Shades of Trust

by Cristiane Serruya

  “Beast!” he whispered.

  Sophia tightened her lips, but a strangled giggle bubbled anyhow. “They’ll think we are crazy.”

  Alistair chuckled and murmured on her lips, “I am, you know? Crazy about you.”

  “Alistair Connor!” The old priest was clearly horrified. “Not yet, you have to wait for her vows.”

  “I’m waiting, but she’s just taking too long.” Alistair turned his head to look at the priest who’d known him since he was a child. “Father Bruce, can we hurry things along?”

  The priest threw his hands to the sky, shocked, not believing what he had just heard. “Forgive them, Father, they don’t know what they are doing.”

  Sophia blushed as she heard the laughter all around her. She looked briefly at Felipe and Gabriela, who were clearly amused by the whole ceremony. Or the lack of it.

  That’s enough, Sophia! She took a deep breath and locked her eyes on Alistair’s.

  “In the presence of God and before these witnesses, I, Sophia Gonçalves Espírito Santo Leibowitz, give to you, Alistair Connor, my heart, my soul, and all that I am. I promise to be faithful and loyal, to cherish and to love you. I choose you today to be my husband, as I will choose you tomorrow, and every new day for the rest of our lives.” Her hands shook as she put his ring on his finger.

  “Now, son,” Father Bruce had a smile in his voice, “you may kiss the bride.”

  Afternoon sunlight poured through the long windows onto the ballroom. Gowns of every hue vied with bright jewels and equally bright eyes. Surrounded by felicitations and congratulations, Sophia moved through the crowd, smiling. She spied Alistair talking to friends in a corner. She headed toward them.

  Alistair saw her long before she reached him. The thrill was there, the sudden breathlessness, the ache of longing, the need to give and to take. He wondered if the feeling would ever fade.

  “I come to steal my husband away, gentlemen.” She turned to Alistair and smiled. “It’s time to cut the cake.”

  “Dessert!” Alistair gave her a wicked smile and gallantly raised Sophia’s hand to his lips, kissing it before putting it on his arm. “Your merest wish is my command.”

  Oh. You naughty man. Sophia flashed him a wanton smile as they walked to the center of the ballroom.

  “In fact,” he mused, his voice deepening to a purr and his thumb caressing her wrist, “I’m anticipating fulfilling a good number of your wishes before the night is through.”

  She laughed. “Keep speaking like this and I’ll blush.”

  “Brides are supposed to blush, didn’t anyone tell you?” Alistair’s words feathered her ear as he steered her among the guests. “Besides, you look delightful when you blush.”

  People were already crowding around the wedding cake, which had been brought to the middle of the room, a seven tiered celery green cake decorated with handmade white sugar roses and tiny orange blossoms.

  With exaggerated formality, Tavish bowed in front of them and presented Alistair a scabbarded claymore almost the same height as Sophia. “Your weapon, Lord Ells.”

  “God spare me!” Sophia exclaimed.

  The ballroom erupted with laughter and Sophia’s cheeks flamed bright red.

  “Now you’re blushing, Wife.” With a devilish smile, Alistair reached for the hilt and with a swift and powerful movement the huge claymore came singing from its sheath.

  “Grip the hilt.” He stood behind her, his arms encircling her, and transferred the thick ridged rod to her hands and wrapped his over hers.

  Sophia suddenly felt faint with desire. Alistair’s deep chuckle in her ear told her he was feeling likewise.

  Together they raised the claymore and neatly cut through each of the seven layers. He handed the claymore back to Tavish and opened his mouth to eat the sugar rose petal she held in her fingers.

  His eyes devoured her as she also ate a petal and licked her lips. He bent and took her mouth in a passionate kiss while cheers and clapping erupted on all sides.

  Sophia shivered and felt an answering ripple pass through him. Their eyes met when he broke the kiss and stepped back, putting distance between their overcharged bodies.

  “Later.” His whispered word was a promise.

  6:03 p.m.

  “Dance with me,” a baritone voice hoarsely requested in Sophia’s ear. Ethan stepped around and held his hand out to Sophia. He was at his most charming.

  Oh, my. She blinked up at him. “Ethan.”

  She looked around searching for Alistair and her heart stopped when she noticed him looking at them through narrowed eyes.

  Ethan’s azure eyes were full of longing. “I would be honored if you’d dance with me on your wedding day. Please?”

  Sophia couldn’t refuse his plea and rose from her chair, placing her hand in his.

  He raised it to his lips and lightly kissed her knuckles. “You look gorgeous, Sophia. And happy.”

  “I am.” They walked hand in hand to the dance floor and he pulled her into his embrace, his arm snaking around her waist. “I missed you at the other parties. Why didn’t you come sooner?”

  I’m not entirely sure why I came today. “I couldn’t. But I wouldn’t miss your wedding,” he answered noncommittally. “I’ve set the date of our ball.”

  For some reason, she wanted to reach out and bridge the gap between them, to comfort him. “That’s great news. When?”

  “November the twenty-seventh. It’s a Saturday,” he said. “I talked with Mrs. Chanda and she told me you’ve already started the refurbishment at both India and China.”

  “Yes, the planning is done and we’ll start work no later than next month. You will love the project, Ethan. I told Zahira that I wanted to show it to you personally.”

  He looked down, saw the warmth and understanding in her eyes, and wished he could hold her tightly in his arms again and feel her softness against him.

  However, Ethan kept dancing effortlessly, and a comfortable silence spread between them.

  You’re being unreasonable, Alistair Connor. Frowning, Alistair opened his fisted hands and breathed. She is only dancing. Nothing more. You have no justifiable cause to complain.

  He wanted Sophia, had wanted her from the first moment he saw her, when she walked into that meeting room. The physical, possessive and protective want, the need for her loyalty, her commitment; it was powerful enough to unsettle him, to obsess him, to undermine his usual unassailable control. Fuck!

  Victoria did a fabulous job. It is gorgeous. She is gorgeous. And I am the most infatuated husband in the world.

  Sophia did look splendid in the gown, the lace bodice revealing a good deal more of her body than he deemed necessary, and enough to constitute a threat to public order in his opinion.

  All I have to do is control my temper and remember that I mustn’t break any of my friends’ noses for looking where she is so flagrantly inviting them to. Bemused, he shook his head at himself. Go there. Take her and take control of your feelings again.

  Brows quirking, he examined that conclusion and could not fault it. He wasn’t going to get any real peace until he fulfilled this desire. Unbidden, his mind conjured up their first kiss and his hands fisted again.

  He crossed the room with sure steps.

  “My wife.”

  Sophia was startled when Alistair’s voice cut in.

  Ethan’s hands fell slowly from Sophia’s body and he stepped back. The expression on his face showed his disappointment at Alistair’s arrival.

  So, this is the end; this is good-bye. “Sophia, darling, thanks for the dance.” Ethan kissed her cheek and turned to Alistair. “MacCraig. Yours was the most beautiful wedding I have ever been to.”

  Of course. Sophia is the bride. Alistair enlaced Sophia’s waist and pulled her flush to his body. “Thanks, Ashford.”

  Ethan nodded and walked away slowly as Alistair spun Sophia in his arm and started dancing with her.

  “What are you looking at?”

 
Alistair’s eyes turned in her direction, her face holding an unasked question.

  “I’m looking at my beautiful wife,” he murmured for her ears only, running his fingers over her back covered by the transparent lace, while he told himself he really should behave since they were in public. “My sexy wife, whom I’d like to peel out of her dress and set naked on my lap so I can do debauched things to her sexy body.”

  “You shouldn’t be let out to torment women.”

  Smiling with slow deliberation that brought lustful heat into those eyes of forest-green, he leaned in closer, his next words a purr against her ear. “I only plan to torment one woman for the rest of eternity.” He drew in a deep breath, took her scent within, but he wasn’t about to rush. Not today. “Shall I tell you what I intend to do to you as your gift on our wedding night?”

  He wrapped her up in tendrils of vanilla and oak. A sensual and decadent promise.

  “No.” It was a laughing refusal, her husky voice entangling him in chains he had no intention of ever breaking. “Or I’ll tell you what I’m wearing under this dress.”

  He felt like stretching in pleasure as her precious laughter stroked his senses.

  Mine. The most beautiful woman in the place, and she was his. “You…you turn me inside out, you know?”

  Welcome to your married life, Lord Caveman. She cocked her head at him, playfulness sparkling in her honey eyes.

  “I feel…I don’t know…” He lost what he was going to say as he looked at her face. A fleeting thought that he didn’t deserve to be looked at with so much love was immediately swept away by her sweet scent billowing around him, everywhere a soft cloud of lace and femininity.

  “Possessive,” she said, delving her hands in his hair. “The word you’re looking for is possessive.” She sounded entirely satisfied and leaned in, her lips softening in subconscious invitation.

  Her mouth was a breath away from his.

  That was all the encouragement he needed. “Come, Wife. It’s time for you to indulge your husband’s possessive wishes.”

  As they walked away, hand in hand, they vowed to be together forever, not knowing that forever always ended.

  Chapter 27

  Scotland, Highlands

  Sunday, August 8, 2010

  Airgead Caisteal

  6:15 a.m.

  Some lessons are best learned with love. Alistair smiled as he changed the saying. Propping himself on one elbow, he admired the sleeping woman in his bed. Mine.

  He had known betrayal.

  He had known pain.

  But from the very first day he had met her, all he had known was love and happiness.

  He didn’t resist the temptation and bent to kiss her soft lips. All mine.

  “Mmmm,” Sophia moaned, stretching on the bed, her lips curling up.

  She had lost so much.

  She had been hurt so deeply.

  Since he had entered her life, he’d given her all the missing pieces of her broken heart and shown her a new path.

  A new path for them to trail together.

  She opened her hazel eyes and gazed into his forest-green ones. “Good morning, husband of mine.”

  All yours. “Good morning, my wife,” he answered, and his smile grew impossibly large. “I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of your new title. My. Wife.”

  Nor will I tire of hearing you say it. She happily smiled back at him. “I do hope not.”

  “I love you,” he whispered on her lips.

  And before he kissed her, she whispered back, “I love you.”

  Altreck Caisteal

  9:00 a.m.

  In the painting on the ceiling, a chubby cupid shot arrows at an enamored couple, and mocked the handsome man who was lying wide awake since the night before.

  What am I supposed to do now?

  He looked around at the beautiful master bedroom of his castle. Even though the recent refurbishment had altered it drastically the room was still haunted by the presence of his one and only love.

  She was mine. He sat up and rested his back on the wooden headboard, shoving his fingers into his brown sun-kissed hair. The most kind, virtuous, and beautiful woman I’ve ever found in my whole life.

  He looked at the woman sleeping beside him. Despite their similar appearance, she would never replace his real love.

  He left the bed and walked into the bathroom.

  His rage spiked when he saw a bottle of Sublime Vanille on the bathroom counter.

  She was my chance for redemption. He grabbed the perfume bottle and hurled it at the wall. And I threw my chance away.

  The beautifully crafted crystal bottle smashed into tiny little pieces and the smell that was so like her spread through the room, almost choking him.

  The futility of all his acts brought him to his knees as tears watered his azure eyes.

  Now, I’m damned to waste away. Alone.

  Defeated, he lowered his head on his knees. How am I supposed to go on living without her?

  Dangerous Illusions

  TRUST

  To my mother, Lilian,

  and my father, Sergio,

  I am what I am because of you.

  Thank you.

  Prologue

  Scotland, Highlands

  Saturday, August 7, 2010

  8:00 p.m.

  Altreck Caisteal

  A grimace contorted Ethan’s handsome face, revealing the pain he was in. He felt battered and bruised as if he had been in a fight. However, he had just come from a wedding; a happy wedding where the bride was the most stunning and brilliant woman he had ever met.

  Sophia; the one who was perfect for me. His azure eyes filled with tears as he removed his blood-red tie and his tailored suit. With infinite patience, untypical for him, he put his clothes on the settee in his dressing room.

  He passed the mirror without looking at his reflection. He knew that he was depressed and that he should seek counseling but he had hated psychologists and psychiatrists since he was a teenager.

  They wanted to know things he was not prepared to face or acknowledge. They probed, asked many questions, and underestimated his intelligence and ability to cope with his problems.

  Ethan had learned to compartmentalize and would run to a dark, warm room he had created in his mind when the hurt and pain were too great to bear.

  A dark, warm room where he was loved; where he could be himself and do whatever he wanted, without being criticized or chastened; where no one could touch and hurt him.

  Ethan sat on the edge of the bed and threw both hands in his sun-kissed hair, resting his forehead on his hands. He was feeling much more than depressed.

  He was feeling utterly dejected and abandoned. It was difficult to run from the memories of the woman he loved. Almost impossible. It was making him insane. I need to let her go and move on.

  The memories were haunting him. Even in his private dark, warm room.

  Day and night.

  Night and day.

  Warm fingertips touched his back and he breathed sharply. No. I don’t need this.

  He turned to look at the beautiful face of the woman in the bed. He was aware she was not named Sophia, but he had never asked her name and he didn’t want to know.

  “Is everything all right?” she asked.

  He didn’t answer, remaining immersed in his dark thoughts for a long time. She shouldn’t exist.

  “Ethan? Is everything all right?”

  No. It’s not. As he stood up and walked to the bathroom, he answered, “As ever.” Life shall return to normal again.

  On the bed, Barbara shuddered as an icy tone coated Ethan’s rich baritone voice and the bathroom door closed with a loud bang.

  Airgead Caisteal

  My beloved husband. My overbearing Highlander.

  Sophia smiled at herself as she took off her jewels and then her makeup. She undid her braid and bun, brushed her long hair and moved to the bedroom to wait for Alistair to finish his shower.


  She sat on the sofa, thinking about their wedding and her handsome husband dressed in his traditional Scottish wear. Hot, hot, hot.

  After a few seconds, she relaxed and rested sideways on silk cushions. She snuggled a cushion to her face, promising not to sleep but her eyes closed in slumber, despite her intention.

  When Alistair entered the room an endearing smile opened on his face. His forest-green gaze roved over the rosy face of the woman who made him the happiest man in the world. Sophia.

  He looked at her slightly parted lips and her rising and falling breasts. She was deeply asleep, still wearing her delicate and tempting wedding dress.

  My wife. My beauty.

  My beautiful wife.

  Mo chridhe, mo gràdh, mo beatha.

  Mine. He knelt next to her and pushed her long hair aside, unable to resist the temptation to run his finger over the creamy skin along her spine in a feathered caress. Soft, smooth. Delicious.

  Hmm. That’s nice. Sophia stirred and stretched. Don’t stop.

  But as the caress paused, she opened her honeyed eyes and looked up at him, confused for a moment. I was dreaming of you.

  He laughed. “Is your husband so boring that you sleep on your wedding night?”

  You? She smiled sensuously and whispered, “Never. I just couldn’t undo these maddening buttons.”

  He helped her take off the dress and picked her up in his arms, carrying her to their bed.

  As he bent down to kiss her gently on the lips, he asked, “Have I told you I love you?”

  “An hour ago, I think,” she smiled, “but I won’t mind hearing you say it every hour. For the rest of our lives.”

  “Every hour?” He tsked and shook his head at her. “Demanding, aren’t you, Marchioness?”

  Wait and see. She took his face in her hands and whispered on his lips, “Yes, my lord Marquis. Let me show you how much.”

  Chapter 1

  Scotland, Highlands, Gairloch Bay

  Airgead Caisteal, On the private airstrip