He droned on, Sophia hating the sentimental words, hating the way Jonathon was holding her still, hating Jonathon. It should have been Godfrey standing beside her, not this cold, heartless individual. Godfrey, with his love of everything fine and gentle and romantic. He’d taught her so much, about music and poetry and literature and art, shown her a world she hadn’t known existed, a world he’d always loved but had been denied him most of his life.
Not that Sophia had known about Godfrey’s background prior to his falling ill. She hadn’t gleaned much about his past life even then, from either Godfrey or Jonathon or Mrs Parnell, who was so upset by her son’s advanced cancer that she was incoherent most of the time.
Wilma had finally filled in the missing pieces for her: how Henry Parnell’s first-born son had not taken after his father at all, inheriting instead his mother’s softer nature, as well as her appreciation of culture and gentility. As an adolescent, Godfrey had yearned to become first a dancer, then a painter, only to have both his ambitions scorned as effeminate by his domineering father.
Godfrey, as the elder son, was supposed to follow in his father’s footsteps in the family property development business, but he’d hated the ruthless cut and thrust of the real estate world from the start. Not that he hadn’t tried to conform to his autocratic father’s wishes. He had, even to marrying the daughter of another wealthy property tycoon, though his failure to sire an heir had only added to his general sense of inadequacy.
When he’d deserted the family company and his unhappy marriage shortly after his father’s death of a heart attack, no one had been seriously surprised. Neither had anyone been surprised when Jonathon had slipped into his father’s shoes to make Parnell Property Developments more successful than ever. He was the spitting image of his father in looks, business acumen and ambition.
While the family business had benefited by Godfrey’s defection, his mother hadn’t. Ivy had become ill with worry over wondering where Godfrey was and what he was doing. His only communication had been a letter with a Sydney postmark which he’d sent shortly after he left, saying he was all right but that he had to live his own life and not to worry about him.
Jonathon had tried to trace his whereabouts but could never find him, not knowing that Godfrey had changed his surname to Jones and was living in a rundown farmhouse just outside the old mining town of Lithgow, over a hundred miles from Sydney.
Any happiness and relief Ivy had felt when Godfrey had finally contacted his family had been superseded by her devastation at his illness and subsequent death. Sophia took some comfort from the fact that in five months’ time she would be able to put Godfrey’s child in Ivy’s arms. Maybe then the woman would come really alive again.
An elbow jabbing into her ribs jolted Sophia back to reality.
‘Say “I will,”’ Jonathon hissed into her ear.
‘I…I w-will,’ Sophia stammered, to her mortification.
‘God,’ came the low mutter from beside her.
Jonathon bit out his ‘I will’ as if he were giving a guilty verdict for murder. When the celebrant pronounced them ‘as one’ in a flowery way, followed by a sickening smirk and a ‘you may kiss your bride’, Sophia darted Jonathon an anxious look.
She didn’t want him to kiss her but she couldn’t really see how they could avoid it. Everyone else knew their marriage was a sham, but the celebrant didn’t. Jonathon looked just as reluctant to oblige, but, seeing perhaps that he had no alternative, he took Sophia firmly by the shoulders, turned her his way and bent his head.
Sophia steeled herself for the cold imprint of his mouth on hers, so she was somewhat startled to find that the firm lips pressing down on hers were quite warm. Her eyelashes fluttered nervously, her mouth quivering tremulously beneath his. His mouth lifted, and for a second he stared down into her surprised face. Something glittered in that cold blue gaze.
Then he did something that really shocked her.
He kissed her again.
SOPHIA’S first response was a bitter resentment. Who did he think he was, forcing another kiss on her when he knew she hadn’t wanted him to kiss her at all?
But as those determined lips moved over hers a second time, Sophia’s resentment was shattered by an astonishing discovery. Jonathon’s mouth on hers was not an entirely unpleasant experience.
Of course, I’m not really enjoying it, she kept telling herself for several totally bewildering seconds.
When Jonathon made no move to end the kiss, the pressure of his mouth increasing, if anything, Sophia began to panic. What must the others be thinking? The grip on her shoulders increased as well, his fingers digging into her flesh. When Sophia felt his tongue demanding entry between her lips, she gasped and reefed her head backwards.
Her eyes, which had closed at some stage, flew open, flashing outrage. But Jonathon was already turning away to shake the celebrant’s hand.
‘I never tire of seeing couples genuinely in love,’ the man said, pumping Jonathon’s hand. ‘But if you don’t mind, Mr Parnell, could we sign the appropriate documents straight away? I really must dash.’
Jonathon turned back to Sophia then, his eyes and demeanour as unflappable as ever, while her face was burning up, her heart still beating madly in her chest. How dared he presume to kiss her like that?
Not that she didn’t know what lay behind it. Frustration. He was frustrated with the situation his deathbed promise to Godfrey had put him in. A kiss, Sophia imagined, could be an expression of anger as well as love—both emotions capable of evoking a fiery passion.
It just showed what kind of man Jonathon was. Nothing like Godfrey at all! Godfrey would never have kissed her out of anger or frustration. Why, Godfrey hadn’t even kissed her at all till that fateful night. Even then, she’d been the one to initiate the first kiss. Not that he hadn’t kissed her back quickly enough, cupping her cheeks and covering her face with beautiful, gentle kisses.
Her eyes misted with the memory of the sweet pleasure they had evoked, of how they had fulfilled all those wonderfully romantic dreams she’d been harbouring about Godfrey for such a long time.
‘Sophia.’
The impatient calling of her name snapped her out of her daydreaming, as did those harsh blue eyes glowering at her blurred vision.
‘W-what?’
‘Good God,’ Jonathon muttered darkly.
‘You have to sign the marriage certificate, Mrs Parnell,’ said a gentler male voice beside her. ‘It’s all set up in Jonathon’s study.’
She glanced over her shoulder up at Harvey Taylor’s smoothly urbane face. In his mid-thirties, Harvey was as fair as Jonathon was dark. Apparently, he had inherited control of Taylor and Sons—Solicitors, around the same time Jonathon took charge of Parnell Properties. He and Jonathon had gone to school together, both of them excelling in their studies. But he possessed none of Jonathon’s hard-edged strength, either in his face or his nature. He was a charming man,
