instead she had surprised him by remaining silent for a good few minutes, seemingly turned in on herself, huddled in the corner, her eyes almost closed, her hands clasped together in her lap.
In fact, he had been so convinced that she had been shocked into speechlessness that he almost jumped when he heard her quiet voice and turned to see that she was sitting up more, her green eyes puzzled and a faint frown drawing her chestnut brows together as she considered the route they were taking, the countryside flashing past.
‘I said, where are we going?’ she repeated when he hesitated for a second. ‘Where are you taking me?’
She wasn’t going to like the answer, Guido reflected inwardly. In fact. he was pretty damn sure that their destination was going to be the very last place on earth that she wanted to be. But from the moment that she had agreed to come with him, he had decided that this was the way he wanted to play things and he had no intention of going back on that decision now.
‘We’re going to…’ he began but then the way that the car rounded a sudden bend in the road took away the need for any answer at all. Looking into Amber’s face, he saw it change. Saw those big green eyes widen with shock, her soft pink mouth fall open in disbelief as she recognised the huge, elegant, white-painted building that lay ahead of them.
‘No!’
For long, stunned seconds she simply stared, shaking her head in confusion and incredulity. Then:
‘No!’ She rounded on him in a fury. ‘No way! This is the hotel where the wedding reception was supposed to be held!’
‘I know—and it’s where the—’ he hunted for a suitable word ‘—the non-wedding reception is still being held. Franco told me that your would-be groom’s parents have decided not to waste the cost of the banquet they had ordered for the wedding of their son and heir. They invited all their friends to come back here after the wedding was called off.’
‘So why are we here?’
‘I thought it would be a good idea to join them.’
‘You thought!’ Amber spluttered furiously. ‘Well, you can just think again. There’s no way on earth I’m going in there.’
‘Oh, but you are.’
‘I can’t! They won’t want to see me—in fact, I’m the last person on earth they would want to have appear at their—their wake for the wedding that never was. You saw what happened at the altar.’
‘I saw.’
Guido’s tone was dark as his thoughts as he remembered just how Rafe St Clair had reacted. The man was a hypocrite as well as a coward. Even if his own slate had been totally clean—which it wasn’t—he still had no right to speak to any woman that way.
‘Then you’ll know that they’re hardly going to welcome me with open arms—they’re far more likely to slam the door shut in my face.’
‘They won’t do that because I am going in there with you.’
It was meant to reassure but it had the opposite effect. What little colour was left in her face fled from Amber’s cheeks, making her eyes burn even more emerald-bright than ever.
‘That will just make matters worse! Why are you doing this, Guido? What do you hope to gain from it?’
‘Gain?’ Guido queried sharply. ‘I would have thought that was obvious. I want them to see that you are with me now.’
‘Only until the furore dies down. And do you have to rub their noses in it?’
‘Rub their…?’
Guido threw up his hands in exasperation at the impossibility of understanding some of the most peculiar of English phrases.
‘If you mean that I want to make sure they realise the way things are now, then yes. Yes, I do. You are mine. The Press know that—the paparazzi know that—and now your high and mighty aristocratic friends will know it too.’
‘Very few of them are my friends—even when I was going to marry Rafe, they weren’t too keen on me. I was never into hunting, shooting and fishing—and they’re definitely not going to be too friendly now. Guido, please…’
Impulsively she leaned forward, laying a hand on his arm.
‘We don’t have to do this. We can just go—get away quietly…’
Did she know what that did to him? Did she know how he felt as fierce need, burning hunger kicked in, hard and sharp, low down in his body, just at the touch of her hand? The warm, soft scent of her skin was a torment to his already heightened senses, and he felt as if he was drowning in the deep, deep pools of her eyes.
Only the thought that she knew only too well the effect she had on him—she had to know, damn it—stopped him from grabbing hold of her and pulling her onto his lap, crushing her mouth under his, kissing her stupid. She wasn’t that naïve or that innocent. It was a deliberate ploy to distract him, to divert his attention from the plan he had in mind. And he wasn’t going to let her get away with it.
‘We aren’t going anywhere quietly, cara,’ he told her coldly. ‘We are going to walk into that reception and let them see that you are my wife.’
‘But I don’t want to! I can’t do it. We can just go…’
‘Go where?’ Guido snapped.
‘Your house—wherever that is.’
‘My home is in Sicily. And do you really think that you could travel all that way—take a flight in a plane—without your passport…and dressed like that?’
It took a moment for the impact of his words to hit home. Just for a second or two she stared at him blankly, obviously not knowing what he meant. But then she followed the direction of his gaze and a small, shocked sound escaped her throat.
Had she actually forgotten that she was still in full bridal finery? That she still wore the beautiful silk dress, the veil…?
Obviously she had because the eyes she now turned on his face again were shocked, clouded with consternation and uncertainty.
Did it ever cross her mind, as it had his so many times during the short journey, that to anyone on the outside, anyone who watched the car go past with the pair of them in it, must think that they were the bride and groom, leaving their wedding, heading for the reception?
Cold fury slashed at him at the contrast between the way it was now and the way it had been a year before, in Las Vegas. There, they had left the tacky little wedding chapel and driven back to her hotel with Amber giddy and giggling all the way. She had hung on to his arm as if she couldn’t believe that he was real and for a while, he had let himself believe that was how she felt. He had tried to forget the moment in the ceremony when she had said, ‘We’ve actually done it,’ the change in her face as she’d said the words. He’d kissed her then; kissed away her doubts, he’d believed, and for a while they’d been happy. But then suddenly Amber had changed…
‘You’ll need to get out of those clothes, and your—what is it you call it?—your going-away outfit is at the hotel, as are your passport, your cases.’
‘How do you know that?’
Her uncertainty had left her in a rush and the green eyes were now noticeably sharper, definitely suspicious.
‘How do you know where my things are?’
‘Franco told me.’
A wave of his hand indicated the driver beyond the glass dividing panel. Franco was concentrating fiercely on the road, his attention tactfully anywhere but on his passengers.
‘And how does Franco know?’
‘I told him to make enquiries, as he has done since I first heard about this wedding. To find out what he could and report back to me.’
‘To