blow to the heart. Without food—she hadn’t been able to eat a bite of breakfast—she felt dizzy and disoriented, caught up in a scenario Angel might well have written. I can’t do this to myself. I can’t do this to Colin, Genni agonised. He mightn’t adore the ground I walk on but he deserves better than a wife who doesn’t love him.
She started violently when Blaine suddenly reached over and caught her hand. “God, Genni. You’d think you were a winter bride. Your hands are freezing.” He began to rub them, warming them in no time because her blood caught fire. “Angel took me to task back at the house. She told me a truth about myself I had to hear. I haven’t been terribly kind to you of late, have I? As your mother put it, I haven’t shown you much tenderness.”
The admission nearly annihilated her. There was such a sparkle of tears behind her eyelids. “I haven’t been very nice, either,” she whispered. “The strange thing is, I don’t have a temper with anyone else but you. You make me fly apart.”
“That much, cherub, is obvious,” he said dryly. “I know I’m too high-handed, too dismissive of what seems to me frivolous stuff. You have to make allowances for me. The thing is, Genni, I’m committed to something really important. Your happiness. No, don’t shrink away from me,” he begged as she leaned back and shut her eyes so aware of him she felt he was invading her. Body and soul. “I know you, Genni. I used to know you, anyway,” he added wryly, with that irresistible sparkle in his beautiful eyes she so loved. “Just tell me once more—the last time, I promise—tell me you love Colin. That your dearest wish is to marry him?”
Such was her emotional state Genni had difficulty remembering Colin’s face. “Please, Blaine, can you stop asking me?”
“No.” He shook his dark head. “If you’re frightened you must go through with this, just tell me. I’ll take care of everything,” he told her with that hard masculine authority. “It’ll be a nine-day wonder but there will be life after.”
Will there? Genni’s thoughts went back to Sally Fenwick. “Hilary told me you and Sally are coming around to setting your own wedding date?” Once more she averted her head, looking sightlessly out the window.
Blaine turned her head back to him, loving and hating the sight of her in her glorious wedding dress. “Is that what Hilary said to you last night?” he demanded, his tanned skin lit by anger.
“She might have.” Genni, too, was flushed; upset enough to jump out of the car. “Please, Blaine, don’t torment me. It would mean everything to me if you could respect how I feel.”
“When your heart is racing? When I can gauge what you feel through my palm?” His laugh was low and savage. “If it weren’t so goddam lunatic I’d believe you’re trying to get back at me for kissing you. There’s no one, but no one like you for doing that.”
“Then why did you?” Her breath trembled in her throat. “It shocked me so much I nearly fainted.”
“I remember,” he reminded her bitterly. “I was there.”
“Why, Blaine?” She stared at him with her violet eyes, the urge to know consuming her. “You changed everything in a few moments.” The power and the cruelty of the man!
“Did I?” He put his hands to either side of her, making her a prisoner. “You think about that, Genni. With my mouth on yours it didn’t feel like you didn’t want it.”
Overwhelmed, she looked down. “And you betrayed Sally!”
He made a sound of complete exasperation. “Don’t be so damned silly. Sally is a friend. A good friend, but she’s not a woman I’d dream about. I’ve never cared about anyone like I care about you.”
“Yes, as your little pet. Not a grown-up woman.”
“We’re not back to that again, are we?”
He drew away from her, his luminous eyes pure silver.
“Not ever. You’ve got some idea I can’t live without you. But I’ve got news for you.” Her words shrilled and trembled so, she was grateful for the glass panel that separated them from the chauffeur. “I’m going to marry Colin.” Even as she said it she despised herself.
“And make a mess of your life?”
“You’re so nasty, so…caustic…”
“Sad to say I am, just as you’re so provocative. You know the dark depths in me, Genevieve. You’re as used to my outbursts as I am to yours. I don’t know about the chauffeur, if he can hear us. I haven’t handled you particularly well of recent times. For that I genuinely apologise. It has all come out so badly because I couldn’t seem to reach you. You were dead set on defying me at every turn. In fact you gave me hell.”
There was truth at the heart of it. She could see it clearly now. “Don’t. I love you,” she admitted passionately. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Am I making any sense at all?”
“I’m afraid not.” His answer was crisp. “You’re not happy. That’s obvious. You need a man who can set you alight. Do you think I haven’t seen you incandescent? Women are such strange creatures. I’ll never understand them.” He said it like it might have been a curse.
Forlornly, Genevieve touched the exquisitely decorated bodice of her wedding gown. “Why did you never tell me you were paying for all this?”
He closed his eyes against the surge of hot anger. “I wish to God your mother could keep her mouth shut.”
“I feel seared by shame.”
“How ridiculous!” He sounded thoroughly stirred up. “You’re family.” God, that’s wrong. For a moment he couldn’t speak. Then as he glanced out the window he was shocked to see they had arrived at the church. Media photographers were in attendance, standing slightly apart from the crowd of onlookers that had gathered to see a bride well known to them through the social pages.
The bronze-polished skin on Blaine’s face was stretched taut. “I’m not the kindest person in the world, Genni, but I’m here for you.” His expression suggested only one word. Action. “Unless you’re going happily into this, it would be better, far better, to stop it now.”
For a moment hope glimmered, then she heard the oohs and aahs of the crowd. “For God’s sake, Blaine, I’d be a social outcast. Help me to go through with it.”
“Are you crazy?” He could crush her to him with one arm. Drag her away.
“Yes.” She was finished and she knew it. Her mind reeled as the chauffeur came round to open her door. She could see her old life slide by. People were moving closer, waving and smiling, the photographers already shooting their pictures.
Please God help me, she prayed devoutly. Help me out before it’s too late. I know I deserve this but I truly didn’t understand my own heart.
That same heart bursting, Genevieve found herself standing out on the footpath to much applause while the designer of her gown fussed around her, settling her billowing silk skirt, adjusting her long froth of a veil.
“Isn’t she beautiful!” came time and again from the crowd, but Genni didn’t register the compliments. She felt she had the weight of the world on her shoulders instead of her wedding veil.
