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‘Domenico is so commanding, just like his grandfather was,’ Iris murmured when Sienna pushed her wheelchair into the vestry and down the ramp that led out of the church. Fortunately the chauffeur was on hand to assist the elderly lady into the car, and Sienna’s muttered uncomplimentary remark about her ex-husband’s bossiness went unheard.
‘I’m not coming to the reception,’ she told Iris. ‘I don’t know why Nico said he had invited me to Danny’s wedding. Perhaps his plus-one guest couldn’t make it.’ She disliked the idea that he had decided she could stand in for his current girlfriend, whoever that might be. Nico had a high sex drive and it was inconceivable that he did not have a woman in his life.
Thankfully Iris did not refer to that kiss, but Sienna unconsciously ran her tongue over her stinging lips. The taste of Nico was still in her mouth. ‘I have to drive back to London this afternoon and spend the rest of the weekend preparing for an important business meeting on Monday,’ she made the excuse as she stepped back from the car.
Iris nodded. ‘Rose told me that your organic skincare company is hugely successful and you have won awards for your products. She is very proud of you.’
Sienna felt a pang of guilt thinking that she should visit her grandmother more often. She tried to get up to Yorkshire once a month, but running her own business left her little leisure time. She frowned, trying to remember when she had last met up with her friends for a drink. And as for dating, it was over a year since she had accepted a dinner invitation from a man.
Why had she allowed her social life to dwindle to practically nothing? she asked herself. She was only just twenty-nine and she had a sudden sense that life was passing her by. She loved her career and the independence it gave her but she was aware that something was missing. Love, companionship, sex. Where had that thought come from? Her lack of a sex life had never bothered her before today, but when Nico had kissed her it had felt as if a floodgate had opened and need had throbbed between her legs.
She was jolted from her thoughts when she realised that Iris seemed to be struggling to breathe. The elderly lady clutched her chest.
‘What’s wrong? Are you feeling unwell?’ Sienna asked urgently.
‘I’m having an angina attack,’ Iris gasped. ‘I thought I had put my medication in my handbag. It’s a pump spray that I use under my tongue. But it’s not here.’ She closed her handbag that she had been rifling through. ‘I must have left it in my bedroom.’
‘Should I call an ambulance?’
‘There’s no need. I’ll be fine once I have my medication. Will you come in the car with me back to the house? You can run inside and find the pump spray.’
‘I’ll go and fetch Nico.’
‘No,’ Iris said sharply. ‘I don’t want to cause a fuss and spoil the wedding.’
There was no time to waste arguing and Sienna ran round to the other side of the car and jumped in. The journey through the village only took a few minutes. When the chauffeur turned onto the driveway of Sethbury Hall she felt a familiar sense of awe as she stared at the imposing manor house where she had once lived with Nico. She had always felt like an imposter. The daughter of the village publican who had married above her station, some of the villagers had whispered. Cinderella had found her prince, but the fairy tale had ended in a bitter divorce.
The car came to a halt and Iris said faintly, ‘You remember where my room is, Sienna? The pump spray should be on my bedside table. Please hurry.’
CHAPTER TWO
NICO LOCATED HIS grandmother in the orangery but Sienna wasn’t with her. He strolled across to the open glass doors and scanned the terrace where most of the guests had congregated, but there was no sign of a yellow dress.
His jaw tightened. Inexplicably he was disappointed that his ex-wife hadn’t accompanied Iris to Sethbury Hall. Frankly it was something of a surprise that Sienna had disobeyed him. When they’d been married she had always been eager to please him, especially in bed. Sometimes her puppy-like devotion had irritated him but she had been very young; a teenage bride, sweetly shy and biddable.
He frowned, remembering her accusation on the day she had walked out of their marriage that he had taken her for granted. With hindsight perhaps he had, he thought uncomfortably. Dio, but he had been young himself, with a weight of duty and responsibility on his shoulders. Sienna had been another of his responsibilities. Pregnant with his child and terrified of her abusive father. Nico had done the only thing he could do and offered to marry her.
He cursed beneath his breath. The last thing he wanted was a trip down memory lane. When he’d spotted Sienna in the church earlier he had thought at first that he must have imagined her. Standing in front of the altar with his brother had evoked memories of his own wedding ten years earlier, when Danny had been his best man.
Nico remembered the sense of panic he’d felt on his wedding day, of being trapped. He’d looked over his shoulder towards the door, wondering if he could make a run for it. But at that moment Sienna had walked into the church. She had looked exquisite in her bridal gown, with her long hair streaming down her back. She’d held a bouquet of cream roses over her stomach and looked as nervous as he felt.
He’d accepted that he couldn’t abandon her and his baby, and as he’d watched her walk towards him, he had been impatient for their wedding day to be over so that he could take her to bed. Their passion was white-hot and when he was buried deep inside her he did not care that he was marrying her out of duty. She was his exclusively and she was carrying his child. At least that was what he had believed then.
Nico jerked his mind away from the past and declined the glass of sherry a waiter offered him. He could do with a drink but his preferred poison was oak-barrel-aged cognac. As he strode up the sweeping staircase to his private suite of rooms, he told himself that he could take a short break from his best-man duties. Danny and his elegant bride were mingling with their guests while canapés were served on the terrace.
Entering his sitting room, he went straight to the bar and poured himself a drink. The cognac was smooth and mellow with a pleasant heat at the back of his throat. He looked across the room, puzzled that his bedroom door was open. He was sure it had been shut when he’d left the suite earlier. His heart kicked in his chest when he saw a white hat decorated with yellow flowers on the bed.
‘I’m intrigued, cara,’ he murmured, strolling into the bedroom just as Sienna emerged from the en-suite bathroom. ‘First you were at the church and now I find you in my bedroom. Not that I am complaining,’ he assured her. Far from it. Lust as hot as molten lava rushed through his veins when she ran her fingers through her hair. Was the gesture a deliberate ploy to make him notice the glossy waves that had been hidden beneath her hat in the church?
Her hair was the same shade of dark red as a vintage burgundy wine and he knew the colour was entirely natural. When she was younger her hair had been waist-length, but now it fell to just past her shoulders with layers framing her face and drawing attention to her peaches-and-cream skin and wide grey eyes.
‘Your bedroom?’ Sienna frowned. ‘I thought your grandparents occupied the master suite?’
‘They did when my grandfather was alive. But my grandmother has become less mobile in the last few years and when she moved into the new annexe on the ground floor I had these rooms refurbished.’
‘That would explain why I can’t find her medicine. Iris gave me the impression that she still used the same rooms as she did when I lived at Sethbury Hall. I expect she was confused. She asked me to fetch her angina pump spray, but I couldn’t find it on the bedside table and I’ve been looking for it in the bathroom cupboards.’
‘I don’t understand why Nonna asked you.’
‘She was having an angina attack.’ Impatience flashed in Sienna’s eyes. ‘Don’t just stand there. Your grandmother looked in a bad way and she needs her medication. How do I get to the annexe?’ She went to step past him and stiffened when he caught hold of her arm.
‘I meant why did she send you to get her medicine rather than one of the household staff who know where her rooms are?’ Nico’s eyes narrowed. ‘Iris seemed perfectly well when I saw her a few minutes ago. She does suffer from angina but she takes tablets to control it. As far as I am aware she hasn’t had an attack since she was diagnosed with the condition and she carries a pump spray merely as a precaution.’
‘Well, maybe she forgot to take her tablet and that’s why she had an angina attack.’ Sienna threw her hands in the air. ‘Don’t you believe me? Why would I make something like that up?’
‘To give you an excuse to visit my bedroom?’ Nico had no idea what was going on but when he flicked his gaze to the four-poster bed, his libido didn’t give a damn why his incredibly sexy ex-wife was in his room.
She whirled away from him and he noted how her silky dress clung to the rounded curves of her pert derriere. Fire licked through his veins and burned even hotter when she faced him and put her hands on her hips, causing her dress to pull tight across her breasts. Despite her slender build, Sienna had always been full up top, and Nico was definitely a breast man.
‘That’s right.’ Her sarcastic tone forced his gaze up to her face and he was fascinated by the gleam of temper in her eyes. The girl he’d married had been timid and amenable and would not have dreamed of disagreeing with him, let alone glare at him as if she was itching for a fight. ‘I was desperate to be alone with you so I invented the story that your grandmother had sent me to find her medication.’ Sienna gave him a withering look. ‘Your ego must be enormous if you think I was so blown away when you kissed me in the church that I want you to do it again.’
His ego wasn’t the only thing that was enormous, Nico silently derided himself, conscious that his arousal was uncomfortably hard beneath his suit trousers. As for that kiss. Of course it shouldn’t have happened. But he had seen the lascivious look in his brother’s eyes when Danny had stared at Sienna, and he’d been overwhelmed by a fierce possessiveness, a need to claim her in front of Danny. Especially Danny.
That wasn’t the only reason he had kissed her though. There had been something deeply primitive about his compelling need to put his mouth on Sienna’s. It had been the same the first time he’d met her ten years ago. He had taken one look at her and known that he had to have her. He’d kissed her within the hour and slept with her three days later.
He knew every gorgeous dip and curve of her body; the little mole on her inner thigh that he’d always kissed before spreading her legs wide so that he could flick his tongue over the tight nub of her femininity until she writhed and begged him to possess her. Not that he’d needed any persuasion. Sex with Sienna had been wilder and hotter than with any other woman—a theory Nico had put to the test many times since his divorce.
He’d told himself that it couldn’t have been as good as he remembered. But when he had kissed her in the church a little while ago, their chemistry had been combustible. The soft gasp she’d made as she’d parted her lips beneath his had decimated his self-control and for a few moments he had forgotten that they had an audience of his brother and grandmother.
Now though they were alone, and as he watched Sienna’s tongue dart out and slide over her slightly swollen lower lip a carnal hunger tore through Nico. ‘Of course you want me to kiss you again, cara,’ he drawled. ‘I can read the signs.’ He lifted his hand to the front of her dress and traced the outline of one pointed nipple, wildfire coursing through him when she drew an audible breath. But she made no attempt to move away and her pupils had dilated so that her eyes were inky pools edged with silvery grey.
‘This is crazy,’ she whispered. ‘I did not have an ulterior motive for coming to your room. I wasn’t even aware that this is your room.’ She lifted her chin and said in a firmer voice, ‘I don’t care what you think, Nico. I’m not the besotted teenage bride who was in awe of you. I’ve changed.’
‘But this hasn’t changed,’ he said roughly, threading his fingers into her hair so that he could tug her even closer and angling her head. Her breasts rose and fell jerkily and her lips parted in readiness for him to claim her mouth. The sexual chemistry between them was tangible and his nostrils flared as he dragged oxygen into his lungs. But as he lowered his face to hers, she put her hand on his chest to stop him.
‘What about your grandmother?’ Sienna drew a shuddering breath, as if she was struggling for control as much as he was. ‘She needs her angina medicine.’
‘Like I said, I saw Iris just before I came upstairs. She was on her second glass of sherry and regaling the new vicar with lurid tales of her youth.’ Nico exhaled heavily, aware of the dull throb of unfulfilled lust in his groin. ‘But regrettably this will have to wait until later. We need to get down to the marquee in the garden for the wedding dinner, and I have various duties to perform as best man.’
He dropped his hands down to his sides but could not bring himself to move away from her. His senses were inflamed by her perfume and the sharp, sweet scent of desire—hers, his—was thick in the air.
She shook her head and walked over to the bed to pick up her hat. ‘There won’t be a “later”, Nico. If I hadn’t gone to the church we would never have met again.’ She flashed him a cool smile, but something like sadness chased across her face and her grey eyes were as haunting and mysterious as the mist that sometimes came down over the moors. ‘We have led separate lives for eight years. We’re strangers, and I’m not going to sit through your brother’s wedding reception and pretend that we are friends.’
Sienna disappeared through the door with a swirl of yellow silk, leaving Nico faintly stunned when he realised that she was leaving him—again.
A memory flashed into his mind of when he had watched her walk out of the gates of Sethbury Hall eight years ago. She had carried a small suitcase containing the few chain-store clothes that were all she’d owned when she had married him. He had found all the designer dresses that he’d bought her hanging in the wardrobe, and she had also left behind the jewellery he’d given her, including her wedding ring.
As he’d watched her slender figure march down the driveway, her back ramrod straight, he had told himself he was glad she was leaving. Lying bitch. Her accusation that he had been unfaithful was all the more galling because he knew the truth about her. She was the cheat, the one who had kept secrets. Dio, he had trusted her, but after what his brother had told him, Nico had vowed that he would never again believe a word Sienna said.
His jaw clenched. He had never revealed to Sienna that he knew she had slept with his brother first, before him. Danny had admitted it when Nico had confided two years after his wedding that the marriage was in trouble. When Sienna had suffered a late miscarriage she had been advised to wait a few months before trying to conceive again. Nico hadn’t told Danny or anyone else that after he and Sienna had tried unsuccessfully for a year to have another baby, he had done a home test, which showed he had a low sperm count.
Danny’s confession had eaten away at Nico, and the suspicion that Sienna had been pregnant with his brother’s child when he’d married her had festered like something rank and rotten in his soul. Sienna’s accusation that he was having an affair with his PA had been the final straw. Her hypocrisy had infuriated him and divorce had been a way out of a marriage based on lies. He had set her free so that she could meet someone else who would give her a child—which he was unable to do.
He pulled his mind away from the past when he heard the click of her heels on the marble stairs and pictured her in her sexy, yellow silk dress. Ten years ago she had been a pretty teenage bride with no idea of her potential to be a stunning beauty in the future. The grown-up Sienna had exceeded all his expectations, he brooded. She was a ravishing, sensual siren and ever since he had caught sight of her in the church, desire had pulsed hot and urgent in his blood.
The sensible thing to do would be to let her walk out of his life as he had done once before. But he had never been able to forget her, and seeing her again had evoked an unexpected sense of regret that he had lost her. At the very least, he was curious to know why she had turned up in Much Matcham having read in the paper that he was getting married. Her excuse that Iris had told her grandmother Rose it was Danny’s wedding was patently another lie.
Immediately after the divorce he had hated her, but now he was merely indifferent to Sienna’s wiles, Nico assured himself. He grimaced as the ache in his groin reminded him that his body was not as uninvolved as he’d like. But he wasn’t a young man at the mercy of his hormones any more. He was older, hopefully wiser, and he had learned not to mistake lust for a deeper emotion. Undoubtedly he could handle his inconvenient attraction to his ex-wife.
‘Nonna will be disappointed if you leave,’ he called after her as he strode onto the landing and leaned over the banister rail. ‘Especially as she clearly went to some lengths to make sure you came back to the house for the reception.’
Sienna paused on her way down the stairs and looked up at him. ‘Emotional blackmail won’t work with me. You allowed Iris to think there is something going on between us but you’ll have to tell her the truth.’
‘Oh, I’m all for the truth, cara,’ he murmured, walking swiftly down the stairs to join her on the half-landing. ‘And the truth is we both still feel the wildfire attraction that burned between us a decade ago.’ He felt a tremor run through her and saw hunger in her eyes before her lashes swept down and concealed her thoughts. Triumph surged through Nico, threatening the self-control he had been so confident would not waver.
‘I had only left school a month before we met. What chance did I stand?’ she demanded in a bitter voice. ‘You were six years older than me and already worldly and experienced. In contrast I was painfully innocent but you soon changed that, didn’t you, Nico? You were used to having whatever you wanted and it was my misfortune that you decided you wanted me.’
Misfortune? He had married her, hadn’t he? He gritted his teeth. ‘I don’t remember hearing you complain, cara. But I do remember the moans you made when I kissed your breasts. Please, Nico, take me now,’ he mocked, his satisfaction mixed with a stab of shame when fiery colour winged along her high cheekbones and hurt flashed in her eyes.
‘You always were an arrogant bastard.’ She pushed her hair back over her shoulders and he inhaled the scent of vanilla. Her foot was poised over the lower stair. ‘This is a pointless conversation. No good ever comes from digging up the past. Goodbye, Nico.’
‘Stay.’ The word burst from him, harsher than he’d intended, but then he hadn’t intended to plead with her. She stared at him, looking as shocked as he felt. She was so beautiful. He could look at her for ever and never grow tired of her delicate features. That sexy mouth of hers was a little too wide and all the more perfect for it, and her eyes were the colour of storm clouds. ‘Please,’ he said roughly.
She swallowed and the convulsive movement of her throat betrayed emotions that he sensed she was desperate to hide. ‘I...’ She did that flippy thing with her hair again, running her fingers through the layers and making him want to touch the silken strands of rich burgundy. ‘Why do you want me to stay for the reception?’ she asked huskily.
He shrugged to hide the fact that he was asking himself the same question. ‘You said you’ve changed in the years since we were divorced and so have I. We are not the people we were then, but the attraction we both feel is as strong as when we first met.’
Her tongue darted across her lips. ‘I don’t know what you want,’ she said in a low tone.
What he wanted was to whisk her back to his bedroom so that they could spend the rest of the afternoon in bed. And if she carried on looking at him with eyes that had turned smoky and held a gleam of sensual promise, he wouldn’t be responsible for his actions. ‘I’d like to get to know the grown-up Sienna Fisher,’ Nico told her, startled to discover it was the truth.
* * *
Sienna looked around the huge marquee, which was decorated with extravagant floral displays, and sighed when Nico’s grandmother gave her a friendly wave from across the room.
‘My angina pump spray was in my handbag all the time. I don’t know how I missed it,’ she’d explained when Sienna had asked before they sat down to dinner if she was feeling better. ‘I’m glad you decided to stay for the reception after all. It’s good to see you and Nico getting on so well,’ Iris had added pointedly.
She must be mad to have agreed to stay, Sienna thought. If Iris told Grandma Rose that she had returned to Sethbury Hall as Nico’s guest, she would have some explaining to do. Nico had said that four hundred guests had been invited to the wedding. There was no top table and everyone, including the bride and groom, had sat at individual tables when the five-course meal was served by an army of white-jacketed waiters.
The food had looked exquisite but she’d been so conscious of Nico sitting beside her that she had barely tasted what she was eating. Now that the meal was over and the toasts and speeches were finished, the band had started playing and people were already on the dance floor.
Nico was talking to one of his relatives sitting on the other side of him and Sienna studied him covertly from beneath her lashes while she sipped her champagne. It was unfair that he was so indecently sexy, she brooded. His mother had been regarded as one of the great beauties of her generation. Like his grandfather before him, Nico’s patrician features were an indication of an aristocratic lineage that could be traced back centuries to when English knights and barons had forced King John to sign the Magna Carta.
Jacqueline Mandeville’s marriage to a handsome Italian playboy Franco De Conti, whose family’s enormous fortune had derived from their exclusive hotel chain, had produced an heir and a spare, Danny had once joked to Sienna. They had been at Sethbury Hall where Nico had organised a tennis tournament with a group of friends. Sienna had been startled by the bitterness in Danny’s voice. She’d told herself she must have imagined that he was jealous of his older sibling. But now, as she looked across the table and saw Danny staring at Nico with an odd expression on his face, she remembered that day all those years ago.
Nico had beaten Danny in a tennis match and Danny had stormed off the court. Later, he’d laughed and told her it was just brotherly rivalry. ‘Nico wins everything, including my girlfriend,’ he’d said. It wasn’t strictly true. She had gone out with Danny a couple of times, but when he had tried to kiss her she’d explained that she just wanted them to be friends. Nico had arrived at Sethbury soon after and she had fallen instantly in love with him.
Sienna’s mind jolted back to the present when Danny leaned across the table. ‘When did you get back with my brother? I’m surprised Nico didn’t mention that he was seeing you again.’
It was on the tip of her tongue to explain that she hadn’t had any contact with Nico since their divorce. But there had been faint suspicion in Danny’s voice, and bizarrely she wanted to protect Nico from embarrassment so she said lightly, ‘Oh, we bumped into each other in London recently and he invited me to the wedding. Nico knew that you and I had been friends, and I was pleased to have the chance to wish you and your new bride a happy marriage.’