‘A back-up plan to what?’
Had the man gone mad? Was he seeing conspiracy where there was none? And if so, who exactly were the conspirators?
‘They must have known that your sister was likely to run at the last minute, or perhaps that was what was meant to happen all along. And then what was I supposed to do? Take one look at the bridesmaid and fall head over heels so that I would forget about Natalie?’
‘No.’
Alexa shook her head so that her loosened hair flew wildly around her face.
‘No way!’
But Santos obviously wasn’t listening. One more of those arrogant flicks of his hand dismissed her protest.
‘So, all right,’ he said coldly, ‘I’ll take the bait.’
‘What?’
He couldn’t have said what she thought she’d heard. It just wasn’t possible that he meant.
‘There was supposed to be a wedding, with a Montague daughter as a bride. It doesn’t matter which one.’
With her hands in her lap, Alexa pinched herself hard on one palm, trying to convince herself that this was actually happening and she was not just in the middle of a bad dream. The pain was sharp, making her wince and driving away any hope that she might somehow have drifted asleep.
‘You are joking!’
‘No joke.’ Santos shrugged off her horrified protest. ‘One Montague bride is as good as any other when this was only meant to be a dynastic marriage—’
‘What sort of cold-blooded monster are you?’
Alexa forced herself to stand, ignoring the agonised protests from her sore feet. She couldn’t just sit there and let him tower over her with that dark look in his eyes, the curl to his lips that she couldn’t tell was a smile or a sneer.
‘Dynastic marriage or not—marriage of convenience or whatever—you can’t just swap one bride for another because you want to!’
‘Oh, but I can,’ Santos assured her icily, snatching away what little was left of her breath as she struggled to inhale naturally while her heart was thudding frantically against her ribcage. ‘A deal is a deal and no one breaks their word to me and gets away with it.’
But it was Natalie who had broken her promise to marry him! Alexa felt as if the world was spinning out of control and she didn’t know whether she was on her head or her heels. Even if he wanted to sue for breach of promise then surely he couldn’t go this far.
‘Or maybe this was what you and your family had planned all along. You baited the hook with the glamorous sister, always knowing that she was going to run out on me.’
And leave him with the less glamorous, less attractive one. He didn’t have to say the words—they were buried in his callous declaration, aimed at her like a slap in the face, as cold and as cruel as any physical blow.
‘There was no plan. And I have no intention of marrying you.’
‘You don’t have any choice. It’s either that or watch your family go to the wall.’
‘Why aren’t you listening? I don’t want to marry you …’
His words made no sense and they barely registered as she flung her angry response into his arrogant, beautiful face. His look was totally blanked off, eyes opaque. And Alexa was grateful for that strange lack of expression. Anything more and she would have lost the fight she was already having not to lift her hand and lash out at him, wipe the condescension from his carved features. As it was, her fingers twitched at her sides, twisting in her skirt as she sought for control.
‘I don’t want anything to do with you.’
That got through to him.
‘And we both know that to be a lie,’ he tossed back at her, an unholy amusement lighting in those pale eyes as they gleamed down at her. ‘Outside, by the pool, you were mine for the taking.’
‘No, that’s the lie! I never—’
‘Oh, come, now, querida,’ Santos mocked. ‘If I’d kissed you, you wouldn’t have spared a thought for your sister or for anyone else. You would have melted into my arms …’
But that was just too much. The knowledge that he hadn’t seen anything other than what she had really been feeling wasn’t enough to hold her back as a terrible sense of having been manipulated, played like a puppet with Santos holding the strings, blazed like a firestorm inside her head.
‘A kiss maybe—but not this! This is crazy! Mad! Impossible!’
‘No it is not,’ Santos returned smoothly. ‘To my mind it’s completely possible—the perfect solution. Natalie ran out on me, but you are right here. So now you can take your sister’s place.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
SO NOW YOU can take your sister’s place.