Stolen Bride. Sally Carr
own? Because I guarantee you won’t get very far.’
She tore her eyes away from him and stared at her hands. ‘What was your proposition?’ she asked in a small voice.
‘I want some inside information about your family,’ he said. ‘I’m writing a new book, and you’re perfectly placed to tell me all sorts of things I would never be able to find out otherwise.’
Her heart sank. ‘You’re barking up the wrong tree,’ she said dully. ‘I keep telling you. You’ve got it all wrong about my family.’
He shrugged. ‘I’m willing to take the risk,’ he said. ‘Provided you tell me what you know.’
‘But I don’t know anything,’ she burst out. ‘Truly.’
He shrugged. ‘Then I’m the loser. But I’m willing to take that chance. I’ll take you to England, and when we get there you can tell me what you know. Is it a deal?’
She lifted her hands helplessly. ‘You’re just...’
‘Is it a deal?’ he repeated.
Cara dropped her hands and sighed. ‘How long do you think the journey will take?’ she asked.
He shrugged. ‘Three, maybe four days. Maybe less.’
Four days on her own with a man she had never met before. She looked into his blue, blue eyes and felt herself beginning to flush a deep red. ‘It’s... impossible,’ she said. ‘I don’t even know if I can trust you.’
For one split second he looked absolutely exasperated, then he calmly leant over her once more and pushed the door open. ‘Give my love to Luca, won’t you?’
CHAPTER TWO
CARA looked at the woods, sunk in shadowy silence, the sun glinting through the trees, then at Finn. ‘I don’t have much choice, do I?’ she asked softly.
‘You made your choice back there in the church,’ he said quietly. ‘Now you have to decide whether to go on or back down.’
She gazed steadily into his face, the nodded. ‘Okay,’ she said as decisively as she could. ‘I’ll come.’
‘Attagirl.’ He smiled encouragingly, and to her astonishment she felt herself beginning to smile back.
‘Right, come on,’ he said briskly. ‘Out of the car.’
‘Out?’ she echoed. ‘But we’re in- the middle of nowhere!’ Suddenly she looked at him with new eyes, their previous conversation doing nothing to stop the panic spattering through her veins. ‘What are you going to do?’ she whispered. ‘You’re not—’
‘A part-time rapist?’ he supplied softly, a look in his eyes she couldn’t quite interpret. ‘Or maybe a mad axe murderer?’ He shook his head. ‘No, these days I seem to get my kicks out of ruining Mafia weddings.’
‘My family hasn’t got anything to do with the Mafia,’ she said hotly. ‘I keep telling you.’
Finn looked disinterestedly out the window. ‘If you say so,’ he said calmly. ‘Maybe I’ve got this all wrong, after all. Maybe I should just drop you off here. And then you can go home, explain everything in that wonderfully persuasive way you have, and everything’ll be hunky-dory.
‘Your uncle will be terribly understanding, of course, and Luca...’ He paused. ‘Well, Luca will probably just have a couple of aspirin and a lie-down in a darkened room and then forget all about it.’
‘Leave my family out of this,’ she snapped.
He leant towards her. ‘Honey, I would love to leave your family out of this. But I don’t think that’s quite what they have in mind. The sooner we get to England and I get some protection for you, the better.’
Their eyes locked, and Carenza bit her lip. ‘Why do you want me to get out of the car?’ she asked steadily.
‘Because we need to do something about that dress,’ he replied. ‘It’s just the tiniest bit of a giveaway, don’t you think?’
She stared at Finn for a long moment, her thudding pulse subsiding. Then with an effort she nodded and got out of the car. She stood by the door, uncertain, watchful as he got out on his side with an easy grace.
There was something about him that drew the eye, that made her want to look at nothing else, but when he turned and glanced at her over the top of the car, she felt herself beginning inexplicably to blush.
He was coming around to her side, and she turned to meet him, beginning to attempt a smile and then instinctively freezing as she noticed the knife in his hand.
He waggled it at her and she stepped back, wondering whether she should try to run. The strange thing was, she didn’t feel frightened of him. But maybe he really was a crazy man. Madmen often seemed charming, didn’t they? Perhaps he was someone with violent delusions. She took another step back and felt the car hard against her.
‘What...what are you doing?’ Her voice was wobbly, but she couldn’t help it. She forced herself to lift her chin and look him straight in the eye.
‘Here,’ he said impatiently, turning the knife around and handing it to her, handle first. ‘Take it.’
She looked at it blankly as her fingers curled around it, noting mechanically as the tension eased out of her body that it was just an ordinary penknife, and then stared at him. ‘What do you want me to do with it?’ she asked.
.He moved his hands irritably. ‘I don’t know,’ he retorted. ‘But you have to do something with that dress of yours. Cut those frilly bits off, cut it shorter, anything. I don’t care, but make it look more like a normal dress.’
She gazed at the creased white silk and then at him. ‘I can’t cut this up,’ she whispered. ‘It’s a work of art. It was made by Elsa Schiapparelli in nineteen thirty something. The hand-stitching alone—’
His jaw clenched and he took a step towards her. ‘I don’t care if it was made by Elsa the lion in Born Free, just do something with it!’
She looked into his lean, lightly tanned face and bit her lip. ‘Maybe I could borrow some of your clothes,’ she said at last.
He slapped his forehead with his hand. ‘You know,’ he said softly, ‘I thought I had everything for this trip. The penknife that has so many attachments I’m sure there’s a fold-up bicycle among them, an idiot-proof camera, a well-respected credit card. And you know what? I left all my dresses at home. Isn’t that extraordinary?’
Cara ripped the flowers from her hair and threw them on the ground. She wanted to stamp on them, she was so suddenly, furiously angry. ‘You are the most impossible man I have ever met,’ she stormed. ‘You just walk in and steal me from my wedding as though you had ice water in your veins, and now you are acting like an outraged duchess at the idea of me wearing one of your shirts.’
Finn’s mouth opened and then closed with a snap. Without another word he yanked open the boot and tore out a grip. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘So sometimes you’re allowed to have better ideas than me. But we’ve wasted enough time. It’ll be dark soon, and I want to get moving.’ He smiled. ‘I keep thinking I hear a fleet of Mercedes thundering up the road, with Luca at the head doing his impersonation of Vlad the Impaler.’
A thin chill went down her spine as she thought of how terrifying Luca could be when he was angry. She looked straight into Finn’s face.
‘What’s the matter?’ he demanded.
‘You don’t look particularly scared at the idea of being chased by Luca,’ she said softly.
He shrugged. ‘He hasn’t caught me yet,’ he replied quietly. ‘And in any case, I’m more worried about you.’ He looked at the sky and then at her. ‘At least I stand no chance of him