He’d had no hand in choosing the dress, but as Cara approached him he realised he was glad the couturier had made no attempt to disguise her pregnancy. The child was a fact. A fact neither one of them could ignore. So why deny the strange surge of pride and possessiveness at the evidence that she was his?
While he had not wanted the affidavit he had signed to become public all those months ago, he couldn’t deny he was pleased that everyone would know she had been untouched by his father. That while the old bastard had married her first, he had never known the pleasures of her beautiful body.
Perhaps the crowd would think her pregnancy was the only reason he had married her, and until this moment he had been determined to convince himself of the same. But as Cara’s head finally lifted and her shy gaze met his, he was forced to acknowledge the basic biological urge to claim her he had never been able to contain.
Mine.
Marcel presented Cara’s trembling hand to him as they drew level. Maxim captured her fingers in a firm grip and lifted them to his lips. He buzzed a kiss across her knuckles and whispered above the fading music, ‘Do not fear, Cara. This will soon be over and then we can schedule the sex.’
It was supposed to be a joke, a poor attempt to ease the tension, but when the familiar blush ignited her cheeks—and the heat surged in his groin—the joke was on him.
He folded her arm under his and tucked her against his side to face the priest.
The cleric began to say the blessing—there would be no vows as those had already been made at the mairie in Auxerre. But Maxim barely heard the man’s words, far too aware of Cara’s body, ripe with his child, standing stiffly beside him as the cleric blessed their union before God, the local community and Maxim’s employees and friends.
This marriage would be over once the child was born. He could never give her more. His panicked reaction to seeing his son ten days ago was all the proof he needed of that. But as they stood together in the candlelight, the eyes of everyone who mattered in his life upon them, the pressure in his chest refused to go away.
As the blessing finished and the priest gave him permission to kiss his bride, the primitive urge charged through his bloodstream like a living, breathing thing.
As he gathered Cara’s lush body into his arms and conquered her lips in a searing, incendiary kiss, their audience and the reasons for the ceremony faded from his consciousness. All he could smell was her light flowery scent and the musk of her arousal, all he could comprehend was the feel of her soft, pliant, responsive body surrendering to his.
And all he wanted to do was brand her as his in the most basic way imaginable, as soon as was humanly possible.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
‘YOU MADE a very beautiful bride, madame.’
‘Thank you, Antoinette,’ Cara murmured as she watched her new maid pluck the pins out that were holding her elaborate hairdo aloft.
She was tired, and grateful the festivities—or at least the festivities she was expected to participate in—were over. She sighed as the heavy locks of hair tumbled down.
‘Would madame like me to run a bath?’ Antoinette asked in her perfect English.
‘That would be wonderful,’ Cara replied, still unused to having anyone wait on her.
The battalion of stylists and beauty therapists who had arrived in her suite to prepare her for the wedding had done a spectacular job. At least she had looked the part of Maxim’s sophisticated society bride. But the truth was she had been terrified as she’d walked down the aisle on Marcel Caron’s arm, the hauntingly beautiful classical music, played expertly by a string and woodwind orchestra in the corner of the chapel, only making her feel like more of a fraud.
The dress had been so close-fitting no one could have missed her baby bump and, while she could never be ashamed of her pregnancy, she had felt as if she’d had a sign round her neck saying ‘shotgun wedding’.
But when Maxim had gripped her hand and brought it to his lips, the fear of exposure had been replaced by a more visceral fear. In that second, as his gaze roamed over her, rich with appreciation, she had felt beautiful, and truly seen, for the first time in her life... And it had terrified her. Because it could not possibly be true.
But what terrified her more was how much she had wanted to look beautiful, for him.
She stared at herself in the mirror.
She couldn’t go there, she mustn’t. Because she knew what would happen if she allowed herself to think that if she changed who she was it would make a man like Maxim truly care for her. It wouldn’t.
She’d tried to change before, with the foster families she’d stayed with. Even tried to change for her own father as a young child, after her mother’s death, when she’d sensed he was going to leave her too... It didn’t work, it never had.
She let out a guttering breath and heard Antoinette’s carefree humming while she prepared the bath in the adjoining room.
For goodness’ sake, lighten up, Cara.
Tonight was an elaborate show. Maxim had said so himself. She mustn’t take it so seriously.
The heady scent of lavender and rose drifted into her bedroom from the bathroom, and she recognised th
e tune Antoinette was humming—the sensual melody from their first waltz.