And he was beautiful. Not merely handsome or attractive the way he appeared in photographs. Not ruggedly lovely in some stark, masculine way, like dangerous mountain peaks were pretty, though he was decidedly, inarguably male. He was simply beautiful. His cheekbones were a marvel. His hair was a rough black silk and his brows were a great, arched wickedness unto themselves. His wide mouth made her feel much too warm, even flat and expressionless as it was now. And those stunning, arresting eyes, the blue of lost things, of shattered dreams, tore through her.
It took her a moment to register that he was staring down at her, incredulous.
And—as she’d already figured out from that blast of temper that she could still feel butting up against her like a living, breathing thing—he was very, very angry.
Zara went to pull away, not in the least bit interested in remaining this close to that much temper, but her new husband forestalled any attempt to escape with the hand he curled around her neck. She imagined it looked tender from a distance. But she was much closer, and she could feel it for what it was. Threat. Menace.
Fury.
No matter that a bright hot burst of flame danced from the place he touched her and then throughout the rest of her. No matter that a shiver rocked through her or that she felt as if her whole body woke up at the sensation of that hot, male palm against the nape of her neck. Her lungs felt tight and her throat ached. Her knees felt wobbly again, but for a very different reason than they had before.
And then Chase Whitaker, who had been quite clear that he’d never wanted to marry anyone and wouldn’t have chosen her if he had, bent his head and pressed his perfect lips to hers.
It should have been awkward, Zara thought wildly. Even violating.
But instead, it was like her entire body simply…sizzled. Her lips felt seared through, and she felt herself flush what she knew would be a revealing, horrifying red. She felt that simple press of his lips everywhere. In her throat. In that ache between her breasts. In her suddenly too-tight nipples. In that hard knot in her belly, and worse, in the sudden molten heat below it. Chase lifted his head, his remarkable eyes darker than before, and she knew he saw all of that betraying color.
And worse, that he knew what it meant.
There was something taut and electric between them then, something that sparked in the air and then moved inside of her, setting off alarms and making her feel that she really might collapse in the first faint of her life, after all. Like the archaic, bartered bride she was impersonating today. Maybe that would be a nice little vacation from all this, a small voice inside her suggested, while everything else she was or ever had been drowned in those dark blue eyes of his.
And then he looked away and everything sped up.
There was applause, then organ music, then the murmuring of several hundred scandalized guests who’d finally caught on to the fact that Chase Whitaker, president and CEO of Whitaker Industries and one of the world’s most beloved playboy heirs, had just wed the wrong Elliott daughter.
Zara found this as unbelievable as they did, she was certain, but she didn’t have time to reflect on it. Chase was holding her by the arm—in a manner that made her feel rather more like a prisoner than a bride, and yet, somehow, more cherished than when Amos had done the same thing—and they were starting off down the aisle again. She saw her father’s smug face as they strode past him. She saw her stepmother dabbing at her eyes, and thought that ditzy Melissa might in fact be the only person in the church who’d found the ceremony moving, bless her. She saw longtime neighbors and old family friends and the speculative expressions of a hundred strangers, but the only real thing was that hard arm that held her next to his impossibly lean and chiseled body.
And then there was silence. Chase marched them out of the church and down the steps into the searing, brutal cold of the December afternoon, then directly into the back of a waiting limousine.
“Home,” he grated at the driver. “Now.”
“The reception is actually here in the village, not wherever your home is,” Zara said, because she was incapable of keeping her mouth shut.
Chase had thrown himself into the cushy leather seat beside her and when he turned that furious, incredulous gaze of his on her again, it was like being burned alive. She felt charred.
He stared at her. Moments passed, or maybe years. The car drove off from the church. The world could have exploded outside the window, for all she knew. There was nothing but that wild dark blue and the leftover heat where his mouth and his palm had touched her skin, like he’d branded that contact into her flesh.
Then the car jolted to a stop at a light, Chase blinked and looked forward again, and Zara decided she’d imagined that awestruck, spellbound, on fire feeling. It was the oddness of the situation, that was all. It was Ariella’s ridiculous dress, cutting into her like a corset from hell, making it difficult to breathe. There was no reason at all to feel that despite everything, she’d never been more alive in her life than she was right now, in the back of a limousine headed God knew where with an angry, beautiful stranger.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, because they might as well make the best of it. It was what Grams would have done. “I don’t think we’ve ever met.” She smiled as politely as she could at this man, her brand-new husband, and stuck out her hand. “I’m Zara.”
* * *
He was trapped in a nightmare, Chase thought, staring at that outstretched hand in stunned, outraged amazement. There was no other explanation. For any of this.
“I know who you are,” he grated, and when he didn’t take her hand she merely dropped it back in her lap, looking wholly unperturbed. Exactly as she’d looked in the church, when he’d been glaring at her fiercely enough to burn holes through her.
Except for when you kissed her.
But Chase shoved that thought away, along with the image of her flushing that intriguing shade of scarlet in the wake of that kiss he still didn’t know why he’d given her, and scowled at his bride instead.
The truth was, while he’d recognized who she must have been because she’d been ushered up the aisle by his nemesis, he couldn’t remember if they’d ever met before. He wasn’t sure he’d have known her name even if they had, just as he wasn’t sure why that made him feel something like ashamed. He had a vague memory of her in a black dress that had fit her much better than the gown she wore today, and a flash of red hair from across a table. That was it.
Every other interaction he’d had with her family had involved her pain-in-the-ass father and blonde, brittle Ariella, who was apparently even more useless than he’d already imagined she was. And his imagination had been rather detailed in its low opinion of her.
“You tricked me,” he said then, trying to gather his wits, as he’d been noticeably unable to do for some time now. Since Big Bart Whitaker had died six months ago, leaving him neck deep in this mess that got bigger and deeper and swampier every bloody day. Since he’d had to give up his life in London and come back to the States to take his place as president and CEO of Whitaker Industries, where he’d done nothing but clash with Amos Elliott—the driving opposing force on his board of directors and the bane of his existence. And now his father-in-law, for his sins. “I could have you up on fraud charges, to start.”
Zara Elliott did not look alarmed by this possibility. She was awash in masses and masses of a frothy, unflattering white fabric, like a foaming and possibly furious marshmallow had exploded from every side of her while her quietly aristocratic face remained serene. But her eyes—her eyes were a bright, warm gold. The color of late afternoons, of the sun dripping low on the winter horizon.
Where the hell had that come from? He must have had more whiskey for his breakfast than he’d thought.
“I’m three inches shorter than Ariella and at least two sizes larger,” she said. “At a conservative estimate.”
Her voice was smooth and warm, like honey. She sounded, if not happy, something like content. Chase didn’t kn
ow how he recognized that note in her voice, given he’d never felt such a thing in his life.
So that was why it took him a moment to process what she’d said. “I don’t follow.”
“Was I tricking you or were you not paying very much attention, if you couldn’t tell the difference the moment I set foot in that church?” She only smiled when he scowled at her. “It’s a reasonable question. One we can ignore, if you like, but which a judge may dwell on in any hypothetical fraud trial.”
“This hypothetical judge might well find himself more interested in the marriage license,” Chase replied. “Which did not have your name on it when I grudgingly signed it.”
Her smile only deepened. “My father imagined that might cause you some concern. He suggested I remind you that the license was obtained right here in this very county, where he’s reigned supreme for decades now, like his father, uncles, grandfather and so on before him. He wanted me to put your mind at ease. That license will read the way it should before the end of the day, he’s quite certain.”
Chase muttered something filthy under his breath, which had no discernible effect on her composure. He leaned forward and rummaged around until he found the half-drunk bottle of whiskey in the bar cabinet and then he took a long swig of it, not bothering to use a glass. That sweet, obliterating fire rolled through him, but it was better than the numbness inside of him, so he ignored the scraping flames and took another hefty swig instead.
After a moment, he offered her the bottle. It only seemed polite, under the circumstances.
“No, thank you.” Also polite. Scrupulously so.
“Do you drink?” He didn’t know why he cared. He didn’t care.
“I like wine, sometimes,” she said, as if she was considering the matter in some depth as she spoke. “Red more than white. I’ll admit that beer is a mystery to me. I think it tastes like old socks.”
“This is whiskey. It doesn’t taste of socks. It tastes of peat and fire and the scalding anticipation of regret.”
“Tempting.” Her soft mouth twitched slightly in the corners, and he decided the whiskey was going to his head, because he found that far more fascinating than he should have. He couldn’t recall the last time a woman’s naked mouth had seemed so riveting. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d noticed a woman’s mouth at all, save what it could do in the dark. “How much whiskey did you have before the ceremony?”
He eyed her for a moment, then eyed the bottle. “Half.”
“Ah.” She nodded. “I thought you might be drunk.”
“Why aren’t you?” he asked, not caring that the dark rasp in his voice gave away far too many of the things he needed to keep hidden.
“Sadly, that wasn’t on the list of options I was given when I woke up this morning and was informed Ariella had flown the coop.” Her impossibly golden eyes gleamed with something almost painful Chase didn’t want to understand, but her voice was still perfectly cheerful. It didn’t make any sense. “I had to fight for a single cup of coffee in all the panic and blame. Asking for something alcoholic would have started a war.”
He felt something very much like ashamed again, and he didn’t like it. It hadn’t occurred to him that she might find this marriage as unlikely and unpleasant a prospect as he did, and he didn’t know why something in him wanted to argue the point. Like it made any difference who wanted what. They were both stuck now, weren’t they? Just as her father had intended.
And it didn’t matter to him which Elliott sister was stuck with him in Amos’s handiwork. It made no difference to his plans. No matter what Zara’s mouth did to his peace of mind.
Chase decided he didn’t particularly care for any of these thoughts and took another long pull from the whiskey bottle instead. Oblivion was the only place he truly enjoyed these days. He’d considered permanently relocating there, in fact. How hard would it be to lose himself entirely in this or that bottle?
But he never did it, no matter how many nights he’d tried. Because the fact remained: the only thing he had left of his father, of his parents and his family legacy, was Whitaker Industries. He couldn’t let it fall entirely into Amos Elliott’s greedy hands. He’d already compromised and merged companies with the man his father had considered a better son to him than Chase had ever been. He couldn’t sell it now. He couldn’t step aside.
He couldn’t do anything but this.
Chase took another drink from the bottle, long and hard.
“Where is your sister?” he asked, with what he thought was remarkable calm, under the circumstances.
Those golden eyes cooled considerably. “That’s an excellent question.”
“But you don’t know?” He let his gaze track over that face of hers, her pale skin blending into the white veil that billowed around her, reminding him of a bird’s plumage. He found he was fascinated by the fact her voice remained the same, so unassailably polite, no matter what her gaze told him. Her mouth bothered him, he decided. It was too full. Too soft and tempting. Especially when she smiled. “That’s your position?”
“Chase,” she said, then hesitated. “Can I call you that? Or do you require that your arranged brides address you in a different way?”
He let out a short laugh, which shocked the hell out him. “Chase is fine.”
“Chase,” she said again, more firmly, and he had the strangest sensation then. Like this was a different time and there truly was an intimacy to the use of proper names. Or maybe it was just the way she said it; the way it sounded in that mouth of hers. “If I knew where Ariella was, I wouldn’t have shoehorned myself into this dress and married you in front of three hundred of my father’s closest friends, neighbors and business associates.” She smiled at him, though those impossible eyes were shot through with temper then, and he understood that was where the truth of this woman was. Not in her practiced smiles or her remarkably cheery voice, but in her eyes. Gold like the sunset and as honest. “If I knew where she was I would have gone and found her and dragged her to the church myself. She is, after all, the Elliott sister who agreed to marry you. Not me.”
He watched her mildly enough over his whiskey bottle, and noted the precise moment she realized she’d devolved into something like a rant. That telltale color stole over her cheeks, and he watched it sweep over the rest of her, down her neck and to parts hidden in all that explosive white. He found he was fascinated anew.
“No offense taken,” he said, forestalling the apology he could see forming on her lips. “I didn’t want to marry either one of you. Your father demanded it.”
“As a condition of his agreement to back you and your new COO, yes,” she said. “Your new brother-in-law, if I’m not mistaken?”
“Nicodemus Stathis and I have merged our companies,” Chase said, as thinly and emotionlessly as he could. “And our families, as seems to be going around this season. My sister tells me she’s blissfully happy.” He wondered if Zara could see what a lie that was, if that was what the slight tilt to her head meant. If she knew, somehow, how little he and his younger sister Mattie had talked at all in the long years since they’d lost their mother, much less lately. He shoved on. “Your father is the only remaining thorn in my side. You—this—is nothing more than a thorn-removal procedure.”
That was perhaps a bit too harsh, the part of him that wasn’t deep in a fire of whiskey reflected.
“No offense taken,” she said, her voice as merry as his had been cool, though Chase wasn’t certain he’d have apologized, if she’d given him the chance. Or that she wasn’t offended, come to that. “I’m delighted to be of service.”
“I know why Ariella was doing this—or why she said she was all right with it,” Chase said then, bluntly. “She quite likes a hefty bank account and no commentary on how she empties it. Is that a family trait? Are you in this for the money?”
Did he only imagine that she stiffened? “I have my own money, thank you.”
“You mean you have your father’s.” He toasted her
with his bottle. “Don’t we all.”
“The only family money I have came from my grandmother, as a matter of fact, though I try not to touch it,” she replied, still smiling, though that warm gold gaze of hers had iced over again, and Chase knew he should hate the fact he noticed. “My father felt that if I wouldn’t follow his wishes to the letter, which involved significantly less school and a lot more friendly games of things like tennis to attract his friends’ sons as potential boyfriends-slash-merger options, I shouldn’t have access to any of his money.”
“Your sister makes defying your father her chief form of entertainment,” Chase said, focusing on that part of what she’d said instead of the rest, because the rest reminded him of the many steps he’d taken to make sure that, while his father might have employed him, Big Bart had never supported him. Not since the day he’d turned eighteen. And he didn’t want that kind of common ground with this woman. “She told me so herself.”
“Yes,” Zara said calmly, her gaze steady on his. “But Ariella is beautiful. Her defiance lands her on the covers of magazines and the arms of wealthy men. My father may find her antics embarrassing, but he views those things as a certain kind of currency. In that respect, I’m broke.”
Chase blinked. “I’m very wealthy,” he pointed out. “In all forms of currency.”
“I didn’t marry you for your money,” she said gently. “I married you because this way, I can always remind my father that I sacrificed myself for him on command. To a wealthy man he wanted to control. Talk about the kind of currency Amos Elliott appreciates.” Her mouth shifted into that smile of hers that did things to him he didn’t like or understand. “He isn’t a very nice man. It’s better to have leverage.”
Chase felt caught in the endless gold of her eyes then, or perhaps it was the near-winter afternoon outside the window that seemed to be some kind of extension of them, the sun brilliant through the stark trees and already too close to the edge of night.
His for Revenge Page 2
