Enemies at the Altar

And now she was no different.

She would get what she could out of this and move on. She would milk Andreas for every penny she could before she walked out of his life.

For good.

Sienna was on to her second glass of wine when she heard Andreas’s car. The deep throaty roar of the engine made her stomach clench unexpectedly. His fast car, fast-living lifestyle was something that had always attracted her even as it annoyed her. He had probably never had to push start a car in his life. He had never had to make his own bed or butter his own toast. He hadn’t been born with just a silver spoon in his mouth, but an entire dinner service. He ate from fine bone china and drank from crystal glasses. He had everything that money could buy and then some.

How she hated him for it.

Andreas came in to find Sienna lying on her stomach on his leather sofa with a half drunk glass of wine in her hand and the remote control to his big screen television in the other. Her hair was pulled back in a high ponytail and she was wearing close-fitting black yoga pants and a loose hot-pink top that had slipped off one of her sun-kissed shoulders. Her feet were bare as she swung her lower legs back and forth in a slow motion kicking action. She looked young and nubile and so damned sexy he felt a tight ache deep in his groin.

‘Hard day at the office?’ she asked without even looking his way as she flicked through the channels.

He tugged at his tie to loosen it. ‘You could say that.’ He shrugged off his jacket and tossed it over the end of the other sofa. ‘Making ourselves at home, are we?’

She took a sip of her wine before she answered. ‘Having a blast,’ she said. ‘You make great wine, by the way. I like your housekeeper too. We’re already best friends.’

‘You’re not supposed to make friends with the servants,’ he said, frowning.

She muted the television and swung her legs down to sit up. ‘Why’s that?’ she asked. ‘Because they might forget their place and get too close to you?’

Andreas let out a carefully controlled breath. ‘They’re employees, not friends,’ he said. ‘They do the work and they get paid. There’s nothing else that’s required of them.’

She got off the sofa and padded over to where he was standing with her loose-limbed sensual gait. She looked up at him with those big sparkling-with-mischief grey-blue eyes of hers and he felt his groin tighten another excruciating notch. It was all he could do to stand there without hauling her against him to show her how much he lusted after her. But he had decided he would have her when he said so, not because she thought she could manipulate him at will.

‘Have you eaten?’ she asked.

‘What is this?’ he asked with a mocking look. ‘Wifely duties 101?’

She lifted that deliciously bare shoulder of hers in a little shrug, her mouth going to a resentful pout. ‘Just trying to be helpful,’ she said. ‘I thought you looked tired.’

‘Maybe that’s because I haven’t slept a wink since I heard about my father’s will,’ Andreas said, rubbing a hand over his face, which was in need of a shave.

He walked over to the bar and poured himself a glass of the wine Sienna had opened. He took a couple of sips before swinging his gaze back to her. ‘I’ve got the licence. I pulled a few strings. We can get married next Friday.’

Her eyes widened a fraction but her voice when she spoke was all sass. ‘You move fast when you want something, don’t you, Rich Boy?’

‘No point in dragging things out,’ he said. ‘The sooner we marry, the sooner we can get a divorce.’

‘Sounds like a plan.’

Andreas narrowed his gaze in sharp focus. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

Her slim brows lifted archly. ‘Exactly what I said,’ she said. ‘You seem to have it all figured out.’

‘I do,’ he said. ‘We marry and then at the end of six months we end it. Simple.’

‘What did you tell Elena about us?’ she asked.

‘Nothing, other than we’re getting married as soon as possible.’

‘You must have said more than that,’ she said, toying with the end of her ponytail.

‘Why do you think that?’ he asked.

She lifted her golden shoulder up and down again. ‘She seems to think we’re madly in love,’ she said.

‘Most people are when they marry,’ Andreas said, taking another mouthful of wine.

A beat of silence ticked past.

‘Were you in love with Portia Briscoe?’ Sienna asked.

Andreas’s brows shot together. ‘What sort of question is that?’ he asked.

She tilted her head on one side, her finger tapping against her lips. ‘No, I don’t think you loved her,’ she said. ‘I think you liked her well enough. She ticked all the boxes for you. She comes from money, she knows what cutlery to use and she dresses well and never has a hair out of place. She never says the wrong thing or rubs people up the wrong way. But grab-you-in-the-guts love? Nope. I don’t think so.’

‘You’re a fine one to harp on about true love,’ he said. ‘You weren’t in love with Brian Littlemore. You barely knew him when you waltzed him down the aisle before his wife was even cold in her grave.’

‘Actually, I did know him,’ she said with an imperious air. ‘I’d met him well before his wife died.’

Andreas gave her a disgusted look. ‘And no doubt you opened your legs for him then too. Did he pay you? Or did you give him one for free to get him so hot and hungry the poor old fool couldn’t help himself?’

Sienna’s eyes flashed at him with undiluted venom. ‘You have a mind like a sewer,’ she said. ‘You sit up there in your diamond-encrusted, gold-inlaid ivory tower of yours, passing judgement on people you don’t even know from a bar of soap. Brian was a decent man with a big heart. You haven’t even got a heart. All you’ve got inside your chest is a lump of cold, hard stone.’

Andreas took a measured sip of his wine. ‘Your loyalty to your late husband is touching, ma chérie,’ he said. ‘But I wonder if you would be so loyal if you knew he had another lover the whole time he was with you.’

Her eyes flickered before moving away from his. He watched as she moved back to where she had left her glass of wine. She picked it up and cradled it in her hands without drinking any of it. ‘We had an open marriage,’ she said, still not looking at him. ‘It gave us both the freedom to do what we wanted as long as we were both discreet about it.’

Andreas wondered if he should have been quite so blunt with her. There had been nothing in the press about her late husband’s affair. He had heard it secondhand and not from a particularly reliable source. But if she was hurt or upset by the news she was doing a good job of concealing it. Admittedly, she was standing stiffly, almost guardedly, but neither her expression nor her tone showed any sign of emotional carnage.

‘You knew about his mistress?’ he asked.

She turned to look at him, a little puzzled frown pulling at her brow. ‘His … mistress?’

‘The woman he was seeing,’ he said. ‘His lover.’

She gave a little laugh that seemed totally out of place. It sounded almost … relieved. ‘Oh, her …’ she said. ‘Yes, I knew about her right from the start.’