The designer in him shuddered as he studied the abomination of a wedding dress. A skirt that wide should theoretically have worked well as a parachute when she’d fallen out of the window, he thought sardonically.
He glanced up at the window ledge and his mouth compressed as he imagined the serious injuries she might have sustained if he hadn’t caught her.
‘It was stupid to stand beside an open window if you were feeling faint.’
‘Stupid’ summed her up, Athena thought bitterly. She remembered how Charlie had described her as ‘not overly bright’ and her insides squirmed with humiliation.
‘I didn’t faint. I climbed out of the window because I need to get away.’ Her voice rose a notch. ‘I can’t marry Charles!’
Over Athena’s shoulder Luca watched a group of waiters struggling to carry a huge ice sculpture of a swan into the marquee. In another part of the garden cages containing white doves were being unloaded from a van, so that they could be released during the reception. The wedding promised to be a circus and the woman in front of him looked like a clown, with a ton of make-up plastered over her face and that ridiculous dress. He barely recognised her as the unassuming, understated Athena Howard he had met in Zenhab.
‘Here.’ He handed her the pair of spectacles that had sailed through the air just before she had landed in his arms.
‘Thank you.’ She put them on and blinked at him owlishly.
‘I don’t remember that you wore glasses in Zenhab.’
‘I usually wear contact lenses, but I’ve been so busy for the last few weeks with the wedding preparations I forgot to order a new supply.’
Athena felt swamped by a familiar sense of failure and inadequacy. It was true that she was forgetful. ‘If only you were not such a daydreamer, Athena,’ had been her parents’ constant complaint when she was growing up. ‘If you stopped writing silly stories and concentrated on your homework your maths results might improve.’
Thinking about her parents made Athena feel worse than ever. She had never been able to live up to their expectations. And then she pictured Charlie and Dominic in bed together and shame cramped in the pit of her stomach that she wasn’t even capable of attracting a man—certainly not a man like Luca De Rossi. The thought slid into her head as she studied his sculpted facial features and exotic olive colouring. He was watching her through heavy-lidded eyes and his lips were curled in a faintly cynical expression that made him seem remote but at the same time devastatingly sexy.
A van with the name of a fireworks company on its sides drove up to the house. She remembered Charlie had said that Lord and Lady Fairfax had spent thousands of pounds on a lavish firework display as a finale for the wedding reception. The sight of the van escalated her feeling of panic.
‘I have to get away,’ she told Luca desperately.
Luca recalled Kadir’s instruction to stop the wedding if Athena had had second thoughts. The fact that she had risked her neck to escape marrying Charlie Fairfax was pretty conclusive evidence that she had changed her mind.
‘I parked my car next to the gamekeeper’s lodge. If we leave now we might get away without anyone noticing.’
Athena hesitated, and glanced up at Charlie’s bedroom window in the far corner of the house. She thought she saw a movement by the window, but it must have been a trick of the light because when she peered through her glasses again there was no one there. She was gripped with indecision. Should she go with Luca, a man she had only met once before but who was a good friend of her brother-in-law? Or should she stay and face the emotional fireworks that were bound to explode when she announced to Lord and Lady Fairfax and her parents that the wedding was off?
‘What are you waiting for?’
Luca’s impatient voice urged her to turn and follow him along the path. Moments later he halted by a futuristic-looking sports car which, despite its long, sleek body, had a tiny, cramped interior.
‘I won’t fit in there,’ Athena said, looking from the car to her voluminous wedding dress.
‘Turn around.’ There was no time for niceties, Luca decided as he lifted the hem of her skirt up to her waist and untied the drawstring waistband of the hooped petticoat beneath her dress.
‘What are you doing?’ Athena gasped when Luca tugged the petticoat down and she felt his hands skim over her thighs.
She blushed at the thought of him seeing the sheer stockings held up by wide bands of lace. He held her hand to help her balance while she stepped out of the petticoat. Without the rigid frame her dress was less cumbersome and she managed to squeeze into the passenger seat. Luca bundled her long skirt around her and slammed the door shut.
Thank heavens she wasn’t wearing her veil, Athena thought, stifling a hysterical laugh that turned to a sob. It was bad enough that the elaborate bun on top of her head was being squashed by the low roof.
Her thoughts scattered when Luca slid behind the wheel and fired the engine. He gave her no time to question her actions as he accelerated down the driveway.
Heaven knew how fast they were travelling. Trees and hedges flashed past as they raced along the narrow country lanes and Athena closed her eyes as she imagined Luca overshooting a bend and catapulting the car into a field.
‘Where do you want to go?’
She did not reply because she had no idea what she was going to do next. Her priority had been to escape from the wedding and she had not planned any further ahead.
‘Do you want me to take you home? Where do you live?’
Luca groped for his patience and the gearstick. Although the skirt of Athena’s wedding dress had deflated without the hooped petticoat, the car was still filled with yards of white satin. Dio, he could do without being landed with a runaway bride when he had enough problems of his own.
The text message he had received from Giselle announcing that she wanted to get married in Venice had left him feeling rattled. He had arranged a civil wedding ceremony at the town hall in Milan. As soon as the legal formalities were done he would get Villa De Rossi and the security he so desperately wanted for his daughter, and Giselle would get a million pounds.
Why did women always have to complicate things? Luca thought irritably. More worryingly, why was Giselle trying to make something of their sham wedding, which as far as he was concerned could never be anything but a business arrangement?
‘I can’t go home. I live with my parents, and I don’t think they will want to see me once they find out what I’ve done,’ Athena said in low voice.
‘Do you have a friend you could stay with for a while? Maybe someone you work with who will help you out?’
She had grown apart from her old friends since she had moved into Charlie’s social circle, Athena realised. And although she had tried to get to know his friends she had never felt accepted by the City bankers and their sophisticated wives.
‘I don’t have a job,’ she admitted.
And without an income she had no means of supporting herself, she thought worriedly. The few hundred pounds in her savings account was not enough for her to be able to rent somewhere to live while she looked for a position as a nursery assistant.
‘If you don’t work, what do you do all day?’ Luca drawled.
He thought of Giselle, whose sole occupation seemed to be shopping. It was funny, but when he had met Athena at Kadir and Lexi’s wedding she hadn’t struck him as one of the vacuous ‘ladies who lunch’ brigade. Actually, she had seemed rather sweet, although she was not his type. He went for blondes with endless legs and a surfeit of sexual confidence—not petite brunettes with eyes big enough to drown in.