Claimed by the Sicilian

But still, there was always that long-drawn-out moment that seemed to go on forever. The awkward, rather nerve-racking moment when everyone paused and listened and waited…and no one ever spoke.

But everyone wondered just what would happen if someone did.

Of course, no one spoke this time. And Rafe’s uncle beamed with delight and satisfaction as he drew in his breath to continue once again.

‘In that case—’

‘I do!’

The voice came so suddenly and unexpectedly that for a moment Amber was confused. They were the words she was expecting to hear—when she and Rafe made their vows—but not yet, not before they had been asked…

Had Rafe been so nervous, in so much of a rush that he had jumped the gun, plunging in to say the words that everyone knew were coming? Surely not now, not yet. Not without the prompt from the cleric first.

‘Wait…’ she began to whisper.

At least, she opened her mouth to try to say it. But then she realised that the words had come from behind, and not beside her, And there was something dreadful about the stillness that had fallen over the entire church, about the way that there had been one sudden murmur of shock, abruptly choked off and leaving instead an appalled silence that reverberated inside her head like the after-effects of a vicious blow to her skull.

‘I do,’ the voice said again and there was no mistaking it this time. This time she caught the soft lilt of a musical accent that should have made the words sound beautiful, soft, enticing.

Instead they made her shiver with the ice-cold, soul-deep dread that came with recognition of that voice. The voice she had once loved to hear whisper her name or tease her softly.

The voice that could only belong to one man and he was the man she hoped she would never meet again. The man she most dreaded seeing in the entire world.

‘What—?’ Rafe seemed to have jolted out of his inexplicable trance, some of the tension leaving his body as he jerked his head around to see who had spoken. ‘What are you—?’

But the man behind them didn’t let him finish. Instead he interrupted Rafe, lifting his voice slightly and speaking in a harsh and dangerous tone that defied anyone to try to stop him.

‘I do,’ he said again, just to emphasise the fact. ‘I know of a reason why these two should not be joined together in holy matrimony. Don’t I, Amber?’

And it was that use of her name, the icy cruelty in it, the savage edge to the syllables that turned it into an accusation, a warning and a threat all in one that left her with no place to go; nowhere to hide. The only thing she could do was to face her tormentor head-on.

Look him straight in the face.

It took all the strength she possessed. Trembling, shivering, nausea churning deep in her stomach, she forced herself to turn, green eyes blurring badly as she tried to focus them on him.

He was bigger than she remembered. Bigger and darker and far, far more devastating.

Or was that just the way that he seemed to be in contrast to the mellow stone and wood of the interior of the church, the pale colours of the flowers? He was dressed in superbly tailored black from head to foot, shirt, jacket, trousers, black boots on the feet that were planted so firmly on the stone flags that lined the aisle. With his jet-black hair and gleaming bronze eyes he looked like nothing so much as the devil himself come to earth—and come to torment her.

‘Amber?’ he prompted harshly when she could only stand and stare, eyes wide, her trembling hands half-raised towards her mouth, not having the strength to complete the move.

The whole congregation had frozen too. Her mother, Rafe’s family, every one of the wedding guests was sitting completely still in their seats, goggle-eyed at the scene unfolding before them.

Suddenly there was an unexpected flurry of movement to one side, distracting Amber and drawing her gaze for a second. A friend of Rafe’s family, Emily Lawton, recently widowed and five months pregnant, had collapsed in a faint, sliding limply down from the pew to land on the stone floor.

But someone was already there to help her, and Amber’s own impulsive movement was stilled by the way that Guido took a couple of steps towards her, slow but firm, ominously unstoppable. The sound of his heels echoing on the stone, the way he held his head, the arrogant straightness of his long spine gave the movement a confident swagger that declared to everyone around that he was the one who was in control here—and he intended to stay that way.

‘Do you know this man?’ Rafe had found his voice.

‘No!’

The panicked lie was stupid; she knew that as she saw the way that Guido’s burning eyes narrowed sharply, the way that his head lifted even higher until it seemed that he was looking down his long, straight nose at her, pure contempt icing over his stunning features. And as it did, a sliver of that ice seemed to have formed at the nape of her neck, slithering its way down her trembling spine, chilling her skin as it went.

‘Forgotten me already, cara?’ he enquired with cruel silkiness. ‘But then, I suppose that must be the case or I wouldn’t find you here…’

That freezing gaze flicked from her ashen face to the altar, the waiting priest and back again.

‘With him…’

This time the golden eyes acknowledged Rafe, standing at her side, but only for the briefest of seconds. Then they were fixed again on her face; holding her still in a way that made her feel like a butterfly pinned underneath a powerful microscope.

‘Under these circumstances.’

To Amber’s stunned bewilderment, a smile played over his sensual mouth. But it was a cruel smile, a torturer’s smile. The smile that might appear on the face of a tiger just before it pounced to deliver the final death blow.

‘Who the hell are you?’

Rafe’s voice was belligerent and he made a move as if to take a step then obviously thought the better of it, stilling instead to remain at her side, the tension radiating from his long body.

The tiger’s smile grew, became positively wicked.

‘Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Guido Corsentino.’

Something in the name made Rafe take in a sharp breath. But he recovered almost immediately.

‘And what have you to do with my wife?’

‘Ah…but you see, she’s really not your wife. Not yet.’

Guido actually appeared to look as if it mattered. He even let an expression that might have been regret drift across his face. But Amber knew that regret was the last thing on his mind. As was care for anyone else’s feelings in this matter. He’d come here to create chaos and misery and was set on doing just that, not letting anyone get in his way.

‘And I’m afraid she’s not likely to be at any time in the near future.’

‘And why is that?’

Amber’s throat had closed so tight that she found it impossible to draw a breath with any ease. He couldn’t do this to her—he just couldn’t! Did he really hate her so much that he would hunt her down after all this time, just to destroy her one chance of happiness?

No! Please don’t do this!

The words formed on her lips but she couldn’t find the strength to give them any power and the thin thread of sound was absorbed by the concealing veil, no one even noticing that she had spoken. But her eyes locked with his, silently pleading with him, begging him to stop this now. To leave her alone and stop tormenting her. He’d had his fun—if that was what this cruel, sadistic game was to him—surely now he would go and leave them in peace?

He had to go. And it had to be a game. He hadn’t wanted her in the past, when she would have lain down on the ground and let him walk all over her if it would have made him happy. But he’d made it plain that she meant nothing to him. So there was no reason at all why he should want her now. Except to cause trouble for her.

But it was painfully obvious that leaving was not what Guido had in mind.

‘Why can’t Amber ever become your wife?’ he echoed the question sharply as if he simply couldn’t understand why it had been asked.

The rich tones of his Italian accent had never sounded so strongly in Amber’s ears, an accent that should have made his words sound soft and musical. Instead, it had exactly the opposite effect, making her freeze like some small, terrified animal facing an angry king cobra and just waiting for it to strike. She could only close her eyes and wait for the sting of his poison.

‘Well, that is quite simple, really. She isn’t in any position to be married—to anyone. You see, she already is married to me. That’s right…’ he added as he saw Rafe’s disbelieving start, the way the other man’s pale eyes went to the woman beside him, then back to his tormentor’s dark, set face. ‘Amber is married already. She happens to be my wife.’

CHAPTER TWO

IT HAD every bit of the effect he had wanted.

When he had thought about the moment when, after twelve long months of separation, he would finally confront the woman who had once been his wife—who was still his wife—he had known that he wanted it to really hit home to her. He had wanted her to be as stunned and shocked as he had been the day that she had walked out of his life to be with another man, leaving behind only a note that declared that she didn’t love him any more.

That she had never loved him. Could never have loved a man like him.

That she had only married him in a moment of wild lunacy. An act she had regretted from the moment he had put the ring on her finger.

And now that he saw the type of man she really wanted to marry, he could understand why. The tall Englishman was exactly the sort of husband who would appeal to Amber Wellesley—Amber Corsentino’s—ingrained personal snobbery. With his pale skin, blond hair, blue eyes and narrow features, Rafe St Clair looked the sort of upper-class minor aristocrat who could give her the name and the status she had always craved. The name and the status that didn’t come from marriage to a man who, together with his brother, had dragged himself up from the gutters of Siracusa, a man who didn’t even know whose blood ran in his veins. It definitely wasn’t the blue blood Amber had been looking for.

If he had thought that his very first words had created a silence, then it was like nothing when compared to the freezing stillness that had descended now. It was almost as if somehow the air inside the little church had frozen and no one dared move for fear of splintering it into a million irreparable shards. The only sound at all was the slight bang of the door as it fell shut behind the pregnant woman who had fainted and the two women who had helped her outside, probably cursing the fact that they were missing all the drama and the scandal.

‘How can Amber be your wife?’

The crisp, clipped sound of Rafe St Clair’s voice fitted perfectly too. That plum-in-the-mouth tone that always sounded as if the speaker was looking down his nose at the same time.

‘In the same way that she planned to become yours—she married me.’

‘That isn’t true!’

It was Amber’s voice that broke into his, her fearful tones echoing around the high roof of the church as she protested.

‘I didn’t…’

The Englishman looked down at the woman at his side, then back into Guido’s face, and there was the flash of something inexplicable in his blue eyes.

‘You’re not married to him?’

He didn’t seem to expect an answer, which was just as well, as Amber was clearly incapable of managing anything more. But he nodded and turned his attention back to the priest, who was standing uncertainly to one side, obviously not knowing how to react.

‘The marriage will go ahead,’ he instructed. ‘Amber…’

‘Do you want to be arrested for bigamy?’ Guido flung the words at the bride, aiming them right at the huge, wide green eyes that were all he could see behind the concealing veil. Eyes that had once looked into his when she had declared that she loved him, that there was no other man in the world for her. ‘Because that’s what will happen if you go ahead. You cannot marry this man—you are married to me.’

‘It wasn’t legal!’ It was a cry of despair as she saw her chance of marrying into the aristocracy disappear down the drain, Guido thought cynically. ‘It wasn’t even a real marriage!’

The silence that swelled around her words was shocking. It swirled and ebbed, like some terrible sea wave that threatened to take everything with it; swallow everything; drown everything.

Then:

‘Amber!’

Even behind the veil, it was possible to see how Amber’s face had lost every last trace of colour as her would-be groom turned shocked and stunned eyes on her, the tone of total disgust in which he said her name revealing how she had given herself away.

‘I thought you said you didn’t know this man but now…Is it true about this marriage?’

‘And the rest?’ This time the reproach came from a member of the congregation, a tall man whose narrow face and balding head made him an older version of the groom.

‘Were you planning to trap my son into a bigamous marriage?’ The revulsion in that word was plain; as was the black fury, the total rejection of her.

‘I…’

Guido actually felt a twist of pity as he saw how she struggled for an answer; the way that her mouth opened and closed but no sound would come. But then her head went up, her green eyes flashed behind the lace and she fell back on the excuse she had given the first time.

‘It wasn’t a real marriage!’

Fiercely she directed a furious glare down the aisle at Guido. A glare so laser-hot that for a moment he almost believed it should have seared his skin, reduced that delicate veil to ashes as it burned through it.

‘You have to believe me—you wouldn’t think that I’d really marry someone like him?’

Every trace of that unexpected impulse to pity disappeared in a flash, shrivelled in the heat of her scorn, the blaze of her pride. And in its place was left an icy sense of loathing that blazed cold in his heart, turning pity to revulsion in the blink of an eye.

With deliberate slowness, his movements under the most rigid control, he reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and pulled out a folded sheet of white paper. He could feel the entire congregation watching, transfixed, held totally by what he was doing.

A flick of his hand shook open the folds, revealing an official form, a document bearing names and a date—his name—her name—and the date twelve months earlier on which they had been married.

‘Looks real enough to me,’ he drawled silkily, holding it up so that everyone could see. ‘Let me…’

Rafe St Clair took a step forward, snatched the document from his hand, stared at it intently. His face was already pale with anger, but the way he compressed his mouth even more tightly etched further white lines around his nose and lips.

‘Amber Christina Wellesley. Guido Ignazio Corsentino…’

His voice died, the paper crushed in his hand for a second before he flung it into Amber’s face.

‘You liar!’

‘Rafe…’

But her protest was ignored.

‘This wedding is cancelled,’ Rafe declared. ‘I wish you joy of your wife, Corsentino.’

‘Rafe!’ Amber tried again as he turned away. Unable to believe what was happening, the way that her life had been turned inside out, destroyed in the space of a few moments, she reached for his hand, wanting to stop him, make him stay. ‘Rafe, please!’

But even before she had the chance to wrap her fingers around his, he was pulling away, flinging her from him as if he felt contaminated just by her touch. She had never seen his normally gentle-looking face harden into such antipathy. Her friend Rafe had disappeared and in his place was a total stranger.

‘I want nothing to do with you! You disgust me—you little whore!’

‘No!’

To Amber’s astonishment, it was Guido who came to her defence, his voice harsh with fury, stepping forward, coming between her and the other man. She couldn’t see what was on his face, in his eyes, but she saw Rafe’s reaction to it, the way that he flinched, his head lowering, then backed away, moving hurriedly down the aisle. And as he went, his family got up too and followed him out.

The surprising kindness, protected by the last person on earth she might have expected to come to her aid, was the final straw. It took all her strength from her, weakened her legs so that they shook beneath her, unable to support her any longer.

With a low moan of despair she sank down on the steps of the altar and buried her face in her hands. Drained of all energy, she felt too flattened to think, too lost even to cry. She just retreated into the concealing, comforting darkness and hid there, letting her mind go blank until she found the courage to think again.

Vaguely she registered the sound of movements, the shuffle of bodies that she supposed must mean that the people in the congregation—the family and friends who had all come to see her married to Rafe—were now getting up and leaving. Footsteps made their way down the stone flagged aisle, the door creaked on its hinges, banged shut a few times, and then, slowly, gradually, every sound died away and she was left…

Alone?

Had everyone gone? Had every single person in the church walked out and left her here, by herself? Was she alone with her thoughts and nothing else?

Or was there someone there?

Was someone standing there in silence, not saying a word, just watching her? Seeing her in the depths of despair, struggling to cope with the way that her life had been shattered and now lay in tiny pieces around her feet?

Amber didn’t really know which of the two prospects was worse. At this moment, she’d probably choose the latter because she didn’t think she had the strength to cope with anyone. She knew that eventually she was going to have to look up, get up, and try very hard to pick up what little was left of her life. But right now, with her whole body trembling with the aftershocks from the emotional earthquake that had blasted through her, she just wanted a little while longer to stay here like this, to hide, to…

‘Are you going to hide away like that for ever?’

The voice that broke into her protected world echoed her own thoughts so closely that for a moment she almost believed that she had asked the question of herself inside the privacy of her mind. But then reality registered in the fact that the tones in which the question had been asked were unmistakably masculine-and her heart twisted in shock at the realisation that they had also been shaded by a musical, sexy Italian accent.

Guido?

Was he still there? Was he the one who had stayed? Was it possible?

She would have expected that, having marched in here and set her world upside down, he had earned whatever satisfaction he had come for—the revenge he had wanted for the way she had walked out on him and their marriage.

The marriage that hadn’t been a marriage.

The marriage that she had always believed hadn’t been a marriage, but a farce, a deliberate ploy to use her, from start to finish. Which now Guido had openly declared before all these people…

‘Well?’

It was harsher now, pushing at her, poking her mentally, driving her out of her cocoon, so that she dropped her concealing hand, flung her head up, turning on him with as much defiance as she could muster.

‘I’m not hiding!’

‘Looks like it to me,’ Guido drawled mockingly. ‘You have every appearance of a little girl hiding in a corner, away from something nasty—with an “if I do not see it then it isn’t there and maybe if I am really lucky it will just go away” approach to life.’

‘Well, if that’s the case, then it’s not working, is it?’ Amber tossed at him, where he was lounging against the front of the very first pew, narrow hips resting on the polished wood, long legs stretched out at an angle. ‘I’ve opened my eyes and the “something nasty” is very definitely still here.’

‘And has no intention of going away either,’ he finished for her, apparently unmoved by the furious insult that had just bounced off a skin that was thick as a rhinoceros hide.

He even smiled, though it was the smile of a killer snake. That dangerous king cobra was back, just waiting, just wanting her to tempt him to strike.

No—the description of a snake didn’t fit Guido. The dark, lean, dangerous man who was lounging so indolently against the end of the pew was more like a lazily watchful hunting tiger, waiting for just the right moment to pounce.

Oh, dear…

Suddenly even her own thoughts struck Amber as ridiculous. She was getting confused, getting her creatures muddled up. An impossible shudder of laughter bubbled up in her throat.

‘Amber?’

Guido’s voice sounded as if it came from a long, long way away. Had he moved? Was he leaving like all the others?

She should care more. After all, even her own mother had walked out on her, unable to bear the embarrassment of the way that the marriage had been brought to an abrupt halt; the embarrassment of finding that her daughter was already married.

‘Amber, stop it!’

He’d definitely moved this time. His voice came from just above her and she could sense his presence in every cell in her body. Black-booted feet were set firmly on the stone flags just in front of her—she could see them through the strangely clinging veil—and the long black-clad columns of his legs, strong and muscular…

‘Stop what? I just think it’s so—funny!’

Her voice went up and down as if it were on a badly tuned radio, with the reception coming and going crazily.

‘No, it’s not!’

Hard hands clamped around her arms, hauling her to her feet—hauling her up against him so that her breath escaped her in a gasping rush.

‘Yes, it is…Here I was—about to be married—and you turn up like…like three kinds of animal…’

‘Three kinds of animal?’ She’d confused him there. He was frowning down into her face, even his excellent English unable to cope with her fanciful imagination. ‘Amber—stop crying and then we—’

Crying? What was he talking about? She wasn’t crying; she was laughing.

‘I’m not crying…’

She caught the sceptical look he turned on her, his bronze eyes even darker than usual.

‘I’m not!’

‘No?’

Releasing one arm, he touched the back of his free hand to her neck and then slightly above that, to her chin, taking it away and looking hard at it before turning it so that she could see his bent knuckles.

They were wet, glistening with moisture that they had picked up from her skin. From the tears that she hadn’t been aware of shedding and that were now, she realised, streaming silently down her cheeks and flowing onto her neck. That was why her veil felt as if it was crammed against her cheeks, almost glued to her skin.

Unnerved, she brushed at it with a trembling hand but only succeeded in pressing it even closer to her eyelashes.

‘Let me…’ Guido said but she was unable to stop herself from flinching back as he made to lift the fine lace.

‘No…’

‘Dannazione, Amber!’ Guido swore. ‘How can we talk when I can’t even see your face with this thing in the way?’

‘I don’t want to talk—we have nothing to talk about! Today was the day I was supposed to be married to the man I wanted to wed—and you turn up and tell me I’m still married to you. To the man I most don’t want to be married to in the world. To the man I never thought I was married to in the first place!’

‘The man you are married to!’

It was only when she heard him confirm her fears that she finally realised she had to accept it. Even now, she admitted to herself, she had been holding on to a tiny, faint hope that this had all been a terrible mistake—a cruel, bitter game. She knew she had left Guido savagely angry, furious at the way she had walked out on him, and she frankly wasn’t surprised that he wanted revenge for the insults she had tossed at him both verbally and in the letter she’d left behind.