CHAPTER THREE
LANASTOODINfront of the registrar, supremely conscious of the man at her side. The man she was about to marry. All the paperwork had been completed—another, even more comprehensive NDA, and a rigorous prenup. Now there was just the wedding ceremony to get through.
Her eyes dropped to her ring finger and she swallowed. She had already known Salvatore Luchesi was rich—he was a money man, after all—but the glittering diamond-encrusted engagement ring he’d slid onto her finger just before they’d walked into the register office had made her widen her eyes.
‘It will be expected that you wear a betrothal ring,’ he’d told her.
His voice had been impersonal then and it was impersonal now, as he gave the expected responses to the registrar. Hers was as well. A feeling of unreality had come over Lana, and she clung to it. This was not, after all, she reminded herself yet again, a real marriage—so of course reality felt far, far away.
Whatever had passed between her and Salvatore so briefly, so fleetingly that evening of the fashion show—weeks ago now—had been and gone. What they were undertaking now was reflected both in her own cool, calm composure and in the brisk, businesslike demeanour he was treating her with.
As she stood beside him now, with neither of them looking at each other, only at the registrar, she could catch the faint scent of an expensive aftershave—could feel against her own sleeve the slight brush of his. And she knew that if she turned her head even a fraction she would catch his distinctive profile, the sensual curve of his mouth, the high cheekbone, the sable hair, the strong line of his jaw.
But that was irrelevant.
As was the slight but discernible pang that went through her at the fact that it was so.
He wants nothing else—and I want...
Well, that was irrelevant too. The very nature of their marriage made it so.
That and that alone was what she must remember.
Salvatore picked up the leather-bound menu and tried to peruse its offerings. But his thoughts were on matters unrelated to lunch.
So, it was done. He’d entered into a state of legal marriage with a woman who was barely more than a stranger for reasons which he had resented being imposed upon him in the first place. But there was no point in rehashing all that now, when their signatures were on the marriage certificate.
His eyes lifted briefly to Lana as she sat opposite him, studying her menu with more attention than he was giving his. He felt his sombre mood lift discernibly and allowed his gaze to take in what he was seeing. She was dressed exactly right for the occasion, wearing a cream-coloured suit that accentuated her tall, racehorse figure, and wore her hair up, with a wisp of what looked halfway between a hat and a fascinator. The whole effect was dressy, but not specifically bridal. Only the diamond betrothal ring and the wedding band denoted her change in status since she’d got dressed that morning.
As did his own wedding band.
He could see the light catching at it, and memory slid uninvited into his head. His father had never shed his own wedding ring, however much he’d made a mockery of it.
He pulled his mind away from that thought. Silenced the thought that followed. That he, too, was making a mockery of the ring he was wearing...
Refutation was instant. No, he was not. Okay, so they’d married for reasons that people did not usually marry for, but the point was that they both had good reason to marry each other, and they both knew what that was. Their expectations of this marriage were the same.
Unlike his own parents’.
He silenced the memory again. It was neither relevant nor justified. He dropped his eyes to the menu again, making his choice, then glancing at the wine list.
Time to choose an appropriate champagne for the occasion. After all, he thought caustically, it was his wedding day.
Lana let her gaze rest lightly on the man sitting opposite her as he perused the wine list. He was totally at home in this quietly expensive restaurant in Knightsbridge, to which his chauffeured car had delivered them from the register office. Totally at home in a plutocratic lifestyle that was his birth right.
Luchesi SpA, she now knew, was a top player in Italian investment circles, or so it seemed, and had been so for close on a century. It had been founded by Salvatore Luchesi’s grandfather, taken on to greater heights by his father, and now the man she had just married was expanding it even further.
But he didn’t spend all his time on business, she had read. In her Internet searches about him his name had cropped up in the Italian tabloids and all the glossy magazines, There had been pictures of him attending glittering events on the Italian social scene—nearly always, Lana had not failed to notice, with a beautiful blonde on his arm.
And now it’s going to be me.
It was a strange thought that now she was going to be paraded not just as his latest beautiful blonde, but as his chosen wife.
But not chosen for any reason that people usually choose who they marry. At heart, money is the reason both of us have married—Salvatore so he can extricate his financial affairs from a business partner he no longer wants, and me so I can extricate myself from the mountain of debt Malcolm dumped on me.
She realised the man she’d married for those pecuniary reasons was now asking her, in the same clipped, brisk tones he’d used with her since his car had collected her and her luggage from her flat, what she wanted to eat.
It was on her lips to order what she always ordered in restaurants—grilled fish and undressed salad—when it dawned on her, with an unexpected sense of gratification, that for an entire year she’d have no shoots or shows whatsoever. Not a single damn one. She glanced at the menu again, her eyes falling to a dish she had automatically ignored. She felt her mouth water even at the thought.