging red gown, standing across the room… Probably because she stood out from the rest of the ‘beautiful people’ present in as much as she was making no effort to respond to the flattering conversation of men currently surrounding her, but instead seemed totally bored-both by them and by her surroundings.

But it wasn’t just that air of uninterest which had captured Simon’s attention.

Nor was it the fact that she was young-probably in her late twenties-and extremely beautiful. Ebony hair cascaded lushly over her shoulders and halfway down her spine, and her eyes were light in color-possibly gray or brown?-and surrounded by thick dark lashes. Her skin was the color of pale alabaster, her features delicately lovely, and the fullness of her lips was glossed the same tempting red as that utterly decadent gown. Her only jewelry was a pair of delicate gold filigree earrings which dangled almost to the bareness of her shoulders.

All of that would certainly be enough reason for any man to give her a second glance, but still it wasn’t what had caught and held Simon’s attention, and what had caused his body to harden in instant arousal the moment he looked at her….

It was recognition.

It was her! He couldn’t believe it, but it was her! The woman who’d hit his car just yesterday. The saying ‘small world’ came to mind, and he was slightly amused as he imagined what her reaction would be when she finally saw him. Simon Hamilton didn’t get challenged very often, and it was weirdly refreshing to see someone do it. This woman had stood up to him, looked him in the face and called him arrogant, and the whole time all he could think about was how beautiful she was. Too bad she’d walked away almost as quickly as she had jumped out of her car and he’d thought he’d never see her again, but here she was…. Looking even more beautiful. If this wasn’t fate giving him a second chance, he didn’t know what it was.

Every other woman in the room wore masses of expensive jewels at their ears, throat, wrists and fingers and, whether tall or short, they were all fashionably slender. The woman in the fitted red strapless gown wore only those earrings, and her figure was… There was a word for her type of figure. An old-fashioned word that described her exactly-one that had often been used to describe movie stars of the golden age… Voluptuous! That was it! The woman in the red fitted gown was voluptuous. Not fat-her body was too obviously toned for that. She simply had an hourglass figure: curvily, lushly, sexily voluptuous.

Her shoulders were bare, that expanse of skin the same smooth alabaster as her face, and that wickedly enticing gown enhanced the fullness of breasts that were obviously bare beneath the silky material that swept over her narrow waist before clinging lovingly to the sweet curve of her hips. The material finished a couple of inches above her knees to reveal long and shapely legs, with three-inch heeled red strappy sandals on her elegantly slender feet.