Untamed Billionaires: Marriage: For Business or Pleasure? / Getting Red-Hot with the Rogue / One Night with the Rebel Billionaire

In spite of every sensible thing she kept trying to tell herself, she looked like a bride on the brink of marrying the man of her dreams.

Brittany’s breath caught as she stepped out of the portico and got her first glimpse of her husband-to-be.

Nick stood under a beautiful poinciana lush with vivid crimson blossoms, his black tux framed against the vibrant colour. With the sun setting behind him, casting a golden glow over everything, and the fairy lights strung around the trees in the garden just twinkling to life, the entire scene was surreal.

It shouldn’t be this romantic, this enticing, this special. This wedding was all business.

Tell that to my heart, she thought as she took a tentative step, her stiletto sandals skidding as they hit the sandstone pavers.

She couldn’t see Nick’s expression from this distance but as she walked towards him the shadows cast from the blossoms cleared and what she saw took her breath away all over again.

Honest to goodness, undiluted happiness.

Why would he look like that?

He was the one who’d proposed this ridiculous arrangement in the first place, had made it more than clear what they’d both get out of it.

So why the ecstatic, proud expression of a man who’d just glimpsed his real bride for the first time?

Her heart hammered in time with her steps, beating a rapid rhythm as she all but tripped towards him, eager to get this over and done with.

While the setting might be picture perfect and her groom beyond handsome, this wasn’t how she’d envisioned her wedding ceremony.

Sure, the groom might be the same guy she’d imagined, but that was a lifetime ago. So much had happened, so much had changed, and she was a fool if she thought for one second that anything about this marriage resembled her dreams of years gone by.

The closer she got, the louder her heart roared until she could barely hear by the time she pulled up next to him, a nervous, trembling mess.

‘You’re a beautiful bride,’ Nick murmured in her ear, so close his warm breath raised a trail of tiny goose bumps along her neck and she knew while this marriage might be all business on paper, she wondered how on earth she’d manage to keep it platonic in the bedroom.

‘Thanks.’

She cast a nervous glance at the civilian minister in a crass white suit, and a pair of bored witnesses in hotel uniforms. Her eyes squeezed shut as she dragged air into her lungs.

How had it come to this?

A quickie wedding, empty and meaningless, to a man she’d once loved with all her heart yet who hadn’t loved her enough in return, when all she’d wanted to do when she’d come home was gather enough information to secure a promotion.

‘Hey, it’s going to be okay.’

Nick squeezed her hand and she opened her eyes, captured by the kindness in his, kindness underlined by happiness she’d glimpsed earlier.

‘Trust me.’

Trust him?

She’d trusted him with her heart.

She’d trusted him with her virginity.

And he’d sent her away anyway.

So excuse her if she was a little light in the trust stakes these days.

Taking a deep breath, she forced a smile. ‘Let’s get this done.’

Shadows gathered in his eyes, obliterating his joy, and she mentally kicked herself for sounding so abrupt.

He wasn’t forcing her into this. She was a big girl, she’d made her own decision, and now the moment of truth had arrived she had to suck it up.

Nick gestured to the minister to start and the next fifteen minutes flew by in a blur of meaningless vows, empty promises and pretend smiles.

Her heart ached so much she almost cried, twice, but one look into Nick’s determined dark eyes gave her the strength to get through it.

Until the kiss.

‘You may now kiss the bride.’

The minister beamed as if he’d just bestowed the greatest gift on them, but all Brittany could think was how she’d hold it together when Nick’s lips touched hers.

Her eyelids slammed shut against the threatening tears, against the determination on his face as his head descended, slowly, agonisingly slowly, when all she wanted was for this to be done with.

She wanted a quick, seal-the-deal kiss.

What she got was something else entirely as his lips brushed hers, so soft, so gentle, so tantalising, drawing her towards him like an invisible gossamer thread being gently tugged.

She couldn’t break the hold, break the spell, as he bundled her in his arms and kissed her, really kissed her, with every ounce of pent-up emotion bubbling between them.

The tears started falling then, swift, coursing, raining down her cheeks and splattering his lapels as he dabbed them away with his thumbs, his smile too warm, too tender, too understanding.

‘Damn you, Mancini,’ she muttered, her gaze firmly fixed on the second button of his dress shirt as she blinked rapidly.

‘I feel this too, Red.’

He tilted her chin up, giving her no option but to meet his scrutinising gaze. ‘Don’t fight it.’ She had as much chance of fighting this as receiving a welcome-home hug from her father! But she knew she mustn’t give in entirely to this attraction simmering between them, couldn’t give into the insane dream to make this marriage real.

She had a life in London, a promotion to nail. Then why the renewed rush of tears at the thought of leaving all this, leaving Nick, behind?

‘Come on, almost done, then we can relax.’

He held her hand the entire time through the signing of the certificates, through the forced pleasantries from the minister and the false congratulations from the witnesses she didn’t know, and the trip in the elevator to the fifth floor.

‘Where are we going?’

Stupid question, for she knew, and every cell in her body was on high alert.

They had to have a fake wedding night for people to believe this marriage was real, she got that. The part she was having trouble with was reminding herself of the fake part.

‘Our suite.’