Kate Walker - Sicilian Husband, Blackmailed Bride

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Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Coming Next Month

For Lori Corsentino, who let me borrow her brother’s names for these books.

IT WAS the perfect day for a wedding. The sun was shining, with the promise of heat later in the day, but it was early enough that the slight coolness of the dawn still lingered.

At home in England the early flowers of spring would be blooming purple and gold and white, the trees newly covered in soft green foliage. But here in Las Vegas there were only the city streets and the high, high buildings where the glass of thousands of windows glinted in the morning sun.

But she didn’t miss the green and the flowers, and colours of home, not for a second. She’d found a new home. She wouldn’t want to be anywhere but here, right now, in this perfect moment.

Because today was going to be perfect, no matter what the weather or anything else was like. And she was totally, perfectly happy. She couldn’t possibly find any space in her heart for any more joy or delight.

Today she was marrying the perfect man, the most wonderful man in the world.

Her mind was still spinning with the unexpectedness, the speed with which it had all happened. Just days before—not even a week ago—she hadn’t even known that he existed. And then a chance meeting in a hotel lobby, a dropped handbag, had changed her life for ever. She had crouched down to pick up her belongings and someone—some man—had stopped beside her. A soft, beautifully accented voice had asked if he could help. A strong hand, the skin tanned golden brown, had reached down to her, and she had looked up into the most gorgeous pair of gleaming bronze eyes she had ever seen in all her life.

And lost her heart in the magical space between one beat and the next.

Impossibly, unbelievably, he had felt the same way too. From the moment of that first meeting they had been inseparable.

But marriage…

Marriage!

Laughter that was the result of pure happiness bubbled up in her throat then broke on a snatched-in breath as the cab pulled into the kerb and stopped.

She was here. She’d reached the little wedding chapel where they were to become man and wife.

It was white-painted and tiny. But, small as it was, it was more than adequate. After all, there would only be the two of them standing in front of the celebrant and the one witness required by law. What else did they need? What else but the love they had discovered so wonderfully, so unexpectedly here in this city so far from their homes?

And he was there.

It was only when she saw the tall, dark, devastating figure of the man she loved that she realised how much she had been holding her breath, never quite believing that it was going to happen. Men like him—beautiful, powerful, exotic men like him—didn’t marry girls like her. She had been stunned enough that he had wanted her, had fallen into bed with him without even stopping to think if it was wise, so lost in love had she been. She hadn’t thought of anything more, hadn’t thought of a future then. She hadn’t even dreamed of such a possibility. It had been just enough to be with him, to know him, to share his bed—to love him.

The car door was pulled open and he was there, dressed in a loose white shirt, black linen trousers and smiling the smile that had stolen away her heart in the first moment she had seen it.

‘You came.’

‘Of course I came.’ The laughter and excitement were still a ripple in her voice. ‘Did you doubt it?’

‘Never,’ he responded, his own voice low and deep. ‘Not for a minute.’

Outside on the pavement, she waited while he paid the driver, her feet moving restlessly, almost dancing in her impatience, wanting to hurry, to go inside—to walk down that aisle and start this new stage of her life.

She was getting married…

‘Ready?’ he asked and held out his hand.

‘Ready,’ she assured him, putting her own fingers into his.

But still he hesitated, just for a moment.

‘You don’t have any flowers. Here…’

And he handed her a single glorious deep red rose on a long, graceful stem with all the thorns carefully pruned away.

‘It’s beautiful…’ she breathed, lifting the flower to her face and letting the velvet-soft petals brush her lips. ‘So beautiful.’

‘But nowhere near as lovely as you.’

He made her feel beautiful when he smiled down at her like that, bronze eyes glowing with warmth. He made her forget that she hadn’t had the time or the money to find anything special to wear and that her dress was only a simple white cotton sheath, sleeveless and supported by delicate shoestring straps, her shoes just soft leather sandals. But none of that mattered.

Nothing mattered except the two of them and the love they shared. A love that would give them a future together when she had feared that what they had was coming to an end. Feared that she would have to let this precious moment of time become just a glorious memory: that she would have to go back home to face her mother’s cold-faced disapproval and her determination to find her daughter a ‘suitable’ husband.

‘So—shall we get married?’

‘Oh, yes—yes, please!’

She wouldn’t let thoughts of her mother intrude, she told herself as they walked hand in hand down the short wooden-floored aisle. She wasn’t going to let anything spoil this day—their day.

The words of the ceremony floated over her head as she kept her eyes fixed on the dark, stunning face of the man who was to be her husband. She still couldn’t believe that he had ever asked her. That he had ever said those magic words.

She had been sighing at the thought that her time in Vegas was nearly up, that she would soon have to leave and head home. The thought of what was waiting for her there had clouded her eyes, drained her smile.

‘Would you stay if I asked you to marry me?’

She could still hear the surprising casualness of his tone, the musical lilt of his accent.

He had been lounging back in bed as he spoke, his dark head supported on his hands, his tanned chest bare above the whiteness of the sheets, and she had spun round from where she had been standing by the window, eyes wide as she stared at him in disbelief.

‘Did you say…? Oh, yes! Yes, please! But can we do it soon? Can we do it here—now—as quickly as possible?’

If they left it any longer might he have second thoughts, change his mind? Declare he’d only said it as a joke? Oh, please, please, let it not be a joke.

‘Can we get married tomorrow? Just find a chapel here and do it?’