Claimed by the Sicilian: Sicilian Husband, Blackmailed Bride / The Sicilian's Red-Hot Revenge / The Sicilian's Wife

She had had to watch in disbelief as, on Guido’s orders, bottles of vintage champagne appeared from the hotel’s cellars and were opened. Glasses were filled with a lavish hand, and to her horrified amazement Guido announced that he hoped that everyone there would drink a toast, ‘To my reunion with my beautiful bride.’

They were frightened of him, she realised on a sense of mind-blowing shock. Terrified of what he might do and—yes—there was a little touch of admiration there, a grudging respect that kept their tongues on the right side of civil, no matter what their minds might have been thinking.

In his all-black outfit, Guido prowled amongst them like a sleek black panther wandering lazily through a huge flock of birds of paradise. A sleek black smiling panther who was obviously enjoying himself while they all waited and watched, frozen in apprehension, not daring to make a move in case it was the wrong one and drove the jungle cat to pounce with deadly intent.

But Amber couldn’t find any cause for enjoyment of anything in the whole ordeal. To her, every second was an endurance test, her worst nightmare ever come true and actually existing in the real world. She didn’t even have the hope that she might wake and find it all behind her. To make matters worse, the elegant white satin shoes were beginning to pinch unmercifully, a brutal, pounding ache had set up in her head, and she felt as if someone had put a hard steel band around her temples and was slowly twisting it tighter and tighter.

So it was with a rush of intense release that she saw Guido beckon one of the staff to him and obviously make some sort of request. A moment later he had come close to her, touched her lightly on the arm.

‘It’s time you left now,’ he said in a tone that made it clear it was not a suggestion but a command. ‘This young lady will take you to your room—where your clothes and your cases are. Get changed and wait for me there.’

She had been so relieved at being released, at escaping from the torment of the reception that should have been hers and Rafe’s but that had, like her wedding, been hijacked and completely overturned by Guido’s intervention, that she fled from the room, like a bird freed from its cage, seeking the sanctuary of the haven provided for her.

‘Well, you have done well for yourself, haven’t you?’ a drawling voice said close by, jolting her out of her thoughts and making her look up into a familiar pair of cold blue eyes.

Of course. Rafe must have left his going-away clothes in the room next door and by some appalling stroke of fortune he had been coming out of his room just as she had reached hers. He had already changed out of his formal morning coat and was now dressed in the elegantly cut suit and silk shirt he had planned to travel in.

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

Amber tried twisting the door handle, but the light on the lock had already gone out. She would have to take out the key card and insert it once again.

‘She doesn’t know what I mean,’ Rafe echoed cynically, coming close and lounging back against the wall. ‘Why, setting yourself up with a handsome Italian billionaire who could buy us all in the blink of an eye, of course. If that’s not doing well for yourself, I don’t know what is. So tell me,’ he went on, not giving her a chance to speak, or even to think. ‘Was that what our marriage was all about, hmm? A way of bringing him to heel after you’d split up?’

‘Of course not,’ Amber insisted.

She’d no way of knowing where he’d got the idea that Guido was a billionaire, but she had to put him right on that. But Rafe wasn’t interested in listening to her. All he cared about was the sound of his own voice.

‘Well, you may have just done me a favour too, in the end, so I reckon we’ll just call it quits.’

And then, to her total shock and consternation, he did the last thing she had expected. Looking straight into her face, he actually smiled, though it was the most peculiar, most alien smile that Amber had ever seen. It hadn’t touched his eyes, which had remained as cold and ice-blue as a frozen floe in the Arctic.

‘At least with my heart having been broken so publicly this way,’ he went on, resting one long-fingered hand on the breast pocket of his elegant jacket just above where the heart in question lay, ‘no one will expect me to even think about marrying another woman for some time. And that suits me perfectly. So enjoy your Italian, darling—and I’ll enjoy my freedom.’

And with an airy wave he was gone, stepping swiftly into the lift and shutting the door right in her face.

Amber was still standing staring at the polished lift doors in shock, when the second lift just near by arrived at the second floor, opened, and Guido stepped out onto the green-carpeted corridor. A dark frown creased the space between his brows when he saw her.

‘You’re not ready. You’ve not even started to get changed.’

Guido’s tone was sharp and, coming on top of her private thoughts, it caught right on a raw edge of an exposed nerve.

‘Just because I’m your wife, it doesn’t mean I have to jump when you click your fingers.’

And then, because it was the question that was uppermost in her mind, the one that just wouldn’t stop fretting at her thoughts—

‘Why, Guido? Tell me why.’

At least he had the grace not to pretend he didn’t know what she meant. But he moved to unlock the door to her room, taking her by the arm and hurrying her into it before he stopped to answer her.

‘I told you—I wanted them to see you were with me. That you’re my wife.’

Amber crossed to the big, high, king-sized bed and sank down on it with a long, low sigh that was a blend of exhaustion and total despair

‘Wouldn’t the pictures in the paper tomorrow—and your “statement” tonight—have done the job as well?’

‘I don’t think so. I wanted them to see it with their own eyes. And I wanted to see their faces when I did so.’

‘You mean that you wanted to parade me in front of them like some sort of trophy!’

‘If you choose to see it that way,’ Guido dismissed her anger carelessly.

‘And what possible other way is there to see it?’

‘That I wanted to make sure they never got their hands on you again.’

‘Did you really think that after what happened, Rafe would even consider asking me to marry him again?’ Amber couldn’t hide her incredulity and it rang sharply in her voice.

‘He’ll have to come through me first.’

‘Well, from the way that Rafe just behaved I have very little doubt that isn’t going to happen.’

‘The way that…’

Guido’s head went back, his eyes narrowing sharply.

‘Has he said something?’ he demanded harshly. ‘Hurt you?’

‘Hurt me? No, he didn’t hurt me but…I think I need to talk to him.’

‘No!’

Moving further into the room, Guido kicked the door behind him, heard it slam and the lock click into place. ‘You will not speak to St Clair!’

But his tone had been too hard, his attitude too forceful. He could see it in the way that her chin came up, defiance flashing in her eyes, her jaw firming stubbornly.

‘And why not?’

‘Because I asked you to come up here to change your clothes so that we could leave as soon as possible.’

‘You didn’t ask—you ordered.’

‘And you really want to spend the rest of the day dressed up like a pantomime princess.’

‘You don’t like this dress?’

He’d intrigued her now and he welcomed the way it distracted her thoughts from wandering down paths he didn’t want her to follow. She smoothed a hand over the silken skirts of her wedding gown, frowning thoughtfully.

‘It’s very beautiful,’ Amber said.