A Marriage Fit for a Sinner

Eva swallowed down her sorrow. ‘I’ve no intention of being late. But neither do I have any intention of wearing a dress that has less material than thread holding it together.’

She strode to the giant George III armoire opposite the bed, even though her earlier inspection had shown less than a fraction of the items she’d left behind when she’d moved out on her twenty-first birthday.

These days she was content with her hostess’s uniform when she was working or lounging in jeans and sweaters while she wrote her music on her days off. Haute couture, spa days and primping herself beautiful in order to please anyone were part of a past she’d happily left behind.

Unfortunately this time there’d been no escaping. Not when she alone had been able to find the solution to saving her family.

She tried in vain to squash the rising memories being back at Pennington Manor threatened to resurrect.

Zaccheo was in her past, a mistake that should never have happened. A reminder that ignoring a lesson learned only led to further heartache.

She sighed in relief when her hand closed on a silk wrap. The red dress would be far too revealing, a true spectacle for the three hundred guests her father had invited to gawp at. But at least the wrap would provide a little much-needed cover.

Glancing at the dress again, she shuddered.

She’d rather be anywhere but here, participating in this sham. But then hadn’t her whole life been a sham? From parents who’d been publicly hailed as the couple to envy, but who’d fought bitterly in private until tragedy had struck in the form of her mother’s cancer, to the lavish parties and expensive holidays that her father had secretly been borrowing money for, the Penningtons had been one giant sham for as long as Eva could remember.

Zaccheo’s entry into their lives had only escalated her father’s behaviour.

No, she refused to think about Zaccheo. He belonged to a chapter of her life that was firmly sealed. Tonight was about Harry Fairfield, her family’s saviour, and her soon-to-be fiancé.

It was also about her father’s health.

For that reason alone, she tried again with Sophie.

‘For Father’s sake, I want tonight to go smoothly, so can we try to get along?’

Sophie stiffened. ‘If you’re talking about Father’s hospitalisation two weeks ago, I haven’t forgotten.’

Watching her father struggle to breathe with what the doctors had termed a cardiac event had terrified Eva. It’d been the catalyst that had forced her to accept Harry’s proposition.

‘He’s okay today, isn’t he?’ Despite her bitterness at her family’s treatment of her, she couldn’t help her concern for her remaining parent. Nor could she erase the secret yearning that the different version of the father she’d connected with very briefly after her mother’s death, the one who wasn’t an excess-loving megalomaniac who treated her as if she was an irritating inconvenience, hadn’t been a figment of her imagination.

‘He will be, once we get rid of the creditors threatening us with bankruptcy.’

Eva exhaled. There was no backing out; no secretly hoping that some other solution would present itself and save her from the sacrifice she was making.

All avenues had been thoroughly explored—Eva had demanded to see the Pennington books herself and spent a day with the company’s accountants to verify that they were indeed in dire straits. Her father’s rash acquisition of The Spire had stretched the company to breaking point. Harry Fairfield was their last hope.

She unzipped the red dress, resisting the urge to crush it into a wrinkled pulp.

‘Do you need help?’ Sophie asked, although Eva sensed the offer wasn’t altruistic.

‘No, I can manage.’

The same way she’d managed after her mother’s death; through her father’s rejection and Sophie’s increasingly unreasonable behaviour; through the heartbreak of finding out about Zaccheo’s betrayal.

Sophie nodded briskly. ‘I’ll see you downstairs, then.’

Eva slipped on the dress, avoiding another look in the mirror when the first glimpse showed what she’d feared most. Her every curve was accentuated, with large swathes of flesh exposed. With shaky fingers she applied her lipstick and slipped her feet into matching platform heels.

Slipping the gold and red wrap around her shoulders, she finally glanced at her image.

Chin up, girl. It’s show time.

Eva wished the manageress of Siren were uttering the words, as she did every time before Eva stepped onto the stage.