Enemies at the Altar (10 page)

She challenged him with another lift of her chin. ‘You surely don’t think I’m still harbouring that silly little teenage crush on you, do you?’ she said. ‘That was a long time ago, Andreas. I might not have as much experience as other women my age, but I can assure you I haven’t been saving myself for you.’

‘Why haven’t you got involved with anyone?’ he
asked. ‘It can’t have been for lack of opportunity. Men fall over themselves to be with you. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. You can stop a speeding train with your looks.’

‘I saw my mother move from one shallow hook-up after the other,’ Sienna said. ‘I saw what it did to her self-esteem. I was always picking up the emotional pieces. I felt like the parent a lot of the time. I guess it turned me off the thought of allowing someone that close who could turn around and hurt you. Besides, I want to be appreciated for more than my looks. I have dreams and aspirations. I’m not a narcissistic airhead. Unfortunately, a lot of men can’t see past the physical stuff, or maybe they don’t want to.’

He moved his fingertips across the sensitive skin on the slope of her lower jaw in a soft-as-air caress that set her nerves into a frenzied dance. ‘You’re a complex little thing, aren’t you,
cara
?’ he said.

‘No more complex than the next person,’ she said, shooting him a look from beneath her lashes. ‘And not half as complex as you.’

A wry smile tipped up the corners of his mouth. ‘Perhaps we are more alike than we are different,
sì
?’

‘I don’t think we have much in common at all,’ Sienna said, barely able to breathe with his fingers tracing back and forth along the line of her jaw.

He trailed a fingertip over her bottom lip before dropping his hand back down by his side. ‘Perhaps you’re right,’ he said as he moved over to open the door for her. ‘Call me if you need anything during the night. I’ll only be a few doors down the hall.’

She gave a vague nod and moved past him in the
doorway, trying not to notice his warm body so close she could have touched it. ‘Goodnight.’

The only answer she got was the soft, but no less definite, closing of the door.

A
NDREAS
paced the floor for hours after Sienna had left. Her perfume lingered in the air. He could even smell it on his skin. He could still taste the sweetness of her in his mouth in spite of the three stiff drinks he had consumed since.

The shock of finding out she had never had a sexual relationship with her late husband had left him more than a little dumbfounded. Just about everything he had believed about her was wrong. He had thought she had prostituted herself by marrying for money. To find the marriage had been nothing more than a paper arrangement had completely stunned him.

And that wasn’t even half of it. He couldn’t get his head around the fact that she had so little experience. She’d only had two sexual partners and she was twenty-five years old. For all these years she had played the role of a hardened tart. The press had constantly portrayed her as an easily picked up party girl and she had done nothing to discourage that view. The circumstances of the sex tape scandal had obviously affected her deeply, as indeed they would most young women. Andreas suspected she had hidden behind the label of gold-digger because that was Sienna’s way of hiding her hurt, by
toughing it out and pretending it didn’t matter one jot, when of course it did.

Guilt gnawed at his conscience. He had pulled her to the floor like a common whore. Desire and lust had got the better of him. It had got the better of both of them. She had been just as willing, but it didn’t make him feel any less responsible.

He had physically hurt her
.

He groaned out loud and paced some more. He had acted
exactly
like his father. He had been intent on slaking his lust with no thought to the consequences. He dragged a hand through his hair. Was this what his father had wanted to teach him? To show him how hard it was to resist the lure of lust?

Had his desire for Sienna been so obvious? He had done his best to hide it. He had disciplined himself to ignore her on his visits or, at the very least, treat her as if she was just a kid. He had watched her bloom into young womanhood. From visit to visit she had morphed from a pimply fourteen-year-old to a sultry siren of ripe sensuality at seventeen. His rejection of her had been the honourable thing to do, and yet he wondered if that and not her mother’s antics had caused her to hit the party scene in a defiant attempt to save face.

By the time she was eighteen or so she had a reputation as a wild party girl. A ‘nightclub nymphet’, some journalist in London had labelled her. Night after night she had teetered out of clubs and hotels with her gaggle of giggling girlfriends.

And then at the age of twenty-two she had suddenly married a man old enough to be her grandfather. Everyone had called her a greedy little gold-digger. He had done it himself. He had thrown the newspaper aside
in disgust when he had read about it on one of his visits to England. He had sworn and cursed and called her every filthy name under the sun.

His chest tightened and cramped with its weight of guilt.

Sienna was nothing like the person he’d thought she was. For years she had hidden behind a façade to protect herself from being hurt. Behind that tough smart-mouth exterior was a vulnerable young woman, a young woman who had never felt safe and secure. He had made the mistake of assuming she was just like her mother, on the take for whatever she could get.

But Sienna was nothing like Nell Baker. She wasn’t a social climbing harlot with no sense of propriety. Sienna had more pride than he had given her credit for.

Every insult he had flung at her came back to haunt him. She had thrown back her own insults with a feistiness of spirit he had always secretly admired. Defiance had glittered from her sparkling grey-blue eyes in every one of their exchanges. He had found it invigorating to spar with her. She always gave as good as she got. It was verbal foreplay. A little game they had played for as long as he could remember.

He closed his eyes as he thought of how she had felt wrapped so tightly around him. The silky warmth of her had engulfed him. His body still ached and pulsed with the burden of desire. It was a pounding ache that reverberated through his flesh.

He wanted her
.

That desire was nothing new to him, but somehow now it was stronger than ever. He had tasted the sweet pleasure of her; it was like a drug he could no longer resist.

He drew in a breath and slowly released it as he
looked out at the moonlit fields of the estate. Six months and all of this would be his. Sienna would get her pay-out and he would inherit what was rightly his.

He knew she wanted the money. She was currently out of work and the funds her late husband had left her were just about gone. He was confident it was enough to keep her by his side for the allotted time. An affair between them would be an added bonus.

He closed the curtains with a flick of his hand.

He had a feeling that keeping her with him was not going to be the problem. Letting her go at the end of the six months might very well prove to be the biggest hurdle he had yet to face.

Sienna woke the next morning to a knock on the bedroom door. She pushed the hair out of her eyes and sat upright. ‘Come in.’

Andreas came in with a tray with fresh croissants and a pot of fragrant steaming coffee. ‘I thought you might like breakfast in bed,’ he said.

‘Is this another Chalvy bridal tradition?’ she asked.

His lips moved in the semblance of a smile as he set the tray down over her knees. ‘One of many,’ he said.

‘Well, as much as I’d like to keep the ghosts of this place happy, I’m afraid there’s no way I can drink coffee at this time of the morning,’ she said. ‘I’m a tea girl. Call me British if you must but, in spite of living all those years in Italy, I can’t quite get used to starting the day without my cup of tea.’

He gave a little eye roll as he whipped the coffee pot off the tray. ‘I should’ve guessed,’ he said. ‘Give me five minutes and I’ll be back with your tea.’

Sienna tilted her head at him. ‘You wouldn’t last five
minutes as a servant, Andreas,’ she said. ‘You have to accept all commands and requests with grace and poise.’

‘Perhaps you could give me some lessons,’ he said.

‘You already know I’m absolute rubbish at following orders,’ she said. ‘As soon as someone tells me to do something I always want to do the opposite. I think it’s a personality flaw or something.’

‘I’ll have to make sure I say the opposite of what I want you to do then,’ he said. ‘It’s called reverse psychology,
sì
?’

‘Something like that,’ she said.

Sienna picked at one of the croissants once he had gone, licking the buttery crumbs off her fingers. She had slept fitfully last night. Her body had thrummed with need for hours, and then, when she had finally drifted off to sleep, she had dreamed of Andreas. She had dreamed of his mouth and hands pleasuring her, touching her, caressing her, of him making her body sing with delight.

She squeezed her legs together and felt that tiny intimate ache where he had been. It made her belly feel all fluttery, like a thousand moth wings moving inside her. She put a hand over her stomach, trying to stop the sensation, but if anything it intensified.

The door opened after a few minutes and Andreas came in bearing a pot of tea. ‘Your tea, Madame,’ he said with a bow.

‘Way too obsequious,’ Sienna said, smiling at him. ‘Your employer would automatically assume you’re pilfering the silver or something.’

An answering smile flickered in his eyes. ‘Perhaps I do have an ulterior motive,’ he said as he poured her a cup of tea.

Sienna took the cup off the tray, burying her nose in
the steam rising from its surface rather than meet his gaze. ‘So I take it this breakfast in bed routine is a guilt trip, not a tradition?’ she said.

‘How do you expect me not to feel guilty?’ he asked. ‘I spent most of last night pacing the floor over what happened.’

Sienna kept staring at the steamy mist rising from her tea. ‘You’re making too big an issue out of it,’ she said. ‘Let’s just forget it ever happened.’

He brushed a strand of hair away from her face. ‘Look at me, Sienna,’ he said.

She drew in a breath and looked into his eyes. Her belly did that moth wing thing again and her heart skipped a beat. His face was cleanly shaven. His breath smelt of mint. His eyes looked tired, however. There were thumbprint-sized shadows beneath them. Had he too spent most of last night wondering what it would have felt like to make love properly? Had his body throbbed and ached for hours as hers had done? Had he dreamt of her as she had dreamt of him? It was so hard to tell what he was thinking or feeling. He had never been one for showing much in the way of expression. She had only seen him smile a handful of times.

His fingers brushed against her cheek as his eyes held hers. ‘I overstepped the mark. I take full responsibility for it. I broke the rules we set down. It was a mistake I promise won’t be repeated, not unless it’s what you want. If you want a six-month affair, then, of course, I would consider it.’

Of course
, Sienna thought cynically. She would be a convenient plaything to pass the time, just like her mother had been for his father. He would walk away when the time was up and leave her without a flicker of
regret. Within months, if not weeks, he would go on to marry some other beautiful woman with a blue blood pedigree and fill his precious villas with his gorgeous little black-haired heirs.

How would she cope with it?

The same way she coped with everything else. She would put on a brave face. She would show him she could play him at his own game. She could be just as ruthless and mercenary as him. When the time was up she would walk away without a single regret, or at least none that he could see. ‘I don’t think an affair between us would work out,’ she said. ‘I think it’s best if we stick to our original agreement.’

If he was surprised or disappointed by her response he showed no sign of it on his face. ‘Very well,’ he said, rising from where he had perched on the edge of the bed. ‘I have some business to go over with Jean-Claude. I probably won’t see you until this evening.’

‘I’m sure I’ll find something to amuse myself with,’ Sienna said. ‘Maybe I’ll find a wolf or a wild boar in the woods to tame.’

His lips twitched as he looked down at her. ‘I noticed your camera the other day,’ he said after a moment. ‘I thought you liked being in front of the lens, not behind it.’

‘Yes, well, that just goes to show how little you know me, doesn’t it?’ she said.

His eyes held hers in a beat or two of silence.

‘Does anyone know the real you,
ma petite
?’ he asked.

Sienna gave a little shrug. ‘I have friends, if that’s what you’re asking.’

‘A person can have hundreds of friends but it doesn’t mean anyone knows who they really are when they are alone.’

She gave him an arch look. ‘Who are you when you’re alone, Andreas?’ she asked. ‘Or aren’t you ever alone? I bet there’s always some willing woman to keep you company or some bowing and scraping servant to cater to your every whim.’

‘It is one of the burdens of being born into wealth,’ he said. ‘One is rarely left alone. There are people always keen to be with you, but it is never clear if they want to be with you because they genuinely like your company or because they want something from you.’

‘Given a choice, I’d rather live life from your side of the tracks than mine,’ Sienna said. ‘Besides, who needs genuine friends when you have loads and loads of money?’

He looked at her unwaveringly for a long moment. ‘Do you really believe that, Sienna?’ he asked. ‘Do you really think being rich will make you truly happy?’

‘I’ll let you know once the money drops into my account in six months’ time,’ she said, picking up the rest of her croissant. ‘Mind you, I reckon a chateau thrown in for free would bring a smile to my face.’

His mouth flattened to a thin line. ‘You are
not
getting the chateau,’ he said.

‘Lighten up, Andreas,’ she said. ‘I’m only joking. I don’t want your precious chateau. It’s probably haunted by all your stuffy old relatives anyway.’

‘Try and stay out of trouble today,’ he said, with his brooding frown still in place. ‘And remember, if you speak to anyone, we’re supposed to be on our honeymoon.’

She arched a brow at him. ‘You’re the one rushing off to work the first chance you get.’

He came back to stand next to the bed, his eyes raking
over her smoulderingly. ‘Changed your mind already, have you,
cara
?’ he said.

Sienna felt those gossamer wings brush over her belly again as she brought her eyes up to meet his glittering ones. ‘Not yet,’ she said. ‘You can’t give me what I want.’

He cupped her cheek with his hand as his eyes held hers captive. ‘What do you want, Sienna? A promise of forever?’

She forced herself not to blink. ‘Of course not,’ she said. ‘Neither of us is the forever type.’

His thumb moved over the surface of her bottom lip. ‘We could be good together for a while,
ma cherie
,’ he said. ‘It seems a shame not to take advantage of the situation we find ourselves in. You and me, alone and legally married. Why not explore the possibilities,
sì
?’

Sienna couldn’t think when he looked at her like that. Those hazel eyes promised sensual heaven. That mouth had already tempted her beyond endurance. She wanted him even though she knew it would probably end badly. How long could she say no, especially after that deliciously hot taste of sensuality last night?

She drew in a breath as he brought his mouth inexorably closer. The feather-light brush of his lips against hers made her senses skyrocket. The gentle pressure called every nerve into play, making her lips tingle and fizz like champagne underneath her skin. He lifted his mouth away but for a microsecond her lips clung to his. It seemed her body was determined to betray her, no matter what she said to the contrary. Need pulsed inside her. Rampant hungry need that only he could satisfy. She had always known it. He was her physical nemesis. No one came close to making her feel what
he did. His touch, his kisses and his caresses all made her blood race through her veins and her heart gallop in excitement. She wanted to feel his complete possession. She wanted him to satisfy this aching longing that just wouldn’t go away.