they signed the register, she was introduced to a smiling older woman clad in a lilac suit and hat with diamonds sparkling at her throat.
‘I’m Vito’s mamma, Concetta,’ the attractive brunette told her warmly. ‘I’ve met my grandson. He is beautiful.’
Unsurprisingly, Holly was charmed by such fond appreciation of her son and her anxiety about how Vito’s mother might feel about his sudden marriage dwindled accordingly. Concetta, it seemed, was willing to give her a fighting chance at acceptance. Vito’s friend Apollo, however, could barely hide his hostility towards her and she wondered at it. Didn’t he realise that this marriage was what Vito had wanted? Did he think she had somehow forced his friend into proposing? Holly’s chin came up and her big blue eyes fired with resolution because she was happy to have become Vito’s wife and Angelo’s mother and she had no intention of pretending otherwise.
After some photos taken at the church they moved on to the hotel where the reception was being held. ‘There are so many guests,’ she commented with nervous jerkiness when they climbed out of the limo, an easier exercise than it might have been because Holly’s closely fitted gown did not have a train.
‘My family has a lot of friends but some guests are business acquaintances,’ Vito admitted. ‘You shouldn’t be apprehensive. Invariably wedding guests are well-wishers.’
Apollo’s name was on her lips but she compressed it. She didn’t think much of the Greek for deciding he disliked her, sight unseen. What happened to giving a person a fair chance? But she refused to allow Apollo’s brooding presence to cast a shadow over her day. And although Apollo was supposed to be Vito’s best man, and Pixie the chief and only bridesmaid, Apollo snubbed Pixie as well. Of course, he had brought a partner with him, a fabulously beautiful blonde underwear model with legs that could rival a giraffe’s and little desire to melt into the background.
As was becoming popular, the speeches were staged before the meal was served. Holly’s foster mother, Sylvia, had insisted on saying a few words and they were kind, warming words that Holly very much appreciated. Concetta Zaffari had chosen not to speak and Vito’s father had not been invited to the wedding. When Apollo stood up, Holly stiffened and the most excruciating experience of her life commenced with his speech. In a very amusing way Apollo began to tell the tale of the billionaire banker trapped by the snow and the waitress who had broken down at the foot of the lane. Holly felt humiliated, knowing that everyone who had seen Angelo and worked out her son’s age was now aware that he had been conceived from a one-night stand.
Vito gripped her hand so hard it almost hurt and hissed in her ear, ‘I did not know he was planning to tell our story!’
Holly said nothing. She wasn’t capable of saying anything, meeting Pixie’s compassionate gaze across the circular table, recognising Concetta Zaffari’s compassion on her behalf in her gentle appraisal. She could feel her face getting hotter and hotter and pictured herself resembling a giant blushing tomato and it was a mercy when Apollo had concluded his maliciously polite speech, which had left her pierced by a dozen poisonous darts of condemnation. He had outed her as a slut at the very least and a gold-digger at worst because he had made it sound the most impossible coincidence that her car had gone off the road at that convenient point. But worst of all, he had not uttered a single lie.
‘What a bastard!’ Pixie said roundly when she had contrived to follow Holly into the palatial cloakroom. ‘Vito’s furious! He asked me to come and see that you were all right.’
‘I shouldn’t be ashamed of being a waitress or a woman who fell pregnant after a one-night stand,’ Holly muttered apologetically. ‘But somehow sitting there in front of all those richly dressed, bejewelled people I felt like rubbish.’
Sylvia joined them at that point and put her arms around Holly. ‘That young man’s a rather nasty piece of work,’ she opined ruefully. ‘That was a very inappropriate speech, in the circumstances. Holly...sticks and stones may break your bones but words can never hurt you.’
‘Not true.’ Holly sighed, breathing in deep. ‘But don’t worry about me. I can handle it—’
‘But you shouldn’t have to on your wedding day, as I told your bridegroom,’ Pixie framed angrily.
‘No, no, let it go,’ Holly urged ruefully. ‘I’ve got over it already. I was being oversensitive.’
Her foster mother departed and Pixie said several rather unrepeatable things about Apollo Metraxis before the two women began to make their way back to the function room. And then suddenly Pixie stopped her wheelchair and shot out a hand to yank at Holly’s wrist to urge her into the alcove in the corridor. She held a finger to her lips in the universal silencing motion and Holly frowned, wondering what on earth her friend was playing at.
And then she heard it, Apollo’s unforgettable posh British accent honed by years of public schooling. ‘No, as you know, he wouldn’t listen to me. No DNA test, no pre-nup...get this? He trusts her. No, he’s not an idiot. It’s my bet he’s playing a deeper game with this sham marriage. Maybe planning to go for full custody of his son once he has them in Italy. Vito’s no fool. He simply plays his cards close to his chest.’
Holly turned deathly pale because there was not the smallest doubt that Apollo was talking about her and Angelo and Vito. For a split second she honestly wished she hadn’t eavesdropped and she could see by her friend’s expression that Pixie was now regretting the impulse as well because of what they had overheard. But without a word she planted firm hands on the handles of the wheelchair and moved her friend out of the alcove and back towards the function room.
But Holly was shattered inside and her expressive face was wooden and, after one glance at her, Vito whirled her onto the dance floor and closed his arms round her. Rage with Apollo was still simmering inside Vito like a cauldron. Well aware of his friend’s attitude towards his marriage, Vito blamed himself for still including him in the event. He had naively assumed that, after meeting Holly, Apollo would realise how outrageous his cynical outlook was when it came to her. But his misplaced trust in the Greek billionaire had resulted in his bride’s hurt on what he very well knew she believed should be a happy day. Even worse, he was still recovering from the unprecedented surge of raw protective reaction he had experienced during that speech. Any individual who wounded Holly should be his enemy, certainly not a trusted confidant of many years’ standing.
‘I’m sorry, really sorry about Apollo’s speech,’ he told her in a driven undertone. ‘If I’d had the slightest idea what he was planning to say—’
‘You should’ve kept your mouth shut about how we met,’ Holly told him in an unforgiving tone. ‘If you hadn’t opened your big mouth, he wouldn’t have known—’
‘Holly... I didn’t know that we were going to end up together—’
‘No, that came right out of left field with Angelo, didn’t it?’ Holly agreed in a saccharine-sweet tone he had never heard from her before. ‘Just boy talk, was it? The brunette slapper I pulled at Christmas?’
Dark colour rimming his high cheekbones, Vito gazed down at her with dark eyes blazing like golden flames. ‘Are you seriously saying that you didn’t tell Pixie about us?’
Hoist by her own petard, Holly reddened and compressed her lips.
‘Thought so,’ Vito said with satisfaction and she wanted to slap him very hard indeed. ‘We both spoke out of turn but you have the kinder and wiser friend.’
‘Yes,’ Holly conceded gruffly, tears
