Marriage on the Rebound

Rafe just stood there, glaring at her downbent head for a few moments, then suddenly strode over to grasp the short tulle veil she still wore. Careless of the amount of pins holding it in place, he ripped it from her head and threw it aside.

‘Sorry,’ he muttered tensely. ‘But I couldn’t…’ Swallowing, he spun away, thrusting clenched fists into his pockets.

Her scalp began to tingle from his rough handling, but Shaan didn’t mind. If anything she was glad of the feeling because it told her that she was at least partly still alive. And she even understood why he’d done it. She must look pathetic, really pathetic, sitting here in all her bridal finery while her groom made off in the opposite direction.

Then it really hit—self-revulsion surging up from nowhere to bring her staggering to her feet, the letter, still crumpled in one hand, falling forgotten to the floor as she began a mad clawing at the tiny pearl buttons holding the front of her lacy bodice together.

‘Help me!’ she pleaded in choking desperation, fingers trembling, body shaking, her expression until now uncannily still breaking into a war of tortured loathing.

The silk ripped as she tugged, but she didn’t care—suddenly it was the most essential thing in her life to get out of this dress, remove everything even remotely connected with Piers or her ruined wedding day from her body! ‘Help me, for God’s sake!’

‘Shaan, I can’t!’ Rafe sounded actually shocked, which brought her eyes jerking up to his face.

‘Why not?’ she demanded in tight, thick condemnation. ‘You’ve done everything else you could possibly do to ruin today for me. Why can’t you help me ruin this dress, too!’

Her sudden attack sent him back a step, set a nerve ticking at the side of his rigidly held jaw. His usually implacable grey eyes going dark with emotion as he opened his mouth to say something—and Shaan’s chin came up, dark eyes daring him to deny what she’d said. He couldn’t, and his mouth closed again into a hard, tight line of self-contempt.

On a fresh wave of inner violence, Shaan gave a vicious yank at the bodice so that the two pieces of fine fabric sheared apart to send tiny buttons flying everywhere, dropping on the bed, on the floor, one flying across the room to land on the soft mauve carpet at Rafe’s feet.

Rafe stared down at it, his dark head lowered so she couldn’t see the expression on his grim face. She turned away on a rustle of silk to finish the complete destruction of the dress as, without a single care for its cost, she took malicious pleasure in ripping it from her body until she stood, trembling and cold, in the lovely white lace basque and silk stockings, which was all she wore beneath.

‘This feels worse than rape,’ she whispered, her arms wrapping tightly around herself.

‘God, Shaan. Don’t…’ he muttered, taking a half-step towards her with his hand outstretched in a kind of distressed appeal.

Then it fell heavily to his side because he knew there was nothing he could say—nothing that could ease the pain and degradation she was suffering right now.

Instead, he turned for the door, his broad shoulders stiff beneath the smooth grey cloth of his formal morning jacket. ‘I’ll—go and get someone to—’

‘No!’ The protest rasped from somewhere deep down inside her. And she turned to look at him as he stopped dead one step from the door. ‘No,’ she repeated huskily. ‘You can go if you want,’ she allowed. ‘But I don’t want anyone else coming anywhere near this room.’

It was one thing having Rafe witness her complete downfall, since it was he who had effectively brought it about, but it was quite another having all those others witness it too. She wanted nobody here. Nobody. Not her best friend, Jemma, nor even her aunt.

She didn’t care about Rafe, or the fact that she was wearing next to nothing in his presence. Rafe had openly held her in contempt from the very first moment Piers had introduced her as his—

‘No.’ Thoughts of Piers brought the sickness back, churning around in her stomach, so that she had to heave in some deep, controlling breaths to stop it overwhelming her altogether. Her nails bit into the soft flesh of her upper arms with enough cruelty to draw blood.

Then she felt something cold press against her skin, and remembered. Her long lashes flickered upwards as she unclipped her left hand from her arm and spread the cold and trembling fingers out in front of her.

A huge diamond winked tauntingly back at her, and with an angry tug she wrenched it from her finger and spun to face Rafe again, her black eyes spearing bitterness into his tensely guarded grey ones.

‘Here,’ she said, and threw the ring at his feet. ‘You can give that back to him when you see him next. I don’t want it; I don’t ever want to see it again.’

Turning away from the image of Rafe slowly bending to pick up the ring, she walked quickly into her small bathroom, where she wilted shakily against the closed door. Her insides felt thick and heavy, as though every functioning organ had collapsed in a throbbing heap deep in the pit of her stomach.

Nausea enveloped her, followed by a black dizziness, followed by a raking sense of self-disgust which had her body folding right in on itself. Then, with the sudden jerky movements of one whose mind was not functioning with any intelligence at all, she was stiffening upright and lurching drunkenly away from the door.

She needed a shower! Her cold and trembling skin was crawling with revulsion and she desperately needed to wash it away.

It was only as she wrenched the fragile white silk basque from her body that she saw the pale blue satin-and lace-trimmed garter still clinging lovingly to her thigh, just above one white silk stocking, and a smile twisted her bloodless mouth when she realised just how ridiculous she must have looked to Rafe, making her grand exit with this piece of frivolity on show.

Tears blinded her eyes, the first of many, she supposed, and she wretchedly wiped them away with the back of an icy hand and stepped into the shower cubicle. Trembling fingers found the tap and turned it until the burning-hot hiss of water gushed down on her. Then she stood, not moving, just letting the stinging heat wash all over her, eyes closed, face lifted up to it, not caring if she scalded herself so long as she scoured every last hint of the bride from her body.

How long she stood there like that, she had no idea, because she refused to allow herself to think, or even to feel much. But through the tunnel-dark recesses of her consciousness she was vaguely aware of intermittent knocks sounding on her bedroom door, of voices—one her aunt’s, sounding high-pitched and shrill, another one, crisp and clear was Jemma, sounding demanding.

Rafe’s darkly resonant murmurs intermingled with them, saying God knew what. She didn’t know nor care, so long as he kept them all away from her. Then, eventually, the silence fell again, a solid kind of silence which soothed her flurried heart and helped keep her face turned up to the hot, hissing spray.

There would be time enough to endure all those pitying glances and murmured platitudes which were bound to come her way. These few minutes were for herself, herself alone, to try to come to terms with what she now was.

A jilted bride.

A nerve jerked at the corner of her mouth. Humiliation sat in the empty hollow where her heart used to be. A fool, more like, she corrected herself ruthlessly, a fool for ever believing that Rafe Danvers would let her marry his brother.

She had known from the first time she stood there in front of him, with her hand caught possessively in Piers’ hand, that Rafe was going to do anything in his power to break them up.

Piers…

Oh, God, she thought wretchedly as his handsome, smiling face loomed up to torment her. How could he? How could he do this?

‘Shaan…’ The loud knock sounding on the bathroom door made her jump, her feet almost slipping on the wet tiles at the deep, husky sound of that voice.

So, Rafe hadn’t given in to all those other concerned voices and made good his escape like his brother had, she noted grimly. He was still here, standing just on the other side of her bathroom door, as always ready to see his responsibilities through to the bitter end. She had told him she didn’t want anyone else near her and he had taken her at her word—which therefore meant he could not desert her himself until he was satisfied he had seen this responsibility through to its conclusion.

Which was—what? she asked herself.

Rafe. The older brother. The more successful one. The head of the great Danvers empire. A man with shoulders more than broad enough to take whatever was thrust upon them.

And Piers had certainly thrust her upon Rafe today, she thought with a bitter little smile.

‘Shaan…’

The voice came from much closer and she opened her eyes, turning her head to stare blankly through the thick bank of steam permeating all around her—to find Rafe’s grim figure standing with a towel at the ready just outside the open shower cubicle door.

‘Who said you could come in here?’ she said, too numb to care about her own nakedness—both inside and out. The water was still gushing over her.

He didn’t move his gaze from her face—not even to make a sweeping inspection of her naked body.

‘Come on,’ he said quietly, the towel held outstretched between his hands. ‘You’ve been in there long enough.’

She laughed—why, she didn’t know—but it was a sound that fell a long way short of humour and probably sounded more bleak and helpless than anything else. Long enough for what? she wondered. After all, I’m not going anywhere, am I?

Closing her eyes, she lifted her face back to the spray, effectively dismissing him.

‘Hiding in here isn’t going to make it all go away, you know,’ he said quietly.

‘Leave me alone, Rafe,’ she threw back flatly. ‘You’ve achieved what you set out to do; just leave me alone now.’

‘I’m afraid I can’t do that.’ One hand dropped a corner of the towel so he could reach into the cubicle and turn off the water.