Pure Princess, Bartered Bride (Bride On Approval 1)

by Caitlin Crews

  And then she whispered something he was too far gone in ecstasy to hear, and rode them both over the edge.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  LUC had no intention of playing Silvio Domenico’s demented games.

  He’d received the paparazzo’s call at half-ten that morning, told the vile dog exactly what he could do with his lies and rumors, and dismissed the matter.

  Except here he was, a little more than an hour later, walking into Harrods like a puppet on a string.

  He was furious with himself. He could not imagine Gabrielle doing the things Silvio claimed she was doing—the very idea was absurd. Gabrielle, who had little or no interest in the tabloids, selling compromising photos of the two of them to Silvio? It was laughable at best.

  And yet he had come.

  He had left a business meeting abruptly and hailed a black cab instead of his own car, all in his haste to confirm what he already knew to be a lie.

  He knew Silvio. He knew how the man operated. He was outraged that the piece of filth had dared to utter his wife’s name!

  His wife.

  She had surprised him last night. All that passion and abandon—and her boldness. He was stirred simply remembering it. There had been an intensity to their lovemaking that he hadn’t understood, but he had responded to it—how could he not? She had bewitched him, clearly. There was no other explanation. He had chosen her because she conformed to a list of attributes he’d made up years before—but he had not expected this thirst for her. This ravenous hunger that he could not seem to satisfy.

  Maybe that was why he had come? The hunger made him distinctly uncomfortable, as it did not fade or decrease. If anything, it had only gotten worse in the time he’d known her. He hardly recognized himself when he was around her. It was as if he forgot himself. He…wanted. He wanted things he found himself unwilling to name.

  It would have disturbed him had he not been far too infatuated with her to care.

  That infatuation was why he had come, Luc told himself. He was here to see through whatever charade Silvio intended to show him, make it clear the scum of a man was never to invoke Gabrielle’s name again, and be on his way. Nothing more, nothing less.

  He stopped in the designated place, lurking behind a display case like the paparazzi he abhorred. Why was he doing this? What could Silvio possibly have to show him that would make the slightest difference to him?

  “I must tell you the truth about your wife, my friend,” the other man had said, making Luc feel slimy by association, simply because he’d answered the unfamiliar number on his mobile phone. “Much as it pains me, you understand?” His laughter had turned into a hacking smoker’s cough.

  “How did you get this number?” Luc had demanded, disgusted.

  “Does it matter?” Silvio had asked, with another arrogant laugh.

  “I’m hanging up,” Luc had snapped. “And then I’m having you arrested for harassment—”

  “She’s approached me with some naughty pictures of the two of you,” Silvio had interrupted smoothly, with obvious lascivious enjoyment. “A souvenir from your honeymoon, yes? How proud you must be. I am told your—ah—assets are extraordinary.”

  “You expect me to believe that my wife wants to sell you photographs?” Luc had said derisively. He had made a succinct and anatomically impossible suggestion.

  “Save it for your loving wife,” Silvio had taunted him, unfazed. “And why shouldn’t she make a little cash like everyone else? You’re lucky she came to me. Anyone else and you would have seen it on the nightly news with the rest of the world. At least I’m giving you a little advance warning!”

  Luc shook his head slightly now, and knew that his initial instinct had been correct. His coming here was a mistake. He had played right into Silvio’s hands. The truth was that he knew Gabrielle could never conceive of such a thing—and she certainly would not be in cahoots with the likes of Silvio.

  It was far more likely that Silvio was taking pictures of Luc now, as he lurked at this counter, and would later run some absurd story about it in one of the tabloids, claiming that Luc was meeting a lover—or something far more salacious. Drugs. Criminals. Who knew the depths to which Silvio might sink? He was less than a pig.

  Luc was disgusted with himself.

  But then he saw her, and he froze.

  Gabrielle strode into the hall, looked around, and then marched directly toward the far side. She was so elegant, so refined, dressed all in snowy white. She held herself like the queen she would be one day. What was she doing here?

  But he knew. He couldn’t believe it, but he knew.

  Another figure detached itself from the shadows and met her. Silvio.

  It took only moments. Gabrielle held out an envelope and snatched the one that Silvio offered directly from his hand. They exchanged only a few words. Then she turned and walked away from him, exiting the store without ever looking around. She had no idea that Luc was there.

  Silvio looked in Luc’s direction and shrugged, his cocky grin firmly in place, but Luc barely noticed him.

  Something broke loose inside him—something sharp and jagged and dangerous. It moved through him like a howl, though he did not make a sound. It was happening again. Just as it had happened when he was a boy. The frenzy of lies, speculation—the dirt that would slime him by association and follow him like a storm cloud.

  And she was the one doing it this time. Not his parents—forever mysterious to him, forever unknowable and lost to him. Not them, but Gabrielle. The one he had chosen because she would never do this. The one he had believed would never, ever do this.

  He should have known better than to trust her public face—the one that had tricked him into marrying her, the one that had deceived him even after he’d had to chase her across the globe, humiliated by her defection in front of all the world. She was no better than his self-centered mother—and hadn’t he known that from the first? Hadn’t he expected this behavior from all the women he’d dated across the years? The more beautiful they were, the more treacherous. Hadn’t he known that since he was an infant?

  He hadn’t realized how much he’d expected—needed—her to have nothing to do with Silvio’s little demonstration until he’d seen her walk in. He hadn’t realized how much he’d trusted her until he’d watched her betray him.

  He hadn’t known how much he could feel, no matter how little he wanted to feel.

  And it had never occurred to him that his heart might be involved at all until now, when it reminded him of its existence by aching like an open wound that would never heal.

  The moment Gabrielle walked into their rooms and saw Luc already there she knew something was wrong. She stopped in her tracks and stared at him.

  Luc sat in the sitting area near the large fireplace, his long legs stretched out in front of him and his arm thrown out along the back of the sofa that he seemed to dwarf. He wore a dark charcoal sweater that hugged the fine muscles of his torso and a pair of dark trousers that fit him exquisitely, emphasizing his strength and power. He looked gorgeous, as ever, and his position suggested relaxation and ease, but Gabrielle stiffened. She could feel the dark tension emanate from him in waves. His gaze—cold, and a dark gray too close to black—locked to hers like a slap. A shiver of anxiety slithered along her spine.

  She had not seen that particular look of his in a long time. Not since the night he’d appeared at her door in California, in fact. And she did not remember him being quite so hostile even then. She was surprised to discover he could still make her gasp in reaction simply with the force of his gaze.

  “Has something happened?” she asked at once. She crossed to him, sinking down into the plush armchair facing him.

  Foreboding and menace seemed to fill the room, and all he did was look at her, as if he was trying to read her. His rugged face had closed down, turned back into stone and iron—and he was once again the forbidding, menacing stranger who had so overwhelmed her originally.

  She realize
d with some amazement that she hadn’t understood how much he’d changed—how open he had become, how relatively warm and approachable—until now.

  “Did you have a nice day?” he asked, in that low voice with its treacherous undercurrents. She couldn’t read him at all—but she could sense that she should tread carefully, even so.

  “Yes, thank you,” she said automatically, her ingrained politeness kicking into gear despite her confusion. “I saw some old friends for lunch. It was lovely. And you?”

  How absurdly formal! Gabrielle felt ridiculous—and then his mouth pulled to the side in obvious mockery, and the feeling intensified. She felt color high on her cheeks as his gaze—insulting and cutting—swept over her, leaving marks, she was sure.

  “I, too, saw an old friend of sorts,” he murmured. His tone sharpened as he leaned forward, no longer pretending to be casual. His gaze slammed into her. “Tell me, Gabrielle—and please do me the favor of being honest, if you can—where are they?”

  “Who?” she asked, confused and wary.

  He thought she was dishonest? She felt skittish and nervous in a way she had thought never to feel around him again. It turned out that loving him did not change the way he could get under her skin. Perhaps love only explained it. It was an uncomfortable notion.

  “My friends?” she continued when he did not. “They are distant cousins, actually, and we met in Chelsea—”

  “Not your friends.”

  His voice could have cut through steel. She nearly winced, though she caught herself. She ordered herself to calm down, to keep talking.

  “Why won’t you tell me what’s happened?” she asked. “You look…You look so—” She broke off helplessly. What could she say? You look as hard and remote and cold as you used to be—before I knew I was in love with you, before I believed this marriage would work? She didn’t know what was going on, but she knew that this could not possibly be the right moment for that revelation.

  “You should be less concerned with how I look,” he bit out, his big body seeming to vibrate with all the leashed power she could sense he wanted to release, “and more concerned with what I am about to do.”

  Gabrielle blinked. That was obviously a threat. But why? What could he imagine she’d done? She thought of the repugnant Silvio and their exchange at Harrods—but even if Luc knew of it, why would he take his anger out on her? Surely she was an innocent party in that mess?

  “I don’t know what you mean,” she said, folding her hands in her lap and straightening her spine as much as she could, thinking that if he would not simply tell her what was going on she would wait him out. Hadn’t she already decided that was the smartest way to handle him? He would destroy her in any straightforward contest. She wasn’t sure he could help himself—that was his way. Her best bet was to endure, and wait. She had every faith he would come around in time. And that she was more than capable of surviving the storm until he did.

  “Do you think your manners will help you?” he asked in a near sneer, his eyes boring into her even as he held himself firmly in check. “Do you think I will be fooled?”

  “Luc, please.” She searched his face, but the Luc she had come to know was gone, and in his place was this creature of granite, of glaciers and stone. As much a stranger to her as he had been on their wedding day. Her heart began to beat out a jagged, panicked rhythm. No one said it would be pleasant to wait out the storm, she thought. “I can’t defend myself if I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

  “Where are they?” he thundered, making her jump.

  “I don’t know—”

  “The pictures,” he bit out, fury etched across his face, making him seem as deadly as the warrior she’d sometimes fancied him to be.

  “Pictures?” Had he gone mad? She had not the slightest idea what he could be talking about. She blinked at him. “What pictures?”

  He launched himself up and onto his feet. Gabrielle’s heart leapt to her throat—but he did not reach for her. She did not know if she was glad of that or not. He paced around the room, looking like some kind of elegant wild animal, all rangy motion and lethal energy. She stood, too, thinking it best not to have him behind her or out of sight, as any animal of prey would in the presence of so unpredictable a predator.

  “The camera must be automated—and portable, obviously,” he said, addressing the room in general more than her, still in that low, tense voice. “You had nothing to do with our hotel arrangements, so you could only have had moments to prepare it and put it into place. But I can’t find the damned thing and I can’t find any pictures.” He turned back to her, his gaze flicking over her contemptuously. “But you already have what you want, don’t you? Your final rebellion against your father—against me—accomplished with a few clicks of a camera lens.”

  “Luc.” She said his name softly, trying to sound reasonable. “You are not making any sense.”

  His head tilted to one side, an arrogant and challenging gesture, and his eyes ran hot with molten fury—and it was directed at her. Gabrielle felt her breath hitch in her chest.

  “Am I not?” he asked. Too quietly. Too precisely. Biting the words off with his teeth. “Let me tell you what does not make sense to me. The money. Why would you need it? You have your own. And even if you did not—”

  “Money?” Gabrielle shook her head, warding his words away from her. “You think I am motivated by money? Like some desperate—?”

  “Even if you did not,” Luc gritted out, ignoring her, “I have more than enough money to keep you in any style you wish. So it cannot be for money. What else could motivate you? Are you not famous enough? Photographed enough? Do you aspire to the ranks of those interchangeable starlets known only because they have no shame, no lower place to fall? Or is it one last rebellious act from the supposedly obedient princess? Tell me!” he demanded, louder, moving closer, yet still maintaining his distance—just outside an arm’s length away.

  As if he was afraid to touch her, she realized in astonishment. Was he afraid that he would hurt her? Or did he want to? Or, like her, did he suspect that if they touched his anger would disappear in the heat of their need for each other?

  “I have no wish to be any of those things,” she said softly.

  “At first I simply wanted to destroy you,” he told her, in a voice that was almost affectionate—though his eyes glittered dangerously and she knew better. “To cast you out and be done with this farce. But I cannot figure it out, Gabrielle. I cannot make sense of it.”

  “What do you think I’ve done?” she asked, holding herself still, or unable to move, perhaps, while he looked at her that way. Her breath hurt her, sawing in and out of her lungs.

  “I know what you’ve done,” he said bitterly. He shook his head. “But you were a virgin—you could not have faked it. I am sure of it.” He let out a hollow sort of laugh. “Why I equate virginity with honor, I do not know. At the end of the day you are still a woman, are you not? Perhaps you planned this from the start.”

  Gabrielle blanched at the bleakness in his voice, then shook her head. She racked her brain for any possible issue that could have upset him this much, but couldn’t think of anything.

  Except her meeting with Silvio.

  “There is something I haven’t told you,” she said, fighting to remain calm—or at least sound calm. “But even if you know about it, I don’t know why you should be so angry with me. I thought I was doing the right thing.”

  “Did you?” He sounded only mildly interested—halfway to being bored—but Gabrielle knew better. She knew this was Luc at his most lethal.

  “Yes,” she said. She felt her confusion melt away in a rush of overdue anger that punched into her gut and hummed through her—how could he speak to her this way? After they had come so far? Had he been pretending all this time?

  “You call this the right thing?” he said, with a nasty, sardonic inflection that made her want to slap him—an urge she had never had before in her life. “You can say
this to my face?”

  “Of course,” she said tightly, and lifted her chin.

  He could go to hell—with his anger and his coldness and this insane line of questioning, as if she was a common criminal. Who did he think he was? And here she was, so in love with him—it was infuriating.

  Her hands balled into fists. She raised her eyebrows in challenge. “Of course I thought so. Why else would I meet with Silvio?”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “SO YOU admit it.” Luc could not believe it. He could not believe she would defend what she had done! He felt frozen, and yet nearly liquid with fury—all at the same time. He felt as if everything shook—as if the city of London wavered beneath his feet—but nothing moved. Not even him. “You do not even try to lie to protect yourself? You announce it freely!”

  Her gaze darkened, her mouth flattening into a thin line.

  “I don’t know what you want me to say.” She crossed her arms over her chest. Hugging herself tight or fending him off? He couldn’t tell. “Why engage in this exercise? Why not simply ask me about it if you already know?”

  “This is how you respond?” He was so angry he felt his hands twitch and his blood pound against his temples. His suspicion that she had planned this from the beginning—first his humiliation when she disappeared, then this betrayal to the vile tabloids just as he began to trust her—crystallized in the vicinity of his chest. “This is your defense of something so low, so disgusting, that it demeans us both?”

  “I thought I was helping you!” She enunciated each word, showing her temper, no longer so perfectly composed. But even that added to his fury. Now she showed him cracks in her well-mannered façade? Now, when it couldn’t—shouldn’t—matter any longer?