To Catch a Groom

Congratulating herself on making it safely to her room, she staggered over to the nearest chair and held on while she attempted to recover from her fright. Her clutch bag fell to the floor with a soft thud.

Too late she remembered he still had her shoes. No matter. She didn’t need them. In truth, she never wanted to see them again. She never wanted to see him again.

CHAPTER THREE

THE lights went on.

“Greer?” The second her sisters saw the condition she was in, they scrambled out of their beds toward her.

“How come your dress is wet?”

“Where did you get that robe?

“Where are your shoes?”

The questions pelting her one after the other stripped her down to the bare bones. This was no laughing matter. The only reason she’d escaped at all was that he’d allowed it.

She could still see the mixture of triumph and mockery glinting from the black depths of his eyes before the door closed, keeping him momentarily at bay.

“Guys?” Never in her life had their faces been more dear to her. “I’m in big trouble. We’ve got to get out of here now! I’ll tell you about it when we’re in the taxi.” She removed the robe and wet sundress.

“They only have chauffeur driven cars here at the hotel.”

“Well we’re going to call for a taxi. Will one of you do it please?” she begged. “Tell them to be here in fifteen minutes.”

“Where are we going in such an all-fired hurry?”

“Across the border to France. We’ll drive to the nearest airport and take the first flight leaving for anywhere that puts as much distance as possible between us and hi—Italy,” she amended.

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

She shook her damp head at Olivia.

“I’ve seen that look before. She’s not kidding,” Piper whispered. They followed her to the bathroom. “Does this have something to do with what happened today when the police kept us so long?”

“No.” She removed her watch, then her necklace, her skin still seemed to burn where he’d kissed her.

“I detect the scent of a man.”

At Olivia’s adroit surmise, a distinct blush covered every particle of Greer’s skin. She was thankful for the protection of the elaborate sculptured design on the glass shower door, although it reminded her of the one on the floor of the pool.

The floor she never got to inspect at close range because she was snatched away by a force that still caused her to tremble.

“I didn’t think there was a man alive who could make you run.”

“If you must know, I tangled with a shark.”

“In the pool?” Piper blurted incredulously.

“This one had arms and legs…” And a masculine appeal that ought to be banned from existence Greer groaned inwardly as she washed the suds out of her hair.

“Did he manhandle you?”

She reached for the tap to shut off the water. “Not exactly.”

“Then he threatened you.”

Greer shivered. “Not in so many words.”

“If you expect us to check out of the hotel tonight when we’ve only had a couple of hours sleep, then you’d better tell us everything first.”

Olivia was right.

After they left the bathroom, Greer grabbed two fluffy towels. With one encircling her head, the other fastened around her body, she padded in the other room after them.

Her sisters sat on their own beds cross-legged, waiting for her. She sank down on the side of hers. “I—I have this horrible feeling I’m not only in over my head, but there could be serious consequences. It’s my own fault of course.”

She jumped to her feet, unable to relax. “In the beginning, the idea of turning the tables on an honest to goodness European playboy sounded very fun and challenging. That was until—”

“Until you met up with a real one tonight,” Piper supplied.

Greer nodded jerkily. “There was this black-haired Adonis in the pool who would put any Olympic swimmer to shame. When he got out—”

Images flashed before Greer’s eyes. She couldn’t believe such an attractive man existed.

“Since you can’t find the words, we get the picture.” Olivia steepled her fingers. “Did he throw you in the pool without your permission?”

Her face went scarlet. “No.”

Piper leaned forward. “Did you fall in by accident?”

“No! It was nothing like that,” she confessed in a quieter tone.

“Then what was it like?”

“If you must know, he took one look at the pendant and asked me to swim with him. Everything happened just as we planned it back in Kingston. There was this gorgeous playboy who knew who the Duchess of Colorno was. He came on to me because of the pendant.”

“So you just jumped in the pool with him?” By now their eyes had rounded.

“The Duchess girls don’t jump, remember?”

Olivia’s mouth broke into a grin. “Of course not. Still wearing your clothes, you executed one of your graceful dives to make certain you captured his attention.”

“I guess,” came her muffled admission.

Laughter filled the room, but Greer didn’t join in. It was something they noticed.

“So what happened next?” Piper urged her to keep talking.