“This is something you really want?” Clearly he still didn’t believe her.
“God, Blaine, you’re so unrelenting.” Wanting to punish him as he had punished her, she spoke fiercely, in so much pain, so much pride, it was important she stop him from questioning her further. It was all too late. Colin had pursued and won her. Not Blaine. No matter what, Blaine was lost to her.
“I’m sorry.” He dropped her hands at once, his dark high-mettled face now closed against her. “Forgive me. I wish you all the happiness in the world.”
“I know you don’t,” Genni found herself responding wildly, too far gone to care. They were almost on the verge of one of their monumental arguments.
“Be careful what you say,” Blaine warned, his eyes narrowed to mere slits.
In the entrance hall everyone stood around absolutely enthralled by what was going on between Genni and her commanding cousin. Although no one could make out what was being said, the body language told them heaps. There was grief, anger, and hurt, a raging that looked like antagonism. Genni’s face was still very white but a high colour burned her cheeks. From stillness she had burst into abandoned brilliant life.
It wasn’t looking good. Angel had the dismal feeling the two of them might just up and away. On the point of desperation, concerned for their every move, Angel stepped in. “Photographs people!” She turned swiftly to snap her fingers at the society photographer, Bernard, famous for his designer weddings, who gave no indication whatsoever he saw or heard her. “Then we really should be leaving for the church.”
“There’s time, Angelica.” Blaine glanced briefly at his watch feeling like a lion wanting to protect its young. No one was going to push Genni into marriage. “Anyway, isn’t it fashionable to be late?”
It was unless one had a great deal of worry on one’s mind. Blaine was a man capable of anything, Angel thought, hustling them all into the spectacular formal living room with its breathtaking views of Sydney Harbour.
“You’re over here, Blaine, next to me,” she cooed, hoping to God Blaine would calm down.
Such was the severity of Blaine Courtland’s expression everyone was amazed when he actually crossed the floor to tower over the petite Angel, five-three, and she was wearing high heels.
“I don’t like the way Genni is acting,” he told Angel, staring across the room at her. “If she’s not entirely happy about this marriage, there’s still time to bail out.”
Just when Angel had a horror Genni was about to do just that. “Blaine, darling, you can’t be serious?” A superb actress, she sounded amazed. “Every single day Genni has been telling me how happy she is. How much she loves Colin. They were made for each other. Soul mates!”
“Rubbish!” Blaine corrected very bluntly. “When you’re madly in love with someone you don’t look like Genni does now. I know her too well.”
“But goodness, darling, you’ve never been madly in love with anyone, so how would you know?”
“Simple. You really should take time off to try and understand your daughter. Anyway, any woman I’ve been involved with is still my friend, which is a damned sight more than you can say of your two husbands and assortment of gigolos.”
“You loved saying that, didn’t you, darling?” Angel, unfazed by the hard truth, pulled a little face. “Sometimes, Blaine, you can be absolutely dreadful.”
“When Genni’s happiness and well-being is put on the line, yes,” he acknowledged brusquely. “Look at her, Angel. Forget yourself and your plans. Look at Genni. She’s as white as a snowdrop.” His glittering grey gaze was directed to the centre of the overly grand room where Genni was being posed by Bernard in front of the white marble fireplace. It was adorned with a great abundance of white roses and green tracery topped and outdone by a large portrait of Angel in a deliciously low-cut blue-satin ballgown painted during the halcyon days of her ill-fated first marriage.
“God, I don’t believe this,” Blaine muttered blaming himself for not simply kidnapping the bride. A hundred vivid memories of Genevieve flitted through his head. The adorable two-year-old with her radiant violet eyes and riot of platinum curls.
He’d been ten years old when his father’s favourite cousin, Stephen, had brought his little daughter to Jubilee. A difficult ten-year-old, hard to handle. A boy who already knew despair because his beautiful mother had abandoned him and his father and run off with her lover. An event so unexpected, so out of character, he sometimes thought he was still in a state of shock.
Genni had come into his life at the right time. Over the years he had given her all the love his heart could hold. She was so innocent, so vulnerable, so sweet-sassy intelligent, so generous with her affections.
As Stephen and Angel drifted further and further apart Genni had come to spend more time at Jubilee where she was back with her “cherished” Blaine. How close they had been then. It seemed he had taught her everything. How to swim, how to ride, how to handle a gun, how to find her way around the bush, how to survive. What he hadn’t been able to teach her was how to pick the right men. In fact from about seventeen he’d been in despair about Genni’s choices. Not a one good enough for her.
Certainly not Garrett, though loaded with money and a certain easy charm, he was short on substance. The more he had tried to tighten his hold on her, the more Genni had flown into little wild rages, claiming where he had once loved her now she was always in high disfavour. It wasn’t true. He was hungry in spirit for the old easy relationship, but over the past few years an odd constraint had grown between them neither of them seemed to know how to break. Genni no longer ran to him for advice and comfort. Or did she? What was she doing at the hotel last night? Hilary had told him Genni had paid the visit to her. He should have known better about his stepsister’s wiles. The unfortunate truth was Hilary had a deep-seated jealousy of Genevieve. Everyone in the family knew it, just as they knew Hilary had grown into her own worst enemy.
While Blaine brooded, his eyes like jewels, Angel was saying quite merrily, “Genni looks perfectly happy to me, darling. A touch of bridal jitters, no more.” She reached up to pat Blaine’s lean tanned cheek. “You’re worrying about nothing,” she said softly. “You always did have a powerful urge to keep Genni to yourself.” Angel smiled as she watched Bernard straighten Genni’s long beautiful veil. “Isn’t her bouquet fabulous?” She smiled proudly. “You can’t beat Hughie Rickman for flowers.”
Blaine answered with such terseness it could easily have been interpreted as profound disapproval. “She’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, but no one, not even Genni herself, can convince me she’s in love with this guy. I can’t have her marrying a man she doesn’t love.”
At the sweep-all-before it note in his voice, Angel put a trembling hand to her breast. Only for her deep concern for her makeup she would have been in tears. “Blaine, maybe you’ve got a problem,” she suggested. “Genni hasn’t.” She lifted her face to him, despite herself pierced through with his wondrous blue-blooded aura. “You can’t always run her life. You’re here to give her away, my dear. In under a half hour you and Genni are going to do the grand march down to the altar. I know both your lives will change, but look on the bright side. You won’t have to worry about her any more. You won’t have to pick up all the bills.” She said it totally without embarrassment, but Blaine answered with the merest lick of contempt.
“We’re not talking about money. Everything would be fine if only I could believe Genni is marrying the man she loves.”
His radar was working too well. “Blaine, darling,” Angel tried her most convincing voice, tilting back her head so she could look him directly in the eye. “My daughter told me only last night never in her life has she been so happy.” Telling fibs was one of Angel’s lifelong specialities. “And she’ll never want for anything, isn’t that wonderful?”
Apparently that didn’t thrill Blaine at all. “Who the hell cares