Buch lesen: «A Bride Worth Millions»

CHAPTER ONE

‘I’VE BEEN THINKING.’

‘Really?’ Luca De Rossi could not disguise the scepticism in his voice as he glanced at the blonde in bed beside him. Giselle Mercier was exquisite, and she was an inventive lover, but Luca doubted that the French model with baby-blue eyes and a penchant for expensive jewellery was about to announce that she had discovered a solution for world peace, or a cure for cancer.

His suspicions were confirmed when she held up her left hand so that the enormous diamond on her third finger was set ablaze by the early-morning sunbeams streaming into the penthouse.

‘Yes. I’ve been thinking that I don’t want to get married at a registry office. I want our wedding to be in a church, or even a cathedral.’

Giselle glanced towards the window and the view of the elegant spires of the Duomo—Milan’s magnificent cathedral.

‘And I want to wear a wedding dress. Think what a fantastic publicity opportunity it would be for De Rossi Designs,’ Giselle purred when Luca frowned. ‘The press would go mad for pictures of a wedding gown designed by the creative director of DRD for his bride.’

‘There will be no press coverage of our wedding,’ Luca said tersely. ‘You seem to be forgetting that our marriage will be a temporary arrangement. I only require you to be my wife for one year. After that we will divorce and you will receive one million pounds—as we agreed.’

Giselle threw back the sheet to reveal her naked, golden-tanned body, and hooked one lissom thigh across Luca’s hip. ‘Perhaps you’ll decide that you don’t want a temporary marriage,’ she murmured. ‘Last night was amazing, chéri. I think we could have something special...’

Luca muttered something ugly beneath his breath as he swung his legs over the side of the bed. It was true that the sex last night had been good—albeit in the vaguely uninspiring way that sex always was with any of his mistresses. But it meant nothing to him. Just as it always meant nothing.

He didn’t know why Giselle had suggested that their relationship could be in any way ‘special’. They had made an arrangement that suited both of them and he could not conceal his impatience at her attempt to try and change the rules.

He strode across the room and stared moodily out of the window, while his mistress ran her eyes hungrily over his bare buttocks and muscular thighs. In the sunlight, Luca’s thick black hair, which had a tendency to curl at his nape, gleamed like polished jet. His broad shoulders were tanned a dark bronze, the same as the rest of his body, even his buttocks, which made Giselle wonder if he sunbathed in the nude.

She had never had a lover as skilful and tireless as Luca De Rossi. No wonder the tabloids dubbed him the ‘Italian Stallion’! He was as famous for his affairs with the countless female celebrities who wore his designs to red-carpet events as he was for his undeniable artistic talent and his flair for designing clothes that flattered women whatever their shape.

Luca was sinfully sexy and filthy rich. He was also in urgent need of a wife, so that he could keep his ancestral home: Villa De Rossi—a palatial house on the shores of Lake Como. It was something to do with the terms of his grandmother’s will. Luca had to be married by his thirty-fifth birthday or the villa, which had been owned by the De Rossi family for three hundred years, would be sold.

Giselle did not understand all the details and did not particularly care. The important thing was that Luca had asked her to be his bride. The deal included an amazing pay-off, as well as lots of other perks—such as the diamond solitaire ring that Luca had promised she could keep when they went their separate ways.

But Giselle had no intention of going anywhere. It had occurred to her that, even though a million pounds was more than she was ever likely to earn from modelling, it made sense to hang on to her soon-to-be husband for as long as possible. After all, if he was willing to pay her one million pounds for one year of marriage then even Giselle’s poor grasp of mathematics could work out the amount she should receive after two or three years of being Luca’s wife. And of course if they had a child then Luca would have to pay maintenance and school fees.

Really, the future looked very promising, Giselle decided.

‘Luca...’ she said huskily. ‘Why don’t you come back to bed?’

Luca ignored the invitation. A familiar sense of frustration at the situation he found himself in made his blood boil, and he felt a strong urge to smash his fist through the window. He rested his brow against the glass and looked down on Corso Vittorio Emanuelle II, Milan’s famous shopping precinct.

Despite the early hour, people were already milling in the glass-domed walkways where all the top fashion brands, including De Rossi Designs, had boutiques. The fashion label that Luca had created fifteen years ago had become a global success, and the iconic DRD logo was a byword for haute couture and high-end ready-to-wear clothes that complemented the exclusive leather shoes, handbags and accessories that De Rossi Enterprises—founded eighty years ago by Luca’s great-grandfather Raimondo—was famous for.

It was thanks to Luca that the family business had been saved from the brink of bankruptcy and now enjoyed an annual sales revenue of over a billion pounds. But he had never received praise or thanks from his grandparents when they had been alive, Luca reflected bitterly.

He walked back over to the bed, frowning when he saw the soft expression in Giselle’s eyes. The last thing he wanted was for her think that she was in any way special to him, or that their relationship could become permanent. He had met her days after he had learned of his grandmother’s will, when he had been reeling from shock and consumed with rage.

Giselle had been just another blonde at a party, but when she had tearfully confided that she had been dropped from her modelling contract, and was worried about how she would be able to afford the rent on her flat, Luca had seen a way to resolve both their problems. He had money, but he needed a wife. Giselle needed money and she had agreed to his marriage deal.

It was as simple as that, and he did not need her to complicate things with messy emotions that he was incapable of reciprocating.

‘The jewellers who sold you my diamond ring have a matching necklace on display in the window.’ Giselle arranged herself on the pillows so that her breasts tilted forward provocatively. ‘It would be nice to have the set.’ She pouted when Luca ignored her attempt to pull him down onto the bed. ‘Why are you getting dressed? It’s the weekend and you don’t have to go to work today, do you?’

Luca forbore from pointing out that he hadn’t built up his successful fashion label at the same time as running De Rossi Enterprises by working weekdays, from nine till five. Twenty-four/seven was nearer the mark. For the past fifteen years he had slogged his guts out to restore the De Rossi brand, but he faced losing everything he had achieved if he did not give in to his grandmother’s outrageous attempt to blackmail him from beyond the grave.

Nonna Violetta had wanted him to marry, and marry he would, Luca thought with a grim smile as he stared down at his bride-to-be. But it would be a sham marriage, a business deal, and the only reason he intended to go through with it was because it would allow him to give Rosalie the special care she needed.

‘I have to go to England,’ he told Giselle as he pulled on his trousers, followed by a shirt and jacket.

The superb tailoring of the suit he had designed himself emphasised his lean, six-feet-plus frame, and the shirt moulded his powerful abdominal muscles.

‘I’ve been invited to a society wedding,’ he said drily.

Giselle’s pout switched from sexy to sulky. ‘You could take me. Who is getting married?’

‘Charles Fairfax is someone I know from school. He’s marrying the sister-in-law of my good friend Sultan Kadir of Zenhab.’

‘You’re friends with a sultan?’ Giselle’s eyes widened. ‘I bet he’s mega-rich. Will I meet him when I’m your wife?’

Not if he could help it, Luca thought to himself. Kadir Al Sulaimar was his closest friend, and would understand his reasons for marrying Giselle. But the truth was that Luca felt uncomfortable about his fake marriage. He was a world-weary cynic, but when he had acted as best man to Kadir at his wedding to his beautiful English wife, Lexi, nine months ago, Luca had witnessed the intense love between the couple and had briefly felt envious of something that he could never have.

‘Who is this sister-in-law of the Sultan that your friend Charles is marrying?’ Giselle flicked through the pages of a gossip magazine that she had brought with her because Luca only kept boring books at the penthouse. ‘Is she a celebrity?’

‘Unlikely.’ Luca had a vivid recollection of Athena Howard’s sapphire-blue eyes, her oval-shaped face, and the determined chin that hinted at a stubborn streak in her nature. In Zenhab he had felt curious because Athena shared no physical resemblance with her sister. Lexi, with her silvery-blond hair and slender figure, had been a breathtakingly beautiful bride, but her sister and chief bridesmaid had faded into the background.

Luca had simply been carrying out his duties as best man when he had stood beside Athena for the wedding photographs and later led her onto the dance floor. She was petite in stature, and the top of her head had only reached his mid-chest. Following Zenhabian tradition she had worn a headscarf during the wedding ceremony, but at the private reception Luca had been surprised to see her long braid of dark brown hair—until she had explained that Lexi was her adoptive sister and they were not related by blood.

A memory slipped into Luca’s mind of the perfume that Athena had worn at the wedding—an evocative fragrance of old-fashioned roses that had stirred his senses as they had walked together in the palace gardens. Stirred rather more than his senses, in actual fact, he recalled ruefully. He could not explain to himself why he had kissed Athena Howard, or why the memory of that brief kiss still lingered in his subconscious.

Giselle’s petulant voice pulled him from his thoughts. ‘Why can’t I come to the wedding with you? Anyone would think you were trying to avoid being seen with me.’

‘That’s not true, cara. But I can’t turn up at a wedding with an uninvited companion.’

The hard gleam in Giselle’s eyes warned Luca that damage limitation was needed. His fiancée had been blessed with beauty at the expense of brains, but she was well aware that his thirty-fifth birthday was two weeks away. He felt a surge of impotent fury that everything that mattered to him lay in the hands of a brainless bimbo. It wasn’t Giselle’s fault, he reminded himself. She was the solution—not the cause of his problems.

‘While I’m away, why don’t you visit the jewellers and buy that diamond necklace?’

He dropped a credit card onto the bed and Giselle snatched it up.

‘I might as well get the matching earrings, too.’

‘Why not?’ Luca murmured drily.

So what if his bride-to-be had an avaricious streak a mile wide? he thought five minutes later, as he walked out of the building and climbed into the chauffeur-driven car waiting to take him to the airport. What were a few diamonds when he would soon have everything he wanted?

Inexplicably, the memory of a pair of sapphire-blue eyes slid into his mind. He gave an indifferent shrug. Later today Athena Howard would become Mrs Charles Fairfax. He had only agreed to attend the wedding as a favour to Kadir.

Luca frowned, thinking of the phone call he’d received from the Sultan of Zenhab.

‘Lexi is upset that we can’t fly to England for her sister’s wedding because the baby is due any day. We’d both be grateful if you would attend the wedding in our place and try and talk to Athena. Lexi is worried that her sister is making a mistake by marring Charles. You and I both know from our schooldays that Charlie Fairfax is a charmless oaf,’ Kadir had reminded Luca. ‘But if Athena seems happy then you won’t need to hang around. However, if you detect that she’s having doubts about the marriage...’

‘What do you expect me to do?’ Luca had demanded.

‘Stop the wedding from going ahead,’ Kadir had replied succinctly. ‘I don’t know how, exactly, but I’m sure you’ll think of something.’

* * *

She did not look so much like a meringue as a cream puff, Athena decided as she studied her reflection in the mirror in her bedroom at Woodley Lodge, the country house of Lord and Lady Fairfax. But it was too late now to wonder why she had allowed herself to be persuaded to choose this crinoline-inspired wedding dress with a skirt so wide that she could be mistaken for the White Cliffs of Dover. The puffed sleeves broadened her top half, while the enormous skirt with its layers of white satin ruffles accentuated her lack of height and made her look dumpy.

‘You’ll be marrying into the aristocracy in front of five hundred guests,’ her mother had reminded Athena when she had tentatively remarked that a simpler style of dress might suit her better. ‘You need a dress that will make you the centre of attention.’

Butterflies performed a clog dance in Athena’s stomach at the prospect of five hundred people looking at her as she walked down the aisle. Please God, she prayed she didn’t do something embarrassing like trip on her long skirt and annoy Charlie.

She hoped he was in a better mood than he had been the previous evening. She had felt awful when she’d spilt red wine on the cream velvet carpet in the sitting room. Lady Fairfax had said that it didn’t matter, although she’d compressed her lips into a thin line, but Charlie had made a fuss and had said she was like a bull in a china shop.

Athena bit her lip. Sometimes Charlie said quite hurtful things—almost as if he didn’t care about her feelings. During the past year that they had been engaged, she had tried her best to be a gracious and elegant hostess at the dinner parties he had asked her to organise. But she would be the first to admit that she was clumsy—especially when she was nervous—and she always seemed to do something wrong that earned Charlie’s criticism.

Heaven knew what he would say when he heard of her latest catastrophe. While inserting the contact lenses she wore because she was short-sighted she had dropped a lens—the last of her disposable lenses as it turned out—down the plughole of the sink, which meant that she would have to wear her glasses to the wedding.

Athena glanced longingly out of the window at the cloudless September sky. It was a beautiful day, and she would love to be outside, but she’d had to spend hours having her hair styled in an elaborate ‘up-do’, which required dozens of hairpins and so much hairspray that her hair felt as rigid as a helmet. And a make-up artist had applied a heavy foundation to her face which made her feel as though she was wearing a mask. Dramatic eye make-up and a cherry-red shade of lipstick certainly made her noticeable.

The person in the mirror did not look like her. Somewhere in all the wedding preparations Athena Howard had turned into someone she didn’t recognise, she thought ruefully.

She tried to reassure herself that the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach was just pre-wedding nerves. But her sense of panic would not go away. Her legs felt as if they had turned to jelly and she sank down onto the edge of the bed.

Why was she about to get married in a four-thousand-pound dress that did not suit her? That amount of money would keep the orphanage she supported in India running for months. She thought of the House of Happy Smiles in Jaipur, which was in desperate need of funds, and wished that instead of paying for an expensive wedding the money could have been donated to the fundraising campaign she had set up for the orphanage. She didn’t want an extravagant wedding—she would have been happier with a small event—but what she wanted didn’t matter.

It was typical of her that she had tried so hard to please everyone—her parents, Lady Fairfax and Charlie—that she had ignored the voice inside her head warning her that she was making a mistake. It had taken a phone call from her sister last night to make her confront her doubts.

‘Do you love Charles Fairfax with all your heart? And does he love you?’ Lexi had asked her. ‘If you can’t say yes to both those questions you should cancel the wedding.’

‘I can’t cancel it!’

The tension Athena had felt during her conversation with her sister gripped her again now. Through the window she could see the huge marquee on the lawn. Dozens of waiters in white jackets were scurrying to and fro, carrying trays of glasses for the champagne reception which was to take place after the four o’clock wedding ceremony at the village church. Later in the evening there would be a banquet for five hundred guests, followed by a firework display.

Charlie had said that three members of the House of Lords who were friends of his father’s were on the guest list, as well as a minor member of the royal family. Calling off the wedding at this late stage was not an option. It was all her parents had talked about for months, and her father, for the first time in Athena’s life, had told her that he was proud of her.

Lexi’s words played in Athena’s head. ‘Do you love Charles Fairfax with all your heart?’

A picture flashed into her mind of Lexi and Kadir on their wedding day. A huge state celebration befitting the Sultan of Zenhab and his bride had been followed by a private ceremony at the palace for close family and friends. The couple’s happiness had been tangible, and the adoration in Kadir’s eyes as he had looked at his wife had been deeply moving.

Charlie had never looked at her like that, Athena thought, unconsciously gnawing on her lip until she tasted blood. His eyes had never blazed with fierce possession, as if she was the most precious person in the world and the absolute love of his life.

She and Charlie had a different relationship from Lexi and Kadir, she told herself. Charlie worked long hours in the City, and it wasn’t his fault he was often tired and tetchy.

Because he stayed at his London flat during the week, and she lived at her parents’ house in Reading, they had only seen each other at weekends since they had got engaged. Either she had stayed at Woodley Lodge when Charlie had visited his parents, or she had gone to his flat in London. But even there they were rarely alone, because his friend Dominic always seemed to be around.

Sometimes Athena gained the impression that she was in the way, and that Charlie would rather go to his club with Dominic than spend time with her.

And then there was the subject of sex—or rather the lack of it. She had never been able to bring herself to tell Charlie what had happened to her when she was eighteen—it was too personal, too shameful, and she never wanted to speak about it. And she had felt relieved when Charlie had said he was happy to wait until they were married before they slept together because he wanted to do things ‘properly’. But lately she had been concerned about the lack of sexual spark between them.

Lexi and Kadir had barely been able to keep their hands off one another at their wedding, she remembered. Lexi had confided that she was sure that her baby, which was due any day now, had been conceived on her wedding night.

Charlie’s kiss lacked a vital ingredient—but Athena would never have known it if Kadir’s best man had not kissed her. She closed her eyes and tried to try to block Luca De Rossi’s handsome face from her mind. But his sculpted features—the slashing cheekbones, aquiline nose and the faintly cynical curve of his mouth—had haunted her subconscious since she had met him in Zenhab.

She had heard of his reputation as a playboy and assumed she would not find any man who thought that women had been put on earth solely for his pleasure appealing. So it had been a shock when one smouldering glance from Luca’s amber-gold eyes had turned her insides to molten liquid. She had never met a man as devastatingly sexy. He had stirred feelings in her that she had not known existed—or perhaps she had simply done a good job of suppressing her sensuality since she was eighteen, she thought ruefully.

She hadn’t expected Luca to kiss her when they had walked together in the palace gardens in the moonlight, and she certainly had not expected that she would respond to the sensual magic of his lips and kiss him back. She had pulled out of his arms after a few seconds, assailed with guilt as she had frantically reminded herself that she was engaged to Charlie. Back in England she had tried to forget about the kiss, but sometimes in her dreams she relived the incandescent pleasure of Luca De Rossi’s lips on hers...

What was she doing? Why was she thinking about a kiss she had shared with a notorious playboy she was never likely to meet again when all her thoughts should be on the man she was set to marry in two hours’ time?

Athena jumped up from the bed and paced up and down the bedroom. Of course one kiss with a notorious playboy nine months ago had meant nothing. But deep down hadn’t it made her realise that there was something missing from her relationship with Charlie? She had ignored her misgivings because the wedding preparations had already been well under way, and by marrying the future Lord Fairfax she had felt she was making up for her parents’ disappointment that she was not the brilliantly academic daughter they had hoped for.

She had convinced herself that she was doing the right thing, but now she felt as though iron bands were crushing her ribs, and she couldn’t breathe properly as her feeling of panic intensified and solidified into a stark truth.

She did not love Charlie with all her heart.

She had been flattered when he had shown an interest in her, and frankly astounded when he had proposed. Her parents had been over the moon that she was going to marry a member of the landed gentry. She remembered that at her engagement party Lexi had warned her that she shouldn’t marry to earn their parents’ approval. She had assured her sister that she loved Charlie, but she had been fooling herself—and probably Lexi, too, Athena thought bleakly.

She took a shuddering breath and ordered herself to calm down. Perhaps if she spoke to Charlie he would be able to reassure her that he loved her and that everything would be all right. It was supposed to be bad luck for the bride to see the groom before the wedding on the day, but she had to see him and be reassured that she was simply suffering from a bad case of nerves.

Charlie’s bedroom was in a private wing of the house. As Athena hurried along the corridor she almost collided with the Fairfaxes’ dour butler, Baines.

‘Master Charles gave strict instructions that he does not want to be disturbed while he is changing into his wedding attire,’ Baines told her in a disapproving tone.

Usually Athena felt intimidated by the butler, but she resisted the urge to slink away back to her room and said coolly, ‘Thank you, Baines, but I must see my future husband.’

The butler looked as though he wanted to argue, but then he nodded his head stiffly and walked away.

She paused outside Charlie’s room and took a deep breath. Just as she was about to knock she heard voices from the other side of the door.

‘This is the last time we can be together for a while. I’m going to have to play the role of devoted husband for the next few months.’

‘I guess so,’ a second voice drawled. ‘It will be unbearable for both of us. You say that Athena wants to try for a child straight away?’

‘Oh, she’s mad keen to have a baby.’ Charlie laughed. ‘She’ll be an ideal brood mare, because to be honest she’s not overly bright or ambitious for a career. I’ll need a few drinks before I bed her, but with any luck she’ll get pregnant quickly and I won’t have to touch her again because all she’ll be concerned about is the sprog—leaving you and I free to carry on where we left off.’

Athena’s hand was shaking so much that she could barely grip the door handle. Had Charlie been joking? Why had he said such horrible things about her to the other person in his bedroom? She recognised the second voice—but it couldn’t be who she thought...

She turned the handle and flung open the door with such force that the heavy oak creaked on its hinges.

‘Athena!’

Charlie’s startled shout reverberated around the room, before fading to leave a deafening silence that was broken by his best man’s amused drawl. ‘Well, that’s let the cat out of the bag.’

‘I don’t understand—’ Athena choked.

But of course she did understand—even though she was ‘not overly bright’. Charlie’s top hat and cravat were scattered across the floor, together with the grey morning suit that he was to wear to the wedding, and he was in bed with his friend Dominic. The best man was also naked—apart from his top hat, which was perched at a jaunty angle on his head.

‘For God’s sake, Athena, what are you doing here?’ Charlie sprang out of bed and hastily thrust his arms into a silk dressing gown.

How ironic that this was the first time she had seen her fiancé’s naked body, Athena thought, swallowing down her hysteria.

‘I needed to talk to you.’ Her earlier doubts about marrying Charlie were nothing compared to the shock she felt now, at seeing him with his best man. ‘Charlie...I...I’ve realised that I can’t marry you. And this...’ her gaze flew to Dominic ‘...this confirms that I was right to have second thoughts.’