Stolen Bride

She looked at his strong profile in alternate shade and light from the other cars. ‘Tell me the truth,’ she said quietly. ‘What odds do you give for our success?’

He sighed. ‘I’d rather give odds on a dead horse winning the Kentucky Derby, if you want the truth,’ he said at last. ‘But we’re not done yet.’

They both looked in silence at the road ahead, then Finn glanced at her. ‘It’s not entirely hopeless, you know,’ he said. ‘At this precise moment, we’re free.’

‘You always were free,’ she replied softly. ‘You didn’t have to rescue me.’

He didn’t reply to that, and Cara wondered again if some ulterior motive had prompted him to come to her aid. There had to be one. He couldn’t have done it just for the sake of a book. Money, maybe? Had some other family decided the marriage would make Luca and her uncle a too-powerful combination and paid Finn to step in?

She thought of the look in Finn’s eyes when he had taken her hand in the church and sighed. Somehow she didn’t like to think he had accepted money to take her away. And besides, nobody, not even she, had known she would rebel like that at the last moment.

Maybe he was just crazy. After all, who in his right mind would bring out a book like that about Luca and then attend his wedding?

And why would a complete stranger help her for her own sake? And how did he know she spoke English?

Finn’s voice broke in on her thoughts. ‘You’re thinking so loudly it’s disturbing me,’ he remarked. ‘What’s bugging you now?

She swallowed. ‘I was wondering if you were safe to be with,’ she said frankly. ‘Because I am beginning to think you are certainly not right in the head.’

He shrugged. ‘Can you think of anybody in your family who is completely sane?’ he inquired. ‘Your uncle, for instance—’

‘Leave my uncle out of it!’ she broke in hotly.

‘All right,’ Finn went on. ‘Luca, then. Now there is a man who is definitely one plate short of a picnic basket. He is so macho your uncle probably keeps him on a leash and feeds him the remains of door-to-door salesmen.’

Cara stared at him. No one had ever spoken so casually about her family before. So insultingly. ‘How dare you!’ she fumed.

He turned to look at her briefly. ‘Okay, so I was exaggerating, but so what? The trouble with you, Cara, is that you’ve been brought up to accept unquestioningly everything your uncle and Luca tell you.’

Her mouth opened but she could think of nothing to say.

He went on. ‘I’ve studied the way your family does business for a long time. And I thought nothing could surprise me about them any more. But I have to admit I was as surprised as Luca when you turned at the altar and just said no. He looked like a guy whose pet rabbit had just pulled a gun on him.’

Cara’s jaw clenched. ‘So you think I’m just a pet rabbit?’

He held up his hand. ‘Uh-uh.’ He shook his head. ‘When you arrived at the church I thought you were a sacrificial lamb. Now...’ He put his hand on the steering wheel. ‘Now, I don’t know what to make of you. Except that you’re probably as crazy as you think I am.’

She stared out the windscreen. Sacrificial lamb, indeed. Just who did this man think he was?

He glanced at her. ‘You must be tired,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘Try to sleep.’

‘I don’t want to,’ she snapped. And was immediately angry with herself for how childish she sounded. She rubbed her hands over her face and tried to stifle a yawn. ‘I can’t sleep. I still don’t even know if I can trust you or not.’

‘I’m the only hope you’ve got,’ he said drily. ‘And, in any case, what do you think I’m going to do—try to rape you with one foot on the accelerator? Interesting idea,’ he added meditatively. ‘Especially on the autostrada. But I have to admit I’m not that much of an acrobat.’

She leaned her head back. He really had the most beautiful voice, she thought sleepily. But the things he said with it! She had never, ever met a man like him.

Soon she fell into an uneasy doze, peopled with unsettling images. Finn glanced at her face, and with a wry smile kept on driving.

She woke with a start as he pulled into a service station. ‘Where are we?’ she asked muzzily.

‘Past Rome,’ he replied. ‘Nearly at Florence. ‘It’s about two o‘clock, and if we keep this up, we should be in France for lunch tomorrow.’

Lunch. Her brain seemed to wake up all of a sudden at the word, and she tried to remember when she had last eaten. She looked at him hopefully. ‘I don’t suppose we could have something to eat now?’ she ventured.

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ he said, getting out of the car. ‘Keep your head down.’

Cara looked at the parking area in front of the shop and restaurant. Even at this hour in the morning it was busy. And noisy. The people were mostly families and some young couples, all eating snacks and laughing in the velvet darkness. There was no danger here. Nobody looked like one of Luca’s men.

But it was still difficult not to feel scared. Not to wonder if even now Luca was pulling up behind them and getting out of his car... She shook herself crossly. She mustn’t think like that. She couldn’t afford to panic.

Sliding down in her seat, Cara noticed a briefcase on the floor. She must have knocked it off the back seat when Finn was smuggling her past Luca’s men. She grabbed the handle to heft it up, but the catch hadn’t been fastened, and a bundle of papers cascaded over the floor.

Muttering crossly under her breath she began to pick them up, and then stopped, amazed, as she read her name.

The papers were cuttings, from English newspapers, and she frowned in concentration as she began to read. Talking to Finn had brought everything she had forgotten flooding back.

Including some things, maybe, that were best left untouched in her memory, like Sarah and her uncle having that enormous row when she had been about eleven. Sarah had left shortly after that. All that had been left were a few classic novels with Sarah’s name written on the flyleaf. Occasionally Cara read them, but only occasionally. The clean, expensive smell of the thick cream pages was enough to bring back the memory of a woman she had once hoped would become her stepmother. And who instead had disappeared out of her life for ever.

‘Carenza Gambini.’ She stared in amazement at her printed name, her mind focusing once more on the present. What was she doing in a newspaper? ‘The beautiful but obviously gormless niece of one of the Mafia’s greatest mobsters is set to marry the equally ruthless Luca Finzi. She better get his breakfast eggs just right, or Lucky, as he is so imaginatively known, will probably be signing quite another contract for her. Until death do they part...’

Cara’s heart pounded as she read the piece over and over again. Is this what people all over England had read about her? There was a crunch of gravel by the car and she looked up, straight into Finn’s eyes.

‘And may I ask why you’re rummaging around in my briefcase?’ he demanded.

She held the cutting out to him with shaking fingers. ‘Did you have anything to do with this?’ she demanded.

He looked straight into her eyes. ‘I wrote it.’

‘You wrote it!’ she screeched. ‘It’s rubbish!’

He shrugged. ‘It pays.’

She pushed against the door. ‘Let me out of the car,’ she snapped.

‘What are you going to do?’ he drawled. ‘Stick me with a hairpin?’

‘Let me out!’ she repeated.

‘It’s all gravel out here,’ he said. ‘You’ll hurt your feet.’

She glared at him. ‘I want to hurt you!’

He shifted his weight and opened the door. She swung her legs out of the car. He was right, it was gravel. Determinedly she stood to face him, then grabbed at her shorts as they fell down.

‘You could use your tights as a belt,’ Finn offered.

‘Don’t give me advice,’ she snarled. ‘How many other lies have you written about me?’