Enemies at the Altar (4 page)

Andreas wondered if he should have been quite so blunt with her. There had been nothing in the press about her late husband’s affair. He had heard it secondhand and not from a particularly reliable source. But if she was hurt or upset by the news she was doing a good job of concealing it. Admittedly, she was standing stiffly, almost guardedly, but neither her expression nor her tone showed any sign of emotional carnage.

‘You knew about his mistress?’ he asked.

She turned to look at him, a little puzzled frown pulling at her brow. ‘His … mistress?’

‘The woman he was seeing,’ he said. ‘His lover.’

She gave a little laugh that seemed totally out of place. It sounded almost … relieved. ‘Oh,
her
…’ she said. ‘Yes, I knew about her right from the start.’

‘And you married Littlemore anyway?’ he asked, frowning deeply.

She met his gaze with a directness he found jarring. ‘I did it for the money,’ she said. ‘The same reason I’m marrying you. It’s only for the money.’

Andreas felt his jaw clamp down in anger. She was so brazen about her gold-digging motives. Had she no shame? No self-respect? What sort of laughing stock would she try and make of him during their six-month marriage? She had no sense of propriety. She was as selfish and self-serving as she had been as a teenager. She would do anything to get as much out of this situation as she could. He could practically see the dollar
signs flashing in her eyes. ‘While we’re on the subject of money,’ he said, ‘I want to make a few things clear, right from the start. Throughout the duration of our marriage, I will not tolerate any behaviour on your part that leads to speculation in the press that this is not a normal relationship. If you don’t behave yourself there will be consequences. Do I make myself clear?’

She gave him one of her insolent schoolgirl looks. ‘Perfectly.’

He drew in a breath for patience and slowly released it. ‘Secondly, I will not be made a fool of by your practice of leaping in and out of bed with a host of unsavoury men,’ he said. ‘That means no boudoir photos and no seedy little sex tapes uploaded to the Internet or social networking sites. Got it?’

Her cheeks turned a cherry-red, he presumed from anger at being reminded of the sex tape incident that had occurred a little over two years ago, for which her twin sister had inadvertently taken the rap. He’d missed the scandal as he had been abroad at the time, but, after reading about her twin’s recent reconciliation with her fiancé, the thing that had struck him most was that Sienna hadn’t come forward at the time. To be fair, she hadn’t known she even had a twin then, but it was just typical of Sienna’s inability or unwillingness to take responsibility for her actions. She didn’t give a toss what anyone else suffered because of her reprehensible behaviour. She just barrelled her way through life with no thought or care for what anyone else was feeling.

‘There won’t be any slip-ups,’ she said stiffly.

‘There had better not be,’ he warned.

She turned away from him and drained her glass,
putting it down with a little rattle against the coffee table. ‘Will that be all?’ she asked.

Andreas pressed his lips together. Her subdued tone was a new one. He hadn’t heard her use it before. How did she do it? How did she switch things so deftly to make him feel as if
he
had overstepped the mark? ‘If it is any consolation to you, I will also refrain from any behaviour that could compromise our arrangement,’ he said, ploughing a hand through his hair. ‘It’s only for six months. A bout of celibacy is supposed to re-energise the soul and sharpen the intellect, or so I’ve heard.’

She gave him a little smile, that old familiar spark back in her gaze. ‘Do you think you’ll last the distance?’ she asked.

Andreas wasn’t prepared to put any money on it. Not with her looking so damned hot and gorgeous without even trying. ‘I’ll take it one day at a time,’ he said, deliberately running his gaze over her from head to toe and back again.

She held his look but he noticed one of her shoulders rolling as if she suddenly found her clothes prickly against her skin. ‘Good luck with that,’ she said in an airy tone.

He refilled his wine glass and took a couple of mouthfuls before he turned to look at her again. ‘By the way, I’d appreciate you making an effort to buy something suitable to wear to the wedding. I’m not sure yoga pants or tattered jeans are going to set a new trend in bridal gear, no matter how good you look in them.’

Sienna raised her brows at him. ‘My, oh, my, a compliment from the impossible-to-impress Signor Ferrante,’ she said. ‘Wonders will never cease.’

Andreas frowned at her in irritation. ‘What are you talking about? I’ve complimented you plenty of times.’

‘Remind me of one,’ she said, folding her arms across her chest as she tilted one hip forwards in a pose of youthful scepticism. ‘My memory seems to have completely failed me.’

He rubbed at the back of his neck. ‘What about the time you were going to that school dance when you were sixteen or thereabouts,’ he said. ‘You were wearing a crinkly candy-pink and white dress. I said you looked pretty.’

She gave him a resentful look. ‘You said I looked like a cupcake.’

Andreas felt a smile tug at his mouth. ‘Did I really say that?’

‘You did.’

‘Well, then, what I probably meant to say was you looked good enough to eat,’ he said.

The air seemed to thicken in the ensuing silence.

‘You probably should take a little more care with your diet,’ Sienna said. ‘Too much sugar is bad for you.’

‘Yes, but once in a while it’s good to have a little of what you fancy, don’t you think?’ Andreas said.

‘Only if you can keep control,’ she said, holding his look with a haughty air he found incredibly arousing. ‘For some people, one taste is never going to be enough. They can’t just have one square of chocolate. They have to have the whole bar.’

His gaze swept over her slim figure again. ‘You’re obviously not speaking from personal experience,’ he said. ‘I could just about span your waist with my hands.’

‘Lucky genes, I guess.’

Andreas saw a flicker of something move through
her gaze. ‘What are you going to tell your sister about this arrangement between us?’ he asked.

She rolled her lips together for a moment. ‘I feel uncomfortable about lying to her, but I don’t want her to worry about me either,’ she said. ‘I think it’s best if I stick to the script for now.’

‘We should probably tidy up a few details then,’ Andreas said. ‘Like how we came to fall in love so quickly.’

Sienna gave him one of her worldly looks. ‘Do you really think people are going to believe you fell in love with me? We have nothing in common. I’m a cleaning lady’s kid from the wrong side of the tracks. You’ve had more silver spoons in your mouth than most people have had hot dinners. Men with your sort of heritage don’t marry trailer trash. It’s just in fairy tales where that sort of thing happens. Not in real life.’

Andreas frowned. ‘That’s rather a harsh way to speak of your background,’ he said. ‘I have never once referred to you as trailer trash.’

‘You don’t have to,’ she said. ‘I see it in your eyes every time you look at me.’

He felt a little stab of guilt. He had called her plenty of other things in the past and none of them were any less disparaging. ‘Look, Sienna,’ he said. ‘I realise we have some ill feeling because of our history. But I’m prepared to put that aside for the moment in order to get through this period.’

She chewed at her lower lip in a childlike manner he found at odds with what he knew of her. ‘Are you saying you forgive me?’ she asked.

‘I wouldn’t go as far as saying that,’ he said. ‘What you did was unforgivable.’

‘Yes,’ she said, biting down on her lip again. ‘I know …’

Andreas ratcheted up his resolve. She was toying with him, trying to appeal to his better side to get herself off the hook. He wasn’t buying it for a moment. Behind that forgive-me-I-was-too-young-to-know-what-I-was-doing façade was a conniving little social-climbing trollop who was on a mission to land herself a fortune. She might have fooled his father into writing her into the will, but it wasn’t going to work on him.

He scooped up his jacket from the sofa. ‘I’m going to be tied up for the next few days,’ he said. ‘I hope you can stay out of mischief until Friday.’

‘It’ll be a piece of cake,’ she said.

He gave her a droll look before he left. ‘Just stick to one slice, OK?’

W
HEN
Sienna came down after a shower the next morning there was no sign of Andreas. Elena hadn’t yet arrived so it gave her some time to wander about and get her bearings. She made a cup of tea and took it out onto a wisteria-covered terrace. She felt the heat of the sun-warmed flagstones through the bare soles of her feet as she walked towards one of the wrought iron chairs. She sat and looked out at the expansive view. There were a hundred shades of green and a thousand fragrant smells and sounds to dazzle her senses.

She put her cup down and went back inside to get her camera from her handbag. It was compact but hightech enough to allow her to capture images that took her fancy. She went back down to the terrace and beyond, snapping away in bliss, losing track of time as she explored the gardens.

She was aiming for a shot of a bird on a shrub when she caught sight of a dog skulking in the distance. She lowered the camera and, shading her eyes with one of her hands, peered to see if anyone was with it. It seemed to be alone and, by the look of its sunken-in sides, half starving.

Sienna looped her camera strap around her wrist and
walked towards the dog. ‘Here, boy,’ she called when she got a little closer. ‘Come here and say hello.’

The dog looked at her warily, the back of its neck going up in stiff bristles.

Sienna was undaunted. She crouched down and crooned to the dog softly, holding out her hand for it to smell. The dog crept closer, its body low to the ground, the hackles going down and its tail giving the tiniest of wags. ‘Good boy,’ she said. ‘That’s right; I won’t hurt you. Good dog.’

Just as she was about to see if the dog’s worn collar had an identifying tag on it, there was a sound behind her and the dog tore off, disappearing into the nearby woods with its tail tucked between its legs.

‘You little fool,’ Andreas said. ‘You’ll get yourself bitten. That dog is a stray. Franco was supposed to shoot it days ago.’

Sienna rose from her crouching position but, even so, he seemed to tower over her. ‘But it’s wearing a collar!’ she said. ‘It must belong to someone. Maybe it’s just lost and can’t find its way home.’

‘It’s a flea-bitten mongrel,’ he said. ‘Any fool can see that.’

Sienna scowled at him. ‘I suppose you only allow pure-bred dogs with pedigree papers the thickness of three phone books on your precious property.’ She brushed past him to go back to the villa. ‘What a stuck-up jerk.’

He caught her arm on the way past, swinging her round to face him. ‘You shouldn’t be wandering around down here without shoes,’ he said. ‘Are you completely without sense?’

Sienna tugged at his hold but it tightened like a vice.
She felt the sexy rasp of his callused fingers on her wrist and her stomach gave a little fluttery flip-flop. She met his hard hazel eyes and something shifted in the atmosphere. Her gaze slipped to his mouth. He hadn’t yet shaved and the sexy pepper of his stubble sent another shockwave of awareness through her. He smelt of man and heat and hard work, a potent smell that stirred her feminine senses into a mad frenzy. Could he tell how much he got under her skin? Could he sense it? Was that why he kept looking at her with those smouldering eyes? ‘What would you care?’ she said. ‘I’d be better off to you dead, wouldn’t I?’

His brooding frown cut deeper into his tanned forehead. ‘That’s a crazy thing to say,’ he said. ‘Why would I want you dead?’

‘Because you’d automatically inherit the chateau,’ she said. ‘You wouldn’t have to go through a marriage you didn’t want to a woman you hate more than anyone else in the world.’

‘You hate me just as much as I hate you, so we’re pretty square on that,’ he said. ‘Or are you hiding a secret affection for me, hmm?’

She gave him a withering look. ‘You have got to be joking.’

He tugged her closer, flush against his rock-hard body. The heat of his arousal was like a brand against her belly. ‘You like to tease and tantalise, don’t you,
cara
?’ he said. ‘You like the power. It’s like a drug to you, to have men falling over themselves to possess you. I see it in your eyes. They dance with sensual intent. You can’t wait to have me fall at your feet. But I won’t do it. I won’t let you play your seductress games with me. I will have you on my terms, not yours.’

Sienna pushed against his chest with the flat of her hands but, while it put some distance between their upper bodies, it made their lower connection all the more intense. She felt the thundering roar of his blood against her, the rigid length of him taking her breath clean away.

The air sizzled with sexual electricity.

She felt the force of it like waves of searing heat rippling over her skin. She felt her heart rate pick up and her inner core clenched and released, clenched and released, in a primitive rhythm of need.

She wondered if he was going to kiss her. His eyes had dropped to her mouth in an infinitesimal moment of sensual suspense that made her heart beat all the faster. She sent her tongue out over her lips, wondering what he would taste like. Would he be rough or smooth? Forceful or gentle?

‘Damn you,’ Andreas ground out as he put her from him roughly. ‘Damn you to hell.’

Sienna let out a ragged breath as she watched him stride back the way he had come. She put a hand to her chest where her heart was beating like a maniacal metronome. She felt light-headed and shaky on her feet, her body still tingling from the hard male contact of his. That primitive pulse of longing was still thrumming deep inside her and she couldn’t seem to turn it off.

She looked down at her wrist where her camera was swinging from its strap. The imprint of his fingers was almost visible on her skin. She touched the tender area with the fingertips of her other hand, her stomach slipping like a skater who had mistimed a manoeuvre.

She was in trouble with a capital T.

Sienna didn’t see Andreas until the evening before the wedding. Elena told her he had been called away to some important business in Milan but Sienna wondered if he was keeping his distance for as long as possible before they were thrust together as man and wife.

The days flashed past as she fielded phone calls from Gisele and her flatmate Kate in London. Somehow she managed to convince her twin she was madly and blissfully in love with Andreas and couldn’t wait to get married. As Gisele’s wedding was in a few weeks’ time and the guest list had blown out considerably, Gisele was nothing but supportive of Sienna’s plan for a simple witnesses-only ceremony so she and Andreas could be left alone by the press.

Kate didn’t buy into the ‘we suddenly fell in love’ story but, as a hopeless romantic herself, she was convinced Andreas would finally come to his senses and want Sienna to stay with him for ever.

Sienna didn’t like to disabuse her friend of the impossibility of such an outcome. His refusal to forgive her was not the only stumbling block to their relationship. She had long ago given up her foolish dream of him falling in love with her. And, as for her falling in love with him, well, that was
not
going to happen.

Sienna went shopping a couple of times under the escort of a very willing Franco, who faithfully carried her bags and waited patiently in the car while she had her hair and beauty treatments done.

There was also a visit to a lawyer’s office where Andreas had set up the signing of a prenuptial agreement. Sienna understood it was part and parcel of many modern marriages, and she totally understood Andreas’s motivations given the wealth he had at his
disposal, but even so it rankled that he didn’t trust her to walk away without a legal tussle when the time was up on their marriage.

The rest of the time Sienna spent working on befriending the dog, whom she called Scraps. He had built up enough confidence to take titbits of food from her hand, but he wouldn’t allow her to touch him as yet. She was prepared to be patient, however. And she had made Franco promise he wouldn’t shoot him, no matter what orders Andreas gave to the contrary.

Sienna had not long fed the dog and settled him in one of the buildings close to the villa when she heard the roar of Andreas’s car come up the driveway that curved through the property, fields of vines on one side, olive groves on the other. A church bell calling the faithful to Mass sounded in the distance, a peaceful sound that was totally at odds with the tension she could feel building in her body as soon as Andreas came into view.

She watched as he unfolded his long, lean length from the low-slung vehicle. He had loosened his tie and his shirtsleeves were rolled up past his strongly muscled wrists. His suit jacket was hooked through one of his fingers and was slung over his shoulder, his briefcase in his other hand.

His eyes ran over her shorts and T-shirt, resting a heart-stopping moment on the upthrust of her breasts, before meshing with her gaze. ‘Isn’t it supposed to be bad luck to see the bride before the wedding?’ he asked.

‘That’s the morning of the wedding,’ she said. ‘I don’t think the night before counts.’

He gave a slight movement of his lips that could only be very loosely described as a smile, and a half one at that. ‘Glad to hear it,’ he said. His footsteps crunched
over the gravel as he came to where she was standing. ‘Elena tells me you have a new conquest.’

‘That would be Scraps,’ Sienna said, rocking on her feet. ‘I’ve just tucked him in for the night.’

One brow curved in an arch over his eye. ‘Scraps?’ he said.

‘It’s what he likes to eat,’ she said. ‘Plus it’s sort of a tribute to his mixed heritage.’

His mouth quirked upwards in that almost smile again. ‘Original.’

‘I thought so.’

He indicated for her to go ahead of him into the villa. ‘How has your week been?’ he asked.

‘I’ve shopped myself silly,’ Sienna said. ‘Thanks for the use of the car, by the way. Franco quite fancies himself as a chauffeur. I think you should get him fitted for a uniform.’

Andreas closed the door and placed his car keys on a marble table in the foyer. ‘I’ve ordered a car for you,’ he said. ‘It should be here some time next week.’

‘I hope it’s an Italian sports car,’ Sienna said, just to needle him. ‘I’ll be the envy of all my friends. It’s the ultimate status symbol.’

He gave her a derisive look. ‘It will get you from A to B without mishap, that is if you drive with any sense of responsibility. But, judging by what you do in your personal life, I’m not holding my breath.’

‘I’ll have you know I’m a very safe driver,’ Sienna said, following him into the
salone
. ‘I’ve never had an accident or even copped a speeding fine. Parking tickets, well, now, that’s another thing.’

‘So you have a history of outstaying your welcome,
do you?’ he asked as he poured himself a drink. ‘I’ll have to make a note of that.’

Sienna threw him a haughty look. ‘If you think I’ll stay even a minute over the six months, then you are seriously deluded,’ she said.

He looked at her with his unwavering hazel gaze. It seemed more brown than green in the subdued lighting of the
salone
. But then she had noticed lately that his eyes seemed to change with his mood. ‘Just as long as we’re both clear on the terms of this arrangement,’ he said. ‘I don’t want any complications. And you,
cara,
are nothing if not a magnet for complications.’

Only Andreas could make a term of endearment sound like an insult, Sienna thought. But she had to concede that he was right about the complications. Other people had such simple, uncomplicated lives. She seemed to go from one stuff-up to another. It was as if she had been cursed since birth. But then, maybe she had. Born out of wedlock to a man who had used her mother and then tossed her aside when he was done with her, taking one of her babies for a sum of money to pay for her silence.

It didn’t get more complicated or cursed than that.

Sienna suddenly realised Andreas was still watching her with that slightly narrowed focused gaze of his. ‘Are you going to offer me a drink or should I just help myself?’ she asked.

‘Pardon my oversight,’ he said. ‘What would you like?’

‘White wine,’ she said. ‘The one from your vineyard. It’s my favourite.’

He handed her a chilled glass of wine but, just as she reached for it, his brows moved together as he saw
the fading marks on her arm. ‘What happened to your wrist?’ he asked.

Sienna put her hand back down by her side. ‘Nothing.’

He put the wine aside and reached for her hand, gently turning over her wrist to look at the full set of his fingerprints there. She saw his face flinch with shock. ‘Did I do this to you?’ he asked.

‘It’s nothing,’ she said. ‘I bruise easily, that’s all.’

Her stomach folded over as the pad of his thumb gently moved across the purple stain of his touch. ‘Forgive me,’ he said in a voice so deep it felt as if it had come from beneath the floor at their feet.

She swallowed as his eyes meshed with hers. ‘Really, Andreas, it’s nothing …’

‘Does it hurt?’ he asked, still gently cradling her wrist in the warmth of his hand.

Sienna wasn’t used to this tender, more considerate side of him. It made something inside her melt like molasses under the blaze of a hot summer sun. A dangerous melting that she should not allow, but somehow she couldn’t prevent it. It flowed through her like a slow-moving tide, all the way through the circuitry of her veins, loosening her spine and all of her ligaments until she felt as if she would end up in a pool of longing at his feet. Her swiftly indrawn breath hitched against something in her throat. ‘No …’

He brought her wrist up to his mouth, his lips barely touching the sensitive skin, but it set off a shower of sensations that travelled all the way up her arm and shoulder, making every hair on her head lift away from her scalp.

His eyes were the darkest she had ever seen them. ‘It won’t happen again,’ he said. ‘I can assure you of that.
You have no reason to fear for your safety while living under my protection.’

‘Thanks for the reassurance,’ Sienna said, pulling her hand out of his with a sassy little smile to hide her vulnerability, ‘but I’ve never been scared of you.’