A Valentine from Harlequin

a reproachful stare. “I’m the one wearing your ring, so what’s she talking about, Johnnie?”
    “Nothing,” he said, pointing her firmly toward the party taking place beyond the club’s elegant French doors. “It’s a joke in very bad taste that I don’t expect a lady of your breeding to appreciate. Go inside, precious, and leave me to deal with it.”
    “ It? ” Charlotte mocked, once they were alone. “Is that what I’ve been reduced to in your estimation, John? A tasteless, inconvenient ‘it’?”
    “A figure of speech only,” he shot back irritably. “Your problem, Charlie, is that you take every word coming out of a man’s mouth literally.”
    “Should I interpret that to mean you had something other than wedded bliss in mind when you proposed to me, six months ago in Barbados?”
    Growing more rattled by the moment, he went on the offensive. “Look,” he huffed, “this party wasn’t arranged by that outfit you work for, so I don’t know how you managed to wangle an invitation to an upscale affair far beyond what you’re used to, but I can tell you this: If you think bulldozing your way in here and making a scene is going to accomplish any sort of positive outcome, you’re sadly mistaken. I will not be coerced into resurrecting what can only be described as a moment of madness. Holiday romances aren’t designed to last, as any fool can tell you.”
    “You’re right.”
    “Glad you agree.” He swiped one palm against the other, as if he’d found something downright nasty crawling over his hand, and straightened his black bow tie. “So may we please forget Barbados ever happened, and simply go our separate ways?”
    “No, we may not,” she said. “I’m not quite finished with you yet.”
    He flung her an outraged glare. “Don’t be difficult, Charlie. We are finished. Not that we ever really got started. But the woman I fully intend to marry is waiting for me in the banquet hall, and nothing you can say or do is going to keep me from her.”
    “Perhaps you should bring her back out here again, then,” she said. “Perhaps she should hear what I’ve got to say. It might spare her a lot of grief down the line.”
    He paled a little at that. “I never figured you to be the sort of person who’d go out of her way to hurt an innocent bystander.”
    “Appealing to my better nature isn’t going to work, John,” she said flatly. “I have questions begging to be answered, and I’m not going to disappear into the woodwork until my curiosity’s been satisfied. That much, at least, you do owe me. So either make your excuses to the future Mrs. Weatherby and afford me the courtesy of a few more minutes of your time, or else we can have this conversation inside and let everyone listen in. I can’t speak for you, of course, but I don’t have anything shameful to hide.”
    He pursed his lips—lips Charlotte had once found acceptably kissable. But she doubted that would have been the case if he’d pinched them together in the sort of tight disapproval directed at her now. It must, she decided, have had something to do with too much tropical moonlight, rum punch, and hypnotic steel bands.
    “Wait here,” he said, wrenching open the balcony doors. “I’ll be right back.”
    Not until he’d disappeared into the house did aftershock set in. The self-control which had carried her this far seeped away. Numbly, she staggered to the guardrail edging the balcony and fought to draw breath into her beleaguered lungs.
    She thought she was alone. That no one had witnessed her humiliation.
    She was wrong. From the deep shadows at the other end of the balcony came the sound of slow, deliberate applause. “Very good!” a baritone voice, laced with amusement and a slight Italian accent, declared. “After a performance like that, cara, I can hardly wait for Act Two.”

Chapter Two
    Another bombshell, following so close after the first, was one more than Charlotte could handle. Practically jumping out of her skin, she gave vent to a tiny shriek and collapsed weakly against the balustrade. A sob popped out of nowhere and hung in the still night air like a waterlogged bubble.
    Footsteps approached. A darker shadow, imposingly tall and broad, emerged from the obscurity cloaking the far end of the balcony. “No tears, please!” that same deep voice ordered. “Crying’s not going to change anything.”
    “I don’t know who you think you are, dishing out unsolicited advice,” she