Wedding Party Collection: Don't Tell The Bride: What the Bride Didn't Know / Black Widow Bride / His Valentine Bride

Lena was making her way slowly down the steps, holding fast to the hand rail. ‘Relax,’ she said. ‘This is working for me. Are you sure you don’t want your flannel back? Or mine as well, for that matter. Because, frankly, most of the women and some of the men in here are staring at you and salivating.’ Her lashes swept over her eyes and she scanned him from head to toe. ‘And why wouldn’t they? There’s a lot to love.’

He followed her down into the water fast. He’d never considered himself body shy, but still... ‘Keep the flannels. Use the flannels. Why aren’t you freaking out?’

‘Too busy watching you,’ she said with a grin, and then slid into the water and struck out for the far side of the pool. ‘Oh, this is nice.’

‘Wouldn’t you be more comfortable if you were, oh, I don’t know...not buck naked?’

‘Adrian Sinclair.’ Her voice floated warm and teasing across the water. ‘Are you self-conscious?’

‘Apparently.’ The water was deliciously warm, bordering on hot. Lena would like it. ‘I’m also possessive—particularly where you’re concerned. And I’m on my honeymoon and all kinds of frustrated. You might want to keep this in mind should the masseur attempt to wash you down.’ The masseur was washing someone down on the marble block now, and there were suds, lots of suds, and a wet white towel that the masseur was scouring the skin with. He wasn’t being gentle. ‘Maybe you should give that experience a miss, because if he scrubs too hard and antagonises your scars I’ll have to relieve him of his arms.’

‘I’m sure he’ll adjust his ministrations accordingly.’

Trig watched as the masseur fisted half the towel around his hands and proceeded to bring the free end of the towel down hard on the person’s back. He did it again and the towel landed lower this time. Again and again, all the way down to the toes. Every time the towel came down the body strung out on the slab twitched.

‘I might give the flagellation a miss,’ said Lena after a moment.

The masseur had downed the towel and picked up a huge bucket full of water. For someone so small and wiry, the man had some serious body strength. Next minute, he’d thrown the entire contents of the bucket at the person lying on the slab.

‘Wasn’t expecting that,’ said Lena as the person sat up, a man, now that you could see past the suds. The front of him got slammed with another full bucket of water and then he stood up and headed towards a nearby waterfall of water and half disappeared under it. ‘You reckon that was cold water?’

‘Yes.’

‘Me too.’

She had such a shameless grin. ‘You going to tell me how I got these scars now? Because I think I’m ready to hear it. It bothers me that I can’t remember if this happened because I did something wrong.’

‘You did nothing wrong.’

‘I don’t suppose you could expand on that?’

‘I don’t want to discuss it.’

‘Trig, I look at my body in the mirror and I see the scars and feel the aches but I don’t know how they got there. It’s really disconcerting, and I’d really like to know. I appreciate that it’s probably not a memory that you want to revisit, but please...’

Trig scrubbed his hand over his face. He had no defences against a pleading Lena. None.

‘So we were on a simple recon run in East Timor,’ he began. ‘There’d been a last-minute change of plans and we got asked to check out an old chemical weapons lab that had been reported abandoned about three years earlier. That’s what the mission profile said. We came in careful, we always do, and found cobwebs and dust. No footprints. No sign of use. No equipment on the benches, nothing in the cupboards. The place had been picked clean and left to rot.

‘We came back outside. Didn’t figure we had a problem until semi-automatic fire came at us from the left flank and took you down. I don’t know why, because there was nothing there to protect. Another two minutes and we’d have been out of there. No activity to report. Not coming back.’

‘Did we catch the shooter?’

‘No.’

‘Do we have any idea who did the shooting?’

‘No. And no rebel group put their hand up for it. The incident’s been buried. No press coverage, nothing but an internal memo or two and a verdict of random opportunistic insurgence.’

‘You don’t sound convinced.’

‘I’m not. There’s something else going on. Jared’s looking into it. Quietly.’

Lena nodded. Trig waited.

But no memories of Lena coming to Turkey specifically to find Jared were forthcoming.

Lena leaned her head back against the tiled lip of the pool and closed her eyes. ‘Think I’m going to forget the scrub-down altogether and stay right here for at least an hour. The only thing I plan on opening my eyes for is to watch you get all sudsed up and sluiced back down. I could appreciate that show a lot.’

‘Never going to happen.’

‘Probably for the best. If it did, I’d want a way of showing ownership and you’re not wearing a ring. By the way, when are we getting our rings? Because I have some more ideas on what I’d like.’

‘You do?’

‘I do. And I found a wad of cash and a couple of credit cards in my suitcase belonging to one Lena West. I can pay for rings.’

‘Gentleman pays for the rings, Lena.’

‘Since when?’

‘Pretty sure it’s a rule.’

‘Do we follow rules? As a rule.’

‘Always. What sort of wedding ring do you want?’

‘Plain brushed platinum. Wide.’

‘You want diamonds in it?’

‘Meh.’

‘What about a diamond engagement ring?’

‘Shouldn’t I already have one of those?’ Lena frowned. ‘I wish I could remember your proposal. I want to know how you got away with not giving me a ring.’

‘It’s possible I promised you the world instead.’

‘Not the moon and the stars?’

‘Those too. And Saturn’s rings.’

‘Classy,’ she murmured. ‘Were we beneath the stars at the time?’

Trig made an executive decision. ‘We were on the beach, lying in the whitewash watching baby turtles hatch and return to the sea and it was a starry, starry night.’

‘I can see how that would work. Where would you have even put a ring?’