Amber's Wedding

Amber's Wedding
SARA WOOD

A wedding to remember!The bride was resplendent, the groom was handsome, the location was grand and the cream of society was there. It was a glorious affair - with just a few small hitches. The groom was behaving both jealously and possessively, yet strangely Jake and Amber were friends but not lovers.Amber, however, was pregnant - with another man's child. All in all it wasn't your average wedding, and the best was yet to come: Jake was about to reveal to Amber a secret about her past, her family. It was a revelation that would change her life and uncover Jake's true motives for marrying her. It was all happening at Amber's wedding.Three women are looking for their family - what they truly seek is love. Things are rarely as they seem, in Sara Wood's intriguing family trilogy.

“Why are you doing this, Jake?” Amber asked warily (#ua52b827a-dbd1-591d-8e4a-7bf5532a11a3)Letter to Reader (#u026c0c5f-65ea-5d55-8fa9-978a00bcb8a5)Title Page (#u5e678066-cf56-5a9f-8135-62c3d6235256)Acknowledgments (#u1a4a1981-0ba8-598f-a210-1ee865c7b833)CHAPTER ONE (#ucd0e8ce0-b2fe-54d8-ad07-c63a85a00fd9)CHAPTER TWO (#u51063f84-4043-592d-9372-d03eb1d36132)CHAPTER THREE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

“Why are you doing this, Jake?” Amber asked warily

“You know me. I hear of something, it intrigues me, I follow it to the bitter end—”

“It’s more than that.”

“I believe strongly in justice, Amber. And I have a personal interest in this. There’s a chance that you’re Vincente St. Honoré’s daughter. You ought to know, one way or the other. You and your child could stand to inherit his plantation and I want to help you find out the truth.”

“That’s kind of you,” she said gratefully. “But I’m not sure I want to know. I thought when we were married I’d have a quieter life. It seems I’m being flung back into the maelstrom.”

“I’ll be with you every step of the way.”

“Thank you, Jake. You’re being very kind to me again,” she said. And she pleaded silently, Please let me feel I can put my trust in him, and let it be justified!

Jake lightly stroked her furrowed brow till the lines were ironed out. “I don’t think we’ll forget our wedding day in a hurry!” he said ruefully, and they both laughed.

Dear Reader,

Sara Wood’s colorful new trilogy is full of family intrigue, secrets, lies and, of course—love. It involves the St. Honoré family, which has a reputation second to none in St. Lucia. Mandy, Ginny and Amber are drawn into this notorious family and the secrets of its past. Each of these intrepid heroines is looking for love and each of them will find it—but only where they least expect it!

In White Lies (#1910), Mandy Cook is desperate to find her father, and perhaps Vincente St. Honoré can help her. If she can ever find him! For first she must wrest herself from the arms of his commanding and charismatic son—Pascal.

In Scarlet Lady (#1916), Ginny McKenzie is a successful fashion model, but her worst nightmares are confirmed as she is wrongly branded a scarlet lady by the press and loses her husband, the Hon. Leo Brandon, as a result. It is only when, two years later, she decides to search for love elsewhere that Ginny is reunited in St. Lucia with the man she has always loved—Leo! The question is, why is he there?

In Amber’s Wedding, the final book in the trilogy, Amber Fraser has just married Jake Cavendish, not for love but for convenience, companionship and to secure a father for her unborn child. On their wedding day Jake reveals to Amber a secret that will change her life. A secret that will finally reveal the truth about the St. Honoré family. They honeymoon in St. Lucia, where love appears to blossom after all—until Amber discovers Jake’s real motive for marrying her.

Happy reading!

The Editor

Amber’s Wedding

Sara Wood

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

With my grateful thanks to Mrs. Joan Devaux,

Gary Devaux, Maria Monplaisir

and all at Anse Chastanet

CHAPTER ONE

‘DID you say...the Caribbean?’

Astonished, Amber whirled around so fast that her gossamer bridal veil flew across her face, obscuring her view for a moment. Impatiently she pushed it back and thrust her heavy mass of red-gold hair off her bare shoulders for good measure. ‘You’re kidding me!’ she accused her old friend.

Leo leaned against a pillar of the minstrels’ gallery and grinned. ‘Well! I’ve got your attention at last! Here I am, telling you that I’m setting up home in St Lucia,’ he protested, ‘and all you can do is drool over your new husband!’

‘Jake?’ Her surprise wiped out Leo’s startling news. Amber frowned. Had she been drooling? How odd! ‘I wasn’t... surely?’

‘Constantly!’

‘I didn’t know!’ She recovered herself and managed to look bashful. ‘I’d be an odd bride if I didn’t.’

And an odd bride she most definitely was! It was more than likely that her marriage to Jake was the oddest that had ever taken place in Castlestowe’s small kirk. A marriage of convenience. No sex, no emotional hassle, only a warm affection. Perfect.

She had no particular feelings for Jake other than those of friendship. That was why her apparent fascination for him baffled her. Before she could stop herself, she glanced down at the throng below, suffering Leo’s fond chuckle as she did so.

Guests in bright tartans and colourful ballgowns filled Castlestowe Castle’s baronial hall. Jake’s tall, athletic figure in a black dinner jacket stood out amongst them. But then he would be very striking in any crowd.

Amber studied his lampblack, Byronic curls and extraordinarily arresting face. Tonight he seemed to glow with joy, his dark eyes alight with the kind of shining happiness of any blissful groom. But he wasn’t a blissful groom. So why was he ecstatic?

She frowned and tried to forget the misgivings she’d had ever since Jake had said, ‘I do,’ and smiled at her with disarmingly warm affection. When she’d returned the smile, she’d thought for a moment that there had been a curl of desire on his eloquent mouth. And she wanted friendship. Unfortunately he was sexy. He was a man—and she didn’t have much faith in men’s promises when their hormones were involved.

‘I suppose Jake must seem like a different person to you now he’s more conventionally dressed. A DJ isn’t the same as a bush shirt, flak jacket and decorative dust,’ Leo said helpfully.

Yes. That was why she’d found Jake intriguing—the sartorial contrast. Mystery solved! ‘Elegant, isn’t he? I never knew he could look so civilised!’ she agreed with a light laugh.

Almost civilised, but not quite, she mused. There was an element of Jake that scared her a little. It was partly the fact that he risked his life a mite too often, partly something she couldn’t define. Behind the charm and the laid-back manner, she sensed something darker. There was a whole bunch of secrets in those near-black, fathomless eyes.

Several times during their acquaintance in the past when she’d been chatting animatedly to him about her family back home he’d made an abrupt excuse and left, as if her joy had hurt him somehow. She’d learnt to throttle back on the happy-family stories, sensing that he had problems that he did not wish to share. No one had ever got close to Jake or broken the seal over his heart. And it was clear that he was a fascinating challenge to women.

They’d known one another for years, off and on—he in his capacity working for Reuters, the most highly respected news agency in the world, she as a fieldworker for Unite, the organisation that brought lost refugee children back to their parents. They’d met in Bucharest, bumped into one another in Sarajevo and Rwanda and recently on another African posting.

And every time he’d eased his lithe body out of a Jeep on his habitual rounds of the refugee camps he’d turned the women workers’ heads with his devastating charm, his sword-blade cheekbones and wickedly dancing eyes. The adjective most commonly used about Jake was stunning. Women found him easy to get on with—a beguiling man with a core of steel.

A twinge of anxiety troubled her chocolate-brown eyes. That sexy manner had been the only thing about him that had made her hesitate when they’d arranged the marriage. Only the warmth she felt for him and his assurance that he understood how she felt had persuaded her to agree. Jake knew how she felt about sex—and why.

Firmly she told herself that she was worrying unnecessarily about Jake. He’d been good to her. Her face softened with admiration for the sophisticated man who could lift the camp-fire conversation with his wit and humour one night and disappear into hostile territory the next, armed with only a notebook and a change of underwear. A real toughie beneath that deceptive, sensitive-poet appearance.

‘He’s rather...deliciousty dissolute-looking, Amber!’ one of her old university friends had gleefully said during the wedding reception—and there had been regret in her friend’s tone that Jake hadn’t come her way first.

But Amber knew that for the last ten years Jake had been busy roaming around the world, actively seeking out news stories, and he didn’t have time for meaningful relationships or emotional commitment.

And she’d married him. Did that make her wise or foolish?

‘You are...happy?’ Leo queried gently. ‘Once or twice today you’ve seemed rather brittle.’

She threw back her head and laughed. To her ears there was a slight tinge of hysteria about it so she toned it down. ‘This is my wedding day!’ she chided gently. ‘And only two weeks ago Jake and I were in Africa. It was tough in the camp. I’m adjusting to being home—and being a married woman!’

‘It’s been a bit of a rush job.’ Leo chuckled. ‘If people didn’t know you better, they’d have been checking your waistline!’