‘I’ll wait a good while after I’ve said it,’ he’d teased. ‘Just to make sure that if anyone wants to say anything they can.’
‘…then let him speak now…or forever hold his peace…’
There, it was said. The words were out. The challenge had been made and now they could continue with the wedding service.
No one would answer it. No one ever did. Amber had no idea just how many weddings she had attended in her life but at all of them those words had been spoken in one form or another and no one had ever stepped forward to ‘speak now’ instead of forever holding peace.
But still, there was always that long-drawn-out moment that seemed to go on forever. The awkward, rather nerve-racking moment when everyone paused and listened and waited…and no one ever spoke.
But everyone wondered just what would happen if someone did.
Of course, no one spoke this time. And Rafe’s uncle beamed with delight and satisfaction as he drew in his breath to continue once again.
‘In that case—’
‘I do!’
The voice came so suddenly and unexpectedly that for a moment Amber was confused. They were the words she was expecting to hear—when she and Rafe made their vows—but not yet, not before they had been asked…
Had Rafe been so nervous, in so much of a rush that he had jumped the gun, plunging in to say the words that everyone knew were coming? Surely not now, not yet. Not without the prompt from the cleric first.
‘Wait…’ she began to whisper.
At least, she opened her mouth to try to say it. But then she realised that the words had come from behind, and not beside her, And there was something dreadful about the stillness that had fallen over the entire church, about the way that there had been one sudden murmur of shock, abruptly choked off and leaving instead an appalled silence that reverberated inside her head like the after-effects of a vicious blow to her skull.
‘I do,’ the voice said again and there was no mistaking it this time. This time she caught the soft lilt of a musical accent that should have made the words sound beautiful, soft, enticing.
Instead they made her shiver with the ice-cold, soul-deep dread that came with recognition of that voice. The voice she had once loved to hear whisper her name or tease her softly.
The voice that could only belong to one man and he was the man she hoped she would never meet again. The man she most dreaded seeing in the entire world.
‘What—?’ Rafe seemed to have jolted out of his inexplicable trance, some of the tension leaving his body as he jerked his head around to see who had spoken. ‘What are you—?’
But the man behind them didn’t let him finish. Instead he interrupted Rafe, lifting his voice slightly and speaking in a harsh and dangerous tone that defied anyone to try to stop him.
‘I do,’ he said again, just to emphasise the fact. ‘I know of a reason why these two should not be joined together in holy matrimony. Don’t I, Amber?’
And it was that use of her name, the icy cruelty in it, the savage edge to the syllables that turned it into an accusation, a warning and a threat all in one that left her with no place to go; nowhere to hide. The only thing she could do was to face her tormentor head-on.
Look him straight in the face.
It took all the strength she possessed. Trembling, shivering, nausea churning deep in her stomach, she forced herself to turn, green eyes blurring badly as she tried to focus them on him.
He was bigger than she remembered. Bigger and darker and far, far more devastating.
Or was that just the way that he seemed to be in contrast to the mellow stone and wood of the interior of the church, the pale colours of the flowers? He was dressed in superbly tailored black from head to foot, shirt, jacket, trousers, black boots on the feet that were planted so firmly on the stone flags that lined the aisle. With his jet-black hair and gleaming bronze eyes he looked like nothing so much as the devil himself come to earth—and come to torment her.
‘Amber?’ he prompted harshly when she could only stand and stare, eyes wide, her trembling hands half-raised towards her mouth, not having the strength to complete the move.
The whole congregation had frozen too. Her mother, Rafe’s family, every one of the wedding guests was sitting completely still in their seats, goggle-eyed at the scene unfolding before them.
Suddenly there was an unexpected flurry of movement to one side, distracting Amber and drawing her gaze for a second. A friend of Rafe’s family, Emily Lawton, recently widowed and five months pregnant, had collapsed in a faint, sliding limply down from the pew to land on the stone floor.
But someone was already there to help her, and Amber’s own impulsive movement was stilled by the way that Guido took a couple of steps towards her, slow but firm, ominously unstoppable. The sound of his heels echoing on the stone, the way he held his head, the arrogant straightness of his long spine gave the movement a confident swagger that declared to everyone around that he was the one who was in control here—and he intended to stay that way.
‘Do you know this man?’ Rafe had found his voice.
‘No!’
The panicked lie was stupid; she knew that as she saw the way that Guido’s burning eyes narrowed sharply, the way that his head lifted even higher until it seemed that he was looking down his long, straight nose at her, pure contempt icing over his stunning features. And as it did, a sliver of that ice seemed to have formed at the nape of her neck, slithering its way down her trembling spine, chilling her skin as it went.
‘Forgotten me already, cara?’ he enquired with cruel silkiness. ‘But then, I suppose that must be the case or I wouldn’t find you here…’
That freezing gaze flicked from her ashen face to the altar, the waiting priest and back again.
‘With him…’
This time the golden eyes acknowledged Rafe, standing at her side, but only for the briefest of seconds. Then they were fixed again on her face; holding her still in a way that made her feel like a butterfly pinned underneath a powerful microscope.
‘Under these circumstances.’
To Amber’s stunned bewilderment, a smile played over his sensual mouth. But it was a cruel smile, a torturer’s smile. The smile that might appear on the face of a tiger just before it pounced to deliver the final death blow.
‘Who the hell are you?’
Rafe’s voice was belligerent and he made a move as if to take a step then obviously thought the better of it, stilling instead to remain at her side, the tension radiating from his long body.
The tiger’s smile grew, became positively wicked.
‘Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Guido Corsentino.’
Something in the name made Rafe take in a sharp breath. But he recovered almost immediately.
‘And what have you to do with my wife?’
‘Ah…but you see, she’s really not your wife. Not yet.’
Guido actually appeared to look as if it mattered. He even let an expression that might have been regret drift across his face. But Amber knew that regret was the last thing on his mind. As was care for anyone else’s feelings in this matter. He’d come here to create chaos and misery and was set on doing just that, not letting anyone get in his way.
‘And I’m afraid she’s not likely to be at any time in the near future.’