Improperly Wed. Anna DePalo

to the extent she could.

      “How long have you known we were still married?” she demanded.

      Colin shrugged. “Does it matter if I arrived in time?”

      She smelled a rat from his evasive response. He’d wanted to create a scene.

      Still, he gave nothing away.

      “You’ll be hearing from my lawyer,” she stated.

      “I look forward to it.”

      “We’re getting an annulment.”

      “Not today, however. Not even the state of Nevada works that fast.”

      He had a point there. Her wedding day was well and truly ruined.

      She stared at him in impotent fury. “There are grounds,” she insisted, reassuring herself. “I clearly must have been insane when I married you.”

      “We agreed on lack of consent due to intoxication, you’ll recall,” he parried.

      “Yes, yours!” she retorted, annoyed by his continued sangfroid.

      He inclined his head. “By our mutual agreement, due to a better alternative.”

      “Fraud should have sufficed,” she responded tightly. “You completely misrepresented your character to me that night in Las Vegas, and after today, no one would disagree with me. This latest bit of Granville chicanery is for the history books.”

      He lifted an eyebrow. “Chicanery?”

      “Yes,” she insisted. “Delivering the news on my wedding day that you were derelict in filing our annulment papers.”

      “No need to impugn my ancestors by association,” he responded calmly.

      “Of course, there is,” she contradicted. “Your ancestors are why we’re in this current mess. They’re the reason why—” she gestured in the direction of the church “—the crowd out there was electrified by the news that a Wentworth had married a Granville. What are we going to do?”

      “Stay married?” he suggested mockingly.

      “Never!”

      Belinda turned to exit just as Uncle Hugh and Bishop Newbury barged in.

      As she brushed past her uncle, she heard her relative demand, “I hope you have a good explanation, Easterbridge, though I can’t imagine what it is!”

      Apparently, all hell had broken loose in the hallowed sanctum.

      Revenge.

      A sordid word.

      Still, revenge hinted at personal animosity. Instead, Colin mused, the Wentworths and Granvilles had been after each other for generations.

      Perhaps feud or vendetta would be more appropriate.

      His relationship with Belinda was intimately intertwined with the Wentworth-Granville feud. The feud was the reason that his and Belinda’s passion for each other in Las Vegas had been infused with the thrill of the forbidden. It was also why Belinda had run out on him the next morning.

      Ever since, he’d been set on a path to make Belinda acknowledge the visceral connection between the two of them—despite the fact that he was a Granville. His plan for doing so involved complicated maneuvers to vanquish the Wentworths, once and for all, and thus end the Wentworth-Granville feud.

      Colin gazed at the panoramic view afforded by the floor-to-ceiling windows of his thirtieth-floor duplex condominium, waiting for the visitor who would inevitably arrive. The Time Warner Center, at one end of Columbus Circle, afforded a wealth of privacy as well as luxury to well-heeled foreigners seeking a pied-à-terre in New York City.

      He slid his hands into his pockets and contemplated the treetops of Central Park in the distance. Because it was a Sunday, he was in shirtsleeves rather than a business suit. It was a beautiful sunny day, much as yesterday had been.

      Yesterday, of course, was what had almost been his wife’s wedding day.

      Belinda had appeared divine in her wedding dress, though her expression hadn’t been celestial or angelic when she’d confronted him. Rather, she’d looked as if she was torn between cheerfully throttling him and dying of mortification.

      Colin smiled at the image that crossed his mind. She had a passionate nature beneath her prepossessed exterior, and it drew him to her. He wanted to strip away the smooth veneer to the substance of the woman beneath.

      If yesterday was any indication, Belinda hadn’t changed much in two years. She had just as much passion—around him, anyway. Her erstwhile fiancé didn’t seem to bring out the same fire. She’d been cool and collected by Dillingham’s side, beautiful but detached. The smooth porcelain-doll facade had been in place—at least until he had interrupted the wedding service.

      Her rich dark hair had been swept up and away from a face that was still arrestingly lush. Dark brows arched delicately over hazel eyes, an aquiline nose and lips too full for decency. Her ivory wedding dress had hugged a curvaceous figure. Its short lace sleeves and the lace over the décolleté were the only things that saved it from being immodest.

      The moment she’d turned away from the altar and toward him, he’d felt a wave of heat and a tightening of the gut, even with the whisper of her veil between them.

      Colin clenched his jaw. Belinda had looked breathtaking, just like on their wedding day. But when she’d married him, she’d been full of excitement and anticipation, eyes alight and those sinful lips spread in a dazzling smile. None of that stuffy, stilted Wentworth hauteur, just a stunning blend of passion and sensuality. The remoteness hadn’t emerged until the following morning. But even now, Colin was pleased to see he could still get a reaction out of her.

      After their confrontation in the church staging area, Belinda had swept out of the room. Colin wouldn’t be surprised if she’d gotten into a cab and gone directly to her attorney’s office. His mocking suggestion that they remain married had apparently been the last straw, as far as his wife was concerned.

      The wedding reception had gone on, he’d heard. Belinda’s wedding planner and friend, Pia Lumley, had seen to it at the Wentworth family’s request. Regrettably, however, none of the three principal characters—the bride, her husband or the groom—had been present.

      Colin stared broodingly at the magnificent view from his windows.

      The enmity between the Wentworths and Granvilles ran deep. The two families were longstanding neighbors, landowners and, most importantly, rivals in England’s Berkshire countryside. From skirmishes over property lines to allegations of political treachery and dastardly seduction of female relations, the flare-ups between the families had entered into folklore.

      He, of course, as the current titular head of the Granville family, had written a fitting chapter to the long-running story by eloping in Las Vegas with Belinda Wentworth.

      Over the years, he had found Belinda intriguing. Of course, he’d been curious about her. When he’d seen his opportunity to get to know her better, he’d taken it—first at a friend’s cocktail party in Vegas and soon afterward, in a casino.

      By the end of the night at the Bellagio casino, he’d known he wanted Belinda like he’d wanted no woman before her. There had been something about her, and it went beyond the both of them being former competitive swimmers and current opera fans.

      She was a dark and striking beauty, more than a match for him in wits. Of course, that same wit was what had made her floor him, as no woman had, at the end of the evening with the announcement that she couldn’t sleep with him without a marriage certificate.

      Of course, he hadn’t been able to resist the challenge. Perhaps his winnings at the gaming tables had made him believe he could win no matter what the odds. He’d been willing to take the gamble for a night in bed with Belinda.

      And she hadn’t disappointed.