a moment.
‘You don’t have any flowers. Here…’
And he handed her a single glorious deep red rose on a long, graceful stem with all the thorns carefully pruned away.
‘It’s beautiful…’ she breathed, lifting the flower to her face and letting the velvet-soft petals brush her lips. ‘So beautiful.’
‘But nowhere near as lovely as you.’
He made her feel beautiful when he smiled down at her like that, bronze eyes glowing with warmth. He made her forget that she hadn’t had the time or the money to find anything special to wear and that her dress was only a simple white cotton sheath, sleeveless and supported by delicate shoestring straps, her shoes just soft leather sandals. But none of that mattered.
Nothing mattered except the two of them and the love they shared. A love that would give them a future together when she had feared that what they had was coming to an end. Feared that she would have to let this precious moment of time become just a glorious memory: that she would have to go back home to face her mother’s cold-faced disapproval and her determination to find her daughter a ‘suitable’ husband.
‘So—shall we get married?’
‘Oh, yes—yes, please!’
She wouldn’t let thoughts of her mother intrude, she told herself as they walked hand in hand down the short wooden-floored aisle. She wasn’t going to let anything spoil this day—their day.
The words of the ceremony floated over her head as she kept her eyes fixed on the dark, stunning face of the man who was to be her husband. She still couldn’t believe that he had ever asked her. That he had ever said those magic words.
She had been sighing at the thought that her time in Vegas was nearly up, that she would soon have to leave and head home. The thought of what was waiting for her there had clouded her eyes, drained her smile.
‘Would you stay if I asked you to marry me?’
She could still hear the surprising casualness of his tone, the musical lilt of his accent.
He had been lounging back in bed as he spoke, his dark head supported on his hands, his tanned chest bare above the whiteness of the sheets, and she had spun round from where she had been standing by the window, eyes wide as she stared at him in disbelief.
‘Did you say…? Oh, yes! Yes, please! But can we do it soon? Can we do it here—now—as quickly as possible?’
If they left it any longer might he have second thoughts, change his mind? Declare he’d only said it as a joke? Oh, please, please, let it not be a joke.
‘Can we get married tomorrow? Just find a chapel here and do it?’
And so here they were, just as she had wished. In this tiny chapel with its vivid candy-pink and white colour scheme. And this wonderful man, this stunning, handsome man, the man she had adored from the very first moment she’d seen him, was actually going to be her husband.
Somehow she stumbled through her vows, her voice shaking. Her hand trembled as she held it out to him, her finger slightly raised to receive his ring, and he caught hold of it, held it firmly in the strength of his as he pushed the ring down onto it.
‘I now pronounce you husband and wife.’
‘We’ve done it!’
The words escaped her on another bubble of delirious laughter. ‘We’ve actually done it.’
It was then that the full reality of what had happened hit home to her. She was married. Married to a man she had met less than a week before. She had vowed to love and cherish him to be with him for the rest of her life—’till death us do part’.
And yes, a tiny, shaken little voice whispered inside her head, yes, she loved him so, so much. So much that she couldn’t wait to be his bride and had rushed down the aisle just as soon as she possibly could. She loved him—but did she really know him?
The ground seemed to lurch beneath her feet as she looked up into his face, saw those stunning eyes fixed on her, felt his hand tighten around hers.
‘We’ve done it,’ he said and there was a note in his voice that caught on a nerve, so that just for a second it felt as if the sun had gone behind a cloud.
But then he smiled down into her upturned face and the sun came out again, brilliant and clear and wonderfully, magically warm. And as he bent his head to take her mouth in a long, lingering kiss, she felt all her fear, the momentary doubt evaporate like mist before that sun.
She loved him and that was all that mattered. They had all the rest of their lives to get to know each other. This man and her life with him would be her future and each day would be more wonderful than the first.
Today was the start of forever.
CHAPTER ONE
IT was the perfect day for a wedding.
The sun was shining, the breeze was warm and soft, and all along the edges of the gravel path that led from the carved wooden lych-gate to the metal-studded door of the little village church the early flowers of spring were blooming purple and gold and white. In the trees, newly covered in soft green foliage, even the birds were chirping softly to each other.
It was the perfect day and the perfect setting for an elegant English country wedding.
But in Guido Corsentino’s mind, nothing could be perfect about the wedding towards which he was heading, his long, savage strides covering the ground with furious speed. And the mood that gripped him was far from idyllic; totally at odds with the bright sunlight of the day, the relaxed and smiling attitude of the crowd that had filled the narrow country lane.
They’d gathered there to see all the friends and relations of the bride and groom arrive in gleaming fleets of chauffeur-driven limousines. They’d watched them emerge, the men in smart, tailored morning dress, the women looking like so many brightly coloured birds of paradise as they made their way through the small churchyard. They’d oohed and aahed at the sight of the bride, slender and beautiful in her white silk gown, the antique lace veil covering her pale face, arriving at the church almost exactly on time to meet her groom.
And now they lingered, chatting quietly as they waited for the newly married pair to emerge from the church, hand in hand, as husband and wife.
They hardly spared a glance for the tall, dark, handsome man who strode past them, his total concentration fixed on the weathered stone building ahead. The few who looked his way took him for just one more of the wedding guests, though his black shirt, black trousers and loose black jacket were much more relaxed than the formal frock coats and top hats of the earlier arrivals. And if they noted the hard, cold set of the expression on his stunning, strongly carved face they took it for simple irritation that he was late and that the ceremony had already begun without him.
The truth was that Guido Corsentino was exactly on time. He had planned his arrival at the church for one very precise moment, and that moment was just about to arrive. And when it did he would be ready for it.
Ducking his black-haired head so as to dodge the low arch of the wooden lych-gate, he marched up to the
