make matters worse! Why are you doing this, Guido? What do you hope to gain from it?’
‘Gain?’ Guido queried sharply. ‘I would have thought that was obvious. I want them to see that you are with me now.’
‘Only until the furore dies down. And do you have to rub their noses in it?’
‘Rub their…?’
Guido threw up his hands in exasperation at the impossibility of understanding some of the most peculiar of English phrases.
‘If you mean that I want to make sure they realise the way things are now, then yes. Yes, I do. You are mine. The Press know that—the paparazzi know that—and now your high and mighty aristocratic friends will know it too.’
‘Very few of them are my friends—even when I was going to marry Rafe, they weren’t too keen on me. I was never into hunting, shooting and fishing—and they’re definitely not going to be too friendly now. Guido, please…’
Impulsively she leaned forward, laying a hand on his arm.
‘We don’t have to do this. We can just go—get away quietly…’
Did she know what that did to him? Did she know how he felt as fierce need, burning hunger kicked in, hard and sharp, low down in his body, just at the touch of her hand? The warm, soft scent of her skin was a torment to his already heightened senses, and he felt as if he was drowning in the deep, deep pools of her eyes.
Only the thought that she knew only too well the effect she had on him—she had to know, damn it—stopped him from grabbing hold of her and pulling her onto his lap, crushing her mouth under his, kissing her stupid. She wasn’t that naïve or that innocent. It was a deliberate ploy to distract him, to divert his attention from the plan he had in mind. And he wasn’t going to let her get away with it.
‘We aren’t going anywhere quietly, cara,’ he told her coldly. ‘We are going to walk into that reception and let them see that you are my wife.’
‘But I don’t want to! I can’t do it. We can just go…’
‘Go where?’ Guido snapped.
‘Your house—wherever that is.’
‘My home is in Sicily. And do you really think that you could travel all that way—take a flight in a plane—without your passport…and dressed like that?’
It took a moment for the impact of his words to hit home. Just for a second or two she stared at him blankly, obviously not knowing what he meant. But then she followed the direction of his gaze and a small, shocked sound escaped her throat.
Had she actually forgotten that she was still in full bridal finery? That she still wore the beautiful silk dress, the veil…?
Obviously she had because the eyes she now turned on his face again were shocked, clouded with consternation and uncertainty.
Did it ever cross her mind, as it had his so many times during the short journey, that to anyone on the outside, anyone who watched the car go past with the pair of them in it, must think that they were the bride and groom, leaving their wedding, heading for the reception?
Cold fury slashed at him at the contrast between the way it was now and the way it had been a year before, in Las Vegas. There, they had left the tacky little wedding chapel and driven back to her hotel with Amber giddy and giggling all the way. She had hung on to his arm as if she couldn’t believe that he was real and for a while, he had let himself believe that was how she felt. He had tried to forget the moment in the ceremony when she had said, ‘We’ve actually done it,’ the change in her face as she’d said the words. He’d kissed her then; kissed away her doubts, he’d believed, and for a while they’d been happy. But then suddenly Amber had changed…
‘You’ll need to get out of those clothes, and your—what is it you call it?—your going-away outfit is at the hotel, as are your passport, your cases.’
‘How do you know that?’
Her uncertainty had left her in a rush and the green eyes were now noticeably sharper, definitely suspicious.
‘How do you know where my things are?’
‘Franco told me.’
A wave of his hand indicated the driver beyond the glass dividing panel. Franco was concentrating fiercely on the road, his attention tactfully anywhere but on his passengers.
‘And how does Franco know?’
‘I told him to make enquiries, as he has done since I first heard about this wedding. To find out what he could and report back to me.’
‘To make enquiries!’ Amber echoed indignantly, rejection sparking in her eyes. ‘And report back! You’ve had me investigated?’
‘Naturalmente. How do you think I knew details about your proposed wedding to St Clair? Do you think that I just happened to wander into the village on the right day, at the right time?’
If the truth was told, she hadn’t thought about it at all, Amber admitted privately. She had been too shocked, too stunned by the explosive, blow to the head effect of his sudden appearance to even be able to consider what had led up to it and just why he was there. But now that she was forced to consider it, she didn’t like what she was seeing at all.
‘Naturalmente!’ she echoed, putting all the horror she felt into the single word. ‘Naturalmente! I’ll tell you something, Signor Corsentino. In Sicily it might be perfectly fine to spy on people and “make enquiries” about them—but to my mind it’s not natural at all! In fact, I think it’s hateful and offensive—an invasion of my privacy.’
‘You’d prefer it if I’d stayed away and let you go ahead with your bigamous, illegal marriage?’ Guido drawled, the gleaming mockery in his eyes only incensing her further.
‘I would have preferred it if you’d stayed away, full stop!’ she flung at him. ‘Because of you, what was supposed to be the happiest day of my life has turned into the worst nightmare I’ve ever had.’
‘And your first wedding day?’ Guido slid the question in like a knife between her ribs. ‘What was that, then? Surely that was supposed to have been the happiest day of your life?’
‘The worst day of my life, more like!’
Amber was past caring what she said. She only knew she was desperate to score some much needed points on her side; to hit back for all the cruel punches he had already landed on her heart—her soul.
‘The worst day—the biggest mistake—the stupidest thing I ever did in my life. If you must know, I hated every minute of it.’
‘OK, I have the message,’ Guido growled.
The car had swung into the long, curving drive up to the hotel door and as soon as it stopped he was out, pushing open the door without waiting for the uniformed commissionaire to step forward and do it. For a moment Amber thought that his black fury was going to drive him to stride straight into the building, not stopping to let her get out of the car to be with him.
But then he apparently rethought
