CHAPTER THREE
THE BRIDE WAS GONE, hauled from the chapel the way a victorious warrior carried the spoils from war.
Poppy’s wide, horrified gaze met Randall Grant’s for a split second before swiftly averting, her stomach plummeting. She’d been trembling ever since the doors flew open and the Sicilian stood framed in the arched doorway like an avenging angel.
She gripped her bridesmaid bouquet tighter, even as relief whispered through her. She’d done it. She’d saved Sophie.
But it wasn’t just Sophie she’d helped; she’d helped Randall, too. Not that Randall Grant, the Sixth Earl of Langston, would be grateful at the moment, because he was the groom after all, and no man wanted to be humiliated in front of two hundred of England and Europe’s most distinguished, their guests having traveled far and wide to Winchester for what the tabloids had been calling the wedding of the year, and would have been the wedding of the year, had the bride not just been unceremoniously hauled away by a Sicilian race car driver. Correction, former race car driver.
Poppy doubted that the Earl of Langston would care about the distinction right now, either, not when he had a church full of guests to deal with. Thank goodness he wasn’t a sensitive or emotional man. There would be no tears or signs of distress from him. No, his notorious stiff upper lip would serve him well as he dealt with the fallout.
But she also knew him better than most, and knew that he wasn’t the Ice Man people thought. She shot Randall another swift glance, strikingly handsome and still in his morning suit, the collar fitted against his strong, tan throat, accenting the lean, elegant lines of his physique, and the chiseled features of his face. He looked like stone at the present.
Detached. Granite-hard. Immovable.
Poppy swallowed quickly once more, trying to smash the worry and guilt. One day Sophie would thank her. And Randall, too, not that she would ever tell him her part in the disaster. He wasn’t just Sophie’s groom—jilted groom—but her boss of four years, and her secret crush. Although he was a very good boss as employers went, and rather protective of her, if he thought she had something to do with this wedding debacle, he’d fire her. Without hesitation. And that would break her heart.
But how could she not write to Renzo?
How could she not send the newspaper clipping? Sophie didn’t love Randall. She was marrying him because her family had thought it would be an excellent business deal back before she was even old enough to drive. It wasn’t a marriage as much as a merger, and Sophie deserved better.
So while Poppy’s conscience needled her, she also remembered how Renzo had shown marauder.
It had been thrilling and impressive—
Well, not for Randall. No, he had to be humiliated. But Sophie... Sophie had just been given a chance at love.
SHE KNEW SOMETHING.
Dal Grant could see it in Poppy’s eyes, the set of her lips and the pinch between her brows.
She’d worked far too long for him not to know that guilty as hell expression, the one she only got when she did something massively wrong and then tried to cover it.
He should have fired her years ago.
She wasn’t irreplaceable. She’d never been an outstanding secretary. She was simply good, and rather decent, and she had the tendency to keep him grounded when he wanted to annihilate someone, or something, as he did now.
Most important, he’d trusted her, which had apparently been the absolutely wrong thing to do.
But he couldn’t press her for information, not with two hundred guests still filling the pews, whispering giddily while Sophie’s father looked gobsmacked and Lady Carmichael-Jones had gone white.
Thank God he didn’t have close family here today to witness this disaster, his mother having died when he was a boy, and then his father had passed away five years ago, just before his thirtieth birthday.
Dal drew a slow, deep breath as he turned toward the pews, knowing it was time to dismiss the guests, including Sophie’s heartsick family. And then he’d deal with Poppy.
* * *
“What did you do?” Randall demanded, cornering Poppy in the tiny antechamber off the chapel altar.
Poppy laced her fingers together uneasily, Randall’s words too loud in her head, even as she became aware of his choice of words.
He hadn’t asked what she knew, but rather, what did she do? Do, as in an action. Do, as in having responsibility.
She glanced over her shoulder, looking for someone who could step in, intervene, but the chapel was empty now, the guests disappearing far more rapidly than one would have imagined; but maybe that was because after Randall announced in a cold, hard voice, “Apologies for wasting your time today, but it appears that the wedding is off,” and then he’d smiled an equally cold, hard smile, the guests had practically raced out.
She’d wanted to race out, too, but Randall pointed at her, gesturing for her to stay, and so she had, while he waved off his aunts and uncles and cousins, and then exchanged brief, uncomfortable words with Sophie’s parents before shaking each of his groomsmen’s hands, sending every single person away.
