The Stolen Bride

by Abby Green

  Just then he emerged from the bathroom with a towel slung carelessly around his waist, his taut body gleaming, wet hair slicked back. Instantly Aneesa felt her body melting on the inside and she had to draw up the sheet over her body as if he might see the depth of the need she felt for him, even now, after what had felt like hours of lovemaking. She’d lost count of the amount of times he’d brought her to orgasm, as if he’d had to make up for the first time.

  He strolled over nonchalantly and, with a small hand towel, rubbed at his short hair, making it stand up on end.

  ‘Morning.’

  Aneesa blushed. ‘Morning.’ She sat up, holding the sheet to her body, and looked around for her clothes, not wanting to meet Sebastian’s too-inquisitive gaze right now, afraid that he might see something of the turmoil she felt. Especially when this situation was obviously something he was well used to. She could see one end of her sari on the floor near the bed and reached down to pick it up, jumping slightly when Sebastian got it for her and handed it over.

  ‘It’s probably not the best idea to wear that out of the hotel …’ he said with dry humour.

  Aneesa looked at him, his easy demeanour making her feel disgruntled and tetchy. ‘Well, what else can I wear? I didn’t exactly plan for this …’

  Sebastian’s eyes flashed at her tone and Aneesa said immediately, ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to sound so … short.’

  ‘I can ring down and have them send up some clothes for you—jeans and a jacket, something like that?’

  Aneesa nodded. ‘Thank you. If I can just get out without anyone spotting me I might be able to salvage something of my ruined reputation.’

  Sebastian went to the phone and called down. She barely heard what he said, his words just a deep rumble, and hoped that he’d got her size right. He turned back, and feeling very exposed in the face of his supreme assuredness, Aneesa got out of the bed and clutched her sari to her body, desperately trying to cover up, which she knew was silly when this man already knew her body more intimately than she did.

  She garbled something about taking a shower and fled to the bathroom. Evidently Sebastian was only too happy that the night was over and he could say goodbye to the hysterical Indian Bollywood bride who had given up her innocence with the tiniest amount of persuasion.

  When the bathroom door closed behind Aneesa, Sebastian had to battle the urge to follow her in and introduce her to the delights of making love in a shower. Just the thought of the water sluicing down over those exquisite curves was enough to make him bite back a groan of need. And ultimately that’s what stopped him following her in—the fact that she could bring about this lack of control so easily.

  He’d just spent an entire night with a woman when he couldn’t remember the last time that had happened. If ever. He had a fleeting moment of considering making her an offer to become his mistress, here in India, so that they could keep seeing each other. But that sense of vulnerability rose up again, making him feel uncomfortable. It wouldn’t be right to ask Aneesa to be his mistress; she’d been innocent and she wasn’t like the more experienced women he usually chose, who knew that he liked to keep things casual.

  He told himself this and resolutely diverted his mind away from exploring the real reason he wouldn’t be seeing her again.

  When Aneesa emerged from the bathroom with her hair freshly washed and dried, she felt a little more in control. The bedroom was empty, and in a voluminous towelling robe she went to look for Sebastian, who she found in the main living area, pristine and more than a little intimidating in a dark grey suit which made his blue eyes stand out.

  He was on the phone, speaking to someone in rapid-fire Spanish when she came in, and he picked up a big glossy-looking bag to hand to her. She took it, assuming it to be the clothes, and fled back to the bedroom.

  In the bag she found underwear, jeans, flat shoes, a shirt and a baseball cap. She smiled at his thoughtfulness and even more when she saw a huge pair of dark glasses. When she was dressed she pulled her hair up into a ponytail and regarded herself in the mirror. She was a million miles away from the ornately decorated bride of the night before—she grimaced slightly—except for the distinctive henna tattoo on her hands.

  ‘I got your size right….’

  Aneesa whirled around to see Sebastian leaning against the door, watching her. Heat crept over her skin to think just how intimately they’d been entwined only hours before. How intimately he knew her.

  ‘Yes, thank you … I’m afraid I’ve no money to pay you for the clothes at the moment, but I could arrange for some—’

  He cut off her words with a slashing movement of his hand, ‘Don’t worry about it.’ He flicked a glance at the watch on his wrist. ‘I’m afraid I have to leave. I’ve got a meeting in twenty minutes across town.’

  She tried to ignore the wrenching sensation in the pit of her belly and stammered, ‘Of course, you’re busy. My parents will be worried about me. I should go to them and explain.’

  He quirked a brow. ‘Jamal?’

  Aneesa hitched up her chin. ‘Jamal will be fine—he’s made surviving in Bollywood into an art form and I’m sure he’s already making sure he’s being portrayed as the poor victim.’

  Sebastian stood away from the door. ‘I know a good PR person here, if you need someone to take care of you.’

  Aneesa shook her head and fought the desire to say yes, as if to hold onto some tenuous link that he was holding out, but he was only being polite. ‘Thanks but my agent will have someone lined up I’m sure….’

  He started to walk away. ‘I’ll take you down to a back entrance. I’ve arranged for a car to be waiting for you outside, so hopefully that’ll ensure you get away without being noticed.’

  Aneesa nodded and put on the baseball cap. She’d transferred all of her wedding paraphernalia into the glossy bag. As much as she never wanted to see it again, she couldn’t leave it behind.

  So briskly that she felt a little dizzy, Sebastian led her out, and back into the service elevator which had brought her into the suite last night. All the way down to the ground floor she wondered what one said to the man with whom you’d spent all night in complete wanton abandonment.

  She felt a desperate urgency rising within her and, inexplicably, tears pricked the backs of her eyes. She pulled the baseball cap down lower, as if she could hide from Sebastian.

  They reached the ground floor where a discreet member of staff waited, and he led them to a back door where there was indeed a luxury saloon waiting outside. The member of staff melted away. It was just the two of them in a plain staff corridor and Aneesa took off her cap for a moment to look up at Sebastian.

  She opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out. His face looked stark and expressionless. His eyes flinty blue. She had to go now or she’d crumple, and while extending her hand, she garbled out, ‘Look … thank you for … everything. I don’t know what I would have done if—’

  ‘Aneesa.’ He took her hand and pulled her to him, his eyes burning in his face now. ‘You don’t have to thank me. Last night was an honour for me, even if it came on the back of your ruined wedding. I’m sorry you had to go through that, but I’m not sorry about what we shared … but you know it can’t go any further than this, don’t you?’

  Aneesa nodded and felt like she was breaking apart inside. She’d thought she’d loved Jamal but not once had he made her feel like this. As if on the one hand she was dying and on the other hand being reborn again every time she looked into his eyes. And God help her but she couldn’t look away.

  With a look of something almost savagely intent on his face, Sebastian pulled her into his body and dipped his head. She had no defence for the kiss that followed, and heard a faint moan coming from her mouth. The kiss was harsh and brutal and yet more gentle than anything she’d experienced with him in the previous cataclysmic twelve hours.

  That sense of inner desperation mounted—she was never going to see him again—and now she kissed him bac
k as if her life depended on it, arms wrapped tight around his neck, their bodies straining together. When they finally drew apart they were both breathing heavily and Aneesa’s heart was pounding. She realised that she was clinging onto Sebastian like an octopus and took her arms down before he had to extricate himself.

  With two hands on her waist he put her back and her legs felt wobbly. She bent and picked up the fallen baseball hat and put it on with trembling hands.

  ‘Goodbye, Aneesa.’

  She couldn’t even look at him. ‘Goodbye,

  Sebastian.’ And before she did something stupid, like throw herself at him and beg him not to let her go, she walked swiftly to the car, where the driver jumped out to open the door for her. The windows were tinted and she didn’t look back at Sebastian once.

  The following morning Sebastian was getting ready to leave the hotel to return to Europe, half listening to the news on the TV, when he heard Aneesa’s name and turned to see her beautiful face filling the screen.

  He turned the sound up, and then had to sit down when his legs felt suspiciously weak. It looked like a press conference and Aneesa was dressed in a conservative trouser suit, shirt buttoned up, hair tied back and sleek. Her face was pale and her eyes were huge and red-rimmed.

  His hand clenched into a fist on his thigh in an unconscious reaction to the thought that she’d been upset. There was a barrage of questions but an officious-looking man to her right put up a hand. ‘Miss Adani is only here to read out a statement. Please, no questions.’

  Sebastian could see Aneesa’s throat work and her hands shake slightly as she held a piece of paper. He saw the sleeve of her jacket pulled down as far as possible over the henna tattoo and his chest felt tight.

  Her voice was hesitant at first but grew stronger; he only caught snippets of what she said, he was so distracted by seeing her.

  ‘… like to extend my profound apologies to Jamal Kapoor Khan and his family for any distress I may have caused by my actions, and also to my own family…. My reasons for not going through with the wedding are personal to me. I wish all the best for Jamal and that he will find a partner who will appreciate him far more than I ever could have. There was no third party involved in my actions—my decision was mine alone and I must live with the consequences. I would just ask for some privacy for my family at this time. Thank you …’

  At that moment she looked up and straight at the camera and Sebastian felt winded all over again, as if she was looking directly at him. He had to laugh grimly at his fanciful reaction, no wonder she was a major star. She lit up the screen, even when she was at half wattage. And he felt inordinately proud of her; she’d said exactly the right things, almost implying that she’d felt she wasn’t good enough for

  Jamal so that she’d set him free to find someone more worthy.

  A discreet knock came on the door and Sebastian flinched slightly, engrossed with watching how the media were braying for Aneesa’s blood as she got up and walked away with a stiff back and heavy minders crowding around her. She’d slipped huge black glasses on and the flashing lights of hundreds of cameras lit up the screen.

  Quelling an almost overwhelming urge to go and find her and pluck her out of that bloodthirsty horde, Sebastian flicked off the TV and reminded himself that she wasn’t meant to be on his mind anymore. It had been one night, an interlude. And it was over. His jaw was hard as he lifted up his bag and strode to the door of the suite, not even glancing back once.

  Five Weeks Later

  Aneesa was exhausted as she sank into the car that was to take her home from the film studios. She had just finished shooting a cameo role in a big budget movie. A cameo role that had been handed to her on a platter following the media furore after that press conference.

  To her utter shock and abject relief, the Indian people and film lovers hadn’t turned on her as she’d expected and feared. Her agent’s strategy had worked; they’d made it sound as if she felt she couldn’t be with Jamal as she wasn’t good enough for him and the public had lapped this up, putting her in the role of a romantic martyr who was setting Jamal free to find someone else. It appealed to every level of the Bollywood-crazy film fans who thrived on similar melodramatic stories in the movies.

  As the public fervour rose and they’d embraced the romantic lovelorn Aneesa, Jamal hadn’t had a leg to stand on. In order to save face himself he’d had to come out and humbly thank Aneesa for running out on their wedding. She was the only one who’d read the daggers in his expression. She was the only one who knew the truth behind her desire for him ‘to find someone who would appreciate him for who he really was.’

  It was ironic, but at this busiest point in her career, she was turning down work and her agent couldn’t understand why she wasn’t signing the umpteen lucrative contracts being pushed under her nose every day now. He thought she’d lost the plot altogether.

  Before, she would have signed every contract, terrified that she’d miss out on something.

  Aneesa sighed deeply. But now, something fundamental had shifted inside her and she wasn’t the same person anymore. She wasn’t even sure if this was the life she wanted. She didn’t like the person she’d become in the industry and didn’t want to be seduced by that shallow world again. She’d even started to try and reach out to old friends.

  Thankfully the driver didn’t make conversation as she watched Mumbai pass by outside in all its teeming and hectic, colourful glory. One thing remained constant though—the fact that she couldn’t forget about Sebastian. At night she woke aching for his body and touch, her dreams all of him, and by day she couldn’t get his hard-boned face and intense blue eyes out of her mind. The way he’d quirked a lazy smile when he’d introduced himself. The way he’d given her the experience of a lost wedding night.

  She’d believed that he either had to be married, and had indulged in a fling, or else he was a serial seducer with women all over the world. And then only today she’d nearly had a seizure when she’d seen a picture of him in the Mumbai Times, where he’d been named as Sebastian Wolfe, the owner of the Mumbai Grand Wolfe Hotel. It had all slid into place. That was why he’d been observing the wedding, and that was why he’d had the best suite in the hotel. It was also why he’d been phoned by the staff the evening she’d sought refuge and how he’d managed to get her clothes with little more than a click of his fingers, not to mention a chauffeur-driven car….

  On the heels of finding out his identity and surreptitiously looking for more information about him on the Internet, she now knew for a fact that he was not married, but was a serial dater of beautiful women. Not to mention the fact that he owned a string of luxury hotels in practically every major city, a private island in South America and that he came from a huge sprawling family with links to a scandalous past in Britain.

  The large family of seven brothers and one sister had dispersed from the family home in Buckinghamshire, each one carving out their own destiny with their chunks of the huge inherited Wolfe fortune. There was a mention of Sebastian’s younger full brother Nathaniel who was a famous Hollywood actor but very little else, almost as if some kind of embargo had been placed on the information.

  It had been easier to unearth gossip about Sebastian’s prowess with women, much to Aneesa’s disgust and humiliation. It was rumoured that he had lovers all over the world who graced his bed whenever he called, and he was never seen with a woman for more than a few dates.

  When he hadn’t even asked to see her again, despite his assertion that they’d only have one night, he’d obviously relegated her far beneath those other women, and that realisation had hurt. But was she really so pathetic that she would have settled for a few scraps from his table? A few furtive visits whenever he was in Mumbai? With a feeling of burning shame, she knew what her answer to that might have been.

  Aneesa looked down at her hands to where the henna tattoo had just about faded away completely and wished that she could make the memory of Sebastian fade away too. And then
the niggling worry that had been getting stronger rose up again, despite her efforts to push it to the back of her mind. Her period was late. Very late. She’d put it down to the turmoil of the past few weeks and reassured herself that there was no way Sebastian’s condoms could have failed in their protection.

  But even as she thought that, she remembered the sensation of warm release inside her and her heart started to thump ominously.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ‘JUST make sure it’s done, Alain. I don’t want to hear about this problem again.’ Sebastian switched off his mobile phone and had to quell the urge to call his senior hotel manager in Paris back to apologise. He’d been like a bear with a sore head for weeks now. He knew the reason why, but as the implications of this set in, Sebastian scowled, earning a quick glance from his driver through the rearview mirror. His driver knew better though, than to engage him in conversation when he was silent like this.

  The city of London slid past the car, as Sebastian tried desperately not to give into the urge to think of her again. It was getting worse. She’d invaded his dreams ever since India, and he’d conducted video conferences with his team in Mumbai rather than go over there again. As if he couldn’t even trust himself to be in the same city.

  His fist clenched automatically in rejection of that thought but he ignored it. Aneesa Adani was not like the women he sought out to be his lovers. She’d been innocent, going through a traumatic time. She lived in India and had indelible roots to the place.

  And she was the only woman who had managed to somehow sneak under his guard to a place no one had reached. Ever. Not even his own family. And for that reason alone, she was danger with a capital D.

  Sebastian had found out shortly after returning from India that his only full sibling, his younger brother Nathaniel, had seen their prodigal oldest half-brother Jacob when he had turned up at the opening night of Nathaniel’s latest West End play after years of unexplained absence. Nathaniel had left the stage, which had led to a sequence of events that had forced Nathaniel to seek sanctuary from the press on Sebastian’s private island.