A Bride Worth Millions

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?