The Platinum Collection. Maisey Yates

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ Lizzie coughed to clear her convulsed throat. ‘And I’ll ring Chrissie now to explain about the papers she has to sign.’

      ‘I doubt if I’ll see you again before we meet at the church on Friday,’ Cesare imparted softly. ‘Somehow try to practise not leaping away when I come close. It’s a dead giveaway that our relationship is a sham.’

      Lizzie flushed with mortification. ‘Then practise keeping your distance,’ she advised.

      Well, that was telling him, Cesare conceded grimly. She was angry with him. He had been less than diplomatic after that phone call that interrupted them earlier that day. He ground his even white teeth together. He had only told the truth. Did women always punish men for telling the truth? If their arrangement was to work, however, he would need to make more of an effort to sustain their relationship, he acknowledged grudgingly. Women were emotional creatures. Her anxious, uneasy attitude towards him had just underlined that unwelcome reality.

      Furthermore, Lizzie might be a gold-digger who had chosen money over ethics when given the choice, but how could he blame her for that when she had lived in poverty for so many years? It was not a crime for her to seek to better herself. And how could he fault her avaricious streak when, without it, she would have sent him and his proposition packing? It was unjust of him to view her in the same unforgiving light as the many mercenary women who had shared his bed, he conceded wryly. Serafina, after all, had made a straight-up choice to ditch Cesare and marry a man who had been much wealthier, even though he was also much older. He had to be less judgemental and more generous to Lizzie. In any case, as his wife and potentially the future mother of his child, Lizzie was also the equivalent of a long-term project. Somehow he would have to make her happy and keep her happy, because if he didn’t all his plans could still come to nothing.

      * * *

      ‘You look totally amazing!’ Chrissie exclaimed as Lizzie spun to show off her wedding gown, slender shoulders and arms sheathed in the finest see-through lace, her tiny waist accentuated by the fullness of her skirt.

      ‘My brother’s a closet romantic. He’s going to love that dress,’ Maurizia forecast as a knock sounded on the door and she and Sofia went to answer it.

      ‘I’m having so much fun. I wish I hadn’t put that exam ahead of attending your hen do,’ Chrissie lamented, a slight willowy figure in the topaz-coloured bridesmaid dress that she and Cesare’s sisters all wore.

      Lizzie gazed fondly at her sister, thinking that she was the real beauty in the family with her perfect features and superior height.

      ‘A pressie for you from Cesare,’ Sofia announced, placing a jewel case in Lizzie’s hands.

      A gloriously delicate diamond necklace and drop earrings met Lizzie’s stunned appraisal and a chorus of admiration rose from her companions. Of course, Cesare was playing to the gallery, assuming the role of besotted bridegroom for his siblings’ benefit, Lizzie guessed. She put on the necklace and the earrings and realised that she was rather pathetically wishing that her wedding were the genuine article. She loved Cesare’s family and would have given just about anything for them to be her family as well. Instead she had to live with the unlovely truth that she was deceiving them and would soon be deceiving Cesare’s grandmother as well.

      ‘You’re really sure about doing this?’ Chrissie whispered in the church porch as she made an unnecessary adjustment to Lizzie’s gown while their father hovered, looking irritable. ‘Because it’s not too late to change your mind. All I have to do is call a taxi and we’re out of here.’

      ‘Are you trying to cause trouble? Of course, she’s not going to change her mind!’ Brian Whitaker declared in exasperation. ‘That Sabatino fellow has to be the best thing that ever happened to her! At least he has an ounce of sense between his ears.’

      ‘We certainly think so,’ Paola piped up without hesitation. ‘But sometimes the bride does get cold feet.’

      ‘Not this one,’ Lizzie countered steadily, smoothing over the awkwardness that had settled over the bridal party with her father’s tactless words.

      Cesare turned to look at Lizzie only when she reached the altar. Eyes the colour of melted bronze assailed her and she stopped breathing, gripped by the ferocious force of will in that appraisal. He had no doubts, she interpreted. He knew exactly what he was doing, had come to terms with the drawbacks and was concentrating on the end game. She had to do the same, she told herself urgently. She had to stop trying to personalise their relationship and stop wondering whether or not he would kiss her after they had been pronounced man and wife. Such treacherous thoughts were far removed from businesslike behaviour and utterly inappropriate, she scolded herself in exasperation.

      ‘You look fantastic,’ Cesare murmured softly while he threaded the wedding band onto her finger and she followed suit, copying his manoeuvre with less cool and more nerves.

      Indeed, Cesare was taken aback by just how fabulous she looked. The effect she had on him was ever so slightly unnerving. It was his libido, he told himself impatiently. As long as he stuck to his rules of never getting tangled in anything that smacked of an emotional connection, he would be fine and perfectly happy.

      And then the deed was done and they were married and there was no kiss, nor indeed any instruction to kiss the bride. Her hand trembling on Cesare’s arm, she walked down the aisle, seeing a sea of smiling faces on every side of her. It was not her idea of a small wedding because the big church was crammed with guests. Out on the steps, Cesare escorted a tiny woman with vibrant brown eyes set in a round wrinkled face to meet her.

      ‘Athene...meet Elisabetta, known as Lizzie,’ he murmured quietly. ‘Lizzie, this is my grandmother.’

      The two women stood chatting about nothing in particular for several minutes beneath Cesare’s watchful eye. Athene grinned at Lizzie. There was an astonishing amount of mischief in that unexpected grin and she squeezed Lizzie’s hand. ‘We’ll talk later,’ she promised cheerfully.

      Later became much later once the bridal merry-go-round took over. The bride and groom greeted their guests at the country house hotel chosen to stage the reception, dined in splendour while being entertained by a famous singer, listened to the speeches and danced the first dance with Lizzie stumbling over her own feet. In the circle of Cesare’s powerful arms and surrounded by so many well-wishers, Lizzie had to struggle to remember that their wedding was a fake.

      In fact when Cesare lowered his darkly handsome head and kissed her, Lizzie was so unprepared for the move and so taken back by it she fell into it like a child falling down a bottomless well. His mouth moved on hers and his tongue darted across the roof of her mouth and excitement leapt so high inside her she felt dizzy and intoxicated, her head tilting back, her hands tightening round his neck, fingertips flirting with the silky strands of his black hair. It was heavenly and devastating; heavenly to glory in her womanhood and appreciate that she had now discovered her sensual side and devastating to register that the wrong man was punching her buttons, simply to impress their audience.

      In passionate rejection of that belittling image, Lizzie jerked her head back and pressed him back from her. ‘Enough...’ she muttered unsteadily.

      ‘Dio mio, not half enough for me, bellezza mia,’ Cesare rasped in a driven undertone. ‘I want you.’

      Lizzie had become as stiff as a board. ‘We talked about that and decided that it wasn’t sensible.’

      ‘To hell with being sensible!’ Cesare shot back at her with smouldering dark golden СКАЧАТЬ