Page 9 of His Royal Bride Replacement

* * *

Alessio watched his bride and he couldn’t take his eyes off her.

‘Madonnamia, she’s tiny!’ his best friend and legal counsel, Eduardo Conti, hissed. ‘And beautiful. You’re doing better than you deserve with this one.’

Rosy was doingsowell, Alessio decided. He knew she was extremely nervous because he could see the tension etched into the delicate lines of her face, but she wasn’t showing it otherwise, walking erect and dignified with her head high, the tiara lodged in her magnificent fiery fall of hair. She had worn it down forhim. Although he had not asked specifically, only hinting to the stylist, he was pleased.

She looked absolutely spectacular, and the thought shook him because Alessio had never thought of a woman in such exaggerated terms before. He drew in a slow, ragged breath and realised that, while he had dreaded marrying Graziana, there wasn’t any dread in him now, only a sort of hopeful expectancy thattheywould work as a couple. It didn’t hurt that she turned him on hard and fast, even with a cardinal standing over him in all his church regalia, and for Alessio, who prided himself on his self-discipline, that was a revelation. Something about Rosy Castelli fired him up like dynamite.

‘You look incredible,’ he murmured when she finally looked at him, something she had appeared determinednotto do on her passage down that long aisle in the full glare of the television cameras.

Her polite smile barely moved. The cardinal began to speak. Alessio’s mind wandered but Rosy listened. She was more serious in the religious stakes than he was, he decided.

* * *

Holy cow, he was so breathtakingly beautiful, Rosy could barely believe that Alessio was real flesh and blood. The lean angles and hollows of his perfect face, the high cheekbones, the proud jut of his nose, the moulded sensuality of his full mouth but, above all, it was always his eyes that she carefully avoided, lest in some mysterious way he guessed that she found him impossibly attractive. That lustrous vibrant green surrounded by a layer of thick inky lashes? Her heart stuttered to a stop before ramping up in pace. Her muscles all tightened in defence, that ache stirring low in her pelvis again, her breasts swelling and tightening inside her dress; all the embarrassing hallmarks of what was wrong with her, she reflected in pained discomfiture.

Rosy had never been so drawn to anyone in her whole life and when it was Alessio, it embarrassed her to death at the same time as it terrified her because that magnetism of his made her feel out of her depth and out of control. She refused to be silly about him, however, totally refused to be that stupid. She was an adult and she knew they had no relationship and that they were enacting a deception on the real world. She had been in the same room when his PR team had discussed how popular a choice she would be in comparison to someone like Graziana, who had apparently insulted the entire country of Sedovia by letting Alessio down. Rosy might have her role in the Cinderella story but she wasn’t in line for Cinderella’s happy ending.

Alessio slid the wedding ring onto her finger and she surfaced again to the ceremony, colour burning her cheeks as she realised how she had mentally drifted away. A ring was passed to her and she tried to slot it onto Alessio’s finger but by that stage her hand was shaking and he had to take care of it. It was done, it was done, she thought in relief, the main event accomplished and complete: they were married.

‘You were very brave,’ Alessio murmured soothingly as they signed the register. ‘For someone unaccustomed to crowds, you’re managing very well.’

‘Thank you,’ she said stiffly and braced herself to walk back down the aisle.

Alessio banded an arm round her as they reached the cathedral’s main entrance. ‘One kiss for the cameras?’ he whispered.

‘Of course,’ she agreed because it was part and parcel of the whole performance of a couple supposedly in love, she thought ruefully.

His hand eased down her spine to catch her to him, while his other hand tipped up her chin. ‘You’re a very long way down,’ he complained teasingly as he bent his dark, arrogant head.

Rosie braced as though she were in a queue for the guillotine. And then his sensual mouth engulfed hers and not in the fleeting salute she had innocently prepared for. The tip of his tongue parted her lips and he nibbled the lower one as though they had all the time in the world and no audience, and only then did he kiss her. The whole world fell away from her. Her head spun at the intoxicating taste of him and a flush of raw heat flamed through her every nerve ending as he welded her against him with big hands. She felt the unyielding hardness of his broad chest, the solid strength of him, and she was dizzy with the multitude of sensations striking all at once.

The best man gave Alessio a covert nudge. ‘You’re shocking the press…’

Alessio started to free his bride, discovering only then that he had lifted her right off her feet and she had dropped her bouquet. He stooped to retrieve it and returned it to her. ‘I forgot where we were,’ he said apologetically.

On the drive back to the palace, Alessio talked smoothly about some of their most important guests, educating her for the reception party, Rosy gathered. It was as if the kiss hadn’t happened. Although she felt relieved, in the sense that she felt she had responded with too much enthusiasm, she was also tempted to ask him what he thought he had been playing at with such a kiss in a non-existent relationship. It wasn’t as if they had even dated. In any case, nobody had ever kissed her so intimately before and she didn’t really want to openly complain about that because the fact that she had never had a lover was her business and not his. But he was a guy, an international playboy, and maybe he thought nothing of such a kiss. If she complained, she would come across as ridiculously strait-laced and outdated in her ideas.

Once they arrived at the palace, the regimented reception schedule kicked off. There were greetings and drinks with arriving guests, followed by entertainment by Sedovia’s most famous artistes. Rosy spent a little time with her former work colleagues and realised only then that she was out of a job she had loved for good at the palace. Nobody was likely to put Alessio’s ex-wife back on the staff. Of course, she would have the divorce settlement mentioned in one of the many documents she had had to sign prior to their wedding, and she wouldn’t be poor, so possibly she would look for a conservation job elsewhere in Sedovia.

The reception drifted on, seemingly endless with the speeches, the polite socialising with strangers, the cutting of the cake, even the tossing of the bouquet because it was a very traditional wedding. By the time she had to move out onto the dance floor to do that first couple’s dance thing, Rosy had had more than enough of the pomp and ceremony and, even worse, the having to dance in front of the guests when she couldn’t dance. Predictably Alessio compensated for that lack by letting her simply shuffle in time with him.

‘We can leave now,’ he murmured into her hair. ‘You’ve had enough.’

‘Thank goodness,’ she muttered, letting him tug her through the crush and urge her across the giant foyer towards the lift in the corner. ‘Where are we going?’

‘It’s a surprise. I think you’ll like it. It’s private and not too intimidating.’

On the floor above, he ushered her into a bedroom and paused in the doorway of a connecting room. ‘This is your room. I’m next door. Your maid will help you change.’

And then he was gone, the stranger she had married. A young woman arrived, dressed in the household uniform, and told Rosy that her name was Maria. Rosy could never have got out of her gown without help and she was relieved to have someone untangle the laces and unhook the hooks and undo the buttons.

‘Will I leave you to get dressed? Or should I stay?’ Maria asked her uncertainly. ‘I’m very good with hair. Your luggage is already packed and ready for your departure.’

‘You can leave. Thanks for your help,’ Rosy said warmly. ‘I’m not going to need anything more done to my hair today.’

An array of unfamiliar clothes was laid across the bed. The new wardrobe that Alessio had briefly mentioned during one of his fleeting phone calls? She had been kitted out like a new army recruit, she thought with amusement, selecting black linen trousers and a shimmering but light silky top for the journey, deeming comfort most important while travelling. She removed the jewellery, glad to see the back of the heavy necklace and tiara, rubbing her sore neck as she removed the earrings. She didn’t think she had ever been so tired in her entire life.

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