Stolen Bride

He rubbed his chin. ‘I don’t know. After meeting you I’m not sure what the truth is any more.’

Crossly she stamped her foot on the gravel and stifled a yelp of pain. ‘How dare you call me gormless!’

‘It was a logical assumption,’ he replied calmly. ‘Given that you had just agreed to marry Luca.’

She pulled out another cutting and waved it in his face. ‘And this!’ she yelled. ‘This one claims I spend all my time shopping!’

‘Don’t you?’ he asked, interested.

She drew in her breath sharply and glared at him. ‘I’m going to the ladies’,’ she snapped, and before he could do anything she had spun round and scuttled barefoot to the main building, the gravel like hot coals on her feet.

In the ladies’ her face looked like a ghost’s in the brightly lit wall of mirrors. She rubbed hastily at her cheeks with a dampened paper. towel. With almost savage satisfaction she wiped off the too-bright lipstick and the thick mascara the professional make-up girl had insisted on.

That had been for the wedding pictures, she had been told. She had hated it, but naturally enough, her opinion had not been taken into account. She ran her fingers through her disordered hair and rinsed her mouth.

Strange, really, that she should belong to such a thoroughly Italian family and yet look nothing like them. Thick gold hair, pale skin that, if she wasn’t careful, burnt before it tanned, and those wide hazel eyes.

Her father had been like that, too, her uncle had said. A throwback to Roman times, he had told her, laughing. But her parents had died when she was a baby, and the photographs she had of them were blurred and mostly out of focus.

Perhaps Finn could tell her more. She had never seen the book he had written about Luca. She had just accepted that it was a lie. Money-grubbing filth, as Luca had put it. Now she began to think she would very much like to read it.

Washing her face and hands in cool water was heaven after that long, hot drive. She soaked another paper towel and bathed the back of her neck, then, shrugging helplessly at her reflection, went outside.

The car was not where Finn had parked it. She registered the fact almost unconsciously, and then as she realised the implications her heart flopped sickeningly.

He had left her. Deserted her. She stared at the spot where the car had been, then looked wildly around. Had he really gone?

She almost screamed when a hand descended on her shoulder and spun her round. ‘Where the hell have you been?’ Finn snapped.

She gazed at him in shock. ‘I... I told you, I went to the ladies’,’ she replied as calmly as she could.

‘On which planet?’ he demanded. ‘Do you know how long you’ve been? I could have filled up ten cars at that gas station in the time it’s taken you to mess about in there.’

She glared at him, anger replacing her fear. ‘What’s it to you?’ she retorted.

CHAPTER THREE

FINN grabbed her wrist and pulled her to him. ‘We are not on some Sunday jaunt,’ he said quietly, emphasising every word. ‘This is a dangerous game you’ve started, and it doesn’t pay to play around with your relatives. Didn’t it ever occur to you that I might think the worst when you didn’t immediately come back?’

She stared into his eyes. ‘I know more about my relatives than you do,’ she told him.

‘I doubt it,’ he drawled.

‘You are so arrogant,’ she said at last. ‘You always think you know best. Don’t you? I bet the only reason you were angry when I didn’t come back was because you thought the source for your latest book had just gone west.’

He stared, and she dropped her eyes. Then he sighed and released her.

She stood back, rubbing her wrist as though he had hurt her, and he shrugged irritably and pushed his fingers through his hair. A lock of it, like an untidy comma, fell over his forehead, and she stifled an entirely unreasonable instinct to reach up and brush it back.

‘You can leave right now, if you want to,’ he said softly.

She glared at him, reddening, knowing he was aware of the way she had been staring at him. ‘You know I can’t,’ she answered. ‘That’s a rotten thing to say to me.’

‘Maybe,’ he agreed, his eyes as hard as ice on a cold night. ‘But then I’m a rotten kind of person.’ He turned on his heel and Walked away, and after a few seething seconds Cara stalked after him, her teeth clenched as the gravel bit into her feet.

The car was parked in darkness near the exit, and she watched silently as Finn unlocked it. And then her eyes slid away from his angry eyes and taut face, seeing without registering at first a dark blue car coasting into the garage forecourt.

A very familiar dark blue car, empty except for one man. Luca.

‘Finn,’ she breathed, unable to say any more, the hairs lifting on the back of her neck.

Luca was easing his bulk out of the car. Then, halfway out, he saw her.

She stood stock-still, staring at him, as he slammed the door and came towards them with all the horrible inevitability of a runaway tank.

Finn spun round. ‘Get in the car,’ he ordered.

She put a shaking hand on his arm. ‘No,’ she pleaded. ‘Maybe he will listen to me.’

‘Cara.’ Finn bit the words out. ‘In case you hadn’t noticed, that is a gun in his hand, and he doesn’t look too pleased to see you. Now, get in the car.’

She looked at Luca’s hand, the sodium lights of the service station glinting dully off the absurdly small object he was carrying, and stood up straighter. ‘I’d rather face him,’ she said, her voice sounding strangely high.

Finn reached for her arm and squeezed it. ‘Everything’s going to be all right, Cara,’ he said quietly. ‘Just get into the driving seat and start the engine.’

She looked at him, his eyes once more on Luca, then did as she was told.

Finn, too, got into the car and pulled the door closed just as Luca came to a stop about three feet from them. ‘I should kill you where you sit,’ the Italian said. ‘Both of you.’

‘Bit messy,’ Finn remarked, his hand inside a paper sack he picked from the floor. ‘And besides—’ he shrugged ‘—what’s to say I won’t shoot first?’

He lifted his hand out of the bag, and the Italian glanced in surprise at the pistol Finn was holding. ‘You wouldn’t dare shoot,’ he blustered. ‘I have men all around.’

‘Not true,’ said Finn conversationally. ‘On both counts.’ He waggled the gun at Luca and added, ‘If you shoot me, I’ll shoot you, and that won’t get either of us anywhere. I’d go away and get some reinforcements if I were you.’

Cara swallowed hard. She had never heard anyone talk to Luca like that before. And yet Finn seemed so relaxed about it. As if he really didn’t care whether he upset him or not.

She stared straight ahead, looking out of the corner of her eye at the people crowded around the restaurant. So far they seemed oblivious to what was going on, but she wondered if Luca would do anything in such a public place.

He was glaring at them as if he was thinking about what Finn had said. ‘You wouldn’t dare shoot me,’ he repeated at last.

‘Try me,’ replied Finn. He added in an undertone to Cara, ‘Get going, for God’s sake.’ With one terrified glance at Luca she pressed her foot down on the accelerator, and the car leapt away spitting gravel. There were two sharp noises, as if a car had backfired, then they were on the autostrada once more.

‘He shot at us,’ gasped Cara, changing gear and forgetting to put the clutch down. ‘He actually shot at us.’

‘Yes,’ replied Finn shortly. ‘Still think you can persuade him to see reason?’

‘You had a gun, too,’ she retorted. ‘That makes you just as bad as the rest of them.’