Enemies at the Altar

Andreas remained standing as the will was read out. He was glad his younger sister was well provided for, not that she needed it as she and her husband had a very successful investment business based in London, but it was a relief to know she hadn’t been elbowed out by that brazen little blow-in. Miette had inherited the family villa in Rome and assets worth millions set in trust for her two young children. It was a satisfying result given that Miette—like Andreas—hadn’t been all that close to their father over the last years of his life.

‘And now we come to Andreas and Sienna,’ Lorenzo Di Salle said. ‘I think we should conduct this part of the reading in private. Just the two of you, if the others don’t mind.’

Andreas felt his spine tighten. He didn’t want his name bracketed with that little wildcat. It made him feel edgy. It had always made him feel that way. She was a tearaway who rocked his world in ways he didn’t want.

Had never wanted.

He had stayed away from the family home because of her. For years he hadn’t stepped over the threshold, not even to spend those few precious weeks with his mother before she died. Sienna’s outrageous deceit had destroyed any chance of a working relationship with his father for the last eight years. Andreas blamed her for it all. She was a sly little vixen intent on her own gain.

He hated her with a vengeance.

The lawyer waited for the others to leave the library before he opened the folder in front of him. ‘The Chateau de Chalvy in Provence is entailed to you both but on the proviso that you live together legally as man and wife for the minimum of six months.’

Andreas heard the lawyer’s words but it took a moment for them to register. He felt a shockwave go through him. It was like being shoved backwards by a toppling bookcase. He couldn’t get his throat unlocked to speak. He stood staring at the lawyer, wondering if he had imagined what he had just heard.

Sienna and him … married.

Legally tied.

Stuck together for six months.

It was a joke.

‘This has got to be a joke,’ Andreas said, raking a hand through his hair.

‘It’s no joke,’ Lorenzo Di Salle said. ‘Your father changed his will in the last month of his life. He was adamant about it. If you don’t agree to marry each other within the time frame, the property will be handed over to a distant relative.’

Andreas knew exactly which distant relative the lawyer was referring to. He also knew how quickly his mother’s ancestral home would be sold to feed the second cousin’s gambling addiction. His father had laid the perfect trap. He had thought of everything, every get out clause and every escape route. He had made it impossible for Andreas to do anything but obey his orders.

‘I’m not marrying him!’ Sienna shot to her feet, her grey-blue eyes flaring in outrage.

Andreas flicked her a disparaging glance. ‘Sit down and shut up, for God’s sake.’

She pushed her chin up, her bottom lip going forward in a pout. ‘I’m not marrying you.’

‘I’m very glad to hear it,’ Andreas said dryly and turned to the lawyer. ‘There’s got to be a way out of this. I’m about to become engaged. You have to make this go away.’

The lawyer lifted his hands in a gesture of defeat. ‘The will is iron-clad,’ he said. ‘If either of you refuses to cooperate, the other automatically inherits everything.’

‘What?’ Andreas and Sienna spoke at once.

Andreas threw her a look before he addressed the lawyer. ‘You mean if I don’t agree to marry her she inherits Chateau de Chalvy, plus all the other assets?’

Lorenzo nodded. ‘And if you do marry and one of you walks out before the six months is up, the one who stays inherits everything by default,’ he said. ‘Signor Ferrante set it up so neither of you have a choice but to marry each other and stay married for six months.’

‘Why six months?’ Sienna asked.

Andreas rolled his eyes as he muttered, ‘Because any longer than that he knew I would probably end up on a murder charge.’

Sienna sent him a withering look. ‘Only if you got in first.’

Andreas dismissed her comment by turning back to the lawyer. ‘What happens at the end of six months if we do decide to stick it out?’ he asked.

‘You get the chateau and Sienna gets a pay-out,’ the lawyer said.

‘How big a pay-out?’ Sienna asked.

Lorenzo named a sum that sent Andreas’s brows sky-high. ‘She gets that much for doing what exactly?’ he asked. ‘Flouncing around pretending to be the lady of the manor for six months? That’s outrageous!’

Sienna curled her lip at him. ‘I’d say it was pretty fair compensation for having to put up with you for six days, let alone six months.’

Andreas narrowed his eyes to paper-thin slits. ‘You put him up to this, didn’t you?’ he said through clenched teeth. ‘You got him to write this crazy will so you could get your greedy little hands on whatever you could.’

Her grey-blue eyes held his defiantly. ‘I haven’t seen or spoken to your father for five years,’ she said. ‘He didn’t even have the decency to send me a card or flowers when my mother died, let alone attend her funeral.’

Andreas stared her down. ‘Why did you come to his funeral if you hated him so much?’

Her chin stayed at a pugnacious height. ‘Don’t think I would’ve made a special trip because I damn well wouldn’t,’ she said. ‘I was here for a dress fitting for my sister’s wedding next month.’

‘I heard about your long lost twin,’ Andreas said. ‘I read about it in the paper.’ He curled his lip and added, ‘God help us all if she’s anything like you.’

She glared at him furiously. ‘I came to your father’s funeral out of respect for my mother,’ she said. ‘She would’ve come if she was still alive. Nothing on this earth would have stopped her.’

Andreas gave her a mocking look. ‘No, not even common decency, it seems.’

She shot to her feet with a hand raised to slap him. He only managed to stop it from connecting with his jaw by grasping her wrist in mid-air. The shock of her soft silky skin against his fingers was like a power surge going through his body. He saw the sudden flare of her eyes as if she had felt it too.

A nanosecond passed.

Something entered the air between them, a primal, dangerous thing that had no name, no shape or form—it was just there.

Andreas dropped her wrist and stepped back from her, surreptitiously opening and closing his fingers to see if they were still able to function. ‘You’ll have to excuse Miss Baker—’ he spoke to the lawyer again ‘—she has a reputation for histrionics.’

Sienna threw Andreas a filthy look. ‘Bastard.’

The lawyer closed the folder and got to his feet. ‘You have a week to come to a decision,’ he said. ‘I suggest you think about this carefully. There’s a lot to lose on both sides if you don’t cooperate.’

‘I’ve already decided,’ Sienna said, folding her arms across her chest. ‘I’m not marrying him.’

Andreas laughed. ‘Nice try, Sienna,’ he said. ‘There’s no way you’d turn your back on that amount of money.’

She came and stood right in his body space, her chin up, her eyes flashing, her hands on her slim hips, her beautiful breasts heaving. He had never felt such raw sexual energy coming towards him in his life. His whole body jolted with it. It was like being zapped with a Taser gun. He felt it rush through every vein like a flood of roaring fire. His groin pulsated as she leaned in closer, close enough for him to smell the sweet honey scent of her breath as it danced over his face. ‘You just watch me, Rich Boy,’ she said and then she swivelled on her trainer-clad feet and left.

CHAPTER TWO

‘IT SAYS here that Andreas Ferrante and his mistress have broken up,’ Kate Henley, Sienna’s flatmate, said a couple of days later. She looked up over the newspaper and frowned. ‘Hey, I thought you said they were about to get engaged?’

Sienna turned her back to wash a perfectly clean cup in the sink. ‘What Andreas Ferrante does or doesn’t do is of no interest to me whatsoever.’