with which he did that annoyed her, for she had hit every tiny button on
that even tinier panel in her frustration and got nowhere. She stared UP
at him, saw the faint rise of dark blood scoring his cheekbones.
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'You shouldn't have accessed my messages,' Rio drawled with freezing cool.
Holly could not credit the level of sheer rage that blasted through her
at that facetious response, that unjust attempt to turn the blame back
on her. 'Well, your simple phone wasn't simple enough and I couldn't get
rid of the blasted thing. And what's more,' Holly snapped, truly
lathered up into a steaming temper, 'you're just trying to sidestep the
whole subject and I'm not so stupid that I can't see that!'
'If you raise your voice once more, I'm going to cart you out to the
limo like a sack of coal,' Rio murmured with a smouldering smile full of
threat.
Holly sucked in a deep, charged breath. She felt as though the top of
her head might fly off with the force of unvented anger still blazing up
inside her.
'So go upstairs now and get changed and we will say our goodbyes,' Rio
completed in full command mode.
'Get changed into...what?' Holly queried helplessly.
'Into your going-away outfit-'
'I haven't got one,' Holly told him. 'You told me we weren't going
abroad until tomorrow. It's about the only thing you did tell me. I
mean, you didn't mention the two hundred guests, the press or the hotel
reception either.'
'I can't believe you didn't pack anything.' Rio was impervious to that
blatant invitation to take their argument into a new and fresh
dimension. 'But I presume you want to throw your bouquet.'
'You must be joking. Waste my lovely flowers on this crowd?' Holly
shrugged a rigid shoulder not very successfully and stuck her nose in
the air.
Fifteen minutes later they were in the limousine and seated in silence.
Indeed, the silence went on and on and on until it seemed to howl in her
ears like a gathering storm, clawing at her nerves.
'You have gorgeous hair,' Rio murmured in a gritty tone. 'If you heard
anyone comparing that glorious mane of yours to a ragdoll's, it was pure
bitchiness. As for your gown, it looks wonderful, and if it was cheap it
was the find of the century. Your accent's cute, it's you. I can't
imagine you without it.'
Holly snatched in a shuddering breath but said nothing.
'Jeremy was drunk and he is very sorry but, let's face it, he wasn't to
know the bride would be in the public bar. I don't like what he said and
I'm angry that you should've been hurt but I really don't give a damn
what people say!'
'Like Rhett Butler...?' she squeezed out shakily.
'He walked away. I'm not about to...nor on my wedding night,' Rio purred
like a predatory tiger on the prowl, his earthy intonation sending a
quiver of helpless awareness down her sensitive spine. 'As for the text
message you saw. It was an old message. I wasn't aware it was still
stored and it's now been deleted.'
'People think you got me pregnant and that that's why you broke up with
your fiancée. I don't like being stuck with the blame.'
'It's a five-day wonder, not worth worrying about.'
'Was...she?'
The silence hummed as if she had turned on a turbo switch. She could
literally feel his rising tension. 'At one time I thought so, and then I
realised that she wasn't'
'I'd kind of like to know what went wrong,' Holly admitted, but only
after a long pause to see if he added anything more.
'I don't want to discuss that. It happened before I met you and has
nothing to do with you,' Rio countered with cool emphasis.
In receipt of that snub, Holly felt flags of pink mortification
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unfurl in her cheeks. Well, he hadn't missed and hit the wall there, had
he? Christabel was not to be talked about. Only at that point did Holly
notice that they appeared to be leaving the city behind them. 'Where are
we going?'
'We're spending the night at my country house and flying out to the
Maldives tomorrow.'
She had never even heard of the Maldives and once again felt crucified
by her own ignorance. All those hazy schooldays she had sat daydreaming
and looking out of windows, giggling at notes passed between her
friends, never, ever appreciating that some day she might regret not
taking school seriously. He probably had a university degree, she
thought with a sinking heart. Every time she opened her mouth she was at
risk of dropping herself into a big black hole of embarrassment.
'I've asked for your cases to be sent down to the Priory. I assume you
can get by without Timothy until tomorrow when we all meet up at the
airport.'
Holly swallowed hard and nodded in reluctant silence. It had not been a
great wedding. She had been too nervous and her self-esteem was still
too low for her to feel confident in such exalted company. She so much
wanted their marriage to work but she could not feel she had made much
of a start.
'Are you still in love with her?' Holly hadn't even known that she was
about to ask that question, but even as the anxious words escaped her
lips she saw that that was what she most feared: that every moment he
spent with her he might be fighting the desire to be with the unknown
Christabel.
Rio did not pretend to misunderstand. 'No.'
Slowly she breathed again and her tension eased. Obviously something
pretty serious must have happened for
him to break off his engagement to Christabel. She did not feel he was a
here today, gone tomorrow sort of bloke. So she had nothing to worry
about and it would be very foolish of her to risk spoiling the early
days of their marriage with pointless regret and envy that she did not
have his love. She would just have to make herself lovable, which meant
finding out where the Maldives were and learning Italian and trying to
put him first rather than Timothy.
Some time later, at the end of the long, winding, wooded drive that the
limo had traversed, an enormous Gothic pile in mellow stone met Holly's
stunned gaze. Against a backdrop of mature trees and smooth green lawns,
the house looked magnificent.
'How old is it?' Holly's attention lingered on the innumerable
diamond-paned windows and turrets and the hot-potch of different roof
levels.
'The earliest part of the building has been dated to the twelfth century
but the main building works took place four hundred years later,
although, of course, it has been altered in many ways since then.
Marchmont Priory was my mother's family home.' Rio assisted her out of
the limo. 'She stays here in the warmer months of the year.'
Old words were carved into the weathered stone lintel above the heavy
oak door. Elizabethan English, welcoming all to the Priory, Rio
explained before sweeping his curious bride up into his arms and
carrying her in traditional style over the threshold. There was no sign
even of who had opened the door and she commented o
n that.
'The staff are engaged in tactful invisibility,' Rio informed her.
Laughing at that explanation, Holly let her admiring gaze journey over
the worn flagstone floor and the inviting fire burning in the giant
stone fireplace. There was a wonderful atmosphere of peace and comfort.
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'It's just beautiful,' she told him. Rio set her down and tugged her
face up so that he could gaze down into her eyes. 'So you don't think
it's a little shabby and outdated?'
'No, it's glorious...it feels like a proper home, you know, not all
perfect and fancy like the town house.'
Rio sent her an appreciative smile that made her heart lurch inside her.
'I confess that I've always loved it just as it is. As a kid, I used to
run wild here with my English cousins.'
'What were you like as a kid?' Holly was smiling, happiness enclosing
her in a protective cocoon, all her earlier uncertainties set behind her
and forgotten. She loved him. It might kind of embarrass her that she
felt that strongly after so short a time but just then she felt that
there was absolutely nothing that she would not do to make him happy.
'Spoilt rotten. Only-child syndrome. Got everything I ever wanted and
more, cara mia...ah, forgot, terms of endearment are on the forbidden
list,' Rio mocked.
'Not now we're married,' Holly hastened to assure him as his hand
settled on her spine to draw her closer and her pulses began racing.
'Makes a difference, does it?'
Holly nodded.
He let caressing fingers toy with her ringlets, watched her arch towards
him in instinctive response, seeking out the hard heat of his lean,
strong body. His stunning dark golden eyes flamed and he bent his head
and brought his mouth swooping down on hers with an irresistible passion
that she felt right down to her curling toes.
When Holly emerged from that scorching first move she was being carried
up the big carved staircase and she was weak with the strength of her
own longing.
Shouldering open a door, Rio glanced down at her with a look of
amusement. 'I'll close the curtains for you if you like...'
It was only early evening and she blushed and shook her bright head,
taking the opportunity to scan the big wood-panelled room and the oak
four-poster bed, resplendent in dark red brocade drapes that glowed in
the fading light. A beautiful arrangement of white lilies adorned a
table near the burning fire. A fire in a bedroom. She could hardly
believe the luxury of it.
Rio lowered her to the floor and began removing her jewellery piece by
piece. When he realised that her earrings were tied on, he surveyed her
in wonderment.
'I need to get my ears pierced.. it's just I'm a bit squeamish about
that sort of thing,' Holly admitted ruefully.
She followed him to the doorway of the most incredible Victorian
bathroom that also rejoiced in its own fire and watched him locate a
pair of scissors. He was so beautiful, she thought with an inner ache of
possessiveness that seemed to squeeze at her very heart. Daylight picked
up the blue-black tint of his luxuriant hair, already ruffled by her
disrespectful fingertips. She studied that bold, vibrant profile with
consuming fascination that he was her husband. That against all the odds
someone like her should have ended up with someone like him. He cut the
thread with which she had attached the earrings and smoothed a finger
over the tiny red score marks left behind.
'Why did you hurt yourself like that?'
'I didn't want to lose them.' That he had asked her to Wear them went
unspoken.
He removed his tie, undid his collar and tossed his jacket down onto a
chair. Suddenly she felt shy, shy as she had been before the revelation
of that first experience with him, now there was a wicked burn beneath
the shyness, a
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tingling expectation she could not repress. She just looked at him and
she wanted him. It was that simple and it had been that way from the
first moment for her.
'I'm glad you couldn't get changed, bella mia,' Rio confided lazily,
scorching golden eyes flaring over her slender figure. 'I spent half the
day fantasising about undoing those very provocative laces.'
'Did you?' Beneath the tight bodice, her breasts were stirring and
lifting, the tender peaks straining to taut points. Momentarily she was
embarrassed by her own susceptibility to a certain look, a certain tone
in that dark, deep drawl. He just generated the most impossible level of
'I love the way you watch me. Like there is no other guy in the world
for you.'
Well, there wasn't for her, but it was no longer a sentiment she wanted
to brandish, not for the benefit of a male who had informed her that he
thought he could get fond of her. If he had to think about it too much,
the likelihood was that he would never get beyond lust and liking. And
she wanted a lot more, knew it in that instant, saw it as clear as day.
She wanted him to love her, really love her, the way he must have loved
his ex-girlfriend.
'You're all warmth and promise and desire...' Rio drew her back against
him, brushed her bronze-coloured hair out of his path and let his mouth
press against a taut, slim shoulder. 'And it fires me up every time I
look at you.'
'Oh...' A slight sound was wrenched from Holly as she trembled in
reaction to the heat of his knowing mouth against her cooler skin. He
knew exactly where to touch her. Her head tipped back against his
muscular chest, throat extending as she struggled to breathe again, eyes
sliding languorously shut. She felt as if the very blood in her veins
was turning liquid with longing. 'You match this room. I ought to be
wearing a Tudor doublet and a plumed hat,' Rio teased thickly, his proud
dark head bent over hers as she opened her eyes and saw them etched
together in the carved mirror adorning the table set in front of the
tall windows. She watched long brown fingers pluck loose the laces with
studied slowness and her heart raced. She pushed helplessly back against
him, already aroused beyond belief just by the contact of his big,
powerful body against hers.
'The Tudor bridegroom was probably a pig,' Holly mumbled, recalling that
much from her history lessons on the subservient role of women through
the ages.
'Not necessarily. There are love letters and diaries stored in the
library downstairs that tell a very different story.' Rio loosened the
laces level by level until her anticipation was at such screaming pitch
that she was ashamed of herself.
He released his breath in a soft, sexy hiss as he discovered that she
was not wearing a bra. Embarrassed, she mumbled, 'My bra showed through
the silk at the back and I took it off again-'
'Don't apologise for what I like, cara.' He eased down the dress from
her shoulders and shimmied the soft fabric down her arms so that it fell
to her hips, baring her full breasts to his v
iew and attention. Her
breath caught audibly in her throat as he let his expert fingers roam
over her achingly sensitive nipples, catching the swollen buds between
thumb and forefinger.
He might as well have set a torch to kindling inside her, for the
strength in her lower limbs just dissolved, legs shaking under her as
she fell back against him, the whole of her consumed by the power of her
own almost agonised response. With a husky laugh he gathered her up with
easy strength and laid her down on the big bed.
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Rio gazed down at her, lean, strong face intent. 'Your response to me is
the biggest erotic buzz I have ever had.'
Odd how that assurance seemed to both reassure and undermine, she
reflected as the wave of weakness lessened while he plucked off her
shoes and began to tug her gown from beneath her hips. On the one hand,
it did not say much for his intimate experiences with other women, which
delighted her, but on the other hand, it suggested all over again that
it was her longing for him which was her strongest attraction, and that
was humiliating.
'Dio mio...' Rio backed off a step, the better to appreciate the sheer
stockings, diminutive briefs and the blue garter his bride wore. His
shimmering scrutiny lit on her hot self-conscious face and he flashed
her a wolfish smile. 'Full marks for surprising me.'