Tempted by Her Convenient Husband

by Charlotte Hawkes

It hammered so loudly, in fact, that she could scarcely hear anything else for the rest of the service. Not the bishop’s loquacious additions, nor Lukas as he recited his vows, and not even herself as she echoed them.

  It was like being in a fog, somewhere in the middle of the hedge maze that used to dominate the west part of the gardens of the Sedeshire estate when her mother had been alive.

  As though the entire ceremony was happening to someone else on the other side of the eight-foot evergreens. She could see them but she could barely even hear them.

  She would have been happy to stay like that for ever.

  Lost.

  It was only as the bishop was declaring them husband and wife that Oti finally began to come back to herself.

  ‘You may kiss the bride,’ he concluded with a flourish that she felt was wholly unnecessary.

  Later, when she was alone, she would quiz herself over why she’d had it in her head that Lukas wouldn’t kiss her. Why a part of her had felt so ruffled by the idea of him...declining to do so. Later.

  Not now.

  Instead, Oti watched, almost transfixed, as he lifted one hand and moved it to her cheek; then he slid it around the back of her neck in a way that any onlooker might have even considered to be romantic. She knew the truth, and yet it almost fooled her.

  Then he hauled her towards him, his eyes burning through her, wild and untamed and stirring up sensations inside that she was sure she’d never felt before. Then he lowered his head and, as he claimed her mouth with his, her entire body seemed to combust in flashes of white-hot heat.

  And Oti’s world as she knew it imploded.

  * * *

  He should never have kissed her, Lukas castigated himself a short while later when he had finally ushered his too-lovely new bride into the back seat of their wedding car, barking out a low command to his driver before climbing in after her.

  He should never have married her either. But that was hard to remember when he was still floored by their kiss. And it didn’t help that she was touching her fingers to her lips, with that same dazed expression shining in her too-blue eyes. He tried to pull his gaze away and look out of the window, but it was impossible.

  Slowly, she turned her head to look at him. Her throat worked a few times.

  ‘What...was that?’

  ‘If I have to tell you—’ his voice was sharp, and not at all like himself ‘—then I can’t have been doing it right. And we both know that isn’t the case.’

  It spoke volumes that she didn’t respond to that with one of her witty put-downs. As if she was too punch-drunk to manage it. Any other time, he might have taken that as a triumph.

  But, right now, Lukas was still trying to rationalise what had happened back in the cathedral. He’d intended a kiss which would satisfy their critics without being inappropriate, but then he’d felt the soft fullness of her mouth open up under his, and everything...everything had fallen away.

  The cathedral, the guests, even the damned plan itself.

  In that split second there had been only him and her. And something that felt oddly like a truth between them.

  Which meant that he really was in trouble.

  Merely being tempted by the woman was one thing. But it was quite another to forget that anything else even existed. Worse, that he didn’t care, because he could still taste her on his tongue. And he found himself savouring it.

  Muttering a curse under his breath, he reached towards the limousine’s minibar and selected a tumbler before pouring himself a few generous fingers of whisky.

  Yeah, he’d realised the kiss had been a mistake even as her breath was heating his mouth back there in the cathedral. He’d tried telling himself that he’d had no choice, that the kiss was an integral part of the ceremony, that he was playing the part of the newly married husband.

  But it hadn’t felt like playing a part when his mouth had been sliding so perfectly over hers, as though he’d been waiting for this very moment ever since their first encounter. As though she was the reason he’d been feeling so edgy for the better part of the last five months, rather than the fact that the plan he had set in motion more than two decades earlier was finally drawing closer.

  Close enough to smell.

  The first step had been buying out Sedeshire International before the Rockman family could get hold of it, and now those papers were finally signed off and the ink was almost dry. Lukas didn’t care that he’d paid over the odds to do so. It was only money and these days he had more of it than his dirt-poor childhood self could ever have even imagined.

  The second step was, admittedly, a little harder to swallow, especially for a self-confirmed bachelor—marrying Lady Octavia on the dubious promise that her father would finally tell the truth and set the record straight about his mother.

  Just as he had vowed to her as a twelve-year-old.

  And it didn’t matter that she was no longer around to see justice done, to see her tarnished reputation finally being restored. It would be enough that he had kept his promise to her.

  He’d watched the expression of old Andrew Rockman in that front pew, practically incandescent with rage at the marriage.

  Lukas had half expected Rockman to storm to the front when the bishop had asked if there were any objections—maybe he would have even welcomed it. The barbaric man would at least have had to finally show his true colours, and the charade would have been over.

  But, of course, the opportunity had passed. Rockman had swallowed the rage that only Lukas himself had noticed, and the service had continued. And he’d felt as if he was on autopilot right up to the moment where the slick brush of his lips over Octavia’s had made Lukas forget where he was. Who he was.

  Heat had poured through him as his new bride had melted against him. Right into him. And oh, how there had been a part of him that had craved exactly that.

  Lukas couldn’t understand it.

  Taking a long pull of the expensive drink, he let the heat pour though him and soothe him. But, strangely, he didn’t really taste it.

  He could only taste her. Roaring through his veins, thundering around his being. Flooding him. He could barely restrain himself from reaching over to haul her back to him and explore that delicious friction between them all over again.

  His only consolation was that she wanted him just as badly. He knew women well enough to be able to read his new bride like an open book.

  Tension emanated off her as she sat across the luxurious seats from him. He could see that she too fought to get herself back under control, the taut lines of her elegant neck at odds with the way she kept her hands neatly folded in her lap, too neat, too precise. As if she could read every last traitorous thought in his head and felt every one of them.

  He needed to break the silence, but no words came.

  ‘Drink?’ he offered at last, more for something to say. ‘Or perhaps that would undermine whatever programme you’re following.’

  ‘You mean like a twelve-step one?’ She sniffed. ‘No, thank you. Though, as I said, I wasn’t in rehab. It’s just that it’s barely eleven thirty.’

  Her attempt at a put-down might have amused him under any other circumstances. It certainly wouldn’t have got to him. What was wrong with him?

  ‘Says the woman who is well known for partying 24/7,’ he countered instead. ‘It’s a bit late to start pretending to have standards, isn’t it?’

  ‘Evidently,’ she shot back, though her tone was ridiculously polite. ‘Since I just married you. Or perhaps I’m lying and it’s the booze and drugs talking.’

  He gave a snort of laughter despite himself. Her comebacks were like a fine blade slicing through the air, neither dull nor confused.

  Without knowing what he was doing, Lukas stretched one long arm out across the seats. He took her chin in his fingers and—not unkindly—forced her to look at hi
m.

  ‘That’s twice you’ve seemed offended when I’ve mentioned your past. But your pupils aren’t dilated, and you don’t sound compromised. You certainly don’t smell like you’re drunk. For that matter, you didn’t seem under the influence when last we met either. One might actually suspect that the rumours about you weren’t wholly true.’

  Octavia froze. Her glorious sapphire eyes—which he hated himself for noticing, let alone being unable to draw his gaze away from—widened. Her breathing grew more rapid and shallow. He could see her pulse battering wildly in her neck, the beat seeming to echo throughout his entire body.

  It shouldn’t have been so hard to make his hand open up. To release her.

  Belatedly, his new bride wrenched her head away as if she’d been just as frozen as he had been. If he wasn’t careful he could end up blowing this whole scheme on a woman who seemed to be capable of doing the one thing that only one person had ever managed.

  It seemed that his new bride was developing a knack for getting under his skin.

  The sooner they got this wedding breakfast over with and he could get back to the relative peace of his home—and, more important, his office—the better.

  CHAPTER THREE

  OTI WAS RELIEVED when their car finally drew up at the reception venue.

  She’d spent the entire journey replaying their discussion in church as though they’d been two naughty school children in Sunday service, instead of bride and groom at their own wedding.

  It was ludicrous.

  Yet even now, thinking of doing...intimate things with this man only made her feel all the more edgy. Hotter. And heavier. Right there...between her legs.

  What was wrong with her?

  She couldn’t imagine what he would say if he knew the truth. If Lukas found out that she was a virgin. It was embarrassing, certainly at her age. He wouldn’t believe her, anyway. Not unless she explained why she’d barely done more than kiss a man in the past decade. Not unless she told him the whole story. And there was no chance she would do that.

  She’d put that part of her life—that awful night—behind her a long time ago.

  If her brother hadn’t come along exactly when he had...well, she didn’t like to think what might have—would have—happened. It sickened her enough that it had got as far as it had. But she’d been lucky. Edward had rescued her. Too many other women weren’t so fortunate.

  But Lukas Woods didn’t need to know any of it.

  Still, as he slid far too gracefully out of the car and then turned to help her follow, she almost batted his hand away, only spotting her bridesmaids—girls she barely knew any more, let alone friends—waiting for her. Every one of them was her father’s choice. Mostly daughters of high-ranking nobility with whom he was trying to ingratiate himself. Perhaps one of them was the girl that he was currently sleeping with—though she was barely older than Oti, and possibly a little younger.

  Odious didn’t quite cover it. If it wasn’t for Edward, she would have cut her father out of her life years ago.

  Perhaps she would be able to visit her brother soon. Maybe even in the next few days. There was no honeymoon planned; to be fair, she felt as if she was going to be more of a mistress than a wife, since Lukas was already married to his work.

  But, for now, she still had the wedding breakfast to get through. Shoving her thoughts to the back of her mind, Oti feigned another smile—her cheeks were beginning to ache—and allowed Lukas to take her hand and assist her out of the vintage vehicle and tried not to wince.

  She might have known the infamously sharp-eyed Lukas wouldn’t miss it.

  ‘What is it?’ He stopped instantly.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ she lied, trying to turn her arm so that he couldn’t see.

  Taking her arm and stilling her movements, he noted the bruise that was already beginning to form.

  ‘Was this your father?’ he demanded. ‘Before, in the cathedral? What was it that he said to you?’

  ‘It’s fine. Let’s just go inside.’

  Not a rebuttal, she noted. As if she wanted Lukas to know.

  She eyed the marks, practically feeling her father’s vice-like grip as it had tightened around her. His fingers biting painfully into her arm.

  ‘Don’t mess this up, girl,’ he’d hissed. ‘Or, so help you, you and that vegetable brother of yours will regret it.’

  Anger had shot through her and she remembered jerking her head up and forcing herself to take one step then another, until finally she drew to an elegant halt at the top of the aisle, where her father finally released her.

  If she was going to bolt, that had been her chance.

  Instead, she’d looked at Lukas and all her fears, all her anger, had seemed to simply...dissolve. As though it was all going to be okay.

  Which was why, right now, she just wanted to forget her father and return to whatever verbal jousting she and Lukas had discovered back in the cathedral. As absurd as it was, she’d found some degree of comfort in their barbed exchanges.

  ‘I can’t help but notice the inordinate number of devastated-looking Z-list actresses dressed as though they’re in mourning,’ she murmured as they strode into the magnificent venue.

  His jaw locked, and she silently prayed that he wasn’t going to continue interrogating her about her father.

  ‘What can I say?’ Relenting unexpectedly, Lukas apparently decided to play along. ‘I’m quite the catch.’

  ‘It might have been amusing to watch, had I been in the congregation watching that car crash of a wedding, instead of standing right there at the front—one of the main participants.’

  ‘You didn’t enjoy being the centre of attention, Octavia? You do surprise me.’

  ‘And then there was Andrew, looking apoplectic.’ She snorted indelicately, a fraction of a second before she realised Lukas had stiffened slightly beside her.

  ‘Andrew?’ He sounded as though he could barely bring himself to spit the word out.

  Oti frowned. ‘Andrew Rockman, Sixth Earl of Highmount?’ she clarified. ‘He and my father are as thick as thieves, which should tell you everything you need to know about the man.’

  ‘I know who he is.’ The clipped tone made her stomach flip.

  ‘You’re not friends?’ She didn’t know if she could stand that.

  ‘We are most certainly not.’

  She was pretty sure that the unrufflable Lukas Woods was seething beneath his too-flattering morning suit.

  How curious.

  ‘Good,’ she offered. ‘Because I don’t think I could stand it if you were. He’s such a bully, as are his sons. My family has known them for years. Did you know that he stormed into Sedeshire Hall, bawling at my father to call off this wedding?’

  ‘I did not know that,’ Lukas answered, and she got the impression he was fighting to keep his emotions in check.

  She filed that away for later.

  ‘What exactly did he tell your father?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She shrugged. ‘I can’t say that I was listening. Though he was raging about my father betraying him.’

  And then she waited for her new husband to fill in the gaps for which she was sure he had the pieces.

  She told herself that she shouldn’t be surprised when he merely shrugged, made his excuses and disappeared. Leaving her to greet the rest of their unimpressed guests alone.

  * * *

  ‘You can marry as many daughters of earls as you like—it won’t make you any less of an illegitimate bastard.’

  Lukas eyed the enraged, spluttering Andrew Rockman, Sixth Earl of Highmount, and forced down the bile that always threatened to drown him from the inside whenever he thought of him. The man who was—as much as Lukas would have cut out his own tongue before admitting it aloud—his biological father.

  It took everything Lukas had to
keep his voice even and light, as though those insulting words didn’t resonate so deafeningly in his head. As though they didn’t scrape inside him where he’d always felt so raw.

  ‘I’m fairly certain that marrying as many daughters of earls as I like would make me a bigamist. But never fear, I only needed to marry the one in order for her father to give me a controlling share of Sedeshire International. The company you’ve been trying to get your grubby little paws on for years.’

  He even offered a sardonic smile and was rewarded when the older man’s eyes bulged with fury.

  ‘You’re an utter disgrace,’ the Earl spat out.

  ‘On the contrary, I’m a success. In business and now, it seems, in marriage. I may be an illegitimate bastard—’ the words nearly lodged in Lukas’s throat, but he made himself say them anyway ‘—yet to the world I’m the man who bagged an earl’s daughter. And secured a company, all at once. Though I wonder what that says about my new father-in-law’s loyalty to you? It’s no secret that you’ve been desperate to get your greedy fingers on Sedeshire International, and yet he chose not to sell to you.’

  ‘You’re nothing!’ the old Earl exploded viciously. ‘A nobody.’

  ‘Indeed, as your closest...’ Lukas paused thoughtfully. ‘Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to call him a friend—I’m not certain that you understand the meaning of the term—so let’s go with...ally. As your closest ally, I wonder what conclusions will be drawn from the fact that he agreed to marry Lady Octavia off to me, rather than one of your sons. Or, should I clarify, one of your legitimate sons.’

  ‘You’re no son of mine.’

  For most of his life Lukas had chosen to tell himself the same thing. It had suited him to pretend that he could not be connected to such a man—more than suited him. Denying the Earl’s existence—even if only in his own head—had been as necessary to Lukas’s well-being as learning to breathe. Now, though, seeing the old man’s rage, Lukas felt compelled to fuel the fire.

  ‘I couldn’t agree more. Yet you can call me a bastard, just as you called my mother a whore, but it doesn’t change the fact that we share the same blood.’ The words almost curdled in his mouth, and Lukas made no attempt to disguise his contempt.