And Nicolo, her stern-faced groom, standing beside her.
Oh, yes. It was a damned good thing she’d been too busy studying to think about weddings.
Marriage had only been a distant possibility. Friends had married; Aimee had smiled and said all the right things but mostly she’d thought, Not me, not yet, maybe not ever.
She had things to do, a life to live, and if she ever did marry, it would be someone the exact opposite of her grandfather.
Yet today she was marrying a man who made her grandfather look like a saint, a stranger taking her as his wife as if they’d been sent back to a time when men and women married for reasons of—
“Miss?”
—for reasons of title and expediency that had nothing to do with love or romance or—
“Miss?”
Aimee blinked. The judge smiled in apology.
“Your name again, miss? I’m terribly sorry but—”
“No,” Aimee replied, “that’s all right, Your Honor. I understand.”
She did. She understood it all. The impersonal setting, the equally impersonal words. Why would he remember her name?
The only surprise came when it was time for Nicolo to put a ring on her finger.
The cold stranger who’d made it clear this would be a marriage on his terms, who’d undoubtedly browbeaten some poor soul at City Hall into issuing a marriage license in less than twenty-four hours, had neglected to buy a wedding ring.
Admitting his error made him blush. It was lovely to see, she thought with dour satisfaction.
“I don’t need a ring,” she said coolly. Coolly enough so even the two bored witnesses looked at her.
“My wife needs a ring,” Nicolo said grimly, tugging one she’d never before noticed from his finger. “We will use this,” he said, his accent thick enough to trip over.
The ring was obviously old, its slightly raised crest almost worn away, and it was so big that Aimee had to clench her fist to keep it from falling off.
That was fine.
Clenching her fist helped keep her from screaming, “Stop!”
But there was no going back. In the dark hours of the night, agreeing to this marriage had seemed the only thing she could do. For her grandfather and, yes, for her baby. Her unborn child was entitled to be free of the stain of illegitimacy.
The arrangement could work, she’d told herself as she sat by the window, staring blindly out at the neighboring brick tenement that was her entire view. Her child would get his father’s name. Nicolo would get the bank. She would get the satisfaction of giving her grandfather the one thing not even his vast fortune could buy.
It would all be very civilized…and how could she have been stupid enough to believe that? If only she’d kept her mouth shut. Telling Nicolo she’d marry him but she wouldn’t sleep with him had been like waving a bone at a caged and hungry wolf.
It only made him want what he couldn’t have.
She shouldn’t have said anything. After all, he couldn’t force her to sleep with him. Nicolo Barbieri was a tyrant, but he wasn’t a savage.
Was he?
God oh God, what was she doing?
What had she been thinking?
Aimee swung toward Nicolo, oblivious to the judge, the witnesses, the ceremony.
“Nicolo,” she said urgently, “wait…”