Teresa Medeiros (26 page)

Tristan feared his wry smile reflected his bitterness. “I haven’t yet.”

Cop opened the file to examine the forged documents.
“I know how you despise publicity. Why the press conference? The lavish wedding? Why not a quick trip to a justice of the peace?”

“Why
, Cop, I’m disappointed in you! Aren’t you supposed to be the guardian of my public image? It would hardly do for the CEO of Lennox Enterprises to go jaunting off to Vegas to be married by an Elvis impersonator.” He tapped his gold pen on the desk, unable to keep the edge from his voice. “I want my bride to have only the best. I want to give her a wedding day shell never forget.”

“And a wedding night?” Cop tilted his head to the side, his eyes narrowing with unabashed suspicion. “Why are you
really
doing this?”

Tristan kept his voice brisk and businesslike. “Because we live in civilized times. It would be politically incorrect to throw Arian over my shoulder, carry her off to my cave, and ravish her until she can’t walk.”

“But you believe a marriage license will give you permission to do just that?”

Tristan shrugged. “According to her.”

“So this is only a marriage of convenience, eh? You get laid and she gets …” Cop trailed off, scratching his head. “What does she get? A company car? A gold watch on your fiftieth anniversary?” His bright, dark eyes took on a shrewd gleam. “Or a quickie divorce in Reno a few weeks after the wedding?”

Tristan leaned back in his chair, the steely glint in his eyes warning Copperfield that further probing would be less than prudent. “Don’t worry about my bride. I can promise you that I’ll personally see to it that she gets everything she deserves.”

Arian had never even allowed herself to dream that a man like Tristan Lennox might seek to make her his wife.

She had little time to ponder her amazing fortune for her every waking moment in the next week was consumed
by an endless parade of dressmakers, bakers, caterers, lawyers, photographers, and travel agents who waved fabric swatches, recipes, shrimp canapés, incomprehensible contracts, and soothing photographs of sandy beaches and swaying palms beneath her nose until she wanted to scream.

She had never suspected how genuinely tiresome it would be to have her every wish catered to. If she even hinted she might prefer smoked salmon to goose liver pâté, it appeared like magic at her fingertips for her to sample.

She was thumbing through a bulging book of satin swatches one morning when she stumbled onto the one area where she would not be allowed to have her own way.

She inspected the pristine samples, unable to restrain a dubious sniff. “I really don’t care for white. It dirties so easily. Don’t you have anything in a nice sensible black?”

The impeccably coiffed woman who had introduced herself as a “professional bridal consultant” favored Arian with a patronizing smile. “We do have some lovely peaches-and-creams in our fall collection, but I’m afraid Mr. Lennox insisted on white. He said to remind you it was a symbol of
purity.”
The woman punctuated the statement with a suggestive wink.

Arian blinked back at her, wondering if she was being mocked, but before she could press, the elevator spilled forth another torrent of fawning attendants.

Arian began to wonder if the genteel assault hadn’t been deliberately choreographed to distract her from the fact that she hadn’t caught so much as a glimpse of her fiancé since he’d announced to the entire world on national television that she was to be his bride.

Perhaps it was only a quaint custom of this century to separate bride and groom before the wedding. But that did not explain Copperfield’s inexplicable absence from her life or Sven’s pensive mood.

She even braved the telephone late one night only to have a disembodied voice inform her that Mr. Lennox was no longer in residence in the Tower, but had booked a suite of rooms at the Carlyle. She replaced the phone in its cradle, her unease growing as a vivid image of Tristan entangled in Cherie’s arms shadowed her memory. She forced herself to shake off the ridiculous fancy. After all, he wasn’t marrying Cherie. He was marrying her.

She’d managed to dismiss the more unpleasant aspects of that fateful night, shoving the tiny gold purse with its million-dollar bank draft and crumpled photograph of a shackled Tristan into the bottom of a drawer. The past was no longer of any import, she reminded herself sternly, only the future.

The gifts began to arrive the following week—shoes, scarves, earrings, bracelets, necklaces, and box after box of garments in every fabric and hue of the rainbow. Most of them were suited for the coming winter, cut from rich wool or heavy linen in vibrant shades of pumpkin and crimson. Each item Arian tried on was a flawless fit for her petite form. She spent hours surveying herself in the bathroom mirror, turning this way and that as she tried to imagine herself on Tristan’s arm. But the image kept melting to mist before fully crystallized.

One morning Sven delivered a tasteful gold box labeled Victoria’s Secret. Arian drew off the lid to find a diaphanous gown nestled in a bed of silver foil.

“How beautiful!” she cried, holding it to her chest an instant before realizing the garment was utterly sheer.

She lowered it, swallowing nervously, then bent to fish a provocative scrap of fabric from the bottom of the box. She poked her fingers through a slit in the silk and wiggled them at Sven. “What do you suppose this is? Some sort of veil?”

The stoic Norwegian blushed to the roots of his
tinted hair before padding over to whisper something in her ear.

Arian turned an even darker shade of pink. “Oh, my!” she breathed, eyeing the naughty undergarment with a mixture of apprehension and appreciation. “No wonder Victoria kept it a secret!”

Arian dutifully reminded herself this was the happiest time of her life and she ought to be savoring every second. Not only had she escaped the grim shadow of her past forever, but she was free to forge a bright future in the arms of the man she loved. Yet as each day passed without so much as a curt message from Tristan, her foreboding deepened until it lay like a dead weight in the pit of her stomach.

The flood of gifts climaxed on a rainy Monday with the arrival of her engagement ring. A pair of uniformed guards hung back at a respectful distance as the somber-faced Tiffany’s executive snapped open his leather case to reveal a thick gold band crowned by a diamond the size of a small egg.

“It’s … um …” Arian swallowed a grimace of distaste before choking out, “Lovely.”

She had never seen anything so vulgar. She had to suppress a shudder when the gentleman pushed the glittering rock onto her finger. It seemed to weight her entire hand, shackling her to her flourishing sense of dread with an invisible chain.

That evening Arian stood at the living room window, relishing a moment of precious solitude as she gazed through the veil of rain that had fallen steadily throughout the long, gray day. With its multitude of lights blurred by mist and the rain-slicked streets below deserted by all but the most intrepid travelers, the city resembled a desolate kingdom abandoned by its king.

Rain coursed like teardrops down the cheeks of her pensive reflection. Where was Tristan now? she wondered wistfully. Was he thinking of her as she was thinking
of him, dreaming of the day when he would become her husband?

“Husband,” Arian whispered, the word more sweetly potent than any incantation.

But her engagement ring glittered like a chunk of ice on her finger, causing a cold splinter of doubt to pierce her heart.

Half-opened boxes littered the suite behind her, spilling their dazzling array of treasures across the settee and over the squat ottoman. As Arian turned to survey them, she realized precisely what was troubling her.

Tristan wasn’t treating her like a cherished bride-to-be. He was treating her like a mistress.

Keeping her confined in this penthouse tower with servants to satisfy her every whim. Showering her with extravagant gifts. Ordering that her opinion be consulted on matters of little or no import. How many times had she seen her mother condescended to with just such a damning mixture of affection and contempt?

But when night fell and shadows crept across the rumpled sheets, her mother had been expected to provide something in return. Tristan had rewarded her with all the pleasures and privileges of being his courtesan, yet asked for nothing in exchange.

Yet
.

Arian scooped the sheer negligee out of its box to finger the gauzy material. The delicate fabric snagged on her engagement ring. Were the sumptuous gown and garish diamond tokens of Tristan’s devotion, she wondered, or simply payment in advance for services to be rendered on their wedding night?

In less than one week, Tristan was to become her husband. When the lavish wedding was over, the smoked caviar had all been eaten, and the guests had gone, would he come to her in love? Or would he seek her out to take his pleasure with icy hands and a stranger’s eyes, making a mockery of their tender vows? Arian shivered, knowing she could not bear it if he did. A
mistress might have the luxury of refusing her lover, but a wife renounced that right when she made her sacred oath before man and God.

Arian had hoped her love for her husband would be sufficient to make a marriage. Many women of her acquaintance, both in France and Gloucester, had settled for far less. But suddenly she realized that she could not take that oath without knowing if Tristan returned her love. Wadding the negligee into a careless ball, Arian tossed it at the hearth and strode for the elevator.

The corridors of Lennox Enterprises were deserted, the offices hushed and darkened. Arian padded through the gloom, encountering only a lone security guard who retreated with a deferent tip of his cap the moment he recognized her. At least Tristan hadn’t ordered her shot on sight, she thought with a grim smile.

She pushed open the frosted-glass door leading to his inner offices, almost missing the cheerful chaos she had witnessed on her first visit. The phones hung mute in their cradles, their jangling voices silenced by the lateness of the hour. For all Arian knew, Tristan might have already retreated to his swank suite at the Carlyle.

But some tingling awareness tugged her onward, past the deserted desks and empty glass cubicles to his assistant’s office. A thin sliver of light shone from beneath the mahogany doors guarding his office.

As Arian crept toward that lonely oasis of light, she wondered if this was how Tristan’s mother felt when approaching her son’s corporate throne each month—mouth dry and palms damp like some unworthy supplicant, fearful for her welcome. For the first time since their initial meeting, Arian felt a twinge of sympathy for the woman.

One of the doors was cracked ajar so it took only a gentle push to ease it open. Tristan sat behind his massive desk, studying a thick sheaf of papers. A brass desk lamp cast a golden glow over his inclined head. The pool
of light only succeeded in deepening the hungry shadows that hovered around him.

Arian would have sworn she hadn’t made a sound, but his head flew up as if she’d whispered his name. His hair was tousled from repeated finger-rakings and a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles perched low on his nose. In that unguarded moment, Arian knew that he could never be a stranger to her. She knew him as well as she knew the rhythmic cadence of her own heart.

But that illusion was shattered when he drew off the spectacles and smoothed back his hair before glancing over at the calendar perched on the edge of his desk. “Good evening, Miss Whitewood. My assistant didn’t make me aware that you’d scheduled an appointment.”

Arian forced herself to tread lightly, both toward Tristan’s desk and around his invisible wall of wariness. “But we do have an appointment. A very significant one. This Saturday at two o’clock in the afternoon at Saint Paul’s Chapel.”

He leaned back in his chair, as if to put a few more valuable inches of space between them. “I’m well aware of that. I had to sacrifice one of the clerks from the mail room to address the invitations.”

Arian could not resist widening her eyes in mocking disbelief. “I hope it wasn’t too great an inconvenience.”

“It was,” he said shortly. “But I recovered. Now what can I do for you this evening? It’s late and I’ve got some important reports to finish.”

More important than you
.

Arian heard the words as clearly as if he had spoken them aloud. She stiffened, realizing that she could no more ask this aloof stranger if he harbored some small morsel of affection for her than she could implore
a wolf to lick her hand without biting it off. Was this what their marriage was to be? she wondered. Tristan shut up in his office until the wee hours of morning while she tossed and turned in their lonely bed?

She shifted her weight from foot to foot, wishing desperately that she had contrived some other excuse for her visit. Tristan had already inclined his head and begun to scratch notes in the margins of his precious report.

“I was wondering if you preferred rose petals or orange blossoms?” she finally blurted out.