Lukas’s palm pressed into the small of her back as he led her towards the entourage of staff and hotel executives who rushed forward to congratulate them.
‘How are you holding up?’ he murmured in her ear, his hand sliding down to her hip as he led her across the sand.
‘Good, a little tired,’ she replied. He’d been unbearably solicitous ever since she’d agreed to this sham marriage two days ago—which only made the situation more agonising.
If only she could hate him for forcing her into this. But how could she? When she was already hopelessly in love with him.
She strained to keep a polite smile on her face during the hour that followed, as they sat down to an elaborate wedding feast. She barely swallowed a bite of the lavish array of dishes brought out with pomp and circumstance by the resort’s chef and his staff.
She would have to spend the next week pretending to be a happy bride for the cameras—and goodness knew how much longer pretending to be making a happy family with Lukas when they returned to London—while secretly wishing all the time for the impossible—that their marriage didn’t have to be a pretence. She was right back where she’d been as a little girl, standing on her father’s doorstep, hoping for a love she wasn’t going to get.
Finally the wedding meal was over and Lukas led her to a line of golf carts. She climbed into the lead vehicle with him. He drove past the hotel complex where she’d stayed the night before, alone in a luxury suite, after they’d arrived on the private island atoll in his jet.
‘Where are we going?’ she asked.
He glanced her way. ‘To our honeymoon villa—it’s on the other side of the island.’
But this isn’t a real honeymoon.
Pain pierced Bronte’s chest, slicing through the numbness that had enveloped her for the last forty-eight hours.
They arrived at the idyllic beachside villa. With a lap pool at the back and a large deck in front, the lavish three-room cottage looked like a romantic idyll.
The crystalline blue of the sea sparkled against the red and golds of the sun bleeding into the horizon as it began to set.
Bronte stood on the deck as a small troop of bell boys arrived to deliver their luggage. Her cases were packed full of the wardrobe of new clothes Lukas had employed a stylist to provide as a series of magazine photoshoots had been arranged over the next few days by his press chief Dex Garvey.
Just the thought of that exhausted her. But as she stood watching the sun sink into the sea, the thought of posing for the camera as Lukas’s fake bride didn’t feel anywhere near as overwhelming as actually having to spend six nights alone with him here.
Way to go, Bronte. Surely only you could manage to find yourself in one of the most beautiful and luxurious places on earth, living with a devastatingly attractive man who you’re already in love with and still be miserable.
The thought of their time alone together had terrified her over the last two days—while she’d prepared herself and Nico for her departure.
‘Will he be my daddy now?’
Nico’s wide-eyed question yesterday morning, just before Lukas’s car had arrived to take her to the airport, still haunted her.
She tuned out the sound of Lukas on his mobile phone, talking to one of his executives in the beach cottage’s lavish living area.
The quiet lap of the water against the deck brought with it the salty scent of the sea and the fragrant island flowers. But as she absorbed the beauty of their surroundings her hand strayed to her belly. She pressed her palm to the flat curve of her stomach and imagined herself in seven months’ time.
Her chest expanded. They were going to have a child together. A child that deserved to be loved and cherished by both its parents, the way she had never be
en.
Maybe Lukas couldn’t love her, but what about their child?
She’d been blindsided by his brutal decision to blackmail her into this marriage of convenience. She had been reeling ever since that devastating showdown in his office. She’d collapsed in on herself—all her confidence and hope had drained away and she’d become the same pathetic shadow of herself she’d been once before—when her father had rejected her.
But they were married now, for better or for worse. She’d agreed to do this thing, but why did she have to abide by Lukas’s rules? If she didn’t have the confidence, the energy to fight for herself, couldn’t she at least find the confidence to fight for their child?
She heard Lukas approach behind her. Her heartbeat pummelled her eardrums as his arm banded around her waist and he drew her back against him. His lips caressed her neck in the spot he knew would drive her wild. Shivers of awareness she couldn’t disguise bombarded her body.
‘How about we go straight to bed?’ he murmured. ‘This damn marriage ought to have some advantages.’
She turned and butted her forearms against his chest. She wanted him—it was pointless trying to deny it. But there was more at stake here than just sex.
‘So what’s the plan here? We sleep together, pretend to be married and then what?’ she said, her temper finally helping to snap her out of the fog that had descended when he’d insisted on this marriage.