But who was this woman looking back at her now? She had a growing sense of desperation as she studied her own reflection, doubt tangling in her gut.

‘Aren’t you glad we went with the Vera?’ Sophie asked, wrapping an arm around her best friend’s shoulders, her own expression not showing even a hint of doubt. ‘You’re a vision.’

Emmeline nodded slowly. Sophie was right. The dress was exquisite. A nod to nineteen-twenties glamour, with cap sleeves and a fitted silhouette, its beading was perfect, and the shoes she’d chosen gave her an extra lift of height—not that she needed it.

Her hair had been styled in a similarly vintage look, pulled to one side and curled lightly, then held in place with a diamond clip that had belonged to Grandma Bovington. At her throat she wore a small diamond necklace, and vintage earrings completed the look. Her make-up was the work of some kind of magician, because the woman staring back at Emmeline actually looked...nice.

Beautiful?

Yes, beautiful.

‘I guess we should get going.’

‘Well, yeah, we’re a little late—but that’s your prerogative on your wedding day, isn’t it?’

Emmeline grimaced, lifted her head in a brief nod.

‘Honey, you’re going to need to work on your happy face,’ Sophie said quietly. ‘Your dad’s never gonna believe this isn’t torture for you if you don’t cheer up.’

‘It’s not torture,’ she said hastily.

Though she’d kept the truth behind this hasty marriage to herself, Sophie knew Emmeline well enough to put two and two together and get a glaringly clear picture of four.

‘It had better not be. I’ve seen your groom already and—whoo!’ She made an exaggerated fanning motion across her face. ‘He is hotter than a spit roast in hell.’

Emmeline could just imagine. Pietro Morelli on any given day of the week was more attractive than a single human being had any right to be, but on his wedding day...? Well, if he’d gone to half the trouble and expense she had then she knew she’d better start bracing herself.

‘Suit?’

‘Yes. But it’s how he wears it!’

Sophie grinned, and it occurred to Emmeline that Sophie was far more the type of Pietro’s usual love interest. With silky blonde hair that had been styled into a voluminous bun on the top of her head and in the emerald-green sheath they’d chosen for her bridesmaid’s dress, there was no hiding her generous curves in all the right places and legs that went on forever.

Sophie was also a political daughter—though of a congressman rather than a senator—and yet she had a completely different attitude to life and love than Emmeline. She’d always dated freely, travelled wherever and whenever she wanted. For every measure of obsessive attention Col had suffocated Emmeline with, Sophie had been given a corresponding quantity of freedom and benign neglect.

Emmeline had read her emails from Sophie with rapt envy, studying the photographs and closing her eyes, imagining herself alongside her friend. What had Paris on a spring evening smelled like? And how had Argentina been in the summer? And what about that time she’d travelled on a yacht around the Mediterranean, stopping in the French Riviera for a month just because it had taken her fancy?

But all that was ahead of Emmeline now. Soon it would be her!

This marriage was crazy in no small part, but it was also the smartest thing she’d ever done. Marriage to Pietro was freedom—freedom to live her own life without hurting her father. Freedom to explore, travel, to live—away from Annersty and yet not carrying the burden of having let her father down.

Was there any other way? A way that would give her true freedom? The kind of freedom that wasn’t purchased by marriage? The freedom of knowing she could live her own life?

She bit down on her lower lip, her eyes unknowingly haunted. Of course there was. She could have packed a bag and announced that she was leaving home at any time.

So why hadn’t she? Because she’d been with her father when her mother had died. She’d seen the way it had killed a part of his heart, withered it forever, and she didn’t dare do the same to him. She couldn’t hurt him.

She was making the right decision. She’d get what she wanted, albeit in a not particularly easy way, and her father would be placated. And then, eventually, she’d divorce Pietro and all would be well.

A renewed glint of determination shifted through her eyes. ‘Let’s go.’

Sophie nodded her approval. ‘Attagirl. That’s better.’

She sashayed to the door of the small room at the back of the ancient chapel, craning her head out and nodding.

Music began to play—loud and beautiful. A mix of organ, strings and woodwind. It was Pachelbel’s Canon in D, a piece that Emmeline had always loved.

She watched as Sophie disappeared ahead of her, counted the ten seconds Maria her wedding co-ordinator had advised and then stepped out of the anteroom into the back of the chapel.

It was packed. The pews were crammed full of well-dressed guests. Many of her father’s political friends had come, a few of her schoolfriends, and apparently all of Italy’s upper echelons of society had turned out to get a look at the woman who’d finally brought renowned bachelor and commitment-phobe Pietro Morelli to his knees.

She moved along the back of the church, behind the last row of guests, smiling as she caught the eye of someone she vaguely remembered having met once or twice on her visits to the Capitol.

The smile clung to her lips as she saw her father waiting for her. His eyes were moist with unshed tears, his body slim and lean in a fine suit. He wrapped her in a bear hug, almost squashing her, and then kissed her cheek.

His eyes, when he pulled back, searched hers. ‘Ready?’

She nodded, smiling brightly at him. She wouldn’t let him think she had doubts. Having agreed to this, she wouldn’t let him live with any kind of guilt over the fact that he’d pressured her into marrying a man she didn’t know—a man called Pietro Morelli, no less!

‘Good.’ He nodded. ‘I’m glad.’

He turned his body slightly and she turned with him, towards the front of the church. She looked past the acres and acres of guests, standing and staring with undisguised curiosity, and there was her groom.

Oh, boy.

Sophie really hadn’t been exaggerating. In fact she might have waxed a little more lyrical about just how freaking gorgeous her groom looked. All other Italian pin-ups—eat your heart out.

His skin was darker than it had been a few weeks ago, as though he’d been out in the sun a lot. Emmeline tried not to imagine him sunbaking on the Riviera, with a suitably gorgeous companion all too willing to rub oil over his body. Was it an all-over tan? Of course he’d have a private spot to go around in the altogether...

Her father was walking, and she had no choice but to walk with him. One foot in front of the other. But as she got closer her trepidation doubled. Up close to Pietro, she was reminded powerfully of that handsome face with its permanent scowl and the dark, intelligent eyes, his chiselled jaw and symmetrical features. The broad body that she somehow just knew would be hard and warm.

His eyes met hers and there was something in them—challenge? Admiration? No, not that. But his look was intent. He stared at her long and slow, uncaring of the hundreds of guests assembled, nor the priest who was waiting patiently.

Col extended a hand and Pietro shook it. This evidence of their firm, long-held friendship gave Emmeline a much-needed boost. A timely reminder that he wasn’t a wolf—well, not just a wolf. He was someone who had every reason and every intention to be just what they’d agreed. A convenient husband. He was simply a very handsome means to a definitely necessary end.

‘Cara,’ he murmured, low and deep, in a husky greeting that set her pulse firing and spread goosebumps over her flesh. He leaned in close, whispering to her through the veil that covered her face. ‘This is more like it.’