Scandalous Bride

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‘I could work on a clothes-line,’ he informed her coldly. ‘A telephone, paper, a pen—I don’t need much more. And sulking’s a woman’s game, one that cuts no ice with me. Coming?’

She looked at his merciless, sensual mouth and shuddered in primitive response. Fighting it, she made her lush lips as prim as they could be. She didn’t want to kiss him—no, she did not. She wanted to shake him!

Trying to smile for his parents’ sake, she got herself into the kitchen by will-power alone. The smell of bacon made her feel ill.

‘You mustn’t let him get away with it!’ Angela stated. ‘Working through the night—there’s no need for it! And he used most of my headed notepaper, too!’ She pointedly moved a bunch of papers out of the way and put a loaded toast rack down on the huge kitchen table.

‘It was all I could find; I’ll get it replaced,’ Nathan said with a tight smile. ‘And don’t nag, Ma; it makes you sound old.’

Olivia’s face ached with the effort of trying to look pleasant and unconcerned, as if she were totally in tune with her new husband’s odd working habits—sympathetic, even faintly amused.

Edward sauntered in, sniffing the air. ‘Is breakfast nearly ready? I’m starving! It’s a shame you two have to rush off this morning. You could have helped me with the Cobra—’ He broke off as he caught his wife’s withering look and amended, ‘Or gone to church with your mother. We’d planned on lunching at the golf club. They put on a passably good roast. No eggs for me, Angie.’ His youthful eyes smiled into Olivia’s. ‘When I remember, I try to watch my cholesterol intake. Pour the coffee, would you, Livvy? I’m gasping. Are you sure you won’t change your minds and stay?’

Pouring coffee into the wide-bowled cups, Olivia left Nathan to convince his parents that they had to make tracks.

‘There are several things I need to sort out,’ he answered tersely as his mother set a huge plate of bacon and eggs in the centre of the table.

‘Help yourselves,’ she invited. ‘Do you know how forbidding you sound, Nat? “Things to sort out”, indeed.’ She took her place and shook out her napkin. ‘You need never do another stroke. You could retire tomorrow, and you know it. Workaholics don’t make the best husbands, isn’t that right, Livvy?’

‘I’m working on it!’ Which probably hadn’t been the most tactful thing to say, she decided, feeling those cold grey eyes on her, boring right through her. But she did her best to look cheerful, eating hardly anything while trying to look as if she was enjoying every mouthful—just waiting for the time when she and Nathan could be alone to sort out the uncomfortable mess they’d somehow got themselves into.

But being alone didn’t necessarily mean being closer, she discovered as they drove away from Rye House not long after breakfast. The silence was gnm.

Her heart lurching, she broke it. ‘I’m sorry about last night. You must know I didn’t mean it.’ She flicked him a hopeful sideways look but his profile was stony. Swallowing a ragged sigh, trying not to plead, she offered, ‘Listen, we have to discuss it rationally—everything. Hugh, James, my job, even Angie’s bright idea about buying that house. Everything.’

They had left the tangle of narrow country lanes behind and Nathan put his foot down. The big car responded throatily and Olivia’s stomach jumped up into her mouth. She just hoped there weren’t any speed cameras about. She said thickly, ‘I hate this atmosphere. I don’t know about you, but I want things back the way they were. We love each other,’ she stated desperately. ‘It should be simple enough!’

‘It is simple enough.’ His voice was as smooth and precise as his driving style. ‘You know what I want. When you’ve reached a decision, tell me. Until then there’s little we can usefully discuss. Think about it.’

Oh, yes, she knew what he wanted. She closed her eyes wearily. Each time her resignation had come up for discussion he’d grown more insistent.

It had started off fairly innocuously, Nathan reasonably pointing out that she didn’t need to work, that her job would keep them apart, that he wanted her with him wherever he went. Desperately torn, she had tried to explain that she would have to think about it.

‘James threw a fit when I told him we were getting mamed and asked for two months’ honeymoon leave,’ she’d told him. ‘But he gave in and said, “Anything, so long as I know the best PA I’m ever likely to get isn’t walking out permanently.’” She’d smiled then, confident that he loved her enough to understand that she couldn’t simply phone through, as he appeared to expect her to, and say she wasn’t coming back. ‘I guess I’d have to train someone else up, and that could take time.’

But Nathan hadn’t seen it that way. ‘He doesn’t own you,’ he’d said. Implying that he did, Olivia had thought, beginning to bristle, appalled by the first coldness she’d seen in his eyes. And it had been then that he’d broken the uncomfortable tension between them, suggesting a restaurant and nightclub. And after that, after overhearing Hugh’s scandalous remarks, he’d stopped trying gentle persuasion and was now insisting.

He had, she recognised hollowly, issued an ultimatum. And told her to think about it.

She didn’t want to.

She loved him to distraction. She would willingly die for him. But he had to see that she wasn’t going to let herself be bullied into doing something she knew would make her uncomfortable with herself. Max had done that too many times; she wouldn’t allow it to happen again.

Yet the prospect of deepening the rift between them by refusing to do meekly exactly as he said, exactly when he said it heaped her heart with deep misery.

She twisted her hands in her lap, her fingers sliding over the engagement ring he’d given her, sliding and stroking it as if that would bring back the gloriously happy recent past. An amethyst in an ornate, heavy gold setting.

‘To match the colour of your eyes,’ he’d told her, slipping it onto her finger, his eyes dark and liquid with love.

She remembered that day so vividly, and the days that had gone before, the days that had come after. She would never forget a single second, and clung to the comfort of her shining memories, remembering how they’d met.

It had been a cold spring day and she’d been sure that sudden, heavy rain showers had been programmed to put in an appearance at a time calculated to cause as much nuisance to herself, personally, as possible.

She’d dropped by the local supermarket on her way home from work and was heading down the street, blinded by rain, carrying the makings of her supper in the flimsy supermarket carrier bag, the thin plastic digging into her fingers.

And the bag had split, tipping her purchases onto the streaming pavement. Cursing under her breath, she’d bent to retrieve what was salvageable, growling with disbelief as a well-polished, handmade shoe stomped on her slices of cold ham. Bouncing up, she’d collided with a lean, male body, felt his steadying hands on her shoulders, and lifted her head to glare at him. And that was when it had happened.

‘I wasn’t looking where I was going.’ His grey eyes held hers with the dawning of delight. It was as if, she thought, he recognised her from a long way back, was welcoming her wholeheartedly into his life again.

They had never met before, she knew that; of course she did. But she felt she had known him all her life, had been waiting for him.

The rain came down as if it were trying to flood them out of existence and they simply stood there, oblivious to the torrents, aware only of each other. So shatteringly aware.

And in that timeless moment she lost every scrap of common sense she’d ever had, forgot the solemn promises she’d made to herself about never being stupid enough to fall in love again—because it had happened, and she was soaringly, ecstatically glad.

‘We’ll drown!’ His sudden, spectacular grin shook her to pieces. One hand slid down to take hers. Her fingers curled around his and the sensation of his warm skin on hers was unbelievable. It made her whole body come alive, made her feel that until this moment she’d been half dead and hadn’t realised it.

With his free hand he retrieved her scattered supper, dumping the sodden mess into a litter bin. Then, his fingers entwined possessively in hers, he tugged her over to his waiting car.

Long, low, gun-metal grey, it looked dangerous. And that suited her, she thought, allowing herself to be gently tucked into the passenger seat. She felt wild, her blood hot, coursing wickedly through her veins.

‘Where are you taking me?’ She didn’t stop to ask herself if getting into a car with a strange male was the wisest move she had ever made. She was soaked to the skin, her suit ruined, the weight of the rain water dragging her luxuriant hair from its workaday moorings. She knew she looked a mess and couldn’t stop smiling.

‘My hotel.’ She noted the smile tugging at his mouth, too, as he eased the car out into the flow of traffic. ‘You can dry out while I feed you. It’s the least I can do after ruining your groceries.’

The feeling of belonging, truly belonging to someone swamped her. It was a mystery she couldn’t explain, an inevitable happening. She asked, ‘Are you married?’

‘No. Are you?’

‘I was. He died three years ago.’

He gave her a swift, intense look, his dark brows drawn together. Then he turned his attention back to the road—or at least what he could see of it through the driving ram, the wipers barely coping. ‘And now?’

‘There’s been no one since. I’m married to my career.’

His wickedly gorgeous mouth curved. ‘That I can cope with; a career’s no competition.’

‘What are you competing for?’ How strange, she thought, her eyes bright with silent laughter, to be sitting here, having this conversation. She didn’t even know his name.

‘The right to have you in my bed.’ Softly spoken, musing, almost, his reply took her breath away.

By any standards she should be demanding he stop, let her out. But she didn’t. She didn’t even ask him if he thought she was the type of woman who would go to bed with a man, any man, any time, She knew, with a deep instinctive joy, that he didn’t think any such thing.

She simply asked, ‘When do you see that happening?’ knowing what his answer would be before he gave it.

‘When you’re ready. When you understand, as I did the moment I looked into your eyes, that we’re two halves of a whole.’

Tangled black lashes veiled her eyes as she slumped weakly back in her seat, her arms hugging her body as she tried to contain the happiness that transcended anything she had experienced before. She felt weak with it, and could hardly stand when he exited the now stationary vehicle and walked round to hand her out.

They were in front of the city’s most luxurious hotel and she leant into the support of his possessive arm, blinking the rain out of her eyes, as a livened doorman hurried towards them with an umbrella, another taking the car keys to park the sleek grey monster.

‘Dreadful day, Mr Monroe.’ Sheltering beneath the huge umbrella, they were deferentially escorted up the wide stone steps.

So his name was Monroe. She smiled to herself, a wriggle of happiness further weakening her knees as she heard him correct, ‘You’re wrong there, Ben, old son. It’s the most perfect day that ever dawned!’ His arm tightened around her tiny waist and she was too dazed to take in her surroundings, leaning against him as the lift took them to the top of the building, feeling utterly, blissfully secure, the warmth of it lapping over her, binding her completely.

His suite was a quiet statement of restrained elegance, not sumptuous or overpowering but an essay in refined simplicity, and her eyes went wide, taking it in. It would cost a fortune to stay here. The atmosphere was so rarefied, she felt the first stirrings of misgiving.