CHAPTER EIGHT
LAYLAKNEWSHE was alone in the bed before she even opened her eyes. Knew from the faint trace of cologne that Sebastiano had already showered and dressed. Knew from the all-consuming silence that he’d left the room.
She wouldn’t see him again until they married. Russo family tradition dictated the bride and groom spent their day and night before a wedding apart.
A note had been placed on her bedside table. Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, she read, I’ll see you at the chapel tomorrow. Try not to miss me too much. S.
Resting her head back on the pillow, she clutched the note to her chest and told herself the ache in her heart didn’t mean she was missing him already.
Sebastiano had not expected to feel nerves. After the roller coaster of the last few weeks, he’d thought any nerves had been numbed but he stood at the altar of his chapel, colourfully dressed guests crammed into every available inch of space, his chest tight, stomach rolling, only half listening to what Paolo was chattering on about.
He had no reason to feel like this. Layla wasn’t going to leave him stranded at the altar. Forget all she had to lose if she backed out, she just wouldn’t do it. He knew it in his guts.
He supposed it was the twenty-four hours they’d spent apart giving time for doubt to sew its seeds.
He’d felt her absence acutely.
Five days in his home and it was like she’d imprinted into the walls. Every minute of their time apart had been spent with Layla lodged so firmly in his mind that he saw her everywhere.
She’d played her part beautifully. Everything was working out exactly as he’d intended. The fever for the wedding of the century was not just eclipsing the news about the money loss but putting it in so much shade that it was unlikely to ever see sunlight. It was the leading news story in all the Sicilian and Italian press, much of the rest of Europe’s news channels including it in their coverage. An Italian television channel had set aside three hours of scheduling for an exclusive live feed of the wedding—negotiated by Sebastiano’s people—which gave its crew access the press crammed at the villa gates could only dream about.
But what, he now wondered, would happen if sunlight ever did shine on the money loss? What would cause the press to dredge it back up? How long would he have to stay married to Layla for the press not to become suspicious of the timings? A few journalists were vocally doubting the veracity of the marriage but their columns and musings on the subject had been barely noticed, not when heads of state and industry had been congregating in Sicily with personal hairdressers and stylists joining them like additional baggage.
A few months of marriage would be too suspicious, he now thought. To make it completely realistic, it would have to last a few years at the very least. And if Layla really was pregnant...
For the first time since the meal with his parents, he was unable to stop his mind from conjuring her hand absently resting on her stomach and the gentle stroke of her fingers.
Layla stepped out of the guest cottage, hardly able to believe how spectacular the grounds looked with all the imported pillars wrapped in blooming red and white roses surrounding the perimeter and the beautifully adorned benches, tables and chairs artfully placed throughout. With the beautiful, winged angel villa in the distance, the whole scene was like something out of a fairy tale. Her wedding dress made her feel like she was a character from a fairy tale. The horse drawn carriage that would take her through the vast estate to the chapel topped the fairy-tale feeling off.
Three footmen appeared. One held a hand out to her mother and helped her into the carriage. When he held out his hand for Layla, the other two carefully took the train of her dress and lifted it so she could sit without becoming entangled in it.
Holding tightly to her mum’s hand, she did her best to compose her features into those of a typical excited bride for the video cameras strategically placed along the route for the live feed.
As much as she knew she shouldn’t feel genuine excitement, she’d woken after a fitful night’s sleep with butterflies in her stomach much like the ones she’d woken with as a child on her birthday. When the horses leading them trotted along the wide pathway that cut through Sebastiano’s woodlands, overhung by arched trees, the butterflies grew in strength and her grip on her mother’s hand tightened.
‘It will all work out for the best,’ her mum said quietly without dropping her smile. ‘Have faith.’
Layla bit back from saying, What, like it worked out for the best for you with my father?
She wouldn’t hurt her mother’s feelings for the world.
As her mother had gently pointed out while they were holed up in the guest cottage, fate was already taking a different course from the one she’d had to follow when she was pregnant with Layla.
Sebastiano hadn’t been wrong in his observation that mother and daughter were very different. Her mother trusted fate to make things right, even when it must have felt that fate was laughing at her. Layla trusted her fate and her baby’s fate only in herself. Their marriage would make it impossible for Sebastiano to walk away from their child but she would not put faith in him being an involved father once they went their separate ways. She couldn’t. The only people she could trust to love and cherish her baby were herself and her mother.
None of this stopped the butterflies flying up to her throat when the beautifully renovated ancient chapel appeared in the distance, the afternoon sun shining over its domed roof.
The footmen helped her down from the carriage and her bridesmaids, all Russo cousins and Russo cousins’ children, took hold of the train.
Taking her mother’s hand, Layla took the deepest breath of her life and walked through the open door.
Her heart burst into song to see the man waiting at the altar for her.
Sebastiano’s laughter at Paolo’s whispered observation that the fascinator being worn by a royal princess looked like a piece of plasticine ‘art’ his six-year-old daughter would make died on his lips as the vision from heaven appeared at the door.
A hush fell.
Stomach tightening, his pulses accelerated. Blood rushed to his head.
There was a dim awareness of music striking up. The heavenly vision’s eyes locked onto his and then even the music ceased to exist for him.
Slowly, she glided to him like a shimmering wingless angel. Her figure-hugging white dress with its spaghetti sleeves and scooped neckline that skimmed her cleavage was embellished with thousands of tiny crystals, around her swanlike neck a large teardrop blue-diamond necklace, smaller matching earrings on display, her hair swept into a side knot.
And then she smiled her perfect lopsided smile and the angel vanished and sexy, beautiful Layla, all warm flesh and hot blood, took her place. In an instant the blood pounding in his head fell into his expanding heart, and he took her hand from the woman beside her...her mother...and drew her to him.
Dio, he’d known she would be the most beautiful bride to have ever graced Sicily’s soil but even he hadn’t imagined such a magical vision.
‘You are spellbinding,’ he breathed into her ear, and was rewarded with another dazzling lopsided smile.
Fingers threaded, they faced the priest and the wedding mass began.
When Layla had first been told Sebastiano had organised a full Catholic wedding ceremony, she’d wondered how she would make it through a whole hour without yawning or fidgeting, but the magic of it all had seeped into her from her first look at her groom. As the ceremony went on, the music, the singing, the candles, the incense, even the Italian it was all conducted in, all commingled and slipped silently into her soul and filled it with light.
This was her marriage. Sebastiano was her groom. Her groom, looking as handsome as she’d ever seen him in a full morning suit complete with light grey waistcoat and dark grey silk cravat and handkerchief. A proper groom. A proper groom for a proper wedding.
In that moment it came to her that whatever their reasons for marrying and whatever happened in the future, their marriage for however long it lasted would be real. Everything else, from Sebastiano’s reputation escaping untarnished and his ancient bank continuing with a Russo at the helm, even her law firm thriving on the money he’d be pumping into it, was a side-effect to the two most potent truths. They would be husband and wife, and their child, whatever denial Sebastiano might currently be experiencing, would have a father. A real father who, once he accepted the truth, would want it.
It was time to make their vows.
Hands clasped, they faced each other.
The priest addressed Sebastiano first. His lips moved in response but Layla’s head was too full to hear.
How many brides pledged their lives to a man only to find their hearts shattered when the true nature of their loves finally came out? she wondered.
She already knew Sebastiano’s true nature and because she knew it, he could never shatter her heart. He’d already done his worst. He’d lied to her. Ghosted her. Blackmailed her. Forced her into this marriage. Denied their child. She wouldn’t count kidnap seeing as she’d started that part by cuffing him to a bed, but, if not for that, she could add kidnapping to her list of wrongs.
None of that meant their marriage had to be a nightmare to live through, not unless she chose to make it so.
He wouldn’t make it a nightmare for her. He could. Easily. But he wouldn’t. It was a certainty she felt all the way to her marrow.
The priest turned to her and recited her vows in English.
She gazed into the green depths of Sebastiano’s eyes. Caught the glimmer of desire that was never far from the surface.
Caught something else too. A steadfast openness.
The little avocado-sized life in her belly stirred. Just a little fluttering before stilling again, but it was enough to make her already expanded heart bloom further as she kept her stare on the father of the little life and said, with only the slightest hitch in her voice, ‘I do.’
Sebastiano stood with his new wife in the back garden of his estate shaking hands with the guests lined up to congratulate them. The train of her dress had been cleverly removed, champagne and canapés were circulating, background music playing, conversations being struck between friends and strangers alike, children running wild and letting off steam after the long service. All of this he registered on a subconscious level.
His lips still burned from the kiss they’d shared to seal their marriage. And the kiss they’d shared for the official wedding photos. His neck still burned from the cup of her hand to it when she’d leaned in for those kisses. His loins still burned from the effect of the glimmer fired at him from her forget-me-not eyes in the beat before their mouths had fused.
The line had shortened considerably when Laurence and his husband reached them. After vigorously shaking Sebastiano’s hand and thanking him profusely for flying the entire firm over and putting them up in a nearby hotel for the weekend, he pulled Layla into an enormous bear hug.
‘Aren’t you the dark horse?’ He beamed when he released her from his embrace. Holding her biceps, he stared at her with the pride of a father. ‘Not even a hint that you were seeing this fine fellow.’
‘We wanted to keep it private until we were both certain,’ she said without missing a beat.
‘Well, I’m delighted for you. We all are. And what a glorious home. You’ll never drag yourself back to London.’
‘Just watch me,’ she said, laughing. ‘I’ll be back at my desk in three weeks. You’ll never get rid of me.’
‘Exactly what I wanted to hear!’
Once the line dwindled to nothing it was time to circulate properly with the people who most needed to be satisfied that Russo Banca Internazionale remained in safe hands. Layla remained glued to his side, holding conversations with the spouses who wanted to know all about her. The moment Layla told the spouses about her firm, the partners tuned in too, their interest piqued. Whatever their charitable public personas might say, it was beyond most of their guests’ comprehension that anyone could spend all those years in education to choose a career with a law firm that barely paid a living wage.
By the time the gong rang out informing the wedding party it was time for the wedding feast, Layla had taken so much of the spotlight with their guests that he doubted any of them gave another thought about Sebastiano other than to think he must be the luckiest man in Europe to have snared such a beautiful, intelligent, compassionate wife. He’d even overheard his mother telling a group of her society friends that, though she was of course disappointed Layla wasn’t Sicilian, she was perfect in every other way.
‘Nicely played,’ he murmured as they headed inside to the banquet room.
She squeezed her fingers threaded through his and smiled.
‘Extra nice touch pointing Laurence out to them all.’ The donations would come flooding in, he was certain.
‘I thought so too,’ she said beatifically, then winked and added, ‘I’m still holding you to that five million you promised the firm, though.’
‘I will transfer it first thing in the morning,’ he assured her.
She stopped walking and, eyes brimming with glee, tapped the end of his nose. ‘Exactly what I wanted to hear.’
He captured her hand and kissed it. ‘You seem happy.’ She radiated with it, a glow emanating from her that dazzled.
She laughed softly. ‘I’m an excellent actress, remember?’
If this happiness was an act then it was the performance of her life.
Slipping an arm around her waist, he pulled her flush to him. ‘Can you act the role of bride who can’t bear to wait another second without a kiss from her new husband?’
‘Let me see...’ She cupped the back of his neck and raised her face to his. He breathed in the scent of her sweet breath before her lips brushed as lightly as a feather to his. With a sigh, she tilted her head back and gazed into his eyes. ‘How was that?’
He gave a soft growl. ‘You call that a kiss?’
‘I call it an aperitif.’
Damn it, but there was a pull in his loins, the tell-tale tugs of arousal manifesting into something physical.
Instead of doing the sane thing and letting her go, he held her even more tightly to him. ‘An aperitif or a tease?’
Eyes gleaming, her teeth razed against her bottom lip. And then she kissed him properly, a deep, hungry kiss that filled his senses with her sweet taste and made him wish for a trapdoor to fall through with her and a soft mattress to land on.
He didn’t know which of them broke it, but when they came apart, her cheeks were so flushed and her eyes so dazed that he knew this part, at least, was no act.
Hands still hooked around his neck, she cleared her throat and whispered, ‘Better?’
Worse. Much worse. Unless he let her go right now, he’d never be able to show his face in polite society again. ‘That was an upgrade on the aperitif,’ he conceded.
Exhaling a sigh, she unhooked her arms, stepped back and rubbed her thumb against the side of his mouth. Then she smiled her beautiful lopsided smile and teased, ‘We can’t have Sebastiano Russo dining with world leaders with lipstick around his mouth, can we?’
Layla felt giddy as she danced with her new husband and swathes of their guests on the magnificent dancefloor. She kept expecting someone to pinch her and wake her from this dream where her favourite singer in the world was performing on the ballroom stage at her wedding.
She couldn’t begin to think of the effort and cost—and headache—it had taken for Sebastiano to fly the world’s most famous diva over at such short notice. And he’d done it for her. All because of a passing comment Layla had once made when selecting music for him to listen to in his suite, which made her think back to the two occasions guests at the parties he’d thrown in his suite had made drunken lewd comments to her. He’d kicked the offenders out without ceremony and with a sincere apology to her. She’d never seen those men again. Neither of them were here at the wedding.
He must have been close to them to have invited them to those parties, she now realised. All the other men who’d attended were here. One of them was dancing next to Sebastiano, shouting over the music something he clearly wasn’t listening to because his gaze was fixed on her.
It was a gaze that never failed to make her heart skip and her pulses race.
Sebastiano rarely danced at social gatherings that were more public than private. He’d assumed he’d dance the traditional first dance with Layla and then network with his more distinguished guests, but nearly two hours on, he was still there. Still moving his body in beat to the music, too entranced with the graceful beauty who’d taken centre stage without even realising it to want to move away from her. The graceful beauty who was now his wife.
He’d caught the singer narrowing her eyes at the bride and was certain the diva wouldn’t think twice about scratching Layla’s eyes out for taking all the attention away from her. From the wide smile on his beautiful bride’s face, she was oblivious to her heroine’s maleficent thoughts, and as he watched her sing along to her heroine’s lyrics with her mother, Sebastiano thought for the first time of the one person missing from the celebrations. Layla’s father.
He thought back to her mother being the one to walk Layla down the aisle, remembered the huge, almost familial embrace Layla and Laurence had shared earlier.
Her father had been mentioned only once between them, when Sebastiano himself had carelessly thrown his abandonment as an attribute for people to admire her overcoming.
His eyes dipped down to her stomach and that tugging sensation hit him again, stronger than it had ever done before.
A new, slower song started.
She turned to face him and without missing a beat—Layla never missed a beat—she hooked her arms around his neck and gazed into his eyes with an expression that vanquished the tugging sensation, a deeper, more sensuous tugging taking its place.
‘Enjoying the party?’ she asked softly.
‘Very much.’ Much more than he’d ever believed he would enjoy his own wedding. Whenever he’d envisaged it, he’d imagined the bride being one of the women who inhabited his society, a woman who didn’t need to put on a performance to fit into his world. A woman who bored him to tears.
His real marriage would be as transactional as his marriage to Layla, a union much like his parents had, built on mutual respect solely to produce an heir. He’d always assumed that once the requisite heir—and preferably a few spares—had been produced, then he would follow the tradition of his world and take a mistress and his wife take a lover, any and all affairs conducted with the utmost discretion.
The transactional nature of his marriage to Layla was as different from any future marriage as night from day, Layla herself as different from any future bride as the sun was from the moon.
If his growing conviction that she was indeed pregnant...
No. This was not the time to think of it. Not here. Not now. Not when he had her in his arms and the look in her eyes was telling him she didn’t want to be anywhere else.
‘You?’ he added.
She pretended to consider it. ‘I’ve been to worse.’
He grinned and, because he could, tightened his hold around her and kissed her, ignoring propriety to deepen it until she broke it with another of those breathless sighs that only fed his need for her.