Summer Sins

by Julia James

  He had given her his promise.

  Grimly, with a face as dark as night.

  It was still dark.

  The helicopter soared up over the azure waters of the Mediterranean, heading east towards Monte Carlo and beyond. Towards his mother and stepfather’s house in Menton.

  Let him be in time! Let him just be in time to stop it!

  How had she slipped his guard? Met up with Armand? Had his security’s surveillance operations grown sloppy over the weeks?

  His face tightened. It didn’t matter now—all that mattered was that he must reach his mother’s house before his brother ruined his life by marrying a woman he must not marry.

  Fury lashed him again. He should have told Armand the truth about her. Told him just what she was, what she had done. Warmed his own brother’s bed.

  Instead he had sought to spare Armand’s feelings, relying on the threat he held over her head to stop her from trying to hold on to his brother.

  Well, she had fooled him yet again, the treacherous little bitch.

  I have to get there in time to stop it.

  Only a personal confrontation would do, he knew. If he phoned, if he were not there to face her, she would find a way to get out of it. Find a way to convince Armand that black was white, that she was as pure as driven snow. Not a woman who had amused herself with his own brother while waiting for Armand to make his offer of marriage.

  But would he be there in time? The outward flight from Seoul had been delayed, and he had had to change in Tokyo, and then again in Paris. He was cutting it fine—very fine. Mentally he urged the helicopter on. The coastline below was passing with painful slowness. Villefranche, Monaco, Cap Martin, until finally Menton, and the Italian border just beyond. Landing in the grounds of his mother and stepfather’s villa would be extremely tight, but it could be done. Must be done.

  The old gold of the villa came into sight, its gardens terraced down to the sea. With skilled precision the pilot brought down the machine, cutting the rotors as soon as possible to minimise the damage to plants.

  Xavier was out of the helicopter in moments, striding up towards the house. The terrace doors to the drawing room were wide open. He hurried his steps. A cluster of figures came to the French windows, drawn by the noise of the helicopter, which was now lifting off again.

  He took in the group instantly. His stepfather Lucien, and his mother. A priest.

  And Lissa.

  Emotion punched through him. Overpowering, like a tidal wave. He strode up to them over the gravelled pathway.

  Lissa was standing as still as a statue. Frozen. Emotion punched again.

  She was wearing a frock. A floaty, floral frock, calf-length, like a ballerina, in palest ivory with printed flowers in soft yellows, and delicate sandals. She held a posy of flowers in her hands. Her long, loose hair was caught back in wings from either side of her face, a fresh flower at the clasp on the back of her head.

  She looked impossibly beautiful.

  Impossibly innocent.

  Impossibly bridal.

  His mother’s face lit. ‘Xavier! You came in time. Wonderful.’

  She held her arms out to him, and perforce he had to drop a kiss on each scented cheek. She looked happy, radiantly so. Xavier’s heart chilled.

  She didn’t know. But how could she? How could anyone? His eyes seared Lissa—in all her beautiful, innocent, bridal beauty. How could anyone know the truth about her from the way she looked now?

  Her face was expressionless. There was nothing in it. Savage fury blanked through him. Well, he would put some expression in it.

  His stepfather Lucien was greeting him, introducing him to the robed priest. He answered automatically, his eyes skirting inside the drawing room for his brother. There was no sign of him. He stepped inside, and the others parted to let him in, then reformed.

  ‘Where’s Armand?’

  Xavier’s voice was curt.

  ‘He’ll be here.’ His mother had answered. ‘I know it’s unusual, but—’

  He cut across her. ‘I have to speak to him. Alone,’ he emphasised.

  ‘Darling, I hardly think there’s time.’ His mother’s voice sounded uncertain.

  ‘Afterwards, my boy, afterwards,’ agreed Lucien, nodding avuncularly.

  Xavier turned on them. ‘You don’t understand. This marriage cannot take place.’

  There was a gasp of consternation. But not from Lissa. She just went on standing there, her face expressionless.

  Or was it? There was something in her eyes—something he would not identify. Something in the set of her jaw.

  God, she was so beautiful!

  No. The guillotine came down again with practised familiarity. He was not to look at her. Not to see her. Not to see the outward beauty that masked a nature that was without principle or scruple.

  His stepfather was speaking. ‘Xavier—what can you mean? It is all arranged. Short notice, I grant you, but—’

  The priest was speaking, too. ‘Monsieur Lauran, I do assure you everything is in order. I have dispensation to conduct the ceremony here because of the particular circumstances—’

  Xavier cut across him, not listening. What the priest said was irrelevant. What his stepfather said was irrelevant.

  ‘Armand can’t marry this girl. It is out of the question!’

  His mother’s face took on an agitated expression. ‘My darling, don’t. This isn’t like you. Yes, there are difficulties, of course, but—’

  His hand slashed down. ‘Difficulties? There are more than difficulties. There are impossibilities.’ His eyes flashed around them all. He took a deep breath. This was going to be hard, punishingly hard, but it had to be done. He had to tell his parents, and his brother, just why Armand could not marry Lissa Stephens. It would be painful, embarrassing, distressing—but it had to be done.

  ‘This marriage cannot take place,’ he said flatly, ‘for one overwhelming reason. A reason I will disclose to my brother.’

  His eyes went to Lissa. She had paled, but she was looking very calm, very composed. Yet there was a shimmer of tension about her, like an aura. His gaze held hers. It was hard to make it do so, but he did it because he had to. He had emptied his eyes, to make it a tiny fraction easier.

  Her gaze, too, was blank. Stonewalling him. Daring him.

  Daring him to cause dissension in his family, to rend his relationship with his brother when he told him the truth about the woman he was on the point of marrying. Daring him to stop her.

  He called her bluff.

  ‘What do you think?’ he asked, directing his speech to her. His voice was soft, deadly. ‘Do you think this marriage should proceed? Do you think my brother’s bride will make him happy?’

  Now he was daring her—daring her to lie through her pearl-white teeth, and so condemn herself when he exposed the truth about her to his brother, his family.

  She was speaking, and as she did his breath caught with the shamelessness of what she said.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I think this will be a very happy marriage.’

  Her voice was steady, composed. Her eyes held his. Unblinking, expressionless. Except deep in their recesses there was something …

  He paid it no attention. Instead, his eyes narrowed. His voice was even more lethal as he spoke again.

  ‘You think so? You think my brother will be happy, married to a bride who is nothing better than a—?’

  The double doors to the hall beyond the drawing room opened suddenly. Xavier whipped around, his accusation broken off. And as he turned, he froze.

  Armand was coming into the room. But slowly, very slowly. It was because he was holding out his arm to the figure beside him.

  She was very slender, ethereally fair. She was wearing a long white dress, very simple in design, and her pale hair was loose, wreathed with a narrow band of blossom. One thin hand was resting on Armand’s crooked arm, pressing down on it.

  She walked haltingly, limpingly forward, dragging eac
h leg, one step at a time.

  She was very pretty, but her face was etched with lines of strain and pain. Intense concentration and effort sat in her eyes as one step at a time, Armand led her forward.

  There was complete silence in the room.

  Then, as if at an unspoken signal from Armand, his father lifted forward an armchair and his son guided the girl into it. She sank down, the stress ebbing from her face as the weight was taken from her legs. She looked up at Armand.

  ‘I told you I would do it,’ she said, her voice soft, low and intense. ‘I told you I would walk to my own wedding.’

  He smiled down fondly at her. ‘And you did,’ he said. ‘And every day you will be stronger. Every day.’

  An answering smile broke across her face, lightening the drawn look on her features. She broadened her smile to take in Armand’s parents, the priest and Lissa. And then Xavier. Her eyes widened. Armand followed her gaze and suddenly registered Xavier’s presence there.

  He surged forward. ‘You made it! Maman said she wasn’t sure you’d get here in time, but you did it. I knew you wouldn’t let me down.’

  He put his arm around his brother’s shoulder. ‘Come and meet her,’ he said. ‘Come and meet the woman I’m going to marry.’ He led Xavier forward.

  His feet trod numbly. His whole body was numb. His mind was numb.

  Shock was detonating through him in slow, silent motion. His breath was stopped in his lungs.

  Armand was speaking again. ‘Lila, this is my big brother, Xavier. He likes to look after me—but he won’t need to do so anymore, will he?’ He threw an affectionate speaking glance at Xavier, then looked back to his bride again. ‘Now I’ve got you to look after me, haven’t I?’ He looked again to Xavier, and swapped to French suddenly. ‘This time you trusted me, Xav—and I thank you for it, from the bottom of my heart.’ He switched back to English, his smile embracing both his bride and his brother. ‘I am the happiest man in the world, Xav—and it’s because of Lila.’ His voice sounded constricted for a moment, then he recovered, stepping back.

  ‘I’m sorry, I’ve just realised—Xav, there is someone else for you to meet.’

  He turned around and held out an inviting hand.

  ‘This is Lissa—Lila’s sister. She looks after Lila the way you look after me, Xav. And she’s been a fantastic sister—you don’t know how much.’ He took a deep breath. ‘But let’s leave all the talking until later. First …’ His eyes went back to Lila and softened. ‘First I have a bride to make my own.’

  He took up a position beside the armchair, automatically taking Lila’s hand. Then he looked at his brother.

  ‘Will you stand beside me, Xavier?’ he asked.

  On stiff, frozen legs Xavier crossed to where Armand stood.

  And stood beside him. Beside his brother.

  As he did so he realised that Lissa had slipped across to stand beside the bride. She stretched out a hand briefly, to touch the long, loose, fair hair, as if in benediction. Her ivory-coloured bridesmaid’s dress was a perfect foil to the simple white bridal gown of her sister. Xavier could not look at her. Could do nothing. Think nothing. He saw his mother and stepfather move slightly closer together, their faces wreathed in smiles. The priest cleared his throat, stepping forward and producing from his cassock a prayer book. He paused a moment, and then, his eyes locking with those of the bridal couple, began the service.

  ‘Dearly beloved, we are gathered today, here in the sight of God, to join together this man and this woman in Holy Matrimony—’

  His sonorous voice sounded on. And still Xavier could do nothing. Think nothing. Nothing at all.

  Because thoughts would not work. Not now. Not when the tide of emotion running in him was sweeping him away … so very, very far away. To a place he had never known existed.

  The service was brief, a private ceremony for the bridal pair and family, but for Xavier it seemed to last for longer than he could endure. But endure it he must.

  At the end of the service, as the priest pronounced the pair man and wife and his brother bent to kiss his bride—tenderly and lovingly, protectively and cherishingly—his mother and stepfather stepped forward. His mother stooped and placed her arms around her new daughter-in-law’s frail figure.

  ‘My dears, I am so happy for you both,’ she said, and her voice sounded choked.

  Then it was Lucien’s turn. He bestowed a fatherly kiss upon her brow. ‘My son is a very fortunate man,’ he said. His voice, too, was rich with emotion.

  As for Armand and his bride—their faces held all that a newly married couple’s should.

  Xavier turned away. He could not look, could not watch.

  When he turned, his eyes collided with Lissa’s. A basilisk stare. Killing him.

  As Armand’s bride was welcomed into the family, Lissa came to stand in front of Xavier.

  Deliberately she turned away from him, moving closer to Armand’s parents and her sister. Armand was bending down, scooping up his bride. She lifted her arms around his neck, her expression radiantly happy. There was a general movement towards the doors. Lucien opened them and let Armand go through first, followed by his wife accompanied by the officiating priest. Then he stood aside for Xavier and Lissa.

  Like mechanical automata they walked through. But as Lucien closed the doors behind them and joined his wife and the bridal pair as they went into the dining room for the wedding breakfast, Xavier’s hand closed around Lissa’s wrist.

  ‘I must talk to you.’

  His voice was as low as hers had been. But the emotion in it scorched like fire.

  She turned to him. It was still the basilisk stare. Still killing.

  ‘To tell me what?’ she said. ‘What can you possibly have left to say to me?’

  His eyes flashed darkly. ‘Why did you not tell me? Tell me the truth?’

  She pulled her wrist away, as if his touch contaminated her. The wide hallway that stretched from the front entrance to another pair of doors, opening onto the gardens, was deserted. The wedding party had gone through into the dining room. Household staff were circulating. Xavier could hear the soft pop of a champagne bottle being opened. Voices and murmured laughter. A mix of French and English.

  He seized Lissa’s wrist again, taking her by main force out of the house, onto the terrace. The warmth of the summer sun beat down upon their heads.

  ‘Let me go!’

  ‘I must talk to you. Why didn’t you tell me the truth?’

  A voice like snake venom hissed at him in return. ‘The truth? You wouldn’t know the truth if it bit you. Your twisted mind covered everything—you had it all worked out. Some filthy little casino hostess had got her gold-digging claws into your precious brother, and that was all you needed to know. All you bothered to find out.’

  Xavier’s face stiffened. ‘My security team’s investigations into who Armand was visiting only showed you living at that address—no one else was observed coming or going.’

  ‘That’s because my sister didn’t come or go. She was in a wheelchair, trapped indoors for days at a time. The only time she ever went out was when I took her to the hospital for therapy.’ The venom was still poisonous in her hissing voice.

  ‘You were reported embracing my brother on the doorstep—’

  Lissa’s eyes flashed viciously. ‘He was being kind. He knew how upset I was about Lila—he was trying to comfort me. He knew I was exhausted and in despair because it didn’t matter how hard I worked—including at that vile job I had to take at the casino. And let me tell you something, Mr Oh-So-Bloody-Morally-Pure, there aren’t many damn jobs you can do in the evenings that pay anything like the kind of money I had to try and put by. I’d have cleaned offices if I could, but the hostess job paid better, and I had to do it even if it meant I had to let creeps slime all over me and try and get me to do those disgusting private hires—’ Her voice broke off, and she shook suddenly. Then she returned to her invective. It was pouring out of her, like bile from a w
ound that had never been staunched.

  That never could be staunched.

  ‘It didn’t matter how hard I worked,’ she repeated, the bitterness twisting in her voice. ‘I did office work all day and that horrible casino work half the night, and I still couldn’t get close to what I needed.’

  ‘What do you mean? Why did you need to—’

  He never finished the question. She yanked her hand away again.

  ‘I’ve got nothing to say to you. Nothing. And now—’ her chin lifted, her eyes flaring ‘—I’m going back indoors. This is my sister’s wedding, and nothing is going to ruin it. I knew you’d be here, and I knew what you’d try and do—but I knew you’d never succeed. Armand doesn’t care that his bride can barely walk, and he doesn’t care that I was a casino hostess. So there’s nothing you can do. Except go to hell. Just go to hell!

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  SHE stormed off. Her heart was pounding. She’d known, just as she’d thrown at him now, that he would arrive in time for the wedding. In time to try and stop it. But she’d known he wouldn’t succeed. Couldn’t succeed. The love that bonded Lila and Armand was much, much too strong to be broken.

  Her throat tightened as it did whenever she thought of Lila—and the miracle that Armand had wrought.

  Xavier Lauran’s falseness could not touch them.

  And she would not let it touch her. Never again!

  She was trembling with reaction, she knew. She’d been keyed-up ever since she’d arrived at the beautiful, imposing villa. Even though it was the setting for her sister’s crowning happiness, for herself it could only be a place of torment. Returning her to memories that writhed like poison in her brain every time she looked out over the brilliant, azure sea towards the Îles de Lérins.

  So close. A short boat ride would have taken her back there.

  But they were as distant as the far side of the galaxy. On rapid clicking heels she walked down the wide, tiled hallway to seek the guest cloakroom. She needed to compose herself before joining the wedding party. She had to hide everything she felt about Xavier Lauran. To Armand, to his parents, they would never have met previously.