The Wedding Party And Holiday Escapes Ultimate Collection. Кейт Хьюит
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as she came down the aisle, her bearing regal and straight, her chin tilted proudly and her eyes flashing violet ice, he felt the hopes he hadn’t even realised he still had plummet.
She was just as he remembered. Just as composed, just as soulless and scornful as he’d first feared. And in about three minutes she would become his wife.
As she joined him at the altar, her dress whispering against his legs, she lifted her chin another notch, all haughty pride and cool purpose.
Sandro turned away without so much as a smile and listened to the archbishop begin with a leaden heart.
An hour later they were man and wife, circulating through one of the palace’s many receiving rooms among the few dozen guests. They still hadn’t spoken to each other, although Sandro had brushed his lips against Liana’s cold ones at the end of the ceremony before she’d stepped quickly away.
They’d walked down the aisle together, her hand lying rigidly on his arm, and gone directly to one of the palace’s salons for a champagne reception.
Liana, Sandro couldn’t help notice, seemed to take to the role of queen with instant, icy poise. She smiled and chatted with a reserved dignity that he supposed fitted her station. She was friendly without being gregarious or warm or real.
She wasn’t, he thought, anything he wanted. But he had to live with it, with her, and he was determined to put such thoughts behind him.
He moved through the crowds, chatting with various people, conscious of Liana by his side, smiling and yet so still and straight, so proud. She seemed untouchable and completely indifferent to him, yet even so he found his mind—and other parts of his body—leaping ahead to a few hours from now, when they would leave the reception and all the guests behind and retire upstairs to the tower room that was the traditional honeymoon suite.
There wouldn’t actually be a honeymoon; he saw no point, and he doubted Liana did either. But tonight... Tonight they would consummate their marriage. The prospect filled him with desire and distaste, hunger and loathing.
He wanted her, he knew, but he didn’t want to want her, not when she didn’t even respect him. And she obviously didn’t want to want him.
Sandro took a long swallow of champagne, and it tasted bitter in his mouth. What a mess.
* * *
Liana felt tension thrum through her body as she made a valiant effort to listen to another dignitary talk about Maldinia’s growing industry, and how Prince Leo was helping to raise funds for technological improvements.
But her real focus was on the man next to her. Her husband. He listened and chatted and smiled just as she did, but she felt the tension in his body, had seen the chilly expression in his eyes when he’d turned to her, and in the moment before she’d said her vows she had felt panic bubble up inside her. She’d wanted to rip off her veil and run back down the aisle, away from everything. The anxiety and hope in her parents’ eyes. The ice in her groom’s. And the churning fear and guilt inside herself that she could never escape, no matter how far or fast she ran.
And so she’d stayed and repeated the vows that would bind her to this man for life. She’d promised to love and honour and obey him, traditional vows for a traditional marriage, and she’d wished she’d considered how different it would feel, to fill her mouth full of lies.
She didn’t love this man. She hadn’t honoured him. And as for obedience...
Sandro placed a hand on her elbow, and despite every intention not to feel anything for him, just that simple touch set sparks racing up her arm, exploding in her heart. She hated how much he affected her. Hated how weak and vulnerable he made her feel, how he made her want things she knew he would never give her.
‘We will say our goodbyes in a few minutes,’ he said in a low voice, and Liana stiffened.
‘Goodbyes? But we’re not going anywhere.’
Sandro’s mouth curved in a humourless smile. His eyes were as hard as metal. ‘We’re going to our honeymoon suite, Liana. To go to bed.’
She pulled her arm away from his light touch, realisation icing her veins. Of course. Their wedding night. They would have to consummate their marriage now. It was a duty she’d known she would have to perform, even if she hadn’t let herself think too much about it. Now it loomed large and incredibly immediate, incredibly intimate, and even as dread pooled in her stomach she couldn’t keep a contrary excitement from leaping low in her belly—fear and fascination, desire and dread all mixed together. She hated the maelstrom this man created within her.
‘You aren’t going to steal away yet, are you?’ Alyse approached them, Leo by her side. ‘I haven’t even had a chance to talk with Liana yet, not properly.’
Liana offered a sick smile, her mind still on the night ahead, alone with Sandro.
‘You’ll have plenty of opportunity later,’ Sandro answered, his fingers closing once more over Liana’s elbow. ‘But for now I want my bride to myself.’ He smiled as he said it, but to Liana it felt like the smile of a predator, intent on devouring its prey.
And that was how intimacy with Sandro felt. Like being devoured. Like losing herself, everything she’d ever clung to.
Alyse glanced uncertainly at Sandro before turning back to Liana. ‘We’ll have to have a proper chat soon,’ she said, and Liana nodded jerkily.
‘Yes, I look forward to getting to know both of you,’ she said with as much warmth as she could inject into her voice, although she feared it wasn’t all that much. ‘You both seem very happy in your marriage.’
‘And you will be in yours, Queen Liana,’ Leo said quietly, ‘if you just give Sandro some time to get used to the idea.’
Liana watched as he slipped his hand into his wife’s, his fingers squeezing hers gently. Something in her ached at the sight of that small yet meaningful touch. When had she last been touched like that?
It had been years. Decades. She’d found it so hard to give and receive affection after Chiara’s death. For a second she could almost feel her sister’s skinny arms hook around her neck as she pressed her cheek next to hers. She could feel her silky hair, her warm breath as she whispered in her ear. She’d always had secrets, Chiara, silly secrets. She’d whisper her nonsense in Liana’s ear and then giggle, squeezing her tight.
Liana swallowed and looked away. She couldn’t think of Chiara now or she’d fall apart completely. And she didn’t want to think about the yearning that had opened up inside her, an overwhelming desire for the kind of intimacy she’d closed herself off from for so long. To give and receive. To know and be known. To love and be loved.
None of it possible, not with this man. Her husband.
She might be leaving this room for her wedding night, but that kind of intimacy, with love as its sure foundation, was not something she was about to experience. Something she didn’t want to experience, even if everything in her protested otherwise.
Love opened you up to all sorts of pain. It hurt.
But she didn’t even need to worry about that, because right now she and Sandro were just going to have sex. Emotionless sex.
They spent the next few minutes saying their goodbyes; her mother hugged her tightly and whispered that she hoped she would be happy. Liana murmured back nonsense about how she already was and saw the tension that bracketed her mother’s eyes lessen just a little. Her father didn’t hug her; he never had, not since Chiara had died. She didn’t blame him.
A quarter of an hour later she left the reception with Sandro; neither of them spoke as they walked down several long, opulent corridors and then up the wide front staircase of the palace, down another corridor, up another staircase, and finally to the turret room that was kept for newlyweds.
Sandro opened the door first, ushering her in, and Liana didn’t look at him as she walked into the room. She took in the huge stone