Stolen Bride. Sally Carr
live in, and I imagined the dinner parties, the clothes...’ Her voice faltered. ‘The children I would have.’
She bit her lip and then went on more steadily. ‘And then little by little, I realised that in every picture I conjured up, none of them contained Luca.’
She raised her eyes to Finn’s. ‘Not one,’ she repeated. ‘Isn’t that crazy? It was as if I was just day-dreaming. And then someone, I forget who, someone made a joke about my wedding night, and I realised that I really was going to marry Luca, that it was all set, and that after all the things I had imagined—the ceremony and the fuss and the party—1 was actually going to have to get into bed with him.’
Her voice trailed away and she swallowed. ‘You probably think this was really silly of me, that it took so long to come to grips with reality. But Luca has always been in my life. I just never thought of him as a husband.’
Her eyes rested briefly on Finn’s face and then slid away while she waited for him to tell her how stupid she had been. Why on earth had she told him all that? He was a stranger who at best probably thought she was as dim as Luca did. She oughtn’t to be telling him anything.
It was with a bolt of pure shock that she felt him take her hand and raise it to his lips. ‘What... what are you doing?’ she blurted.
He kissed her hand and smiled at her. ‘Just a spur of the moment thing,’ he drawled. ‘But it seems kind of appropriate to kiss the person who’s belted Luca Finzi right where it hurts.’
She tugged her hand away. ‘Well, don’t,’ she said, more sharply than she meant to. It was just silly, the way he was making her feel. Desperately, she cast around for something to say. Anything.
‘If I could choose,’ she said hurriedly. ‘If I was independent, then maybe I would go to England.’ She looked him straight in the eye and tried to ignore the way her heart was thumping erratically. ‘My nanny was English, and my uncle always used to listen to her. He said Sarah talked a lot of sense. Maybe if I went to her, he would listen again.’
There was a long silence, so long that she looked away and began to wonder if he had lost interest in the whole conversation. Maybe he was waiting for her to get out of the car.
Then he sighed, and she looked quickly at him. ‘What’s the matter? Don’t you think it’s a good idea?’
‘It stinks,’ he said simply.
Her eyes narrowed, but before she could say anything Finn went on, ‘Let’s get this straight, okay? Just so there’s no confusion. We are on the run from the Mafia and you think the only person they will listen to is some decrepit old nanny of yours who probably spends most of her days mumbling over her knitting?’
Cara thought of the last time she had seen Sarah. Even now her nanny wouldn’t be more than fifty, and her natural elegance was the kind that drew all eyes. Her jaw dropped at the picture Finn was drawing, but in the circumstances his conclusions were probably reasonable enough. She just had to get him to see her point of view. ‘You’re being over the top,’ she said as calmly as she could.
‘Over the top?’ he echoed. ‘Me? Uh-uh. There’s somebody in this car who has a screw loose, and it’s certainly not me. Not even a baby would think that your answer to Mary Poppins will be able to wave a magic wand and save you.’
Cara shrugged angrily. ‘Take me back to the church, then,’ she said recklessly.
He grabbed her other arm and gave her a little shake. ‘Are you crazy?’
She glared at him. ‘Do what you like,’ she snapped. ‘I’m perfectly sane. And so is Sarah. She’s the only one that stands any chance of making my uncle listen.’
He looked at her scathingly, and she burst out, ‘Well, she is! And for your information I don’t think she does much knitting.’
‘Probably past it,’ snapped Finn. ‘Isn’t there anybody else you know?’
‘No one,’ Cara said firmly. ‘She is our best bet, truly.’
‘So why wasn’t she at the wedding?’ he demanded.
Cara shrugged. ‘Uncle Pancrazio said she was too ill to come.’
Finn nodded. ‘That figures,’ he said drily.
Cara realised she was pleating a small square of her dress. ‘Would you lend me the money for a plane ticket to England?’ she asked at last, not daring to look up.
‘No,’ he replied, and her heart sank. ‘There’s no way you could get on a plane without being spotted and stopped by Luca’s men,’ he added. ‘I’m going to England. I have contacts there who may be of use. I’ll take you.’
‘In the car?’ she said blankly. ‘With you? All the way to England?’
He smiled mockingly at her. ‘I think you have the gist of the idea.’
‘On my own, with you?’ she added again, just to be quite certain.
‘Of course,’ he said casually. ‘It would be a business arrangement.’
Her head jerked up and she stared him straight in the face, her pulse suddenly thundering in her ears.
He gazed blandly at her. ‘But it would be to our mutual benefit... and even enjoyment, I hope.’
She licked dry lips. So that was it. She might have known there was a price attached. ‘You want me to...’ But she couldn’t say it. Couldn’t bring herself to put into words what Finn might be suggesting.
His fingers brushed her cheek. Her voice when it came seemed very old and far away. ‘Go to hell,’ she told him.
His fingers paused, then he tipped her face to his, his eyes darkening as he took in her exasperation. ‘I do believe,’ he drawled, ‘that you think I’m expecting you to go to bed with me.’
Her heart was jumping so much she felt like it was bouncing into her throat. ‘What other kind of a proposition would a man like you make?’ she asked.
His hand slid around the back of her neck and drew her closer. ‘Would you accept?’ he asked.
She sat upright, her nerves twanging at his tone and his touch. ‘What do you think I am?’ she asked miserably.
‘The question is,’ he corrected softly, ‘what do you think you are? Since the idea of you paying your way by going to bed with me wasn’t actually what I had in mind.’
A slow flush crept up her skin at his words, flooding her throat and then her face until she was crimson. ‘It never occurred to me that a man like you could have any other sort of proposition in mind,’ she said as bitingly as she could.
‘Well, if you’re willing to consider it, I am,’ he drawled. ‘What exactly did you have in mind? Instalment payments?’
Her hand made a sharp cracking sound on his cheek before she had consciously thought of retaliating.
But before she could withdraw her hand his fingers enclosed her wrist and he was staring at her, his eyes inky pools. ‘You count yourself so little,’ he said harshly. ‘And other people even less. Do you really think I am the kind of man who would blackmail a woman into bed?’
The look in his eyes was too searing, too probing. She twisted away from him and looked in silence at the woods. ‘I don’t know what kind of a man you are,’ she admitted at last. ‘Except that you must be crazy to be helping me like this.’
‘Did your family make you this suspicious?’ he asked softly. ‘This jumpy?’
‘It’s none of your business,’ she replied. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’
She knew without looking that he was leaning towards her, moving close. Too close for comfort. She pressed herself against the door and turned to face him. ‘Don’t touch me!’ she yelled in sudden