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.
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
