Bride, Bought and Paid For

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‘What—’

‘This.’

There wasn’t time to complete the protest as his mouth closed over her own in a slow, sweeping kiss that tore at her resolve and shattered it.

For a wild moment she forgot everything except the feel and taste of him and the electric pulsing sensation throbbing through her body.

It was as if the past three years had ceased to exist, and she was barely conscious of the faint groan that rose and died in her throat at her unbidden response.

She felt the stroke of his thumb along her jawline, sensed the increased pressure of his mouth, and she gave herself up to the sweet passion of his touch.

Magic, she accorded silently, unable to think as she became lost. Cast adrift from reality and flung heedlessly into a time and place where emotion ruled.

Until sanity returned, and she wrenched away from him, her eyes impossibly large as she attempted to control her ragged breathing. ‘Don’t—’

Xavier’s eyes gleamed dark in the reflected street light.

Romy reached blindly for the door clasp, and he let her go, waiting until she had keyed her security code into the numeric pad and had passed through the foyer before he engaged the engine.

She was barely aware of the lift’s swift passage until it slid to a halt at her floor, and she muttered a curse as she fumbled the key when she inserted it into the lock.

For heaven’s sake…what was wrong with her?

Her mouth still tingled from his touch, and she put a hand to her still-racing heart as she closed the door behind her and leant against it.

What had just happened back there?

If she’d ever wondered about the sensuality they’d once shared…oh, call it what it was, she dismissed in silent chastisement…passion. Incandescent and primitive…emotion that took possession of the soul.

Hers, she admitted reluctantly. But not his.

For Xavier, she merely represented the bride price he was prepared to pay in order to gain a legitimate heir.

And to exact revenge against father and daughter, don’t forget that, she reminded herself with cynicism.

It would be the height of folly to imagine otherwise. She pushed away from the door and drew in a deep, calming breath.

So take a reality check, why don’t you?

She slipped out of her stilettos, shrugged off her jacket, crossed into the kitchen where she made a cup of strong coffee, then she set it down on the table, opened her leather satchel and turned her attention to marking student assignments.

It was after midnight when she crawled into bed and doused the light, convinced her brain was buzzing too much to enable an easy sleep.

Except she was wrong, and the next thing she remembered was waking to the early dawn light filtering through the shutters of her bedroom window.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE next day began with an alarm clock which didn’t go off, ensuring Romy woke late, dressed hurriedly, gulped coffee on the run and took a banana to eat en route to the high school in the northern suburbs.

Traffic was heavy, and there were the usual delays at computer-controlled intersections.

Consequently, she arrived with bare minutes to spare before she was due in class. Not the ideal way to begin a day.

Worse, the few miscreants in class seemed bent on providing distraction, testing the new teacher on the block.

OK, so the English classics failed to inspire their attention, despite her every effort to provide modern, upbeat comparisons, and it became a morning where male testosterone vied with female hormones in a bid for witticism supremacy.

‘So, Teach—like, who is this Will Shakespeare dude, anyway? And what does someone dead have anything to do with us?’

‘Yeah. And what’s with sonnets and couplets?’

‘Like we care?’

Explaining the greats were an important part of literary history didn’t seem to cut it.

‘Bono, now, he’s a dude with something to say.’

‘Ice. Snoop Dogg,’ a voice added.

‘Seal.’

‘Yeah,’ endorsed a recalcitrant chorus, and Romy swung into idiomatic lingo with an ease that surprised them.

Be prepared, was an adhered-to motto when all else failed. She’d done her homework well, isolating verses from the literary greats and comparing them with gangsta rap idioms.

Not so different in translation, given the mores of different centuries, and she gave a silent yes in victory as the overt boredom underwent a change and emerging interest took its place.

Nothing was said. Overkill wasn’t on the agenda.

At the end of class, she merely thanked them for attending and asked them to provide ten more comparisons for their next English class.

Lunch was eaten in the staffroom, whose occupants seemed grateful for the brief respite prior to taking on the afternoon.

Romy’s cellphone beeped with an incoming text message as she ascended a flight of stairs en route to an afternoon class.

Xavier, she determined, alerting her he’d ring her at seven that evening. Why? she quickly keyed and received wedding details within a few seconds.

Romy bit back an unladylike oath, stowed the cellphone in her bag, summoned a smile and entered a classroom where several students either lolled against their desks or sat on them, and whose belligerent expressions promised a difficult session.

One teenager, he of the class clown species, made a conscientious point of addressing her as Miz too frequently with such faux-angelic regard she was sorely tempted to laugh, something she managed to avoid as she suggested he move to the front of the class and read two verses of Byron out loud.

An edict which saw him slide to the floor on his knees, bow his head in mock prayer and beseech—‘Anything, Miz, but not Byron.’

‘William Wordsworth,’ Romy responded without hesitation. ‘“The Daffodils.”’ She waited a beat. ‘In its entirety.’

A subtle irony that was lost as the class leafed to the index and turned to the section on Wordsworth.

Two lines in, the class clown lifted his head, looked heavenward, cursed, then uttered a pitiful, ‘Sheesh, you have to be joking.’

‘Begin again,’ Romy instructed evenly. ‘This time, restrain from adding your own comments.’

Did she win points? Doubtful. A smidgen of respect? Unlikely.

It came as a relief to wind up the school day, gather papers into her satchel and slip behind the wheel of her Mini Cooper.

There were things she needed to do, and persuading her father to exchange his meagre digs for her apartment held priority. Something which took a while, and involved his pride and her perspicacity until he reluctantly accepted her insistent decision to continue paying the monthly leasing fee. Relevant phone calls cemented the arrangement, making it a done deal before Andre could change his mind.

‘Now?’

His incredulous query brought a determined smile as she reiterated, ‘Now. I’ll help you pack.’

‘Since when did you become so bossy?’ His voice held a tinge of amusement, something she welcomed, and her answering grin was genuine.

‘It’s been a while.’

Not that there was much to fold into a suitcase, and she held back the tears as she saw just how little he’d kept from his former lifestyle. A framed wedding photograph, one of Romy the day she began school, another when she graduated. A treasured miniature crystal Waterford world globe, a gift to him from her mother, and clothes.

‘I’ll take the couch,’ he said firmly as they entered her St Kilda apartment.

But only until her marriage to Xavier…the knowledge was uppermost, a fast-moving event planned to happen soon.