Chapter Two
Violet was aghast as Tore strode back down the aisle of the crowded church, impervious to the startled gasps and the astonished speculation of their guests.
Her cheeks burned hotter than fire with mortification.
Kill me now, she thought. I’ve married a drama queen.
No quiet chat and explanation for Tore Renzetti possible or allowed, no matter the public nature of the exhibition that he was making of them both.
And what a temper! Goodness, those startlingly green eyes of his had sizzled into her like accusing arrows tipped with poison.
You’re not sorry. But you will be…
Her empty, unsettled tummy lurched. She wasn’t a heroine.
If he had set her down on her own feet, she would’ve run like the wind, even though she was barefoot.
A gleaming silver limousine drew up at the kerb.
A man came out of nowhere to yank open the passenger door, at which point Violet was stuffed onto the seat with all the finesse a bag of groceries might have required.
The door slammed and she grabbed the handle, suddenly convinced that it would be madness to stay with this lunatic, but the handle wouldn’t move.
Tore swung in beside her from the other side and treated her to a razor-edged half smile.
‘You’re not going anywhere until I have this sorted out,’ he assured her, unfurling a cell phone and within seconds commencing a dialogue in what she suspected might be Italian, of which she spoke not a word.
Her anxious gaze welded to his classic profile, she recognised that his rage was only growing.
A faint flush edged his high cheekbones now, a leaping tension surrounding the corners of his shapely mouth, not to mention the fact that he was clutching his phone like he might crush it. In haste, she looked away.
Tore set his phone into her nerveless hand. ‘Type out your full name and birthdate.’
‘But you already know it,’ she pointed out weakly.
‘Do as I ask,’ he instructed. ‘Naturally, I wish to establish whether or not that marriage ceremony was legal.’
Violet winced, belatedly recalling him christening the change of brides as a scam. She typed out her name and birthdate, passed it back in silence.
‘So,’ he recapped in the most sarcastic of tones, ‘instead of Tabitha I’ve got Violet Grace Blessington.’
‘That would be correct,’ Violet stated. ‘But you know there was absolutely no need for that melodramatic exit from the church. Tabitha and I made sure the paperwork was in order.’
‘Is that a fact?’
‘Yes…er, we didn’t want any mistakes made. One of us had to marry you, so I’d be surprised if the marriage turned out to be illegal in some way,’ she dared.
‘In other words, you wanted that cash payment badly,’ Tore interpreted unpleasantly.
‘Yes.’ Violet saw no point in lying about that necessity because she had an awful suspicion that Tore would drag every last detail out of her, even if she kicked and screamed during the process. He would make her pay the piper, regardless of how she felt about it.
Her conscience stirred. Wasn’t he entitled to feel angry?
Tabitha could have told his lawyers the truth and taken the risk that he would agree to the last-minute swap…
But leaving their mother’s health to rely on that necessary agreement when there was so little time to spare had proved too much of a challenge for both sisters.
A few minutes later, Tore was back chatting on the phone, presumably to a lawyer if he was still checking out the legality of their marriage.
Violet swallowed hard, wishing she had a phone on her because Tabitha might well hear about the contretemps at the church.
Her sister hadn’t attended because she could scarcely put in an appearance as a guest when she was supposed to be the bride.
However, their grandfather was unlikely to go in search of her sister, she reflected.
He might be miffed at not getting to show off Tore Renzetti at the wedding reception, but he would be content enough once he was reassured that the marriage to Violet would stand.
Tomaso hadn’t cared which one of his daughter’s twins chose to marry Tore.
‘Why am I married to you instead of your sister?’ Tore demanded abruptly, tossing his phone aside.
Violet shrugged a slight shoulder. ‘Tabby agreed in good faith to marry you and then found that she couldn’t go through with it a couple of weeks ago.’
‘Why?’ Tore shot back at her baldly.
Violet compressed her lips. ‘Unexpectedly, she fell pregnant.’
‘I suppose I should be grateful to have escaped that car crash,’ Tore retorted unfeelingly.
‘Yes, and if she was sitting here now, she would be equally glad to have escaped you,’ Violet sniped, unable to bite back the response and stay polite.
‘If your sister was sitting here now, this situation wouldn’t have arisen.
She didn’t keep her word and the two of you chose to deceive me instead of being honest. That tells me all I need to know about your characters,’ Tore derided.
‘You chose to disguise yourself in the most ridiculous manner for the wedding. You completed the changes to the paperwork behind my back. You deceived me and your grandfather. At no stage did either of you consider the option of telling the truth.’
‘While you’re reading the riot act,’ Violet said with new daring because her temper was bubbling like lava below her nervous exterior, ‘could you tell me where you’re taking me?’
‘Home to where you will be living for the next three years.’
‘Gosh, I can almost hear the rattle of the jailer’s keys in that tone,’ Violet slotted in helplessly.
‘I will need your address so that your belongings can be conveyed to my home,’ he told her coldly.
‘Were you planning to pack my daughter in a cardboard box for conveyance as well?’ Violet enquired dulcetly, beginning to get the measure of his polite passive-aggressive attitude to his clearly unwelcome bride.
Tore swung round to face her. ‘You have a child?’ he raked at her in unhidden horror.
‘You see that there is the big problem of choosing not to meet either woman you might have married beforehand. You miss out on the little details,’ Violet pointed out with satisfaction.
Tore sat in brooding silence and fumed. A kid?
She had a kid! A child could not be as easily located in a distant wing of his house and forgotten about.
Children were lively, noisy and demanding.
Tore knew nothing about kids but he had occasionally been forced to socialise with friends who had reproduced, and what he had witnessed had not warmed him to the idea of sharing his life with little people.
He liked his life just as it was: smooth, efficient, static.
He liked his routines. He did not like surprises or disruption of any kind.
His household ran with clockwork efficiency, he reminded himself soothingly.
His staff would deal with the hassle created by a child.
‘When can I expect to be in a position to be reunited with my daughter?’ Violet pressed curtly.
‘You should’ve thought of that before you married me.’
Violet reared round to look at him like a tigress protecting her cubs, blue eyes lightened by sudden fury, her face flushed, her tiny hands in fists. ‘You will not keep me from my child!’ she hissed back at him.
Taken aback by that startling burst of aggression, Tore studied her with academic interest. Not quite the nervous co-conspirator he had assumed; not quite the fearful victim she had been playing. ‘Obviously, I am unlikely to do something which I have no power to do,’ he breathed thinly.
Thoroughly rattled at the way she had allowed him to frighten her, Violet whipped her head away again, accepting that truth.
But the smouldering blaze of his emerald-green eyes stayed with her.
Nobody had ever looked at her before with such hostility and distrust. Belatedly, it occurred to her that having married Tore Renzetti in a deceptive manner could well make life very uncomfortable for her and Belle.
The prospect of three years living in such an atmosphere left her bereft of breath and her usual optimistic spirit.
It was time, she thought unhappily, to regroup.
But she was stuck continuing in their marriage because she had signed a legal contract and accepted payment for doing so.
‘I’m sorry that you feel…er…threatened by what my sister and I chose to do. No offence was intended.’
His perfectly sculpted lips compressed. ‘I am not feeling threatened. I abhor lies and avarice. You deceived me for money. I cannot and will not respect that.’
Violet pictured herself telling him the truth behind their avarice and cringed at the concept of plucking a thousand violin strings with their story.
Tore wouldn’t respect that, either. She suspected that he was a man who only saw in shades of black and white and nothing in between.
He criticised, he judged, he wouldn’t try to understand.
In his opinion, she had wronged him, even though she could not think of any lasting harm coming from that sisterly swap in brides.
‘You’re a very stubborn man,’ she muttered unevenly. ‘But you must see that if we’re stuck with each other for the next three years, we have to—’
‘I don’t intend to be stuck with you in any guise for that length of time,’ Tore framed with dulcet precision. ‘We will live in separate wings of my home here.’
Violet’s delicate profile tensed and she turned round to look at him and almost smiled. ‘Oh, that’s a very good idea,’ she told him cheerfully as if he had handed her a beautiful bouquet of flowers.