The Sicilian's Banished Bride

by Maya Blake

  She had been aiming for his head, but the man was tall, way taller than her five foot three. She snapped her hands into action and eyed him narrowly for a few seconds as she debated which manoeuvre to take.

  If only she were taller! Leaner! Stronger! Instead, she was short, round and it was dawning on her at speed that she probably wasn’t going to land any significant punches because this stranger was built like a house.

  She grasped her holdall tightly and took the next most sensible option, which was flight.

  She didn’t get far. One minute, she was half running and panting with her eyes pinned to the mansion in the distance. The next minute, a vice-like grip was holding her back, at which point she spun round and kicked.

  ‘What the...?’ Dante demanded, holding her at arm’s length as she struggled and tried to sling punches at him.

  ‘Get off me!’

  ‘Stop trying to kick me!’

  ‘Stop trying to attack me! You have no idea who you’re dealing with! I... I’m an expert in martial arts!’

  Dante released her. He was temporarily stunned into silence. He couldn’t quite make her out because it was dark, but he could see enough to realise that the pint-sized spitfire rubbing her arm was about as expert in martial arts as he was in ballet dancing.

  ‘I don’t know who you are,’ Caitlin gritted, backing away just in case he decided to lunge at her, ‘but if you don’t clear off, I’m going to make sure that the police are contacted as soon as I get to...’ she nodded brusquely at the house, which should have been a lot closer considering how far she’d walked but still seemed a hundred miles away ‘...that house you can see up there.’

  ‘You’re going up there? Why?’

  ‘That’s none of your business.’ She spun round and began walking as fast as she could towards her destination. If the guy lurking in the grounds was up to no good, then he had obviously realised that she didn’t make a good candidate to be robbed. One glance at her dress code would have given the game away. Long flowered skirt, sensible shoes, her favourite flowing blouse over which, because it was cool even though it was summer, she was prudently wearing a cardigan...not a diamond in sight.

  She clasped her holdall ever tighter, because you never knew... She didn’t want to look at him, even though her skin tingled because he had fallen into step alongside her. She had no intention of making eye contact.

  ‘It might be.’ Dante had always had the knack of making people stop dead in their tracks without raising his voice and, on cue, she stopped.

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Engagement party? Alejandro? Name ring bells?’ He folded his arms and stood perfectly, watchfully still.

  Caitlin turned to the stranger. They had progressed out of the shadowy overhang of trees, into more light, and she could make him out far more clearly and suddenly her mouth went dry and her nervous system seemed to temporarily forget what it was meant to do.

  He had stepped back and she saw he was dressed for—yes, an engagement party. Black trousers, white shirt with the top couple of buttons undone as though he couldn’t be bothered with a formal dress code, no tie. He’d shoved his hands in his pockets, dragging down the trousers ever so slightly, and that seemed to emphasise the perfection of his muscular frame.

  Her breathing went from fast to slow and back to fast in record time. She blinked, confused at a reaction that was so out of keeping with the person she knew herself to be.

  When she met his eyes, she had to try to ignore the impact of a perfectly chiselled face. The man oozed sex appeal. He was also ever so slightly familiar, but she knew that she would remember him if she’d ever met him, or even laid eyes on him. He was not a man anyone could meet and forget.

  ‘You’re here for the engagement party, as well.’ She finally found her voice and then, because she was irritated with herself for being thrown by him, she belatedly added, ‘In which case why are you lurking in the grounds and jumping out at perfect strangers?’

  She began walking, once more, in the direction of the house. Time was of the essence at this point and she couldn’t waste any more of it chatting to someone who made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.

  But this time her awareness of him, once again falling into step alongside her, was acute. She could feel the rasp of her breathing, and the shadow he cast as the winding tree-lined avenue became ever more brightly lit sent shivers racing up and down her spine.

  Only when she was standing to the side, with the massive edifice of the house in front of her, did she stop to take stock, at which point she tried Alejandro’s number once again. She felt sick and out of her depth. She’d always known that Alejandro came from a wealthy background, but to be thrust into the very vortex of it, as she was now, made her stomach clench.

  The cars that filled the vast courtyard gleamed with the patina of priceless machinery. Up close, the house, brightly lit, was beyond impressive and the distant thrum of noise was a sick reminder that the part she had undertaken to play was not going to be an easy one.

  Predictably, Alejandro failed to respond.

  ‘Problems?’

  ‘Why are you still here?’ Her voice was laced with agitation.

  ‘I thought I’d personally escort you to the premises,’ Dante said.

  ‘Don’t you believe that I’m a legitimate guest?’

  At that, Dante inspected her with leisurely thoroughness, his dark eyes roving from the tips of her toes, along her body and finally coming to rest on her scarlet face.

  She had gone into attack mode from the second he had surprised her and she was still in it. If she was a guest, then she was a highly unlikely guest.

  ‘Are you? Because you don’t seem to be dressed for the part.’

  At that, Caitlin reddened even more. Her parents had always made a point of telling her that she was beautiful, inside and out, but parents were notoriously partisan and she had always been sensitive about her looks. She’d stopped longing to be five inches taller and fifteen pounds lighter, a leggy brunette free from the curse of freckles and hair the most skilled hairdresser would have found impossible to tame, but right now...

  With this impossibly sexy and perfect guy lounging in front of her and staring with just the hint of a condescending smile on his face...

  ‘I have clothes in here,’ she said coldly, indicating her holdall with a curt nod. ‘And in case you’re in any doubt that I actually have been invited to this engagement party, I should tell you that I happen to be the...er... Alejandro’s fiancée.’ It wasn’t a declaration that rolled easily off the tongue. Downright lies seldom did.

  Dante said nothing. He was too stunned to speak.

  ‘I’m running a bit late...ah...anyway...’

  ‘Alejandro’s fiancée?’ He found his voice. He was seldom thrown, but this time he was.

  ‘There’s no need to sound so incredulous.’ There was, actually, every need. Not even she, with her imagination going full pelt, found it easy to believe that she could possibly be Alejandro’s fiancée. They came from such different worlds. Whatever his back story and however close they had become over time, he was Spanish nobility and it was there in the way he held himself and his casual disregard for money. He could do as he pleased, even if he was funny and caring and considerate, which always left you with the illusion that he couldn’t buy the world, which he could. Somehow, you always expected the super rich to run roughshod over people and Alejandro completely disproved that theory. That, of course, was one of the reasons why she absolutely adored him.

  They were also so different to look at. She was pale, with freckles and green eyes and copper-coloured hair. He was swarthy and dark-haired. They were both short, though, and plump and she felt wonderfully comfortable with him.

  ‘Miss Walsh?’

  ‘Caitlin. Look, I can’t hang around here chatting to you. I h
ave to...’ She squinted at the imposing edifice of the house and tried to work out a possible side entrance through which she could sneak, although heaven only knew what she would do if and when she did enter the house if Alejandro was still missing in action. Fumble her way to the downstairs loo so that she could change into her finery? Hope that she didn’t trip over anyone in the process?

  So poorly conceived all of this, a plan born on the spur of the moment without much thought being given to the technical detail. It was just as well that once this engagement party was over and done with, they would both return to London where life would carry on as normal.

  She pulled her long, tumbling hair over her shoulder and fiddled with it while she tried to work out various house-entry options.

  ‘You were saying...’ Dante prompted.

  Caitlin looked at Dante and shivered again. The guy had the strangest effect on her. Since when had she ever gone for the brooding Alpha-male type? She’d learned long ago to steer clear of those sorts.

  Besides, men this good-looking were always far too fond of themselves for her liking. And as a postscript, she belatedly thought, she was engaged. Or at least, for all intents and purposes she was engaged. Which amounted to the same thing.

  ‘As you mentioned,’ she conceded, ‘I’m not exactly dressed the part and I can’t get hold of Alejandro. He’s terrible when it comes to his mobile phone. It never seems to be on him.’

  ‘I’m surprised he isn’t scouring the four corners in search of his errant bride-to-be,’ Dante murmured.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Shouldn’t he be out looking for you? If you haven’t been able to get hold of him to warn him of your late arrival?’

  ‘Oh, right. Yes. I see where you’re going with that,’ Caitlin mumbled. ‘He... We are quite relaxed with one another when it comes to stuff like that.’

  ‘What a novel approach to a serious relationship.’

  ‘I need to change into my glad rags.’ Something about the man’s tone of voice triggered a wave of unfocused apprehension in her. ‘And you never introduced yourself. You are...?’

  She paused and stilled him with her hand. Her eyes met his questioningly.

  For a couple of seconds, Dante’s cool, rational mind seemed to shut down, then he drew back and returned her wide-eyed gaze narrowly.

  ‘Do you know the layout of the house?’ He smoothly changed the conversation, while at the same time politely removing her hand and hustling her between the cars and past the uniformed valets standing to attention outside.

  Was this his brother’s fiancée? Dante couldn’t quite believe it, but then how was he to know what sort of woman his brother liked? He had never met any of Alejandro’s girlfriends. Different countries, awkward schedules, fleeting meetings over snatched drinks in random bars. He and his brother had long mastered the art of saying absolutely nothing of any genuine importance to one another.

  That said, Dante had always assumed that his brother would go for the same kind of women he did, refined thoroughbreds who moved in the same social circles as they did. When Dante thought about those women, he felt a certain amount of boredom, but the one thing he knew about them, and it was very important, was the fact that they were all independently wealthy. Largely they came from families who, if not in the same category as his, were in a similar ballpark. No gold-diggers and, from bitter experience, he knew that gold-diggers were a breed best avoided.

  A memory pushed its way to the surface. He’d lost his heart once, at the tender age of nineteen, to a woman ten years older who had played him so well that he had ended up handing over wads of cash to her. A small fortune. He’d fallen for a tale of a broken marriage and a violent ex and a vulnerable toddler. She had been poor but still touchingly hopeful in the face of personal tragedies, desperate for a new start yet tentative about accepting anything from him, which had made him insist on giving her even more, and of course so breathtakingly beautiful that common sense had been quickly abandoned to a raging libido hooked on the thrill of the unknown. It had been wildly exciting after his tame diet of beautiful, predictable young socialites and privately educated heiresses. When he reflected on what might have been had he not caught her in bed with the father of her child, no less, he was filled with shame at his own stupidity, but every mistake taught a valuable lesson and he had never again strayed from what he knew. Rich, beautiful, well bred. Known territory. If they were self-absorbed and sometimes shallow, then that was a price he was willing to pay.

  Caitlin Walsh was not known territory...and while he might have the nous to know how to handle any woman who wasn’t known territory, did his brother?

  A broken heart, Dante figured, was no bad thing. It made you stronger. But his brother was engaged, and once rings had been exchanged a broken heart wouldn’t be the only thing to deal with. The family fortune had to be protected and Dante had no intention of letting that out of his sight.

  If Alejandro was taken in by Caitlin Walsh, then Dante saw no reason why he couldn’t do a bit of probing of his own, for no other reason than to make sure Alejandro wasn’t about to make the biggest mistake of his life.

  Wasn’t that what brotherly love was all about?

  ‘I’ve never been to the house before,’ Caitlin responded tartly, ‘so it would be impossible for me to know the layout. I had hoped that Alejandro...’

  ‘It’s his engagement party. He’s probably busy entertaining the troops. You’re in luck, though. I happen to know the place very well. You might say that I know it like the back of my hand.’

  Caitlin stopped and stared at him with undisguised relief. ‘Would you mind...? I need to change and I would rather not...’ She made a vague gesture to encompass her state of dress. ‘I should have got here ages ago...but with one thing and another... If you know the house, I would really appreciate it if you could maybe...’

  ‘Sneak you in so that you can change into your finery?’ Dante stood back and looked at her from the towering height of his six feet two inches. The holdall was quite small for finery. ‘Why would I do that when I’ve been accused of attacking you?’

  ‘You surprised me. Naturally I reacted accordingly.’ Caitlin’s voice was stiff.

  ‘You could have caused me permanent damage,’ Dante inserted smoothly, ‘what with you being an expert in martial arts.’ Silence greeted this remark. He could see that she was itching to launch a few verbal missiles. His antennae were still on red alert, but the woman was in a league of her own, and what had promised to be something of a tedious social occasion was looking up. When you were someone who could always call the shots, a little bit of different went a long way. He was beginning to enjoy this little bit of different...

  ‘Fortunately,’ he carried on magnanimously, ‘I am not a man to bear a grudge and I would be delighted to secrete you away somewhere private where you can freshen up.’

  ‘I don’t know how to thank you,’ Caitlin said, in a voice that was far from oozing gratitude.

  Dante said nothing but, just for a second, something weird and strong raced through him, heating his blood and tightening his groin. He spun round on his heels and began heading towards the side of the house, away from the brightly lit entrance.

  ‘You’ll have to be quick,’ he said, slowing briefly so that she could catch up with him. ‘The party’s in full swing. The longer you take, the more dramatic the reception is going to be.’ He glanced at her. The braid was not quite enough to keep her fiery hair in order and wisps floated around her cheeks. She was flushed and breathing fast. His eyes dropped to breasts that were more than a handful. Small-statured and large-breasted.

  Infuriated by the sudden lapse of self-control, he stiffened. If the woman was up to no good then he intended to find out before the situation became financially messy, but she was engaged to his brother and he wasn’t going to forget that. Forbidden thoughts would be culled before t
hey could start interfering with what had to be done, and in very little time because if she had angled for a profitable engagement then she wasn’t going to hang around waiting for the wedding ring to seal the deal.

  He took her to one of the many spare bedrooms. Each and every one was permanently prepared to a high state of readiness although it was rare for guests to stay overnight. Dante loathed that sort of thing and, indeed, the only time the vast mansion saw an influx of people was when he happened to be away and it was lent out to friends or family members. He valued his privacy far too much.

  ‘Make yourself at home,’ he drawled as she stood still and looked all around her. ‘I’ll wait outside for you. You won’t know how to find your way down to where the action is.’

  As she was busy appreciating a level of luxury she had never seen in her life before, it was a few seconds before Caitlin responded, then she eyed her holdall.

  ‘I’m sure I’ll manage,’ she said dubiously.

  ‘I’ll wait.’

  ‘Why?’

  Dante felt a twinge of guilt. He needed to get a feel for her, work out if his suspicions were well founded, and time wasn’t going to be on his side. His intentions could not exactly be called noble and something fleeting in her eyes, an expression of helpless, vulnerable apprehension, made him flush darkly.

  ‘Call it good manners,’ he said brusquely.

  ‘Okay.’ She hesitated, then smiled tentatively. ‘I might need a bit of moral support. I’m not accustomed to...events like this... When Alejandro and I...’ She reddened.

  ‘When you and Alejandro...?’

  ‘I knew there was going to be a party,’ she said hurriedly, ‘but I had no idea that it would be on this scale.’