Catherine Spencer - Convenient Brides

“There’s been a slight change of itinerary,” he said, rolling his R’s in melodic cadence. “You will be traveling the rest of the way with me, in the Rainero corporate jet.”

“Why?”

He lifted his impeccably clad shoulders in a shrug. “Why not?”

“Because there’s no need. I have a ticket on a regular flight. All other considerations apart, what about my luggage? The inconvenience of my not showing up—”

“Do not concern yourself, Caroline,” he purred. “I have seen to it. By standing here throwing up obstacles, you inconvenience no one but me.”

Another thing about him remained unchanged. He was as arrogant as ever, and it was still all about him! “Well, heaven forbid you should be put out in any way, Paolo!”

He regarded her with benign tolerance, the way she might have regarded a fractious two-year-old trying to bite her ankle. “You are exhausted and sad, cara, and it’s making you a little capricciosa, ” he decided, relieving her of her carry-on bag with one hand, and cupping her elbow with the other.

“That shouldn’t come as any surprise, all things considered!”

“Nor does it, which is why I thought to spare you the tedium of spending time waiting here in a crowded airport, when it is within my power to have you already safely arrived in Rome before your originally scheduled flight leaves Paris.”

“I don’t mind the wait.” She tried ineffectually to squirm free of his hold. “I’m actually looking forward to the chance to freshen up after being cooped up in an aircraft for ten hours.”

“Be assured, the company jet has excellent facilities, all of which are at your disposal,” he countered. “Come, now, Caroline. Allow me to spoil you a little, especially now when you have all you can do to hold yourself together.”

Supremely confident that he’d overcome her objections, he swept her out of the terminal and into the back of a waiting limousine. After a brief exchange with the uniformed driver, Paolo joined her, settling himself beside her close enough that his body warmth crept out to touch her.

Unnerved, she inched farther into the corner as the car joined the traffic heading out of the airport toward the city center. Noticing, he smiled and said, “Try to relax, cara. I am not abducting you and I intend you no harm. You’re perfectly safe with me.”

Safe with him? Not if he was anything like the man he’d been nine years ago! Yet his concern seemed genuine. He appeared more tuned in to her feelings, and less focused on his own. Could she have misjudged him, and he had changed, after all?

Callie supposed anything was possible. Heaven knew, she was nothing like the girl he’d seduced, then cast aside so callously. Perhaps they’d both grown up.

“Ah!” His shoulder brushed hers as he leaned past her to look out of the window. “We’ll soon be there.”

Huddling even farther into the corner, she said, “Where’s ‘there’ exactly?”

“Le Bourget. It’s the airport most commonly used by private jets.”

Soon—much too soon for Callie’s peace of mind—they arrived, and in short order had cleared security, passed through the departure gate and were crossing the open tarmac to where a Lear jet waited, its engines idling. Buffeted by the wind, she mounted the steps to the interior, and barely had time to fasten her seat belt before the aircraft was cleared for takeoff.

Was she crazy to have allowed Paolo to coerce her into changing her travel plans? she wondered, as Paris fell away below, and the jet turned its nose to the southeast. Did he have an ulterior motive? Or was she looking for trouble where none existed?

“You’re very silent, Caroline,” he observed, some half hour later. “Very withdrawn.”

“I just lost my sister,” she said. “I’m not exactly in a party mood.”

“Nor am I suggesting you should be, but it occurs to me you might wish to discuss the funeral arrangements…” He paused fractionally, his long fingers idly caressing a glass of sparkling water. “Or the children.”

“No,” she said, turning to stare at the great expanse of blue sky beyond the porthole to her left. “Not right now. It’s all I can do to come to terms with the fact that I’ll never see Vanessa again. I keep hoping to wake up and find it’s all a horrible dream. Perhaps once I’ve seen the children, and your parents…How are they coping with this terrible tragedy, by the way? Your parents, I mean?”

“They’re even more devastated than you claim to be.”

Sure she must not have heard him correctly, she swung back to face him and found him watching her with chilling intensity. “Are you suggesting I’m faking how I feel, Paolo?”

Raising his glass, he rotated it so that its cut crystal facets caught the light and flung it at her in a blur of dazzling reflections. “Well, if you are,” he said silkily, “it wouldn’t be the first time, would it, cara? ”

There was nothing kindly in his regard now, nothing compassionate, nor did he pretend otherwise. In that instant, she knew that she should have listened to her instincts. Because, in stepping aboard the Rainero corporate jet, she’d made a fatal mistake.

She’d put herself at the mercy of a man who, whatever his stated reasons for meeting her in Paris, no more cared about her now than he had nine years ago. He was exactly the same callous heel who had ruined her life once, and given half a chance, he’d do the very same thing a second time.

“SO YOU don’t bother to lash out at me for such a remark?” he drawled. “You don’t take exception to the fact that I imply you’re less than honest?”

Swamped in an anger directed as much at herself as at him, Callie retorted, “Don’t mistake my silence for an admission of guilt, Paolo. It’s simply that I’m floored by your audacity. You may rest assured I take very great exception to your accusation.”

“But you don’t deny the truth of it?”

“Of course I do!” she spat. “I have never lied to you.”

“Never? Not even by omission?”

Again, she was left speechless, but from fear, this time. He couldn’t know the truth—not unless Vanessa or Ermanno had told him.

Oh, surely not! They stood to gain nothing by doing so, and would have lost what they most cared about.

“You’ve turned rather pale, Caroline.” Utterly remorseless, Paolo continued to torment her. “Could it be that you remember, after all?”

Less certain of herself by the second, Callie fought to match his offhand manner. “Remember what, exactly?”

“The day your sister married my brother—or more precisely, the night following the wedding.”

So her secret was safe, after all! But as relief washed over her, so, too, did a wave of embarrassment. “Oh,” she muttered, helpless to stem the heat flooding her face. “That!”

“ That, indeed. Let me see if I recall events accurately.” Ever so casually, he tapped the rim of his water glass. “There was a moon, and many, many stars. A beach with powder-soft sand, lapped by lazy, lukewarm waves. A cabana that offered privacy. You in a dress that begged to be removed…and I—”

“All right,” Callie snapped. “You’ve made your point. I remember.”

As if she could forget—and heaven knew she’d tried hard enough to do just that! It was the night she gave him her virginity, her innocence and her heart. Not even the slow passage of nine years could dim the clarity of those memories…

“Isn’t he the most divinely handsome man you’ve ever seen?” Radiant in her pearl and crystal encrusted wedding gown, Vanessa had peeked from behind the drapes fluttering at the French windows of the suite set aside for the bride and her attendants. In the grounds below, her groom chatted with the more than three hundred guests who’d arrived that morning in a flotilla of private yachts, and were now milling about the terrace.