Page 17 of The Forbidden Bride He Stole

Apollo.

Her heart leapt into her throat, thundering like a wild, trapped creature. His eyes were on Hannah, and only Hannah. He never paused to look at Rocco. He never looked at the crowd, at the priest.

His dark eyes burned into hers with intent, and she knew she had lost. She didn’t know how. She didn’t know what form it would take. But she knew, beyond words, that he had come to claim victory here, and that no one would stop Apollo Agassi from getting what he wanted.

“Step aside,” he said to Rocco.

Rocco turned and looked at him, his expression one of fear. “I said step aside,” said Apollo. “You will not be marrying Hannah today.”

The words were like a gut punch. She stepped forward, and was about to tell him off.

“Yes,” Rocco said, his voice shaking just slightly. “I am.”

Well, he’d tried.

“You’re not,” Apollo said. “You have two choices. I either expose your true identity to all the people here, and call the police, and have you extradited back to Italy, where I think you will find a not very warm welcome waiting for you, or you take the payoff I’m offering, and I will not tell you how much it is. But it is better than prison.”

Hannah could only stare, a cold feeling taking root in her stomach and spreading outward, rivaling the heat she’d felt a moment before.

She had been duped. And because of that Apollo was winning.

Her own naivete had hung her, just not in the way she’d imagined it might.

“I don’t...” Rocco looked between Hannah and Apollo. Hannah could only stare, shock winding through her.

“What is this?” she asked, feeling sad, defeated.

“I’m sorry,” Rocco said.

“I...”

Apollo shoved him aside and came to stand across from her, right in his place. And it was as if Rocco had never been there at all. “You know, Hannah, I considered picking you up and carrying you off down the aisle. But that seems like a bit too much melodrama, don’t you think? I think perhaps I could save everyone time by moving into my rightful place. Here. As your groom.”

“What?”

“Oh, yes. Your plans have changed. You’re marrying me.”

It had not taken much for Apollo to dig up dirt on Rocco Marinelli. Or as he was known previously, Rocco Fiore, of Rome, who had a stack of petty misdemeanors that he had committed, minor cons and identity theft. And when the heat had gotten too much, he left Italy and came to Greece, changing his identity and taking a job at the hotel. Where, by all accounts, he had been a good employee, and a good friend. It was entirely possible the bully had truly reformed himself. Or perhaps not.

Apollo trusted no one.

But even if the other man had reformed himself, it did not matter. He was going to see this through. If Hannah needed access to her trust fund so badly, if she wanted to assume her position at her father’s company, she could do so, but it would be under his supervision for this next year. This was the best way forward. Cameron had told him not to intervene, but it didn’t matter what Cameron said. This made the most sense. He would have to live with her as man and wife in that time, and of course, he would not touch her. He would continue to act as her guardian. Continue to guide her, continue to protect her. To fulfill his promise.

He would not lose hold of her, of this. He had come to that conclusion this morning, and it had driven him to this point.

“I...”

“He can’t do this, can he?”

She turned toward the audience, toward the men on the board, and then back to the priest. “He can’t,” she said.

When she looked back at him, her eyes widened.

He turned to look behind him and saw that Rocco had fled.

“Well, you’re without your original groom.”

“This is irregular,” one of the board members said from the front row.

---