“This way,” he told them softly, turning, robes rustling as he made his way to the front of the ancient church.
Zach squeezed her hand as they mounted the steps, leading her over the uneven stone floor, past worn wooden pews, to the altar that Lyndall had built for his own wedding, the very first wedding on the island.
Kaitlin swayed sideways against Zach, absorbing the feel of his strong body.
Footsteps sounded behind them, and she glanced back to see Lindsay and Dylan, still dressed for their own wedding.
“Oh, no,” she moaned under her breath.
“They insisted,” Zach whispered, tucking her arm into the crook of his.
As they stopped at the front of the church, one of the staff members stepped out and handed Kaitlin a bouquet.
White roses.
From Sadie’s garden.
It was beyond perfect, and Kaitlin had to blink against the sting of tears.
Lindsay and Dylan took their places, and Zach wrapped an arm around Kaitlin, gathering her close for a private word. “I love you very much, Katie,” he whispered.
“And I love you,” she whispered back, feeling as though her heart might burst wide open.
His tone went husky as he tenderly stroked her cheek, wiping her tears with the pad of his thumb. “Then, let’s take our vows and put this ring on your finger.”
Secret Baby, Public Affair
Yvonne Lindsay
To my Mum and my (late) Dad,
thank you both for always letting me pursue
my imagination, my dreams and my goals
and for always encouraging me to believe
I could achieve or be whatever I wanted.
One
“You were comfort sex. Nothing more.”
At least that was all she’d ever let him be. Blair maintained eye contact with Draco Sandrelli and prayed he’d leave before she did something stupid—like faint or throw up all over his highly polished handmade boots. Her stomach, which had been unsettled since breakfast, clenched in a completely different way as he flashed a smile at her, the one he’d used just before they’d tumbled into bed together for the first time.
“Cara mia, you know I am so much more than that.”
His voice dripped sensuality, its sound sending a shimmer of heat through her. She still woke in the night remembering the sound of him, as rich as the rolling timbre of distant thunder on an electrically charged, storm-tossed evening. And worse, remembering the feel of him, the sensation of his body against hers—inside hers. She fought back the small sound that rose in her throat—a sound driven by the heat that suffused her body and insinuated itself along her nerve endings in curling tendrils of desire.
The gold flecks in Draco’s green eyes glinted as he watched her reaction. For someone she’d barely met, he seemed able to read her like a book. A tiny smile played around the sensual curve of his lips. He hadn’t even forgone his usual designer stubble for today’s memorial service, although he’d slicked back his glossy dark hair off his almost too perfect face, its length finishing in a ducktail at his nape. On any other man the style would look ridiculous, but on Draco…Blair swallowed against the sudden dryness in her mouth.
Really, for a man he was too beautiful to be classed as handsome, but despite her reasoning her pulse still raced to a tribal beat.
“Have dinner with me tonight,” he coaxed.
“No. No way. I mean it, Draco. Call what we had a holiday fling, whatever. It’s not happening again. I’m home now and back at work. Which reminds me, I have things to attend to and I’m sure you do too.”
No matter what, she wasn’t going to ask him what he was doing here. After all, what were the odds that her un-characteristic holiday indulgence would turn up at Ashurst Collegiate today? Especially at the memorial reception she’d agreed to do as a favor for one of her dad’s oldest friends. As tempting as it was to indulge in another forbidden delight with the sole heir to the Sandrelli empire, Blair had more important things on her mind.
She summoned every ounce of self-control in her arsenal and, tipping her nose ever so slightly in the air, spun on her heel and stalked away.
She sensed, rather than heard, the moment he decided to follow her—the fine hairs on the back of her neck prickling to attention. Blair increased her pace, turned a corner in the corridor and slipped through the doorway leading into the voluminous kitchen off Jubilee Hall, where the reception was being held. She flattened herself against the wall and fought to control her hammering heartbeat, hoping like mad he hadn’t seen her duck in here.
Even her hands were trembling, she realized. She hadn’t been this upset since she’d caught her fiancé, Rhys, and her best friend, Alicia, in the wine cellar of the converted villa that housed Carson’s, her restaurant. The pain of losing the man she’d planned her future with to the friend who was supposed to have stood beside her in the church only a few days later had been unspeakable. Their joint betrayal still stung with the sharpness of a stingray’s barb.