The Wedding Charade

His top lip lifted in a snarl. ‘You trashy, deceitful cow,’ he said.

Jade let the words roll off her. ‘Sticks and stones,’ she said in a sing-song voice as she took another sip of champagne.

Nic strode over and snatched the glass out of her hand, spilling champagne over her lap in the process. She glared at him as she jumped up to wipe off the spillage. ‘You bastard!’ she said. ‘This dress is brand new and now you’ve ruined it.’

His nostrils flared like those of an angry bull. ‘Get out,’ he said through tight lips. He pointed to the door with a rigid arm. ‘Get out before I throw you out.’

Jade tossed her head and put her hand behind her back to unzip her damp dress. ‘You put one finger on me and I’ll tell even more Sabbatini secrets to the press.’

His mouth flattened to a thin line of fury. ‘Do you have no principles at all?’

‘Plenty,’ she said, wriggling out of her dress.

His dark brows snapped together. ‘What do you think you are doing?’

Jade tossed the dress on the floor, raising her chin as she stood before him in black lace bra and knickers and her come-and-get-me heels. For a brief moment she wondered if she had stepped not just out of her dress but out of her depth as well. Nic’s gaze seemed to be seeing through much more than her lacy underwear. She could feel the heat of it all over her skin, inside and out. She could feel a faint stirring deep inside her, a fluttering little pulse that seemed to intensify with each throbbing second. ‘I’m going to have a bath,’ she said, summoning her courage and resolve. ‘Then, once I am freshened up, we are going out to publicly celebrate our engagement.’

He stood there, breathing heavily, his eyes hard on hers, hatred darkening them in a way she had never seen before. ‘I am not letting you get away with this, Jade,’ he warned. ‘You don’t get to screw around with me, do you hear?’

‘What a lovely choice of words,’ Jade said as she sashayed over to the bathroom. ‘But there will be no screwing, OK? That’s not part of the deal.’ She gave him a saucy little fingertip wave and closed the bathroom door, clicking the lock firmly in place.

Nic let out a breath that felt as if it had come out of a steam engine. He was beyond angry. He was livid. He was furious.

He was screwed.

Jade had set him up and he had no choice but to go along with it. He would look a hundred times a fool if the press got wind of his grandfather’s machinations. If he had to marry her, he would do it but he would make sure he didn’t look like a pawn being pushed around.

He clenched and unclenched his fists. He wanted to knock that bathroom door down and drag that little scheming witch out by her long black hair. He had not thought it possible to hate someone so much. Was that what his grandfather had wanted? For him to hate the very air Jade Sommerville breathed? What had he been thinking to tie them together in a mock marriage for a whole year, for God’s sake? It would be torture for him. Marriage to anyone would have been bad enough. He loathed the thought of being tied down to one person for any length of time, let alone the rest of his life.

Look what had happened to his father. He had not been able to remain faithful after the death of Nic’s baby sister, and it had nearly destroyed his mother. Nic had been too young to remember Chiara, but he remembered the years that followed. Both his parents had been absent emotionally, cut to the core over the death of their precious daughter. Nic had run wild for most of his childhood, trying to get the assurances he needed as a young boy that he was still a much loved member of the family. But after losing one child, his parents had lived in fear of losing another and so they had held themselves aloof. Giorgio and Luca had fared better, being that bit older, but Nic knew he had missed out on what so many children took for granted.

Being forced to marry Jade was the worst possible scenario. For one thing, there was no way she would ever stay faithful for the allotted time. No wonder she was proposing a no sex deal. He wouldn’t trust her as far as he could see her.

If he could guarantee she wouldn’t stray, his inheritance would be secured. But the only way to ensure that would be to sleep with her, to make the marriage a real one. To keep her so satisfied she wouldn’t be tempted to play around on him.

He rubbed at his jaw as he thought about it. Bedding Jade would certainly be an unforgettable experience. The blood was already fizzing in his veins from her brazen display of flesh. She had no shame, no limits at all on her behaviour. He smiled to himself as he thought about taking her in a rough tumble of lust. The sexual tension between them had crackled for as long as he could remember. It would certainly be no punishment for him to bury himself deep inside her, to make her scream his name instead of some nameless guy she had picked up in a nightclub.

Jade came out of the bathroom a long time later with her hair piled on top of her head and some damp tendrils hanging about her face. She was wearing one of the hotel’s fluffy white bathrobes. Without her make-up and high heels, she looked young and dainty, her cheeks pink-skinned from her bath. As she moved past him to access her suitcase, Nic noticed she barely came up to his shoulder in her bare feet. Her toenails were painted black. They looked stark against the porcelain white of her skin.

‘What happened to my massage appointment?’ he asked.

She tucked a strand of hair behind one of her small ears without looking up from her open bag. ‘I cancelled it.’

‘You had no right to do that,’ he said. ‘I was looking forward to it.’

She glanced at him as she moved with a bundle of clothes to the wardrobe. ‘I can give you one if you like,’ she said. She hung a skirt and top on the silk-padded hangers. ‘I’m told I’m very good.’

‘I am sure you are,’ Nic said, watching her move back to her bag.

She held up two dresses against her chest. ‘Which one do you think? ‘

Nic had to give himself a mental shake. She was doing it again: sideswiping him with her rapid change of demeanour. One minute the raging virago, the next a little girl playing at dress up. There would be another tantrum soon enough, he thought. ‘The red one,’ he said, striding over to the champagne sitting in the silver ice bucket. He poured himself a glass and sipped from it as he watched her dress.

She did it as if it were a strip show in reverse. She had slipped out of the bathrobe while he had been pouring his drink, but now she was stepping into a pair of black and red lacy French knickers that were gossamer-thin, so thin he could see the waxed clear feminine cleft of her body. His blood pounded all over again, making him uncomfortably stiff. He took another deep draught of champagne but he couldn’t bear to drag his eyes away from her. She picked up a matching push-up bra. Not that she needed any mechanical help in showcasing her breasts. They were beautifully shaped, full and yet pert with rosy-red nipples. She adjusted the creamy globes behind the lace and then shook her head so her hair cascaded down over her back and shoulders.

Nic was fit to explode and he hadn’t even touched her.

‘Aren’t you going to shower and change?’ she said as she moved past him with her make-up bag.

He caught her arm on the way past, his fingers fizzing with the stun-gun effect of her warm flesh under his. He locked his eyes on her sea-glass green ones. ‘How about that massage you promised?’ he said.

She gave him a sultry look from beneath her lashes. ‘Later,’ she said. ‘Dinner first. If you’re a good boy I might give you a rub down when we get home.’

He tightened his hold when she made to pull away. ‘Is this how you get every man to do what you want? To make them beg like starving dogs for your favours? ‘

She tossed her head again, making her hair swing back over her shoulders. ‘You won’t have to beg, Nic, because there will be no favours,’ she said. ‘This is going to be a paper marriage.’

Nic laughed out loud. ‘Oh, come on, Jade. How long do you think that’s going to last? You are a born sybarite.’

She glared at him as she tugged at his hold. ‘I am not going to sleep with you.’

‘Then what was the little tease routine for?’ he asked.

She gave him a haughty look. ‘You can look but you can’t touch,’ she said. ‘That’s the deal.’

Nic dropped her arm. ‘There is something you need to learn about me, Jade,’ he said. ‘I choose my own sexual partners. I do the chasing. And I do not beg. Ever.’

She turned away and sat at the dressing table, opening various pots as she applied moisturiser and make-up. ‘We’ll see,’ she said, meeting his eyes in the mirror.

Nic clenched his teeth and strode into the bathroom. We’ll see, indeed, he thought as he turned on the shower full blast.

When Nic came out, Jade was sipping more champagne. She had her face on—the face he was used to seeing: heavy smoky eye-shadow and eyeliner, scarlet lipstick and a brush stroke of bronzing powder to highlight her model-like cheekbones. She was back in another pair of heels, even higher than the previous ones, and she had dangling earrings on that sparkled now and again behind the dark screen of her loose hair. She had a sulky look about her mouth, however, which warned him there might be another scene on its way.

He had thought through his options in the shower.

He would marry her because he didn’t really have a choice, but he would dictate the terms. She thought she had manipulated him into agreeing to it but he wasn’t doing it for her, but for his family.

‘Before we go to dinner I want to lay down some ground rules,’ he said as he reached for a fresh shirt.

She crossed her legs and swung one high-heeled foot up and down in a bored schoolgirl manner. ‘Go on then, tell me what they are and I’ll tell you whether I’ll agree to them or not.’

Nic whipped out a tie from the wardrobe. ‘You will agree to it or I won’t marry you. You’re the one who needs the money more than me, don’t forget.’

She set her mouth in a mulish line, her eyes hardening as she held his. ‘So what are your stupid little rules, then?’

‘I insist that at all times and in all places you will behave with the decorum your position as a Sabbatini wife requires of you,’ he said. ‘You have met both of my sisters-in-law, sì?’

‘Yes, they are very nice,’ she said. ‘I met Bronte briefly at your grandfather’s funeral. I met Maya, Giorgio’s wife, in London. She had taken the time to call on me to show me the baby since I was unable to attend the christening. Matteo is adorable.’

‘Yes, he is,’ Nic said. ‘So why didn’t you come to the christening? ‘

Her eyes stayed determinedly away from his, her tone dismissive. ‘I had another engagement.’

‘And what about Luca and Bronte’s son Marco’s christening?’ he asked. ‘It was only a month later. Did you have another engagement that day too?’

This time she looked at him directly. ‘I always keep myself busy. My social calendar is booked for months ahead.’

Nic felt his top lip curl. He could imagine her shoe-horning in party after party, nightclub after nightclub, and shallow date after shallow date. ‘It was good of you to come to my grandfather’s funeral,’ he said with no intention of it being a compliment. She had obviously known she was going to be included in the will, for why else would she have made the effort? He knew her well enough to know she didn’t do anything for anyone unless she got something out of it for herself. ‘You also came to see him before he died, didn’t you?’

She nodded. ‘It was the least I could do. He had always been so good to me. I was just his godchild. No one takes that role all that seriously these days, but he always looked out for me.’

‘Apart from the will, of course,’ Nic pointed out.

‘Yes, well, he must have had his reasons.’

‘Why do you think he did it?’ Nic asked. ‘To us, I mean. It’s not as if we’ve been the best of friends over the years.’

She gave a little shrug of her slim shoulders. ‘Who knows? Maybe he thought it would be a way of bringing the two dynasties together: the Sommervilles and the Sabbatinis. It has quite a ring to it. My father no longer has a male heir so this is the next best thing. I expect they cooked it up together.’

Nic studied her for a moment. ‘You were supposed to be with your brother on that skiing holiday, weren’t you?’

Her eyes shifted away from his. ‘I missed the flight.’ She gave a little shrug, as if it was just one of those things. ‘I overslept after a night out.’

‘Have you ever thought of how you could have both died if you had gone on that trip?’ Nic asked. ‘You would have been on the slopes with him when the avalanche hit.’

She gave him a glittering glare. ‘Do you mind if we get back to your stupid little rules?’

‘You don’t like talking about Jonathan, do you?’

‘You lost your baby sister,’ she said. ‘Do you like discussing it?’

‘I don’t even remember it,’ he said. ‘I was only eighteen months old. But Jonathan was twenty, almost twenty-one, and you were just weeks off turning eighteen. It must be very clear in your memory.’

‘It is and it’s off-limits,’ she said, looking him in the eye. ‘You might think you have certain privileges as my husband-to-be but that is not one of them.’

Nic pulled his tie up to his neck and straightened it, his eyes still following every nuance on her beautiful, now ice-maiden face. She could change so quickly it was amazing. ‘The second rule is I will not tolerate you playing around,’ he said. ‘I am prepared to give and take a little, but I am not going to be cuckolded.’

‘I won’t play around on you,’ she said, looking at him with a cat-that-got-the-cream-and-the-canary smile. ‘I’ll be too busy counting my money.’

‘If you don’t behave yourself, there will be consequences,’ Nic said. ‘One false move and you will be out without a penny. It’s written in the will. We both have to remain faithful, otherwise we automatically nullify the terms set down by my grandfather.’

‘You will have to be very discreet then, won’t you?’ she asked with an arch look.

‘You don’t think I can do it, do you?’

She pulled her long black hair over one of her shoulders in a mermaid-like arrangement. ‘Do what?’ she said. ‘Stay celibate? No, quite frankly, I don’t. Who is your latest lover, by the way? Is it still the Brazilian heiress, or have you got someone else by now?’

His lips jammed together for a moment as if he was biting back a retort. ‘A year without sex is a long time, Jade, for both of us. I can’t see why we can’t have our cake and eat it too.’

Jade rolled her eyes at his play on words. ‘I want the money, not you, Nic. I thought I had made that perfectly clear.’

‘You say it with your mouth but not with your eyes,’ he said. ‘I give it a month at the most before you have them in sync. It’s all part of the game, isn’t it? It’s what you do to every man: make them want you so badly they forget about promises and principles.’

‘I can see you think you know me inside out,’ she said. ‘At least there won’t be any nasty surprises once we are married.’

‘I am afraid we will have to have a full-on wedding with all the regalia,’ he said after a short tense pause. ‘I hope that is not going to be a problem for you. It’s just that my family will expect it and so will the public.’

‘Fine,’ Jade said. ‘But I am not going to wear white or a veil.’

He tilted his head at her, a smile teasing the edges of his mouth upwards. ‘You’re not thinking of wearing black, are you? ‘

Jade held his look with defiance. ‘I’m not a virgin, Nic. I am not going to pretend to be something I am not.’

He frowned as if he found her statement somewhat bewildering. ‘I don’t recall saying that was a requirement of this arrangement. When it comes down to it, I am no angel myself. I probably should be ashamed to say this but I have lost count of the lovers I have had. You can probably still do a reasonably accurate tally.’

‘Nope,’ she lied, inspecting her nails. ‘I’ve lost count too. Ages ago.’

The silence pulsed for a beat or two.

She looked up to find him watching her with a brooding expression. ‘Is there anything else?’ she asked. ‘Any more tedious little rules I have to abide by?’

‘NO,’ he said, snatching up his jacket and shrugging himself into it. ‘That will be all for now. Just leave the press to me. I will handle the questions.’

Jade uncrossed her legs and got to her feet. ‘Yes, Master,’ she said and flicked the fine chain strap of her evening purse over her shoulder as she walked with swaying hips over to the door.

‘Careful, Jade,’ he warned. ‘One step out of line and the deal’s off. And don’t think I wouldn’t do it.’

Jade refused to let him see how unnerved she was by his threat. He might be calling her bluff but how could she know for sure? Of course she needed the money much more than he did. He had plenty of his own while she had nothing. But a year was going to change all that. She would finally be independent of her father. She would no longer need anyone’s largesse to survive. She schooled her features into meekness. ‘I will be a good girl, Nic, you just watch me.’

CHAPTER THREE

THEY had barely stepped outside the hotel on the Grand Canal when the paparazzi swarmed upon them. A journalist pushed a microphone towards Nic and asked, ‘Signor Sabbatini, the news of your engagement and impending marriage to Ms Sommerville has taken everyone by surprise. You must have been conducting a very secret liaison. Do you have any comment to make about your romance? ‘

Nic smiled charmingly but Jade could tell he was grinding his teeth behind it. ‘Ms Sommerville and I have been family friends for years. We finally decided to become more than friends. We are very much looking forward to our wedding next month. Now, if you’ll allow us to celebrate our engagement in private, please move on.’

One of the older journalists pushed forward a microphone in Jade’s direction before Nic could do anything to block it. ‘Ms Sommerville, you were involved some months ago with Richard McCormack, the husband of one of your best friends. Do you think the news of your engagement to Nic Sabbatini will finally repair your relationship with Julianne McCormack?’

Jade felt the subtle tightening of Nic’s fingers around hers. ‘I have no comment to make on any issue to do with my private life, apart from being very happy about my engagement to Nic. It’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I am so—’

‘Excuse us.’ Nic took command and led her through the crowd of tourists who had gathered.

‘I thought I told you to leave the questions to me,’ he said in an undertone as they weaved through the knot of people.

‘Everyone will think it strange if I don’t say something,’ Jade argued. ‘This is a momentous occasion, after all.’

He gave her a quelling look before heading for a restaurant on one of the canals.

They were led to a table in a lavishly appointed private room. Crystal chandeliers twinkled from the ceiling, plush velvet covered the chairs and hung from the windows in thick curtains in a rich shade of scarlet. There were Venetian masks on the wall, each one a work of art. The atmosphere was one of intimacy and privacy, and again Jade wondered how many women Nic had entertained here, wining and dining them before taking them back to his penthouse apartment to pleasure them. Strangely, she felt a jagged spike of jealousy poke at her and she shifted in her chair. Why would she be jealous? There would always be other women with Nic. It was the way he was made. He was not cut out for commitment and continuity in his love life. He was a playboy with a PhD in seductive charm. He could have anyone he wanted. He had had anyone he wanted.

The menus were placed in front of them and within minutes a bottle of champagne arrived in a silver ice bucket. Jade looked at it with wariness. She had already had one more glass than usual. Being with Nic had the same effect as alcohol. It had made her head spin to see him dressed in nothing 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.