Dressed, he went back in the bathroom to tame his hair. Usually he made quick work of it, never meeting his own eye.
Today, he dipped his fingers into the pot of wax and stared hard at the reflection he despised but which his father had delighted in.
His father would stand beside him at a mirror and smile with satisfaction at the similarities.
‘You are my son,’ he would purr in the Slavic accent Javier had come to detest.
If Javier had more closely resembled his mother as Luis had done, would his father still have purred? Or would he have despised him as he had despised Luis?
His father’s love of him had been superficial at best, a form of narcissism, its value worthless. It hadn’t stopped his father beating Luis, even in the younger years when Javier would cry and beg him to stop. His tears had only made his father hit harder.
He had trained himself not to cry, to hold the emotion in and concentrate his energy on keeping his troublemaking twin out of the escapades that always evoked their father’s wrath, his punishments delivered with a gleam that had made Javier sure he enjoyed dispensing them.
And his, Javier’s face was the face his father had delighted in looking at, Javier the son he’d felt the affinity with, the child he’d believed was just like him.
How could Sophie look at that face and not recoil? Was she so blind she couldn’t see the danger in it?
There was a knock on his bedroom door.
‘Come in,’ he called out brusquely.
Julio appeared. ‘The officiant has entered the grounds.’
Javier nodded and worked the wax into his hair. ‘And Michael?’ he asked, referring to his driver.
‘At Sophie... Miss Johnson’s hotel.’
He gave his reflection one last look.
It was time to get married.
* * *
Sophie thanked whoever or whatever had looked out for her since her birth for her parents. Their excitement on this, her wedding day, was infectious and did much to curb the nerves chewing in her belly.
As Javier’s driver pulled up outside the villa, her mother practically squealed with excitement. ‘This is your home?’
Unable to speak, Sophie nodded.
The excited chatter between her parents fell to awed silence when they entered the house. Julio and one of the maids greeted them with smiles that didn’t quite meet their eyes. If anything, their smiles could be interpreted as sympathetic, which sent alarm bells ringing in her.
Her father holding her arm tightly, they followed Julio through the house, aglow with autumn sunshine pouring through the beautiful intricate skylights, until they reached the orangery.
The orangery was one of Sophie’s favourite rooms and she’d been delighted when Javier had suggested they marry in it. More a giant conservatory than anything else, when its doors and windows were open the most wonderful scents from the garden filled it.
She’d not allowed her expectations of what the orangery would be transformed into for this day run away with her but neither had she allowed herself to think about stepping into it and wanting to burst into tears.
The only difference in the orangery was that an oak desk had been placed in the centre with a handful of chairs facing it, presumably for her parents and their witnesses, Julio and his partner, to sit on.
There were no flowers, no balloons, nothing to indicate what an important event this was.
She took it all in slowly with a heart that wanted to smash out of her chest.
If she’d realised that there was to be no effort whatsoever she would never have worn this dress. She would have worn a pair of jeans and trainers.
A quick and functional ceremony was one thing but this...
This was humiliating.
She felt like an imposter, she realised with a wrench. The wrong bride.
Freya, whom in a fit of guilt Sophie had messaged that morning confessing her pregnancy and warning of their marriage, knowing when the press discovered it they would start hounding her and Benjamin all again, was supposed to have stood there.
The man who waited for her, his back currently turned to her—no change there—as he spoke to the rotund officiant, would never have made the choice to marry Sophie if it weren’t for the baby.
She wouldn’t want to marry him if it were not for the baby either, she reminded herself. Her body still yearned for him but her pounding heart would never yearn for him again. Her heart had learned its lesson, and thank God it had because this would have broken it.
The only effort he’d made was to don a suit. An ordinary suit. The kind of suit he wore every day for work.
And then he turned around and his eyes met hers.
The pounding of her heart became a thrum that vibrated through to her bones.
* * *
Javier’s mouth had run dry.
He stared at Sophie, hardly able to believe what his eyes were showing him.
He’d never imagined she would wear a traditional wedding dress.
He’d never imagined she could look so beautiful or that his heart would thump so hard the beats could be heard by anyone who listened.
White lace skimmed across her collarbones, forming long fitted sleeves to her wrists, the long lace-wrapped silk dress itself hugging her figure like a caress.
She didn’t look pregnant. She looked like a curvaceous nymph and as ravishing a sight as he had ever seen.
He inhaled deeply as he tried to get his thoughts in order.
But she had blown him away.
Pale blue eyes shone back at him.
Suddenly he realised why they were shining. They brimmed full of unshed tears.
That knowledge brought him back to his senses.
He inhaled deeply again, this time fighting anger.
Sophie had no reason to be upset. He’d explicitly told her the ceremony would be quick and functional. She’d chosen not to listen.
But then he watched her demeanour change. Her shoulders lifted and her neck elongated as she raised her chin and said, ‘Are we going to do this?’
He stared at her for a further brief moment before nodding.
Yes. It was time to marry this blindingly beautiful woman and give the full protection of his name and wealth to the growing life inside her.
They stood side by side in front of the officiant and, as the quick and functional ceremony began, the weight that had been compressing in his chest since he’d awoken sank lower into him.
For the first time since he’d cut Luis from his life he felt his absence.
He’d never thought he would marry without his brother beside him.
And he’d never thought he would marry with a maelstrom of feelings erupting in him strong enough to knock him off his feet.
He almost choked his vows out.
By contrast, Sophie’s Spanish was flawless and her sultry voice carried clearly. He pressed his palms against his thighs to prevent them reaching for her until it was time to exchange rings.
She held her hand out to him.
He took a deep breath and took it into his own.
Her hand was delicate. The nails on the elegant fingers were smooth and polished, the skin soft and dewy.
This