A Contract, A Wedding, A Wife?. Christy McKellen

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       CHAPTER THREE

      Scrabble—choose your words carefully.

      THEIR WEDDING DAY was glorious. At least the weather was, with the sun pouring in on them through the large picture widows of the register office as they stood at the desk reciting the lines they were asked to say.

      The huge room, with its rows of chairs facing the desk, was eerily empty except for Xavier and Soli, the registrar, Xavier’s friend Russell—the only friend he’d confided in and who had drawn up the contracts in his other role as a solicitor—and one other witness, who was a complete stranger to them all. Xavier had approached him outside on the street, pretending that their second witness had been delayed in traffic, and offered him a wad of cash for half an hour of his time.

      Glancing around the room, he remembered all too well the last time he’d been in a place like this as echoes of a clawing sense of shame and dread pricked at his skin. He’d promised himself he’d never set foot in a register office again and hadn’t attended a wedding since his own disastrous debacle. He’d actually intended to avoid them for the rest of his life, if at all possible.

      But he hadn’t counted on his Aunt Faith’s iron-like will.

      So here he was again.

      At least this time the bride had turned up and actually married him.

      Well, you got what you wanted, Aunty. I hope you’re happy now.

      Soli, to her credit, didn’t say a thing about the lack of guests or the stranger signing the marriage register beneath her name. In fact, she’d seemed more than happy to let him deal with all the arrangements and go along with whatever he’d asked her to do. She’d told him it had meant she’d been able to focus fully on making the necessary arrangements for her family and the café before she came to live with him. Apparently her sister was off to live in Oxford over the summer to earn rent money at a job she’d found there before her first year began and her mother now had a full-time carer living in the flat with her. All thanks to his money.

      Not that he resented it. It meant he was able to achieve exactly what he wanted after all.

      In his experience, money always smoothed the way. It was the only thing he could ever really rely on.

      ‘Congratulations,’ the registrar said to the two of them once the ceremony had come to a close. She didn’t seem at all fazed by the lack of guests or the sombreness of the occasion, but Xavier guessed she must have seen it all in the course of her duties.

      ‘Thank you,’ he said, giving her a nod of gratitude.

      ‘Yes, it was a lovely service,’ Soli added with a barely discernible quaver in her voice.

      He glanced at her, wondering whether she was having a moment of regret, but she just smiled back at him as if nothing in the world was wrong. He appreciated her professionalism.

      He’d not really looked at what she was wearing when they’d met in the lobby only minutes before their slot because the registrar had come straight over to introduce herself then whisked them straight in, but as he surveyed Soli now he realised she’d made a real effort with her appearance today.

      Her wild curls had been tamed into an elegant up do and she’d put on more make-up than he’d previously seen her wear, which accentuated her big bright eyes and full, rosebud mouth.

      The simple cream-coloured sheath dress she wore exposed her slim, toned arms and flowed over her curves, drawing his gaze to the tantalising swell of her breasts under the thin fabric.

      Hoping she’d assume he was looking at the small posy of flowers she clutched in СКАЧАТЬ