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But, right now, Lukas was still trying to rationalise what had happened back in the cathedral. He’d intended a kiss which would satisfy their critics without being inappropriate, but then he’d felt the soft fullness of her mouth open up under his, and everything...everything had fallen away.
The cathedral, the guests, even the damned plan itself.
In that split second there had been only him and her. And something that felt oddly like a truth between them.
Which meant that he really was in trouble.
Merely being tempted by the woman was one thing. But it was quite another to forget that anything else even existed. Worse, that he didn’t care, because he could still taste her on his tongue. And he found himself savouring it.
Muttering a curse under his breath, he reached towards the limousine’s minibar and selected a tumbler before pouring himself a few generous fingers of whisky.
Yeah, he’d realised the kiss had been a mistake even as her breath was heating his mouth back there in the cathedral. He’d tried telling himself that he’d had no choice, that the kiss was an integral part of the ceremony, that he was playing the part of the newly married husband.
But it hadn’t felt like playing a part when his mouth had been sliding so perfectly over hers, as though he’d been waiting for this very moment ever since their first encounter. As though she was the reason he’d been feeling so edgy for the better part of the last five months, rather than the fact that the plan he had set in motion more than two decades earlier was finally drawing closer.
Close enough to smell.
The first step had been buying out Sedeshire International before the Rockman family could get hold of it, and now those papers were finally signed off and the ink was almost dry. Lukas didn’t care that he’d paid over the odds to do so. It was only money and these days he had more of it than his dirt-poor childhood self could ever have even imagined.
The second step was, admittedly, a little harder to swallow, especially for a self-confirmed bachelor—marrying Lady Octavia on the dubious promise that her father would finally tell the truth and set the record straight about his mother.
Just as he had vowed to her as a twelve-year-old.
And it didn’t matter that she was no longer around to see justice done, to see her tarnished reputation finally being restored. It would be enough that he had kept his promise to her.
He’d watched the expression of old Andrew Rockman in that front pew, practically incandescent with rage at the marriage.
Lukas had half expected Rockman to storm to the front when the bishop had asked if there were any objections—maybe he would have even welcomed it. The barbaric man would at least have had to finally show his true colours, and the charade would have been over.
But, of course, the opportunity had passed. Rockman had swallowed the rage that only Lukas himself had noticed, and the service had continued. And he’d felt as if he was on autopilot right up to the moment where the slick brush of his lips over Octavia’s had made Lukas forget where he was. Who he was.
Heat had poured through him as his new bride had melted against him. Right into him. And oh, how there had been a part of him that had craved exactly that.
Lukas couldn’t understand it.
Taking a long pull of the expensive drink, he let the heat pour though him and soothe him. But, strangely, he didn’t really taste it.
He could only taste her. Roaring through his veins, thundering around his being. Flooding him. He could barely restrain himself from reaching over to haul her back to him and explore that delicious friction between them all over again.
His only consolation was that she wanted him just as badly. He knew women well enough to be able to read his new bride like an open book.
Tension emanated off her as she sat across the luxurious seats from him. He could see that she too fought to get herself back under control, the taut lines of her elegant neck at odds with the way she kept her hands neatly folded in her lap, too neat, too precise. As if she could read every last traitorous thought in his head and felt every one of them.
He needed to break the silence, but no words came.
‘Drink?’ he offered at last, more for something to say. ‘Or perhaps that would undermine whatever programme you’re following.’
‘You mean like a twelve-step one?’ She sniffed. ‘No, thank you. Though, as I said, I wasn’t in rehab. It’s just that it’s barely eleven thirty.’
Her attempt at a put-down might have amused him under any other circumstances. It certainly wouldn’t have got to him. What was wrong with him?
‘Says the woman who is well known for partying 24/7,’ he countered instead. ‘It’s a bit late to start pretending to have standards, isn’t it?’
‘Evidently,’ she shot back, though her tone was ridiculously polite. ‘Since I just married you. Or perhaps I’m lying and it’s the booze and drugs talking.’
He gave a snort of laughter despite himself. Her comebacks were like a fine blade slicing through the air, neither dull nor confused.
Without knowing what he was doing, Lukas stretched one long arm out across the seats. He took her chin in his fingers and—not unkindly—forced her to look at hi
