Penny Jordan - Unwanted Wedding

‘Just checking out my inheritance,’ he told Rosy smoothly.

‘It isn’t yours yet,’ Rosy reminded him fiercely.

Edward gave a dismissive shrug. Unlike her father and her grandfather, Edward had run to fat in middle-age and the angry flush now mantling his face emphasised his heavy jowliness.

Her father had once remarked that Edward had a very nasty temper. On the few occasions when Rosy had met him, the tension that emanated from Edward’s wife seemed to confirm her father’s comment, but this was the first time she had witnessed any evidence of Edward’s temper at first hand.

‘Not yet, maybe, but it soon will be,’ he told her angrily. ‘And there’s not a damn thing you or anyone else can do about it. For once in his life, the old man was too clever for his own good. How much do you reckon the staircase will fetch, Charlie?’ he called out to the other man, smirking when he saw Rosy’s expression.

As she watched and listened to him, any ideas Rosy might have had about appealing to his better nature died. He simply didn’t have one, she recognised. He would enjoy destroying the house.

She heard the heavy wooden front door creak as someone pushed it open, and turned round warily, but it wasn’t another of Edward’s ‘business associates’ who had walked in, it was Guard.

He walked over to the fireplace just inside the doorway, frowning as he studied the scene in front of him.

Rosy saw the antagonism and, along with it, the apprehension flare briefly in Edward’s eyes as he glared across at him, but Guard wasn’t even looking at Edward, he was looking at her—looking at her, Rosy recognised in sudden, dizzy confusion, in a way she had never envisaged seeing him look at any woman, but most especially not her.

She blinked a little, her own eyes darkening as they were caught and held in a gaze of such smouldering sensuality that it actually made her physically shiver. When had Guard’s eyes developed that ability to turn from cool, distant gold into hot, smouldering amber? Where had he learned to look at a woman in such a way that she and every other person in the room with her was instantly conscious of Guard’s desire for her? Only Guard didn’t desire her; he didn’t even like her, he—

‘Guard.’ Rosy exclaimed weakly, her hand going automatically to her throat to protect the small pulse beating so frantically there. ‘I…I didn’t think you’d be back until much later.’

‘I shouldn’t have been,’ Guard told her, ‘but I couldn’t bear to be away from you any longer.’

Rosy gaped at him. She could feel her skin burning. What was Guard trying to do to her? He must know as well as she did that—

She froze in shock as he crossed the hallway, dropping the briefcase he had been carrying with a small, heavy thud as he took hold of her, holding her so tightly against his body that she could feel the strong bite of his fingers against her flesh; her face was buried against his chest, any verbal response she might have wanted to make smothered, as he murmured throatily, ‘God, I’ve missed you.’

Rosy gulped in air nervously.

‘Have you told Edward our good news yet, my love?’

Their good news? What good news? Rosy jerked protestingly against Guard’s strong hold, lifting her head, the impulsive words clamouring for utterance.

But she never got to say them. Instead, the swift descent of Guard’s head and the hard, totally unexpected warning pressure of his mouth on hers stopped her.

Guard holding her. Guard kissing her. Kissing her? Was that what he was doing? It didn’t feel much like a kiss. She opened her eyes and looked anxiously into his. They were still that unfamiliar, heart-thumping, pulse-racing amber colour, and the mouth that had clamped so firmly on hers, silencing her, somehow didn’t feel anything like she might have imagined Guard’s mouth might feel if she had ever actually allowed herself to wander into the pitfall of such dangerous imaginings, which she hadn’t… It felt…it felt…

A dizzying wave of sensation hit her as Guard’s mouth moved slowly over hers.

Her eyes were still open and so were his, almost hypnotising her into obeying the silent commands he was giving her. She could feel her mouth softening beneath the sensual impact of his, her whole body relaxing, melting into his, relaxing and yet at the same time being invaded by a peculiar and unfamiliar frisson of sensation.

To her horror, Rosy could actually feel her nipples hardening and peaking. With a small cry of protest she tore her mouth away from Guard’s.

‘You’re right,’ he agreed, as though she had spoken. ‘This isn’t the time or place.’

His voice sounded soft, a husky purr that made small shivers of sensation run up and down her spine. He reached out and touched her mouth with his thumb.

‘What the hell’s going on?’

Dizzily, Rosy dragged her gaze away from Guard’s face and turned to look at Edward.

‘Hasn’t Rosy told you?’ Guard asked politely. ‘She and I are getting married. I’ve sorted out the special licence,’ he told Rosy softly, turning away from Edward, ignoring the anger emanating from him, the questions he was asking, behaving, Rosy recognised enviously, as though Edward simply wasn’t even there, as though the two of them were completely on their own, as though…

‘The wedding will be just the way you wanted it to be. Very small, very quiet. In church…’

In church! Rosy tensed, but this time she managed to hold back her shocked words.

‘You can’t do this,’ Edward was blustering angrily beside them. ‘Don’t think I don’t know what the pair of you are up to. Don’t think I won’t—’

‘Edward…’Without raising either his voice or his head, and still looking directly at her, Rosy marvelled, Guard had managed to silence Edward’s outpourings and to get his attention. ‘I think it’s time you left,’ Guard continued evenly. ‘I’ll show you out.’

Now Guard did move away from her and at another time Rosy might almost have been amused by the chagrin in Edward’s expression and the confusion of his friend, who was demanding to know exactly what was going on and why Edward had brought him out on such a wild-goose chase.

‘You haven’t heard the last of this,’ Edward warned Guard threateningly, before turning to leave. ‘You aren’t married yet, and besides—’

‘Goodbye, Edward,’ Guard interrupted him suavely, firmly closing the front door.

‘Did—did you mean that?’ Rosy asked him, dry-mouthed in the heavy silence that followed Edward’s departure. ‘About our getting married?’

‘Yes,’ Guard told her calmly. ‘What is it, Rosy?’ he asked with an abrupt return to his normal, mocking manner towards her. ‘Having second thoughts?’

Rosy glanced towards the staircase and then up at the chandelier and shook her head numbly, not daring to trust her voice to make any vocal reply.

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