Marriage on the Rebound
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‘Do you dislike me so much because of Madeleine? Or because of my mixed blood?’ she heard herself ask, without really knowing she was going to say it.
Still, his response brought her eyes flicking open. ‘What—?’ he rasped. ‘Did I hear you correctly? Were you just accusing me of racial prejudice then?’
She hadn’t meant to offend him, yet seemingly that was exactly what she had done. ‘You hated to touch me,’ she reminded him. ‘Or even to look at me if you could avoid it. What else was I supposed to think?’
‘Well, not what you did think, that’s for damned well sure!’ He got up, and she felt oddly lost without him close to her. ‘You actually believed me crass enough to dislike your relationship with my brother because of your mixed race?’
He was obviously having difficulty taking that in.
She closed her eyes again, too trapped in this feeling of muscle-locked apathy to do much more than smile ruefully at his resentment.
Because the real point was, if it wasn’t her mixed race, then what was it he didn’t like about her? Because there was definitely something.
‘Get some rest,’ he said gruffly. ‘We’ll talk about it later.’
Yes, later, she agreed silently as her muscles began to slacken out of the tension-lock that shock had held them in. They could discuss all of that later…
CHAPTER THREE
‘IT’S all arranged.’
Rafe came into the drawing room with his now very familiar aggressive stride, making Shaan jump because it felt as if he had only just walked out before he was back again.
But then, he had not left her alone for more than a few minutes at a time during the last forty-eight hours. And every time she had found herself with a few moments’ respite from his aggressively dictatorial presence, it had always been with a terse assurance from him that he would be back in seconds, making sure she knew that she would not have time to sink into the brooding misery they both knew lurked beneath the fragile surface of her hazy existence.
‘We get married in the morning just before your aunt and uncle leave for their cruise.’
‘Oh.’ She went pale, the sudden sinking of her heart telling her that she should not be allowing this to happen.
Rafe glanced at her, grey eyes hardening when he saw the way her small white teeth began to press into the soft cushion of her full bottom lip. ‘Jemma has agreed to stand witness for you,’ he went on firmly. ‘She wants you to ring her; I said you would.’ A wryish twist touched his mouth. ‘She’s worrying in case I’m holding you here against your will, so you’ll have to assure her that I’m not—won’t you?’
A challenge; she was receptive enough to note the challenge in his voice on that last question. ‘I…’
‘Have you got anything suitably white to wear inside those suitcases we brought with us?’ he asked as she opened her mouth to answer the first real question he had asked her in forty-eight hours—only to find herself utterly thrown by the second one.
‘I…yes…n-no…I d-don’t know…’ She blinked, her still shocked mind having difficulty keeping up with him for half of the time—and as for the other half, he just didn’t allow her to keep up. ‘W-why…?’ she managed to ask.
‘To marry me in,’ he sighed, shoving his hands into his trouser pockets as he glared into her blank black eyes. ‘You ripped your wedding dress to shreds, if you remember?’
Yes, she remembered, and shuddered. She’d ripped her lovely dress to shreds in front of Rafe, had stood totally naked in front of Rafe. She had been physically sick in front of Rafe, had let him talk her into letting him take the place of his brother…
She’d let him construct a pack of lies for her family, let him bring her here to his house, which had been turned into a positive fortress within minutes of them arriving. The big iron gates had been locked to any visitors, and the small cluster of reporters who had collected outside them had been completely ignored.
He was, she was coming to learn, the most amazingly determined man when he set his mind on something. From the moment she’d conceded to his crazy suggestion in her bedroom two days ago, he had not given her a single opportunity to withdraw her agreement.
If she opened her eyes, he was there. It didn’t matter what time of the day or night it was, Rafe was always there. Sitting, standing, pacing about the room like a caged animal until she opened her eyes. Then the orders would begin. Get up, sit down. Drink this, eat that. Take a shower, get into bed, go to sleep.
Quite simply he had taken her over, and in doing so demanded her full compliance to his every wish and command. And if he caught her brooding at any time he snapped her out of it with the guttural bark of his voice, almost cruel in his methods of keeping her mind off his brother.
Piers. A kind of anguished desolation washed over her, taking what little colour she had in her face along with it.
‘Shaan!’
The bark hit her eardrums, making her wince, grating along her nerve-ends as she forced her eyes back into focus to find him glaring at her, eyes like silver lasers boring into her, burning out everything else but the power of his presence.
‘White,’ he prompted. ‘I want you to marry me in white. Think. Have you got anything white in your suitcases?’
White. Her mind went white, a complete white-out, as she tried hard to remember what her lovely trousseau consisted of. Then she laughed, a high-pitched, slightly hysterical sound that hardened his face as he stood there glaring down at her.
‘A white silk nightdress and matching neglige'e,’ she said, and nodded, seeing herself as she had the day she’d tried it on in the exclusive West End lingerie shop. Soft and slinky, it had clung to the slender contours of her body, from the narrow bootlace straps which had seemed too fragile to hold up the two triangles of fine silk that had covered her breasts to her ankles.