Michelle Reid - Marriage on the Rebound

MICHELLE REIDgrew up on the southern edges of Manchester, the youngest in a family of five lively children. Now she lives in the beautiful county of Cheshire, with her busy executive husband and two grown-up daughters. She loves reading, the ballet, and playing tennis when she gets the chance. She hates cooking, cleaning, and despises ironing! Sleep she can do without, and produces some of her best written work during the early hours of the morning.

Recent titles by the same author:

THE MAN WHO RISKED IT ALL

THE KANELLIS SCANDAL

AFTER THEIR VOWS

MIA’S SCANDAL (The Balfour Legacy)

Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

www.millsandboon.co.uk

THE room had fallen into a terrible silence. No one moved, no one spoke, the horror that was every young woman’s worst nightmare jamming the very air that surrounded them.

Shaan had dropped into the nearest chair, her face turned chalk-white with shock. Pressed between her knees and half-buried in the soft folds of pure white silk and delicate lace were her hands. Ice-cold and numb, they were crushing the single sheet of notepaper Rafe had just grimly handed to her.

‘Dear Shaan,’ it said. Dear Shaan…

‘How could he do it?’ Her uncle’s harsh cry broke into the terrible silence, sounding hoarse and stricken and grievously bewildered.

Nobody answered him. Shaan couldn’t, and Rafe obviously wasn’t prepared to.

He stood by the window, effectively disconnected from it all now his part in the dirty deed was done, while out there, only a few short miles away, was a church packed full of guests, all dressed in their best wedding finery, waiting for a bride and groom who would not be turning up.

By now they would have begun to suspect that something terrible had gone wrong, the fact that Piers and Rafe were not in their places by the altar enough to arouse suspicion alone. Her aunt would be jumping all over the place with worry and Jemma, her only bridesmaid, looking foolish in her pretty pink dress, would be waiting just outside the church for a bride who was no longer wanted.

‘My God! He couldn’t have cut it any finer, could he?’ her uncle raked out angrily.

‘No,’ Rafe decided to answer that one, though his voice sounded deeply constricted, as though he’d only just got the single syllable past his tensely locked throat.

Shaan didn’t so much as move, her eyes—dark, dark brown under normal circumstances—looking so black in her pale face that they seemed utterly bottomless. They were not seeing much. They looked inwards, staring into the cold, dark recesses of her mind where horror, hurt and humiliation were waiting to grab hold of her once the all-encompassing numbness of shock had worn off.

Was Rafe in shock too? she found herself wondering. She supposed he must be. He certainly looked pale beneath that warm, golden tan his skin always wore. And he was dressed for a wedding in a formal grey morning suit. He could not have suspected Piers was going to do anything quite so crass as this.

Piers…

Her gaze dropped to her hands, where her fingers curled tightly around the single sheet of notepaper.

‘I’m so sorry to have to do this…’

Her lips quivered, but not the rest of her—that was held in a kind of frozen stillness that barely allowed her enough room to breathe. Her mouth felt dry, so dry that everything had cleaved to everything else. And her heart was pumping oddly—not in her breast but in her stomach, huge, great, throbbing pulses which were making her feel dizzy and sick and—

‘God—’ Her uncle broke into sudden movement. ‘I have to go and warn all those poor people waiting at the—’

‘There’s no need,’ Rafe put in grimly. ‘I’ve already seen to it. I thought it—best,’ he finished inadequately, hating the situation Piers had thrust upon him so much that the words came out terse and clipped.

Sure enough, and as if on cue, the sound of a car pulling up outside the smart London town house alerted them to the first horrified arrivals back from the church.

Too soon, Shaan thought numbly. I’m not ready for them. I can’t face—

‘Shaan!’

It was Rafe’s voice, sounding raw with concern, and a moment later she felt herself being caught just before she toppled sickeningly forward.

‘I don’t want to see anyone,’ she whispered threadily—not actually unconscious, but dizzyingly close to it.

‘Of course not.’ Rafe was squatting in front of her, holding her slumped upper torso against him, the fine tulle veil covering her thick mane of jet-black hair rustling against his face. He was trembling, she noted vaguely, his heart thundering beneath her resting brow.

‘It’s Sheila…’ Her uncle Thomas had moved to peer out of the window. ‘It’s your aunt, Shaan,’ he murmured soothingly. ‘She—’

At that moment the front door burst open, and Shaan began to shake—shake violently. Rafe uttered a soft curse and shifted his big frame so he could gather her deeper into the protective cocoon of his arms as the sitting room door flew open.

‘Shaan!’ a high-pitched, near hysterical voice cried out. ‘Oh, you poor baby!’

‘No,’ she whimpered against Rafe’s shoulder. ‘No…’ She didn’t want this, couldn’t cope with it. Not her aunt’s grief, not her uncle’s—not even her own!

Rafe must have sensed it, because he stood up suddenly, pulling her upright with him, and in the next second she was being lifted into his arms, her ice-cold face pressed into his warm, tense throat.

‘She’s fainted,’ he lied. God alone knew why, but Shaan was grateful to him. ‘Her room, Mrs Lester—show me where her room is.’

‘Oh, Shaan!’ Aunt Sheila—her quiet, soft, super, gentle aunt Sheila who rarely let anything ripple the calm waters surrounding her life—went completely to pieces, dropping down into one of the chairs to sob uncontrollably. Uncle Thomas went to her while Rafe muttered something beneath his breath and strode out of the room without waiting for direction.

The hall was packed with people. Shaan could sense their horrified presence even while Rafe kept her face hidden in his throat. Ignoring them all, he took the stairs like a mountain climber, the angry adrenaline pumping in his blood powerful enough to send him up there without him so much as taking a breath.

She heard several horrified gasps, and Jemma’s voice, questioning and sharp with concern. Rafe answered tightly, but she didn’t know what he said. She was hovering somewhere between this world and another, riding on a fluffy grey cloud just above pained reality.

‘Which room?’ His voice was terse, rasping enough to score through the cloud.

But although she tried to concentrate on the question she couldn’t. She was barely aware of where she was. On another muttered curse Rafe began opening doors, throwing them wide and glancing inside before moving on to the next one, until he came to the one which could only be the bride’s room, because of the mad scatter of wedding paraphernalia all over the place. Once inside, he sat her down on the end of the bed and then turned to slam the bedroom door shut.

Then silence hit, the same hard, drumming silence which had closed them all in downstairs, after Rafe had delivered his letter.

Rafe just stood there, glaring at her downbent head for a few moments, then suddenly strode over to grasp the short tulle veil she still wore. Careless of the amount of pins holding it in place, he ripped it from her head and threw it aside.

‘Sorry,’ he muttered tensely. ‘But I couldn’t…’ Swallowing, he spun away, thrusting clenched fists into his pockets.

Her scalp began to tingle from his rough handling, but Shaan didn’t mind. If anything she was glad of the feeling because it told her that she was at least partly still alive. And she even understood why he’d done it. She must look pathetic, really pathetic, sitting here in all her bridal finery while her groom made off in the opposite direction.

Then it really hit—self-revulsion surging up from nowhere to bring her staggering to her feet, the letter, still crumpled in one hand, falling forgotten to the floor as she began a mad clawing at the tiny pearl buttons holding the front of her lacy bodice together.

‘Help me!’ she pleaded in choking desperation, fingers trembling, body shaking, her expression until now uncannily still breaking into a war of tortured loathing.

The silk ripped as she tugged, but she didn’t care—suddenly it was the most essential thing in her life to get out of this dress, remove everything even remotely connected with Piers or her ruined wedding day from her body! ‘Help me, for God’s sake!’

‘Shaan, I can’t!’ Rafe sounded actually shocked, which brought her eyes jerking up to his face.

‘Why not?’ she demanded in tight, thick condemnation. ‘You’ve done everything else you could possibly do to ruin today for me. Why can’t you help me ruin this dress, too!’

Her sudden attack sent him back a step, set a nerve ticking at the side of his rigidly held jaw. His usually implacable grey eyes going dark with emotion as he opened his mouth to say something—and Shaan’s chin came up, dark eyes daring him to deny what she’d said. He couldn’t, and his mouth closed again into a hard, tight line of self-contempt.

On a fresh wave of inner violence, Shaan gave a vicious yank at the bodice so that the two pieces of fine fabric sheared apart to send tiny buttons flying everywhere, dropping on the bed, on the floor, one flying across the room to land on the soft mauve carpet at Rafe’s feet.

Rafe stared down at it, his dark head lowered so she couldn’t see the expression on his grim face. She turned away on a rustle of silk to finish the complete destruction of the dress as, without a single care for its cost, she took malicious pleasure in ripping it from her body until she stood, trembling and cold, in the lovely white lace basque and silk stockings, which was all she wore beneath.

‘This feels worse than rape,’ she whispered, her arms wrapping tightly around herself.

‘God, Shaan. Don’t…’ he muttered, taking a half-step towards her with his hand outstretched in a kind of distressed appeal.

Then it fell heavily to his side because he knew there was nothing he could say—nothing that could ease the pain and degradation she was suffering right now.

Instead, he turned for the door, his broad shoulders stiff beneath the smooth grey cloth of his formal morning jacket. ‘I’ll—go and get someone to—’

‘No!’ The protest rasped from somewhere deep down inside her. And she turned to look at him as he stopped dead one step from the door. ‘No,’ she repeated huskily. ‘You can go if you want,’ she allowed. ‘But I don’t want anyone else coming anywhere near this room.’

It was one thing having Rafe witness her complete downfall, since it was he who had effectively brought it about, but it was quite another having all those others witness it too. She wanted nobody here. Nobody. Not her best friend, Jemma, nor even her aunt.