Читать книгу The Platinum Collection: Claiming His Innocent - Линн Грэхем, Lynne Graham - Страница 12

‘YOU look as pretty as a picture,’ Robert Martin pronounced, a betraying brightness to his eyes as he admired Jess in her wedding gown from the lounge doorway.

Restive in her unusually feminine finery, Jess peered at her reflection in the hall mirror, noting that the make-up artist had done a heck of a job in giving her a youthful, dewy look, while the hairstylist had worked a miracle transforming her teeming curls into soft shiny ringlets that fell round her bare shoulders. A splendid diamond tiara worthy of a princess glittered against the dark backdrop of her hair, courtesy of Cesario, who had sent it with the information that it was a family heirloom. She smiled wryly at the memory, wondering if he had been afraid she might think it was a personal gift, because she cherished no such illusions about her bridegroom.

Cesario di Silvestri had no plans to bring anything personal into their relationship. Her bridegroom was ruthless, ferociously self-disciplined and clever. When it came to his track record with women, he might have a very well-documented and volatile libido but in spirit Jess believed he was essentially cold. He might want a child. But that child, she was convinced, would have to look to her for the warmth of human kindness and affection. Cesario planned his every move, foreseeing every difficulty and then judging how best to deal with it. He was a control freak, a demanding personality with very high standards and expectations. Nothing less than the best would satisfy him in any field, which begged the question, why was a man who could have married any number of rich, beautiful, society women settling for a country veterinary surgeon from a much more ordinary background?

Was her winning factor her sex appeal? Her cheeks warmed. Or was it because she had once said no and refused to see him again? Could any guy be that petty? She could not see herself as a femme fatale, but what else but her looks could have sustained his ongoing interest? Was it offensive to be that desirable to a man? She found it hard to think of sexual desirability as an accolade. After all, being a man’s object of desire had once long ago almost cost Jess her life and she shivered, suddenly chilled by traumatic memories that she very rarely allowed herself to recall.

Her niece and nephew, Emma and Harry, four and five years old respectively, looked adorable and were the perfect antidote to her briefly dark thoughts. Emma wore a floral-print bridesmaid’s dress, while Harry was smartly dressed as a pageboy. Their mother, Leondra, who had married Jess’s youngest brother when she fell pregnant at eighteen, had agreed to act as a matron of honour, although she had complained bitterly over the lack of a hen night to mark the end of Jess’s life as a single woman. Jess had not had the nerve to tell her sister-in-law that she was expecting to be single again sooner than anyone other than her clued-up mother might expect.

‘If only he could see you now,’ her father proclaimed in a fond undertone while Leondra was talking to her children. ‘He would immediately regret never having known you.’

‘I don’t think so.’ Unhappily reminded of a rejection that had cut her in two when she was only nineteen years old, Jess stiffened defensively. The identity crisis she had undergone during that troubled period in her life had taught her not to build fantasy castles in the air. Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t, she chanted inwardly, because she had learned to be grateful for the years of love and care she had received from the father she had once taken for granted. She would have hugged the older man had she not been afraid of spoiling her make-up. Just for once, she wanted to look perfect. There was nothing wrong with her self-esteem, she reflected impatiently, she was simply determined to grace her beautiful gown at the altar. For her own benefit, not for Cesario’s.

After all, some day she would be showing the photos that would be taken of the occasion to her child. She had to believe in that, had to keep her thoughts firmly fixed on that ultimate all-important goal of having a baby. At the end of the day, a child would be what really mattered. Only it would not quite cover the wedding night and how she felt about sharing that kind of intimacy with a man who didn’t love her.

Her tummy flipped when she thought about Cesario seeing her scars for the first time. In her opinion they weren’t that bad. There was the chance that given enough darkness he mightn’t even notice them. On the other hand, this was a guy accustomed to some of the world’s most beautiful women and in every other way he was very much a perfectionist. And she was, by no stretch of the imagination, perfect any more. Stifling the kernel of panic deep down inside her, she struggled to overcome the sudden fear that he might be repelled by her flawed body. Some people were repelled by scarring and they probably couldn’t even help reacting that way. As the car arrived to take her to the church she suppressed the rolling tide of insecure thoughts threatening to engulf her. Instead she scolded herself and acknowledged the futility of looking for trouble in advance.

Her heart was beating like thunder when she looked at the packed pews of the little flower-bedecked church of Charlbury St Helens, which lay only a hundred yards away from her parents’ home. Lack of space in the nave had meant restricting the number of guests able to see the ceremony. When she caught a glimpse of Cesario standing so tall, dark and straight at the altar, she found it hard to get oxygen into her lungs. And then suddenly and without any warning at all, and in a spirit of sharp regret, she found that she was wishing that her wedding were for real, an occasion where two people in love shared their vows for a shared and productive future. The unemotional exchange of needs that she had agreed with Cesario was on another plane entirely and just then she felt incredibly lonely. A surge of over-emotional tears stung the backs of her eyes.

‘Your bride looks gorgeous,’ Stefano remarked admiringly at his cousin’s elbow.

And Cesario stopped playing it cool and turned to get his own view. He felt the word didn’t stretch anywhere far enough to do justice to the vision of Jessica in the full-skirted sparkling gown with a corset bodice that moulded her slim curves and defined her tiny waist. So stunning was she with her light grey eyes shining, her soft mouth unusually tremulous and full and her heavy mass of hair falling below the tiara that he barely registered the aggravation of her arriving at the altar on the arm of the man who had let thieves into his house.

Jess met Cesario’s brilliant dark eyes and experienced a sizzling sensation in her pelvis that was unnervingly similar to an electric shock. Breathing rapidly, she averted her attention from him and concentrated studiously on the middle-aged priest’s opening preamble. The ceremony was short and familiar, similar to a number of friends’ weddings she’d attended in recent years, but she still could not quite accept that this time she was the bride. Her hand shook a little when Cesario first grasped it and she stopped breathing altogether when he slid the slim band of gold onto her wedding finger. His handsome mouth brushed her cheek in a light salutation and then they walked down the aisle, guests beaming at them as though they had done something terribly clever. She remembered to smile for the benefit of the congregation, which, aside of her mother, had no idea that she was not a normal, happy bride.

‘You look amazing in that dress, mia bella,’ Cesario commented during the drive back to Halston Hall where the reception was being held.

‘And I picked it all by myself.’ Jess could not resist letting him know. ‘The stylist wanted me to wear something plainer and more formal.’

‘You made the right choice.’

Relaxing a little, Jess sighed. ‘With all this fuss going on around us, it’s hard to remember that it’s all fake.’

Cesario frowned. ‘It is not fake,’ he contradicted.

Fake, fake, fake! she wanted to shout at him in defiant disagreement, but, suspecting such a response would annoy him, she managed to resist the impulse.

‘We are now husband and wife and we will live as such.’ Cesario delivered his different opinion in a tone of powerful conviction.

But Jess was stubborn and hard to impress and she wrinkled her nose. ‘A temporary marriage could never feel real,’ she said quietly, thinking of the very long, wordy legal contract she’d had to sign a couple of weeks earlier before the marriage could go ahead.

This prenuptial contract had made it very clear that the marriage was more of a commercial arrangement than anything else. The terms of the eventual divorce had been laid out with equal clarity with regard to income, property and the custody and care of any child born to them. No woman who’d had to sign such a detailed document could have cherished any romantic illusions about the nature of the marriage she was about to enter.

Cesario set his white even teeth together. ‘Talk of that variety is premature. We don’t know as yet when our marriage will end. That’s not the aspect you should be concentrating on right now.’

But Jess was no more eager to think about the mechanics of getting pregnant. What if it simply didn’t happen? What a nightmare that would be! For a start, it was the only reason he was marrying her and, from her own point of view, it was the only feature that made the whole agreement supportable. She wouldn’t think about her wedding night, instead she would think about the baby she was desperate to hold in her arms. Only she discovered as she stood in line to greet their guests in the Great Hall of the Elizabethan house that she could not wipe Cesario’s starring role in that future development from her mind and her nervous tension began to mount again.

The exhausting day continued and, having had little practice as a social butterfly, Jess found it a strain to laugh and talk and smile continuously with strangers, many of whom were undoubtedly curious to see what was so special about her that she had managed to get a male of Cesario’s reputation to the altar. If only they’d had access to the truth, she thought wryly, standing behind a door in a quiet corner when she finally managed to escape the crush for a few minutes. At least the meal, the speeches and the first dance were over, she reflected ruefully, grateful that the spotlight of attention was no longer on the bride and groom quite so much. She gulped down a glass of champagne in the hope that the alcohol would help her to feel a little more relaxed and light-hearted, for Cesario had already suggested twice that she ‘loosen up’. Her natural shyness and reserve seemed to be a disadvantage around him.

‘I can’t believe that Alice is being so two-faced,’ Jess heard a female voice state with perceptible scorn. ‘I don’t believe for a moment that she is really pleased that Cesario has finally found a wife.’

‘Oh, neither do I,’ agreed another. ‘After all, Alice was once utterly crazy about Cesario and she only married Stefano because he adores her.’

‘I can understand why she did it, though. She’d been with Cesario for two years, there was no sign of him making a commitment and she wasn’t getting any younger. Don’t forget she’s a few years older than he is and she didn’t waste any time in having children with Stefano.’

‘I heard that Cesario was devastated when she walked out on him for his cousin.’

The other woman laughed in disbelief. ‘Can you imagine Cesario being devastated over a woman? If he’d cared about Alice that much he’d have married her when he had the chance.’

‘Most men would consider a woman like Alice a keeper.’

‘As you can see by his choice of bride, though, Cesario is not most men,’ her companion said scornfully. ‘Granted she’s got the looks, but nobody had ever heard of her before the invitations arrived.’

‘Why would we have heard of her? She looks after his horses!’

Jess moved away from the doorway in haste before she could be seen. Looks after his horses indeed, she thought in exasperation, recalling her long years of study and training for her career in veterinary medicine. She had no reason, though, to disbelieve what she had innocently overheard and she was taken aback to learn that Alice and Cesario had once been lovers. An affair that Cesario allowed to last for two years must have been serious, although the beautiful blonde had somehow ended up married to his cousin instead. Even more surprisingly, that development did not appear to have damaged the friendship between the two men.

‘Have a drink,’ her mother urged, pressing a champagne glass into her daughter’s nerveless hand. ‘You hardly ate anything of the wedding breakfast and you are as white as a ghost.’

‘I’m fine,’ Jess asserted automatically, her eyes anxiously scanning the knots of people in search of Cesario’s tall dark head.

Ironically he was on the dance floor with Alice, the two of them so busy talking that they were circling very slowly. Stefano was watching his wife and his cousin from the top table, a troubled expression etching lines to his face

‘What’s wrong?’ Sharon Martin prompted, reading her daughter’s tension easily.

Jess continued to watch Cesario and Alice while sharing what she had overheard.

‘I knew it—I told you how hard it is to keep your emotions out of things.’ Her mother sighed. ‘You haven’t been married to Cesario for five minutes yet and you’re already getting jealous and suspicious!’

Jess turned a hot guilty pink. ‘Of course I’m not! I’m only curious to know if what I heard is true.’

‘So ignore the gossip and ask your bridegroom for the real story. If you don’t make a major issue out of it, he’ll probably be quite happy to tell you what really happened,’ the older woman opined.

Jess knew that was sensible advice, but it was frustrating advice because she couldn’t imagine questioning Cesario about something that personal. She returned to her seat at the top table and sipped her champagne, still longing for the real fizz of fun and optimism to magically infiltrate her bloodstream and lift her mood. Her boss, Charlie, came up to talk to her about the locum vet he had engaged to cover for her while she was in Italy. In the end, after much debate, she had not opted for a partnership at the practice, reluctant to own a rise in status that could only be attributable to Cesario’s wealth and influence and concerned that such a move would only burden her with even more responsibility than she already had. Since there was only so much of her to go round, she had decided that working part-time would suit her changing circumstances better, allowing her to continue her career and keep abreast of new developments while allowing her more free time in which to meet Cesario’s expectations and to work towards her ambition of having her animal sanctuary registered as a charity.

Charlie was moving away when a tall young man with dark curly hair approached her. She didn’t remember him from the guest line-up and she was surprised when he asked her to dance, although she stood up with good grace.

‘I don’t think I remember meeting you earlier.’

‘You won’t. I’ve only just arrived with some friends for the evening party,’ he told her cheerfully, reaching out a hand to clasp hers with relaxed courtesy. ‘I’m Luke Dunn-Montgomery.’

He was a member of the family that had once owned Halston Hall. Jess felt her mouth fall open in surprise and she swiftly cloaked her gaze, although she could not resist subjecting him to one intense appraisal to satisfy her curiosity, for she knew by his name exactly whose son he was.

‘Obviously, I know who you are,’ Luke remarked once they were safely on the floor and the music had ground conveniently to a halt so that they could talk briefly. ‘You’re the cat that’s not allowed out of the bag for fear that my father might lose votes for his youthful indiscretion with your mother…’

At that irreverent explanation for her birth father’s refusal to acknowledge her existence, Jess lifted startled eyes to his. ‘I didn’t realise anyone else in your family even knew I existed.’

‘I heard my parents arguing about you when I was a teenager,’ he confided. ‘My mother was furious when she found out that you existed.’

‘I don’t see why. I was born long before your parents married,’ Jess pointed out tightly.

‘Actually, they were dating at the time you were conceived,’ Luke explained in a suitably lowered tone, his eyes dancing with rueful amusement. ‘I was sworn to secrecy about you.’

‘I didn’t think I was that important,’ Jess confided a touch bitterly when she cast her mind back to the cold reception she had received on the one and only occasion when she had tried to make the acquaintance of her birth father.

Currently a well-known member of parliament with a political career that meant a great deal to him, William Dunn-Montgomery had refused to have anything to do with the illegitimate daughter born to Sharon Martin while he was still a student. He had even had a solicitor’s letter sent to Jess warning her to stay away from him and his family. It was as if she might be the carrier of some dread social disease, she recalled painfully. She marvelled that she had ever expected any warmer a welcome from the man when he had given her teenaged mother the cash to pay for an abortion and had then considered his responsibility discharged even after he learned that he had a daughter.

‘I’ve always been madly curious about you—my only sibling,’ Luke told her. ‘My word, with that hair and those eyes you do look very like Dad’s side of the family, although you’re a little on the short side!’

At that quip, Jess glanced up at him, saw that he was tall and she grinned, her tension suddenly dissipating. He was her half-brother, after all, and she was pleased that he’d had the interest to attend her wedding and introduce himself to her. ‘I didn’t even know there were any Dunn-Montgomerys on the guest list.’

‘Your bridegroom got to know my parents when he bought this place and my father’s very proud of his extensive connections with the business world. I’m sure Father made a very polite excuse for his and Mother’s non-attendance. I imagine he was very shocked when he realised who Cesario was marrying. It’ll be a challenge for him to avoid you now.’

‘Cesario doesn’t know about my background,’ Jess admitted. ‘And I have no plans to tell him.’

‘I can understand why you would prefer to keep quiet about my father.’

‘Some secrets are better left buried. I don’t see the point of treading on anyone’s toes now.’

Luke took the hint and dropped the subject, walking her off the floor while happily answering all her questions. He had all the assurance of a much-loved only child and explained that, in the family tradition, he was a pupil barrister as his father and grandfather had been before him.

Cesario glanced over Alice’s shoulder and saw Jessica with her tall male companion. His dark golden gaze zeroed in on his bride, noting the happy glow she exuded, and his eyes widened in surprise when she laughed, showing more animation than she had shown throughout the whole of her wedding day. That she liked the company she was in was obvious and he could see that she was chattering away. Cesario, who had never yet got his bride to chatter, stared and frowned, wondering who the young man was because he didn’t recognise him.

Sharon intercepted her daughter to ask in a worried undertone, ‘What were you talking about with Luke Dunn-Montgomery?’

Jess laughed. ‘He knows about me and he couldn’t have been friendlier.’

‘His family won’t like that,’ her mother pronounced.

‘That’s not my problem,’ Jess replied, reaching for another glass of champagne and registering that she felt remarkably buoyant.

‘Watch out,’ Sharon said anxiously nonetheless. ‘It’s safer not to get on the wrong side of people like that.’

‘Times have changed, Mum. The Dunn-Montgomerys are not lords of the manor any more and the locals don’t have to bow and curtsy when they pass by.’

And, at that moment, Luke reappeared at her elbow and insisted on being introduced to her mother before sweeping Jess off to meet his friends. The champagne had loosened her tongue and made her more of a social animal than usual. Luke’s friends were fun and she was giggling like mad over a silly joke when Cesario approached their table, spoke to everyone with rather chilling dignity and anchored a hand that would not be denied to Jess’s elbow to raise her from her seat and walk her away.

Bristling at that high-handed intervention, Jess shot him a reproving look. ‘What was that all about?’

‘It’s time for us to bow out of the festivities.’

‘But we aren’t leaving for Italy until tomorrow morning,’ Jess protested, realising belatedly as she glanced at her watch that time had moved on without her awareness and that, at what felt like very little warning, she was about to embark on her much-agonised-over wedding night.

‘It’s after midnight and our guests are beginning to leave, a fact that seems to have passed you by while you were flirting—’

‘I’m not Cinderella.’ Jess froze, facial muscles tightening, slight shoulders stiffening as Cesario herded her out to the magnificent main staircase. ‘And I wasn’t flirting!’

‘You’ve been flirting like mad with Luke Dunn-Montgomery for the past hour! Maledizione! I could hear you laughing across the dance floor.’

On the wide first landing, Jess slung Cesario a furious look and the truth trembled on her lips, but she wouldn’t let it loose. Why should she admit that Luke was her half-brother and that she was thrilled he had sought her out and treated her like a sister? She didn’t owe Cesario any explanations. He might have married her but he wasn’t entitled to her deepest secrets, particularly not the wounding or embarrassing ones. Cesario was from an aristocratic privileged background similar to her estranged birth father’s and she cringed at the thought of admitting that she was the former squire’s unacknowledged child by one of the village girls. Even if it was the truth, it sounded hideously, mortifyingly like something out of a nineteenth-century melodrama. And when she was already struggling under the humiliation of Robert Martin having been responsible for the loss of Cesario’s valuable painting, and having had to admit to having loan-shark, jailbird relatives as well, was it really her duty to lower herself further in his estimation?

‘To be truthful it was good to have something to laugh about today!’ Jess tossed back cheekily, clutching the full skirts of her gown in impatient hands as she mounted the stairs and struggled to keep up with his long impatient stride. ‘I’ve not been in much of a laughing mood recently.’

‘Believe me, I’ve noticed!’ With that ringing indictment, which any woman would have taken as a direct criticism, Cesario thrust wide the door of a big bedroom, furnished with atmospheric pieces of antique oak and a fire flickering in the grate to ward off the chill of the late spring night air.

Jess stared wide-eyed and disorientated at the room; she had never been upstairs in the hall before. The Tudor magnificence of her surroundings was in stark contrast to the contemporary décor that embellished the ground floor reception rooms that she had seen.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Her tone was truculent as she questioned his censorious comment, but then she was assailed by dizziness as her head began to swim. She caught at the doorknob with her hand and leant on it to steady herself on knees that momentarily had all the consistency of jelly. Perspiration broke out on her short upper lip as she straightened up, wondering in dismay if she might have been a little too free with the champagne cocktails on offer at Luke’s table. Depending on how much she narrowed her eyes, the vast oak four-poster bed that dominated the room seemed to be shifting and changing position rather like a boat on the edge of a whirlpool.

‘That, in spite of the fact that I’ve done everything possible to accommodate your needs, you have been a very sulky bride!’ Cesario condemned, still picturing her glowing face as she sparkled as brightly as a Christmas tree ornament while she talked, giggled and smiled for that toyboy, Luke Dunn-Montgomery’s, benefit.

‘So, I’m human and imperfect and you’re surprised at this discovery?’ Jess fired back, stumbling slightly in her high heels as she moved away from the door. She pushed the door shut too hard and it slammed, very loudly, closed behind her, making him frown and wince. ‘It isn’t that easy to marry a stranger and contemplate living with him…although I guess with all the one-night stands you’ve had it will be no big deal for you! ‘

Indignation lanced through Cesario at that unnecessary comeback. He was not promiscuous and, although he was willing to acknowledge that he could be arrogant and demanding, he had made a genuine effort to make the terms of their marriage more attractive for her benefit. Not only had he arranged without her knowledge to have her six moth-eaten dogs microchipped and transported out to Italy for their honeymoon, he had controlled his aggressive instinct to intervene and call every shot. And he was very far from being impressed by the response that his generosity had so far won from her. ‘You shouldn’t believe the nonsense you read about me in the newspapers. I left one-night stands behind when I was a teenager.’

‘What about Alice? When did you leave her behind?’ Jess heard herself throw at him out of the blue, not even aware that she was about to hurl those nosy questions until the driven words emerged from her lips.

His ebony brows knit in excusable surprise at that sudden change of topic. ‘Why are you asking about Alice?’

‘I heard a couple of the guests talking…I understand that you and she were an item before she married your cousin.’ Having opened the subject, Jess discovered that she could not make herself back off from it again. She wanted to know, she needed to know more.

‘That’s true.’ His lean, darkly handsome features taking on a forbidding aspect, Cesario compressed his wide sensual mouth into a hard, inflexible line, his dark golden eyes screened. ‘But it’s not a good idea to listen to malicious gossip. The truth is that I put Alice through hell and it’s a wonder that she stayed with me as long as she did. I didn’t realise I loved her until she was gone and by then she was with Stefano and it was too late. I wouldn’t have come between them. They’re very happy together.’

As she listened Jess had slowly lost colour to pale and stiffen with discomfiture. She was horribly conscious that she had asked what she should not have asked and learned what she would sooner not have known. He had loved Alice, maybe still loved her, even though he couldn’t have her. In fact, wasn’t he exactly the sort of high-achieving Alpha male who would want a woman who was out of his reach all the more? He had stepped back and done the decent thing for Alice and Stefano’s sake. It was not an explanation that pleased her or soothed her worries. But why did she have worries on that score? Why should it matter to her if Cesario was in love with a woman married to another man? That was none of her business. Their cold-blooded marriage, their project, was not based on emotional ties or expectations, she reminded herself ruefully. And if he was emotionally bonded to another woman, that could well be why he had decided that only the most practical of marriages would meet his requirements.

‘I wasn’t sulky today,’ Jess fielded belatedly, lifting her skirts to kick off her shoes and sink her bare soles gratefully flat onto the Persian rug below her feet. At least that was what she intended to do but, somewhere in the midst of removing the second shoe, which necessitated her standing on one leg like a stork, she lost her balance and lurched sideways, knocking an occasional table and the floral arrangement on top of it flying in a noisy, tumbled heap.

‘You were sulky and you’ve had too much to drink as well,’ Cesario contradicted between gritted teeth of disdain, striding forward to haul her up out of the debris of dripping flower stalks and greenery while lifting the table back up with one impatient hand.

‘Maybe I’m a little tipsy but I wasn’t sulking,’ Jess persisted in stubborn denial. ‘If you knew me better you would know that I’m quite shy and not a chatterbox at the best of times. I don’t like crowds much either and today has been a big strain.’

Cesario closed the distance between them and raked long brown impatient fingers through his cropped black hair, gazing down at her with a dark intensity that made her nerve endings pull taut with shockingly sexual awareness. ‘I thought all women loved weddings? ‘

Her tummy performed a nervous somersault while the buds of her breasts swelled and lengthened. Hot-faced, Jess viewed him with huge silvery eyes. ‘But I don’t love you and now I’m in a bedroom alone with you and you’re expecting—’ Her voice cut off abruptly as though she had bitten back dangerously unguarded words rather than cause offence. ‘Well, you’re expecting what you’ve got every right to expect as a new husband and that’s all I’ve been able to think about all day and—’

‘I too, but not, I think, for the same reasons, piccola mia,’ Cesario incised, his dark golden eyes hot and hungry on her tense oval face, his long, lean, powerful body taut as he swooped on the vase still leaking water and set it upright on the rug.

He closed a lean hand round her wrist to tug her closer. He felt the resistance in her slight frame and expelled his breath in a slow measured hiss. ‘I don’t want you when you’re intoxicated and unwilling…’

So tense she could barely catch her breath, Jess gazed back at him and despised herself for playing that card when the flickering obstinate heat of arousal was shimmying through her pelvis like a mocking touch. In a movement that took him as much by surprise as it took her she shifted up against him, stretched up on tiptoe and pressed her soft mouth to his.

A masculine hand curved to her hip to crush her against him. Her heart thumping feverishly fast, she gasped as he drove his tongue between her lips in a delving, erotic assault that set up a jangling response throughout her entire susceptible body. Suddenly she wanted him more than she had ever wanted anything in her life and with a hot, sweet longing that came dangerously close to an edge of pain.

‘There will be other nights,’ Cesario quipped, lifting his handsome dark head, his dark eyes sardonic, and setting her back from him before walking to the door.

Trembling, senses awakened and cruelly crushed again, Jess studied the space where he had been and thought what a disastrous note she had chosen to begin their relationship on. I don’t want you when you’re intoxicated and unwilling… She cringed, despising herself for not being tougher. She had signed up for the marriage and cheating didn’t come naturally to her. It didn’t matter if Cesario loved Alice. It didn’t even matter if he was convinced that Jess was a sulky, uptight bride and a flirt at her own wedding. They had had an agreement and she had just welched on the deal, and nobody could have been harder on Jess than she was on herself while she finally struggled free of her gown, washed off all her fancy make-up and climbed into the big bed alone. There she lay with her eyes wide open because whenever she tried to close them the room revolved behind her lowered eyelids in the most nauseating way…