Alice.
He frowned, trying to think of the words to describe his one-time assistant. Efficient. Pragmatic. No nonsense. And yet, she wasn’t really, was she?
All it had taken was a few hours’ dancing, the quickest kiss, and they’d both gone up in flames.
His pulse lifted now, his body temperature climbing in anticipation of seeing his bride, and he had to work double time to tamp down on the response. ‘She’s...unusual.’
‘Unusual? Does she have three heads?’
Thanos bared his teeth in an imitation of a smile. ‘I mean, she’s not my usual type.’
‘Naturally. This isn’t your usual wedding though, is it?’
‘No,’ Thanos was quick to agree.
r /> ‘You like her, though?’
Thanos shook his head, desperate to refute that suggestion. ‘It’s just business.’
‘Are you sure?’ Leonidas’s eyes rested on his brother’s profile thoughtfully.
‘Absolutely certain. As soon as I have the contract for P & A, this marriage is over and I’ll likely never see my “wife” again.’
‘And she’s okay with that?’
‘Okay with it? She’s thrilled. We both are. That’s the deal we’ve struck.’
Remembering the deal was important. He invoked it now as a talisman to the purpose for this wedding, smiling with an air of relaxation that he didn’t completely feel.
The eleven members of the French Philharmonic Orchestra, who’d been instructed to play pre-ceremony music, brought their piece softly to a close, and silence began to descend upon the marquee.
It reigned for only a moment before the famous strains of the wedding march began to play, the music robust and beautiful.
Thanos’s eyes moved with a sort of desperate fatalism towards the entrance, his whole body on alert for this moment. He reminded himself he was supposed to look like a man in love, a man waiting to see a woman he adored, and he pasted a look on his face that he hoped passed for doting—and tried not to think how much genuine anticipation there was in his body at that moment.
The instant Alice appeared, he found it almost impossible to conceal his true reaction. Several things hit him all at once.
She was walking down the aisle alone. This he had expected. He knew from their conversations that her mother was obviously bedridden, and, from the light background check Leonidas had insisted Thanos run, that her father was a mystery. No one was named on her birth certificate, no one had shared legal custody of Alice, certainly there was no one in her life who’d acted the part of father.
And there were no siblings.
He hadn’t expected, therefore, that she would be accompanied down the aisle, and yet the sight of her on her own did something strange to his gut, pulling at it mercilessly, so he fought an impulse to push a hand against the wall of his stomach.
She was alone.
Just like him.
They were born alone, they died alone, and they were marrying—alone.
It wasn’t just the sight of her stepping slowly towards him, with no other human to keep her company, that made his breath labour in his lungs.
As she walked purposefully up the aisle, he couldn’t help but realise how little she resembled the no-nonsense assistant he’d propositioned.
Just like the night at the club, Alice Smart had transformed into something and someone completely different. This time, she was less sex siren and more Princess-in-Waiting. The dress was utterly spectacular, though he suspected on its hanger, or on another woman, it would barely catch his eye. But worn by Alice, it was a piece of mastery, flattering her body, teasing with every shift of fabric, making him want to touch it, to touch her, to feel every single inch of the fabric, and what was beneath.
Then there was the veil. While the dress was beautifully crafted and made him ache to examine it in greater detail, the veil was like something other-worldly. Made of tulle, it had a fine lace edging and on closer inspection he saw that flowers had been etched into the fabric, and, at each edge, a very fine cluster of diamonds was stitched into it. He stared at her through the gauze, the lurching in his gut entirely unwelcome and inappropriate.
‘Hi.’