Mistress Of The Groom

Mistress Of The Groom
Susan Napier

Have you heard the latest? Don't tell anyone but… The groom was having an affair - with his bride's best friend! Jane had been desperate to stop the wedding. She'd had to prevent her best friend from making the biggest mistake of her life… . Marrying Ryan Blair would have been disastrous. He was too rich, too powerful, too hot to handle!There was only one solution: to stand up in church and declare that she, Jane Sherwood, respectable businesswoman, was having a secret torrid affair with Ryan! It had worked. The wedding was finished. But now Ryan was determined to make Jane pay for his wrecked marriage - by making her his mistress for real!

“If anyone can show any just cause why Ava and Ryan may not lawfully be joined together, let them now speak...” (#u3de47a06-6d26-56b5-84e9-950c5473bf4a)About the Author (#u5e313aac-2559-597a-acc2-9faabbe196dd)Scandals! (#u36003c4d-e64c-5116-b8d6-641c9d34b5d6)Title Page (#uf3904033-615a-5ad0-a0b0-ffefebb3f5fe)CHAPTER ONE (#uf4d10fac-d710-5a8f-95de-b2ede985b6c4)CHAPTER TWO (#u12a8d51f-10b0-50ad-bd27-a7c31eea5a27)CHAPTER THREE (#u479d7e49-5545-52d6-bb76-fc752403be30)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)CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

“If anyone can show any just cause why Ava and Ryan may not lawfully be joined together, let them now speak...”

Jane leapt to her feet. “Stop! I know of an impediment to this marriage.”

Stunned silence. The wedding party turned as one.

Jane ventured boldly down the aisle, her gaze fixed on the minister. “You can’t marry this couple. You’re going to ask them to promise to love and honor and forsake all others—but one of them is already committed to someone else!”

SUSAN NAPIER was born on St. Valentine’s Day, so it’s not surprising she has developed an enduring love of romantic stories. She started her writing career as a journalist in Auckland, New Zealand, trying her hand at romance fiction only after she had married her handsome boss! Numerous books later she still lives with her most enduring hero, two future heroes—her sons!—two cats and a computer. When she’s not writing she likes to read and cook, often simultaneously!

Scandals!

Have you heard the latest?

Get ready for the next outrageous Scandal

THE RANCHER’S MISTRESS

by

Kay Thorpe (#1924)

All will be revealed in December 1997

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Mistress of the Groom

Susan Napier

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

CHAPTER ONE

THE tall, statuesque brunette wound her way sinuously through the glittering throng. Her formal black gown, cut low across her voluptuous breasts and deep to the base of her spine, flared out from her hips as she walked, the thin fabric shimmering as it slipped and slid against her long legs. Her hair was braided into a glossy black knot on the top of her head, adding to her already considerable height and emphasising the stark bareness of her white throat and shoulders.

The colour of her dress and her total lack of jewellery were in dramatic contrast to the rest of the women in the crowded hotel restaurant. The sought-after invitations from Spectrum Developments had placed an emphasis on glitz and glamour, and the female guests had taken the ‘rainbow’ theme to heart in order to flaunt their social and financial status at what was already being called Auckland’s party of the year.

The woman in black didn’t appear to be aware of her social solecism. Her head was held high, her pale, sharp features a mask of haughty calm as she ignored the whispers gathering in her wake, her icy blue gaze fixed on the small group of important men and vivacious women clustered around a towering figure at the far end of the room.

She was almost there when the tall man at the centre of all the sycophantic attention turned to pick up his half-full glass from the elegantly set dining-table beside him and caught sight of her.

His dark head lifted sharply, his nostrils flaring, his powerful muscles bunching within the sleek confines of his black-tie regalia as he shouldered through the mass of hangers-on to confront her approach. He looked like a stallion rearing at an unexpected intrusion into his territory—a massive black stallion, standing aggressively tall, radiating a restless antagonism, his spiky, short-cropped hair the same midnight colour as his superbly tailored jacket, his cobalt-blue eyes wild with untamed spirit, his blunt, masculine features hard and hostile.

Her stride briefly faltered and his expression changed to one of smouldering anticipation. His broad, flat cheekbones gave him a primitive look, the dark bloom on the smooth-shaven jaw adding to the impression of unbridled masculinity. She knew he had only just turned thirty-three but he looked older, with ruthless lines of experience etched around his eyes and mouth.

‘Well, well, well...’ he drawled in a darkly insolent voice as she came to a halt in front of him. ‘If it isn’t Miss Sherwood. I didn’t realise you were on my invitation list. How tasteless of me to ask you to celebrate the man and the deal which sent your ailing little company to the wall.’

Jane Sherwood tilted her chin to an even more imperious angle, bitterly regretting that her three-inch heels still didn’t give her nearly six-foot frame a height advantage over the sneering giant. They both knew damned well that she hadn’t received one of the prized, hand-blown glass rainbows which had accompanied the engraved invitations.

‘I wasn’t invited, Mr Blair.’ She echoed his parody of politeness with the full force of her loathing. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the white-jacketed hotel employee she had evaded at the door pointing her out to one of the guests, a wiry, hatchet-faced blond man whose grim alertness stamped ‘security’ all over him. Jane recognised him as the trouble-shooter who was never far from his boss’s side, and as he began to forge towards them her nerves tightened another notch.

A hush had descended over the immediate vicinity as Ryan Blair’s eyes crawled over the expensive designer dress.

‘Ah, so you’re the one being tasteless...although I must say you dress extremely well for someone on the brink of bankruptcy,’ he said in the same insultingly condescending tone. ‘I thought that the bailiffs would have been more rigorous in the performance of their duties—that dress alone would pay off a few of your numerous creditors...’

He raised his black eyebrows, his eyes reflecting the malice of his contemptuous smile. ‘Considering the trouble you’ve taken to gatecrash, I’m surprised you haven’t attempted to blend in with the colourful spirit of the occasion, but I suppose the black is supposed to be symbolic. I buried your company and now you’re in mourning.

‘Or is this martyred, monochrome look supposed to make me feel sorry for you? Have you come to beg for the crumbs from my table? I’m sorry, but as you can see—’ he gestured mockingly towards the tables glittering with crystal and silverware ‘—we haven’t dined yet. Why don’t you call my secretary and arrange to see me at the office? If you’re lucky I might be able to dredge up a few odd scraps to throw your way. I can’t guarantee anything, of course, but then I’m sure you’ve discovered that beggars can’t be choosers, can they, Miss Sherwood...?’

There were several titters in the background and a questioning buzz, but the protagonists were too intent on each other to be aware of the distraction.

‘I didn’t come here to ask for any favours,’ denied Jane coldly, her stomach turning at the thought of being forced to beg before this sadistic swine. That was what he wanted, she realised sickly. Having stripped Jane of her family inheritance, her bright career and practically every material possession, he was now intent on exposing her nakedness to ridicule and contempt. As far as he was concerned this unexpected encounter was just another opportunity to grind her pride into the dust. Well, if she had to go down, the would go down fighting!

‘No? Then perhaps you’re here to do me one,’ he taunted as their eyes clashed, two hostile shades of blue. ‘It is my birthday, after all, and everyone else seems to be in a gifting mood. Have you come to give me something too, Miss Sherwood?’

‘As a matter of fact, I have,’ she said, stepping closer, her left hand momentarily concealed by the folds of her skirt.

Hatchet-face, who had glided silently up to his employer’s side, stiffened and began to lunge forward, but he was halted by an out-flung arm.

‘Really?’ Ryan Blair dropped his arm as his would-be protector settled obediently back. ‘I wonder what you could conceivably have to give me that I don’t already possess?’ The drawl was more pronounced than ever as he sipped from his glass of champagne, a picture of contemptuous relaxation, a man who was supremely confident of his enemy’s impotence. And, no doubt because she was a woman, he was doubly certain of his superiority!

She realised she still possessed the element of surprise.

‘This...!’

Even as she half turned away, dropping her left shoulder in a classic fighting gesture, he didn’t seem to recognise his danger, and when her clenched fist came shooting up and out it was too late to duck.

The full weight of her feminine strength and fury was behind the punch which smashed squarely into his insolent jaw with a deeply gratifying crunch.

A jolt of excruciating pain exploded up Jane’s arm and flashes of white light briefly dazzled her vision, but her smothered cry of agony was lost in the concerted gasp of the crowd and the female shrieks of dismay. Ryan Blair’s head snapped back and the abrupt shift of his centre of gravity sent him crashing back against the round table behind him, his powerful bulk tipping it over and toppling him flat on the floor amidst a rain of crystal and cutlery.

The sight of him lying there cradling his bruised jaw, cursing like a navvy into the stunned silence, his façade of polished sophistication in ruins, was balm to Jane’s lacerated spirit.

As the hotel events manager swooped down on the scene, gabbling horrified apologies, and the guests began to surge forward to help the man of honour to his feet, Jane turned her back on the chaos and walked out with the same calm, unhurried dignity with which she had arrived. She looked neither to left nor right, conscious of the path opening up before her as people drew back, afraid that their proximity to a social and business pariah might be interpreted as support. Ryan Blair had made it clear that whoever was not wholeheartedly with him was against him. And, as Jane had already discovered to her cost, he made a bitter enemy.

She reached the heavy glass door to the hotel foyer without hindrance, but as she reached for the brass bar a masculine hand was there before her, pushing it open. She turned her head in a bare acknowledgement and was startled to see that it was Ryan Blair’s blond hatchet-man assisting her passage to freedom. She half expected him to try to detain her, or at least warn her that she was going to be sued for full damages, but instead he merely inclined his head as she passed through the door, a peculiar glint of sardonic admiration in his silver-grey eyes.