Mediterranean Tycoons. Michelle Reid

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СКАЧАТЬ the stretch of lawn that overlooked the lake. That morning a famous designer had arrived from Milan bringing her wedding gown. He was the first person she had seen besides Luc and the household staff for a week. She knew her father was here in Italy because she’d spoken to him on the phone. She knew that Luc was staying not far away because she’d seen a different helicopter with the De Santis logo glinting gold on his tail fly over the villa twice a day.

      And she knew she was still the centre of a media frenzy because a maid had told her, giggling and excited about it, whereas all Lizzy could think was—how was she going to cope when her secure haven here in the villa had been taken away?

      The gown bore no resemblance whatsoever to the one that Bianca had been going to wear, she was relieved to discover.

      And it was truly beautiful. She hadn’t a clue how the designer had managed to make it to fit her so perfectly and refused to ask the question, but the romantic drift of floating white silk made in the Grecian style disturbed her oddly when she viewed the finished effect in the mirror because she looked so soft and sensually curvy and—vestal.

      Luc’s idea of how a bride should look?

      ‘Don’t chew your bottom lip like that, signorina,’ the designer advised with a critical frown. ‘Your mouth is ripe enough to drive Luciano crazy without you plumping it up some more.’

      Lizzy released her lip from her anxious white teeth and slithered her eyes over the silky fall of her hair. Carla the giggly maid had done it for her—washed it, conditioned it, actually almost tamed it. And the barely there hint of makeup applied by Carla’s steady fingers made her look—

      ‘It is now no mystery to me why he risked ridicule to replace la bella Bianca with what I see standing here,’ the designer said.

      ‘Don’t,’ Lizzy responded, her voice sounding shaky and thick the way it left her tense aching throat.

      Her loyalty to her best friend would not allow anyone to mock Bianca. And she missed her. She wanted to see her, talk to her, find out why she’d run away with Matthew, and if what Lizzy was about to do had her blessing because if it didn’t…

      Lizzy swallowed, the ache of tears threatening her eyes. A knock at the door revealed Luis the major-domo who’d first led her into this villa a long week ago.

      ‘It is time to leave, signorina,’ he advised.

      Her father met her at the church. He looked younger than he had when she’d left him in Sussex two weeks ago, the strain of worry having gone from his face, but the cold disappointment she saw in his eyes made her want to cry all the more.

      ‘You look beautiful,’ he said. ‘Just like your mother.’

      Just like her mother, Lizzy repeated bleakly as he bent to press a cool kiss to one of her cheeks.

      Then he walked her into a church packed with curious witnesses. The rippling hiss of softly voiced comments accompanied them down the long stone aisle towards the man she could see standing tall and straight at the other end.

      He was wearing morning grey—formal like her father, like the man standing beside him whom she vaguely recognized, but that was about as far as her ability to think about anything went.

      And she wanted Bianca. Bianca was supposed to always have been here with her for her wedding just as she was supposed to have been there for hers.

      And she wanted to stop and turn to her father and say sorry, beg his forgiveness because she couldn’t bear knowing that he was walking beside her likening what she was doing here with what her mother had done ten years before.

      The marriage-wrecker, the greedy little gold-digger only out to please herself. Being aware that she was just being silly believing her own press didn’t help.

      Then Luc turned to look at her, his lean, dark, sombre expression fixing on her like a magnet that pulled her the last few faltering steps to his side. Her father offered her hand to him, he took it, long brown fingers firm as they closed around the trembling state of her own. After that the rest became a hazy glaze of traditional solemnity wrapped in a muffling shroud of beautifully toned Latin that eventually joined them as man and wife.

      And the kiss Luc pressed to her lips was somehow piercingly poignant if only because it sealed this mad, ill thought-out union in front of a few hundred fascinated witnesses.

      Four euros, Lizzy found herself thinking as Luc lifted his mouth away again. It’s going to take me a lifetime to pay back what I owe him.

      As if he knew what she was thinking he grinned, all gleaming white teeth and mocking arrogance.

      The next thing Lizzy became aware of was stepping out of the church into brilliant sunlight and a cacophony of sound. Cameras flashed, her heart fluttered into sudden panic, the man standing beside her drew her closer into his side. Two rows of dark-suited security men formed a barrier to hold back the curious onlookers and Luc hurried her down through this corridor of safety to a waiting limousine, his arm not leaving contact with her until he had seen her safely shut behind the car door.

      The car sped off the moment he’d settled beside her. The hazy glaze lifted from her eyes. Silence stung. It was over. She’d done it. She’d married her best friend’s fiancé. The air sounded choked as it left her lungs.

      ‘So you do remember how to breathe,’ Luc’s quietly sardonic voice said beside her.

      Seems so, Lizzy thought without attempting to offer a reply.

      Instead she looked down at her hand where a traditional gold band now adorned her slender white finger. Across the gap separating them a matching band glowed against the brown of his skin. She hadn’t expected him to wear a ring too, it had come as a surprise when she’d been quietly instructed to place it on his finger.

      But, like the church and its packed congregation, she presumed the rings were the same rings he had bought for his marriage to Bianca.

      ‘I am not that insensitive,’ he said coolly.

      So he was reading her mind as if he owned it too now. ‘And at least the dress was mine.’

      She sensed his sharp look, the slight tensing of his muscles as he caught the bleakness threading her tone. ‘You don’t like the dress?’

      Was he blind? ‘I love it. It’s the most romantic and beautiful wedding gown I’ve ever seen.’

      ‘And you look beautiful in it—bellissima,’ he extended huskily. ‘No one watching you come down the aisle to me was left wondering why it was you I married today.’

      ‘One more goal on your pride-saving agenda successfully accomplished?’

      Lifting her chin, Lizzy looked at him for the first time since they’d kissed as man and wife—then instantly wished that she’d kept her eyes lowered because he looked so boneshiveringly breathtakingly devastating and perfect—the true handsome prince she had bagged for herself by foul means.

      A bitter little smile caught hold of her mouth. ‘Well, don’t look to me for congratulations because you’re not going to get any,’ she told him, turning her eyes away.

      ‘You feel cheated,’ he murmured.

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