The Wedding Charade Read online

  ‘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 you won’t mind if we have the ceremony and honeymoon in Bellagio?’ he asked.

  Her eyes came back to his. ‘That’s where your family has a villa, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’ He refilled their glasses before he added, ‘It’s also where my baby sister died all those years ago.’

  Jade picked up her glass again. ‘Well, then, it seems rather fitting to conduct a dead marriage there, doesn’t it?’

  His hazel eyes bored into hers for a tense moment. ‘Your tongue is razor-sharp this evening,’ he observed. ‘You are the one who insists the marriage is to be in name only.’

  ‘I don’t love you, Nic, and you don’t care a fig for me,’ she said. ‘We’re only marrying each other to access a rather large fortune. That’s about as dead as a marriage can be, is it not?’

  ‘It doesn’t have to be that way,’ he said. ‘We can work things to the advantage of both of us.’

  She rolled her eyes at him. ‘I can see how your mind works, Nic. You’re already straining at the leash of imposed fidelity, aren’t you? I told you: have your affairs if you must but keep them private. I don’t want to be made a fool of in the press.’

  ‘Same goes,’ he said, leaning forward menacingly. ‘I am warning you, Jade. If I hear one whisper of a scandal of you with another man, money or no money, our marriage will be terminated immediately, irrespective of what’s written in the will. I am going to have it written into the prenuptial agreement.’

  ‘Don’t you mean our marriage will be annulled rather than terminated?’ she asked with an arch look.

  His eyes held hers like high-beam searchlights for so long Jade felt her skin break out in tiny goosebumps of apprehension. There was a steely purpose to his expression. He was not a man to be pushed around. Somehow he had turned the tables on her. She was not the one calling the tune here now, he was, and he was not going to allow her forget it. He had made it clear he desired her but she couldn’t help feeling she was just going to be a convenient fill-in while he waited for his inheritance to be secure. Although she had tried her very best to disguise her response to him, it had clearly been to no avail. But then maybe he was like a lot of men even in these more enlightened times who still thought it their right to sleep with a woman who took their fancy: an expensive dinner, an even more expensive bottle of champagne and the transaction was settled.

  Jade had determined she would not allow herself to be intimate with Nic. But somehow in the last couple of hours her resolve had been challenged in a way it had never been before. She saw the heat of desire in his eyes, the way his sexy mouth tilted in a lazy smile, as if he could already taste the victory of having her mouth plundered by his so very experienced one. She shifted uncomfortably on her chair, aware of her body in a way that made her feel distinctly uneasy about her ability to be immune to his sensual power. Her breasts felt full and tingly, her legs trembling and sensitive, as if they longed to be entwined with the length and strength of his in an erotic embrace.

  He reached out and unpeeled her rigid fingers from around the stem of her glass. He brought those very same fingers up to his mouth, where suddenly they loosened and trembled, as if his breath contained a magic potion that unlocked every stiff joint, making them like putty in his hold. She sat transfixed, locked in a stasis that felt so strange to her and yet totally, inexplicably irresistible. She didn’t want to break the spell. His eyes were holding hers in a lockdown that was unbreakable. She couldn’t look away if she wanted to. Something was drawing her to him, like a silly little unsuspecting moth heading towards a bright hot light. She was going to get burned, but it was as if she didn’t care. She drew in an uneven little breath as his lips brushed aga
inst the tips of her fingers, a barely touching movement that made her instantly ache for more.

  ‘Why are you still fighting what has always been between us, Jade?’ he asked in a low husky tone.

  ‘I don’t want to complicate things, Nic,’ she said in a voice that sounded like someone else’s, breathy, excited, anticipatory and expectant.

  ‘You wanted me when you were sixteen,’ he reminded her, nibbling on her fingertips again, a feather-touch of temptation—a lighted taper to her simmering need.

  ‘I …I was young and you were—’

  ‘Lusting after you but old enough to realise you were far too young to know what you were doing,’ he said, smiling in a self-deprecating way. ‘Jailbait Jade. That’s what I nicknamed you. Did you know that? I daren’t touch you for years after that. Not even a kiss on the cheek at any of the family gatherings. I didn’t trust myself to take what had been on offer. I was seven years older than you. At twenty-three I had to be the adult, even though I wanted you like a raging fever in my blood.’

  Jade pulled her hand away from his mouth, tucking it safely away in her lap. ‘I wish you would stop reminding me of how stupid I was back then,’ she said, her eyes downcast.

  ‘It’s still there, isn’t it, Jade?’ he said in a smouldering tone. ‘The hint of the forbidden, the lust, the longing, the need that won’t go away. I see it in your eyes; I feel it in your body. I feel it like a pulse in my flesh when you look at me. We won’t last the year without consummating this marriage and you damn well know it.’

  She dared to look at him then, her heart giving a little pony kick in her chest. He meant it. He wanted her and he was going to do what he could to have her. She would have to be so strong, so very strong. Falling in love with Nic was the one thing she must not do. She had done it once before and look where that had taken her. It had set her life on a completely different course. She only had herself to blame, deep down she knew that. She had wilfully thrown away her innocence to get back at Nic and it had backfired on her terribly.

  ‘My grandfather would not have tied you up in this marriage unless he thought it was the best thing for you,’ Nic said. ‘He always made allowances for you, in spite of what was reported in the press. He defended you many times.’

  Jade pushed the starter around her plate without getting any of it to her mouth. ‘He was a good man,’ she said softly, trying not to allow the mist of tears to break through. ‘I have never quite understood how he and my father became such good friends. They were so very different.’

  ‘Your father took the death of Jonathan very hard,’ Nic said. ‘Some people don’t handle grief very well. I think my grandfather understood that, having lost his granddaughter and seeing his own son deal with it in his own way. There is no right way of doing it. We each have to find the right way to handle it—to learn to live with it.’

  Jade looked up at him again. ‘In my father’s opinion, the wrong child died,’ she said in a flat, emotionless tone that belied what she was feeling, what she had always felt.

  Nic frowned, his dark brows so close together they were almost joined above the bridge of his nose. ‘Surely you don’t think that? It was an accident. It could have happened to anyone. There was nothing you could have done to change that. There was nothing anyone could do. I told you before: you were lucky you weren’t there with him.’

  Jade gave a little shrug that said so little and yet so much. She had been the one who had caused Jonathan’s death. He wouldn’t have gone to such a challenging ski run if she had been with him because she wasn’t as confident a skier. He had always watched out for her, staying with her even though he would probably have preferred to do his own thing. She had always maintained she had missed that flight because of her partying, but it had actually been because she had not properly memorised the itinerary her father had given her and had turned up at the wrong airline counter. By the time she had run across to the right one, it had been too late because the flight had already left. The shame of her inadequacy had kept her from asking the check-in staff to book her on another flight. It had all been too much so she had simply gone home and left a message for Jon to say she had changed her mind and was going to stay home and party instead. She was dumb and stupid—a dunce, as her father had so often told her. It was all her fault Jon had died that day and she had to live with it.

  ‘Jade?’ Nic reached for her hand but she moved it away from the glass she had been reaching for.

  Drinking had been one of her coping mechanisms in the early days and it hadn’t worked. It had hurt her rather than healed her. ‘It’s all right,’ she said, giving Nic a rough version of a smile. ‘Life goes on. Jon wouldn’t have wanted me to waste my life bemoaning the past. He died the way he lived: on the edge, with loads of adrenalin, with laughter and courage and conviction.’

  ‘So how do you live your life?’ Nic asked.

  With fear, apprehension, self-loathing and a truck-load of regret, Jade thought, but didn’t say. She pasted a plastic smile on her face and met Nic’s dark, serious hazel eyes. ‘I want to live the high life,’ she said. ‘I want money and lots of it. I want to never have to work, to not have to grind away at a job I loathe for the next forty-odd years and then retire to tend tomatoes and orchids or whatever it is that old people do these days.’

  ‘Most of them spend time with their grandchildren,’ he said.

  Jade lifted her brows at him in a pert manner. ‘Is that what you, the eternal playboy, plans to do?’

  He frowned again, as if he had never given the idea much thought. ‘Don’t get me wrong,’ he said. ‘I adore my niece and two nephews. I can see the joy they bring to my brothers’ and mother’s lives. But I have never really envisaged a family life for myself. I travel all over the world at a moment’s notice. My job in the Sabbatini Corporation requires it, especially now with Giorgio and Luca wanting to spend more time with their families. I am only home about one week in three.’

  Jade felt a quake of unease pass through her. ‘So you’re expecting me to accompany you on all of those trips?’

  He shifted his tongue inside his cheek, obviously giving it some thought. ‘Not all, perhaps, but most. We are meant to be giving the impression of a solid and secure marriage, Jade. We can’t do that if one of us is globetrotting on business and the other is lazing by the pool or heading off to the nearest health spa.’

  She flashed him a vitriolic look. ‘Is that what you think I do with my time?’

  He picked up his glass and downed the contents before answering. ‘You don’t work, you don’t volunteer, and you attend only the parties that suit your ends. I have no idea what you do with your time. Why don’t you tell me?’

  Jade thought of her canvases, back at her flat, in her makeshift studio in the small spare bedroom. How she had worked so hard to make up for her other failings. She hadn’t sold anything and, like most artists, knew she might never make a decent living out of her creativity, but she secretly longed to. She longed to with a passion that was no doubt as strong as her father’s drive to be the best accountant in the business. It was another one of her secrets, a passion she kept to herself in case it failed, thus proving to one and all that she was nothing but a shallow socialite with nothing to offer but a blue-blood pedigree. Like her mother, she wasn’t supposed to have a brain or a goal. She was meant to be on hand with the canapés and the champagne and the convivial conversation, working the room, aiming the shining beacon on her husband’s stellar achievements.

  But Jade had always wanted more. The trouble was, the more she wanted, the more likely it was to be taken away from her.

  Like Nic.

  She pulled away from her wayward thoughts, reminding herself sternly of Nic’s motivations. He only wanted what he could get out of her by keeping her as his wife for the appointed time. Within a month they would be officially married. They would be on their way to having what they wanted: the inheritance. For Nic she was a bonus thrown in for free. He had a fantasy about h
er that stemmed from that silly little schoolgirl crush she had subjected him to. What full-blooded man wouldn’t want to revisit that hotbed of almost but not quite ripe sensuality? But what Nic didn’t know was that she was not really at heart that hardened hormone-driven harlot. What would it be like for him to see her as she really was instead of how the press portrayed her? Ha! As if he would have any respect for her if she revealed all.

  ‘I like my life,’ she said, not quite meeting his eyes. ‘I know it’s not for everybody but it suits me.’

  ‘You are only…what, almost twenty-six? You are in the prime of your life. Have you no desire to do something with your intellect? Perhaps do some sort of course or degree?’

  She gave him a bored look. ‘I hated school so I can’t see myself signing up for anything academic. I haven’t got the discipline for it. Jon was the brains of the family.’

  ‘I am sure you are underselling yourself,’ he said. ‘I know Jonathan was brilliant but you come from the same nest. You have the same blood running through your veins. It’s just a matter of finding what you enjoy and are good at doing.’

  ‘Don’t worry about me,’ she said with a dismissive wave of her hand. ‘I will be quite happy being a social butterfly while you are off doing what you have to do.’

  ‘Are you even interested in what it is I do?’ he asked.

  Jade felt a tiny stab of guilt she couldn’t quite explain. ‘You do something with the Sabbatini hotel chain,’ she said, suddenly feeling hopelessly inadequate. ‘Aren’t you the financial controller or something?’

  His eyes flickered upwards as if in disbelief or frustration or perhaps a bit of both. ‘That is my brother Giorgio’s role. I am the property developer. I scope out new real estate for development, some for hotels and others for our family investment portfolio. I am working on projects in several countries.’

  Jade thought of all those hotel rooms, all those beds and bathrooms she would have to share with him in order to keep the truth of their convenient marriage a secret. One could possibly trust a long-serving household servant to keep that sort of confidence, but not the staff in a hotel, even a luxury Sabbatini one where the staff were rigorously hand-picked. ‘Have you thought about the logistics of all of this?’ she asked. ‘We can hardly have separate rooms everywhere we go. People are bound to speculate and talk.’