Black Widow Bride. Tessa Radley

offered and, forcing a parody of a smile onto her lips, allowed him to lead her onto the floor, the flouncy skirt of her scarlet dress swirling around her legs.

      She would dance. Damn Damon Asteriades! She would laugh, too, wouldn’t let Damon glimpse the misery in her heart, the emptiness in her soul. Damon would never know what it had cost her to organise his wedding to Fliss, to help Fliss with the myriad choices of music, flowers, fabrics, or how sick and despondent she had felt trudging up the aisle behind the pair of them.

      Nor would he ever know of her quiet desperation when the white-and-gold-robed priest had pronounced them man and wife. Of the ache that had sharpened as the bridal couple had turned to face the congregation. Fliss had been pale, but she’d managed to give Damon a flirtatious glance from under her lashes. And Damon had sought Rebecca’s gaze, his eyes blazing with triumph, as if to say, Nothing you can do now.

      Oh, yes, she’d dance. She’d be as outrageous as ever, and not a soul would guess at the agony hidden beneath the brittle facade. They’d see what they always saw: brazen, independent Rebecca.

      Never again would she allow herself to become vulnerable to this raw, consuming emotion. It hurt too much.

      She smiled determinedly up at Savvas as he put an arm around her shoulder and ignored the glower from the midst of the dance floor.

      

      “Hey, brother, my turn to dance with the bride.”

      Startled by Savvas’s words, Rebecca surfaced from the numb place to which she’d retreated, a place where she felt nothing. No pain, no emotion. The sudden stop brought her back to the present, back to the ballroom. Savvas stepped away as the romantic melody faded.

      In front of her stood her nemesis, the man she knew she would never escape.

      Even in this dim light his blue gaze glittered. Only the bent blade of a nose that had clearly been broken more than once saved his face from the classic beauty his full mouth and impossibly high cheekbones promised. Instead it created a face filled with danger, utterly compelling and ruthlessly sensual. A modern-day pirate.

      Hastily she looked away, grabbing for her departing dance partner.

      “Savvas?”

      But Savvas was gone, spinning Fliss away, Fliss’s wedding dress fanning out against his legs. Feeling utterly alone, Rebecca waited, heart thudding with apprehension, refusing to look at Damon.

      “So, you are now trying to seduce my brother? Another crack at the Asteriades fortune, hmm?” Her head shot back at the cynical words. There was something dark and tumultuous in his eyes.

      He was angry?

      What about her?

      What gave him the right to judge her? He didn’t even know her—hadn’t had the slightest inclination to get to know her.

      “Go to hell,” she muttered through grimly smiling teeth and swung away.

      “Oh, no, Rebecca.” A hard hand caught her elbow. “It’s not going to be that easy. I’m not going to allow you to cause a scene and leave me standing alone on the dance floor. You’re not making a fool of me.”

      Rebecca tried to wrench free. The grip tightened. Big. Strong. Powerful. She didn’t have a hope of escaping Damon Asteriades. But the last thing in the world she wanted today was to be held in his arms, to dance with him.

      No.

      She must have said it aloud, because his mouth flattened as he twirled her around to face him.

      “Yes,” he hissed. His eyes had turned to flat, unforgiving cobalt chips. “You will dance with me.” His right hand moved to rest on her waist as the joyous bars of the next waltz struck up. “For once in your selfish life you will do something for someone else. I will not allow you to destroy Felicity’s day.”

      As he’d already destroyed her.

      Rebecca wanted to laugh hysterically. Damon had no idea…no idea that he would destroy Fliss, too. Dear, beloved Fliss, the closest thing she had to a sister. Her best friend. Her business partner. Or at least she had been until last night when, after the final wedding rehearsal, Fliss had signed her share in Dream Occasions over to Rebecca.

      And why? Because Damon had demanded it.

      The lord and master had made it clear he wanted all ties to Rebecca severed, and Fliss had obeyed. Rebecca had been hotly, impulsively furious. Yet under the fury there had simmered the unspeakable pain of betrayal. Rebecca knew why Fliss had capitulated. Hell, she even understood why her friend was so desperate to marry a man to whom she was so totally unsuited.

      But Fliss should’ve known better, should never have agreed to marry him. Yet how could Fliss refuse? Because Fliss craved security—as Rebecca once had. Unlike a heroine tied to the train tracks in one of those ancient black-and-white movies, Fliss didn’t see the danger. She saw only Damon’s solid strength. His power and wealth.

      Damon was too strong. He’d dominate her. Fliss would never stand up to him. Rebecca feared Fliss would wither and die. So last night Rebecca had decided to take matters into her own hands.

      A cold line of goose bumps swept her spine. Rebecca gave a convulsive shiver at the memory of what had happened next.

      And afterward…

      God! She would never forget the thrust of Damon’s anger, his contempt…or his furious passion…as long as she lived. Not even the gallons of red wine she’d consumed later had dimmed the pain, the knowledge of what that one last desperate shot had cost.

      “Fliss,” she said gently as Damon’s hand enfolded hers—trapping her—as he led her into the waltz.

      Damon glared down at her, uncomprehending.

      “She likes to be called Fliss. Or hasn’t she told you that yet?”

      His black eyebrows drew together, and she was terribly aware of the heat of his hand on her waist, of the intimate pressure of his palm against hers, of his hot, sexy scent.

      “Her name is Felicity,” he said repressively. “It’s beautiful. A happy name. The other sounds insubstantial, like fairy floss.”

      “But she hates it. Or don’t her wishes matter to you?”

      The name reminded Fliss of less happy times, of a childhood where she’d been shy, small for her age—of the bullying she’d endured at school as the child of a foster home, of the stark discipline meted out by foster parents who had their own two daughters to love. Rebecca knew because she’d been there, raised by the same distant but well-meaning couple. How could she explain it to Damon? She couldn’t! Rebecca reminded herself she was no longer the rock in Fliss’s life. It was up to Fliss to tell her husband what she chose.

      Momentarily Damon looked taken aback, but already his face was hardening. “It has nothing to do with you what I call my wife. All I ask is that you refrain from ruining this day.”

      My wife.

      Again the agonising sharpness pierced her heart. Rebecca pushed the pain away. She’d deal with it later, much later, when this appalling day was over and she was alone.

      “And how would I do that?” She raised a brow, pretending an insouciance she was far from feeling, here, trapped within the heat of his arms, mindless of the other dancing couples surrounding them. “Savvas told me that everything is stunning—the flowers…the wedding dress…the wedding cake—that it’s a Dream Occasion. How could I possibly ruin it?” Each word she uttered was another blow to her already battered heart.

      But he didn’t smile at her intentional pun on her business’s name. Instead his glower darkened. “Don’t be obtuse. I’m not doubting your professional ability, it’s your penchant for stirring up trouble that has me worried.”

      If only she could hate him.

      Damon despised her. And, at this moment, she didn’t like him much either.