Kate Walker
SICILIAN HUSBAND,
BLACKMAILED BRIDE
ITALIAN
HUSBANDS

TORONTO NEW YORK LONDON AMSTERDAM PARIS SYDNEY HAMBURG STOCKHOLM ATHENS TOKYO MILAN MADRID PRAGUE WARSAW BUDAPEST AUCKLAND

MILLS & BOON

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Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Coming Next Month

For Lori Corsentino, who let me borrow her brother’s names for these books.

PROLOGUE

IT WAS the perfect day for a wedding. The sun was shining, with the promise of heat later in the day, but it was early enough that the slight coolness of the dawn still lingered.

At home in England the early flowers of spring would be blooming purple and gold and white, the trees newly covered in soft green foliage. But here in Las Vegas there were only the city streets and the high, high buildings where the glass of thousands of windows glinted in the morning sun.

But she didn’t miss the green and the flowers, and colours of home, not for a second. She’d found a new home. She wouldn’t want to be anywhere but here, right now, in this perfect moment.

Because today was going to be perfect, no matter what the weather or anything else was like. And she was totally, perfectly happy. She couldn’t possibly find any space in her heart for any more joy or delight.

Today she was marrying the perfect man, the most wonderful man in the world.

Her mind was still spinning with the unexpectedness, the speed with which it had all happened. Just days before—not even a week ago—she hadn’t even known that he existed. And then a chance meeting in a hotel lobby, a dropped handbag, had changed her life for ever. She had crouched down to pick up her belongings and someone—some man—had stopped beside her. A soft, beautifully accented voice had asked if he could help. A strong hand, the skin tanned golden brown, had reached down to her, and she had looked up into the most gorgeous pair of gleaming bronze eyes she had ever seen in all her life.

And lost her heart in the magical space between one beat and the next.

Impossibly, unbelievably, he had felt the same way too. From the moment of that first meeting they had been inseparable.

But marriage…

Marriage!

Laughter that was the result of pure happiness bubbled up in her throat then broke on a snatched-in breath as the cab pulled into the kerb and stopped.

She was here. She’d reached the little wedding chapel where they were to become man and wife.

It was white-painted and tiny. But, small as it was, it was more than adequate. After all, there would only be the two of them standing in front of the celebrant and the one witness required by law. What else did they need? What else but the love they had discovered so wonderfully, so unexpectedly here in this city so far from their homes?

And he was there.

It was only when she saw the tall, dark, devastating figure of the man she loved that she realised how much she had been holding her breath, never quite believing that it was going to happen. Men like him—beautiful, powerful, exotic men like him—didn’t marry girls like her. She had been stunned enough that he had wanted her, had fallen into bed with him without even stopping to think if it was wise, so lost in love had she been. She hadn’t thought of anything more, hadn’t thought of a future then. She hadn’t even dreamed of such a possibility. It had been just enough to be with him, to know him, to share his bed—to love him.

The car door was pulled open and he was there, dressed in a loose white shirt, black linen trousers and smiling the smile that had stolen away her heart in the first moment she had seen it.

‘You came.’

‘Of course I came.’ The laughter and excitement were still a ripple in her voice. ‘Did you doubt it?’

‘Never,’ he responded, his own voice low and deep. ‘Not for a minute.’

Outside on the pavement, she waited while he paid the driver, her feet moving restlessly, almost dancing in her impatience, wanting to hurry, to go inside—to walk down that aisle and start this new stage of her life.

She was getting married…

‘Ready?’ he asked and held out his hand.

‘Ready,’ she assured him, putting her own fingers into his.

But still he hesitated, just for 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 closed door of the church and came to an abrupt halt. A dark smile of grim satisfaction curled the corners of a wide, expressive mouth as he caught the faint sound of music and voices from the cool interior.

He couldn’t have timed it better.

Pausing to fasten the single button on his jacket, straighten the cuffs of his fine black cotton shirt, he reached for the door handle. As his fingers touched it, his heart kicked once, hard and high, at the thought of what—of who he would see beyond it. A memory surfaced with a cruel stab and an added twist of something darker and more primitive low down in his body.

The memory of another wedding, another setting so very different from this one. Another time, another place…

The need to see her just once more warred savagely with the need to walk away to never see her lying face again. But the real reason he was here, the reason he had travelled thousands of miles just for this, came back in a rush, stiffening his spine and hardening an already coldly savage heart. Almost fiercely his head came up, he flexed his broad shoulders. His dark head held high, he opened the door as little as possible, and slipped quietly inside.

The bride and groom stood at the far end of the long aisle, facing the altar, their backs to him. The groom was the tall, narrow-framed man he was expecting, his thin blond hair already disappearing to display a bald spot near the crown of his head. He wore the formal frock coat as if he was born to the part—at least, as much as Guido could see from his back.

Beside him, she—his bride—was tall too; tall and slender. A blur of white.

White! Something inside him rebelled savagely at the thought. Bile burned in his stomach, lifted to his throat, making him swallow hard in distaste.

‘Amber…’

The name escaped him in a whisper of savage fury.

Luckily the choir was singing some hymn so that no one heard him. Everyone had their attention on the front of the church too, and hadn’t noticed his arrival.

So they didn’t see the way that his face set even harder, his lips twisting in anger and the bitter taste of disgust flooding his mouth with acid.

Amber Wellesley wasn’t entitled to wear white. He had made very sure of that.

But perhaps she had lied to her new fiancé about that. Just as she must have lied to him about something else. Something much more important.

She had lied when she had said she loved him.

His dark bronze eyes focused on the woman in white who stood at the altar steps, totally unaware of his presence.

Now that his gaze had cleared again he could see how the wonderful glory of her chestnut hair was piled high on her head, fixed with ornate silver pins over which the delicate veil tumbled in a waterfall of gauze. He had once known how it felt to unpin those burnished locks, comb them loose, feel them tumble over his hands, his skin…

‘Dio mio…’

Guido’s breath hissed between his teeth as he muttered a curse to himself. Already his heartbeat had lurched, threatening his ability to breathe right. His mind was flooded with burning erotic images that were totally inappropriate to standing in a church, watching the subject of those imaginings preparing to marry another man. He mustn’t think this way. Must not let his mind wander onto paths that would too easily distract him from his purpose.

With a brutal effort he dragged his thoughts back from the direction in which they were heading and clamped down on the wayward imaginings. Cold, calm control was what he needed now. He had to play this just right.

He was a few minutes early anyway. But that didn’t matter. He had planned this for just the right moment. The choir was coming to the end of the hymn.

Folding his arms across his broad chest, he leaned back against the heavy wooden door and prepared to wait.

The church was full of the scent of flowers. The perfume from sprays of roses and lilies that spilled out from the ornate holders on each side of the altar, and from the arrangements of tight little rosebuds and lily of the valley that decorated the end of every pew, flooded the air thickly. Amber’s senses swam with every breath she drew in, making her feel nauseous and faint.

It might have helped if she had been able to sleep the night before, or eat something this morning, but both rest and food had proved impossible for her.

Which was hardly surprising under the circumstances.

‘Every girl has the right to feel nervous on the night before her wedding,’ her mother had assured her. ‘A little blusher will soon improve the look of those pale cheeks.’

And Amber had forced a smile, submitting herself to her mother’s ministrations as Pamela Wellesley wielded the blusher brush, the mascara wand, with enthusiasm, then stepped back to view her handiwork.

‘You still look a little wan,’ she murmured, frowning as she did so. ‘Really Amber, you seem as if you’re about to leave for your execution, not your wedding. Is there something wrong?’

‘No!’It was too fast, too vehement, and it made her mother’s eyes narrow sharply.

‘No second thoughts about Rafe?’

‘No.’

Of that she was sure at least. Rafe was kind and gentle and had been a good friend to her. It was not his fault that there wasn’t any great passion between them. It was not his fault he was not…

No—she wouldn’t let that name into her mind. Not today, of all days.

‘You haven’t had a row—?’

‘Oh, Mum, how could anyone ever have a row with Rafe?’

It would help if she didn’t know only too well what was going through her mother’s mind. It wasn’t the thought that her daughter might actually have rowed with her prospective husband, the man she was supposed to love, that was really troubling her, but the thought of what might happen if the wedding was called off. The uncomfortable scandal that would follow, the embarrassment…

Pamela had lived for months on the prestige she had gained from the fact that her daughter was going to marry one of the St Clair family, and she would hate the way she would lose face if anything happened.

‘No. You’re right, it’s just nerves.’

‘Well, I know something that could help with that—a glass of something…some champagne…’

‘No! Nothing—thank you, Mum.’

Amber forced herself to add the second part of her sentence, knowing that once again she had come so close to giving herself away. The note of near-panic in her voice had sounded so sharply in her own ears that she couldn’t believe that Pamela hadn’t heard it. But her mother could have no idea of just what memories she had stirred up, and if Amber wasn’t careful she would risk raising questions she had no hope of answering.

‘I’m fine, honestly,’ she assured her mother. ‘Or I will be when today is over.’

When today was over and all the memories she had tried to lock away could go back into the secret part of her thoughts where she had hidden them for the past year, until the plans for this very different day had dragged them out into her mind again. When she could put the past behind her for good, she hoped.

The sudden silence around her in the church jolted Amber out of her reverie, dragging her back to the present. The choir had stopped singing, the glorious sound of their voices dying away, and the priest stepped forward to begin the real heart of the ceremony.

‘We are gathered here together to join this man and this woman…’

Amber found that her mouth had dried painfully and she had to swallow hard to relieve the tightness in her throat.

Could she really do this? Could she go through with this wedding, knowing that her heart wasn’t truly in it? She was fond of Rafe. She loved him in a quiet, gentle way—in the way that good friends loved each other. And a year ago, he had helped her escape from the worst situation of her life.

But she could never give her heart to him as she had once given it to another man. Given it and had it ripped to shreds, the tiny pieces tossed back at her without a care. With only supreme contempt on his face.

No!

With a violent mental effort, Amber clamped down tight on the Pandora’s box of memories she’d risked opening again. She was not going to let that happen. She was not going to let that man’s name into her thoughts, into her world, ever again. He had ruined her life once and she had barely recovered from it. She was not going to suffer that way ever again.

That was why she was marrying Rafe.

Turning her head, Amber looked up into the face of the man at her side, surprised to find that he looked pale—as pale as she imagined she must look herself. His jaw seemed tight, his mouth compressed. But then, as he realised her eyes were on him, he glanced her way too, and flashed her a brief smile.

Immediately Amber felt some of the cruel tensions that had tightened her spine, twisting in her nerves, slacken and ease, and she slid her hand into his where it hung at his side. His skin was cool, his response muted. He just let her fingers rest in his. But that was Rafe’s way. He made no major demonstrations of affection; they hadn’t even slept together. He had said he was happy to wait and that was how Amber preferred it.

She would be OK with Rafe. Safe and secure. And that was all she wanted in life now. She’d known passion once and it had frightened her. It had turned her into someone she didn’t recognise and she never wanted to see that person again. She’d left the dark days behind her and she was moving forward at last.

‘If any person present knows of any reason why these two should not be joined…’

The priest intoned the words in a voice that made them sound so solemn, so ominous, that in spite of herself Amber felt a tiny shiver run down her spine. It was deliberate, she knew. The cleric was Rafe’s uncle and he had joked with them before the ceremony that this was their last chance to back out; to escape the marriage vows.

‘I’ll wait a good while after I’ve said it,’ he’d teased. ‘Just to make sure that if anyone wants to say anything they can.’

‘…then let him speak now…or forever hold his peace…’

There, it was said. The words were out. The challenge had been made and now they could continue with the wedding service.

No one would answer it. No one ever did. Amber had no idea just how many weddings she had attended in her life but at all of them those words had been spoken in one form or another and no one had ever stepped forward to ‘speak now’ instead of forever holding peace.

But still, there was always that long-drawn-out moment that seemed to go on forever. The awkward, rather nerve-racking moment when everyone paused and listened and waited…and no one ever spoke.

But everyone wondered just what would happen if someone did.

Of course, no one spoke this time. And Rafe’s uncle beamed with delight and satisfaction as he drew in his breath to continue once again.

‘In that case—’

‘I do!’

The voice came so suddenly and unexpectedly that for a moment Amber was confused. They were the words she was expecting to hear—when she and Rafe made their vows—but not yet, not before they had been asked…

Had Rafe been so nervous, in so much of a rush that he had jumped the gun, plunging in to say the words that everyone knew were coming? Surely not now, not yet. Not without the prompt from the cleric first.

‘Wait…’ she began to whisper.

At least, she opened her mouth to try to say it. But then she realised that the words had come from behind, and not beside her, And there was something dreadful about the stillness that had fallen over the entire church, about the way that there had been one sudden murmur of shock, abruptly choked off and leaving instead an appalled silence that reverberated inside her head like the after-effects of a vicious blow to her skull.

‘I do,’ the voice said again and there was no mistaking it this time. This time she caught the soft lilt of a musical accent that should have made the words sound beautiful, soft, enticing.

Instead they made her shiver with the ice-cold, soul-deep dread that came with recognition of that voice. The voice she had once loved to hear whisper her name or tease her softly.

The voice that could only belong to one man and he was the man she hoped she would never meet again. The man she most dreaded seeing in the entire world.

‘What—?’ Rafe seemed to have jolted out of his inexplicable trance, some of the tension leaving his body as he jerked his head around to see who had spoken. ‘What are you—?’

But the man behind them didn’t let him finish. Instead he interrupted Rafe, lifting his voice slightly and speaking in a harsh and dangerous tone that defied anyone to try to stop him.

‘I do,’ he said again, just to emphasise the fact. ‘I know of a reason why these two should not be joined together in holy matrimony. Don’t I, Amber?’

And it was that use of her name, the icy cruelty in it, the savage edge to the syllables that turned it into an accusation, a warning and a threat all in one that left her with no place to go; nowhere to hide. The only thing she could do was to face her tormentor head-on.

Look him straight in the face.

It took all the strength she possessed. Trembling, shivering, nausea churning deep in her stomach, she forced herself to turn, green eyes blurring badly as she tried to focus them on him.

He was bigger than she remembered. Bigger and darker and far, far more devastating.

Or was that just the way that he seemed to be in contrast to the mellow stone and wood of the interior of the church, the pale colours of the flowers? He was dressed in superbly tailored black from head to foot, shirt, jacket, trousers, black boots on the feet that were planted so firmly on the stone flags that lined the aisle. With his jet-black hair and gleaming bronze eyes he looked like nothing so much as the devil himself come to earth—and come to torment her.

‘Amber?’ he prompted harshly when she could only stand and stare, eyes wide, her trembling hands half-raised towards her mouth, not having the strength to complete the move.

The whole congregation had frozen too. Her mother, Rafe’s family, every one of the wedding guests was sitting completely still in their seats, goggle-eyed at the scene unfolding before them.

Suddenly 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 St Clair’s voice fitted perfectly too. That plum-in-the-mouth tone that always sounded as if the speaker was looking down his nose at the same time.

‘In the same way that she planned to become yours—she married me.’

‘That isn’t true!’

It was Amber’s voice that broke into his, her fearful tones echoing around the high roof of the church as she protested.

‘I didn’t…’

The Englishman looked down at the woman at his side, then back into Guido’s face, and there was the flash of something inexplicable in his blue eyes.

‘You’re not married to him?’

He didn’t seem to expect an answer, which was just as well, as Amber was clearly incapable of managing anything more. But he nodded and turned his attention back to the priest, who was standing uncertainly to one side, obviously not knowing how to react.

‘The marriage will go ahead,’ he instructed. ‘Amber…’

‘Do you want to be arrested for bigamy?’ Guido flung the words at the bride, aiming them right at the huge, wide green eyes that were all he could see behind the concealing veil. Eyes that had once looked into his when she had declared that she loved him, that there was no other man in the world for her. ‘Because that’s what will happen if you go ahead. You cannot marry this man—you are married to me.’

‘It wasn’t legal!’ It was a cry of despair as she saw her chance of marrying into the aristocracy disappear down the drain, Guido thought cynically. ‘It wasn’t even a real marriage!’

The silence that swelled around her words was shocking. It swirled and ebbed, like some terrible sea wave that threatened to take everything with it; swallow everything; drown everything.

Then:

‘Amber!’

Even behind the veil, it was possible to see how Amber’s face had lost every last trace of colour as her would-be groom turned shocked and stunned eyes on her, the tone of total disgust in which he said her name revealing how she had given herself away.

‘I thought you said you didn’t know this man but now…Is it true about this marriage?’

‘And the rest?’ This time the reproach came from a member of the congregation, a tall man whose narrow face and balding head made him an older version of the groom.

‘Were you planning to trap my son into a bigamous marriage?’ The revulsion in that word was plain; as was the black fury, the total rejection of her.

‘I…’

Guido actually felt a twist of pity as he saw how she struggled for an answer; the way that her mouth opened and closed but no sound would come. But then her head went up, her green eyes flashed behind the lace and she fell back on the excuse she had given the first time.

‘It wasn’t a real marriage!’

Fiercely she directed a furious glare down the aisle at Guido. A glare so laser-hot that for a moment he almost believed it should have seared his skin, reduced that delicate veil to ashes as it burned through it.

‘You have to believe me—you wouldn’t think that I’d really marry someone like him?’

Every trace of that unexpected impulse to pity disappeared in a flash, shrivelled in the heat of her scorn, the blaze of her pride. And in its place was left an icy sense of loathing that blazed cold in his heart, turning pity to revulsion in the blink of an eye.

With deliberate slowness, his movements under the most rigid control, he reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and pulled out a folded sheet of white paper. He could feel the entire congregation watching, transfixed, held totally by what he was doing.

A flick of his hand shook open the folds, revealing an official form, a document bearing names and a date—his name—her name—and the date twelve months earlier on which they had been married.

‘Looks real enough to me,’ he drawled silkily, holding it up so that everyone could see.

‘Let me…’

Rafe St Clair took a step forward, snatched the document from his hand, stared at it intently. His face was already pale with anger, but the way he compressed his mouth even more tightly etched further white lines around his nose and lips.

‘Amber Christina Wellesley. Guido Ignazio Corsentino…’

His voice died, the paper crushed in his hand for a second before he flung it into Amber’s face.

‘You liar!’

‘Rafe…’

But her protest was ignored.

‘This wedding is cancelled,’ Rafe declared. ‘I wish you joy of your wife, Corsentino.’

‘Rafe!’ Amber tried again as he turned away. Unable to believe what was happening, the way that her life had been turned inside out, destroyed in the space of a few moments, she reached for his hand, wanting to stop him, make him stay. ‘Rafe, please!’

But even before she had the chance to wrap her fingers around his, he was pulling away, flinging her from him as if he felt contaminated just by her touch. She had never seen his normally gentle-looking face harden into such antipathy. Her friend Rafe had disappeared and in his place was a total stranger.

‘I want nothing to do with you! You disgust me—you little whore!’

‘No!’

To Amber’s astonishment, it was Guido who came to her defence, his voice harsh with fury, stepping forward, coming between her and the other man. She couldn’t see what was on his face, in his eyes, but she saw Rafe’s reaction to it, the way that he flinched, his head lowering, then backed away, moving hurriedly down the aisle. And as he went, his family got up too and followed him out.

The surprising kindness, protected by the last person on earth she might have expected to come to her aid, was the final straw. It took all her strength from her, weakened her legs so that they shook beneath her, unable to support her any longer.

With a low moan of despair she sank down on the steps of the altar and buried her face in her hands. Drained of all energy, she felt too flattened to think, too lost even to cry. She just retreated into the concealing, comforting darkness and hid there, letting her mind go blank until she found the courage to think again.

Vaguely she registered the sound of movements, the shuffle of bodies that she supposed must mean that the people in the congregation—the family and friends who had all come to see her married to Rafe—were now getting up and leaving. Footsteps made their way down the stone flagged aisle, the door creaked on its hinges, banged shut a few times, and then, slowly, gradually, every sound died away and she was left…

Alone?

Had everyone gone? Had every single person in the church walked out and left her here, by herself? Was she alone with her thoughts and nothing else?

Or was there someone there?

Was someone standing there in silence, not saying a word, just watching her? Seeing her in the depths of despair, struggling to cope with the way that her life had been shattered and now lay in tiny pieces around her feet?

Amber didn’t really know which of the two prospects was worse. At this moment, she’d probably choose the latter because she didn’t think she had the strength to cope with anyone. She knew that eventually she was going to have to look up, get up, and try very hard to pick up what little was left of her life. But right now, with her whole body trembling with the aftershocks from the emotional earthquake that had blasted through her, she just wanted a little while longer to stay here like this, to hide, to…

‘Are you going to hide away like that for ever?’

The voice that broke into her protected world echoed her own thoughts so closely that for a moment she almost believed that she had asked the question of herself inside the privacy of her mind. But then reality registered in the fact that the tones in which the question had been asked were unmistakably masculine—and her heart twisted in shock at the realisation that they had also been shaded by a musical, sexy Italian accent.

Guido?

Was he still there? Was he the one who had stayed? Was it possible?

She would have expected that, having marched in here and set her world upside down, he had earned whatever satisfaction he had come for—the revenge he had wanted for the way she had walked out on him and their marriage.

The marriage that hadn’t been a marriage.

The marriage that she had always believed hadn’t been a marriage, but a farce, a deliberate ploy to use her, from start to finish. Which now Guido had openly declared before all these people…

‘Well?’

It was harsher now, pushing at her, poking her mentally, driving her out of her cocoon, so that she dropped her concealing hand, flung her head up, turning on him with as much defiance as she could muster.

‘I’m not hiding!’

‘Looks like it to me,’ Guido drawled mockingly. ‘You have every appearance of a little girl hiding in a corner, away from something nasty—with an “if I do not see it then it isn’t there and maybe if I am really lucky it will just go away” approach to life.’

‘Well, if that’s the case, then it’s not working, is it?’ Amber tossed at him, where he was lounging against the front of the very first pew, narrow hips resting on the polished wood, long legs stretched out at an angle. ‘I’ve opened my eyes and the “something nasty” is very definitely still here.’

‘And has no intention of going away either,’ he finished for her, apparently unmoved by the furious insult that had just bounced off a skin that was thick as a rhinoceros hide.

He even smiled, though it was the smile of a killer snake. That dangerous king cobra was back, just waiting, just wanting her to tempt him to strike.

No—the description of a snake didn’t fit Guido. The dark, lean, dangerous man who was lounging so indolently against the end of the pew was more like a lazily watchful hunting tiger, waiting for just the right moment to pounce.

Oh, dear…

Suddenly even her own thoughts struck Amber as ridiculous.

She was getting confused, getting her creatures muddled up. An impossible shudder of laughter bubbled up in her throat.

‘Amber?’

Guido’s voice sounded as if it came from a long, long way away. Had he moved? Was he leaving like all the others?

She should care more. After all, even her own mother had walked out on her, unable to bear the embarrassment of the way that the marriage had been brought to an abrupt halt; the embarrassment of finding that her daughter was already married.

‘Amber, stop it!’

He’d definitely moved this time. His voice came from just above her and she could sense his presence in every cell in her body. Black-booted feet were set firmly on the stone flags just in front of her—she could see them through the strangely clinging veil—and the long black-clad columns of his legs, strong and muscular…

‘Stop what? I just think it’s so—funny!’

Her voice went up and down as if it were on a badly tuned radio, with the reception coming and going crazily.

‘No, it’s not!’

Hard hands clamped around her arms, hauling her to her feet—hauling her up against him so that her breath escaped her in a gasping rush.

‘Yes, it is…Here I was—about to be married—and you turn up like…like three kinds of animal…’

‘Three kinds of animal?’ She’d confused him there. He was frowning down into her face, even his excellent English unable to cope with her fanciful imagination. ‘Amber—stop crying and then we—’

Crying? What was he talking about? She wasn’t crying; she was laughing.

‘I’m not crying…’

She caught the sceptical look he turned on her, his bronze eyes even darker than usual.

‘I’m not!’

‘No?’

Releasing one arm, he touched the back of his free hand to her neck and then slightly above that, to her chin, taking it away and looking hard at it before turning it so that she could see his bent knuckles.

They were wet, glistening with moisture that they had picked up from her skin. From the tears that she hadn’t been aware of shedding and that were now, she realised, streaming silently down her cheeks and flowing onto her neck. That was why her veil felt as if it was crammed against her cheeks, almost glued to her skin.

Unnerved, she brushed at it with a trembling hand but only succeeded in pressing it even closer to her eyelashes.

‘Let me…’ Guido said but she was unable to stop herself from flinching back as he made to lift the fine lace.

‘No…’

‘Dannazione, Amber!’ Guido swore. ‘How can we talk when I can’t even see your face with this thing in the way?’

‘I don’t want to talk—we have nothing to talk about! Today was the day I was supposed to be married to the man I wanted to wed—and you turn up and tell me I’m still married to you. To the man I most don’t want to be married to in the world. To the man I never thought I was married to in the first place!’

‘The man you are married to!’

It was only when she heard him confirm her fears that she finally realised she had to accept it. Even now, she admitted to herself, she had been holding on to a tiny, faint hope that this had all been a terrible mistake—a cruel, bitter game. She knew she had left Guido savagely angry, furious at the way she had walked out on him, and she frankly wasn’t surprised that he wanted revenge for the insults she had tossed at him both verbally and in the letter she’d left behind.

Insults that had been her only hope of getting out of there and actually leaving. Making sure he never came after her; never called her back.

But this…

‘The marriage is legal, then?’

‘Do you doubt it?’

His tone spoke of arrogant disbelief of the fact that anyone should not believe him absolutely. And the way his broad shoulders stiffened, the long spine straightening and his proud head coming up, only reinforced the message of controlled fury in his voice.

‘Do you think I would go to this trouble for a marriage that wasn’t real?’

‘But you said…’

It sure as hell isn’t a real marriage! he’d said. There’s been nothing real about it from the start.

‘I know what I said, Amber, but…porca miseria!’ Guido swore in exasperation so violent that his explosive words echoed around the now empty church. ‘I cannot speak to you like this!’

Coming close again, but soft-footed this time, he hooked his hands under the fall of the veil, taking it between his finger and thumb at either side.

‘Allow me…’

Amber wished she could stop him but she seemed to have lost all strength to act. Her feet were rooted to the ground and she couldn’t force them to move. It was as if the gentleness in his voice had drained all the power from her so that she could only stand there in silence and wait.

‘At least if we can see each other, Amber, mia bella,’ Guido murmured, ‘then maybe we can talk…’

She wasn’t his beautiful one, Amber thought frantically; she didn’t want to be anything to him! And why, now, when she was little prepared for it, when it was the last thing she wanted, did he have to say her name in that very special way that he had, with the last R rolled out on his tongue, sounding almost like a deep, deep purr? A tiger’s purr.

Just for a second hysteria threatened again. Her lips trembled, her mind shaking…

And then Guido lifted the veil and their eyes met and suddenly every last thought of laughter, or fight—or anything—went right out of her like air out of a pricked balloon, leaving her limp and lost and unable to think.

Unable to think beyond…

‘Guido…’

Beyond the fact that she remembered those eyes looking down into hers. She remembered the scent of his skin, the touch of his hands. She remembered how it had felt to have that devastatingly sensual mouth on hers, to taste his lips, feel the caressing sweep of his tongue. She remembered it—and she wanted it all over again.

She wanted it so much that she could almost taste it. That when she let her own tongue slide across her parched mouth, she could almost believe that there would be the taste of him lingering there. Even after all this time.

‘Amber…’

And she knew that tone too. Knew the thickness in his voice that meant he had been caught on the raw by the sudden rush of sensuality. The one that had her in its grip too—drying her mouth and changing her eyes as it darkened his, turning them from burning bronze to the blackness of passion. She watched the heavy lids slide half-closed in a way that gave him a slumberous, barely awake look in a way that she knew from experience was deeply deceptive.

When he looked like that, then he was far from sleep. In fact he was at his most vividly awake, most fiercely aroused. His blood was heating with passion, his body waking to need, and if she stood any closer then she would feel the hard, proud force of that hunger pressed against her in evidence of the way he was feeling.

Guido made a rough, raw sound in the back of his throat, and snatched in a breath as if he could hardly make his lungs work to keep himself alive.

‘I have to…’he said huskily and she could hear the fight he was having with himself in the jagged edge to the words, the way his voice sounded hoarse as if it hadn’t been used for days.

She knew the moment too that he lost the fight. It was there in the momentary way that he closed his eyes, the breath that hissed through his teeth, before, in a moment that was part conquest, part defeat, he lowered his dark head and took her mouth with his.

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