Elie found it rather adorable that she blushed. He didn’t know too many women who blushed and rather liked the idea that his wife did. “You already did marry me legally, Brielle,” he reiterated. “Stefano, she was always meant to be mine. I said some unfortunate things in my youth to her which she has never forgiven, although I apologized numerous times. We were matched together when we both put in for an arranged marriage. What are the chances of that? We were married by proxy, and both signed legal documents. I don’t wish to terminate the marriage.”
“Is this true, Brielle?” Stefano asked.
Brielle sighed. “Yes, but—”
Stefano shook his head. “If what Elie says is the truth, then you must continue with the formality of this wedding. After, we will sit down together and mediate the problems between you. At the moment, there does not appear to be a true reason to terminate the arrangement. If anything, it appears as if the two of you are meant to be together and fate is determined to make certain you are. We will proceed with the formal wedding and the two of you can work this out through mediation after the ceremony.”
Brielle shook her head. Her nails dug into Stefano’s forearm without apparent awareness. Elie wanted to capture her hand and ease the tension out of her by gently rubbing her fingers. She looked both terrified and furious. She had no one. Not one single person to aid her. Stefano was her only hope.
“I can’t marry him. You don’t understand.”
The little break in her voice shook him. He would have gathered her into his arms to comfort her if she would have let him, but he was the last person she wanted comfort from.
Stefano bent his head to hers. “Brielle, you are already his wife. I assure you, I am a fair man. I will listen to everything you have to say if you really wish to get out of this arrangement. Shadow riders do not break their words lightly, so I am aware you must have reasons to want to walk away from a contract that you entered into of your own free will.”
Brielle searched his face for a long time before she nodded her head. “I have to trust that you’re a man of your word. I don’t have anyone else to rely on.”
“Where is your father?” Stefano asked. “He should have accompanied you.”
Her chin went up again, and her eyes, although clouded with pain, met Stefano’s defiantly. “He disowned me when he believed I was rejected as not good enough to marry an Archambault. He wanted me to go to Elie and beg forgiveness for my shortcomings and plead with him to reconsider. When I refused, he wouldn’t have anything more to do with me.”
Stefano’s gaze met Elie’s and there was a flash of pure anger. Elie knew that same anger was in his eyes. “Let’s get this done and we’ll talk in private after, Brielle,” Elie said. He turned over in his mind the way she’d phrased that to Stefano. He believed I was rejected as not good enough. Not that she was rejected as not good enough. He filed at that away to pull out again when they were alone.
He held out his hand and Stefano put Brielle’s hand into his. He immediately locked his fingers over hers so she didn’t have a chance to pull away. Touching her was like touching a match to a flame. Heat sizzled between them. He felt electricity race up his arm, through his nerve endings and down his spine. She reacted with a little gasp and a quick jerk of her arm. He held her tight to him, refusing to relinquish her hand. They made it to the altar and stood before the priest.
The priest immediately began to give an abbreviated reading and then gave a short homily as the two faced each other. Elie looked down at his bride, not really hearing what the priest had to say. Brielle tried to look anywhere but at him. He had both of her hands in his, refusing to let her escape what this ceremony meant. It was a commitment and they both knew it. He was one hundred percent in. All the way. He wanted her to see that he meant it.
She kept shaking her head and trying to inch her hands away from his. She was adamant that she wasn’t marrying him. He tried to think what had happened to her in the intervening years since he’d last seen her. She was very thin in comparison to when she’d been eighteen. She’d had an hourglass figure then. She wasn’t a rider at the time. He’d been told she had washed out of the program, yet now, her résumé claimed she was a shadow rider. She’d been a virgin with no sexual experience and yet her questionnaire had included specific, very exacting questions regarding sexual preferences and she had answered she was familiar with bondage and other kink and she had listed what she was willing or unwilling to do.
Elie wasn’t a man who got angry fast. He’d conquered those emotions after he had lost his temper with Jean-Claude Archambault and spewed crap that hurt Brielle and ended their relationship before it ever began. He’d worked hard to overcome a natural tendency to be passionate about everything in his life. He found himself getting angry at the mere thought of Brielle learning about sex, any kind of sex, from other men. He’d lost that opportunity as well through his own carelessness and her stubbornness.
He had taken full responsibility for what happened between them, but as time went on and he’d tried numerous ways to apologize to her, and she’d refused even to open a single letter from him, he had come to realize both of them were to blame. She might be younger than he was, and she felt humiliated, but she still could have listened to his explanation.
The priest ceased speaking and looked at Elie expectantly. Vittorio Ferraro, his best man, nudged him to take the wedding ring Damian had crafted for his bride. Elie took it almost reverently. The circle was bluish black in color and made of a particular element that could enter the shadows with a rider. Where her band was thin and dainty, it still matched the thicker band Damian had crafted for Elie to wear. Inside each ring, Damian had etched à toi pour toujours, meaning forever yours.
He took the ring and repeated the vows in a firm voice, promising to love and cherish this woman for all his days. He pushed the band onto her finger and wasn’t surprised when it fit perfectly.
Emmanuelle handed Brielle Elie’s ring, the one he had reluctantly removed just before the ceremony started. He had wondered at his reluctance. Now he knew why. Subconsciously, he must have known his bride was Brielle. Brielle’s voice was low, shaking, as she stumbled over the vows to love and cherish Elie. He knew she wasn’t really doing more than parroting the priest when she promised to obey him. He thought she’d stop the entire ceremony. Emme nearly threw her bouquet at him. Maybe Brielle heard and didn’t care because she planned on petitioning to get out of the marriage immediately. She did take his hand and push the ring onto his finger.
The priest pronounced them man and wife and said he could kiss his bride. He’d been waiting for that moment. Hot blood roared through his veins, and thundered in his ears, drowning out every civilized sound. The chapel, and everyone in it, receded until there was only Brielle, the woman he’d had so many erotic fantasies about. The woman he’d thought about for years.
Elie swept her into his arms before she could think to protest. Maybe she wasn’t going to protest. He didn’t know because the moment he gathered her close, her body fitted to his, the familiar electricity ran like a hot live wire between them, connecting them instantly. The air seemed to crackle and lightning shot through his body in jagged streaks. He had never been so aware of another human being in his life.
He tilted her chin with one hand and lowered his mouth to hers. The moment their lips touched, it was as if a match flared into a bright, hot flame, scorching them both. She gasped and he took advantage, sweeping his tongue into the heat of her mouth. At the first taste of her, every nerve ending in his body came roaring to life, instantly aware of every part of her. Soft skin. The way her breasts rose and fell against his chest. The way her feminine mound pressed tight against his thigh and her firm belly rubbed against his cock where it pushed intimately against her very elegant gown.
Elie was very aware of Brielle’s small hands on his chest, shaking. Her body trembling against his, even as her mouth moved like hot magic, sizzling raw fire, so that his blood rushed through his veins and thundered in his heart. He realized his reaction to her was so much more and always had been.
That reaction had started so long ago, when he’d first heard her voice in that café. He’d walked in and she’d asked him what he wanted to drink. Something in his chest, locked up so tight, had suddenly broken free. Tuned to her. Specifically to her. Brielle. He just hadn’t known, because no one had bothered to tell him what it meant—that she was his other half. Now she was exactly where she was always meant to be. In his arms. Vows sworn before priest and family to be his and only his. She knew it, too. He tasted it in her kiss. Felt it in her touch. She might not want to admit it, but she would eventually, because he wasn’t letting her go.
Vittorio cleared his throat. Brielle’s fingernails dug into Elie’s upper arms and he reluctantly lifted his head. Very gently he turned his bride toward those watching, keeping one arm around her waist, steadying her as the priest introduced them as Mr. and Mrs. Elie Archambault. Brielle held herself stiffly, but she didn’t pull away from him.
He pressed her palm onto his forearm. “There’s a small reception. The Ferraros went to a lot of trouble setting it up for you. They had no idea you would object to the wedding.”
She gave a little shake of her head as he walked her down the aisle toward the door. “I can’t pretend I’m happy in front of all of them, or that I’m going to stay married to you.”
“Yes, you can, and you will. This family, as you well know, is huge in the rider community, not to mention they took me in when I had no one. You will treat them with respect. It isn’t too much to ask to keep up the pretense for a couple of hours. Stefano will keep his word and hear you out. I’ll be very interested in hearing why you think you have reason to go back on your word when the word of a rider is everything in our world, especially when it comes to an arranged marriage.”
Again, color stole up her neck and into her cheeks as he handed her into the limousine that would take them to the luxurious Ferraro Hotel. Brielle scooted all the way across the seat from him.