Enemies at the Altar

by MELANIE MILBURNE

  Sienna could feel her carefully constructed composure cracking. She was used to acting all tough and resilient but it was hard to keep that façade in place when Andreas seemed so tender and concerned. ‘Can we drop this topic?’ she said. ‘It’s in the past. I’d like to leave it there.’

  ‘Sienna, you can’t just brush something like this aside,’ he said. ‘You’ve let everyone—including me—believe you’re a gold-digging slut when you’re no such thing.’

  She raised her chin away from the pressure of his fingertip. ‘I might not be a slut but I still want the money,’ she said. ‘That makes me a gold-digger, doesn’t it?’

  He stared her down. ‘That’s what you want everyone to believe,’ he said. ‘Why do you do that? What do you hope to achieve by making everyone hate you?’

  ‘People hate a lot more easily than they love,’ she said. ‘It’s just the way things are. I do it too. I’m good at it. Look at just now, for example. I was prepared to sleep with you, even though I hate your guts.’

  He continued to look at her for a lengthy moment, those hazel eyes searching hers until her heart jumped and thumped behind the wall of her chest. He touched her cheek with his fingertip; it was hardly more than a brushstroke but it made every pore of her skin reach up on tiptoe to feel more of his touch. ‘If you didn’t hate me before, then you surely do so now,’ he said with a touch of ruefulness. ‘I was rough with you.’

  Sienna swallowed a tight tangled knot inside her throat. ‘It wasn’t that bad,’ she said, affecting what she hoped was a casual tone. ‘Anyway, I probably should’ve said something.’

  He gave a self-deprecating grunt. ‘Do you think I would’ve believed you?’

  She acknowledged that with a wry on-off smile. ‘Probably not.’

  ‘Do you know the man’s name?’ Andreas asked.

  Sienna felt a ripple of panic roll through her. ‘Leave it, Andreas, please. I don’t want Gisele to be reminded of it all again. She’s about to get married. I know what the press would do if you went looking for justice on my behalf. There’s enough CCTV footage of me coming in and out of nightclubs to make me look like the biggest lush out. You know how lawyers can twist things to build a case for the defence. I just want to forget about it.’

  ‘You can’t keep running away from unpleasant stuff, Sienna,’ he said.

  She hoisted her chin. ‘I’m not running away,’ she said. ‘I’m moving forward, for my sake as well as Gisele’s.’

  He held her gaze for a moment before he tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear, as one would do to a small child. Sienna didn’t feel like a child, however. His touch against the sensitive skin of her ear made her shiver with womanly want and need. She felt him inside her still, a tender ache where her flesh had been stretched by his hot, hard presence.

  What would it feel like to have him totally possess her? To have him move inside her in the throes of passion? To have him lose control in the soft, moist cocoon of her body? To feel her own body respond to his in a rhythm as old as time?

  The silence throbbed with the erotic tension Sienna could feel in her body. She saw it in the dark heat of his eyes. It smouldered there in the black ink spill pools of his pupils. She felt the slow burn of his gaze move over her face like a lighted taper, scorching her like a blowtorch when it came to rest for a tantalising moment on her mouth.

  Her heart gave a swift hard kick against her ribcage. Her tongue came out to moisten the arid landscape of her lips. Her stomach lifted and fell a thousand feet as he brushed that same gentle fingertip he had used on her cheek over the surface of her lips, a faint movement that sent every nerve into a frenzy of want.

  His hand suddenly dropped from her face and just as swiftly a shutter came down on his features. ‘I think it’s best for the time being if we keep our distance from each other,’ he said. ‘I’ll sleep in one of the spare rooms.’

  Sienna hid behind the screen of her sarcasm. ‘Frightened you might get too attached now I’m not the bed-hopping harlot you once thought I was?’ she asked.

  He held her look with cool but implacable determination. ‘I want this chateau, Sienna,’ he said. ‘I am prepared to do whatever is required to obtain it. Neither of us needs the complication of a relationship that to all intents and purposes has been thrust upon us for reasons as yet unclear. If it hadn’t been for my father’s will, I would never have considered you as a temporary partner, let alone a life one. I suspect you would not have considered me either.’

  ‘You’re spot on there,’ she said. ‘You’re the last person I would consider spending the rest of my life with. Can you imagine the fights we’d have? You’re so anal you get antsy when the tea towels aren’t aligned.’

  ‘And you’re so chaotic you’re like a whirlwind,’ he said, but he softened it with a wry smile. ‘I still find it hard to believe you came from the womb of a woman who made a living out of being tidy.’

  ‘Yeah, well, she might have been good at tidying up other people’s messes, but she wasn’t so crash hot at sorting out her own,’ Sienna said with a little slump of her shoulders. ‘I spent most of my childhood wondering where we’d be living the next week. Mum would say or do something she shouldn’t and the next thing I’d be packing all my things. I lost count of how many schools I attended over the years. The time with your family was the longest we’d stayed anywhere. I didn’t want it to end.’

  Andreas took one of her hands in his, toying with her fingers, one by one. ‘I had no idea things were so difficult for you,’ he said. ‘I always thought you were a bit of a brat, but now I can see why you flounced around with such an attitude all the time. You felt terribly insecure.’

  ‘I shouldn’t complain,’ Sienna said, trying to ignore the sensations firing up her arms from the warm stroke of his fingers against hers. ‘Plenty of people have it so much worse.’

  He brought her hand up to his mouth and gently kissed her bent knuckles. ‘I should let you get to bed,’ he said, giving her hand one last gentle squeeze before releasing it. ‘Is there anything I can get or do for you? Perhaps run a hot bath for you?’

  Sienna could see the concern in his eyes. It made her feel delicate and feminine, a startling and somewhat unsettling change from having to act tough and streetwise around him. ‘No, I think I can manage to turn on the taps for myself,’ she said with a crooked smile. ‘Thanks all the same.’

  He continued to study her for a long pulsing moment. Sienna suspected those green and brown-flecked eyes could see right through her shabbily erected façade. That brief moment of physical intimacy had changed the dynamic between them and she wasn’t sure how it could be changed back. The air was thick with the sensual energy their brief but passionate encounter had unleashed. It swirled like a current, a wild vortex that could so easily carry her way out of her depth if she wasn’t careful.

  ‘What happened here tonight …’ He frowned as if searching for the right words. ‘I don’t know how to make it up to you. I’ve misjudged you, misunderstood you and insulted you. I hope you will find it in your heart to forgive me.’

  ‘Wow, I really like this nice guy thing you’ve got going,’ Sienna said. ‘Maybe I won’t hate you quite so much if you keep that up for the next six months.’

  His eyes pulsed with something dark and intense as they held hers. ‘You don’t hate me, ma petite,’ he said. ‘In fact, I have a feeling you have never hated me.’

  She challenged him with another lift of her chin. ‘You surely don’t think I’m still harbouring that silly little teenage crush on you, do you?’ she said. ‘That was a long time ago, Andreas. I might not have as much experience as other women my age, but I can assure you I haven’t been saving myself for you.’

  ‘Why haven’t you got involved with anyone?’ he asked. ‘It can’t have been for lack of opportunity. Men fall over themselves to be with you. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. You can stop a speeding train with your looks.’

  ‘I saw my mother move from one shallow
hook-up after the other,’ Sienna said. ‘I saw what it did to her self-esteem. I was always picking up the emotional pieces. I felt like the parent a lot of the time. I guess it turned me off the thought of allowing someone that close who could turn around and hurt you. Besides, I want to be appreciated for more than my looks. I have dreams and aspirations. I’m not a narcissistic airhead. Unfortunately, a lot of men can’t see past the physical stuff, or maybe they don’t want to.’

  He moved his fingertips across the sensitive skin on the slope of her lower jaw in a soft-as-air caress that set her nerves into a frenzied dance. ‘You’re a complex little thing, aren’t you, cara?’ he said.

  ‘No more complex than the next person,’ she said, shooting him a look from beneath her lashes. ‘And not half as complex as you.’

  A wry smile tipped up the corners of his mouth. ‘Perhaps we are more alike than we are different, sì?’

  ‘I don’t think we have much in common at all,’ Sienna said, barely able to breathe with his fingers tracing back and forth along the line of her jaw.

  He trailed a fingertip over her bottom lip before dropping his hand back down by his side. ‘Perhaps you’re right,’ he said as he moved over to open the door for her. ‘Call me if you need anything during the night. I’ll only be a few doors down the hall.’

  She gave a vague nod and moved past him in the doorway, trying not to notice his warm body so close she could have touched it. ‘Goodnight.’

  The only answer she got was the soft, but no less definite, closing of the door.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ANDREAS paced the floor for hours after Sienna had left. Her perfume lingered in the air. He could even smell it on his skin. He could still taste the sweetness of her in his mouth in spite of the three stiff drinks he had consumed since.

  The shock of finding out she had never had a sexual relationship with her late husband had left him more than a little dumbfounded. Just about everything he had believed about her was wrong. He had thought she had prostituted herself by marrying for money. To find the marriage had been nothing more than a paper arrangement had completely stunned him.

  And that wasn’t even half of it. He couldn’t get his head around the fact that she had so little experience. She’d only had two sexual partners and she was twenty-five years old. For all these years she had played the role of a hardened tart. The press had constantly portrayed her as an easily picked up party girl and she had done nothing to discourage that view. The circumstances of the sex tape scandal had obviously affected her deeply, as indeed they would most young women. Andreas suspected she had hidden behind the label of gold-digger because that was Sienna’s way of hiding her hurt, by toughing it out and pretending it didn’t matter one jot, when of course it did.

  Guilt gnawed at his conscience. He had pulled her to the floor like a common whore. Desire and lust had got the better of him. It had got the better of both of them. She had been just as willing, but it didn’t make him feel any less responsible.

  He had physically hurt her.

  He groaned out loud and paced some more. He had acted exactly like his father. He had been intent on slaking his lust with no thought to the consequences. He dragged a hand through his hair. Was this what his father had wanted to teach him? To show him how hard it was to resist the lure of lust?

  Had his desire for Sienna been so obvious? He had done his best to hide it. He had disciplined himself to ignore her on his visits or, at the very least, treat her as if she was just a kid. He had watched her bloom into young womanhood. From visit to visit she had morphed from a pimply fourteen-year-old to a sultry siren of ripe sensuality at seventeen. His rejection of her had been the honourable thing to do, and yet he wondered if that and not her mother’s antics had caused her to hit the party scene in a defiant attempt to save face.

  By the time she was eighteen or so she had a reputation as a wild party girl. A ‘nightclub nymphet’, some journalist in London had labelled her. Night after night she had teetered out of clubs and hotels with her gaggle of giggling girlfriends.

  And then at the age of twenty-two she had suddenly married a man old enough to be her grandfather. Everyone had called her a greedy little gold-digger. He had done it himself. He had thrown the newspaper aside in disgust when he had read about it on one of his visits to England. He had sworn and cursed and called her every filthy name under the sun.

  His chest tightened and cramped with its weight of guilt.

  Sienna was nothing like the person he’d thought she was. For years she had hidden behind a façade to protect herself from being hurt. Behind that tough smart-mouth exterior was a vulnerable young woman, a young woman who had never felt safe and secure. He had made the mistake of assuming she was just like her mother, on the take for whatever she could get.

  But Sienna was nothing like Nell Baker. She wasn’t a social climbing harlot with no sense of propriety. Sienna had more pride than he had given her credit for.

  Every insult he had flung at her came back to haunt him. She had thrown back her own insults with a feistiness of spirit he had always secretly admired. Defiance had glittered from her sparkling grey-blue eyes in every one of their exchanges. He had found it invigorating to spar with her. She always gave as good as she got. It was verbal foreplay. A little game they had played for as long as he could remember.

  He closed his eyes as he thought of how she had felt wrapped so tightly around him. The silky warmth of her had engulfed him. His body still ached and pulsed with the burden of desire. It was a pounding ache that reverberated through his flesh.

  He wanted her.

  That desire was nothing new to him, but somehow now it was stronger than ever. He had tasted the sweet pleasure of her; it was like a drug he could no longer resist.

  He drew in a breath and slowly released it as he looked out at the moonlit fields of the estate. Six months and all of this would be his. Sienna would get her pay-out and he would inherit what was rightly his.

  He knew she wanted the money. She was currently out of work and the funds her late husband had left her were just about gone. He was confident it was enough to keep her by his side for the allotted time. An affair between them would be an added bonus.

  He closed the curtains with a flick of his hand.

  He had a feeling that keeping her with him was not going to be the problem. Letting her go at the end of the six months might very well prove to be the biggest hurdle he had yet to face.

  Sienna woke the next morning to a knock on the bedroom door. She pushed the hair out of her eyes and sat upright. ‘Come in.’

  Andreas came in with a tray with fresh croissants and a pot of fragrant steaming coffee. ‘I thought you might like breakfast in bed,’ he said.

  ‘Is this another Chalvy bridal tradition?’ she asked.

  His lips moved in the semblance of a smile as he set the tray down over her knees. ‘One of many,’ he said.

  ‘Well, as much as I’d like to keep the ghosts of this place happy, I’m afraid there’s no way I can drink coffee at this time of the morning,’ she said. ‘I’m a tea girl. Call me British if you must but, in spite of living all those years in Italy, I can’t quite get used to starting the day without my cup of tea.’

  He gave a little eye roll as he whipped the coffee pot off the tray. ‘I should’ve guessed,’ he said. ‘Give me five minutes and I’ll be back with your tea.’

  Sienna tilted her head at him. ‘You wouldn’t last five minutes as a servant, Andreas,’ she said. ‘You have to accept all commands and requests with grace and poise.’

  ‘Perhaps you could give me some lessons,’ he said.

  ‘You already know I’m absolute rubbish at following orders,’ she said. ‘As soon as someone tells me to do something I always want to do the opposite. I think it’s a personality flaw or something.’

  ‘I’ll have to make sure I say the opposite of what I want you to do then,’ he said. ‘It’s called reverse psychology, sì?’

 
‘Something like that,’ she said.

  Sienna picked at one of the croissants once he had gone, licking the buttery crumbs off her fingers. She had slept fitfully last night. Her body had thrummed with need for hours, and then, when she had finally drifted off to sleep, she had dreamed of Andreas. She had dreamed of his mouth and hands pleasuring her, touching her, caressing her, of him making her body sing with delight.

  She squeezed her legs together and felt that tiny intimate ache where he had been. It made her belly feel all fluttery, like a thousand moth wings moving inside her. She put a hand over her stomach, trying to stop the sensation, but if anything it intensified.

  The door opened after a few minutes and Andreas came in bearing a pot of tea. ‘Your tea, Madame,’ he said with a bow.

  ‘Way too obsequious,’ Sienna said, smiling at him. ‘Your employer would automatically assume you’re pilfering the silver or something.’

  An answering smile flickered in his eyes. ‘Perhaps I do have an ulterior motive,’ he said as he poured her a cup of tea.

  Sienna took the cup off the tray, burying her nose in the steam rising from its surface rather than meet his gaze. ‘So I take it this breakfast in bed routine is a guilt trip, not a tradition?’ she said.

  ‘How do you expect me not to feel guilty?’ he asked. ‘I spent most of last night pacing the floor over what happened.’

  Sienna kept staring at the steamy mist rising from her tea. ‘You’re making too big an issue out of it,’ she said. ‘Let’s just forget it ever happened.’

  He brushed a strand of hair away from her face. ‘Look at me, Sienna,’ he said.

  She drew in a breath and looked into his eyes. Her belly did that moth wing thing again and her heart skipped a beat. His face was cleanly shaven. His breath smelt of mint. His eyes looked tired, however. There were thumbprint-sized shadows beneath them. Had he too spent most of last night wondering what it would have felt like to make love properly? Had his body throbbed and ached for hours as hers had done? Had he dreamt of her as she had dreamt of him? It was so hard to tell what he was thinking or feeling. He had never been one for showing much in the way of expression. She had only seen him smile a handful of times.