The Scandalous Collection. Кейт Хьюит

ancient phrase, and she was astonished to hear that she was whispering. That her voice was shaking as if she was timid. As if she was someone else.

      It was that word, she thought in a dazed sort of amazement. Husband. She hadn’t been ready for that word.

      She slid the ring they’d given her earlier onto his finger, felt him clench the hard muscles of his hand slightly as she did so, and then it was done.

       It was done.

      She jerked slightly when the registrar said “husband and wife”, as if she’d already forgotten that it was them, that it was her, that this was who they were now to each other. Husband and wife. She felt something very nearly like dizziness, as if she’d had too much champagne, when the truth was, she could hardly remember the last time she’d had a drink. Certainly not today. That might make it look as if there was something to celebrate.

      “You may kiss the bride,” the registrar said then, jolting Angel back into the moment. Back into her wedding.

      She smiled at Rafe, and it was harder than it should have been to make her mouth curve in that easy way that she knew she needed it to do. Much harder than she expected, but she did it. She had the insane notion that the only thing standing between her and some kind of desperate oblivion was that smile, however crazy that might sound even in her own head.

      Rafe did not smile back. His gaze was hard, unflinching. Angel expected another brief, searing sort of kiss like the one in the palace. She felt that shivery heat move through her, heating her up from the inside out in anticipation, making a wicked flame bloom and pulse in all of her secret places.

      She wanted that kiss. God help her, but she did.

      He took one hand and slid it against her cheek, capturing her that easily. For a moment there was only that searching, somehow implacable look in his eyes, and then his mouth lowered to hers.

      And there was nothing at all but fire.

      That grim and perfect mouth was demanding against hers, forcing her to open to him, to submit to him, to throw herself heedlessly into this dance of flame and need between them.

      By the time it occurred to her that she should not allow this—that she should try to save herself from this thing between them that she couldn’t seem to control or deny, that would, she knew on some level she could not understand, destroy her in some fundamental way—he was pulling back.

      His hard palm still curved against her cheek, more brand than balm. And she loved it. The shock of that seared through her like that same, edgy need for him that still echoed in her, much as she told herself that it had to be something—anything—else.

      But there was no denying that gleam in his gray eyes, that hint of silver that she recognized immediately. It was pure male satisfaction, and it hummed through her, making her breasts ache and her core melt. She let out a shaken sound she pretended was no more than a breath and his serious mouth curved.

      They turned to sign the register, and Angel took it as an opportunity to pull herself together. She didn’t know why she was so fascinated by this man. Her husband. She didn’t know why he had such a powerful effect on her. But she did know, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that the papers she had signed did not allow for this. It was one thing to marry a man for his money. That was a cold, practical decision. It was another to want him like this. What would that make her, if she succumbed to it? What kind of fool married for mercenary reasons and then felt things for her husband? Worse, what would he say if she told him that she thought she’d made a mistake—that she wished she’d approached him another way? What would he do if she said she wished they’d got to know each other, done this properly? She nearly cringed, imagining the look on his serious face.

      How would he look at her if she admitted that she wished that this was romantic after all?

      She was such an idiot. She felt the truth of that snake through her, making her stomach clench. And then she looked at him, this husband who would never see anything when he looked at her save what she cost him.

      His guard had dropped into place again, that quiet curve of his mouth no more than a memory—she could see it as plainly as if he’d pulled a helmet of hammered armor over his face. Once again, he stood stiff and ready, that cold bleakness in his gaze. It was the same way he’d looked at her as she’d approached him in the Palazzo Santina.

      Waiting, she realized in dawning understanding, and something else that made her chest feel dangerously hollowed out from the inside. He was waiting. For the harsh rejection he must have learned to expect. For her to prove to him once again that he was the monster he believed himself to be—that he’d told her he was.

      You will soon be trapped with little hope of escape, he’d said, because he thought that he was the thing that went bump in the night. That he was what she feared, instead of the trappings of this bargain they’d made, and what she knew it made her that she’d suggested it in the first place. And then taken it. And then, worse by far, gone and started to feel things she never should have let herself feel.

      And Angel could not bear it. She could not add to this man’s pain. They were only scars, she thought, and yet he’d clearly been treated terribly because of them. And whatever else he was, or would be to her—and her mind skittered away from examining that too closely—she simply couldn’t be part of the great weight he carried around and wore like a badge of fierce pride, as if he expected nothing less.

      She simply could not bear it, no matter the cost to herself.

      So she smiled, and it was easy this time. Easy and bright, and she reached over and took his hand again, as if she had every right—which, she supposed, she did now. And would, for as long as this devil’s pact between them lasted. She ignored the darkness in his gaze. She ignored the rush of panic that threatened to tip her over where she stood, because none of this was what she’d wanted once, and she knew that what she did now would seal this marriage—would trap her just as he’d warned—more surely than any kiss ever could.

      Even a kiss like his.

      Beneath the panic there was something else, something hot and dark and his, and while she had no idea what would become of her, that part didn’t care. It only wanted more.

      She smiled down at their signatures, then at him. And she laughed.

      “Well, look at that,” she said, and she found she was carried away in her own merriment, suddenly. As if she’d made it real. As if it was true, this sudden light feeling that could, in other circumstances, have been some distant cousin to joy. Or perhaps not so distant after all. “I’m a bloody countess.”

       CHAPTER FIVE

      “YOUR belongings have been packed up and moved out of your flat,” Rafe said in his gruff way, breaking the silence that had grown thick between them. “As planned.”

      The wide and plush back of the sleek silver sedan seemed significantly less roomy with Rafe in it. He sprawled on his side of the seat, his long legs eating up the space before them, the heft of his big body—that wide, hard chest and those strong arms—seeming to encroach upon her when Angel knew, rationally, that he wasn’t moving. He didn’t have to move to take up all the space, all the air. He simply did. As if he exuded too much power to be contained in his own body.

      He watched her, those dark eyes moving over her face like a touch. Like the touch she could still feel, that set her heart racing and made her breath shorten in her throat.

      The truth she didn’t want to face seemed to expand inside of her, making her feel as if she might explode.

      “Wonderful,” she replied, forcing the appropriate smile, hoping it looked duly appreciative.

      She made herself relax against the seat, then made herself look at him too—as if nothing irrevocable had happened, as if nothing