Tempted By The Bridesmaid. Annie O'Neil

Extract

       Copyright

       CHAPTER ONE

      IT FELT AS if she were watching the world through a fishbowl. Everything was distorted. Sight. Sound. Fran would have paid a million dollars to be anywhere else right now.

      Church silence was crushing. Especially under the circumstances.

      Fran looked across to the groomsmen. Surely there was an ally within that pack of immaculately suited Italian gentry who...?

      Hmm... Not you, not you, not you... Oh!

      Fran caught eyes with one of them. Gorgeous, like the rest, but his brow was definitely more furrowed, the espresso-rich eyes a bit more demanding than the others... Oh! Was that a scar? She hadn’t noticed last night at the candlelit cocktail party. Interesting. She wondered what it would feel like to—

      “Ahem!” The priest—or was he a bishop?—cleared his throat pointedly.

      Why had she raised her hand? This wasn’t school—it was a church!

      This wasn’t even Fran’s wedding, and yet the hundreds of pairs of eyes belonging to each and every esteemed guest sitting in Venice’s ridiculously beautiful basilica were trained on her. Little ol’ Francesca “Fran” Martinelli, formerly of Queens, New York, now of...well...nowhere, really. It was just her, the dogs, a duffel bag stuffed to the hilt with more dog toys than clothes and the very, very pretty bridesmaid’s dress she was wearing.

      Putting it on, she’d actually felt girlie! Feminine. It would be back to her usual jeans and T-shirt tomorrow, though, when she showed up for her new mystery job. In the meantime, she was failing at how to be a perfect bridesmaid on an epic scale.

      Fran’s fingers plucked at the diaphanous fabric of her azure dress and she finally braved looking straight into the dark brown eyes of her dearest childhood friend, Princess Beatrice Vittoria di Jesolo.

      The crowning glory of their shared teenage years had been flunking out of finishing school together in Switzerland. That sun-soaked afternoon playing hooky had been an absolute blast. Sure, they’d been caught, but did anyone really care if you could walk with a book on your head?

      Their friendship had survived the headmistress dressing them down in front of their more civilized classmates, grass stains on their jeans, scrapes on their hands and knees from scrabbling around in the mountains making daisy chains and laughing until tears shot straight out of their eyes... But this moment—the one where Fran was ruining her best friend’s wedding in front of the whole universe—this might very well spell the end of their friendship. The one thing she could rely on in her life.

      Fran squeezed her eyes tight against Bea’s inquiring gaze. The entire veil-covered, bouquet-holding, finger-waiting-for-a-ring-on-it image was branded onto her memory bank. Never mind the fact that there were official photographers lurking behind every marble pillar, and hundreds of guests—including dozens of members of Europe’s royal families—filling the pews to overflowing, not to mention the countless media representatives waiting outside to film the happy power couple once they had been pronounced husband and wife.

      Which they would be doing in about ten minutes or so unless she got her act together and did something!

      “What exactly is your objection?” asked the man with the mystery scar through gritted teeth. In English. Which was nice.

      Not because Fran’s Italian was rusty—it was all she and her father ever spoke at home...when she was at home—but because it meant not every single person in the church would know that she’d just caught Bea’s fiancé playing tonsil tennis with someone who wasn’t Bea.

      She stared into the man’s dark eyes. Did he know? Did he care that the man he was standing up for in front of Italy’s prime guest list was a lying cheat?

      “If you could just speak up, dear,” the priest tacked on, a bit more gently.

      Maybe the priest didn’t want to know specifically what her objection was—was choosing instead just to get the general gist that everything wasn’t on the up-and-up. That or he would clap his hands, smile and say “Surprise! I saw them, too. The wedding’s off because the groom’s a cheat. He’s just been having it off with the maid of dishonor in the passage to the doge’s palace. So...who’s ready for lunch?”

      After another quick eye-scrunch, Fran eased one eye open and scanned the scene.

      Nope. Beatrice was still standing next to her future husband, just about to be married. All doe-eyed and...well...maybe not totally doe-eyed. Beatrice had always been the pragmatic one. But—oh, Dio! C’è una volpe sciolto nel pollaio, as her father said whenever things were completely off-kilter. Which they were. Right now. Right here. A fox was loose in the hen house of Venice’s most holy building, where a certain groom should have been hit by a lightning bolt or something by now.

      On the plus side, Fran had the perfect position to give the groom the evil eye. Marco Rodolfo. Heir apparent to some royal title or other, here in the Most Serene Republic of Venice, and recent ascendant to the throne of a ridiculously huge fortune.

      Money wasn’t everything. She knew that from bitter experience. Truth was a far more valuable commodity. At least she hoped that was what Bea would think when she finally managed to open her mouth and speak.

      Maybe she could laser beam a confession out of him...

      The groom looked across at Fran...caught her gaze...and smiled. In its smarmy wake she could have sworn that a glint, a zap of light striking a sharp blade, shot across at her.

      Go on, the smile said. I dare you.

      Marco “The Wolf” Rodolfo.

      The wolf indeed. He hadn’t even bothered with the sheep’s clothing. If she looked closely, would she see extra-long incisors? All the better to eat you—

      “Per favore, signorina?”

      A swirl of perfectly coiffured heads whipped her way as the priest gave her an imploring look. Or was he a cardinal? She really should have polished up her knowledge of the finer details of her Catholic childhood. Church, family dinners, tradition... They’d all slipped away when her mother had left for husband number two and her father had disappeared with a swan dive into his work.

      “Francesca!” Bea growled through a fixed smile. “Any clues?”

      Santo cielo! This was exactly the reason her father had held her at arm’s length all these years. She couldn’t keep her mouth shut, could she? Always had to speak the truth, no matter what the consequences.

      “Francesca?”

      “He’s—” Fran’s index finger took on a life of its own and she watched as it started lifting from her side to point at the reason why Bea’s wedding shouldn’t go ahead. She couldn’t even look at the maid of honor he’d been having his wicked way with. What was her name? Marina? Something like that. The exact sort of woman who always made her feel more tomboy than Tinker Bell. Ebony tresses to her derriere. Willowy figure. Cheekbones and full lips that gave her an aloof look. Or maybe she looked that way because she actually was aloof.

      She was insincere and a fiancé thief—that much was certain. Since when did Bea hang out with such supermodelesque women anyhow?

      Society weddings.

      Total. Nightmare.

      Last night, in their two seconds alone, Bea had muttered something about out-of-control guest lists, her mother and bloodline obligations. All this while staring longingly at Fran’s glass of champagne and then abruptly calling it a night. Not exactly the picture of a bride on the brink of a lifetime of bliss. A bride on the brink of disaster, more like.

      “Francesca,