LITMIR.BIZ

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Elise—if this was hard for him he could only imagine how she was feeling under her veil. If there was ever a moment when he would have excused a tantrum this was it, but she was conducting herself with a dignity that contrasted starkly with that of the woman who had just smashed the reputation he had spent years rebuilding. A sound of mingled disbelief and self-disgust vibrated in his throat because half his mind was occupied imagining her naked.

      ‘Sorry.’ His soft apology coincided with an audible lull in the buzz of conversation. There might have been someone in the most distant corner who hadn’t heard the word, which would undoubtedly be construed as an admission of guilt, but he doubted it.

      His jaw clenched. Perfect! Feeling frustration closing in on him, he glanced down at the cause and found a pair of glazed blue eyes looking up at him.

      ‘I’m not sorry,’ she whispered before the dark lashes framing them came down in a fluttering curtain against her smooth, very pale cheek. Then with a soft murmur, she burrowed in closer.

      You will be, Seb thought, struggling to focus on anger rather than his indiscriminate hormones, which were acting independent of his brain to the squirmy, sensationally packaged softness in his arms.

      Even without looking he could feel Elise’s dagger stare behind her veil, and who could blame her? Certainly not him. He wasn’t always as appreciative as he ought to be of her composure. He sent up a silent apology for ever having wished she’d show just a little more spontaneity, just occasionally. Ninety-nine out of a hundred women in her place would be having hysterics right now.

      ‘Door, Jake...?’

      His best man, who had been standing there, blinked as though emerging from a trance and grabbed the door to his right to allow Seb to pass through.

      ‘Look after Elise,’ Seb said as he went through. ‘Take her...someplace, tell her I won’t be long, oh, and send for—’

      ‘Ahead of you there. We have three medics here. Anything else?’

      ‘Any of them a psychiatrist?’ Seb muttered, and responded to the handclasp on his shoulder with a nod. ‘Is there somewhere, Father, that I can...?’

      ‘This way.’

      Seb followed the priest into a small anteroom. By the time he had laid the unconscious redhead on the small couch there, Jake arrived with a guest in tow who he introduced as—

      ‘Tom, Lucy’s fiancé—he’s a trauma surgeon.’

      Seb, who had little interest in the man’s credentials, took his eyes off the girl long enough to shake the man’s hand. ‘Do you mind taking a look?’ He turned to his best man. ‘Jake, where is Elise?’

      ‘How far along is the pregnancy?’

      Seb’s attention swung back to the other man, his jaw clenched as he fought for control. Get used to it, Seb, this won’t be the first time. If he lost control this woman would win...as if she hadn’t already?

      ‘I really wouldn’t know. This woman is—’ about to say she was a complete and total stranger, he stopped and finished sharply ‘—delusional.’

      Not hanging around to see if he was believed, he turned to Jake, who responded to his interrogative look with, ‘First left down the stairs, third door on the r...no, left.’

      It was actually the right.

      The room he entered was larger and less sparsely furnished than the one he had just left.

      His bride, her veil thrown back, was standing looking lovely in front of a stained-glass window. Her mother, a woman he had never warmed to, sat in a chair. She stopped speaking when he walked in, but the word lawyer hung in the air.

      ‘Sandra...’ He tipped his head in acknowledgement.

      ‘I have never been so humiliated in my life!’ she responded in a voice that never failed to jar on him.

      Tell me about it, he thought, turning to his bride-to-be.

      He watched her struggle to produce a brittle smile.

      ‘You’re a star,’ he said warmly. ‘First thing, none of what she said was true.’

      The older woman snorted.

      ‘Mother, that is not being helpful.’ Elise held up a hand, a pained expression flickering across her face before the smile was back in place. ‘Please, Seb, there is really no need for explanations. I thought you realised that. I have total faith in your ability to make this...unpleasantness go away.’

      ‘Everyone has their price.’

      His glance flickered towards the older woman. ‘Thank you for that contribution, Sandra.’ His sarcasm sailed right over the woman’s head. ‘I have done nothing to pay for.’

      ‘Mother, Sebastian is more than capable of dealing with this.’

      ‘He allowed it to happen.’

      Seb ignored the shrill accusation from the older woman.

      ‘Do you believe me, Elise?’

      Her eyes slid from his. ‘I think it’s totally irrelevant whether this woman’s accusations are true or false, Sebastian.’

      ‘You are taking the possibility I got another woman pregnant and deserted her remarkably well,’ he drawled.

      ‘Would you prefer I acted the hurt victim?’ A small confident smile curved her lips as she asked the question.

      He looked at the hand she had laid on his arm, and after a moment she removed it. The flush on her cheeks penetrating her perfect make-up, she gave a tight smile.

      ‘Look, I know you share my dislike of...messy emotional scenes, but the way you’re acting anyone would think you wanted me to make a scene.’

       Good question. Well, do you, Seb?

      ‘I could but where would that get either of us? I’m a realist—we both are. We need to get back in there, put a brave face on it and show the world that we’re a team.’

      As locker-room motivational speeches went, it wasn’t bad.

      ‘This is about damage limitation, but these things happen. Mother’s right, just keep her quiet.’

      Feeling like someone who was seeing something that had been there all along, he shook his head as though the action would clear his vision. It didn’t.

      ‘How do you expect me to do that?’

      The serene mask slipped and she yelled, ‘Oh, for God’s sake, don’t be so dense! Throw some bloody money at her—you’ve got enough! This is my day, and I refuse...’ She took a deep breath and lowered her voice to a soft steely murmur as she clarified it. ‘I totally refuse to let anything or anyone ruin it, especially some little tramp you got pregnant!’

      ‘So let me get this straight—you will ignore my indiscretions and you expect I will return the favour?’

      She blinked, her eyes widening in an attitude of exasperated surprise as she chided impatiently, ‘Well, obviously, Sebastian. I didn’t think that needed spelling out.’

      His reflective smile was filled with self-mockery. ‘I think perhaps I did.’ He turned to the older woman. ‘Do you mind leaving us?’

      ‘I’m not—’

      ‘Get out.’ In a business setting the soft menace in his voice would not have surprised anyone—he was preceded by his reputation—but the women he addressed reacted with open-mouthed shock.

      He waited for her to leave the room before he turned to his fiancée, searching her face. ‘You’re not in love with me?’

      ‘Are you saying that I don’t satisfy you in bed?’

      ‘I’m

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