Lana’s eyes fluttered open to meet, once more, that drowning gaze, that gold glinting in the depths of his dark, dark eyes, pouring into hers. The rest of the world—the people in the room, the noise and the conversation—all had vanished. All gone. All that existed was his golden glinting eyes pouring into hers...
Her senses were reeling, the blood soaring in her veins. Her heart like a caged bird, beating wildly.
For one long, timeless moment she just went on gazing up at him. Helpless to do anything else at all.
And then—
A smile indented his mouth.
A smile of satisfaction.
‘Well,’ Salvatore said, and there was satisfaction in his voice, in his smile, in the gold glint of his eyes, ‘I think we have just demonstrated very adequately that you are, indeed, my chosen bride.’
He tucked her hand into his arm, a proprietorial and masculine gesture, still smiling down at her. The rest of the world reappeared. The women in their couture gowns...the men in their dashing black and white tuxedos. The animated chatter echoed off the high painted ceiling and the marble floor. All of it snapped back into existence, despite the reeling of her senses, the wild beating of her heart...
‘Time to circulate,’ he said.
He reached to lift a glass of champagne from a passing server, handing it to her. She took it nervelessly and he helped himself to one for himself as well. Her blood was still whirling in her veins, her heart still a wildly beating caged bird. Her lips still echoed with his kiss...
Urgently, she tried to banish those lingering echoes. Suppress the rush in her veins. Rationalise what had just happened. Find an explanation for it.
The only possible explanation.
It was for show! It was just for show! He said it was—and that’s all it was! For show—just for show!
She heard the words like a litany, playing urgently in her head, repeating themselves as, with a slight pressure on her hand, he led them both forward, resuming his greeting of people he knew.
Were they smiling at them both, smiling at the newlyweds, smiling at having seen them kiss like that? She didn’t know, couldn’t tell—couldn’t do anything at all except let herself be taken where Salvatore wanted to go, standing at his side while in her head those urgent words kept sounding.
Just for show! Nothing else at all!
That was what she had to keep telling herself all the time they stayed in Rome. Keep telling herself that she was glad—relieved!—that the man she had married for reasons that had absolutely nothing to do with the way she had reacted to being in his arms would make no further ‘tangible demonstrations’ that required his kissing her.
After all, given the truth about their marriage, what else could she possibly be but relieved? It was the only appropriate reaction. Now all she needed to do was forget it had ever happened...
Something that, to her disquiet, she was finding disturbingly difficult...
Well, I just have to try harder then, don’t I? she remonstrated with herself roundly as she stood, gazing sightlessly out of the window of her bedroom, trying not to remember the blissful sensation of his mouth moving on hers...
Trying, above all, not to let her eyes go to the communicating door. All that separated her from the man she had married.
All? The single word sounded silently in her head. She shook her head. No, much more separated them.
Much more.
With an impatient, resolute shake of her head she turned away from the window, padding to the bed in her jade satin pyjamas and tucking herself into its wide depths. She must get to sleep. Tomorrow they were leaving Rome, after a week of non-stop socialising, heading for Tuscany. It was a long drive, Salvatore had warned her, necessitating an early start.
The world would think them heading off on their honeymoon. But Lana knew better. Honeymoons were for real brides.
And she was not one of those.