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CHAPTER FIVE
SEATEDINHERCHAIR, Gillian flipped open the jewellery box that had been delivered and gasped out loud. ‘Oh, my word, Letty… Come here and see!’
Letty rustled over in her bridal gown and was almost blinded by the flashing white fire of the diamond tiara, earrings and necklace laid out in the wide velvet-lined box. She flipped up the note enclosed in the box, in which Leo informed her that the set had belonged to his mother and he would be pleased if she wore the pieces. ‘A little extravagant for me,’ she began uncertainly.
‘Nonsense, this is going to be a big fancy wedding attended by a lot of well-heeled people,’ her mother told her roundly. ‘And when a man hands over the family heirlooms before the wedding, you say “Thank you very much indeed” and wear them!’
Letty reddened and lifted out the tiara to anchor it into the thick mass of her upswept hair. Unlike the fake one she had worn on her hen night, it fixed in with ease. Adorned in the diamonds, she studied herself in the mirror, her hands trembling a little as her fingers dropped from attaching the last earring. In truth she barely recognised herself. She had had her hair and make-up done earlier that day at a local salon but, because she didn’t own a full-length mirror, she could only see herself from the waist up.
Even so, she still cherished the image she had seen when she’d picked her dress from the designer studio Leo had instructed the wedding planner to escort her to. It was a simply glorious dress and she had fallen for it before it had even been removed from the hanger. It reminded her of an Edwardian tea dress except it was much more finely tailored, the styling accentuating her small waist and smoothing over the generous breasts and hips she preferred to conceal. Except when you got the goods out for Leo, a snide little voice reminded her at the optimum wrong moment because she had been training herself very thoroughly to totally bury and disremember that little incident in the limousine.
After all, Leo had been around the block a few times and he was not innocent. Since she had not seen him since then, he evidently wanted to overlook that wanton little episode and so did she, so forget, she instructed herself impatiently. In terms of their agreement, what was a meaningless little kerfuffle in a car to do with anything?
The previous week, Letty had signed a prenuptial document that ran to many pages of impenetrable legalese. But she had read and digested and ensured that she understood every word of it because she wasn’t the kind of woman who signed anything on trust. She had agreed that Leo’s infidelity would not be grounds for a divorce and that clause had had a sobering effect on her because it etched his future betrayal in stone for her. No sacred bond on offer from Leo, she recalled cynically. If their marriage did break down, however, she would retain some access to the children and a financial settlement that ran to lottery win figures. Nothing whatsoever was being left to chance in their marriage. In addition, she would have to have a child fathered by Leo for her baby to qualify for the Romanos name and inheritance.
Literally tormented by nerves, Letty climbed out of the limousine, winter sunshine glittering over the beautiful beaded lace on her gown and firing up the diamonds. She had never felt so self-conscious in her life and only the sight of her mother and Jenna, her closest friend from university, waiting with the children in the church porch settled her down again.
Popi and Sybella were resplendent in dresses that matched the bridesmaid, Jenna’s, the little girls twirling with pleasure in their floaty skirts and chattering while Cosmo, quite indifferent to his smart little outfit and any sense of occasion, was clambering all over a stone bench. Leo had been amazed that she wanted to include the children in the bridal party while Letty had seen their inclusion as a necessity. While Leo might be too empathetically dim to appreciate the fact that what they were really trying to achieve with their marriage was the creation of a new family to make his nieces and nephews feel secure, Letty was not.
The walk down the aisle in the big packed church full of staring strangers disturbed Letty because she was uncomfortable being the cynosure of attention. She kept her hand resting lightly on her mother’s shoulder and focused on Leo, utterly, effortlessly and flawlessly gorgeous, awaiting her at the altar. If only it had been their real wedding, she found herself thinking and she flushed, hastily squashing that foolish notion, assuming that all the frilly trappings of the day were confusing her. Certainly, Leo in a morning suit was a sight to behold with his sleek dark angel beauty, his perfect features bronzed and composed, those dark eyes steady and serious, not softened or bright with the love he might have felt for a genuine bride. Inwardly, Letty swore at the tenor of her thoughts.
‘You look fantastic,’ Leo told her as she reached the altar.
Of course, he had to say something like that, it was expected of him, and it was almost as if someone had yelled ‘Showtime!’ in Letty’s ear. She switched on her approximation of a bright bridal smile because Leo had made it clear that their agreement was private, and the rest of the world were to be left to believe that they were a normal couple. As if she would ever have captured a guy with Leo’s looks and wealth in the real world, Letty found herself thinking with helpless cynicism, reckoning that it was little wonder that people were curious and staring while they wondered how she had contrived such a miraculous feat.
The beautiful words of the ceremony were something she tried not to dwell on or feel even slightly bitter about because, all else aside, this was not how Letty had once vaguely imagined her wedding day would be: with a groom by her side who loved and cared for her as she cared for him, a true partnership of hearts and souls. She reminded herself sternly of the benefits that the wedding had already brought to her family and would bring to Leo’s orphaned nieces and nephews. It was foolish to crave some starry-eyed ideal, she told herself firmly, because that craving was a fantasy—a fantasy that Leo would definitely never deliver.
‘Diávolos…’Leo whispered the curse in her ear as they progressed back down the aisle. ‘That’s the worst bit over.’
Letty laughed. Yes, that sentiment was very much Leo. He had as much sensitivity as a brick thrown at a window. Airy, feminine, finer feelings about weddings were foreign to him. Cosmo clutched at her skirts and she bent down and lifted him up, pressing a kiss to his troubled little face. ‘You don’t like the crowds, do you?’ she gathered, holding him close, enjoying the sweet baby smell he still retained.
‘I warned you that this might be too much for them,’ Leo declared.
‘They need the memory of being part of this,’ Letty told him gently and only then registered that she was having her first conversation with Leo since that shameful little episode in the limousine. Her face warmed but she buried the recollection deep again. She had been brazen and silly and she had embarrassed herself, but that was human and it would be pointless to punish herself about something she could not change.
Leo was hoisting Sybella to his shoulder when a tall, slender blonde in a blue dress approached them. ‘What on earth are your nannies doing, Leo?’ she demanded imperiously. ‘The kids should be out of sight and out of mind at such an occasion.’
Reluctant to offend a stranger, Letty swallowed back a sharp retort.
‘We want them with us today,’ Leo stated smoothly in direct contradiction of his words to Letty only seconds earlier. ‘Katrina, meet Letty… Letty, this is my father’s wife, Katrina.’
Grateful then that she hadn’t snapped out a tart response, Letty absorbed the reality that Leo’s stepmother, Katrina, was much younger than she had expected and English into the bargain. She smiled.
But the pretty blonde wasn’t even bothering to look her way. Indeed, all her attention, her curiously avid attention, was for Leo. ‘I just can’t believe the size of the sacrifice you’re making for those kids…actually getting married,’ she said in an incredulous tone. ‘Your father and I were astonished.’
Katrina’s very blue eyes were locked on Leo, her fascination with him so strong it was tangible. Dear heaven, his stepmother was in love with him, Letty registered with shocked distaste. Luckily the photographer wanted a few shots at that point and Katrina was forced to back off while the nannies reclaimed the children. In the crush around the porch steps she watched a white-haired older man with a hint of Leo’s cast of feature join Katrina, undoubtedly his father.
‘I didn’t realise your stepmother was much closer to your age than your father’s,’ Letty admitted simply on the drive to the hotel where the reception was being staged.
Leo compressed his lips. ‘She’s fourteen years older than me. She was twenty when my father married her. I was six. Ana was a baby. After her arrival in our lives I don’t have one good memory of my childhood. She doesn’t like kids, but she wanted one of her own to cement her position in the family. When she failed to conceive, she resented Ana and me even more.’
‘She doesn’t resent you now,’ Letty pointed out, not being a woman to ignore a controversial topic, in spite of the warning signs that Leo’s harsh diction and grim expression put out. ‘In fact I’d say she’s in love with you.’
Leo’s big shoulders tensed and his teeth gritted but he said nothing, deeming it a topic better left untouched.
‘No comment?’ Letty looked at him in disbelief. ‘I suggest that your stepmother is in love with you and you have nothing to say at all?’
‘I wouldn’t call it love,’ Leo countered between clenched teeth, feeling that he had no choice other than to be honest about the situation since Letty was too astute to be fooled and left ignorant. ‘Katrina began flirting with me when I was sixteen and by the time I was twenty-one she was trying to seduce me!’
