Vows & a Vengeful Groom

by Bronwyn Jameson

  She’d called him Perrini from their very first meeting, a ruse to remind him of their business relationship because she hadn’t trusted his smooth moves or her body’s unruly responses to him. They’d had to work together and she’d wanted to keep it professional. She’d fought the good fight for almost two months. And after they’d hooked up she kept on using his surname out of habit—and to tease him when he got all he-man insistent about her calling him Ric.

  Now she’d done so to show the sincerity of her thanks. “It was a temporary aberration,” she said coolly. “Don’t get too used to it.”

  He laughed, a two-note snort of amusement that pierced Kimberley’s numbed senses. It was dangerous, letting him charm her so easily, so quickly, but this was a temporary situation. A week at most, and she would be returning to Auckland. And right now she needed that charm and the sound of laughter because they’d arrived in Vaucluse and were climbing the street lined with multimillion-dollar homes to the most spectacular of all.

  Miramare.

  For the first twenty years of her life the three-storey white mansion had been Kimberley’s home. She’d never been struck by its majesty, its size, its opulence, until now as Perrini downshifted gears to negotiate the thick cluster of news teams waiting outside the security gates, and turned into the driveway. And there it was, rising before them like a Venetian palace. A home fit for the man the media dubbed Australia’s King of Diamonds.

  A man who’d forbidden her from ever darkening this doorstep again when she defied his will and refused to return to work for Blackstone Diamonds.

  A maelstrom of conflicting emotions—resentment, anguish, anticipation, anxiety—stormed through her as Perrini parked beneath the porte cochere. Although her gaze was fixed on the steps leading to the grand entrance, she heard the subtle scrunch of leather and sensed him shifting in his seat to face her. Her heart beat like a tom-tom drum high in her chest.

  “Good to be home?” he asked.

  Now there was a question! Was this home? Would her family welcome her back into their home?

  When she’d quit her job at Blackstone’s and joined House of Hammond, she’d also deserted her family. That’s how it was between the two sides of the family. You chose your team: Blackstone or Hammond. There was no common ground, no fraternity, and it had never been as simple as birth name.

  Sonya Hammond was the perfect example. Her mother’s much younger sister moved in with the Blackstones as a teenager. Staying after Ursula’s death completed her estrangement from her brother Oliver Hammond and his family.

  But Kimberley was more worried about Ryan’s reception than Sonya’s. Her younger brother had endured his ups and downs with Howard but now he headed the Blackstone Jewellery chain, which placed him very firmly in the Blackstone camp. He didn’t approve her defection—his word, used when he’d called to try his hand at changing her mind—any more than he’d approved of her affair with, and subsequent marriage to, Perrini.

  And Perrini’s question still stood unanswered.

  Good to be home?

  “I’m feeling many things,” she said frankly. “Good is not one of them.”

  “Care to elaborate?”

  Slowly she turned to face him. “I wouldn’t be here but for one thing.”

  Their eyes met, the knowledge a shock of understanding that sharpened his expression into tight lines and shadowed planes. If Howard were here, she wouldn’t be. It was as simple—and as complicated to her psyche—as that.

  Before Perrini could respond, something distracted him and the atypical hesitation caused her to turn back toward the house. Sonya stood on the top step, her willowy figure framed by the open front door. Kimberley’s heart beat even harder in her chest.

  “She hasn’t changed,” she murmured.

  Still tall, slender, beautiful, her aunt Sonya was dressed elegantly in a skirt and heels, her brown hair pulled back in the same conservative style. A warm smile graced her lips as she lifted her hand in welcome.

  She looked so heartwrenchingly familiar, so Sonya, that Kimberley struggled to contain the squeal of joy that exploded inside her. Reflexively her hand lifted to the chatelaine necklace she wore around her neck, Sonya’s gift on her twenty-first birthday. Each exquisitely crafted antique charm was a symbol. Love. Fertility. Protection. Strength. Eternity.

  After the dissolution of her marriage she’d put it away in its box, unworn but not forgotten. Until recently when she’d started wearing it again. She wiped away the tears that blurred her vision, then allowed Perrini to help her from the low-slung car so she could run up the stairs and into her aunt’s open arms. Then she knew why she wore the necklace.

  It was her connection to home, to Sonya, whose embrace reminded her what it should feel like to come home. Tears she’d refused to cry for her father fell unrestrained as she breathed the familiar scent of her aunt’s Chanel No. 5 and felt the comforting pat of her hand on her arm.

  I should not have let Perrini and my father keep me away this long. I should not have given them that power.

  “I’m sorry,” she choked out fiercely through her tears. “I’m so very sorry.”

  Sonya’s hug tightened for a moment as she whispered, “We all are, honey. About everything.”

  Long before Kimberley was ready her aunt broke the embrace. Taking a half step back Sonya smiled through her own tears as she took Kimberley’s hands in hers. “It is so good to have you back home again, Kim, and to see you looking so beautiful…despite the circumstances.”

  “It is so good to be here, despite everything that has kept me away.”

  Rough emotion dimmed the light in Sonya’s warm hazel eyes. “Let’s not talk about that now. Come inside. Your brother is out on the terrace with Garth. I’m sure you can’t wait to see them both again. And Danielle arrived a little while ago, too. She flew down from Port Douglas as soon as she heard.”

  Danielle was Sonya’s daughter, and she must have been waiting just inside the door for the perfect moment to make her appearance. She had changed. Between seventeen and twenty-seven Danielle Hammond had grown into a copper-haired beauty with her mother’s willowy build and a tan befitting her Port Douglas, Queensland home.

  Golden eyes welling with tears, she hurried over to embrace Kimberley with the same warmth as her mother and her own special brand of exuberance.

  “You brought her,” Danielle said fiercely over Kim’s shoulder. “I will never doubt your genius again.”

  “I’m only the chauffeur,” Perrini drawled, downplaying his role in the prodigal’s homecoming, “and the sometime porter. Where do you want me to take these?”

  Kimberley saw that he toted her matched set of luggage, but before she could answer, Sonya stepped into her customary role as hostess. “Take them up to Kim’s room, please, Ric. You know where it is.”

  How? Kimberley wondered, frowning. Afraid of awkward encounters with her father or her brother, she had never brought him home when they’d been lovers. They’d met at his house and they’d kept their relationship quiet at work for as long as they could. Yet out of all the bedrooms and suites spread through the mansion’s upper wings, he knew where to find hers?

  He disappeared into the house with Sonya, and Danielle’s voice cut through her distraction. “How are you coping, Kim…or is that a stupid question?”

  “I’m fine.”

  Danielle’s eyes narrowed in a way that demanded the truth, and Kimberley decided that her cousin hadn’t changed so much after all. Up close she noticed that beneath the big smile and light sprinkling of freckles, Danielle’s complexion was blotchy and her eyes redrimmed from crying. She had grown up in this house, too, with Howard a larger-than-life presence in her upbringing. She was more a Blackstone than a Hammond, although she’d struck out and started her own jewellery design business as Dani Hammond since moving to the tropical north of Australia.

  “I can see that the Port lifestyle agrees with you, but how are you doing beneath the smile and suntan? Is
everything working out for you?”

  “Don’t change the subject,” her cousin fired back. “You’re the one under inquisition right now.”

  “I told you, I’m fine,” Kimberley assured her, but tears were brewing in her eyes as she reached out to hug Danielle again. A couple of seconds was all she needed to restore her composure and in that time she realised that she’d spoken no less than the truth. Being here, with the people she’d grown up with—the people she loved—she was fine. “Has there been any more news?” she asked, straightening and wiping moisture from her eyes. Again.

  “No…at least none that your brother is passing on.”

  Kimberley stilled. “Do you think Ryan heard something he isn’t sharing?”

  “I had that feeling but when I asked he just about bit my head off. I don’t know what’s going on with him, Kim. Oh, I know he’s shattered about his father, and this waiting around for news is so not his style. Mum told me he’s been trying to line up extra search aircraft and vessels, despite all that AusSAR is doing. That was after he went down to water police headquarters to demand full disclosure. I wouldn’t be surprised if he tried to get a spot on one of the search vessels, as well.”

  Kimberley well knew of her brother’s tenacity. “That would have been interesting.”

  “No kidding.”

  “Do you think they told him anything new?”

  Danielle released her breath on a heavy sigh that blew an errant curl from her face. “Honestly, I don’t know. He is just so antsy, I can’t help thinking there is more.”

  “More than his father being missing and him stuck here unable to charge to the rescue?”

  “I guess you’re right,” Danielle mused aloud, although she didn’t sound convinced. She tucked her arm through Kim’s and tugged her toward the front door. “Let’s go in. Knowing Mum, she will be putting together a late lunch for you and Ric as we speak. I bet you haven’t had anything to eat all day.”

  “True, but food is the furthest thing from my mind.”

  “Do try and have something if only to please Mum. Fussing over us all day is the only thing that’s keeping her together. Let her do the same for you.”

  “I will, but there’s something I need to do first.”

  “Ryan?” her cousin guessed astutely.

  Kimberley nodded. Yes—Ryan.

  Returning from his porter’s errand to the second floor, Ric was halfway down the ornate marble staircase that rose from the grand foyer when Danielle and Kimberley came through the front door arm-in-arm. But he only saw one woman.

  Dark hair slicked back in an efficient ponytail. Green eyes so recently awash with tears now clear and sparking with renewed resolve.

  She’d rebounded from the tearstorm. Good. Bringing her home had not only been necessary but also essential, for her, for Sonya, for all the family. And now that she was here, she was staying. Whatever it took.

  “There you are.” Danielle released her hold on her cousin’s arm as Ric descended the last of the stairs. “I was just taking Kim out to the terrace to find Ryan.”

  He knew this would be the difficult part of this reunion, hence the warrior-woman look on her face. “I’ll take her,” he said, smoothly stepping in to claim her hand. “Could you let Sonya know to bring our coffee out there?”

  Danielle left them alone, but only after a raised-eyebrow look that took in his proprietary clasp on Kim’s hand and a murmured comment he lip-read as “Nice work.”

  By the darkness that suddenly appeared in Kim’s eyes and the jerk of her hand against his, he gathered she didn’t miss that knowing look, either. “There’s no need to take me anywhere,” she said frostily. “I know my way to the terrace.”

  “I didn’t imagine you wouldn’t.”

  “Then let go of my hand. You’ve already given Danielle the wrong impression.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “That being…?”

  “Don’t pretend to be dense, Perrini. It’s not becoming.”

  “Are you still hung up on what your brother thinks about us together?”

  “Since we’re not together anymore, no.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “And wasn’t it you who said this wasn’t about us?”

  “Throwing my words back at me? That’s not like you, Kim.”

  Her emerald eyes shot fire at him and she tugged harder at her hand. Ric didn’t let go. Instead he used the leverage to pull her closer, close enough that the flared skirt of her dress brushed his thighs and her eyes widened with apprehension. In the cool quiet of the atriumlike foyer he imagined he could hear the wild race of her heartbeat…or perhaps it was his own.

  He thought about kissing her. When her mouth opened on a silent note of outrage, he ached to bend into that kiss. He imagined he’d get slapped for his efforts, but fear of that didn’t stop him. The flicker of vulnerability in her eyes did.

  The fierce determination was just a front for facing her brother. Beneath the veneer she was emotionally exhausted by the day’s revelations and he knew there would be more to come, if not today then tomorrow or the next day. It was only a matter of time before the wreckage was located and the bodies recovered.

  No, he couldn’t take advantage of her weakness. Not now. As a compromise he lifted the hand trapped in his toward his lips. He felt her resistance, saw it snap in her eyes even as he turned her arm and delivered a chaste kiss to the inside of her wrist. Briefly it crossed his mind that she might slap him anyway, with words at the very least, but the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps broke the tension and he released her hand as Garth Buick strode into view.

  Kim gasped, her surprise this time tainted with delight as she launched herself at the Blackstone company secretary who was Howard’s closest and oldest friend. The fact that they’d remained friends for so long was a testament to Garth’s character and loyalty and remarkably even temperament.

  He wrapped his arms around Kim with genuine affection, but the eyes that met Ric’s over her head were shadowed with gravity. “Ryan’s just taken a call from Stavros.”

  Their contact at police headquarters. Ric’s heart stilled. “Bad news?”

  “Nothing on Howard,” Garth assured them both. “But we finally have confirmation of the passenger list.”

  “Was it Marise they found?” Kim asked. “Was she on the plane?”

  The older man nodded heavily. “Yes. They’ve just brought her body in to the morgue.”

  Three

  “H er body?” Kim’s voice rose on a note of shock. Confusion clouded her expression as she looked from Garth to Ric. “You said she was alive. A survivor. You said they—”

  “She passed away on the rescue boat,” Garth said gently, “shortly after they took her on board. I’m sorry, Kim. I know you were close.”

  “No, not really.”

  A deep sadness imbued her comment and Ric wondered if she was thinking about Marise or her husband Matt, the Hammond Kim was close to. Or perhaps the couple’s son. His jaw tightened. Dammit, he’d hoped there’d been a mistake. That they’d learn the woman wasn’t Marise Hammond, the mother of a small boy, too young and innocent to be the victim of such a tragic loss.

  “Are they certain it was Marise Hammond?” he asked.

  “Certain enough that Stavros told us before the formal identification process. Unofficially, of course,” Garth added.

  “When you called me in New Zealand, you mentioned a foul-up with the passenger list.”

  “Initially there was a Blackstone employee listed,” Garth said. “Jessica Cotter. She manages the Martin Place store and was supposed to be going to Auckland for the opening.”

  The name wasn’t familiar to Ric, but he hadn’t worked in the jewellery side of the business for almost eight years. “She couldn’t be the one they found in the sea?”

  “Wrong build, wrong hair colour, wrong clothing. It seems Ms. Cotter had a change of mind and got off the plane at the last minute. Hence the initial confusion over the passenger list.”

&nbs
p; “So it was Marise Hammond.” Sonya’s voice cut into the conversation, and Ric swung around to find her standing in the archway leading toward the kitchen. Although her eyes looked shell-shocked, she stood tall and poised and even managed a passable attempt at a smile. “Why don’t you go through to the living room? Danielle and Ryan are there and I think we should all be together to talk about this. I’ve made tea and coffee but if anyone would prefer something stronger, please let me know.”

  Ryan Blackstone looked like he needed something stronger.

  Ric eyed the younger man narrowly, taken aback by the gaunt grey cast to his normally tanned features. It was never a surprise to see Ryan wound tighter than a newly forged spring, especially in Ric’s presence, but in all his years at Blackstone’s Ric had never seen him unravel once.

  Today, as his stark green gaze met his sister’s across the wide expanse of the mansion’s living room, he looked perilously close to that point.

  “Coffee, Ric?”

  Sonya distracted him with the proffered cup—black, strong, welcome—for only a second, and he turned back to see Kim bound so tightly in her brother’s arms that he thought she might snap. It was a brief, silent embrace with none of the exuberant warmth of her reunion with Sonya or Danielle or Garth, but what it lacked in length and words it more than made up for in intensity.

  Feeling like an intruder on this deeply private moment, he looked away and saw that Danielle had done the same. The significance of this particular reunion hit him suddenly and with all the force of a runaway ore truck.

  It had nothing to do with their chequered history or Ryan’s disapproval of Kim’s defection. Nothing to do with any prior competition for their father’s approval and affection. Nothing to do with her taking the Hammond side in the long-running family conflict.

  Kim and Ryan were all that remained of their family unit. First their elder brother, James, abducted and never seen again. Then their mother’s suicide. Now they faced the probable loss of their seemingly indestructible father.