there was an unexpected flurry of movement to one side, distracting Amber and drawing her gaze for a second. A friend of Rafe’s family, Emily Lawton, recently widowed and five months pregnant, had collapsed in a faint, sliding limply down from the pew to land on the stone floor.
But someone was already there to help her, and Amber’s own impulsive movement was stilled by the way that Guido took a couple of steps towards her, slow but firm, ominously unstoppable. The sound of his heels echoing on the stone, the way he held his head, the arrogant straightness of his long spine gave the movement a confident swagger that declared to everyone around that he was the one who was in control here—and he intended to stay that way.
‘Do you know this man?’ Rafe had found his voice.
‘No!’
The panicked lie was stupid; she knew that as she saw the way that Guido’s burning eyes narrowed sharply, the way that his head lifted even higher until it seemed that he was looking down his long, straight nose at her, pure contempt icing over his stunning features. And as it did, a sliver of that ice seemed to have formed at the nape of her neck, slithering its way down her trembling spine, chilling her skin as it went.
‘Forgotten me already, cara?’ he enquired with cruel silkiness. ‘But then, I suppose that must be the case or I wouldn’t find you here…’
That freezing gaze flicked from her ashen face to the altar, the waiting priest and back again.
‘With him…’
This time the golden eyes acknowledged Rafe, standing at her side, but only for the briefest of seconds. Then they were fixed again on her face; holding her still in a way that made her feel like a butterfly pinned underneath a powerful microscope.
‘Under these circumstances.’
To Amber’s stunned bewilderment, a smile played over his sensual mouth. But it was a cruel smile, a torturer’s smile. The smile that might appear on the face of a tiger just before it pounced to deliver the final death blow.
‘Who the hell are you?’
Rafe’s voice was belligerent and he made a move as if to take a step then obviously thought the better of it, stilling instead to remain at her side, the tension radiating from his long body.
The tiger’s smile grew, became positively wicked.
‘Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Guido Corsentino.’
Something in the name made Rafe take in a sharp breath. But he recovered almost immediately.
‘And what have you to do with my wife?’
‘Ah…but you see, she’s really not your wife. Not yet.’
Guido actually appeared to look as if it mattered. He even let an expression that might have been regret drift across his face. But Amber knew that regret was the last thing on his mind. As was care for anyone else’s feelings in this matter. He’d come here to create chaos and misery and was set on doing just that, not letting anyone get in his way.
‘And I’m afraid she’s not likely to be at any time in the near future.’
‘And why is that?’
Amber’s throat had closed so tight that she found it impossible to draw a breath with any ease. He couldn’t do this to her—he just couldn’t! Did he really hate her so much that he would hunt her down after all this time, just to destroy her one chance of happiness?
No! Please don’t do this!
The words formed on her lips but she couldn’t find the strength to give them any power and the thin thread of sound was absorbed by the concealing veil, no one even noticing that she had spoken. But her eyes locked with his, silently pleading with him, begging him to stop this now. To leave her alone and stop tormenting her. He’d had his fun—if that was what this cruel, sadistic game was to him—surely now he would go and leave them in peace?
He had to go. And it had to be a game. He hadn’t wanted her in the past, when she would have lain down on the ground and let him walk all over her if it would have made him happy. But he’d made it plain that she meant nothing to him. So there was no reason at all why he should want her now. Except to cause trouble for her.
But it was painfully obvious that leaving was not what Guido had in mind.
‘Why can’t Amber ever become your wife?’ he echoed the question sharply as if he simply couldn’t understand why it had been asked.
The rich tones of his Italian accent had never sounded so strongly in Amber’s ears, an accent that should have made his words sound soft and musical. Instead, it had exactly the opposite effect, making her freeze like some small, terrified animal facing an angry king cobra and just waiting for it to strike. She could only close her eyes and wait for the sting of his poison.
‘Well, that is quite simple, really. She isn’t in any position to be married—to anyone. You see, she already is married to me. That’s right…’ he added as he saw Rafe’s disbelieving start, the way the other man’s pale eyes went to the woman beside him, then back to his tormentor’s dark, set face. ‘Amber is married already. She happens to be my wife.’
CHAPTER TWO
IT HAD every bit of the effect he had wanted.
When he had thought about the moment when, after twelve long months of separation, he would finally confront the woman who had once been his wife—who was still his wife—he had known that he wanted it to really hit home to her. He had wanted her to be as stunned and shocked as he had been the day that she had walked out of his life to be with another man, leaving behind only a note that declared that she didn’t love him any more.
That she had never loved him. Could never have loved a man like him.
That she had only married him in a moment of wild lunacy. An act she had regretted from the moment he had put the ring on her finger.
And now that he saw the type of man she really wanted to marry, he could understand why. The tall Englishman was exactly the sort of husband who would appeal to Amber Wellesley—Amber Corsentino’s—ingrained personal snobbery. With his pale skin, blond hair, blue eyes and narrow features, Rafe St Clair looked the sort of upper-class minor aristocrat who could give her the name and the status she had always craved. The name and the status that didn’t come from marriage to a man who, together with his brother, had dragged himself up from the gutters of Siracusa, a man who didn’t even know whose blood ran in his veins. It definitely wasn’t the blue blood Amber had been looking for.
If he had thought that his very first words had created a silence, then it was like nothing when compared to the freezing stillness that had descended now. It was almost as if somehow the air inside the little church had frozen and no one dared move for fear of splintering it into a million irreparable shards. The only sound at all was the slight bang of the door as it fell shut behind the pregnant woman who had fainted and the two women who had helped her outside, probably cursing the fact that they were missing all the drama and the scandal.
‘How can Amber be your wife?’
The crisp, clipped sound of Rafe
