The Chatsfield: Series 2

She took a shaky breath and continued. “My boss called after I got back to my room and told me he had a recording. He says he got it from Damien’s father. He...he played some of it for me. It’s a recording of you. Of your last altercation with Jasmine. He was going to release it, and I offered him a trade. And to ensure he kept his word...I sort of blackmailed him and threatened to tell his wife he’s been cheating. Well, and then he fired me. But the thing is, I didn’t want you to know about the tape. I don’t want you to ever hear it. I didn’t want it...I didn’t want it out there. Because you have to understand that no matter how sad it is that your last moment with your sister was a bad one, you didn’t force her to make the decision she did. We all make our own choices. I made this one. To protect you. And I sort of sacrificed Leila to do it, and I know you never would have. But that was my choice. You. Always you.”

* * *

Zayn’s heart felt full. Like it would burst. Pain, grief and a strange release were rising in him like a tide.

He had come back for her. But this...this was beyond anything he had imagined.

And yes, it brought about the pain of that day. Knowing there was a recording of those angry words spoken between them, a tape he would never need to hear because he could replay it in his mind without error.

“I do not...I do not deserve this,” he said. It was all he could say, all he could think.

“You’ve saved everyone else, why won’t you let someone save you?” she asked, the words so innocent, so perfect, he could hardly accept them. Could hardly accept that she was real. That she had seen him, and still wanted him. That she knew his darkest secrets, and still loved him.

“Is that what you have come to do?” he asked. “Save me?”

“You kidnapped me. And I grant you, saving your kidnapper...it’s strange. But so are we. I’m...well, I’m the girl from the wrong side of the tracks. And you? You’re a sheikh. We don’t go together.”

Emotion nearly choked him. “Perhaps that is why we are perfect for each other.”

“Zayn...are we? Do you want this? Do you want...me?”

“Yes.” There was no hesitation, because he had known the answer. Always.

“That’s the moment I was waiting for,” she said, her green eyes glittering with tears, “that triumphant moment...it was this all along. I’m Sophie Parsons. You know me. I don’t have any money or any status. Or a job. My bank account is empty. But my heart is full. It’s full of love for you.”

His chest tightened, so much it was painful, his eyes stinging. “I will tell you another story,” he said.

“Will you?”

“Yes. Once there was a man who did things for others, so he would not have to look at the pain inside himself. And he met a princess. But he did not love her. And she did not heal him. Then he met a woman, and he loved her with everything in him. And that love is what healed him.”

“I hope this story has a happy ending,” she said, a tear sliding down her cheek.

“That is up to you.”

“This is like a fairy tale, you know. And I never bothered with those, because I always figured they weren’t for girls like me. But now...now I think...it was always the girl locked in the tower. Or the girl who scrubbed the floors. Or the one whose father didn’t love her. These stories...they’re for everyone. They’re for me. This is for me. So yes, this will have a happy ending. We will have a happy ending.”

“You’re going to have to be a princess now. Sheikha, technically.”

“Me?” She blinked. “But...what will that do for your country?”

“Everything,” he said. “Because I love you. And a wise woman told me that duty void of love is empty. It is only obligation. And I saw that life, stretched before me. And I hated it. I would have grown bitter. I would have grown hard. But with you by my side? With your children as mine? With love? It is what we need. Without it...without it all, good intentions are dead. I need you, Sophie Parsons, just as you are.”

She leaned in, kissing him, tears running down her cheeks. And he could feel her smile against his lips.

“Zayn, you love me. I wouldn’t ask for another life. For the first time, I’m so very happy to be me.”

* * * * *

Gianni cursed volubly when his cufflink slipped free for the third time while trying to close it.

Dio.

He stopped and took a breath. What the hell was wrong with him? Anyone would think he was having traditional bridegroom jitters! For what was in all essence just part of a business merger.

Part of a business merger that was happening today. He’d been reliably informed that Keelin O’Connor was in her hotel, apparently making her own preparations. And that she hadn’t fled the country.

Perhaps she was hoping that he would baulk at the final hurdle? The reality of marriage a little too much to take? And in truth, he did feel slightly constricted at the thought but not enough to jeopardise everything he’d worked so hard for. It had more to do with her effect on him, that lack of control he felt around her.

The cufflink finally slid home and Gianni gave himself a critical once-over in the mirror. Dressed in a dark grey morning suit with a light grey silk

cravat tie, he was the epitome of sartorial elegance, but for once he didn’t feel that measure of satisfaction at another sign that he was removing himself from his past.

He felt uneasy now that he’d allowed Keelin to needle him enough to give her carte blanche to organise the wedding arrangements. He’d assured himself that she couldn’t get up to too much trouble right under his nose, could she?

For someone who never doubted his instincts, Gianni pushed aside the concern and flicked a glance at his watch and cursed himself again. He was ready too early for the afternoon ceremony. Like some kind of besotted fool? No, he assured himself, he just wanted to get this wedding over with so that he could get on with merging forces with O’Connor.

This urgency he felt was purely for that, nothing else.

When someone knocked on the door of his apartment he welcomed the distraction, opening it to reveal his assistant, looking scared and holding a local tabloid paper. The young man cleared his voice. ‘Have you spoken to Miss O’Connor today?’

Gianni immediately went cold. ‘No. Why?’

His assistant handed him the paper, where a blazing headline read Delucca’s Fiancée Snubs Harrington in Favour of Chatsfield for Lavish Wedding Ceremony!

It took a long second for the news to sink in. Keelin had gone behind his back and changed the venue, capitalising on the very public rivalry between the hotel dynasties to generate as much adverse publicity as possible.

Gianni forced the swell of rage down and said grimly, ‘Get my driver and car.’

The assistant rushed off, only too happy to get out of Gianni’s dark angry orbit.

Keelin would not get away with this. But first, it was time to go and make her his wife.

* * *

‘Well, where the hell is he?’

Keelin tried to curb any sense of obvious excitement at her father’s increasingly angry questions as to the whereabouts of her apparently absent fiancé.

She was light-headed at the audacity of what she was doing and she quashed the niggle of her conscience when she recalled the injured looks and feverish whispering she’d left behind at the Harrington Hotel after telling them she was moving the wedding. But it had been too good an opportunity to miss.

Gianni had clearly favoured a discreetly elegant affair at The Harrington with the emphasis on discretion, and so Keelin had seen an opportunity to turn the wedding into a far more publicly opulent and luxurious extravaganza, much to The Chatsfield PR’s delight, always eager to score points where possible and take the focus off The Harrington’s latest venture—an ice bar in Russia which was all over the papers because it was being created by billionaire Lukas Kovach.

It also just so happened that one of Keelin’s oldest school friends from her junior boarding school in Ireland was Orla Kennedy, who was now married to Antonio Chatsfield, the scion of the

Chatsfield family, so one phone call was all it had taken to unleash a little carnage.

Where forty guests had been expected, over a hundred now jostled for space in The Chatsfield’s sumptuously decorated ballroom. There were enough flowers to open a shop.

‘Well?’

Her father’s voice and the low rumble of voices from the ballroom next door made her snap back to attention. Keelin tried to look worried. ‘I don’t know, Father, maybe he’s had second thoughts.’

Her conscience twinged. Or maybe Gianni wasn’t completely unaware about the latest developments thanks to her blithely informing everyone that he’d sanctioned the changes and didn’t want to be bothered about the minutiae.

Her father went pale and Keelin’s gaze narrowed on him. Did he really care that much? But before she could interpret that nugget, a knock came on the door and Allessandra the wedding planner stepped into the room.

The woman had been looking almost sick with anxiety before, but now her face was wreathed in smiles and Keelin barely had a chance to suspect the worst when she said with clear relief, ‘The groom has arrived. You should take your places.’

Keelin could feel the colour leach from her face. No. This wasn’t how it was meant to go. She’d deliberately made sure everyone but Gianni was aware of the location and earlier time change. And right about when everyone would be feeling sorry for the jilted bride, he’d be realising far too late what she’d done. Too late to do anything but appear to have stood her up.

But he was here.

She was barely aware of her father taking her arm in a firm grip and saying, ‘About time. I knew he wouldn’t bail.’

Keelin was in too much shock to see the colour return to her father’s face. The Wedding March was playing, the guests had gone quiet. Someone pulled her veil over her face and pushed a bouquet into her hands. And then the door opened and her father propelled her forward.

* * *

Gianni felt Keelin arrive alongside him in front of the registrar for this civil ceremony. He was still too angry to look at her but he turned his head eventually and his eyes widened at the sight of her. A shot of lust went straight to his groin.

He didn’t know why he should have expected her to be wearing the elegant wedding dress he’d picked out, but he still wasn’t prepared to see her in a tight lace sheath of a dress that ended somewhere around her upper thighs, displaying those long bare legs to perfection.

Sheer sleeves and a lace neckline above the bodice was almost laughingly demure when every provocative curve of her body was lovingly outlined by the material.

Her hair was down in sleek red waves and a short veil covered her face but he could see through the gauzy material that she was pale and looking straight ahead. Something caught the corner of his eye and he looked down to see her hands in a white-knuckle grip around the bouquet, fingers trembling ever so slightly.

Gianni recognised that she was obviously in shock that he’d thwarted her plans, so with a quick nod to the celebrant he urged him on, knowing he needed to take advantage of this moment. He ruthlessly drove down any concerns about the evident lengths Keelin had gone to to signal her reluctance for this union. He’d narrowly averted a PR disaster but he was here now and he would deal with his errant wife afterwards.

* * *

Keelin was walking back down the aisle, her mouth still tingling from Gianni’s hard kiss with her hand tucked firmly in his arm, before she seemed to come out of the slightly nightmarish paralysis that had gripped her ever since she’d realised she hadn’t succeeded in derailing the wedding.

Everyone was clapping as they walked into a lavishly laid-out ballroom for the wedding reception/lunch. But Gianni veered away from the waiting staff and guests, saying curtly, ‘Give us a minute please,’ and took Keelin’s hand, all but dragging her over to a doorway which led into a little anteroom.

He pushed her in ahead of him none too gently and came in behind her, shutting the door. Keelin turned to face him, legs wobbly from shock, and a delayed surge of adrenalin. Had she really just repeated vows to this man? And signed a register? Like some kind of pathetic automaton?

Gianni was livid, and somewhere it registered uncomfortably into Keelin’s mind that she felt a kick of excitement to see him after the few days of little or no contact.

His accent was thicker than she’d heard it before. ‘Did you imagine that right about now you’d be playing the part of the poor jilted bride crying crocodile tears while the local rags drooled over the salacious headlines?’

Keelin opened her mouth but clearly he didn’t expect an answer.

‘If your acting was going to be anything like the performance you subjected me to when we first met, then they would have seen through you in seconds,’ Gianni said with derision dripping from his voice.

Keelin’s own anger at having sleepwalked through her worst nightmare finally broke through the shock and she gesticulated wildly with the hand holding the bouquet. ‘Well, you didn’t! So I might just have got away with it.’

Gianni’s mouth tightened. ‘You won’t be walking anywhere now except out of this hotel with me, as man and wife.’

He reached for her free hand and held it up to face her so she could see the platinum band of her wedding ring glinting mockingly under the lights. And then he held up his own hand, displaying the matching ring. ‘See? For better or worse, mia moglie.’ My wife.

The sight of those wedding bands side by side gave Keelin a jolt and it wasn’t one entirely of disgust. She’d always vowed not to be like her mother, married to a man just for the sake of security. Yet here she was, married, and she couldn’t seem to drum up the appropriate sense of rage. Gianni was scrambling her responses. And her brain.

But before she could make sense of that, he cupped her jaw, a look of unmistakable determination on his face, voice rough. ‘The sooner we consummate this marriage and make it real in every sense, the better.’

Keelin immediately felt breathless, a rush of excitement zinging straight to the cluster of nerves between her legs. She gritted her jaw. No way was he going to have her flat on her back and exposing all of her vulnerabilities to his blistering gaze. She still hid so much from him, not least of which was the fact that she was innocent and had a very real fear of a man making her feel powerless, and threatened. ‘Dream on, Delucca. I will not be sharing your bed.’

He just smiled. Infuriatingly confident. ‘I wouldn’t be so sure about that.’

Step into the gilded world of The Chatsfield! Where secrets and scandal lurk behind every door …

Reserve your room! March 2015

Get your copy today at www.millsandboon.co.uk/delucca

WELCOME TO

Dear Ms Yates,

We are delighted that you have booked your rooms to stay at The Chatsfield. And because we pride ourselves on creating the most unique and bespoke services during your stay, we have a few questions that we’d like to ask.

What time will you be checking in? I’d like an early check in, since my plane lands in the morning.

Will you be checking in alone? No, I’ll be with my fabulously handsome husband.

What morning paper would you like delivered?

Financial Times

Hello

InStyle

The Guardian

The Times

We would like to arrange some music for your listening pleasure. Is there a particular album or selection of music you would like to listen to in your room during your stay?

1  “Sophie” by Bear’s Den

2  “Samson” by Regina Spektor

3  “Kiss Me” by Ed Sheeran

4  “One Night Town” by Ingrid Michaelson

5  “Radioactive” by Imagine Dragons

6  “Devils’ Backbone” by the Civil Wars

7  “Broken” by Seether and Amy Lee

As we know that you may be working during your stay, we are aware how important it is for you to have all your creature comforts around you. In order to ensure that your stay is as fulfilling as possible...

We have a wide selection of food available for room service delivery. What would your most decadent meal be that you would have delivered and why?

I want the hummus platter, with roasted vegetables and lots of bread, olives and cheese! And then an array of mini cupcakes. One must be salted caramel, and another pumpkin spice.

Do you have any special requests for your stay at our hotel?

Slippers and a robe. I’m always cold!

What is your worst habit when writing?

Eating. See above cupcake demands.

Do you have a writing routine? If so, could you share a bit about it with us?

I like to light a candle and play music from my specific book ‘s playlist. The above music was all music that inspired me while writing about the Chatsfield.

We’re always looking to expand the Chatsfield Library and welcome recommendations. What are the last two books you read and why?

I read All I Have by Nicole Helm because sometimes it’s wonderful to get lost in a down to earth, humorous romance when everything is a bit intense around you. And I also read Mine to Take by Jackie Ashenden which is much more intense and glamorous and all about a VERY sexy revenge plot...

If you could write anywhere in the world, where would it be?

I was in Paris recently, but only for six hours! I want to go back and sit at the café I ate lunch in and work on my next Presents!

We can tell from your recent published book that you have a vested interest in our very own hotels! So (curious minds want to know!) are you team Chatsfield or Team Harrington?!

Team Harrington all the way! Those Chatsfields are bad news.

What did you most love about writing this story?

The tent scene. You’ll see.

What has been your best hotel experience and what made it memorable?

A lady never tells!

What has been your most unusual hotel experience and why?

Definitely in New Orleans while waiting for a friend in the lobby of the Hotel Monteleone. It’s rumoured to be haunted, and she went to use the restrooms...when she came out she said she’d been startled by a woman standing behind her. But no one else had gone into the bathrooms that I had seen...and we stood and waited and no one came out after her!

If you could have given your hero or heroine a piece of advice before they started on their journey in your story, what would it have been?

To Sophie, don’t hide in alleys and listen to private conversations. To Zayn: Kidnapping? Really?

Thank you for answering our questions. We very much hope you enjoy your stay!

WELCOME TO

Dear Sheikh Zayn Al-Ahmar,

To ensure that your stay at the Chatsfield is as exclusive and private as possible, we will need to ask you a few questions of perhaps a delicate nature, to ensure that our private security team will be best placed to support you.

If you had to pick your most public scandalous moment, what would it be?

I don’t like to talk about it as it centers around a death in my family.

Was there an even more scandalous event that didn’t make it into the press?

There were quite a few wild parties in my younger years...

What is your biggest secret?

If I told you it wouldn’t be a secret. And I would have to have you killed. I am not joking. I never joke.

What do you love most about Sophie?

She sees me. Not just the sheikh, but the man.

What were your first thoughts when you saw you Sophie?

That I had to kidnap her to minimize the damage she might do to my family. As meetings go, it was not the most romantic.

If your house was on fire and you could only save one thing, what would it be?

Sophie, of course.

What is the naughtiest thing you did at school?

I did whatever I wanted then. There were too many misdeeds to ever count them all.

What is your guiltiest pleasure?

Crime novels.

What is your worst habit?

Sophie says I am entirely too serious sometimes.

What is your favourite film?

The Avengers. In 3D, which I watch in my private theatre. Tony Stark amuses me.

What present would you put beneath the Christmas tree for Sophie?

I bought her a car. It did not fit beneath the tree. Next year we shall acquire a larger tree.

How will you spend your first anniversary as a couple?

Sophie was denied the luxurious things in life for far too long. I intend to take her a private island for a week of pampering.

Thank you for your candour. We will endeavour to ensure a scandal free time during your stay with us!

Delucca’s Marriage Contract

Abby Green

Gianni’s mouth twisted. ‘You might not want this situation but you want me, as much as I want you.’

The air seemed to throb and shimmer between them with heat and tension, and Gianni stared at her for such a long moment that Keelin almost begged him to stop, but then he lifted his hand and looked at the watch on his wrist. He looked at her again, coolness in his eyes now. ‘A stylist and beauty team are on their way here to get you ready for the party. I’ll be back later to pick you up.’

Clearly nothing she’d said had made one dent in his bid to secure this deal with her father; he was steamrollering ahead and taking her with him.