Enemies at the Altar. Melanie Milburne
Читать онлайн книгу.
‘And now we come to Andreas and Sienna. I think we should conduct this in private. Just the two of you, if the others don’t mind.’
Andreas felt his spine tighten. He didn’t want his name bracketed with that little wildcat. It made him feel edgy. It had always made him feel that way. She was a tearaway who rocked his world in ways he didn’t want.
Had never wanted.
He had stayed away from the family home because of her. Sienna’s outrageous deceit had destroyed any chance of a working relationship with his father for the last eight years. Andreas blamed her for it all.
He hated her with a vengeance.
The lawyer waited for the others to leave the library before he opened the folder in front of him. ‘The Château de Chalvy in Provence is entailed to you both, but on the proviso that you live together legally as man and wife for a minimum of six months.’
THE OUTRAGEOUS SISTERS
The twin sisters everyone’s talking about!
Separated by secrets …
Having grown up in different families, Gisele and
Sienna live lives that are worlds apart. Then a very
public revelation propels them into the world’s eye …
Drawn together by scandal!
Now the sisters have found each other—
but are they at risk of losing their hearts to the two men
who are determined to peel back the layers of
their glittering façades?
In April Gisele found out if she really was
DESERVING OF HIS DIAMONDS?
This month find out if Sienna says ‘I do’!
About the Author
MELANIE MILBURNE says: ‘I am married to a surgeon, Steve, and have two gorgeous sons, Paul and Phil. I live in Hobart, Tasmania, where I enjoy an active life as a long-distance runner and a nationally ranked top ten Master’s swimmer. I also have a Master’s Degree in Education, but my children totally turned me off the idea of teaching! When not running or swimming I write, and when I’m not doing all of the above I’m reading. And if someone could invent a way for me to read during a four-kilometre swim I’d be even happier!’
Recent titles by the same author:
DESERVING OF HIS DIAMONDS?
(The Outrageous Sisters)
HIS POOR LITTLE RICH GIRL
THE WEDDING CHARADE
(The Sabbatini Brothers)
SHOCK: ONE-NIGHT HEIR
(The Sabbatini Brothers)
SCANDAL: UNCLAIMED LOVE-CHILD
(The Sabbatini Brothers)
Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk
Enemies
at the Altar
Melanie Milburne
To my niece Angie Fouche,
who is a beautiful and brave young woman.
Love you.
P.S. EEEE!!!!
CHAPTER ONE
ANDREAS got the call from his younger sister Miette in the early hours of the morning.
‘Papà is dead.’
Three words that under normal circumstances should have evoked a maelstrom of emotion, but to Andreas they meant nothing other than he was now free from having to play happy families on the extremely rare occasions his path crossed with his father. ‘When is the funeral?’ he asked.
‘Thursday,’ Miette said. ‘Will you come?’
Andreas glanced at the sleeping woman lying beside him in the king-sized hotel bed. He rubbed at his stub-bled jaw and let out a frustrated sigh. It was just typical of his father to choose the most inconvenient time to die. This coming weekend in Washington DC was where he had planned to ask Portia Briscoe to marry him once his business here was complete. He even had the ring in his briefcase. Now he would have to wait for another opportunity to propose. There was no way he wanted his engagement and marriage to be forever associated with anything to do with his father, even his demise.
‘Andreas?’ Miette’s voice pierced his reverie and his conscience. ‘It would be good if you could be there, for me even if not for Papà. You know how much I hate funerals, especially after Mamma’s.’
Andreas felt a claw of anger clench at his insides at the thought of their beautiful mother and how cruelly she had been betrayed. He was sure that had been what had finally killed her, not the cancer. The shame of finding out her husband was sleeping with the hired help while she was battling gruelling rounds of chemotherapy had broken her spirit and her heart.
And then, to add insult to injury, the brazenness of that witch Nell Baker and her trashy little sleep-around slut of a daughter Sienna had turned his mother’s final farewell into a cheap and tawdry soap opera.
‘I’ll be there,’ he said.
But that little hot-headed harlot Sienna Baker had better not.
The first person Sienna saw when she arrived at the funeral in Rome was Andreas Ferrante. At least her eyes registered it was him, but she had felt him seconds earlier in her body. As soon as she had stepped over the portal she had felt a shiver run up her spine and her heart had started a crazy little pitter-patter beat that was nothing like its normal, healthy, steady rhythm.
She hadn’t seen him in years and yet she had known he was there.
He was sitting in one of the pews at the front of the cathedral. Even though he had his back towards her she could see he was as staggeringly gorgeous as ever. His aristocratic bearing was like an aura that surrounded him. He exuded wealth and power and status. His glossy raven-black head was several inches higher than any of the other black-suited men sitting nearby, his thick, slightly wavy hair neither long nor short, but cut and styled so it brushed against the collar of his shirt.
He turned his head and leaned down to say something to the young woman seated beside him. Just seeing the profile of his face made Sienna want to put a hand to her chest where her heart was flapping like a frantic fish suddenly flung out of its fish tank. For years she had dismissed his features from her mind. She had dared not think of him. He was a part of her past she was ashamed of—deeply ashamed. She had been so young and foolish, so immature and insecure. She hadn’t thought through the consequences of twisting the truth. But then, who did at the age of seventeen?
And then, as if Andreas sensed her looking at him, he twisted his head and locked gazes with her. It was like a lightning strike when those hazel eyes hit hers. They narrowed and glared, pinning her to the spot like a bug on a corkboard.
Sienna pasted an indifferent smile on her face and, giving her silver-blonde head a toss, sashayed up the aisle and shimmied her way into a pew on the left hand side a few rows back from his.
She