India Grey - Mistress - Hired for the Billionaire's Pleasure

‘I think that explains it.’ His lip curled in distaste. ‘Isn’t it a little early? Or do you have something particularly pressing to celebrate?’

‘No.’ She gave a short laugh, and had to clap her hand to her mouth as it threatened to turn into a sob. ‘I have absolutely nothing at all to celebrate. I was aiming more for Dutch courage. Or oblivion.’ She could feel embarrassing tears begin to slide down her cold cheeks and gave an apologetic smile, stroking a hand over the weathered stone. ‘Peaceful oblivion. With lovely, heroic Felix here.’

The dark man didn’t return the smile, letting go of her so abruptly that she stumbled backwards and had to lean on the gravestone for support.

‘He’ll be thrilled to know that a little thing like death hasn’t made him lose his touch with women.’

The bitterness etched into the lean planes of his face made Rachel wince. She took in the dark shadows under his slanting eyes, the crease of anguish between his highly arched black brows. Horrified realisation dawned.

‘Oh, God, I’m so sorry…you knew him?’

There was a pause. And then he held out his hand with a bleak smile that briefly illuminated the stark beauty of his face.

‘Orlando Winterton. Felix’s brother.’

She took his hand and, registering the warmth and steadiness of his grip, felt a sudden irrational urge to hold on for dear life. For a brief moment his fingers closed around hers, strong and steady, and she found herself wishing he would never let go.

He withdrew his hand, and she felt the colour surge into her cheeks.

‘I’m Rachel. And I’m sorry…about your brother. Was he a soldier?’

‘Pilot. RAF. Shot down in the Middle East,’ Orlando said tersely.

‘How terrible,’ she said quietly, curling up her fingers. They tingled where his skin had warmed them.

He shrugged. ‘It happens. It’s all part of the job.’

‘You’re a pilot too?’

‘Was.’

‘It must take incredible courage. To know that every day when you go to work you’re staring death in the face.’

He let out a harsh laugh. ‘I think there are worse things to stare at than death.’

Rachel sighed, sinking down onto the dry earth at the foot of the tomb again. ‘Tell me about it.’

Above her, Orlando Winterton and Felix’s angel towered like twin protectors. She leaned her head back against the stone and lifted the bottle towards them before taking a long swig. ‘To courage—the real kind. And to Dutch courage—which isn’t nearly so honourable, but sometimes has to suffice.’

From the edge of his vision Orlando had an impression of dark eyes in a pale face, a generous trembling mouth, a glorious tumble of fiery hair that stirred a memory in the back of his mind and left him with a sudden fierce longing to see her properly. He could sense the despair rising from her like a scent, but whether this was due to the peculiar instinct that had developed as his sight deserted him or because the feeling was so bloody familiar he couldn’t be sure.

She held out the bottle to him. He took it, but didn’t drink, instead setting it down on top of the Winterton tomb. ‘So, Rachel, what’s so bad that you’re reduced to sitting out here in the freezing cold drinking with the dead?’

She gave a mirthless laugh. ‘You do not want to know.’

She was right. He didn’t. His own suffering was enough to occupy him on a full-time basis. So why did he find himself saying, ‘I usually decide for myself what I want and what I don’t want.’

Rachel looked up at him. He was staring straight ahead, and there was something in the dark stillness of his face that made her want very much to confide in him.

‘I’m getting married,’ she said desolately. ‘Today.’

She saw one dark brow shoot up before his face regained its habitual blankness. ‘Is that all? Congratulations.’

‘Uh-uh. It’s not a “congratulations” situation. It’s…’

Her voice trailed off as she tried to convey the awfulness of what lay ahead. This afternoon, standing in church before people she mostly neither knew nor cared about making vows she didn’t mean… And worse, much worse, knowing that tonight she and Carlos would be man and wife, with all the expectations that carried.

Orlando Winterton shrugged his broad, dark shoulders, his gaze fixed straight ahead. He looked so distant, so controlled, so very, very strong that she felt her chest lurch. How could he understand? She couldn’t imagine that this man had ever bowed to the will of anyone else in his life.

‘Weddings don’t generally happen by accident or without warning. Presumably you had some say in it?’ He levered himself up from the gravestone and, thrusting his hands deep into the pockets of his coat, began to move away.

‘No,’ she said in a low voice.

There was something in the way that she said it that made Orlando stop, turn, and walk back towards her. His deep-set slanting eyes were the most extraordinary clear green, she noticed, and he had a strange, intense way of looking at her, his head tilted backwards slightly in an attitude of distant hauteur.

‘You’re being forced into this?’

Rachel sighed heavily. ‘Well, there’s no gun against my head… But, yes. Forced pretty much covers it.’

The last thing he wanted to do was get involved, but his sense of duty, dormant for a year beneath self-pity and bitterness, had seemingly chosen this moment to rouse itself. Wearily he rubbed a hand over his eyes. ‘In what way?’

‘There’s no way out,’ she said slowly. ‘No Plan B. No choice. This wedding is the culmination of a lifetime of work by my mother.’ She laughed. ‘If I don’t go through with it she’ll probably kill me.’

But that was almost preferable to what Carlos would do to her if she stayed and married him. She knew, because he’d done it to her already.

‘You can’t get married to please your mother.’

The words were laced with scorn, and Rachel felt her head snap back as if she’d just had an ice cube dropped down her spine.

‘You don’t know my mother. She’s…’

She hesitated, shaking her head, trying to find a word for Elizabeth Campion’s single-minded obsession with her daughter’s musical career; the combination of guile and icy manipulation that would have made Machiavelli green with envy, which had enabled her to bring about the ultimate coup in the form of Rachel’s engagement to Carlos Vincente, one of the industry’s most influential conductors.

‘What? A convicted killer?’ Orlando’s voice was hard and mocking. ‘A cold-blooded psychopath? Head of a crack team of hired assassins?’

His cruelty made her gasp. ‘No, of course not. But—’ It was impossible to keep the desperation out of her voice. She so badly wanted to make him see what she was up against, but the words darted around in her head, refusing to be pinned down, while all the time he held her in that cool, detached gaze. ‘Oh, what’s the point? Just forget it. I can’t make you understand, so there’s no point in trying. Please, just leave me alone!’

‘To drink yourself into a stupor? If that’s what you want…’

He turned away, and Rachel felt a surge of panic. She had to grip the stony folds of the angel’s robes to stop herself from reaching out to hold him back. It was ridiculous, of course; he was nothing more than a passing stranger. But something about the intensity in his face, the bleak self-control in his voice, the immense strength in his shoulders, had made her believe for a moment that he could help her.

Rescue her.

‘It’s not what I want, but I have no choice!’

He stopped and slowly faced her again. He seemed to look right past her face and into her soul.