Claiming His Bride

They exchanged vows in front of a shady gazebo, with Mack producing a wedding ring which, he confided, had belonged to his mother. Mack had been close to his mother, so the ring would mean a lot to him. Suzie was touched by the gesture.

“I do,” she heard herself answering when the time came, and suddenly she was married, and everyone was waiting for Mack to kiss her. He did….

The cameras went mad. As a newlywed couple, they had to sign more documents at a table in the gazebo, before enduring another barrage of photographs, not only from their own official wedding photographer, but from the clamoring fashion media. The guests, many resplendent in Jolie fashions, were also photographed. Suzie’s bosses were ecstatic.

It was a relief to finally escape the media circus, the bridal couple retreating with their guests to the reception house, where the media weren’t permitted. But they had their pictures and went away happy, dispersing quickly, keen to be the first with their fashion scoop.

As the guests spilled into the various rooms of the brightly lit, flower-bedecked reception house, champagne and appetizers were served, and the noise level rose. Everyone was having fun, the mood heightened by the astonishing turn of events.

Tristan and his mother had wanted a formal reception, but Suzie had insisted on a party instead, with a smorgasbord-style buffet set up in one of the rooms and a towering profiterole dessert instead of a formal wedding cake. A jazz band was playing in the conservatory, and some of the guests were dancing already.

“Can’t we get out of here?” Suzie begged Mack as they moved from room to room, neatly avoiding probing questions. A good few of the guests were Tristan’s friends, who’d stayed on out of curiosity. “I want to go home. You must want to escape, too. Nobody will notice we’ve gone. With all these rooms, we could be anywhere.”

“Fine with me.” Mack’s dark eyes were unreadable. “We’ll slip out the back way. But you’d better let your mother know.”

“I guess so. You wait here.” Suzie dashed off, weaving through the crush until she found her mother, flopped in an armchair. “Mum, I need to get away from everyone. I’m exhausted. I’m going to slip away.”

Her mother nodded in sympathy. “I’ll come home with you,” she offered. “You must need a comforting shoulder to cry on after all that’s happened.”

Suzie hid her alarm. The last thing she wanted was her mother’s sympathy—especially if she started commiserating about Tristan! She immediately changed tack. “Mum, Mack and I are going to have a quiet drink somewhere away from all the fuss. I’ll be home later tonight,” she promised. “I’ve no intention of spending the night with Mack,” she assured her mother, who nodded in relief.

“Don’t wait up for me,” she added, and fled.

Moments later she was out in the floodlit courtyard with Mack. The cool air hit them in the face. The afternoon had been sunny and mild—a perfect autumn day—but now it had clouded over, with one ominously dark cloud directly overhead, and there were already a few spots of rain.

She looked round. “The wedding car’s not here,” she groaned. “It must be round the front.”

“You won’t need the wedding car.” Mack was ushering her toward a big gleaming black motorcycle.

She balked. “I’m not riding on that thing. I hate motorbikes.”

“You loved riding with me once.”

“That was before—” She stopped, a deep shudder quivering through her. Before her father had crashed his high-powered Harley into a power pole.

“I know, Suzie, and I’m sorry about your father, but you’ll be safe with me, I promise.”

Safe with Mack Chaney? When had she ever been safe with Sydney’s wild-boy bachelor?

Only he wasn’t a bachelor now. He was her husband. She began to tremble. Reaction was setting in.

As she stood hesitating, Mack’s fingers closed over her shoulders—warm, strong fingers that sent a tingling heat through the delicate lace. “You know what they say when someone falls off a horse.” His voice held a seductively persuasive note—a familiar note that brought back disturbing memories. “Get right back on and get rid of the demons.”

She looked up into his compelling black eyes and shivered, her mouth twisting. The only demon she had to fight was Mack himself. She’d been fighting that particular demon for the past three years, and for another year before that, when they’d been together—on and off. When Tristan Guthrie swept into her life three months ago, she thought that she’d finally succeeded in ridding herself of the demon that was Mack Chaney.

Tristan. Her golden prince. Her charming, sensible, honorable, dependable, perfect…Pah! She should have known he was too good to be true. Hot tears pricked her eyes.

“You want to get away from here or not?” Mack was already mounting his shiny black Harley and waiting for her to make up her mind.

“Yes, get me away! But I—I’ve decided not to go home yet. Mum will be home shortly, and I just can’t face her again tonight. Let’s have a quiet drink somewhere.”

“We’ll go to my place. Hop on!”

His place? But she hardly cared where. She just wanted to get away from here, before someone saw them and tried to drag them back inside.

She looped the long skirt of her wedding gown over her arm—she’d discarded her veil and headpiece earlier—and jumped up behind Mack. He’d pulled his helmet on and had unhooked the spare one for her.

“Here, put this on,” he ordered, thrusting it at her, but she gave a reckless shake of her head.

“I want to feel the wind in my hair. I’ve a lot of cobwebs to blow away.”

“It’s illegal not to wear a helmet,” Mack reminded her with rare deference to the law. She laughed—a brittle, almost hysterical laugh. Illegal? Bigamy was illegal! Not wearing a helmet was hardly the crime of the century. But she took it and rammed it on her head. “Come on, are we going or not?”

“We’re going.” Mack revved the engine. “Hang on!”

She did, clinging to him for dear life as his high-powered machine sprang forward and roared off down the sweeping driveway to the street. The spatters of rain were increasing, great splashing drops now, gathering momentum by the second.

She shut her eyes, relishing the wind and rain in her face because it gave her something else to think about other than the shocking events that had taken place at Bouganvillea Receptions.

She could feel her carefully straightened hair sprouting curls as the rain seeped under the helmet. Well, it hardly mattered now. Tristan wasn’t going to see it. Mack, on the other hand, was bound to make some cutting remark about her new look—her artificial new look—when they finally reached the sanctuary of his home.

Sanctuary? A shiver feathered down her spine. By running off with Mack Chaney, wasn’t she jumping out of the frying pan into the fire?

As they careered round the first corner, Mack suddenly nosed his bike into the kerb and brought it to a halt.

“What are you doing?” she cried as he eased himself out of her grasp and leapt off.

What he was doing, she realized, was peeling off his leather jacket. He had a plain black T-shirt underneath which emphasized the breadth of his muscled chest and exposed the impressive muscles of his tanned arms. She pursed her lips, wondering if he’d added workouts in the gym to his other leisure activities.

“Here. Slip your arms into this.” He helped her into his jacket, which was several sizes too large for her, but felt beautifully snug and warm. “It might protect you a bit.”

Surprised at his unexpected gallantry—but then, Mac had always been a man of surprises, good and bad—she showed her gratitude with a light, “Thanks, Mack. Now you’ll get wet through.”

“Never mind about me,” Mack muttered as he threw a sturdy thigh over his bike and settled back into his seat. There was an edge of mockery in his voice, as if to say, When have you ever minded about me? “Ready to go? Hold on, Suzie!” The big machine shot forward.

The rain was tumbling down. She could feel her wet curls clinging to her cheeks, her neck. She thought of Tristan and her mouth dipped. What would it matter now if she reverted to her natural curls and dropped her sophisticated, ladylike facade? Who was going to care now that her golden prince had turned into a tarnished frog?

Just as her dark prince had, three years ago.

She wondered bleakly if an honest, dependable man existed anymore.

She turned her face into the driving rain, as if that might wash them both out of her mind and out of her life. But it was pretty futile when she had her arms around the dark prince, his ring on her finger and would shortly be arriving at his home.

Chapter Three

As Mack swung his bike into the narrow driveway of his modest weatherboard home, which he’d inherited from his mother about five years ago, Suzie felt herself trembling again. Not with reaction this time, or even with cold—Mack’s jacket had saved her from catching a mortal chill—but with a shivery apprehension.

She’d been to Mack’s house a few times during the roller-coaster months they’d been together—or more accurately, seeing each other. They’d never actually been together in that sense, though it had come close a few times and would undoubtedly have happened if Mack hadn’t shattered her faith in him—albeit blind, rebellious faith—by showing that he possessed the same destructive traits that had wrecked her father’s life.