The château was as lavish inside as it was outside. Her breathing became ragged as Maxim led her past the downstairs salons and parlours and she glimpsed the bespoke antique furniture and a selection of stark modern pieces which looked equally expensive and intimidating. They walked up the wide sweeping staircase at the end of the entrance hall to the first floor, his hand on her back the only thing that was anchoring her now.
He left her at the door to a series of bright, airy, lavishly furnished rooms—her rooms, apparently—and introduced her to the obstetrician and two nurses he’d flown in from Paris.
‘Wait, Maxim.’ She stepped onto the landing to grasp the sleeve of his suit jacket. ‘Will there be a lot of people at the wedding banquet?’
‘Just some local dignitaries and my friends and colleagues,’ he said. ‘No more than a hundred in total.’
A hundred people? She actually felt sick.
He laughed, an indulgent sound that didn’t do much for her panic attack, then cradled her cheek with his palm. ‘Do not worry. It will be over sooner than you think.’
At which point...what? Were they going to consummate this relationship? Not that she’d been obsessing over that question... Much.
Stop worrying about sex... attending a wedding banquet with a hundred people is quite intimidating enough.
‘But I... I’m not... I have no experience of these sorts of social events,’ she said as the fierce need continued to throb in her sex.
He placed his hand on her neck, stroked the rioting pulse point with his thumb and placed a kiss on her forehead. ‘Do not panic, Cara, it will be okay. My assistant, Jean-Claude, has invited Marcel Caron to attend on your behalf, so there will be a familiar face. Marcel has offered to give you away, if you are happy with that arrangement?’
‘I... I guess,’ she said, surprised he had gone to the trouble of inviting Pierre’s lawyer. ‘But I really don’t...’
‘Shh...’ He silenced her with another kiss. ‘As my wife, you must get used to attending such events.’
She must? She’d had no idea he was going to expect her to behave like a re
al wife. She’d thought she was just supposed to be living here until the baby was born.
‘But... I...?’ She tried again to voice her fears, but he covered her mouth with his, silencing her again. The gentle kiss quickly became firm, seeking, persuasive, taking on a life of its own.
She answered his passion instinctively, desire rising to suffuse her whole body in undulating, unstoppable waves. She was panting, trembling with need, when he finally tore his mouth away.
‘Do not fear, Cara. I will not leave your side once the ceremony starts,’ he said, his gaze shuttered, and so intense it burned.
She stood shaking on the threshold of her rooms, watching him jog back down the stairs as the passion he had ignited so effortlessly continued to flow through her body.
One thing was certain: having Maxim by her side throughout the ceremony was not going to calm her nerves one bit.
‘Ta femme est très belle, Maxim.’
At his estate manager and best man Victor’s whispered compliment, Maxim shifted round from his position at the front of the church to glance over his shoulder.
The soaring strings of Pachelbel’s Canon in D, which had been picked by the wedding organiser he had hired at great expense a week ago, filled the small chapel as Cara made her way down the aisle on Marcel Caron’s arm to the hushed reverence of the crowd.
He stood, transfixed. His bride had her head bent, watching her steps in the golden slippers, the simple but supremely elegant silk dress she wore shifting colour from gold to rose in the flickering glow of a thousand candles. Her blonde hair had been arranged in a pile of unruly curls threaded through with blue flowers to match her eyes. She wore no veil.
The air gathered in his lungs, threatening to strangle him as heat rose through his body like wildfire—the surge of pride and possessiveness like a tidal wave.
Mine.
The word echoed in his head again, unbidden, as it had on their first night together.
He tried to qualify and control it—the way he’d been trying to do for over a week. Ever since he’d left her in London. The wedding had been a necessary charade, for his business, the press and his personal standing in the community.
But as his eyes devoured the stunning woman walking towards him, it was hard to stick to the script he had written so carefully for himself when making the arrangements.
He noticed her knuckles whitening where she gripped the elaborate bouquet in her fist and realised that while Victor was correct—his wife was indeed exquisitely beautiful—she was also extremely nervous.
He tried to calm his breathing, finally forced to admit that his insistence on this ceremony was not quite as pragmatic as he had wanted to believe.