by Amy Gamet
“Have you beefed up security at those locations?”
“To the best of my ability, yes. But I don’t want the public to suspect we are concerned, either.”
“I understand.” The idea that this was an ongoing terrorist situation, with a potential mole so close to the president, was alarming. “I appreciate you letting me know.”
The car pulled up in front of wide stone steps that led to an ornate front door and portico. The door opened, the first daughter herself appearing in the entranceway.
Grace.
“What’s she like?” Matteo asked.
For a moment he thought the other man wasn’t going to answer. “Stubborn.”
Matteo grinned. If you only had one word with which to describe someone, stubborn wasn’t a bad one to choose. At least these months were going to be interesting.
5
Matteo climbed the stairs, his eyes taking her in from head to toe. She wore sandals and shorts, the length of her legs between them golden from the sun and pleasantly curvy. A grass-green tank top creased beneath her folded arms.
Then he got to her face.
She was fair-skinned and freckled, with wary eyes that matched her shirt and seemed to be assessing him just as he was her. She held out her hand. “I’m Grace Vasile.”
“Matteo Cruz. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“Are you ready to get hitched?”
The corners of his mouth pulled up into a smile. “I thought I might walk in the door first. Have a glass of water. That kind of thing.”
“Suit yourself.” She turned back into the house and he followed her, his eyes immediately going to the ornate molding that climbed up the ridiculously high ceilings.
The mansion was more elaborately decorated than he expected, and Grace seemed out of place, like a game piece thrown into the wrong box.
“How much are they paying you?” she asked over her shoulder as she walked.
She didn’t beat around the bush, did she? “My regular salary with HERO Force, plus a small bonus for the inconvenience.”
She stopped walking and turned to face him. “Inconvenience?”
“That’s right.”
She harrumphed, but turned and continued walking. She led him through half a dozen rooms, each decorated in a different color with furniture and artwork that screamed old money — and it just kept going.
He let his eyes slip down her back to the rounded cheeks of her derrière. She moved with a perfect blend of feminine sway and royal disdain, and Matteo searched for her scent on the air.
Something flowery and soft, the exact opposite of how she came off. He was intrigued. Who was this woman who found herself in need of a husband?
The information Jax gave him back at headquarters was limited. She had a baby six weeks ago in Switzerland, where she’d been staying for the past year. She left the name of the father blank on the birth certificate and returned home to Lutsia.
“Where are you taking me?” he asked.
“Water.” She pushed through a swinging door and held it open for him behind her. They were in a large industrial kitchen, metal counters gleaming in the sunshine. She pulled out a glass and filled it from the faucet before handing it to him. “Here.”
“Are you in some kind of hurry?”
“The priest has mass in forty-five minutes.”
He narrowed his eyes. “A Catholic priest?”
“Yes.”
Oh, shit.
He’d been expecting a justice of the peace or whatever the equivalent government official was in this country. Every Sunday school lesson he’d ever learned lit up in his brain with a flash.
While he rarely went to church, he still considered himself to be a Catholic at heart, and he hoped one day to get married in the Church. That would prove problematic if he had already done so.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
“You can only get married once in the Catholic Church.” They didn’t recognize divorce, considering the couple still married no matter their legal status.
She shrugged. “So we’ll get an annulment.”
They wouldn’t be having sex, so the marriage wouldn’t be consummated and they could get an annulment with a clear conscience after the divorce was final.
“That’s true, but it’s a lot more complicated than a divorce. A buddy of mine went through it a few years ago.”
“Look, if this is something you don’t want to do—”
Did he? It certainly made this whole thing a lot more complicated than he was expecting, but he was here to do a job he believed in. “No, it’s okay. Really, I’m fine.”
“Nothing to it but to do it.” She pushed off the counter and again took the lead back through the house.
“You don’t sound like you’re from here,” he said.
“I went to school in New York,” she called over her shoulder. “I spent a lot of time in the States with my mother. She was American so we were always going back there to visit.”
A high-arched doorway led to an opulent room with red-upholstered couches and a fireplace taller than he was. A priest stood waiting, with what could only be a Bible in his hands, and Matteo stopped walking.
He looked at Grace. She held herself stiffly. She was all bravado, but underneath she was scared. He imagined she would bolt from the room like a spooked horse if given the opportunity. He offered her his arm and she looked at him warily.
“You don’t need to be nice to me. None of this is real, anyway,” she said.
Matteo looked from her to the priest and back again. “Looks pretty real to me.”
“You know what I mean.” Her eyes shifted to the other side of the room and she took in a quick breath. “My father’s here.”
Matteo’s arm was still out, waiting for her, and after a moment she took it. They crossed the room to President Vasile.
“Good afternoon, sir. I am Matteo Cruz.”
Vasile’s stare went pointedly to their joined arms. “I see you’re already in character. Let’s get started.”
Grace’s eyes flicked to his and he saw they were lightly bloodshot. She was trying not to cry, and a wave of sympathy washed over him. If this was hard for him, what must it be like for her?
Women were sentimental about their wedding day. From what he’d heard, some of them thought about it from the time they were little girls.
“Are you okay?” he whispered.
“Nope.” She took in a shaking breath. “Let’s do this.”
Her voice was steely and he decided in that moment he liked her. When most women would have crumbled, she straightened her spine.
The cry of a baby in the distance echoed through the house and she jerked, her gaze shifting from Matteo to her father and back. “Nico—”
Her father’s voice was gruff. “You can go to him when the ceremony is finished.”
Matteo could feel her arm shaking, as if she was physically fighting with herself. The baby’s wails got louder. “We’ll hurry,” Matteo said.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we are gathered here today,” the priest said.
“Skip that part,” she said. “Get to the vows.”
“Do you, Grace Louisa Vasile, take Matteo Cruz to be your lawfully wedded husband?”
“I do.”
“And do you, Matteo Cruz, take Grace Louisa Vasile to be your lawfully wedded wife?”
“I do.”
“Then by the power invested in me by the holy Church and the People’s Republic of Lutsia, I now pronounce you husband and wife.”
She pulled her arm free of his, turned, and left the room. He was alone with the priest and Grace’s father.
The distant cries stopped abruptly and the priest put on his hat. “I hope you have a happy life, despite this rough beginning,” he said. “God works in mysterious ways to bring us the people we are meant to have in our lives.”
There would be no happy life together for the two of them, but Matteo nodded his head anyway as he won
dered what he’d gotten himself into. It was time to get used to lying, that was certain. “I’m sure we will. Thank you.”
The president turned to Matteo. “There is a small reception this evening to formally welcome back my daughter and her new husband. I suggest the first thing you do is inform your bride.”
“She doesn’t know?”
“No. As my employee, you are notably easier to deal with.”
He walked away, leaving Matteo standing in a strange room, in a strange house, in a strange country. He spun in a circle, taking it all in. He needed to get the lay of the land, just as soon as he touched base with Grace about the reception.
He headed back through the house in the direction the cries had been coming from. His mind flipped through the last hour, landing on a shot of Grace’s red eyes. He wanted to know who had put that sadness there, why her life seemed so difficult.
He chided himself.
Just stay the course.
That’s what he had to do. Do his job to help preserve democracy, and get back to the good old U.S. of A.
The beautiful woman he just promised to love and honor till the day he died had very little to do with his objective, and he’d do well to remember that, no matter how striking her eyes were.
6
Grace sat in the glider, her baby at her breast. The calming hormones that surged through her bloodstream as her milk let down were a balm to her battered soul.
She was a married woman. It was ridiculous and unbelievable, and the numbness that had kept her feelings at bay throughout the ceremony slunk to the floor like a shadow.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered to the otherwise empty room. Tears welled up in her eyes and spilled onto her cheeks. Hell, she wasn’t even sure who she was apologizing to.
Her child?
Her lover?
Herself?
Her hold tightened on the baby in her arms. “I’m not sorry for you. I could never be sorry for you.” In that moment, she ached for her lover with a physical pain.
She wished he were here, but hadn’t she wished that very thing every moment of every day since he disappeared? There must’ve been some mistake, some misunderstanding, some horribly important reason he’d needed to go. They loved each other.
Of this, she was certain.
But her confidence had been battered by the months that followed, in the moments he had missed, the birth of their baby, and the embarrassment of coming home without him.
Her father’s words rang out in her head. A bastard. That’s what everyone else is going to call him.
And what of her lover? What if he was alive and planned to come to her, only to discover she’d married another man just weeks after his child was born? She looked at her sweet son at her breast and touched his soft hair lightly with her finger. “He would have loved you.”
Without Mason in her life, everything else ceased to be important. It didn’t matter that she was married to a stranger. The only thing that mattered now was that she had her son and she had done her duty to keep her country safe.
Now she could hunker down and hide inside these walls that had once felt like a prison. Lick her wounds and pray for the healing she feared would never come.
A knock at the door made her sigh, and she reached for a small blanket to cover herself. Her intense desire to be alone would not be so easily satisfied. “Come in.”
Matteo stood in the doorway and she took her first good look at him. He was tall, far taller than she, with wide shoulders tapering to slim hips and a white smile that glowed against his caramel-colored skin. She wondered about his heritage. Maybe Latino, maybe something else.
“I’m sorry, do you want some privacy?” he asked.
She bit her lip. “It’s okay. Come on in.” She gestured toward a chair comically far to her right and held her breath, relieved when he crossed to it and sat down. “What’s up?”
“Your father wanted me to let you know there’s going to be a reception for us this evening.”
“What?” The last thing on earth she felt like doing was showing off her new husband. She couldn’t even remember his last name, but her father expected her to introduce him around? To put a smile on her face and pretend for a formal audience?
She was suddenly so tired she couldn’t even imagine doing what was being asked of her.
“I’m sorry, Grace. Personally, I would have put it off a few days, but no one asked me for my opinion.”
The numbness was back, spreading over her body and brain. She narrowed her eyes. “This charade is so surreal. You could ask me to pretend to be a talking dinosaur and I might find it easier than this.”
“Don’t make it more complicated than it has to be. We just need to be friends. Couldn’t you use a friend?”
She blew out air. “I don’t need a friend; I need a savior.”
“Why?”
She shook her head. “Never mind.” Cold air on her wet nipple made her peek beneath the blanket. The baby was fast asleep, his mouth lightly open and a perfect cupid’s bow. But her other breast was hard and full of milk, and she needed him to keep nursing before her engorgement became painful.
Dammit.
She should have been paying attention.
Made him switch sides before he became full. Her breasts were making too much milk, and she had specific instructions on how she needed to feed her baby.
You can’t even do that right.
There was another knock at the door.
She cursed under her breath. “Come in.”
A woman in a maid’s uniform opened the door, her eyes going sheepishly to Matteo. “I’m Trudy, Miss Grace’s maid. I understand you two were married in Switzerland. You have my congratulations. I’m so excited for your reception this evening.”
Grace felt her heart sink. It had been a long day, perhaps one of the longest in her memory, and the very last thing she felt like doing was being the center of attention in a crowd of people.
And she would have to pretend to care about this man, as if just breathing in and out were not difficult enough today.
“Maybe you could recommend a dress for me to wear,” suggested Grace.
The girl’s eyes lit. “Oh, I’d love that! Maybe the cream organza, or the aquamarine satin from France.”
“Whatever you think is best. Something forgiving, please. My body isn’t yet my own.”
“Of course, Miss.”
The door closed and Grace stared at it. “What are we going to do?” she asked, the idea of the evening ahead weighing on her like a boulder on her back.
“We try to look happy.”
Grace picked up the sleeping baby and gently put him in his crib. “And if I’m not up to the task?”
“Then I’ll help you.”
He sounded sincere and she was grateful this stranger-turned-husband might actually make this situation easier.
She bit her lip as an image popped into her mind. Wedding guests clinking silverware on glasses to get the couple to kiss. She felt her cheeks heat with embarrassment. “What if they expect us to kiss? They do that at wedding receptions.”
“They do.”
“We don’t even know each other. No offense, but I wasn’t planning on kissing you.”
“No offense taken. I wasn’t planning on kissing you either.”
She ran a hand through her hair. “I don’t know what my father was thinking. People are going to take one look at us together and know we’re completely full of shit.”
And then what would happen? She needed her country to believe this was real. Anything that threw her marriage into question could hurt her father’s chances of winning the election. With the recent terrorist attacks, he needed every point in the polls he could get.
“Then we’ll have to do better,” he said.
“What do you suggest?”
“You do want people to believe us, right? Because right now you’re acting like you’d rather give up.”
“It’s important fo
r this country that my father is elected. I’ll do what I have to do to make sure that happens.”
He moved toward her. “Then you’re going to have to try harder to act like you like me. Your body language around me is all wrong. If we were really married, you’d want to stand close to me. Hold my hand. Stuff like that.”
The back of her neck was getting hot. “I’m not sure what you’re suggesting.”
He moved again so he was standing directly in front of her, and her heart began to skip with anxiety.
“I think we should practice,” he said.
“What?”
“Being more intimate. We could practice kissing if you’re comfortable with that.”
She didn’t like the sound of that at all. Given that there was zero affection between them, she’d rather kiss a post. “I don’t kiss strangers.”
He took a step toward her. “What about strangers who just happen to be your husband? Technically speaking, of course.”
His eyes were dark, his stare intense, and it made her shake inside. “Especially those.”
He held his hands up. “It will make it less awkward when we go downstairs. But if you don’t want to, that’s fine with me. I don’t care either way.”
Now she felt stupid. He was right. They would look more like a couple if they acted like one. She rolled her eyes. “Fine. Let’s just kiss and get it over with.”
“Well, now I feel vulnerable and a little taken for granted.”
He was making fun of her. She felt the corners of her mouth curl into a smile despite her desire to stop them. “You’re not funny.”
“I’m a little funny.”
“No, you’re not.”
“I could be a world-renowned comedian and you wouldn’t even know it.”
“Will you just kiss me already?”
He cocked his head to the side. “I don’t usually kiss women on the first date.”
She hit him in the chest with a backhanded slap. “Just kiss me, Matteo!”
7
He hadn’t meant to tease her, but it was so much fun he couldn’t seem to help himself. He reached for her, gently putting his hands on her waist, and she jumped.
