m.
‘That’s twice you’ve seemed offended when I’ve mentioned your past. But your pupils aren’t dilated, and you don’t sound compromised. You certainly don’t smell like you’re drunk. For that matter, you didn’t seem under the influence when last we met either. One might actually suspect that the rumours about you weren’t wholly true.’
Octavia froze. Her glorious sapphire eyes—which he hated himself for noticing, let alone being unable to draw his gaze away from—widened. Her breathing grew more rapid and shallow. He could see her pulse battering wildly in her neck, the beat seeming to echo throughout his entire body.
It shouldn’t have been so hard to make his hand open up. To release her.
Belatedly, his new bride wrenched her head away as if she’d been just as frozen as he had been. If he wasn’t careful he could end up blowing this whole scheme on a woman who seemed to be capable of doing the one thing that only one person had ever managed.
It seemed that his new bride was developing a knack for getting under his skin.
The sooner they got this wedding breakfast over with and he could get back to the relative peace of his home—and, more important, his office—the better.
CHAPTER THREE
OTI WAS RELIEVED when their car finally drew up at the reception venue.
She’d spent the entire journey replaying their discussion in church as though they’d been two naughty school children in Sunday service, instead of bride and groom at their own wedding.
It was ludicrous.
Yet even now, thinking of doing...intimate things with this man only made her feel all the more edgy. Hotter. And heavier. Right there...between her legs.
What was wrong with her?
She couldn’t imagine what he would say if he knew the truth. If Lukas found out that she was a virgin. It was embarrassing, certainly at her age. He wouldn’t believe her, anyway. Not unless she explained why she’d barely done more than kiss a man in the past decade. Not unless she told him the whole story. And there was no chance she would do that.
She’d put that part of her life—that awful night—behind her a long time ago.
If her brother hadn’t come along exactly when he had...well, she didn’t like to think what might have—would have—happened. It sickened her enough that it had got as far as it had. But she’d been lucky. Edward had rescued her. Too many other women weren’t so fortunate.
But Lukas Woods didn’t need to know any of it.
Still, as he slid far too gracefully out of the car and then turned to help her follow, she almost batted his hand away, only spotting her bridesmaids—girls she barely knew any more, let alone friends—waiting for her. Every one of them was her father’s choice. Mostly daughters of high-ranking nobility with whom he was trying to ingratiate himself. Perhaps one of them was the girl that he was currently sleeping with—though she was barely older than Oti, and possibly a little younger.
Odious didn’t quite cover it. If it wasn’t for Edward, she would have cut her father out of her life years ago.
Perhaps she would be able to visit her brother soon. Maybe even in the next few days. There was no honeymoon planned; to be fair, she felt as if she was going to be more of a mistress than a wife, since Lukas was already married to his work.
But, for now, she still had the wedding breakfast to get through. Shoving her thoughts to the back of her mind, Oti feigned another smile—her cheeks were beginning to ache—and allowed Lukas to take her hand and assist her out of the vintage vehicle and tried not to wince.
She might have known the infamously sharp-eyed Lukas wouldn’t miss it.
‘What is it?’ He stopped instantly.
‘It’s nothing,’ she lied, trying to turn her arm so that he couldn’t see.
Taking her arm and stilling her movements, he noted the bruise that was already beginning to form.
‘Was this your father?’ he demanded. ‘Before, in the cathedral? What was it that he said to you?’
‘It’s fine. Let’s just go inside.’
Not a rebuttal, she noted. As if she wanted Lukas to know.
She eyed the marks, practically feeling her father’s vice-like grip as it had tightened around her. His fingers biting painfully into her arm.
‘Don’t mess this up, girl,’ he’d hissed. ‘Or, so help you, you and that vegetable brother of yours will regret it.’