The De Santis Marriage

There was a mirror hanging on the wall by the lift and she diverted her attention to it to push the stray curl off her brow. It flopped back down again like a renegade. She should not have decided to pin it all up because it just wasn’t going to behave, she predicted. But giving in and letting her hair hang down around her shoulders in a tumble of loose glossy corkscrews had only made her face look paler and her grey-green eyes look too big.

Like a frightened rabbit, she likened, wrinkling her nose as she gave the errant curl a teasing tug and watched it spring back into place again. certed to keep the dismay

It had to be that precise moment that the lift doors slid open to reveal none other than the great man himself. Their eyes clashed for a startled second. Knowing he’d caught her pulling silly faces at her own reflection was enough to flood colour into Lizzy’s cheeks.

‘Oh,’ she said, just too disconcerted to keep the dismay from sounding in her voice. ‘Are you staying here too? I didn’t know.’

Brief amusement lit the unusual gold colour of his eyes. ‘Good evening, Elizabeth.’ He always called her Elizabeth in that dark, deep, slightly lilting Italian accent of his. ‘Are you coming in?’

Coming in—heck, she thought, letting her eyes run over him. He was wearing a conventional black silk dinner suit and was leaning casually against the rear wall of the lift, which should have helped to diminish his daunting height a little and that overwhelming sense of presence he always carried around everywhere with him—but didn’t.

And the idea of stepping into a lift with him again did strange things to the nerves in her legs as she made them move. Finding a tense smile to flick his way, she then turned her back on him to watch as the doors closed them in.

Silence hummed as they waited. She could feel his eyes on her. Tension made her bite into the soft tissue of her inner lip.

‘You look very beautiful tonight,’ he murmured softly.

Lizzy had to fight down an inner wince. She knew what she looked like and she knew what he was seeing—the poor best friend decked out in the dress his betrothed had worn a couple of months ago at the party in London.

So, ‘No I don’t,’ she therefore responded curtly.

It was a relief when the lift doors opened onto the elegant splendour of the hotel’s mezzanine lounge bar. As she went to step out that hand arrived at the base of her spine again and this time she froze where she stood.

It just wasn’t fair. Why did she always do something like this around him?

‘Shall we?’ he prompted smoothly.

Lizzy made herself walk forward, stingingly aware how his hand remained exactly where it was this time—as if he was taunting her silly reaction to him. The first person her eyes focused on was Bianca’s mother, looking stunning in sparkling diamonds and unrelieved black.

‘Oh, there you are, Lizzy,’ she said, hurrying towards them with an anxious expression threatening to ruin her perfectly made-up face.

‘Luciano,’ she greeted, her dark eyes skimming warily over her future son-in-law’s face before she returned them to Lizzy. ‘I need a quick word with you, cara,’ she begged.

‘Of course.’ Lizzy smiled, automatically softening her tone for this tiny, elegant woman whose nervous disposition made her worry about everything—and everything usually encompassed her beautiful daughter. ‘What’s Bianca done now?’ she asked.

Meant as a light tease, it was only when the man standing behind her said coolly, ‘Nothing, I hope,’ that she realised she’d spoken out of turn in front of him.

Sofia Moreno went pale. Lizzy got defensive on Bianca’s mamma’s behalf because she’d noticed before that Sofia was not comfortable in Luc’s presence.

‘It was a joke,’ she said sharply—too sharply by the sudden stillness she felt hit the man behind her and the flick of tension she felt play along the length of her spine until it gathered beneath the light pressure of his hand.

Next second he was leaning past her to brush kisses to Sofia’s cheeks. Having to stand here, trapped between the hard warmth of his body and Sofia’s delicate one, Lizzy felt a twinge of remorse because his gesture was so obviously offered as a gentle soothe to his future mother-in-law’s frazzled nerves.

‘I will leave you both to—confide together,’ he murmured then, and his hand slid away from Lizzy’s back.

He strode away towards the bar to greet some friends, the loose-limbed elegance with which he moved holding Lizzy’s gaze though she didn’t want it to.

‘Lizzy, you have to tell me what’s wrong with Bianca,’ Sofia Moreno insisted, setting Lizzy’s eyelashes flickering as she moved them away from Luc. ‘She is behaving strangely and I cannot seem to get a pleasant word out of her. She should be down here by now standing with Luciano to greet their guests, but when I went to her suite after I knocked on your door she wasn’t even dressed!’

‘She had a headache at lunch and went to her room to rest,’ Lizzy recalled with a frown. ‘Perhaps she fell asleep.’

‘Which would explain the rumpled bed,’ Bianca’s mother said tensely, ‘and the way she looked like she’d just fallen out of it and the way she snapped off my head!’

‘Give her a few more minutes to get herself together,’ Lizzy suggested soothingly. ‘If she still hasn’t put in an appearance, I’ll go up and chivvy her on.’

‘In the bad mood she’s in, only you dare to do it, cara,’ Bianca’s mother said tautly.

Not Bianca’s betrothed? Lizzy wondered dryly as she linked her arm through Mrs Moreno’s and led her back to where the rest of the guests were gathered. A few seconds later she was being warmly greeted by Bianca’s father, Giorgio, and introduced to a cousin of Bianca’s she hadn’t met before.

Vito Moreno was about her own age and blessed with the Moreno dark good looks and a pair of laughing blue eyes. ‘So you’re Elizabeth,’ he said. ‘I’ve been hearing a lot about you since I arrived here this afternoon.’

‘Who from?’ Lizzy demanded.

‘My dear cousin, of course.’ Vito grinned. ‘Bianca insists you are the one person who saved her from a life of rebellion and wickedness when she had to leave Sydney to live in the UK and attend the “stuffiest school around”.’

Ah. ‘You’re one of the Sydney Morenos,’ Lizzy realised. ‘I recognise the accent now.’

‘I used to be Bianca’s partner in crime before you took my place,’ he explained.

‘You’re that cousin?’ She laughed up at him. ‘I’ve heard all about you too.’

‘That’s my pulling power shot to death.’ Vito sighed.

A long fluted glass of fizzing champagne appeared in front of Lizzy and she glanced up as she accepted it to find Luc standing over her like some dark towering giant.

‘Oh—thank you,’ she murmured.

He just nodded his dark head, sent an acknowledging nod towards Vito and drifted away again leaving Lizzy feeling— odd.

Then Vito said something and with a mental shrug she pushed Luc De Santis to one side and wished to goodness he would stay there for good. The minutes wore on, the mezzanine bar slowly filled with guests and still there was no sign of Bianca. Eventually people began to get restless, checking the time on their watches.

Lizzy’s gaze drifted towards Luc De Santis. He was standing apart from everyone else talking into his cell phone—and was not very happy by the stern look on his face.

Was he talking to Bianca? She would not be surprised because she’d seen him angered before by Bianca’s habit of always being late.

Well, get used to it, she told him silently as she watched him snap shut his mobile and slide it into his jacket pocket. Bianca’s blithe lack of awareness to time and space was the constant bane of her mother’s and Lizzy’s lives. He could count himself lucky if she managed to turn up on time at the church next week.

As the minutes dragged on, though, even Lizzy found she had to fight the need to keep checking her watch, and Sofia Moreno was sending her pleading looks. She was about to excuse herself to go and find out what Bianca was doing when there was a sudden stir by the lifts.

Everyone turned to look as one. The following silence held like a shaken heartbeat because there, at last, was Bianca, looking an absolute vision dressed in billowing gold silk. Her long dark hair was up in a dramatically simple style that showed off the sweet perfection of her face and the slender length of her creamy smooth neck. Diamonds sparkled at her ears and her throat.

Thread a tiara into her hair and she could be a princess, Lizzy thought fondly as eyes like huge pools of liquid dark chocolate scanned her audience, then her soft mouth took on an apologetic tilt.

‘Sorry I’m so late, everyone,’ Bianca chanted quietly, and the mezzanine bar stirred to the sound of a beautifully directed indulgent response.

‘That’s my brave girl,’ Lizzy thought she heard Vito murmur beneath his breath and she glanced at him sharply, but saw nothing in his expression to warrant such a strange remark.

Then Luc was striding forward to take hold of Bianca’s slender fingers and lifting them to his lips. Whatever he said to his betrothed brought a sheen to Bianca’s eyes and a vulnerable tremor to her oh, so beautiful mouth.