CHAPTERFOUR
“My little girl, getting married…”
If there was anything more revolting than seeing her father in a rage, it was watching him faux weeping with his cronies, who were mumbling meaningless platitudes as they fawned over him.
Needless to say, Karolina’s wedding day was a full-on, over-the-top gangster celebration.Her dress, an unwieldy meringue with enough decoration to light up Times Square.The French designer hadn’t wanted his new season’s stock to burn, so had produced the gown in a little over twenty-four hours.Her wedding cake was fifteen feet high, and there were more magnums of champagne than Taittinger stored in their cellars.The banquet had been prepared by the ambassador’s Michelin-starred chefs, and the flowers had come from his latest squeeze, whom he’d set up in business recently.Everyone had been only too pleased to do this for free.It was that, or suffer the consequences.
And the groom…
Where was the groom?Wasn’t it usual for the groom to arrive first, followed by the bride, who would be fashionably late?
This wasn’t fashionably late.This was downright late.
Karolina’s nerves were jangling as she glanced at the towering double entrance doors that led through to the great vaulted hall of the embassy where the wedding ceremony was to be held.Had Conor changed his mind?It was Conor who had wanted things to happen so fast, so where the hell was he?
The opportunity to taste freedom, not just for Karolina, but for all those she could potentially help, was so close now, but she could feel it slipping away—
“My apologies—!”
The deep male voice with its deceptively seductive Irish lilt had everyone swinging around.Even Karolina exclaimed with relief as Conor burst through the grand entrance doors to the embassy’s vaulted hallway in a blaze of vigor and piratical good looks.
God, he stinks of the stable!
“Let’s get on with this, shall we?”he said with a frown, towering over Karolina.
So, you’re impatient now?she thought angrily, humiliation flaring on her cheeks.She felt like slapping him.Punching him.Not only was Conor streaked in mud, wearing close-fitting breeches and soft leather, thigh-length boots—which admittedly might have been a heart-stopping sight at any other time—okay, so he was a heart-stopping sight, if for all the wrong reasons, because this was no groom, but a man going through the motions of a marriage because it suited him.And she was the fool for going along with it.
What else can I do?
“Apologies, I’ve been sizing up ponies,” he said as if that explained everything.
On your wedding day?She thought this, but didn’t voice her opinion.A careless remark now could spoil everything and she’d be no better off than before.
Conor smelled animal, feral, in-your-face masculine.He smelled of horse and dog.Had he shaved in the last twenty-four hours?She doubted it.His hair was a glossy mane of windblown waves, tumbling over his forehead and catching on the stubble on his unshaven cheeks.He was still carrying a whip, for goodness’ sake!
“You could put that whip down,” she whispered angrily.
“Ah, so I can take your hand,” Conor reasoned with a look in his eyes that said he didn’t like to be told what to do.But the steel in his gaze was followed by amusement.Was she supposed to take the hand of this brute and swear to be faithful until death?She’d rather skip to the end game and size up a biodegradable coffin.
Her father didn’t appear to see anything wrong with Conor’s brutish behavior and even slapped him on the back.“I have the greatest pleasure in handing over this troublesome woman to your care,” he confided in a stage whisper.“I’ve got no doubt you’ll tame her.”
Oh, really?Karolina’s brows shot up as she directed a warning glance into Conor’s eyes.
“Will you take this woman…?”
“If I must.”
Had Conor really said that?
Yes.He really had.
“Will you take this man…?”
“I will,” she gritted out.If only soConor Murphy spends the rest of his days wishing he’d never met me.
“That’s it, then.We’re married.”
Conor’s brusque declaration startled her, but she was even more shocked when he swung her into his arms and strode out of the embassy.
