His Wedding Day Revenge

Chapter Seven

CHAPTER SEVEN

T HEY DIDN ’ T NEED to adjust. The moon reappeared, revealing the enchanting gardens and the fact she was no longer alone.

Her heart took a plunging dive before climbing into her throat, a helpless primitive shiver of awareness slithering down her spine, and she shivered, too shocked to even attempt to retreat. As if her secret thoughts had summoned him, Draco, the real flesh and blood one as opposed to the one in her head, was standing there a few feet away holding a wine bottle in one hand and her sandal in the other.

‘Is this where I see if the slipper fits?’

She took a step towards him and snatched it out of his fingers... For a second he didn’t release his grip. What was infinitely more disturbing was that for a second Jane didn’t want him to.

Balancing on one leg, she slid her foot back into the sandal, not taking her eyes off him the way you didn’t take your eyes off a dangerous jungle cat about to lunge.

You should be so lucky, mocked the voice in her head.

Though the analogy was not so far out. There was something quite...combustible about him, she decided, her eyes going from the bottle in his hand to his face again as she marvelled at the perfect symmetry of his features that were all dark shadow and light relief, like a starkly beautiful pencil sketch, his shadowed jaw adding to the edgy vibe.

‘What are you doing here?’ she began in a cranky voice that made his dark brows lift sardonically. ‘That is, it’s your home, of course you’re here,’ she said quickly, glad the shadows hid her embarrassed blush. ‘I just assumed you would be at the meet-and-greet supper.’

‘Me being the host?’

She nodded and he followed the direction of her gaze to the uncorked bottle in his hand. ‘The trick of good management is delegation, and I thought you’d be there.’

‘Looks like we were both wrong,’ she said, struggling to stop her gaze travelling over his long, lean length, and trying not to see the reckless gleam in his deep-set eyes that was probably connected to the bottle of wine he held.

She didn’t remember him ever drinking much.

‘Don’t worry, I’m not drunk, at least not yet.’

The words sounded almost like a threat. Their glances connected and the combustible quality of his dark gleaming stare made her stomach tighten and flutter.

His glance took in her damp hair, which was drying into a nimbus of fiery curls, before his eyes narrowed in again on her face. ‘Were you avoiding me?’

Her attempt at laughing off the suggestion sounded pretty feeble even to her own ears. ‘I could ask you the same question,’ she tossed back. Only she wouldn’t because that would have been absurd.

‘I should have gone tonight,’ he admitted.

She glanced at the bottle in his hand and arched a brow. ‘Celebrating?’

‘That remains to be seen.’

She refused to be ruffled or think about the hidden meaning in his words... Actually, was it so hidden? She suddenly felt queasy at the image of a warm body ready and waiting for him in bed.

‘Spare me the details.’

He laughed. ‘I have always thought the joy was in the detail.’

Jane, who had spent the last four years trying very hard not to remember the joy or the detail of Draco’s lovemaking, cleared her throat. ‘You still haven’t said why you didn’t go tonight.’

‘I don’t remember you being so... Actually, tonight is mostly experts, great people but they can be a bit...intense. There will be a more diverse group arriving tomorrow, more relaxed.’

A nasty thought was forming in her head. Was this all about revenge? Was she here so that he could see her humiliated, exposing her ignorance when she found herself among experts? A moment later she felt guilty for the thought. She had done enough online research to know that Draco’s green credentials were not some marketing ploy, that he appeared to have a genuine passion and if he had wanted to see her make a fool of herself he would have been there to watch.

‘I’m not an expert,’ she pointed out spikily, determined not to fall back into old patterns of behaviour. Her compliant silences were long gone.

‘No, you’re not.’ Except in the field of driving him slightly crazy. What was it about her? He watched through dark hooded eyes as her hand went to the base of her throat and he remembered kissing the blue-veined pulse point.

His desire for her had never made any logical sense. It had always been consuming, and he had always vowed not to be consumed by a woman.

‘Did you want me to make a fool of myself tonight?’

The charge dragged him from his contemplation of the sliver of midriff where the pale skin glowed with an opalescent sheen against the vivid brightness of her shirt.

‘Why would I want that?’ he asked slowly.

‘Maybe a bit of payback...?’

‘A boring evening and finding yourself out of your depth hardly compares with being left standing at the altar.’

The guilty heat flew to her cheeks and her antagonism melted into remorse—not that she regretted her decision; she knew it had been the right one, but she wished that she had made it earlier.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Sorry?’ He considered the word. ‘Oh, that makes it all right, then,’ he drawled. ‘Did you save the article with my face attached on coercive control?’

‘What?’ Her eyes flew wide with horror. ‘But that’s not true! And your press release.’ Not that it had been his—mysterious sources had managed to subtly distance Draco from the entire event. The story was then buried by a convenient good news story—who doesn’t love a royal baby?

‘When did the truth get in the way of a good story or, in that particular instance, innuendo?’ he said, sounding to her ears astonishingly casual about the whole thing. ‘The mutual agreement story was not universally accepted. I suppose I should consider myself lucky no one asked you to contribute to the debate.’

‘No one found me and I would never have called you a bully!’ she exclaimed indignantly.

‘You did earlier.’

She conceded the point with an uncomfortable shrug. ‘Well, that was different. I nearly ran you over. I was...you were...’

He arched a brow.

‘Impossible!’ she burst out. ‘I know you are rather overbearing and you treat women with the sort of respect you show your suits, but you are not a bully, no way, and—’

His slow whistle cut across her. ‘I really know where to go for a character reference should I need one!’

‘Nobody ever found me, but if they had I would not have contributed to a character assassination!’ she exclaimed indignantly. ‘And you were not at fault, I was, and I never meant to hurt you, Draco, truly I didn’t, but it was the right thing, you know that, outside the bedroom,’ she said, immediately wishing she hadn’t voiced the thought, or at least the bedroom part, because his eyes darkened instantly and the tension in the air made the fine hairs on her nape lift.

‘We didn’t have a thing in common.’

‘Outside the bedroom,’ he inserted provocatively.

‘That doesn’t last. We would have split up by now.’

‘I lack your ability to see into the future, especially a future that never happened.’

She sighed out her frustration. This was going around in circles. ‘Look I don’t see any point in post-mortems. You are angry, I behaved badly, and you deserved an apology, more than just a note.’

‘A note!’ He shook his dark head. ‘There was no note.’

Jane began to rub her bare finger. ‘I put it in with the ring—you got the ring?’ The idea that the valuable item had gone astray filled her with horror, as did the idea he might think she had kept it, or sold it.

He nodded. ‘I read the delivery note. I was aware of the parcel but I did not open it.’

‘Oh, right... Well, I wrote a note to say that I was sorry.’

‘It was a long time ago. There is no need for an orgy of remorse. We have both moved on.’

She lowered her eyes and nodded. ‘I know.’

‘And you found another life too? How long did you know the father...?’

‘Robert. Not that long.’

His expression hardened at her deliberate vagueness. ‘So he was not waiting in the wings to comfort you when our marriage didn’t happen?’

For a split second she took the question at face value, remembering how she had felt after she had run away from their wedding.

Then his underlying meaning hit her.

‘There was no one else involved in my decision to—’

‘Dump me at the altar.’

She winced but then brought her chin up. ‘How could you think that?’

He gave a negligent shrug. ‘Just a passing thought.’ One that had been torturing him since the moment he had learnt of the child’s existence. ‘Does he walk yet? The child?’

‘Mattie.’

‘Yes, Mattie.’

‘No, he’s too young, but according to the books that’s when life really changes.’

‘Will your cottage be suitable then?’

Her chin went up. ‘The cottage is perfect!’ she declared with a dangerous sparkle in her eyes. ‘I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else even if I could afford it.’

‘You struggle?’

‘We do fine. The house belonged to Robert’s great-aunt.’ And it was now Mattie’s inheritance.

The small amount she could save might not be enough to enable her to buy a place of her own, but she’d be happy with a rental when Mattie turned eighteen, maybe staying near the village.

‘So there is no mortgage or rent.’ There were plenty of other bills though. ‘I should be getting back to Mattie. Val seems lovely and very competent, but I only came down for a few minutes to grab a bite...’

His eyes went to her hand, which retained the squashed remains of a sandwich. ‘Literally, it would seem,’ he murmured, before adding in a tone of clipped annoyance, ‘Why were you not offered the option of a meal in your room?’

Because he had delivered the question in a ‘heads will roll’ sort of way, she added quickly, ‘I was, everyone here has been super kind, but I wasn’t that hungry and I wanted to get my bearings.’

‘You should eat.’

His accusing tone made her blink, then frown at the underlying impatience. ‘I have eaten.’ She gave a small smile of triumph and swallowed the squashed bit of sandwich to illustrate her point.

‘A sandwich,’ he said with lip-curling contempt. ‘It is no wonder you are so...’ Draco paused, his eyelids half lowering as his glance skimmed her body. He was prepared for the primal reaction of his body, but not the surge of protectiveness. She looked so small, so delicate, so vulnerable.

Jane raised a brow and allowed the awkward silence to stretch. It was a bit late for him to worry about being polite. That ship had sailed the moment he’d opened his mouth to call her skinny, bony or whatever other unflattering adjectives were going through his mind.

‘Not the woman you proposed to in another life?’ He was probably thinking he’d had a lucky escape. ‘And you’re right, actually—I am not that woman. And you have no idea what a relief it is not to have to play that role!’

‘So you were playing a role when we made love, playing a role when you couldn’t keep your greedy little hands off me, cara ,’ he drawled. ‘You are a very good actress.

‘I meant meek and submissive—’

‘Except in bed—’ He had never had such a fierce lover in his life, or one so sensitive to his needs, and not afraid to tell him what hers were.

She lifted her hands above her head and turned her back on him. ‘Will you stop talking about—?’

‘Talking about what? Sex? You have changed. I seem to recall it was your favourite subject.’

Her eyes narrowed and her chin-tilted pugnacity made him think of a small, cute dog that thought it was large and dangerous—not that she yapped, even when angry. He’d always liked her voice, the softness underlaid with a sexy hint of huskiness that grew more pronounced when she was aroused.

‘I lied. I wanted to bag a billionaire!’

A heavy silence followed her words. ‘Clearly not enough.’

Jane shed her antagonism like a second skin. She knew how it must have hurt a proud man like Draco to be left at the altar. ‘I hadn’t met Rob...anyone,’ she said, still genuinely bewildered by that accusation. ‘Why would you say that?’

‘You have a child, you have lost weight, you look like a shadow, you are grieving...’ he ground out. ‘This much is obvious. It is obvious to your community, which is clearly protective of you. Are you trying to tell me this man had nothing to do with why you dumped me so publicly?’ He bit down hard on further emotional incoherent revelations escaping his clamped lips.

Bit late, Draco, mocked the ironic voice in his head.

You can’t have it both ways, he thought. Tell yourself you had a lucky escape and you have moved on—he had so many meaningless notches in his bedpost to prove it—and then come across as some sort of victim, unable to move on.

Jane was so astonished by his uncharacteristic outburst that it took her several moments to follow through the processes that had brought him to this conclusion.

Here it was again, another opportunity, red lights flashing, to set the record straight, to correct the facts, to admit she was not a mother.

That she had never loved anyone but him.

She knew that she was a coward, she despised herself for taking shelter in a misconception, but where was the harm? she asked her guilty conscience.

She’d hurt him and he’d survived. At least this way she got to keep her secret, hug it to herself and know she had done the right thing. She deserved some privacy. This was her own private tragedy.

She laughed, and she didn’t know why, and saw his face darken.

He looked as if he wanted to throttle her and actually she couldn’t blame him. Then she thought about the stream of beautiful women who he had had sex with... Good Lord, she had been on the brink of feeling sorry for him. How insane was that?

‘I should have done it privately,’ she admitted. ‘And for that I apologise.’

‘But you don’t regret it.’

Calmness settled over her as she saw babies with dark hair and beautiful dark eyes. ‘Not for one second. We had great sex, Draco, but to spend a lifetime together...you know what a bad fit I was.’

The irony was he had, and it hadn’t mattered. His desire for her, the elemental fire she lit in his blood, had bypassed logic.

‘I... I have to get back to Mattie,’ she said, desperate to escape before she cried. She turned and ran back towards the lights.