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‘He...!’ Her second dramatic pause was not intended. The last person in the place, the only one who hadn’t yet turned did, and as her eyes impacted with the sloe-dark stare of her intended victim her throat dried to dust.
One word slipped through her head—dangerous!
In many ways he looked exactly as she remembered: proud, arrogant, actually with that thin-bridged nose, slashing sybaritic cheekbones and sensually moulded, cruel-looking mouth he looked positively pagan! What she hadn’t remembered about six years ago, before he had turned on her like the jungle predator he reminded her of, was her own humiliating reaction to the blatant sexuality he exuded. Even her scalp had tingled with a sexual awareness that made the muscles low in her belly tighten—that hadn’t changed either!
Shamed acknowledgement grabbed her, and for a vital moment Mari lost her focus; she almost forgot what she’d come here for. She lifted her chin and ignored the squirming liquid sensation in her stomach. She had come here to give him a taste of his own medicine, see how he liked being humiliated.
He didn’t seem to appreciate the clever role reversal. The last thing he looked was humiliated. The heavy-lidded eyes that held hers were the eyes of an eagle looking at its prey.
She was no victim!
Not this time, and if he had any doubts... Mari dropped her chin, closed her eyes and exhaled a long shaky breath to compose herself. Then, heart pumping, she lifted her head and stretched out a hand towards him, letting her fingers flutter.
‘You can’t do this, Sebastian,’ she appealed, pressing the hand now to her stomach. ‘Our baby, he will need a father.’ As she said this she couldn’t help but think of her own father. Where was he now?
* * *
The woman had had her audience in her pocket from the first throbbing syllable of heartbreak and desperation, and now Seb felt their attention switch to him, not giving him sufficient time to recover from the shock of recognition that had felt like the vibration of a shotgun blast when he’d turned and seen her standing there. While the aftershocks still reverberated in his skull, he schooled his expression into neutral—less damage control and more an unwillingness to provide entertainment for the masses.
He saw her lips move and read, Do you know who I am?
Know who she was...?
In other circumstances he might have laughed. The number of occasions when he had lost control in his adult life could be counted on the fingers of one hand, and he wasn’t about to forget that particular one, or the woman responsible.
But even if by some miracle he could have conveniently blanked the incident from his mind—it had not been one of his greatest moments—Seb could never have wiped the memory of that primal rush. It had electrified every cell of his body. He had never before or since experienced anything that came close to his response to her innate sensuality.
Did she bring out the same animal response in all men? Men who, unlike him, could not recognise the response as a weakness; men who allowed their passions to rule their lives.
Men who lacked his self-control—without it he might have been a man like his father.
No longer able to fight the compulsion, his eyes dropped, moving in a slow sweep that took in every aspect of her from the glorious flaming head of Pre-Raphaelite curls that framed her perfectly oval face to the length of her endless legs to the sleek, sinuous curves in between. Everything was accentuated by a dress that was probably illegal in several countries...or was that the body?
It was the lust that slammed through him—hard to imagine a less appropriate response in the circumstances—that brought reality like a boomerang rushing back to hit him squarely in the gut. He reacted to the weakness with an explosive rush of anger.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ As he flung out the question in the periphery of his vision he sensed movement coming from the row that was reserved for the royal party. Hell, this was a disaster. Where was Security and where had they been when she had strolled in?
Her smile, sheer, silky provocation, caused him to take an involuntary step forward, fury for a fatal split second blanking logic.
‘Now you know what it feels like!’ Mari flung with a bravado she was not feeling... Actually she was feeling really weird.
The last thing Mari saw before the dancing black dots joined up and for the first time in her life she fainted was those dark implacable eyes staring with skin-peeling intensity at her.
Before she hit the ground, Seb had been pretty sure that the graceful fainting stunt was just as phoney as the rest of her performance.
But she wasn’t moving... If she had knocked herself out, he thought grimly, it would deprive him of the pleasure of making her choke on her words, though not even a full retraction would fix the damage she had just caused.
He had spent years making the Defoe name stand for something, a brand that inspired confidence, and now in a matter of seconds this woman had destroyed it.
Ironic really that he had thought his parents’ absence—they had not been willing to interrupt their world cruise for their son’s wedding—would guarantee a drama-free day.
Seconds ticked and the entire place collectively held its breath, until Seb lost his fight against the instinct to react—someone had to do something!
Did it have to be you? asked the voice in his head.
It was just as well that his grandfather was not here.
One arm under her legs, the other around her back, he heaved her into his arms, wondering how many phones were capturing the moment. The action seemed to break the group paralysis in the place, and as people started shifting in their seats it was filled with a low buzz of conversation that drowned out the soft groan of the woman in his arms.
As her head fitted itself into the angle of his shoulder her crazy cloud of fiery red hair went just about everywhere. He spat a tendril out of his mouth and, eyes flat with suppressed fury, turned his head to look at her face, marvelling than anything that looked so beautiful could cause so much damage.
Her blue-veined eyelids fluttered but stayed sealed, and with another little groan she said a name that sounded like Mark.
Another victim...?
Amazingly, unconscious she looked almost vulnerable, a million miles from the vindictive drama queen of moments before.
Why the hell had she done it?
‘Now you know what it feels like’ suggested simple payback. Seb understood the attraction of revenge, but who waited six years? The possibilities ran through his head as he strode, the cynosure of all eyes, up the aisle towards his bride, the white-hot burning anger he struggled to contain battering at the insides of his skull, his arms full of crazy, delusional or plain evil but definitely sweet-smelling redheaded witch.
‘Keep still!’ he growled under his breath as she squirmed up against him, turning her body so that her breasts flattened against his chest.
When he came level with Elise his iron expression softened. He felt a stab of guilt that he hadn’t given her a second thought, which made him a selfish bastard.
Poor Elise—if this was hard for him he could only imagine how she was feeling under her veil. If there was ever a moment when he would have excused a tantrum this was it, but she was conducting herself with a dignity that contrasted starkly with that of the woman who had just smashed the reputation he had spent years rebuilding. A sound of mingled disbelief and self-disgust vibrated in his throat because half his mind was occupied imagining her naked.
‘Sorry.’ His soft apology coincided with an audible lull in the buzz of conversation. There might have been someone in the most distant corner who hadn’t heard the word, which would undoubtedly be construed as an admission of guilt, but he doubted it.
His jaw clenched. Perfect! Feeling frustration closing in on him, he glanced down at the cause and found a pair of glazed blue eyes looking up at him.
‘I’m not sorry,’ she whispered before the dark lashes framing them came down in a fluttering curtain against her smooth, very pale cheek. Then with a soft murmur, she burrowed in closer.
You will be, Seb thought, struggling to focus on anger rather than his indiscriminate hormones, which were acting independent of his brain to the squirmy, sensationally packaged softness in his arms.
Even without looking he could feel Elise’s dagger stare behind her veil, and who could blame her? Certainly not him. He wasn’t always as appreciative as he ought to be of her composure. He sent up a silent apology for ever having wished she’d show just a little more spontaneity, just occasionally. Ninety-nine out of a hundred women in her place would be having hysterics right now.
‘Door, Jake...?’
His best man, who had been standing there, blinked as though emerging from a trance and grabbed the door to his right to allow Seb to pass through.
‘Look after Elise,’ Seb said as he went through. ‘Take her...someplace, tell her I won’t be long, oh, and send for—’
‘Ahead of you there. We have three medics here. Anything else?’
‘Any of them a psychiatrist?’ Seb muttered, and responded to the handclasp on his shoulder with a nod. ‘Is there somewhere, Father, that I can...?’
‘This way.’
Seb followed the priest into a small anteroom. By the time he had laid the unconscious redhead on the small couch there, Jake arrived with a guest in tow who he introduced as—
‘Tom, Lucy’s fiancé—he’s a trauma surgeon.’
Seb, who had little interest in the man’s credentials, took his eyes off the girl long enough to shake the man’s hand. ‘Do you mind taking a look?’ He turned to his best man. ‘Jake, where is Elise?’
‘How far along is the pregnancy?’
Seb’s attention swung back to the other man, his jaw clenched as he fought for control. Get used to it, Seb, this won’t be the first time. If he lost control this woman would win...as if she hadn’t already?
‘I really wouldn’t know. This woman is—’ about to say she was a complete and total stranger, he stopped and finished sharply ‘—delusional.’
Not hanging around to see if he was believed, he turned to Jake, who responded to his interrogative look with, ‘First left down the stairs, third door on the r...no, left.’
It was actually the right.
The room he entered was larger and less sparsely furnished than the one he had just left.
His bride, her veil thrown back, was standing looking lovely in front of a stained-glass window. Her mother, a woman he had never warmed to, sat in a chair. She stopped speaking when he walked in, but the word lawyer hung in the air.
‘Sandra...’ He tipped his head in acknowledgement.
‘I have never been so humiliated in my life!’ she responded in a voice that never failed to jar on him.
Tell me about it, he thought, turning to his bride-to-be.
He watched her struggle to produce a brittle smile.
‘You’re a star,’ he said warmly. ‘First thing, none of what she said was true.’
The older woman snorted.
‘Mother, that is not being helpful.’ Elise held up a hand, a pained expression flickering across her face before the smile was back in place. ‘Please, Seb, there is really no need for explanations. I thought you realised that. I have total faith in your ability to make this...unpleasantness go away.’
‘Everyone has their price.’
His glance flickered towards the older woman. ‘Thank you for that contribution, Sandra.’ His sarcasm sailed right over the woman’s head. ‘I have done nothing to pay for.’
‘Mother, Sebastian is more than capable of dealing with this.’
‘He allowed it to happen.’
Seb ignored the shrill accusation from the older woman.
‘Do you believe me, Elise?’
Her eyes slid from his. ‘I think it’s totally irrelevant whether this woman’s accusations are true or false, Sebastian.’
‘You are taking the possibility I got another woman pregnant and deserted her remarkably well,’ he drawled.
‘Would you prefer I acted the hurt victim?’ A small confident smile curved her lips as she asked the question.
He looked at the hand she had laid on his arm, and after a moment she removed it. The flush on her cheeks penetrating her perfect make-up, she gave a tight smile.
‘Look, I know you share my dislike of...messy emotional scenes, but the way you’re acting anyone would think you wanted me to make a scene.’
Good question. Well, do you, Seb?
‘I could but where would that get either of us? I’m a realist—we both are. We need to get back in there, put a brave face on it and show the world that we’re a team.’
As locker-room motivational speeches went, it wasn’t bad.
‘This is about damage limitation, but these things happen. Mother’s right, just keep her quiet.’
Feeling like someone who was seeing something that had been there all along, he shook his head as though the action would clear his vision. It didn’t.
‘How do you expect me to do that?’
The serene mask slipped and she yelled, ‘Oh, for God’s sake, don’t be so dense! Throw some bloody money at her—you’ve got enough! This is my day, and I refuse...’ She took a deep breath and lowered her voice to a soft steely murmur as she clarified it. ‘I totally refuse to let anything or anyone ruin it, especially some little tramp you got pregnant!’
‘So let me get this straight—you will ignore my indiscretions and you expect I will return the favour?’
She blinked, her eyes widening in an attitude of exasperated surprise as she chided impatiently, ‘Well, obviously, Sebastian. I didn’t think that needed spelling out.’
His reflective smile was filled with self-mockery. ‘I think perhaps I did.’ He turned to the older woman. ‘Do you mind leaving us?’
‘I’m not—’
‘Get out.’ In a business setting the soft menace in his voice would not have surprised anyone—he was preceded by his reputation—but the women he addressed reacted with open-mouthed shock.
He waited for her to leave the room before he turned to his fiancée, searching her face. ‘You’re not in love with me?’
‘Are you saying that I don’t satisfy you in bed?’
‘I’m not referring to your competence in the bedroom. I’m talking about...’ He paused. It was a subject he was even less qualified than Elise to discuss. ‘It was not a criticism, just a fact, and I’m not in love with you either—that was never a problem—but it turns out I want more than you can give me.’ He did not want slavish devotion or mad, undying passion, but at the bare minimum he wanted a wife who gave a damn if she thought he was fooling around.
‘Something more... A threesome? Or...I’m very broad-minded, Sebastian.’
And I’m very rich, he thought, his lips curling into a grimace of self-disgust. ‘Just what would I have to do, Elise, to make you find me unacceptable as a husband?’
‘Why are you acting as though I’m the one who’s done something wrong?’
‘You’re right,’ he admitted heavily. He had been guilty of twisting the facts to fit. On the surface Elise had seemed to be the perfect wife and mother, and he hadn’t looked any deeper than the surface. ‘This is my fault. I really don’t think I’m the marrying kind.’
An ugly look of astonished fury contorted Elise’s face as she saw her gold-lined future vanishing. ‘Are you jilting me?’
‘Yes, I suppose I am.’
* * *
Seb had made any number of bad calls in his life but he might, he realised as he closed the door behind him a few painful minutes later, just have been saved making the worst one yet.
In theory a wife who didn’t give a damn what you did so long as you kept her in big houses, designer handbags and diamonds was a certain type of man’s perfect wife, and he had thought he was that man.
It turned out he wasn’t.
Logic told him he had no real right to feel distaste at having her priorities spelled out so starkly. He could accept many things in a marriage or the lack of them, but it turned out mutual respect was not one of them.
CHAPTER THREE
‘SEB!’ HER HEELS loud on the ancient stone of the narrow corridor, Fleur Defoe hurried to catch up with the tall figure of her brother.
As she got level with him he turned his head to growl an impatient, ‘Not now, Fleur.’
His sister caught his arm, breathless and brimming with curiosity and concern. ‘What’s going on?’
A faint ironic smile touched his lips, lightening the grimness of his taut hard-boned expression as he reluctantly paused and eased his shoulders against the lime-washed wall.
‘I wish I knew.’
Had she read about the wedding and thought why not...or had something happened, a trigger of some sort? He did not discount the possibility she was acting for a third party. It wasn’t as if he had any shortage of enemies... More than one would not be unhappy if his royal connection was severed.
‘People are asking questions, Seb.’
His dark brows lifted as he sketched a quick cynical smile. ‘And providing more than a few answers.’
‘They’re asking if there’s going to be a wedding.’
He levered himself away from the wall and speculated out loud. ‘Or she might simply be insane.’
‘What?’ asked Fleur, who was trotting to keep up with him as he strode out, dragging the tie from around his neck as he did so.
‘No, there isn’t going to be a wedding.’
‘Are you all right?’ Fleur couldn’t decide whether she was relieved or disturbed that her handsome brother looked more abstracted than heartbroken.
‘Fine.’ Was it coincidental that the Far East deal was at a delicate stage in the negotiations? The royal family were relatively broad-minded and progressive but by their nature nervous of scandal...and half a dozen members of that family had been sitting out there watching that debacle.
He struggled not to replay the scene, knowing that anger was an indulgence he could not afford. He needed a clear head if he was going to at least salvage the deal of a lifetime, and for that he needed the facts, needed to know there were no fresh little surprises waiting... Afterwards he could throttle the redhead, or maybe kiss her, he mused, thinking of that mouth and feeling a strong slug of lust.
An image of her face drifted into his head. It had surprised him over the years how well he remembered it, how deep an impression it had made, though not as it turned out as deep as the one he had apparently made on her...
‘How did you meet?’
‘Meet who?’ he said, only half listening to his sister, who was trying to keep up with him.
‘Mari, Mark’s sister.’
In the act of dragging a hand across his hair he stopped midgesture and swung back. His sister, two steps behind, dug in her heels to avoid a collision and looked up expectantly at him.
The furrow between his dark, strongly delineated brows deepened. ‘Last month’s boyfriend Mark...?’
His forehead pleated in concentration as he brought to mind the features of the young man in question. Fleur’s boyfriends were pretty interchangeable. This one had been particularly painfully eager to please and say the right thing. Trading on a boyish smile that probably had an appreciative audience, he’d made a pretty inept attempt to sell his latest business venture.
‘You make it sound like I— All right, yes,’ she admitted with a rueful grimace. ‘He didn’t last long. He started getting way too serious so I cooled things. She, Mari, is his twin, which is kind of cool.’
‘You have met?’
Fleur shook her head. ‘No, but he has photos of them, and that hair is pretty unmistakable, but why,’ she puzzled, ‘are you asking me? You must know that if you’re...’
Seb clenched his jaw and bellowed, ‘I’m not sleeping with her!’
‘Seriously?’ She encountered her brother’s stony look and held up her hands in an attitude of defeat. ‘Fine, I believe you.’
Which might, he reflected grimly, make her the only one.
‘Why not?’
He slowed his step slightly and flung over his shoulder, ‘Why not what?’
‘Aren’t you sleeping with her? She is kind of incredible looking.’
‘Until a few minutes ago I was engaged and I have only met the mad woman once, six years ago.’
Fleur’s eyes widened. ‘Six...! Wow, you must have made an impression! What did you do?’
Not nearly as much as he’d have liked to.
‘She acted as though she hated you, Seb.’
‘You noticed that, too, did you?’
‘It didn’t seem likely you were together. She’s not really your type, is she?’
The disappointment in her voice struck a nerve. ‘Sane, you mean,’ he cut back, adding with a satiric bite, ‘Are there any mental-health problems in your boyfriend’s family?’
‘He’s not my boyfriend but actually he— They don’t know. They were found on a church doorstep when they were babies. It was a big headline at the time—he had cuttings.’
‘They don’t know who their parents are?’ He filed away the information; it might be useful but he doubted it.
Fleur shook her head. ‘No, they’ve only got each other, a bit like us.’
* * *
The men’s voices penetrated the fog that cushioned Mari’s thoughts. It was confusing but comforting. She knew that any second it would clear; she also knew that she didn’t want it to.
‘So she’s awake?’
Mari kept her eyes shut, but she could see the flicker of light through the delicate skin of her eyelids. She wished someone would open a window—the scent of chrysanthemums and incense hung uncomfortably heavily in the still air. The man who had spoken had a very deep voice. If it had a colour it would be rich, night-sky blue-black, and the tactile quality in it made the hairs on her nape tingle.
‘Oh, yes, it was just a faint, no serious damage. She landed on someone’s hat.’
‘Thanks, I can deal from here.’
‘You sure, Seb? I could stay...’
The rest of the interchange was too softly spoken for her to catch, but the sound of a door opening and closing sent a soft tickling rush of cooler air across her face.
‘You might as well get up. I know you’re faking it.’
The voice sounded bored. Mari felt her indignation stir lazily; she wasn’t faking anything.
‘What am I doing here?’
And where was here?
She slowly turned in the direction of the voice, realising her head was cushioned on a hard and dusty pillow thing. Teeth gritted, she prised her eyelids apart. They felt as though she had weights attached to her eyelashes. It took several blinks to bring the face of the man who spoke into focus. The only other person in the room, he was standing in front of a deep window, the sun shining through the stained glass behind him and surrounding his face with a halo of blue flickering light.
Even without the light show it was an incredible face. The combination of the starkly drawn lines of a broad, high forehead, aristocratic cheekbones and sensually sculpted mouth was arresting, but it was the hard, brooding quality in his stare that almost tipped her into panic.
‘You took the words right out of my mouth,’ he drawled.
Then the panic made sense. It came rushing back in full relentless detail without the protective cushion of adrenaline-heated anger.
She had done it. She really had! Oh, God!
Wasn’t she meant to be feeling great or at least vindicated? Seeing the villain on the receiving end of the tit-for-tat payback wasn’t as satisfying as she’d imagined.
Struggling to channel calm, she moistened her lips with her tongue and cleared her throat. ‘Shouldn’t you be getting married?’ The aura of masculinity he projected was even more pronounced in the enclosed space of this room. It had a skin-prickling quality that was very disturbing on more than one level.