Page 47 of 2 Books in One Bundle

He was six-five and broad-shouldered, built like a warrior rather than the multibillion-dollar businessman he actually was, and he towered over most people like an ancient oak towers over just about every tree in the forest. Then again, he was one of the world’s most feared corporate raiders and had the cold, acquisitive gaze to match, so maybe the warrior simile was more apt.

He was also devastatingly attractive, which didn’t make her any more well disposed towards him. Taken by themselves, his features were too rough and blunt for handsomeness, but there was something about their arrangement, something to do with the straight black brows and the proud jut of his nose, the curve of his lower lip, and the fact that his eyes were the colour of ancient amber that made people turn and stare.

Isla didn’t want to stare. She didn’t want her breath to catch every time he entered a room she was in. He was a wolf, a stone-cold predator, and she hated how he made her feel like prey. Not that he’d ever made any move towards her. Sometimes she noticed him staring at her disconcertingly from across the boardroom table, but he never said anything to her, so why he was even here she had no idea.

Just as she had no idea why he’d been circling Kendricks’ for so long, not unlike a vulture circling a lion that wasn’t quite dead. He hadn’t made a move, though, which had made her father jumpy since North had a reputation for a quick kill when it came to acquiring companies.

He glanced at her bridesmaids and nodded towards the doors that led into the church proper. The unspoken command was clear, so they stopped fussing with Isla’s train and went, leaving Isla alone with him.

A shiver of trepidation went through her, a cold feeling settling in her gut.

She’d been full of nerves this morning, wondering if she was doing the right thing in marrying Gianni, one of her father’s protégés. Her father had introduced them six months earlier and Isla had known immediately that this was the sign that David thought it was time for her to settle down. Family was important for Kendricks’ and most especially for the Kendricks’ board. It wouldn’t do for the heir to remain single, and since Gianni had been nice enough and was clearly on her father’s list of approved suitors, she’d started seeing him.

And when he’d proposed six months later, she’d said yes.

She didn’t love him, but that didn’t matter. David thought he’d make a good husband and son-in-law and since Isla wanted to do David proud, she’d agreed. She wanted a family of her own, so why not? Except her prewedding jitters hadn’t agreed, and now Orion’s sudden appearance hadn’t helped.

Today, he wore an expertly tailored dove-grey morning suit that made him look even more devastatingly attractive than he already was and that unsettled her even further. She was about to get married. She shouldn’t be looking at other men. She shouldn’t even be aware of them.

Ignoring the slow creep of ice in her gut, Isla lifted her chin and stared at the man who’d so casually interrupted the proceedings. ‘What on earth are you doing here, Mr North?’ She consciously tried to imitate the note of cool command her father used in the boardroom. Cool didn’t come naturally to her, but she was trying. ‘I’m about to get married in case you hadn’t noticed and I don’t believe you were invited.’

Orion’s harshly carved features betrayed nothing, though there was a strange gleam in his wolf-gold eyes. ‘No,’ he said calmly. ‘I was not.’

‘Then why are you here?’

‘I hate to be the bearer of bad news, Isla. But your groom isn’t coming.’

The words didn’t make any sense. ‘Not coming?’ she repeated blankly. ‘What do you mean he’s not coming?’

‘I mean, he took a private jet out of Stansted early this morning, bound for Rome.’ Orion’s cold voice was full of harsh edges and deep chasms. ‘I advised him not to poach on my territory and offered him a significant amount of money to go away. So he did.’

Isla blinked. His territory? Poaching? What on earth was he talking about? ‘Excuse me? You did what?’

Orion didn’t move, but that odd, hot light in his eyes glinted again. ‘He will not be marrying you, Isla. Not today, not tomorrow and not next week. In fact, I would go so far as to say that he will not be marrying you at all.’

A deafening silence fell in the narthex and yet Isla was conscious of a roaring in her ears. The bouquet of peonies slipped from her nerveless fingers to land in a shower of petals on the stone floor. ‘What?’ Her voice came out scratchy, a raw scrape of sound. ‘I don’t understand.’

Orion calmly bent and retrieved her bouquet from the floor just as some footsteps echoed on the stone and a man she didn’t recognise came through the front door of the church. Orion murmured a few words to him and the man left again, this time going through into the church proper and closing the doors behind him.

Something was happening. Something wasn’t right.

‘Mr North,’ she said, forcing away the cold clutch of shock. ‘I want an explanation. Where is Gianni? Why isn’t he here? And what do you mean you paid him to go away?’

A rustling sound was coming from the church and the low buzz of shocked conversation. There were five hundred people out there waiting to see her get married, the cream of London high society, as well as many of her father’s business cronies, not to mention Gianni’s family. But something was happening there too, because they’d been silent before and they weren’t now.

Orion took a step towards her and held the bouquet out to her. ‘I just told you why he isn’t here. He’s on his way to Rome. And I paid him to go away because he should never have asked you to marry him in the first place.’

Shock was creeping through her and she had to fight to force it down. She didn’t know what was happening, but going to pieces wouldn’t help. Her father had always said that staying calm in a crisis was a valuable skill and one she needed to learn before she took over Kendricks’ as CEO. In fact, there were many skills she needed to learn before she took over, and while some of them had been easy, others were more difficult. She had to detach, David had told her. She was too much at the mercy of her emotions.

Isla already knew that—there was a reason her first adoption had fallen through—and so when David had adopted her at twelve, she’d resolved to make sure her temper stayed leashed and she’d be the perfect daughter.

Except keeping her emotions locked down with shock coursing through her veins and a man she didn’t like standing in front of her telling her that he’d paid her fiancé to jilt her, her brittle, cool authority was in danger of cracking entirely.

‘Why on earth shouldn’t he have asked me to marry him?’ she demanded.

‘Because he doesn’t love you,’ Orion said without hesitation. ‘And you don’t love him.’

Isla stared at him in astonishment. This made no sense, none of it. His presence, Gianni’s absence, what he was saying to her...

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