Page 47 of His Wedding Day Revenge

Was he?

Draco hadn’t even thought about it, and the success of this project should have been his main focus—tonight was part of that. Yet the entire evening he had felt as though he was playing a part, saying the right things, and occasionally the wrong thing, while all the time his eyes had been searching for a flaming redhead.

He had brought Jane here with some vague idea of making her hurt the way she had hurt him. At some point the plan had lost impetus and derailed itself...and ironically the only person hurting, it seemed to Draco, was him.

The pain had centred on his frustrated primal urge to possess her. Being lovers ought to have solved that issue, leaving him to walk away when the hunger had burnt itself out. The hunger was still raging and now it came with excess... He refused to call it emotional baggage, but what else could you call it when he looked at her, so small, so vulnerable, so bloody-minded and stubborn he kept feeling the alien urge to protect her.

It wasn’t meant to be like this.

Sex should not be like this. It should be uncomplicated. It was one of the most uncomplicated things in life, a need that he prided himself on being able to control. It never got in the way of the more important things.

‘It was a success for you,’ he countered finally.

‘I had fun,’ she said, a wistful note in her low voice.

Not with me!

‘It will be something nice to remember when I go back home,’ she said with an upbeat smile. She’d die before she’d let him know how much it hurt to say that. ‘And I have made some friends I will keep in touch with, and young Val is showing me her brother’s apiary tomorrow. I have had a crash course in beekeeping and its importance, not just to the rural economy, but basically the future of the world.’ She painted on a smile.

‘Yes, he is very entrepreneurial. He’s got orders from a major London store,’ Draco, who wasn’t at that moment interested in bees, told her. ‘You could come back?’

The suggestion seemed to surprise him as much as it had her.

‘To see your friends, Luciana and her boyfriend—’

‘Joe? Won’t he be going home next week too?’

‘He and Luciana have taken out a lease on one of the studios in the creative hub.’

This was news to Jane. ‘Jamie seemed shocked to see me here.’

‘I didn’t think he was going to get away. He was playing a chess tournament, but it got cancelled.’

The tiredness that had been kept at bay by adrenaline was hitting home as Jane took the few steps across to a carved wood bench, situated to make the most of the incredible view out to sea, which was utterly spectacular. At night the ocean was just another shade of darkness in the distance and the light and magic came dappled from the fairy lights threaded through the branches.

‘He’s still in college though?’ she said, trying to work out the age of the teenager.

‘His last year at school. He’s thinking of turning professional when he leaves.’

‘Professional?’

‘Chess. He is really very good.’

Jane searched his face curiously. ‘Do you mind? Don’t you have plans—?’

‘I would prefer he went to university,’ Draco admitted. ‘But that’s probably because I missed out. I want Jamie to have freedom, the opportunity to do what he wants and change his mind if that’s what he needs.’

‘Why did you miss out?’

‘My father was not the most caring of parents.’

Jane thought about the scar on Draco’s skull and realised that he had stayed around to make sure that Jamie didn’t suffer the same way. ‘His mother—?’ She stopped and shook her head. ‘Sorry, I don’t mean to pry.’

‘Christina used him like an accessory,’ Draco responded, his voice as flinty and unforgiving as iron filings. ‘And while he was a pretty cute baby she had him wheeled out by nanny for the photo ops and charity events, but Jamie had issues with his eyes. He needed corrective surgery and wore thick glasses...’ His lips thinned with distaste. ‘Not so cute, apparently,’ he finished with contempt. ‘She moved on from him and this place and our father had zero interest in him.’

Jane remembered how the comment about his glasses had paralysed Jamie, and her heart broke for him. ‘Poor Jamie.’ Or maybe lucky Jamie, because he’d had Draco around to protect him.

‘Our father was a man in thrall, so weak so...she was like a drug for him. He had no pride, no sense of duty to this place.’ He gestured towards the spotlit palazzo. ‘He sold everything he could, sold off land, put families who had lived here for generations off the land, and I couldn’t do a thing.’

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