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‘What would the papers want with this?’
Try as she might, she couldn’t force herself to go on, stumbling to an abrupt halt before her legs gave way altogether. She had to struggle to make it look as if she had just turned in genuine curiosity, half-leaning against the end of a nearby pew, but keeping her face turned towards the door as much as she could.
‘I can see the headlines now—“Society wedding ends in chaos…”’
Guido’s voice floated down the aisle towards her, the dark vein of mockery making her wince inwardly and clench her teeth tight against the whimper of protest that almost escaped.
’“Baronet’s son jilted at the altar by deceitful fiancée.”’
‘I didn’t…’ Amber began protestingly but Guido ignored her and carried on with his cold-hearted litany, his tone growing harsher, darker, more brutally triumphant with each word.
‘“Bigamous bride outed as she prepares to lie her way into a title and a fortune.”’
‘I wasn’t lying! I didn’t know!’
‘You’re not denying the title and the fortune part, I see.’ The statement stabbed like a stiletto between her ribs.
‘I’m not denying anything—or confirming anything, for that matter.’
Somehow Amber found new strength to make herself move again, putting one foot in front of the other to get herself to the end of the aisle, reach a point where she could put her hand on the door.
‘I’m not even going to talk to you about this any more!’
She had to get out of here! Get away from him and his cruelty and accusations. Away from the tidal waves of bitter memories that swamped her each time she so much as looked at him. Just seeing him had been bad enough—but that kiss…!
Just what had she been thinking of to let him kiss her like that—to respond as she had? Had she no strength, no pride—no…?
All thought died away in a rush as she pulled the heavy door open and, blinking for a moment in the sunlight, saw just what was waiting for her outside.
Or, rather, saw just who was waiting for her.
The small crowd of people who had gathered to watch her arrive for the wedding had grown. There was now what looked like a sea of people milling around at the lych-gate and as soon as they saw her appear in the doorway they started to rush forward.
‘Miss Wellesley! Just a word…’
Something flashed, hard and bright, making her blink desperately, eyes suddenly watering in shock. Another flash followed—and another—so that she put up her hand to shield her face.
‘Is it true that you’re already married, Miss Wellesley—to Guido Corsentino?’
‘Did you really think you could get away with bigamy?’
‘Just how many husbands do you have, Amber?’
Amber reeled back as microphones were pushed at her, almost into her face. The crowd had surged forward, hemming her in, and they were not, she saw now, the friendly, smiling villagers she had waved to on her way into the church. Some had microphones, others notebooks, and everywhere, on all sides, were those flashes that she now saw came from cameras. Cameras that were pointed directly at her and clicking furiously.
‘I…’ she began, but both her mind and her voice failed her in the same minute. Panic clutched at her throat so she couldn’t force any sound from it and the same fear fused her thought processes so that she couldn’t have found a thing to say anyway.
‘I…’ she tried again, only to break off on a squeal of fear as the crowd surged forward, threatening to engulf her.
Her frantic step backwards made the narrow heel of her shoe catch in the hem of her long silk skirt, throwing her off balance, and she would have fallen but for the strength of a hard male arm that came round her, clamping tight about her waist and holding her upright. Another hand reached for the door, pushing it forward so that it formed a barrier against the pushing, shouting mob.
‘No comment!’ a cold, harshly accented voice declared. ‘Not now. You’ll get your story later!’
And the forceful statement was further emphasised by the slamming of the door tight shut right in the face of the most forward photographer. Not troubling to release her, Guido slammed the bolt home on the door and leaned back against it, taking her with him in his imprisoning embrace.
‘I did warn you!’ he declared, burning bronze eyes blazing down into hers. ‘News obviously travels fast around here.’
‘But—how…’
Even as she stammered out the words, Amber knew the answer to the question.
There had already been a lot of newspaper interest in her wedding to Rafe. The marriage of the heir to one of the largest estates in the country, along with an earldom that brought him to one of the highest ranks of the aristocracy, was bound to be news. Add into that the fact that for a long time Rafe had been the subject of stories in the tabloids and magazines, his slender blond looks stirring interest and speculation, and you had the perfect subject for the gossip columns.
Their engagement had created a buzz of interest, their marriage preparations had had the spotlight of attention focused on them.
And now, of course, the debacle of the wedding, the failure of that marriage before it had begun—and the appalling accusation of possible bigamy—had turned a spark of interest into a blazing inferno of gossip in the space of less than an hour.
‘What am I going to do?’
The question wasn’t addressed to Guido, but rather to the malign fate that had brought him back into her life at this particular moment. She still couldn’t believe that it had happened—couldn’t begin to think how it had happened.
She had been so sure that her short, rash and desperately ill-fated marriage to Guido Corsentino had been a fake. He had told her that it wasn’t valid. That their wild, whirlwind romance had just been a fantasy of her imagination; their even more crazy rush to the altar in a Las Vegas chapel only a pragmatic act on his part in order to get what he wanted.
‘It sure as hell wasn’t a proper marriage.’ The sound of the cruel words he had flung at her was so clear inside her head that for a moment she almost thought that he had spoken them out loud here once again. ‘It was a farce from start to finish. But it worked didn’t it? It kept you in my bed, which was what it was intended to do.’
At the time she had thought that that was all the marriage had done. That it had all been a pretence. But now it seemed that she was legally bound to this man and as a result all her hopes for her life, for her future, lay in ruins.
Through the haze that blurred her eyes, part desperation, part tears, Amber struggled to look up into the face of the man who held her, needing—longing—to know just what was in his mind.
What had he meant when he’d said “The only thing we can consider is what we are going to do about it”?
What did he plan for her and her future? And what was his next move going to be? Just the thought of it made her shiver as if she had found herself hiding, cowering in the jungle, frozen with fear, just waiting for the prowling tiger to pounce.
‘You said—you said they’d get their story later,’ she managed, forcing the words past lips that suddenly seemed wooden and stiff with fright.
‘And so they will,’ Guido returned with stunning calm. ‘Just as soon as we come up with the story we want them to believe.’
There it was again, that ‘we’ that took everything out of her hands and put Guido right in control whether she wanted it or not.
And the truth was that right now she had no idea at all what she wanted—or how she was going to go about getting it. Held close to him like this, she was painfully aware of the burning heat of Guido’s body next to hers, of the steel-hard band of his arm clamped tight around her waist, crushing her close and constricting her breathing
‘We?’
He might feel hot, Amber realised, but his brain was very definitely cool. Definitely in controlled, analytical mode. Even the swollen arousal she had felt in his body before had now eased and she could almost hear the calm ticking-over of his brain as he assessed the situation, considered his options and came up with a plan.
‘Why we…?’
Dark eyes looked down into hers, cold and assessing and totally in control.
‘Because we have no other option,’ he stated calmly. ‘The Press have seen us together—your family—your fiancé’s family have too. From now on we’re in this together, whether we like it or not.’
CHAPTER FOUR
FROM now on we’re in this together, whether we like it or not.
And Amber didn’t like it; not one little bit. It was obvious—Guido could see it in her face. In the way that her eyes shadowed, the tension that pulled her pretty jaw tight, clamped her soft lips together. She wanted out of this—and she wanted him out of her life, that much was plain. But right now he really didn’t see that they had any sort of a choice.
‘And just what sort of a story did you have in mind?’
Her voice was cold and clipped, her tone matching the frost in her gaze, the way that those beautiful green eyes flicked over him, looking him up and down with cool contempt.
Something that she was going to like even less than the thought of them working together. And it was the obvious distaste on her face that made him all the more determined to carry it through.
The idea had come to him when he’d seen her gathering up her skirts and heading down the aisle away from him. Running away from him as fast as she had done that first time—and the burn of rejection had been as bitter and as savage as ever.
He had known in that moment that he couldn’t let her go.
Just moments before he had held her in his arms and kissed her and his body had throbbed with the heated, hungry passion that he had believed was dead to him—long dead. Certainly no woman had stirred that same hot yearning in twelve empty months as this Amber Wellesley—Amber Corsentino—seemed to be able to create in the space of a single heartbeat.
He’d seen her and his body had started to crave everything this woman had once brought him. He’d touched her and that craving had grown into an uncontrollable desire. He’d kissed her and every sense had gone up in flames, unable to bear the torment of being separate from her.
But Guido had to content himself with that kiss. Knowing all the time that he was only stirring up trouble for himself. Stirring up the memories, the needs, the passion that he had thought was long since buried, tamped down hard, hidden under the hard, bitter weight of the feelings she had left him with on the day she had walked out of his life.
Feelings he had spent the past year trying to forget—trying and failing miserably.
And so when he had seen her running away from him once more, he had known, deep in his soul, that he couldn’t let it happen again. He couldn’t let this woman walk out of his life without having her once more.
‘No!’
The only way he could get a grip on his thoughts was to say the word out loud, making Amber blink in shock as she stared at him, green eyes shadowed with confusion.
‘No?’ she questioned shakily. ‘No, you have no story to tell them? Or no—?’
‘Oh, I’ve a story we can give them, all right…’
Suddenly horrifyingly aware of the fact that he still held her close, Guido released Amber with an abruptness that almost dropped her to the ground, making her stagger back in shocked bewilderment, her hand going out to the wall to steady herself.
‘Then tell me!’
‘You’re not…’ Guido began, then caught himself up sharply. What was the point of warning her, letting her prepare herself? She was going to fight him on this, anyway. He could see it in her face. She’d fight him all the way, no matter what she said. So he might as well just let her have it straight and take it from there. At least that way he’d have the advantage of surprise once more, as he had when he’d arrived at the church.
The memory of the way she’d frozen when he’d spoken, the time it had taken her to turn round, was still clear in his memory. He’d been planning that moment for weeks, ever since he’d learned of her upcoming marriage, and it had brought a dark satisfaction to his soul. The sort of satisfaction he wanted to know again.
‘Let them think we’re a couple.’
‘What?’
There was no need to ask what she thought of his suggestion. It was etched into her lovely face, darkening the pools of her eyes above cheeks that had gone white in appalled shock.
‘Let them…?’
‘Let them think we’re back together.’
‘You have to be joking!’
‘No joke.’ Guido shook his dark head emphatically. ‘It’s the only way you’re going to walk out of here with any sort of reputation-and able to look people in the eye. Your chances of marriage to St Clair are ruined…’
‘Thanks to you!’
Guido glanced down at the tight little fists into which she had clenched her hands. He could read in her eyes the way she was tempted to launch herself at him, raise her fist to pound him on the shoulder, maybe even hit him in the face.
Perhaps he should tell her the truth about her supposed bridegroom. If she knew the real Rafe St Clair and the way that the man had been prepared to use her for his own ends, then would she be so quick to attack? Would she fight so hard for him then?
‘You’ve destroyed my life!’
‘No, cara,’ Guido reproved silkily. ‘You did that for yourself when you tried to get yourself a new groom without making sure that you had got rid of the old one first.’
‘You said it was not a legal marriage!’
‘I said we didn’t have any sort of real marriage—it’s not at all the same thing. The marriage you walked out on was perfectly legal, perfectly binding, as you would have found out if you had bothered checking.’
‘It didn’t seem necessary.’
Amber couldn’t believe she had been such a fool. Ever since the day that she had walked out on Guido, she had struggled to put their charade of a marriage behind her. It had been bad enough thinking that Guido had only gone through the ceremony to control her, to keep her in his bed. To find that she had swallowed the idea of it being real when in fact it had just been a fake, set up to deceive her, had twisted the original knife in even deeper.
As a result, she had ruthlessly locked away all thoughts of that day into a sealed compartment in her memory, refusing to let herself bring them out to look at them for any reasons whatsoever. When Rafe had asked her to marry him, she had wondered briefly if she should check on the legality of her first ‘wedding’. But the memory of Guido’s brutal tone, his callously scornful words, had made her flinch right away from even thinking about it.
Fear had added an extra impetus too, she admitted, feeling the sense of horror that had gripped her then take her by the throat once again. If she had found that the Las Vegas ceremony had been binding, then she would have had to admit it to Rafe, and—far worse—she would have had to connect with Guido in order to arrange for a divorce.
Cravenly—and foolishly, it now seemed—she had dodged away from the whole issue and had let herself believe that there had been no earlier marriage to stand in the way of the present one.
‘To tell you the truth, I didn’t even remember our time together,’ she lied in a desperate attempt to protect herself from the anguish that was slashing at her heart. ‘It didn’t really matter.’
She’d got in a knife cut of her own that time, she saw as she watched the flames of dark anger blaze in the depths of his eyes. His jaw clamped tight shut over the flare of anger and a muscle tugged in his cheek.
Hastily she backed away, down the aisle, moving into one of the pews so as to put the strength of the wood between him and her. She felt better that way. He’d never, ever hurt her physically but the emotional anguish he’d put her through had been hard enough to bear. Not that any wood, however strong and solid, was any sort of protection against a broken heart.
‘So you were in such a rush to become a lady that you didn’t care whether this marriage was lawful or not also?’ Guido questioned stiffly. ‘You really should not be so careless about the legalities of your weddings, carissima. Now you’ve lost the title you aimed for…’
‘And the husband I wanted!’
That brought him up sharp. For a moment something new flared in those deep-set eyes. Something that wasn’t anger but something darker and more dangerous even than his fury had been.
‘So I’m supposed to believe that the man himself was what you really wanted in all this? You aren’t going to claim that you loved him, are you?’
Amber’s hands folded over the edge of the pew back, holding on tight until her knuckles showed white under her stretched skin. She knew she was on very dangerous ground here. One false step and she could give herself away completely, putting herself right into her tormentor’s hands and giving him the perfect set of weapons to torture her with.
‘Did you even consider that before you marched in here and broke up my life?’ she demanded, her harsh, tight voice echoing around the high, arching roof of the church. ‘Did it make you pause to think about what you were doing?’
