Never Gamble with a Caffarelli. Melanie Milburne

Caffarelli?’ The official spoke from the open doorway. ‘The room is now ready for your fiancée.’ He turned to Angelique. ‘If you will come this way, mademoiselle? We have two chaperones to accompany you.’

      Angelique glared at Remy as she stalked past him. He caught a whiff of her signature fragrance as she went by. It hovered about his nostrils, enticing him to breathe in deep. He had always associated the smell of sweetpeas with her—strong, heady and colourful.

      His brain snapped back to attention like an elastic band being flicked by a finger.

      Within hours they would be man and wife.

      Usually whenever the ‘M’ word was mentioned to him he had a standard, stock phrase: over my dead body.

      But somehow—right here and now—it didn’t have quite the same ring to it.

      CHAPTER THREE

      ANGELIQUE COULD NOT even close her eyes, let alone get to sleep. She spent most of the night pacing the floor, cursing Remy, hating him. How could he have done this to her? He couldn’t have thought of a worse punishment.

      Married.

      To him of all people!

      It didn’t matter if it was legal or not. She had sworn she would never marry. She would never allow someone else to have that sort of control over her, to have that sort of commitment from her.

      She had seen first-hand her mother’s commitment. Kate Tarrant had taken her marriage vows way too seriously. She had been browbeaten and submissive from day one. She had toed the line. She had obeyed. She had given up her freedom and her sense of self.

      Angelique would never do that.

      Marriage and all it represented nauseated her. Unlike most girls her age, she couldn’t even bear the thought of wedding finery. Who wanted to dress up like a meringue, be smothered in a veil and be given away like a parcel to some man who would spend the next fifty years treating her like a household slave?

      There was a knock on the door and when she opened it she found a maid holding a tray with fresh fruit, rolls and steaming hot, rather unusually fragrant coffee. ‘Your breakfast, mademoiselle.’

      Was this the time to announce that—despite her half-French bloodline—she actually loathed coffee and could only ever face tea first thing in the morning?

      Probably not.

      Not long after that maid left, another one much older one arrived, carrying a massive armful of wedding finery which she informed Angelique she would help her get into in preparation for the ceremony at ten.

      ‘I’m not wearing that!’ Angelique said as the maid laid out an outfit that looked more like a circus tent. A particularly beautiful circus tent, however. On closer inspection she saw there were fine threads of gold delicately woven into the fabric and hundreds of diamonds were stitched across the bodice.

      ‘These are the official bridal robes of the province,’ the maid said. ‘The Princess Royal was married in them in July. It is a great honour that you have been given permission to wear them.’

      I can’t believe I’m doing this, Angelique thought as she stood and was wrapped in the voluminous folds. The irony wasn’t lost on her. She made a living out of wearing the minimum of fabric. Now she was being wrapped in metres of it like some sort of glittering present.

      Her blood simmered.

      It boiled.

      How could it be possible that within a less than an hour she would be married to Remy Caffarelli?

      ‘Are we done?’

      ‘Just about.’ The maid came at her with a denser than normal veil dripping with even more diamonds and a train that was at least five metres long.

      ‘Oh no.’ Angelique shied away. ‘Not that.’

      The maid gave her a pragmatic look. ‘Do you want to get out of here or don’t you?’

      * * *

      ‘Are you OK with this?’ Crown Prince Talib Firas Muhtadi said to Remy as he finished his second cup of thick, rich, aromatic cardamom-scented coffee. ‘Things are really unstable right now in our province. The tribal elders are notoriously difficult to negotiate with and highly unpredictable. It’s best to do things their way just to be on the safe side. We don’t want a major uprising over an incident like this. Best to nip it in the bud and keep everyone happy.’

      Remy mentally rolled his eyes as he put his cup back down on the saucer. ‘No big deal. It’s just a formality, right? It’s not like this marriage—’ he made the quotation marks with his fingers ‘—will be recognised at home.’

      Talib looked at him for a long moment without speaking.

      ‘You’re joking, right?’ Remy said, feeling a chill roll down his spine like an ice cube. Please be joking.

      ‘Marriage is a very sacred institution in our culture,’ Talib said. ‘We don’t enter into it lightly, nor do we leave it unless there are very good reasons for it.’

      What about total unsuitability?

      Being polar opposites?

      Hating each other?

      ‘I fought it too, Remy,’ Talib added. ‘But it’s only since I met and married Abby that I realised what I’ve been missing out on. Oh, and yes, the marriage will be considered legal in your country.’

      Damn.

      Double damn.

      * * *

      The first thought Remy had was it could be anyone under that traditional wedding dress and long veil and he would not be any the wiser. But he instantly knew it was Angelique because of the way the robes were shaking, as if her rage was barely contained within the diamond-encrusted tent of the fabric that surrounded her slim body.

      And her eyes.

      How could he not recognise those stormy grey-blue eyes? They flashed with undiluted loathing through the gauze of the veil as she came to stand beside him.

      He suddenly had a vision of his oldest brother Rafe’s wedding day only a few weeks ago. The ceremony had been very traditional, and his bride, Poppy Silverton, had been quite stunningly beautiful and unmistakably in love. So too had Rafe, which had come as a bit of a surprise to Remy. He’d always thought Rafe was the show-no-emotion, feel-no-emotion type, but he’d actually seen moisture in Rafe’s eyes as he’d slipped the wedding band on Poppy’s finger, and his face had been a picture of devotion and pride.

      His other brother Raoul was heading down the altar too, apparently just before Christmas. His bride-to-be, Lily Archer, had been employed to help rehabilitate Raoul after a water-skiing accident which had left him in a wheelchair. Remy had never seen Raoul happier since he’d announced his engagement to Lily, which was another big surprise, given how physically active Raoul had always been. But apparently love made up for all of that.

      Not that Remy would know or ever wanted to know about love. He’d had his fair share of crushes, but as to falling in love...

      Well, that was something he stayed well clear of and he intended to keep doing so.

      Loving someone meant you could lose them. They could be there one minute and gone the next.

      Like his parents.

      Remy sometimes found it hard even to remember what his mother and father had looked like unless he jogged his memory with a photo or a home video. He had been seven years old when they had died, and as each year passed his memories of them faded even further. Listening to their voices and seeing them moving about on those home videos still seemed a little weird, as if a tiny part of his brain recognised them as people he had once known intimately but who were now little more than strangers.

      He had completely forgotten their touch.