The Wedding Charade. Melanie Milburne

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СКАЧАТЬ wife. Other rumours suggested Jade’s father had not been the best husband and father he could have been at the time, but it was hard to know what was true and what had been fiction.

      The press had a way of working it to their advantage: the bigger the scandal, the better the sale of the papers. Nic had experienced it himself, along with his brothers. But there was something about Jade that intrigued him. At regular intervals over the years she appeared at all the right functions, dressed to the nines, playing to the cameras, flirting with the paparazzi, but still he wondered if anyone really knew who the real Jade Sommerville was. Not the slim, beautiful and elegantly dressed and perfectly made-up young woman who sat before him now, twirling her champagne flute without drinking any more than a sip or two, who refused to speak of her dead brother, who spoke of her father with thinly disguised disgust.

      Who was she?

      Who was she really?

      Was she the woman who had broken up the marriage of her best friend, as the papers had reported?

      Or was she someone else entirely?

      ‘Losing a parent is a big deal,’ Nic said to fill the cavernous silence. ‘I was knocked sideways by my father’s accident. Seeing him like that … ‘ he winced as he recalled it ‘ …one minute so vitally alive, the next in a coma.’ He raked his fingers through his hair. ‘It was a relief when he died. No one wanted to say it but it was true. He would have hated being left with brain damage.’

      She looked up at him with empathy in her eyes. ‘You are a lot like him,’ she said gently. ‘I suppose lots of people have said that to you before. He hated being tied down.’

      Nic smiled wryly as he picked up his glass. ‘My parents’ marriage was an arranged one. Not a lot of people know that. My mother loved him from the start but he was not so keen on being shackled to one woman. They muddled along as best they could until Chiara came along. My father loved having a daughter. He had three sons but his daughter was everything to him.’

      He put his glass down with a clunk on the table, his eyes moving away from hers. ‘Losing her was like the bottom of his world falling out from under him. He felt he was being punished by God for not loving his wife and sons enough. He went through a tumultuous time. As young as you were, I am sure you heard of it: numerous affairs with shallow gold-diggers until he finally realised the only woman he could love was the mother of his still living children who had loved him the whole time.’

      ‘Everyone reacts to grief in their own way,’ she said softly.

      Nic picked up his glass but not with any intention of drinking from it, more for something to do with his hands. ‘I am like my father in that I do not like to be told what to do,’ he said. ‘He always had issues with my grandfather over that. I guess that is why Salvatore’s will was written the way it was.’

      ‘But you are doing what he wanted now and that is all that matters,’ she said in the same emotionless voice. ‘In a year you will be free. You will have your inheritance and you can be with whoever you want.’

      ‘So what about you?’ Nic asked, raising his glass to his lips. ‘What will you do once the year is up?’

      She looked down at her hardly touched champagne. ‘I haven’t thought that far ahead.’ She looked back at him and gave him a forced-looking smile. ‘I guess we will divorce amicably and get on with our lives.’

      Nic wondered who she would want to spend her life with or if she wanted to settle down at all. If it hadn’t been for his grandfather’s machinations, at some stage she would have had to marry and to marry well. She had never worked a day in her life. She was a full-time socialite, born to it like others were born to poverty and neglect.

      Until the withdrawal of her father’s support, she certainly hadn’t given Nic any indication that she was going to abide by the stipulations set down in the will. Nic had wanted to talk to her about it at length after the funeral, but when he had mentioned it during the service she had glared at him and then later slipped out before he could corner her. He certainly didn’t see himself as qualifying for husband of the year or anything, but as long as she behaved herself he would put up with the twelve months of matrimony to secure his inheritance and thus keep his brothers’ interests in the Sabbatini Corporation secure.

      There were certain compensations in marrying Jade, of course. She was certainly a pleasure to look at. She had the most beautiful piercing green eyes, large and almond-shaped and darkly lashed, as thick as the silky, wavy hair that cascaded halfway down her back. With cheekbones you could ski off and a mouth that promised sensuality in every plump curve, she could have modelled if she’d put her mind to it, but for some reason had rejected an offer from a top agency when she was nineteen. Apparently she had been more than content to continue to live off her father’s fortune, no doubt expecting it all to land in her lap on his demise some time in the future.

      Yes, she was a gold-digger in her own way, Nic thought. She just did it a little more openly and shamelessly than most. It would be exciting having her in his bed. The more he thought of it, the more he longed to get down to it. She played it so cool but he could feel the heat of her passionate nature simmering underneath the surface. She was a born tease. She was deliberately ramping up his desire for her. She was a wildcat, a tigress that needed to be tamed and he would gladly be the one to do it and sooner rather than later, no matter what silly little hands-off-the-goods deals she insisted on making. He saw it for the ruse it was. She had wanted him since she was a hormone-charged sixteen-year-old and, because he had rejected her, she had played hard to get ever since.

      ‘You do realise we will have to live together in Rome for most of the year, don’t you?’ he said after a pause. ‘Apart from the times we travel.’

      Her eyes flew to his. ‘Travel? You expect me to travel with you?’

      ‘That is what loving wives do, is it not?’ he asked.

      Her neatly groomed brows moved close together. ‘But surely that’s not necessary in our case. You’re a busy man. You don’t need a wife hanging off your arm in every city you travel to. Besides, I have things of my own to do.’

      He hooked one brow upwards. ‘Like what? Lime and vodka mornings and getting your hair and nails done?’

      Her fingers tightened around her glass so hard Nic wondered if the fragile stem might crack. ‘It’s not that at all. I just like sleeping in my own bed.’

      ‘Not according to what I read in the papers a few months ago,’ he pointed out wryly. ‘You were in and out of Richard McCormack’s bed day in and day out while his wife’s back was turned.’

      She gave him a hateful glare. ‘So you believe there is truth in everything written about you and your brothers in the papers, do you?’

      He studied her for a moment. ‘Not everything, no, but you didn’t deny it. You could have slapped a defamation case on the paper if there was absolutely no truth in anything that was reported.’

      ‘I have no interest in suing anyone,’ she said. ‘It’s not worth the bother. They would just read it as defensive-ness which, in my opinion, reeks of guilt. I’ve always felt it better to ignore it all and hope it eventually dies down.’

      ‘It hopefully will now that we are about to be married,’ he said. ‘Have you a preference for a church wedding? ‘

      She averted her gaze. ‘No preference at all.’

      ‘Then СКАЧАТЬ