Cordero's Forced Bride. Kate Walker

speak.’

      An autocratic flick of one long, bronzed hand emphasised the command with all the arrogance of a long-ago emperor.

      ‘I for one am impatient to hear what you have to say.’

      He was impatient all right. He couldn’t make that any plainer. And she would tell him. But not right here, right now. Not like this with close on six hundred guests now openly gawping in her direction, fascinated by what was going on and anxious to view the next ‘episode’ in this soap-opera drama that had suddenly been staged before them.

      With her heart beating so high up in her throat that breathing normally was a complete impossibility, she made herself take the necessary steps forward down the aisle that brought her near to him. And as she went she tested possible openings over and over inside her thoughts, trying each one for size and discarding them as too stupid, too contentious, too clumsy or just plain wrong. And even if she had any hope of an idea it fled from her mind in the moment that she looked up into his dark, shuttered face and saw the way those cold, hunter’s eyes were burning down into her.

      She knew that it wasn’t possible but she suddenly felt that he was even bigger, leaner, stronger than he had appeared on the night she had been introduced to him. The formal tailoring of his wedding suit emphasised the straight width of his shoulders, the broad chest, narrow waist and long, long legs. And against the immaculate white of his shirt, the golden tones of his skin stood out in dramatic, powerful contrast.

      ‘Can we go somewhere more private, please?’

      Her voice was thin and uneven on the words but she knew that he had heard her even though he inclined his dark head to one side, frowned faintly, as if he had not quite caught what she had said.

      ‘Perdon?’

      He took a step forward as he spoke and she was close enough now to see the way the powerful chest rose and fell with his breathing, even see the faint shadow on his jaw where already the darkness of stubble was just visible below the surface. She almost believed she could actually feel the heat of his strong body reach out to enclose her, carrying with it the subtle tang of some citrusy cologne, enhanced and deepened by the clean, personal scent of his skin. Her heart was thudding even harder now, but this time she realised on a sense of shock that it was not just the sense of apprehension that gripped her but a sudden rush of a purely female response to the presence of a powerful, sexually alluring male. And that was the last thing she wanted to feel towards this man whose presence in their lives seemed to have created nothing but problems for her family.

      ‘Can we go somewhere more private, please?’

      She forced herself to say it again, more firmly and a touch louder this time, though she really wanted to hiss it at him in the most controlled of whispers, for his ears only.

      ‘Somewhere we can be alone.’

      ‘Alone?’

      This time those black brows drew together with such sharp force that she almost heard the snap and it was impossible to misunderstand just what was in his mind. Alexa could feel the hot tide of blood race through her skin, heating it with embarrassment.

      ‘Señorita, I am about to be married.’

      ‘Not like that! I didn’t mean it like that!’ she hissed at him. ‘And you’re—’

      With a sense of horror she choked off the appalling declaration— you’re not getting married. She couldn’t just come out and say it. Not like that. Just as she couldn’t give him the devastating news right here and now, in front of this audience.

      Because he had to be devastated, didn’t he? Even if he was big and strong, and ruthless as they came, he had after all asked Natalie to marry him, to be his wife, for better, for worse…

      ‘You really need to hear what I have to say,’ she managed, praying that the emphasis she was putting on the words hid the sudden huskiness that seemed to have affected her voice.

      ‘You think I do.’

      He was looking down his long, straight nose at her now, that broad forehead creased in a disapproving frown, silvery eyes darkened with frank disdain and total scepticism.

      ‘You think I should hear what you have to say—but you give me no reason why you should march in here like this, without a word of explanation and demand that I—’

      ‘I’m trying to explain!’ Alexa snapped in total exasperation.

      Couldn’t he see that this was important? That she wouldn’t have ‘marched in here’ like this if it weren’t? Couldn’t he see…?

      No, she acknowledged to herself privately. He couldn’t see at all. It was the last thing that would possibly cross his mind.

      Of course el brigante would never consider that his bride might not turn up. That she might abandon her wedding, jilting her bridegroom and leaving him waiting at the altar. It would just never enter his handsome, arrogant head. Instead he had supreme confidence that she would be here, just as he had arranged, just as he wanted, and go ahead with the marriage— because he wanted it.

      The immovable arrogance of the man was beginning to grate so much that she found she was actually clenching her teeth hard so as not to let rip with a furious and totally unvarnished declaration of the truth.

      ‘But I think that you’d prefer it if we were alone to talk.’

      ‘What I would prefer is not to be alone with an unknown woman just moments before my wedding ceremony. Can you imagine what the gutter Press would make of that?’

      ‘Oh, if you’re interested in preserving your reputation then you needn’t worry! I can assure you that I have no designs on…’

      Alexa’s voice faded away as she caught the piercing, cynically sceptical look he slanted at her from those burning, silvery eyes. He really thought she was here as some sort of reputation- ruining exercise? What sort of life did this man lead that he had become so totally cynical, so appallingly suspicious? Did he truly believe that she would use the time they were alone together to blackmail him later—demanding a small fortune not to ‘kiss and tell’?

      Well, she had no intention of kissing at all…

      That thought sent her unwary gaze flying to Santos’s mouth, lingering just a moment too long on its sensual shape, the cynical half-smile curling the corners, and her heart skipped a beat. Kissing those lips would be an experience, one that set off flares of warning in her mind at just imagining it.

      But ‘Handsome is as handsome does,’ as her mother was fond of quoting. And everything she had heard about Santos Cordero put that ‘handsome does’ part of the saying very much in doubt.

      ‘I prefer not to know what designs you might have…’

      The icy tones of the Spaniard’s attractively accented voice dragged her thoughts back from the foolish path they were travelling, giving her a hint of perhaps one of the reasons why her half-sister had decided that she couldn’t go through with this wedding.

      ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, you impossible man,’ she exploded. ‘I’m trying to save you from embarrassment here.’

      ‘Alexandra…’

      It was her father who stepped forward, obviously determined to intervene, his face alternating between red and pale, his tone and his use of her full name a brusque reproach.

      ‘Alexandra—please…’

      But he stopped dead at a sudden lift of the Spaniard’s hand, an autocratic signal to stop—stay away. Obviously something in what she had said had caught Santos Cordero’s attention. That ‘you impossible man,’ Alexa strongly suspected. She doubted very much that he was regularly subjected to such a contemptuous description—if ever.

      ‘If you’re really afraid, then we can leave the door ajar so that someone will hear your screams when I…’