The Wedding Charade. Melanie Milburne

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СКАЧАТЬ but his black underwear back there at the hotel. She had set out to be as brazen as she could—getting dressed in front of him to show him she was just as the press reported her—but it was completely different when he had done the same to her. She had tried not to look at his carved to perfection body. She had seen plenty of male bodies on the beach or at the gym, and some of them had been downright gorgeous. But something about Nic’s always made her heart race and her senses tingle in a way they never did with anyone else. It made her feel deeply unsettled. She was the one who played the cat and mouse game with men, not the other way around. She didn’t like the thought of Nic having that much power over her, in fact any power over her.

      The attentive waiter filled both of their glasses before moving away to leave them in privacy.

      Nic picked up his glass and raised it to hers. ‘Let’s drink to our first year of marriage.’

      Jade gave him an ironic glance. ‘Don’t you mean the only year of our marriage? Don’t the terms of the will state we have to be married by the first of next month and stay married for exactly a year?’

      He drank from his glass before he answered. ‘Yes, but what if we enjoy being married to each other? What if it turns out to be more convenient than we first thought? We could make it last as long as we like.’

      Jade sat back in her seat as if he had pushed her backwards with one of his strong hands against her chest. ‘You can’t mean that!’ she gasped.

      He gave her one of his white-toothed smiles. ‘Only teasing,’ he said, his hazel eyes twinkling. ‘Once the year is up next May, we can both take the money and run.’

      Jade worked hard at squashing her sense of pique. She knew his motive for marrying her was only to get the money he felt entitled to; after all, she was doing it for the very same reason. She could hardly blame him for going ahead with his grandfather’s stipulations. His two older brothers had had no such conditions placed upon them, but then Giorgio and Luca were both happily married with children. Giorgio and Maya had separated for a time, but had reconciled just before the old man’s death. It had been Salvatore’s desire to see all of his three grandsons settled before he died, but when he became ill so suddenly he had obviously decided to take matters into his own hands and make sure Nic bowed to pressure to settle down instead of playing the field for too much longer. Why Salvatore had chosen her as Nic’s bride was a mystery. He could not have been unaware of the enmity between them. For the last decade they had snarled and sniped at each other when they had to be together at Sabbatini or Sommerville functions.

      Jade knew a lot about the history of the Sabbatinis, having been a part of their circle for so many years. Her Australian-born father had befriended Salvatore when he was just starting out as an accountant and, with his Italian friend’s help, his small accounting firm had become one of the most prestigious in Europe.

      Like Nic and his brothers, Jade had grown up brushing shoulders with the rich and famous. Celebrities were not idols from afar; they were friends and acquaintances who regularly attended the same parties and social gatherings.

      Jade’s mother, Harriet, had been a London socialite herself until her untimely death from an overdose when Jade was five. Whether it had been suicide, a cry for help or an accident was something Jade and her brother Jonathan had never been told. There had always been speculation regarding Jade’s parents’ marriage. Throughout their childhood, it had been a case of don’t-mention-your-mother-in-your-father’s-presence by all the nannies and au pairs that had come and gone. Whether it would upset their father because of unresolved grief or anger was another mystery that had never been solved.

      Jade looked at the menu and chewed her bottom lip in concentration. She hated eating out; it was something she usually avoided, but not for the reasons everyone assumed. It had been splashed all over the papers enough times—how she had been admitted to a special clinic when she was fifteen and then again at eighteen when she had skirted with death as her weight had dropped to a dangerously low level during the months following Jonathan’s death. She was well and truly over all that now, but eating out still threw up the problem of how to choose when she had no idea what was written on the menu.

      She felt Nic’s gaze on her now, the weight of it like a stone. She looked up and closed the menu. ‘What are you thinking of having?’ she asked.

      ‘The crab fettuccine to start with and maybe the veal Marsala for mains,’ he said. ‘What about you?’

      Jade ran her tongue over her sand-dry lips. ‘Why don’t you choose for me?’ she said, pushing the menu to one side. ‘You seem to know the place pretty well. I’m not fussy.’

      He cocked one of his eyebrows at her. ‘No?’

      ‘I’ve dealt with a lot of stuff over the years, Nic,’ she said, giving him a hard look. ‘I’m not going to embarrass you by dispensing with my meal in the bathroom as soon as your back is turned.’

      A frown appeared between his brows. ‘I wasn’t suggesting any such thing,’ he said. ‘It was a tough time for you growing up, losing your mother so young and then your brother like that.’

      Jade had perfected her back-off look over the years and yet, as she used it now, it was with shaky confidence that it would work. ‘I’d rather not talk about it. They died. Life goes on.’

      The waiter arrived to take their order, and when he left Nic shifted his mouth in a musing pose and continued to study her. She began to feel like a specimen under a powerful microscope. Nic always made her feel like that. He saw things that other people didn’t see. His eyes were too all-seeing, too penetrating. It made her feel vulnerable and exposed—something she avoided strenuously at all times and in all places.

      ‘Do you see much of your father?’ Nic asked.

      She toyed with the stem of her champagne flute, her eyes averted from his. ‘Before this latest blow up, yes. He called in occasionally with his latest girlfriend,’ she said tonelessly. ‘The last one is only a year or two older than me. I think they might eventually marry. He wants a son—to replace Jonathan. He’s been talking about it for years.’

      Nic heard the pain behind the coolly delivered statement. ‘You’ve never been close to him, have you? ‘

      She shook her head, still not meeting his eyes. ‘I think I remind him too much of my mother.’

      ‘Do you remember her?’ he asked.

      Her jade-green eyes met his, instantly lighting up as if he had pressed a switch. ‘She was so beautiful,’ she said in a dreamy tone. She picked up her glass and twirled it gently, the bubbles rising in a series of vertical lines, each one delicately exploding on the surface. ‘She was so glamorous and always smelt so divine—like honeysuckle and jasmine after a long hot day in the sun.’

      She put the glass down, and ran her finger around the rim, around and around as she spoke. ‘She was affectionate. She couldn’t walk past Jon or me without encompassing one or both of us in a crushing hug. She used to read to me. I loved that. I could listen to her voice for hours … ‘

      A little silence settled like dust motes in the space between them.

      She gave a little sigh and picked up her glass again, twirling it before she took a tentative sip. She put it back down, her mouth pursing as if the taste of the very expensive champagne had not been to her taste. ‘She loved us. She really loved us. I never doubted it. Not for a moment.’

      Nic knew a little of the rumours surrounding СКАЧАТЬ