Page 3 of His Wedding Day Revenge

A hissing sound of triumph left his clenched teeth as on the fourth attempt he manoeuvred around the tractor and put his foot down.

This controversy could have been avoided—therein lay the core of his frustration. Draco’s initial irritation with the situation had now turned to resentment. This was precisely why he had a team—a capable team, at least in theory, which should not necessitate his personal intervention on such a low-level project. But this had gone beyond the project itself or the financial outlay; it was reputational damage that he was here to repair.

The narrow lane suddenly opened up, revealing the expansive stretch of woodland that had stirred the hornets’ nest; a few scattered houses and a church spire were visible in the distance.

He saw the site manager just as the guy spotted him and wisely slunk away into the trees. ‘Lazy, cost-cutting...’ Draco muttered before he slowed and took a deep calming breath. All it needed was a charm offensive and he did not doubt his ability to smooth ruffled feathers and win the locals over.

And it wasn’t all PR and damage limitation. Draco believed in this project and he had the facts and figures to back up his belief. The two similar upmarket eco holiday villages in his homeland Italy were up and running, bringing enormous benefits to the local rural communities they were set in.

Recognising early on the scope for financial markets to spur investment in conservation had been partly responsible for his meteoric success. Despite the hype, Draco didn’t feel his approach was revolutionary. On the contrary, it was practical and simply about recognising the limits of innovation, engaging with stakeholders and using existing tools.

He scanned the crowd as he drove slowly past, heading to a safe parking spot on the grass ahead, noting the inevitable cameras and microphone-wielding journalists as he searched for someone in the melee who looked to be in charge.

Nobody in the chanting, placard-waving crowd screamed in charge to him, but a guy with a dog collar was holding forth to a news channel; he didn’t look too rabid, Draco decided.

He manoeuvred to avoid hitting one of the protesters, who banged his placard on the windscreen, and almost collided with a sign for the Manor Hotel. He caught a glimpse of the building in question through a gap in the trees—a square structure of mellow stone—and wondered about the family who had once lived there.

His own family home in Tuscany could easily have gone the same way, but, despite the predictions that it had been inevitable that Draco would have to let it go, it hadn’t and he hadn’t.

It never would, not on his watch. He pushed away the thought. Today wasn’t about preserving his family heritage—that was safe. It was about preserving the firm’s reputation.

Then it happened.

In the periphery of his vision he caught the flash of vivid red amidst the muted greens and browns of the countryside. Draco’s foot instinctively pressed the brake pedal, his car slowing to an abrupt halt.

The world seemed to pause, the racket receded, the air for the space of a breath was sucked out of the car, leaving a vacuum.

A jolt surged through Draco as recognition, wave after wave of it, reverberated through his body like an electric shock.

Jane Smith!

He had never searched for her. He had no interest in knowing why she had humiliated him, and what her motivation had been remained a mystery. He had put thoughts of her, along with the engagement ring that had landed by courier on his desk, in a deep vault and thrown away the key, if not literally, certainly mentally for the past four years.

He had made a conscious decision not to allow her the courtesy of unpaid space in his head. He had moved on and he congratulated himself on putting the past behind him.

There had been a few moments of backsliding, but he did not count the once or twice he had caught sight of a redhead and experienced a gut-clench of anger...mixed with a hunger he would not acknowledge.

On those occasions the blaze of colour in the crowd had turned out to be some generic redhead.

Not this time! There was no double take or ‘is it, isn’t it?’ moment.

Her face was turned away from him, but it didn’t matter. It was the way she held herself—almost like a dancer, slender and graceful—the way she tossed her head. The memory of her amazing full-throated laugh escaped the mental box he had walled it up in... He could hear the sound in his head, seeding itself like an old melody you couldn’t get out of your mind. A melody that evoked memories, the good among them all cancelled out by that one humiliating final scene, the one that held no laughter. For a split second, that memory was so strong, the moment he had consigned to oblivion was so here, now and in the moment, that he could taste the humiliation in his mouth.

His eyes darkened to midnight, his lack of control over the physical response of his body only adding to the humiliation. That his control, something he took for granted, failed dramatically fed the anger building inside him.

It wasn’t the only thing building—the forbidden images stored away for so long were spilling out.

The sun touching her hair and dazzling him.

His skin tingled at the memory of her touch, light like her soft silky hair sweeping his chest as she sat astride him, and her mouth, not light but... Jaw clenched, he pushed back hard at the insidious mesh of interconnected images and dragged his focus into the present.

The present where Jane Smith’s fiery curls were dancing in the wind in stark contrast to the muted tones of the other protesters.

It was only several moments later that he took in the more mundane details: her hair was shorter, more shoulder blade than waist length, and there was...a baby?

The collision of past and present shook loose a raw hoarse sound from his throat. A baby? He felt the muscles of his belly tighten in rejection of the image.

Why should she not have a baby? She had moved on, he had moved on... It was simply a twist in the tale that Draco hadn’t anticipated.

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