battle to allow his cynicism go unchallenged. ‘I suppose the trick is to find the right person.’
He gave an eloquent sneer of contempt. ‘The trick is to enjoy the party but be realistic.’
His attitude continued to get under Mari’s skin. ‘So if you don’t believe people fall in love forever, why were you getting married?’
A muscle throbbed in his lean cheek as he gave a strange twisted smile. ‘Did I say I didn’t think people fall in love forever? My parents’ passion for one another is as strong today, I would think, as the day they met.’ And just as blindly selfish.
The idea of following their example had been the perfect incentive when it came to keeping his own passions under control.
She was bewildered by the aura of anger he was projecting. It had an almost physical presence in the enclosed space.
‘Well, that’s marvellous.’ She looked at him, struggling to read his expression. ‘Isn’t it?’
‘My parents’ love has not stopped them having affairs, but they always come back to one another. However the divorces were never amicable and the marriages always headline-making lavish.’
Her eyes widened. ‘How many times?’
‘Married three times, divorced twice...so far.’
‘That must have been hard growing up.’
The tentative sympathy was met with a hard look. ‘Put your empathy away, Mari. I do not need it. My grandfather brought me over from the Argentine to England when I was eight, up from that point he raised me, and then when Fleur came along he adopted her.’
‘Do you spend much time in Argentina?’
He shook his head. ‘Not now. After the death of her husband my grandmother moved back to her homeland, Spain. I spend some time there.’ He handed her a card. ‘My private number—ring me if you have any questions. So where shall I take you?’
‘I came in my own car,’ she said faintly. ‘So what happens...now?’
‘We get married. It’s not complicated.’
Mari swallowed. ‘When?’
‘I’ll be in touch.’
MARI WAS PACKING her bag when her mobile rang. Finding it under a pile of underclothes, she saw the caller ID and picked it up. Chloe had been her classroom assistant for two years now. She was one of the people Mari would miss most, along with the children. She had always felt she was one of the lucky ones. She loved her job and never woke up not wanting to go into work—now all that was gone.
She pushed the thought away—no time to look back and have regrets. ‘Hi, Chloe!’
‘Is it true? Have they really sacked you?’ Without waiting for a reply the girl continued indignantly, ‘Is that even legal?’
‘I’m on a temporary contract. It runs out at the end of the term.’ Not long ago there had been some pretty broad hints dropped that she might be offered a permanent contract at that point, but that was not going to happen now. ‘They are giving me paid leave until then and a good reference.’
Would Sebastian give her a good reference when their contract was successfully completed? She swallowed a bubble of hysteria and heard the younger girl say, ‘Well, I think it’s terrible. We all do, Mari—you’re the best teacher in the place.’
Mari felt her eyes fill at the tribute.
‘So what are you going to do?’
‘I thought I might travel a bit, take a trip.’ She kept it vague, as she had done the previous day when she had visited Mark, though Chloe showed a lot more interest in her plans than her brother had.
Mark had barely listened when she’d said that she needed to take a trip. All he could talk about were the arrangements for his transfer—his mention of her part in the change in his fortune had been lightly touched on.
‘I knew if you could swallow your pride it would be all right. I’ve no idea what you said to him, sis, but it worked, Seb has done the right thing.’
‘I didn’t say anything. How do you know it was him?’
‘Who else would it be? And don’t look like that.’ He’d sighed. ‘You always managed to ruin things with that guilt thing of yours. It’s win-win—he can go around feeling good because he’s dug his hand in his pocket for the poor cripple and, let’s face it, it’s not as though he doesn’t owe me. He put me here after all.’
Did he...? Mari’s innate honesty could no longer support the deception. She felt guilty for not being more sympathetic to her brother, and when the opportunity arose she’d leaped at the chance to offload that guilt onto someone else.
‘I knew you’d come through for me, sis—you always do.’
When his eyes slid from hers she realised that he didn’t want to know how. Her twin always had a knack to ignore uncomfortable truths, the ones that made him uncomfortable anyway.
It was an ability Mari envied him.
* * *
She was expecting the knock on the door but she jumped anyway.
She’d been expecting a flunkey of some sort, so when she opened the door and found Seb himself standing there she was too shocked to disguise her reaction. Her jaw dropped and her blue eyes flew wide open. The raw masculinity he exuded hit her like a runaway train.
Like someone coming out of a trance, she blinked and hoped her knees would support her. ‘What are you doing here?’ It came out a lot more accusingly than she had intended.
In response his dark brows lifted as without a word he stepped past her and into the living room. He subjected the long narrow space to the same sort of critical scrutiny that she’d endured, and from his expression she assumed it had been assessed as wanting, also.
Lucky she didn’t crave his approval. In fact she told herself if the day ever dawned that she got it, that was the time to worry.
‘I said one o’clock. It is one.’ His frown deepened. ‘Aren’t you ready?’
Trying not to react to his abrupt manner, she gave a curt nod, and, matching his noticeably cold attitude, indicated her bag propped up against the sofa, one of several pieces of furniture in the place she had reupholstered or revamped. She couldn’t sew a stitch, but she was a whiz with a staple gun and a paintbrush.
‘Of course I’m ready.’ Was this about the way she looked? ‘Should I go back and put on my tiara?’ She tried to hide a sudden flash of uncharacteristic insecurity under sarcasm.
He slung her an impatient look. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘I thought, you thought that I...maybe should, should I wear something a bit more...?’ She glanced down at her slim-fitting jeans and the cropped jacket left open to reveal the silky acid-yellow sleeveless top that showed a tiny sliver of flat midriff.
His eyes moved in an expressionless sweep from her toes to the top of her glossy head. ‘You look fine. It’s only a register office.’
Wow, he sure knows how to make a girl feel good, she thought, compressing her lips in silent resentment, furious with herself for virtually asking for his approval.
‘Actually I wasn’t expecting you. I assumed you’d send a driver or something.’
Her calm was only a single cell thick, but it was very important to Mari that he had no idea just how not calm she was. She was almost sick with apprehension, and under that there were layers of confusing, conflicting emotions that were just too complicated to acknowledge. On