‘In a moment we will leave the chapel,’ Luca told her. He hesitated. ‘When we step outside it will be necessary for me to kiss you.’

She blinked at him. ‘Necessary for you to…? Why?’

Athena had the most incredible eyes. The thought came unbidden into Luca’s mind. ‘There’s no time to explain now. The press are outside, and it’s vital that we make them believe our marriage is real.’

‘Real?’ She knew she probably sounded witless, but she couldn’t take in what he had said about needing to kiss her.

‘All you have to do is kiss me back,’ Luca said impatiently, when she stared at him as if he had grown a second head. ‘It shouldn’t be too much of an ordeal. You seemed to enjoy it when I kissed you in Zenhab.’

So he hadn’t forgotten that kiss. Her mind flew to the palace gardens and she remembered vividly the whisper of the fountains and the silver gleam of the moon, the scent of orange blossom and the gossamer-soft brush of Luca’s lips on hers.

He opened the chapel door and Athena’s thoughts scattered as she was blinded by an explosion of flashbulbs. Luca slid his arm around her waist and drew her close to his body—so close that she could feel his powerful thigh muscles through her dress; his hard, masculine frame was a stark contrast to her softness.

‘Remember, this has to look convincing,’ he murmured as he lowered his face towards hers.

Dear Reader,

I am intrigued about the way sisters can share a close relationship and yet so often have very different characteristics. This is certainly true of Athena Howard, whose story is told in A Bride Worth Millions, and her older sister Lexi, who features in Sheikh’s Forbidden Conquest.

Awkward Athena wishes she was more like daring helicopter pilot Lexi, who met her match when she fell in love with Sultan Kadir Al Sulaimar. Athena is not the academic daughter her parents had hoped for, but at least they approve of her engagement to English aristocrat Charles Fairfax. It’s set to be the society wedding of the year—but hours before the ceremony Athena discovers that Charles only wants her to be his convenient wife to hide a shocking secret!

Desperate to escape from her wedding, Athena falls—literally—into the arms of Luca De Rossi, whom she met previously at Lexi’s wedding to Kadir. Athena is attracted to Luca, but a traumatic event when she was a teenager has resulted in her being wary of men.

Luca must marry before his thirty-fifth birthday, so he offers Athena a marriage deal: he will pay her one million pounds to be his temporary bride. Athena has secret plans for how to spend the money—and Luca has a devastating secret of his own!

I enjoyed writing about these two sisters—and the gorgeous men who claimed their hearts!

With love

Chantelle

A Bride

Worth Millions

Chantelle Shaw

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHANTELLE SHAW lives on the Kent coast, and thinks up her stories while walking on the beach. She has been married for over thirty years and has six children. Her love affair with reading and writing Harlequin Mills & Boon® began as a teenager, and her first book was published in 2006. She likes strong-willed, slightly unusual characters. Chantelle also loves gardening, walking and wine!

For Rosie and Lucy, best sisters and best friends!

Contents

Cover

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

EPILOGUE

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

‘I’VE BEEN THINKING.’

‘Really?’ Luca De Rossi could not disguise the scepticism in his voice as he glanced at the blonde in bed beside him. Giselle Mercier was exquisite, and she was an inventive lover, but Luca doubted that the French model with baby-blue eyes and a penchant for expensive jewellery was about to announce that she had discovered a solution for world peace, or a cure for cancer.

His suspicions were confirmed when she held up her left hand so that the enormous diamond on her third finger was set ablaze by the early-morning sunbeams streaming into the penthouse.

‘Yes. I’ve been thinking that I don’t want to get married at a registry office. I want our wedding to be in a church, or even a cathedral.’

Giselle glanced towards the window and the view of the elegant spires of the Duomo—Milan’s magnificent cathedral.

‘And I want to wear a wedding dress. Think what a fantastic publicity opportunity it would be for De Rossi Designs,’ Giselle purred when Luca frowned. ‘The press would go mad for pictures of a wedding gown designed by the creative director of DRD for his bride.’

‘There will be no press coverage of our wedding,’ Luca said tersely. ‘You seem to be forgetting that our marriage will be a temporary arrangement. I only require you to be my wife for one year. After that we will divorce and you will receive one million pounds—as we agreed.’

Giselle threw back the sheet to reveal her naked, golden-tanned body, and hooked one lissom thigh across Luca’s hip. ‘Perhaps you’ll decide that you don’t want a temporary marriage,’ she murmured. ‘Last night was amazing, chéri. I think we could have something special...’

Luca muttered something ugly beneath his breath as he swung his legs over the side of the bed. It was true that the sex last night had been good—albeit in the vaguely uninspiring way that sex always was with any of his mistresses. But it meant nothing to him. Just as it always meant nothing.

He didn’t know why Giselle had suggested that their relationship could be in any way ‘special’. They had made an arrangement that suited both of them and he could not conceal his impatience at her attempt to try and change the rules.

He strode across the room and stared moodily out of the window, while his mistress ran her eyes hungrily over his bare buttocks and muscular thighs. In the sunlight, Luca’s thick black hair, which had a tendency to curl at his nape, gleamed like polished jet. His broad shoulders were tanned a dark bronze, the same as the rest of his body, even his buttocks, which made Giselle wonder if he sunbathed in the nude.

She had never had a lover as skilful and tireless as Luca De Rossi. No wonder the tabloids dubbed him the ‘Italian Stallion’! He was as famous for his affairs with the countless female celebrities who wore his designs to red-carpet events as he was for his undeniable artistic talent and his flair for designing clothes that flattered women whatever their shape.

Luca was sinfully sexy and filthy rich. He was also in urgent need of a wife, so that he could keep his ancestral home: Villa De Rossi—a palatial house on the shores of Lake Como. It was something to do with the terms of his grandmother’s will. Luca had to be married by his thirty-fifth birthday or the villa, which had been owned by the De Rossi family for three hundred years, would be sold.

Giselle did not understand all the details and did not particularly care. The important thing was that Luca had asked her to be his bride. The deal included an amazing pay-off, as well as lots of other perks—such as the diamond solitaire ring that Luca had promised she could keep when they went their separate ways.

But Giselle had no intention of going anywhere. It had occurred to her that, even though a million pounds was more than she was ever likely to earn from modelling, it made sense to hang on to her soon-to-be husband for as long as possible. After all, if he was willing to pay her one million pounds for one year of marriage then even Giselle’s poor grasp of mathematics could work out the amount she should receive after two or three years of being Luca’s wife. And of course if they had a child then Luca would have to pay maintenance and school fees.

Really, the future looked very promising, Giselle decided.

‘Luca...’ she said huskily. ‘Why don’t you come back to bed?’

Luca ignored the invitation. A familiar sense of frustration at the situation he found himself in made his blood boil, and he felt a strong urge to smash his fist through the window. He rested his brow against the glass and looked down on Corso Vittorio Emanuelle II, Milan’s famous shopping precinct.

Despite the early hour, people were already milling in the glass-domed walkways where all the top fashion brands, including De Rossi Designs, had boutiques. The fashion label that Luca had created fifteen years ago had become a global success, and the iconic DRD logo was a byword for haute couture and high-end ready-to-wear clothes that complemented the exclusive leather shoes, handbags and accessories that De Rossi Enterprises—founded eighty years ago by Luca’s great-grandfather Raimondo—was famous for.

It was thanks to Luca that the family business had been saved from the brink of bankruptcy and now enjoyed an annual sales revenue of over a billion pounds. But he had never received praise or thanks from his grandparents when they had been alive, Luca reflected bitterly.

He walked back over to the bed, frowning when he saw the soft expression in Giselle’s eyes. The last thing he wanted was for her think that she was in any way special to him, or that their relationship could become permanent. He had met her days after he had learned of his grandmother’s will, when he had been reeling from shock and consumed with rage.

Giselle had been just another blonde at a party, but when she had tearfully confided that she had been dropped from her modelling contract, and was worried about how she would be able to afford the rent on her flat, Luca had seen a way to resolve both their problems. He had money, but he needed a wife. Giselle needed money and she had agreed to his marriage deal.

It was as simple as that, and he did not need her to complicate things with messy emotions that he was incapable of reciprocating.

‘The jewellers who sold you my diamond ring have a matching necklace on display in the window.’ Giselle arranged herself on the pillows so that her breasts tilted forward provocatively. ‘It would be nice to have the set.’ She pouted when Luca ignored her attempt to pull him down onto the bed. ‘Why are you getting dressed? It’s the weekend and you don’t have to go to work today, do you?’

Luca forbore from pointing out that he hadn’t built up his successful fashion label at the same time as running De Rossi Enterprises by working weekdays, from nine till five. Twenty-four/seven was nearer the mark. For the past fifteen years he had slogged his guts out to restore the De Rossi brand, but he faced losing everything he had achieved if he did not give in to his grandmother’s outrageous attempt to blackmail him from beyond the grave.

Nonna Violetta had wanted him to marry, and marry he would, Luca thought with a grim smile as he stared down at his bride-to-be. But it would be a sham marriage, a business deal, and the only reason he intended to go through with it was because it would allow him to give Rosalie the special care she needed.

‘I have to go to England,’ he told Giselle as he pulled on his trousers, followed by a shirt and jacket.

The superb tailoring of the suit he had designed himself emphasised his lean, six-feet-plus frame, and the shirt moulded his powerful abdominal muscles.

‘I’ve been invited to a society wedding,’ he said drily.

Giselle’s pout switched from sexy to sulky. ‘You could take me. Who is getting married?’

‘Charles Fairfax is someone I know from school. He’s marrying the sister-in-law of my good friend Sultan Kadir of Zenhab.’

‘You’re friends with a sultan?’ Giselle’s eyes widened. ‘I bet he’s mega-rich. Will I meet him when I’m your wife?’

Not if he could help it, Luca thought to himself. Kadir Al Sulaimar was his closest friend, and would understand his reasons for marrying Giselle. But the truth was that Luca felt uncomfortable about his fake marriage. He was a world-weary cynic, but when he had acted as best man to Kadir at his wedding to his beautiful English wife, Lexi, nine months ago, Luca had witnessed the intense love between the couple and had briefly felt envious of something that he could never have.

‘Who is this sister-in-law of the Sultan that your friend Charles is marrying?’ Giselle flicked through the pages of a gossip magazine that she had brought with her because Luca only kept boring books at the penthouse. ‘Is she a celebrity?’

‘Unlikely.’ Luca had a vivid recollection of Athena Howard’s sapphire-blue eyes, her oval-shaped face, and the determined chin that hinted at a stubborn streak in her nature. In Zenhab he had felt curious because Athena shared no physical resemblance with her sister. Lexi, with her silvery-blond hair and slender figure, had been a breathtakingly beautiful bride, but her sister and chief bridesmaid had faded into the background.

Luca had simply been carrying out his duties as best man when he had stood beside Athena for the wedding photographs and later led her onto the dance floor. She was petite in stature, and the top of her head had only reached his mid-chest. Following Zenhabian tradition she had worn a headscarf during the wedding ceremony, but at the private reception Luca had been surprised to see her long braid of dark brown hair—until she had explained that Lexi was her adoptive sister and they were not related by blood.

A memory slipped into Luca’s mind of the perfume that Athena had worn at the wedding—an evocative fragrance of old-fashioned roses that had stirred his senses as they had walked together in the palace gardens. Stirred rather more than his senses, in actual fact, he recalled ruefully. He could not explain to himself why he had kissed Athena Howard, or why the memory of that brief kiss still lingered in his subconscious.

Giselle’s petulant voice pulled him from his thoughts. ‘Why can’t I come to the wedding with you? Anyone would think you were trying to avoid being seen with me.’

‘That’s not true, cara. But I can’t turn up at a wedding with an uninvited companion.’

The hard gleam in Giselle’s eyes warned Luca that damage limitation was needed. His fiancée had been blessed with beauty at the expense of brains, but she was well aware that his thirty-fifth birthday was two weeks away. He felt a surge of impotent fury that everything that mattered to him lay in the hands of a brainless bimbo. It wasn’t Giselle’s fault, he reminded himself. She was the solution—not the cause of his problems.

‘While I’m away, why don’t you visit the jewellers and buy that diamond necklace?’

He dropped a credit card onto the bed and Giselle snatched it up.

‘I might as well get the matching earrings, too.’

‘Why not?’ Luca murmured drily.

So what if his bride-to-be had an avaricious streak a mile wide? he thought five minutes later, as he walked out of the building and climbed into the chauffeur-driven car waiting to take him to the airport. What were a few diamonds when he would soon have everything he wanted?

Inexplicably, the memory of a pair of sapphire-blue eyes slid into his mind. He gave an indifferent shrug. Later today Athena Howard would become Mrs Charles Fairfax. He had only agreed to attend the wedding as a favour to Kadir.

Luca frowned, thinking of the phone call he’d received from the Sultan of Zenhab.

‘Lexi is upset that we can’t fly to England for her sister’s wedding because the baby is due any day. We’d both be grateful if you would attend the wedding in our place and try and talk to Athena. Lexi is worried that her sister is making a mistake by marring Charles. You and I both know from our schooldays that Charlie Fairfax is a charmless oaf,’ Kadir had reminded Luca. ‘But if Athena seems happy then you won’t need to hang around. However, if you detect that she’s having doubts about the marriage...’

‘What do you expect me to do?’ Luca had demanded.

‘Stop the wedding from going ahead,’ Kadir had replied succinctly. ‘I don’t know how, exactly, but I’m sure you’ll think of something.’

* * *

She did not look so much like a meringue as a cream puff, Athena decided as she studied her reflection in the mirror in her bedroom at Woodley Lodge, the country house of Lord and Lady Fairfax. But it was too late now to wonder why she had allowed herself to be persuaded to choose this crinoline-inspired wedding dress with a skirt so wide that she could be mistaken for the White Cliffs of Dover. The puffed sleeves broadened her top half, while the enormous skirt with its layers of white satin ruffles accentuated her lack of height and made her look dumpy.

‘You’ll be marrying into the aristocracy in front of five hundred guests,’ her mother had reminded Athena when she had tentatively remarked that a simpler style of dress might suit her better. ‘You need a dress that will make you the centre of attention.’

Butterflies performed a clog dance in Athena’s stomach at the prospect of five hundred people looking at her as she walked down the aisle. Please God, she prayed she didn’t do something embarrassing like trip on her long skirt and annoy Charlie.

She hoped he was in a better mood than he had been the previous evening. She had felt awful when she’d spilt red wine on the cream velvet carpet in the sitting room. Lady Fairfax had said that it didn’t matter, although she’d compressed her lips into a thin line, but Charlie had made a fuss and had said she was like a bull in a china shop.

Athena bit her lip. Sometimes Charlie said quite hurtful things—almost as if he didn’t care about her feelings. During the past year that they had been engaged, she had tried her best to be a gracious and elegant hostess at the dinner parties he had asked her to organise. But she would be the first to admit that she was clumsy—especially when she was nervous—and she always seemed to do something wrong that earned Charlie’s criticism.

Heaven knew what he would say when he heard of her latest catastrophe. While inserting the contact lenses she wore because she was short-sighted she had dropped a lens—the last of her disposable lenses as it turned out—down the plughole of the sink, which meant that she would have to wear her glasses to the wedding.

Athena glanced longingly out of the window at the cloudless September sky. It was a beautiful day, and she would love to be outside, but she’d had to spend hours having her hair styled in an elaborate ‘up-do’, which required dozens of hairpins and so much hairspray that her hair felt as rigid as a helmet. And a make-up artist had applied a heavy foundation to her face which made her feel as though she was wearing a mask. Dramatic eye make-up and a cherry-red shade of lipstick certainly made her noticeable.

The person in the mirror did not look like her. Somewhere in all the wedding preparations Athena Howard had turned into someone she didn’t recognise, she thought ruefully.

She tried to reassure herself that the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach was just pre-wedding nerves. But her sense of panic would not go away. Her legs felt as if they had turned to jelly and she sank down onto the edge of the bed.

Why was she about to get married in a four-thousand-pound dress that did not suit her? That amount of money would keep the orphanage she supported in India running for months. She thought of the House of Happy Smiles in Jaipur, which was in desperate need of funds, and wished that instead of paying for an expensive wedding the money could have been donated to the fundraising campaign she had set up for the orphanage. She didn’t want an extravagant wedding—she would have been happier with a small event—but what she wanted didn’t matter.

It was typical of her that she had tried so hard to please everyone—her parents, Lady Fairfax and Charlie—that she had ignored the voice inside her head warning her that she was making a mistake. It had taken a phone call from her sister last night to make her confront her doubts.

‘Do you love Charles Fairfax with all your heart? And does he love you?’ Lexi had asked her. ‘If you can’t say yes to both those questions you should cancel the wedding.’

‘I can’t cancel it!’

The tension Athena had felt during her conversation with her sister gripped her again now. Through the window she could see the huge marquee on the lawn. Dozens of waiters in white jackets were scurrying to and fro, carrying trays of glasses for the champagne reception which was to take place after the four o’clock wedding ceremony at the village church. Later in the evening there would be a banquet for five hundred guests, followed by a firework display.

Charlie had said that three members of the House of Lords who were friends of his father’s were on the guest list, as well as a minor member of the royal family. Calling off the wedding at this late stage was not an option. It was all her parents had talked about for months, and her father, for the first time in Athena’s life, had told her that he was proud of her.

Lexi’s words played in Athena’s head. ‘Do you love Charles Fairfax with all your heart?’

A picture flashed into her mind of Lexi and Kadir on their wedding day. A huge state celebration befitting the Sultan of Zenhab and his bride had been followed by a private ceremony at the palace for close family and friends. The couple’s happiness had been tangible, and the adoration in Kadir’s eyes as he had looked at his wife had been deeply moving.

Charlie had never looked at her like that, Athena thought, unconsciously gnawing on her lip until she tasted blood. His eyes had never blazed with fierce possession, as if she was the most precious person in the world and the absolute love of his life.

She and Charlie had a different relationship from Lexi and Kadir, she told herself. Charlie worked long hours in the City, and it wasn’t his fault he was often tired and tetchy.

Because he stayed at his London flat during the week, and she lived at her parents’ house in Reading, they had only seen each other at weekends since they had got engaged. Either she had stayed at Woodley Lodge when Charlie had visited his parents, or she had gone to his flat in London. But even there they were rarely alone, because his friend Dominic always seemed to be around.

Sometimes Athena gained the impression that she was in the way, and that Charlie would rather go to his club with Dominic than spend time with her.

And then there was the subject of sex—or rather the lack of it. She had never been able to bring herself to tell Charlie what had happened to her when she was eighteen—it was too personal, too shameful, and she never wanted to speak about it. And she had felt relieved when Charlie had said he was happy to wait until they were married before they slept together because he wanted to do things ‘properly’. But lately she had been concerned about the lack of sexual spark between them.

Lexi and Kadir had barely been able to keep their hands off one another at their wedding, she remembered. Lexi had confided that she was sure that her baby, which was due any day now, had been conceived on her wedding night.

Charlie’s kiss lacked a vital ingredient—but Athena would never have known it if Kadir’s best man had not kissed her. She closed her eyes and tried to try to block Luca De Rossi’s handsome face from her mind. But his sculpted features—the slashing cheekbones, aquiline nose and the faintly cynical curve of his mouth—had haunted her subconscious since she had met him in Zenhab.

She had heard of his reputation as a playboy and assumed she would not find any man who thought that women had been put on earth solely for his pleasure appealing. So it had been a shock when one smouldering glance from Luca’s amber-gold eyes had turned her insides to molten liquid. She had never met a man as devastatingly sexy. He had stirred feelings in her that she had not known existed—or perhaps she had simply done a good job of suppressing her sensuality since she was eighteen, she thought ruefully.

She hadn’t expected Luca to kiss her when they had walked together in the palace gardens in the moonlight, and she certainly had not expected that she would respond to the sensual magic of his lips and kiss him back. She had pulled out of his arms after a few seconds, assailed with guilt as she had frantically reminded herself that she was engaged to Charlie. Back in England she had tried to forget about the kiss, but sometimes in her dreams she relived the incandescent pleasure of Luca De Rossi’s lips on hers...

What was she doing? Why was she thinking about a kiss she had shared with a notorious playboy she was never likely to meet again when all her thoughts should be on the man she was set to marry in two hours’ time?

Athena jumped up from the bed and paced up and down the bedroom. Of course one kiss with a notorious playboy nine months ago had meant nothing. But deep down hadn’t it made her realise that there was something missing from her relationship with Charlie? She had ignored her misgivings because the wedding preparations had already been well under way, and by marrying the future Lord Fairfax she had felt she was making up for her parents’ disappointment that she was not the brilliantly academic daughter they had hoped for.

She had convinced herself that she was doing the right thing, but now she felt as though iron bands were crushing her ribs, and she couldn’t breathe properly as her feeling of panic intensified and solidified into a stark truth.

She did not love Charlie with all her heart.

She had been flattered when he had shown an interest in her, and frankly astounded when he had proposed. Her parents had been over the moon that she was going to marry a member of the landed gentry. She remembered that at her engagement party Lexi had warned her that she shouldn’t marry to earn their parents’ approval. She had assured her sister that she loved Charlie, but she had been fooling herself—and probably Lexi, too, Athena thought bleakly.

She took a shuddering breath and ordered herself to calm down. Perhaps if she spoke to Charlie he would be able to reassure her that he loved her and that everything would be all right. It was supposed to be bad luck for the bride to see the groom before the wedding on the day, but she had to see him and be reassured that she was simply suffering from a bad case of nerves.

Charlie’s bedroom was in a private wing of the house. As Athena hurried along the corridor she almost collided with the Fairfaxes’ dour butler, Baines.

‘Master Charles gave strict instructions that he does not want to be disturbed while he is changing into his wedding attire,’ Baines told her in a disapproving tone.

Usually Athena felt intimidated by the butler, but she resisted the urge to slink away back to her room and said coolly, ‘Thank you, Baines, but I must see my future husband.’

The butler looked as though he wanted to argue, but then he nodded his head stiffly and walked away.

She paused outside Charlie’s room and took a deep breath. Just as she was about to knock she heard voices from the other side of the door.

‘This is the last time we can be together for a while. I’m going to have to play the role of devoted husband for the next few months.’

‘I guess so,’ a second voice drawled. ‘It will be unbearable for both of us. You say that Athena wants to try for a child straight away?’

‘Oh, she’s mad keen to have a baby.’ Charlie laughed. ‘She’ll be an ideal brood mare, because to be honest she’s not overly bright or ambitious for a career. I’ll need a few drinks before I bed her, but with any luck she’ll get pregnant quickly and I won’t have to touch her again because all she’ll be concerned about is the sprog—leaving you and I free to carry on where we left off.’

Athena’s hand was shaking so much that she could barely grip the door handle. Had Charlie been joking? Why had he said such horrible things about her to the other person in his bedroom? She recognised the second voice—but it couldn’t be who she thought...

She turned the handle and flung open the door with such force that the heavy oak creaked on its hinges.

‘Athena!’

Charlie’s startled shout reverberated around the room, before fading to leave a deafening silence that was broken by his best man’s amused drawl. ‘Well, that’s let the cat out of the bag.’

‘I don’t understand—’ Athena choked.

But of course she did understand—even though she was ‘not overly bright’. Charlie’s top hat and cravat were scattered across the floor, together with the grey morning suit that he was to wear to the wedding, and he was in bed with his friend Dominic. The best man was also naked—apart from his top hat, which was perched at a jaunty angle on his head.

‘For God’s sake, Athena, what are you doing here?’ Charlie sprang out of bed and hastily thrust his arms into a silk dressing gown.

How ironic that this was the first time she had seen her fiancé’s naked body, Athena thought, swallowing down her hysteria.

‘I needed to talk to you.’ Her earlier doubts about marrying Charlie were nothing compared to the shock she felt now, at seeing him with his best man. ‘Charlie...I...I’ve realised that I can’t marry you. And this...’ her gaze flew to Dominic ‘...this confirms that I was right to have second thoughts.’

‘Don’t be stupid—of course you have to marry me,’ Charlie said sharply as he walked over to her and caught hold of her arm. ‘You can’t back out of the wedding now. My mother would have a fit. And think about how upset your parents would be,’ he added cleverly, going directly for her weak spot. ‘It will be all right, Athena,’ he said, in a more conciliatory tone. ‘Dom and I...’ He shrugged. ‘It means nothing...it’s just a fling.’

‘No, it isn’t. I heard the two of you when I was outside the bedroom. What I don’t understand is why you asked me to marry you when you know you’re—’ she broke off helplessly.

‘Gay,’ Charlie finished for her. He gave a mocking laugh. ‘That’s why I need a wife—to give me an air of respectability. There’s still discrimination against gay men working in the City, and if I came out it would wreck my career. It would also devastate my father if he found out. The shock, so soon after his heart surgery, could finish him off. But if I marry and provide an heir I’ll keep the parents happy and my inheritance safe—coincidentally.’

‘But you can’t live a lie for the rest of your life—and nor can you expect me to,’ Athena said shakily. ‘I realise it will be hard, but you need to be honest about who you are.’

Despite her shock, she felt some sympathy for Charlie’s situation—especially as she knew his father was frail after undergoing a heart bypass operation. But she felt hurt that Charlie had expected her to provide a cover for his true sexual preference.

‘I’m sorry, but I won’t marry you.’

‘You have to.’ Charlie gripped her arm harder to prevent her from leaving the room.

She shook her head. ‘I realised this morning that I don’t love you, and I see now that you have never loved me. Let me go, Charlie.’

‘You need to marry me.’ Desperation crept into his voice. ‘You want children. Who else do you think will want to marry a twenty-five-year-old virgin with a hang-up about sex?’ Charlie said viciously.

Athena paled. ‘Please don’t be nasty, Charlie. Can’t we at least end this as friends?’

His face was mottled red with anger. ‘You silly bitch. If you refuse to marry me you’ll ruin everything.’

She had to get away. From somewhere, Athena found a burst of strength to tear herself out of Charlie’s grasp. As she fled from the room his voice followed her down the corridor.

‘I didn’t mean it. Come back, Athena, and let’s talk. We can work something out.’

She ran into her bedroom and closed the door, leaning back against the wood while her chest heaved as if she had just completed a marathon.

Charlie and Dominic! Why hadn’t she guessed? There had been signs, she realised, but she had simply thought the two men were good friends. No wonder Charlie had said he was happy to wait until they were married before they slept together. He had sensed that she had inhibitions about sex and he had used her—only asked her to marry him so that she would be a smokescreen to hide his relationship with Dominic.

Her stomach churned. What was she going to do? What reason could she give for calling the wedding off, even supposing she found the courage to walk downstairs and face Lord and Lady Fairfax? She would not expose Charlie’s secret relationship with Dominic. He had done an unforgivable thing by trying to trick her into marriage, but it was against her nature to betray him. It was up to Charlie to be honest with his parents about his private life.

Oh, God, what a mess!

She stared at the phone, feeling tempted to call her sister. Lexi would know what to do. But it wouldn’t be fair to worry her when she was so close to giving birth, and Athena knew that her sister would worry about her. Although Lexi now lived far away, in the desert kingdom of Zenhab, the bond between the sisters had grown stronger since Lexi had married Kadir and become utterly confident of his love.

Voices sounded from out in the corridor, and when Athena opened her door a crack she saw her parents emerging from the guest bedroom across the hall. Her father looked elegant, in top hat and tails, and her mother was wearing a spectacular wide-brimmed hat covered in lilac silk roses.

‘Who would have guessed that our daughter will be related by marriage to royalty?’ Veronica Howard said excitedly.

‘Distantly related,’ her husband pointed out. ‘According to the Encyclopedia of Genealogy Lord Fairfax is a seventh cousin twice removed of the royal family. But, yes, Athena has certainly done well.’

Athena quickly closed the door. Tears filled her eyes. She couldn’t bear to disappoint her parents again, as she had done on many occasions—such as when she had failed to get into university. She was the only Howard not to study at Oxford, as her father had said so sadly.

But the alternative was to continue with the wedding and marry Charlie even though she had discovered the truth about him.

There was another option. You could disappear, whispered a voice in her head. It would be cowardly, her conscience argued. But she felt trapped in a truly appalling situation and in her despair all she wanted to do was run away.

She could still hear her parents’ voices out on the landing. Her only escape route was via the window, but her bedroom was on the second floor, overlooking a gravel path at the side of the house. Although the walls of the house were covered in ivy, and the thick, gnarled stems looked strong enough to support her weight...

Without giving herself time to think, she did at least remember to grab her bag, containing her phone and other essentials that she had packed for when she and Charlie flew to their honeymoon in the Seychelles. She wouldn’t need the daring black lace negligee she had bought for her wedding night now, she thought bleakly.

From the window the ground did not look too far away, but when she climbed out onto the windowsill and grabbed hold of the ivy, the drop down to the gravel path seemed terrifyingly distant. It had been a stupid idea, she acknowledged. She froze with fear, unable to haul herself back through the window, but too afraid to climb down the ivy.

Oh, dear God! She looked down and instantly felt dizzy and sick with terror.

‘Let go and I’ll catch you.’

The voice from below was vaguely familiar, but Athena couldn’t place it. She couldn’t do anything but cling to the twisting vines that were beginning to tear under her weight. Suddenly the ivy was ripped away from the wall—and she screamed as she plummeted towards the ground.

CHAPTER TWO

WOLF’S EYES—amber irises flecked with gold and ringed with black—were watching her intently, Athena discovered as her eyelashes fluttered open. She saw heavy brows draw together in a frown above an aquiline nose.

‘Athena.’ The voice was as rich and dark as molasses, and the sexy accent sent a tingle down her spine. ‘You must have fainted. Is that how you came to fall out of the window?’

The concern in the voice penetrated Athena’s hazy thoughts. She blinked, and focused on the darkly masculine face centimetres from hers.

‘Luca?’

She was suddenly aware that his strong arms were holding her. Her mind flashed back to those terrifying minutes when she had clung to the ivy growing on the wall. She remembered the sensation of falling, but nothing more.

‘I caught you when you fell,’ Luca told her—which explained why she wasn’t lying on the gravel path with multiple fractures to her limbs.

The fact that her rescuer was Luca De Rossi was yet another shock to add to a day from which she fully expected to wake up and find had been a nightmare.

He certainly felt real. She became aware that her cheek was resting against his broad chest, and she could make out the shadow of dark hair beneath his white shirt. The spicy sent of his aftershave stirred her senses and reminded her of that moonlit night in the Zenhab palace gardens, his dark head descending as he brushed his lips across hers.

Heat unfurled deep inside her and her face flooded with colour. ‘What are you doing here?’ she mumbled.

‘I’m a wedding guest. I knew Charles Fairfax at Eton and he sent me an invitation.’ Luca frowned. ‘My name must be on the guest list.’

‘I’ve never seen the guest list.’ Tears, partly from the shock of falling, filled Athena’s eyes. ‘Can you believe that? I don’t even know who has been invited to my own wedding.’

Luca had caught Athena before she’d hit the ground, so he knew that she could not be concussed, but she still wasn’t making any sense. He controlled his impatience and set her down on her feet. She swayed unsteadily. Her face was as white as her dress.

The designer in him shuddered as he studied the abomination of a wedding dress. A skirt that wide should theoretically have worked well as a parachute when she’d fallen out of the window, he thought sardonically.

He glanced up at the window ledge and his mouth compressed as he imagined the serious injuries she might have sustained if he hadn’t caught her.

‘It was stupid to stand beside an open window if you were feeling faint.’

‘Stupid’ summed her up, Athena thought bitterly. She remembered how Charlie had described her as ‘not overly bright’ and her insides squirmed with humiliation.

‘I didn’t faint. I climbed out of the window because I need to get away.’ Her voice rose a notch. ‘I can’t marry Charles!’

Over Athena’s shoulder Luca watched a group of waiters struggling to carry a huge ice sculpture of a swan into the marquee. In another part of the garden cages containing white doves were being unloaded from a van, so that they could be released during the reception. The wedding promised to be a circus and the woman in front of him looked like a clown, with a ton of make-up plastered over her face and that ridiculous dress. He barely recognised her as the unassuming, understated Athena Howard he had met in Zenhab.

‘Here.’ He handed her the pair of spectacles that had sailed through the air just before she had landed in his arms.

‘Thank you.’ She put them on and blinked at him owlishly.

‘I don’t remember that you wore glasses in Zenhab.’

‘I usually wear contact lenses, but I’ve been so busy for the last few weeks with the wedding preparations I forgot to order a new supply.’

Athena felt swamped by a familiar sense of failure and inadequacy. It was true that she was forgetful. ‘If only you were not such a daydreamer, Athena,’ had been her parents’ constant complaint when she was growing up. ‘If you stopped writing silly stories and concentrated on your homework your maths results might improve.’

Thinking about her parents made Athena feel worse than ever. She had never been able to live up to their expectations. And then she pictured Charlie and Dominic in bed together and shame cramped in the pit of her stomach that she wasn’t even capable of attracting a man—certainly not a man like Luca De Rossi. The thought slid into her head as she studied his sculpted facial features and exotic olive colouring. He was watching her through heavy-lidded eyes and his lips were curled in a faintly cynical expression that made him seem remote but at the same time devastatingly sexy.

A van with the name of a fireworks company on its sides drove up to the house. She remembered Charlie had said that Lord and Lady Fairfax had spent thousands of pounds on a lavish firework display as a finale for the wedding reception. The sight of the van escalated her feeling of panic.

‘I have to get away,’ she told Luca desperately.

Luca recalled Kadir’s instruction to stop the wedding if Athena had had second thoughts. The fact that she had risked her neck to escape marrying Charlie Fairfax was pretty conclusive evidence that she had changed her mind.

‘I parked my car next to the gamekeeper’s lodge. If we leave now we might get away without anyone noticing.’

Athena hesitated, and glanced up at Charlie’s bedroom window in the far corner of the house. She thought she saw a movement by the window, but it must have been a trick of the light because when she peered through her glasses again there was no one there. She was gripped with indecision. Should she go with Luca, a man she had only met once before but who was a good friend of her brother-in-law? Or should she stay and face the emotional fireworks that were bound to explode when she announced to Lord and Lady Fairfax and her parents that the wedding was off?

‘What are you waiting for?’

Luca’s impatient voice urged her to turn and follow him along the path. Moments later he halted by a futuristic-looking sports car which, despite its long, sleek body, had a tiny, cramped interior.

‘I won’t fit in there,’ Athena said, looking from the car to her voluminous wedding dress.

‘Turn around.’ There was no time for niceties, Luca decided as he lifted the hem of her skirt up to her waist and untied the drawstring waistband of the hooped petticoat beneath her dress.

‘What are you doing?’ Athena gasped when Luca tugged the petticoat down and she felt his hands skim over her thighs.

She blushed at the thought of him seeing the sheer stockings held up by wide bands of lace. He held her hand to help her balance while she stepped out of the petticoat. Without the rigid frame her dress was less cumbersome and she managed to squeeze into the passenger seat. Luca bundled her long skirt around her and slammed the door shut.

Thank heavens she wasn’t wearing her veil, Athena thought, stifling a hysterical laugh that turned to a sob. It was bad enough that the elaborate bun on top of her head was being squashed by the low roof.

Her thoughts scattered when Luca slid behind the wheel and fired the engine. He gave her no time to question her actions as he accelerated down the driveway.

Heaven knew how fast they were travelling. Trees and hedges flashed past as they raced along the narrow country lanes and Athena closed her eyes as she imagined Luca overshooting a bend and catapulting the car into a field.

‘Where do you want to go?’

She did not reply because she had no idea what she was going to do next. Her priority had been to escape from the wedding and she had not planned any further ahead.

‘Do you want me to take you home? Where do you live?’

Luca groped for his patience and the gearstick. Although the skirt of Athena’s wedding dress had deflated without the hooped petticoat, the car was still filled with yards of white satin. Dio, he could do without being landed with a runaway bride when he had enough problems of his own.

The text message he had received from Giselle announcing that she wanted to get married in Venice had left him feeling rattled. He had arranged a civil wedding ceremony at the town hall in Milan. As soon as the legal formalities were done he would get Villa De Rossi and the security he so desperately wanted for his daughter, and Giselle would get a million pounds.

Why did women always have to complicate things? Luca thought irritably. More worryingly, why was Giselle trying to make something of their sham wedding, which as far as he was concerned could never be anything but a business arrangement?

‘I can’t go home. I live with my parents, and I don’t think they will want to see me once they find out what I’ve done,’ Athena said in low voice.

‘Do you have a friend you could stay with for a while? Maybe someone you work with who will help you out?’

She had grown apart from her old friends since she had moved into Charlie’s social circle, Athena realised. And although she had tried to get to know his friends she had never felt accepted by the City bankers and their sophisticated wives.

‘I don’t have a job,’ she admitted.

And without an income she had no means of supporting herself, she thought worriedly. The few hundred pounds in her savings account was not enough for her to be able to rent somewhere to live while she looked for a position as a nursery assistant.

‘If you don’t work, what do you do all day?’ Luca drawled.

He thought of Giselle, whose sole occupation seemed to be shopping. It was funny, but when he had met Athena at Kadir and Lexi’s wedding she hadn’t struck him as one of the vacuous ‘ladies who lunch’ brigade. Actually, she had seemed rather sweet, although she was not his type. He went for blondes with endless legs and a surfeit of sexual confidence—not petite brunettes with eyes big enough to drown in.

He hadn’t planned to kiss her when he had walked with her in the palace gardens during the evening reception at Kadir and Lexi’s wedding. It must have been the effect of the bewitching Zenhabian moon, Luca thought derisively. Athena had given him a shy smile, and for some inexplicable reason he had brushed his mouth across hers.

He had felt her lips tremble and for a crazy moment he had been tempted to deepen the caress, to slide his hand to her nape and crush her rosebud mouth beneath his lips. His arousal had been unexpectedly fierce, and her soft, curvaceous body had sent out an unmistakable siren call. But the sparkle of an engagement ring on her finger had caught his eye and he’d abruptly bade her goodnight before returning to the palace.

Imagination was a funny thing, he brooded. He could almost taste Athena on his lips, and he recognised her perfume—that delicate fragrance of old-fashioned roses that filled the car and teased his senses.

‘Over the past few months I’ve attended courses on French cookery and flower arranging and learning how to be a perfect hostess, so that I could arrange dinner parties for Charlie’s business clients,’ Athena said stiffly. At least she would never have to stuff another mushroom now she was not going to be Charlie’s wife.

She caught her breath when Luca slammed on the brakes as they approached a sharp bend in the road. Coming towards them was a fleet of silver saloon cars decorated with white ribbons—obviously heading for Woodley Lodge to drive the bride and groom and other members of the wedding party to the church.

Her heart juddered. Oh, God! What had she done? Had Charlie broken the news to his parents that the wedding was off and the reason why? What would her parents think when they heard that she had run away?

She remembered her mother’s hat, covered in lilac silk roses, the pride in her father’s voice, and suddenly the dam holding back her emotions burst. Tears poured in an unstoppable stream down her cheeks and she sniffed inelegantly, feeling more wretched than she had ever felt in her life.

‘Here,’ Luca said gruffly, pushing a tissue into her hands.

He had never seen a woman cry so hard before. He was used to crocodile tears when one of his mistresses wanted something. Women seemed to have an amazing ability to turn on the waterworks when it suited them, he thought sardonically. But this was different. Athena was clearly distraught and he felt uncomfortable with her raw emotions.

He reached into the glove box and took out a hip flask. ‘Have a few sips of brandy and you’ll feel better.’

‘I never drink spirits,’ she choked between sobs.

‘Then today seems a good day to start,’ he said drily.

Athena did not like to argue—especially when she glanced at Luca’s hard profile. She took a cautious sip of brandy and felt warmth seep through her veins.

‘You’re probably wondering why I’ve decided not to marry Charlie.’

‘Not particularly. Kadir asked me to make sure you were happy, and if not to stop the wedding. I’m not interested in the reason why you’ve changed your mind.’

‘Kadir asked you to stop the wedding?’

Luca glanced at her, and was relieved to see that the brandy had brought colour back to her cheeks. ‘Lexi was sure you were making a mistake, and Kadir would do anything to prevent his wife from worrying—especially when she’s about to go into labour.’

He had done what he had been asked to do, Luca brooded. But neither Kadir nor Athena seemed to have planned further than halting the wedding. He could not abandon her, but the only place he could think of taking her was back to his hotel. Perhaps she would get a grip on her emotions there and then take herself out of his life so that he could concentrate on his own pre-wedding problems with Giselle.

Athena took another sip of brandy and felt herself relax a little. She had a headache from crying and she closed her eyes, lulled by the motion of the car...

The strident blare of a horn woke her, and she was confused when she saw that they were in a traffic jam. A glance at her watch revealed that she had slept for forty minutes.

Her memory returned with a jolt. She had run away from her wedding—dubbed by society commentators as ‘the wedding of the year’. Luca De Rossi had helped her to escape in his sports car. For some reason the sight of his tanned hands on the steering wheel evoked a quiver in her belly. A picture flashed into her mind of those hands caressing her, his dark olive skin a stark contrast to her pale flesh.

She swallowed. ‘Where are we?’

‘London. Mayfair, to be exact. I’ve brought you to my hotel to give you time to decide what your plans are.’ Luca handed her another tissue. ‘You might want to clean yourself up before we go inside.’

Athena had recognised the name of the exclusive five-star hotel that overlooked Marble Arch and Hyde Park. Her heart sank when she pulled down the car’s sun visor to look in the vanity mirror and saw her face streaked with black mascara and red lipstick smudged across her chin like a garish Halloween mask.

She did her best with the tissue, and when Luca had parked in the underground car park and they’d taken the lift up to the hotel’s opulent reception area, she shot into the ladies’ cloakroom to avoid the curious stares of the other guests, who were clearly intrigued to see a tearful bride.

In one of the private cubicles she ran a sink of hot water and scrubbed the make-up off her face. Her elaborate bun had slipped to one side of her head, and she began the task of removing the dozens of hairpins before brushing her hair to get rid of the coating of hairspray. She gave a start when her phone rang from the depths of her bag, and the sight of her mother’s name on the caller display caused her stomach to knot with tension.

Out in the hotel lobby, Luca tapped his foot on the marble-tiled floor and tried to contain his impatience as he waited for Athena to emerge from the cloakroom. Long experience of women warned him that she might be in there for hours while she reapplied her make-up. While he was waiting he reread the latest text message he had received from Giselle.

I have decided to ask my four young nieces to be bridesmaids at our wedding and I’ve seen the most adorable dresses for them to wear.

The message included a photo of a sickly-sweet child dressed in a shepherdess costume. Luca ground his teeth. Bridesmaids! Giselle was pushing his patience to its limit. And another text revealed that she knew she had the upper hand.

I hope you will be amenable, chéri, because I’m sure I don’t need to remind you that you will be thirty-five in two short weeks.

The warning in Giselle’s second text was clear. Do what I want, or... Or what? Luca thought grimly. It was unlikely that his bimbo bride would give up a million pounds over an argument about bridesmaids, but he dared not risk upsetting her when he was so close to his goal.

His phone rang and he frowned when he saw that the caller was the other thorn in his side: his grandmother’s brother, Executive Vice President of De Rossi Enterprises, Emilio Nervetti.

‘This continued uncertainty about who will head the company is affecting profits.’ Emilio went straight for the jugular. ‘I intend to ask the board to support a vote of no confidence in your leadership. Under the terms of my dear sister Violetta’s will, two weeks from now you stand to lose your position as chairman unless you marry before your birthday—which you show no signs of doing.’

‘On the contrary,’ Luca said curtly. ‘My wedding is arranged for next week—before I turn thirty-five. My marriage will allow me to continue in my role as chairman of De Rossi Enterprises, and after I have been married for one year I will not only secure the chairmanship permanently, but also the deeds to Villa De Rossi, and the right to use the De Rossi name for the fashion label I created.’

For a few seconds an angry silence hummed down the line, before Emilio said coldly, ‘I am sure the board members will be relieved to know that you intend to give up your playboy lifestyle for a life of decency and sobriety. But I’m afraid I cannot be so confident. You inherited your mother’s alley-cat morals, Luca. And God knows what genes you inherited from your father—whoever he was.’

Luca cut the call and swore savagely beneath his breath. His great-uncle’s dig about his parentage was expected, but it still made him seethe. Emilio had only been given a position on the board of De Rossi Enterprises because his sister—Luca’s grandmother—had married Luca’s grandfather. He was the rightful De Rossi heir, Luca thought grimly, even though his grandparents had disapproved of him.

Luca’s grandfather, Aberto De Rossi, had lacked the vision of his father, founder of De Rossi Enterprises, Raimondo De Rossi. But at least Aberto had been a steady figure at the head of the company. With no son to succeed him Aberto had given his daughter Beatriz a prominent position on the board—with disastrous results.

Beatriz had been too busy with her party lifestyle to take an interest in running the company, and her scandalous private life had brought disrepute to the De Rossi brand name and resulted in falling profits.

Eventually Aberto had run out of patience with his daughter and had named his illegitimate grandson as his heir—with the stipulation that Luca could only inherit with his grandmother’s agreement, and only after her death. Aberto had also voiced his reservations about Luca’s decision to study fashion design alongside a business degree.

However, at the age of twenty Luca had presented his first collection at New York Fashion Week and received critical acclaim. The launch of his fashion label, DRD, had restored the De Rossi brand to the prestige it had known under the legendary Raimondo. But, according to the terms of Luca’s grandmother’s will, he faced losing everything. All his hard work and achievements had meant nothing to Nonna Violetta—and he knew why.

He was a bastardo—the product of a brief union between his mother and a croupier she had met in a casino—and in his grandparents’ eyes not a true De Rossi. He had inherited his talent for innovative design from his great-grandfather, but Luca had been a shameful reminder to his grandparents that their only daughter had made the family a laughing stock.

Luca’s jaw clenched. He had done everything he could to win his grandparents’ approval, but it had never been enough to earn their love. And after Aberto had died, Violetta had become increasingly demanding, saying that Luca must marry and provide an heir. Presumably she had believed that an heir from the bastardo De Rossi was better than no heir at all, he thought bitterly.

His grandmother had threatened to use her casting vote with the board to have him replaced as head of the company. And even after her death she still sought to control her grandson by stipulating in her will that he must be married by his thirty-fifth birthday or the Villa De Rossi would be sold to a consortium that was eager to turn the house into a hotel. Luca would also be removed from his role as chairman of De Rossi Enterprises and barred from holding any other position within the company. And, although he owned DRD, he would lose the right to use the De Rossi name for his fashion label.

Luca’s lip curled. Nonna Violetta’s ultimate betrayal had been that threat to ban him from using the name he had been given at birth for his design business. It was a vindictive reminder that he had only been called De Rossi because his mother hadn’t known his father’s surname. Despite everything he had done to restore the fortunes of the company, to his grandparents when they had been alive, and to some of the board members of De Rossi Enterprises, he would always be a bastardo.

Anger burned in his gut, and with it another emotion he did not want to recognise. He had once assumed he had been hurt too often by his grandmother and no longer cared what she thought of him. But when he had heard the details of her will he had felt sick to his stomach.

He did not care so much if he lost control of De Rossi Enterprises, and he could always rename his fashion label—he might even enjoy the challenge of starting again and rebranding his designs, and he only wished he could stand at his grandmother’s grave and laugh at her attempt to manipulate him. But there was one very good reason why he couldn’t. Two reasons, he amended. The first was the Villa De Rossi and the second was his daughter Rosalie, whom he loved and was determined to protect at all costs—even if that cost was his pride.

His phone pinged, heralding another text from Giselle. Dio, he needed to return to Italy so that he could keep his future bride satisfied with sex until she had signed her name on the marriage certificate, Luca thought sardonically.

He glanced across the lobby and saw Athena walk out of the cloakroom. She looked younger without the heavy make-up, and now that her hair was loose he saw that it still fell almost to her waist and was not, in fact, a dull brown, but a warm chestnut shade that shone like raw silk.

As she came towards him he could see that she had been crying again. Behind her glasses her eyes were red-rimmed. He wondered if she was regretting her decision not to marry Charles Fairfax but reminded himself that he did not care.

Her wedding dress was drawing attention from the other hotel guests. He supposed he could take her up to his suite and ply her with the cups of tea that the British seemed to consume in great quantities in times of crisis, but he did not have the time or the patience to listen to her problems when he had enough of his own.

Another text arrived from Giselle. He would have to phone her—but while he did what could he do with Athena?

Luca spotted a waiter who worked in the hotel’s cocktail bar. ‘Miguel, this is Miss Athena Howard. Will you take her into the bar and make her a cocktail?’ He smiled briefly at Athena. ‘I have to make a phone call. I’ll join you in a few minutes.’

To Athena’s relief there were only a few people in the bar, and she was able to hide behind a large potted fern to avoid attracting more curious looks. She knew that one of her first priorities must be to buy some different clothes, but she did not relish the idea of walking along Oxford Street in her wedding dress.

‘Have you decided what you would like to drink?’

‘Um...’ She stared at the cocktail menu. She certainly wasn’t going to ask the waiter for a Sex on the Beach! ‘Can you recommend something fruity and refreshing?’

‘How about an Apple Blossom?’

It sounded innocuous enough. ‘That would be lovely.’

The waiter returned minutes later with a pretty golden-coloured drink decorated with slices of lemon. Athena sipped the cocktail. It tasted of apples and something else that she could not place, and it was warming as it seeped into her bloodstream.

Her mind replayed the phone call from her mother.

Veronica Howard, typically, had not given her daughter an opportunity to speak, but instead had launched into a tirade about how Athena had once again let her parents down.

‘How could you jilt poor Charles, almost at the altar, and run off with an Italian playboy who, I am reliably informed, changes his mistresses as often as other men change their socks? What were you thinking, Athena? Did you even stop to consider how mortified your father and I would feel when Lady Fairfax explained what you had done? Poor Charles is heartbroken.’

‘Wait a minute... Luca isn’t...’ Athena had tried to interrupt her mother. ‘How do you know about Luca?’

What she had meant was how did her mother know that Luca had helped her to run away from the wedding—but, as so often happened with Athena, her words had come out wrong.

‘Charles watched you drive off with this Luca in his flash sports car,’ Veronica had said shrilly. ‘Apparently he’d had suspicions that you were seeing another man behind his back, but he hoped that once you were married you would be happy with him. You can imagine how shattered poor Charles was when he discovered today that you are having an affair with his old school friend.’

‘I’m not having an affair with anyone. It’s Charlie who—’

Athena had been tempted to tell her mother the true reason why she had refused to marry Charlie, but despite the callous way he had used her she had been unable to bring herself to betray his deeply personal secret.

‘You need to persuade Charles to tell his parents the true situation,’ she had told her mother.

‘Actually, I need to go and talk to the photographer from High Society magazine and explain why they can no longer feature a five-page spread of your wedding in their next issue,’ Veronica had said coldly. ‘Your father and I will never live this down,’ she’d snapped as a final rejoinder, before ending the call.

Athena finished her drink and the waiter immediately reappeared with another. She blinked away her tears as she sipped the second cocktail. Her parents—particularly her mother—had never listened to her, she thought miserably.

When she was a child they had ignored her requests to give up the tennis lessons and violin lessons, the ballet classes in which she had been the least graceful dancer—more like an elephant than a swan, as the other girls had taunted her. It hadn’t been until she’d left school, having scraped her exams, with the words ‘Athena is an average student’ written on every school report and emblazoned on her psyche, that her parents had given up their hope that she would show late signs of academic brilliance.

Even when she had qualified as a nursery assistant—a job that she loved—they had kept on at her to reapply for university so that she could at least train to be a teacher. She believed she had been a disappointment to her parents all her life. It was partly for that reason that she had never told them she had been sexually assaulted by her Latin tutor when she was a teenager. She had always wondered if the assault had somehow been her fault, she brooded, as she drained her glass and took a sip of the second cocktail that the waiter had brought over to her—or was it the third?

If she had betrayed Charlie she would have had to admit to her parents the humiliating fact that her ex-fiancé preferred his best man to her. Was she really so unattractive that no man would want her, as Charlie had said? He had accused her of having a hang-up about sex, and the truth was that he was right, Athena acknowledged, swallowing a sob and gulping down the rest of her cocktail.

The waiter must have noticed her empty glass, because he arrived at her table with another drink. She had lost track of how many cocktails she’d had—and actually she didn’t care.

Through the door of the bar she could see Luca De Rossi in the lobby, talking into his phone. He was drop-dead gorgeous, and she noticed every woman who walked past him paused to give him a lingering look. He seemed unaware that he was the centre of attention, but it was more likely that he was used to women staring at him, Athena thought ruefully. A man like Luca would not have to try very hard. One smile from his sensual mouth and most women would melt—like she had in Zenhab.

A memory slipped into her mind of him kissing her when they had been in the palace gardens. She had been watching the water droplets from the fountain sparkle like diamonds in the moonlight, but at the same time had been intensely aware of Luca standing beside her. When he had bent his head and brushed his lips over hers she had responded unthinkingly, beguiled by his simmering sensuality.

Why had he kissed her?

She watched him walk into the bar and stride over to where she was sitting. His charcoal-grey suit was expertly cut to show off his superb physique and his silky black hair was just a fraction too long, curling over his collar. He was dark, devastating, and undoubtedly dangerous—and it suddenly seemed imperative to Athena to find out the reason he had kissed her at her sister’s wedding.

The room spun when she stood up, and the floor seemed strangely lopsided as she walked towards him. She felt oddly brimming with self-assurance—as if all her inhibitions had disappeared. Even Charlie’s cruel taunt that no man would want a twenty-five-year-old virgin no longer hurt. Luca De Rossi, sex god and notorious womaniser, had kissed her once before, and it was possible—likely, even, she decided with a whoosh of confidence—that he wanted to kiss her again.

Perhaps inevitably, she tripped on the hem of her wedding dress, but Luca caught her in his strong arms as she had known he would. He was her hero and her handsome knight, she thought, giving him a beaming smile.

‘I think I might be a bit tipsy,’ she announced, trying to focus on him. ‘Although I don’t know why. All I’ve had to drink are a few lovely cocktails called Apple Bosoms.’ She giggled. ‘Oops, I didn’t mean to say bosom.’

The word had come into her mind because while she had been admiring Luca she’d felt a tingling sensation in her breasts and her nipples had felt hot and hard beneath the stiff bodice of her wedding dress. ‘I meant Apple Blossoms,’ she said carefully, wondering why her tongue felt too big for her mouth. ‘Anyway, the cocktails are made with apple juice.’

‘And calvados and vodka,’ Luca murmured as he attempted to unwind Athena’s arms from around his neck.

At least she had stopped crying, but she had clearly had too much to drink, and her wedding dress was still attracting attention from the hotel guests who had come into the bar.

‘I think I had better take you up to my room and order you some strong coffee,’ he told her, keeping his tone light and hoping he could whisk her out of the bar without her causing a scene.

She swayed, and would have fallen if he had not caught her. ‘Santa Madonna!’ he growled beneath his breath, his patience ebbing away fast. It was obvious that she could not walk, so he did the only thing he could and swept her up into his arms.

‘I think that’s a very good idea,’ Athena said over loudly. ‘Take me upstairs, Luca, and kiss me like you did in Zenhab.’

CHAPTER THREE

IT FELT AS though someone was using a pneumatic drill to bore into her skull. Wincing with pain, Athena forced her eyes open. Without her glasses her vision was blurred, but she was certain she did not recognise the elegant decor of eau-de-Nil walls and dusky blue furnishings.

Her mouth was parched. She carefully turned her head and made out a glass of water on the bedside table.

So she was in a bed. But whose bed?

Random memories came into her mind. Charlie and his best man Dominic in bed together... Her crazy idea to climb out of the window at Woodley Lodge and her terror when the ivy had given away and she had fallen...

Her brother-in-law Kadir’s friend Luca De Rossi had caught her before she’d hit the ground. And Luca had helped her to run away from her wedding—at least he had driven her away in his sports car and brought her to his hotel. She had a vague recollection of being in a hotel bar and Luca saying that he would take her up to his suite and make her coffee.

Which meant that this must be Luca’s room—and she must be...in Luca’s bed!

Another piece of the jigsaw slotted into place. She remembered that Luca had undone the lacing at the back of her dress before lifting the wedding gown over her head. Oh, God! Her face burned as she recalled with excruciating clarity how she had stood in front of him in her underwear and said, ‘Take me, Luca, I’m all yours.’

She thought he’d murmured, ‘Lucky me,’ in a dry tone. But she couldn’t be sure, and after that her memory was blank.

Carefully she turned her head the other way on the pillow and was relieved to find that she was alone in the bed. But the tangled silk sheets seemed to suggest that a lot of activity had taken place between them.

Athena’s heart juddered to a standstill.

Had she? Could she have had sex with Luca and not remember anything about it? He was a notorious womaniser, and she had literally thrown herself at him. Perhaps he had accepted her offer.

In a strange way it would be a relief if she’d lost her virginity without being aware of it, she thought, nibbling her lower lip with her teeth. She had allowed the incident that had happened years ago, with a university professor friend of her parents who had been giving her extra Latin tuition, to affect her for far too long. If she had had sex with Luca it couldn’t have been too traumatic if she had no recollection of it.

She sat up and instantly felt very sick. The sheet slipped down and she saw she was wearing the white push-up bra that was part of the pretty bridal underwear set she had hoped would excite Charlie on their wedding night. Grimacing, she peeped beneath the sheet and discovered that the matching lacy thong was still in place, which suggested that her virginity was also intact.

‘Good morning,’ a gravelly voice said, followed curtly by, ‘Although it beats me if there is anything good about it.’

Athena whipped her head round and instantly regretted moving so quickly as the room and her stomach lurched in unison. Luca was sitting in an armchair close to the bed. He was dressed entirely in black, and his tight-fitting sweater moulded his torso so that she could see the delineation of his powerful abdominal muscles beneath the fine wool.

Lifting her gaze higher, she noted that the night’s growth of dark stubble on his jaw accentuated his raw sexual magnetism. His mouth was curled in an even more cynical expression than usual, and she felt unnerved by the assessing expression in his amber eyes. The fact that he was dressed seemed to indicate that he had not accepted her drunken invitation the previous night, but Athena was desperate for confirmation.

‘If I spent last night in your bed, where did you sleep?’

His black brows snapped together, but his voice was deceptively soft as he drawled, ‘Where do you think I might have spent the night?’

Her jerky glance at the rumpled sheets betrayed her. Luca’s eyes narrowed and he swore. ‘Are you suggesting that I took advantage of you while you were paralytic? Could you be any more insulting?’

She swallowed and rested her aching head against the pillows. ‘I’m sorry...but I don’t remember anything that happened after you brought me to your suite last night...and I need to know if you...if we...’

He moved with the speed of an attacking cobra as he sprang up from the chair and leaned over the bed, placing his hands on either side of her head.

‘You are not in my bed. This hotel suite has two bedrooms. Let’s get a few facts straight,’ he said grimly. ‘Number one—if we’d had sex I guarantee you would remember. Number two—I only make love to women who are conscious and capable of participating. Number three...’ Luca’s wolf’s eyes gleamed with a hard brilliance ‘...I dislike being manipulated, Miss Howard.’

‘What do you mean?’ she asked shakily.

His face was so close to hers that even without her glasses she could almost count his thick black eyelashes. The rigid line of his jaw warned her that his hold on his temper was tenuous. But despite his anger Athena did not feel the wariness that she usually felt with men. Far from it. She hardly dared to breathe as her senses reacted to the warmth emanating from Luca’s body and the intangible scent of his maleness.

Molten heat washed over her entire body and pooled between her thighs. She was painfully aware of the ache in her breasts and her pebble-hard nipples chafing against her lacy bra cups. The intensity of her desire shocked her, yet deep down she felt relieved at this proof that she had normal sexual needs just like any other woman, and that the assault when she was a teenager had not destroyed her sensuality.

She pictured Luca lowering his body onto hers and pinning her to the mattress with his hard thighs. She imagined how it would feel to have her breasts crushed against his chest and her lips crushed beneath his mouth as he kissed her with fierce passion.

The urge to moisten her dry lips with the tip of her tongue was overwhelming. She saw his eyes narrow as he watched the betraying gesture, and she sensed from his sudden stillness that he knew she wanted him to kiss her.

He jerked upright, leaving her confused by her reaction to him and pink cheeked with embarrassment.

‘This is what I mean,’ he said harshly, dropping a pile of newspapers onto the bed.

Athena tried to ignore her pounding headache as she sat upright and peered at the headline on one of the papers. ‘What does it say? I can’t read it without my glasses. Thank you...’ she murmured when Luca shoved her spectacles into her hand.

She put them on and drew a sharp breath as she saw clearly the newspaper headline and the photograph below it of Luca holding her in his arms in the hotel bar. She had her arms wrapped tightly around his neck and a silly grin on her face that in the cold light of day made her want to die of mortification.

‘Bride Jilts Toff for Italian Playboy!’ screamed the headline, followed by a paragraph explaining how The Honourable Charles Fairfax had been left heartbroken after his fiancée Athena Howard had run off with his old school friend from Eton College, famous fashion designer Luca De Rossi, an hour before their lavish wedding was due to take place.

‘Oh, my God,’ Athena said faintly. There were a hundred questions in her mind and she voiced the top one. ‘How did the journalists know you had brought me to your hotel?’

‘Drop the innocent act,’ Luca growled. ‘Obviously you tipped off the press about our location and told them this lie about us having an affair.’

‘No... No, I didn’t!’ she stammered, suddenly realising that behind Luca’s unreadable expression his anger was simmering like a volcano about to erupt. ‘Why would I have done that?’

He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Maybe you had a row with Charlie and wanted to hurt him. You used me as your stooge. I helped you to escape from Woodley Lodge because I believed your helpless “I can’t marry Charlie because I don’t love him” routine, and this is the thanks I get,’ he said savagely as he picked up another newspaper with a similar sensational headline and screwed it up in his fist. ‘I don’t know why you did it. Who understands what goes on in women’s minds?’ Luca muttered.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.