Page 14 of Stranded with His Runaway Bride

He didn’t want to look at her in that dress for much longer either. He’d find her something to wear if he had to fashion a dust sheet into something appropriate himself.

Violetta tried to concentrate.

Tried to stop melting every time he spoke in that silky accent. Tried to stop staring at the man and focus on getting to midnight unwed and un-seduced.

It was the collarless shirt, or maybe those braces, or just something about the suggestion of being scantly clothed that was so alluring. When had she seen him as anything other than impeccably turned out? This off-duty Leo was thoroughly tempting. Each time he moved the shirt shifted and allowed a glimpse of a broad, muscled breastplate beneath. Why did he have to be such a stunning example of masculine beauty?

‘But before I go hunting for a change of clothes, why don’t you tell me the real reason you ran away? So far you’ve revealed you don’t like your dress and that no man, including me, has ever paid sufficient attention to you.’

‘You make that sound so childish,’ she grumbled. ‘That’s not quite how I meant it. I just want to be seen as an equal, an adult who is perfectly capable of making her sensible decisions.’

‘Unfortunately running away from your wedding paints you as immature.’

‘Or someone who had no other choice.’

‘No choice? All you had to say was, “Leo, I don’t want to marry you.” See? That easy.’

‘You know nothing,’ she muttered. ‘I would never have been allowed to do that.’

His expression darkened. ‘You were being forced into this marriage?’

‘No, not exactly.’

‘Then what? Why was it so impossible for you to simply say nothing before this point?’

‘If I’d told my uncle I didn’t want to marry you he would have found some pretence, or argument, to try and persuade me.’

‘Point out the many benefits of a match with me, perhaps?’ Leo said, sweetly.

Violetta rolled her eyes. ‘Probably.’

Leo studied her, eyes narrowed. He shook his head. ‘No. I still don’t believe you...it feels like you’re hiding something.’

Why did he have to be so insistent?

Because he wants the duchy, Violetta. While you’re ogling his chest and melting to a puddle every time he speaks Italian, he’s probably plotting and planning to get you in front of a priest before nightfall. Does he really care about your objections to the match? No, he believes he knows better and that there are so many advantages to being married to him. Never forget that. He’s the enemy, a powerful, self-interested man.

But there was absolutely no way she was telling him the truth. He’d laugh at her, or, worse, insist on marching her back to her uncle. What if the result of that was her uncle just taking power in his own right after all and simply cutting her out of the succession? Maybe he could if she didn’t marry and she’d lose everything anyway. Where else could she have run to at the last minute? She’d known the chateau was empty. At one of their joint functions Leo had told her in passing that it was closed up, and she didn’t know anywhere else in Grimentz that would be a safe place to hide.

Why did hisgrand-mèrehave to tell him about those holidays in her cards to him? No one else knew or would have cared. Her mother had never told her uncle where her daughters went for two weeks every summer. He would have considered it beneath his notice and by the time he did notice his niece those holidays had already ceased. So he had no knowledge of Violetta’s visits.

She and Luisa had had it all planned. They would hide away in a safe house in the city until midnight. Then go to the cathedral, where she was going to take the flag and swear her allegiance. They were going to film it on their phone and then post it on the Internet for all the world to see. It wasn’t much, but it was all she had. She was going to invoke the ancient ritual of swearing allegiance and hope that the people would come with her. But to do that, she had to get back to San Nicolo tonight! Without this man knowing anything of her plans because he’d surely try to stop her. He wanted San Nicolo for himself, as had every Prince of Grimentz for the last four centuries.

She couldn’t afford to tell the truth, but she couldn’t tell half-truths any more either. He wasn’t easily fooled. She’d have to tell a substantial lie and something so profound he’d finally back off.

Violetta turned from him, fixed her attention very deliberately on the dark clouds swirling down from the mountains above, and told perhaps the biggest lie of her young life.

‘I’d hoped to spare you this, but the truth is I don’t find you at all attractive, quite the opposite in fact.’

At that precise moment, as if the heavens themselves rebelled at that appalling falsehood, a blinding lightning flash illuminated the room, followed by a nerve-jangling thunderclap.

Violetta leapt from her skin. But the man seated behind remained still and silent. There was a long and testing pause until...

‘I see.’

That softly spoken response danced across her skin like the brush of warm fingertips.

‘In fact...’ she said, shivering to hide her real response to him, ‘I’m sorry but I couldn’t imagine anything less appealing than going to bed with you.’

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