Emmie saw Bastian first, breathtakingly handsome in his pearl grey morning suit. Her heart skipped a beat and her mouth ran dry and she really didn’t want to meet his eyes and was grateful when his uncle and aunt engaged her in conversation. Over their shoulders, she glimpsed Bastian’s ex, Lilah, staring at her fixedly. Lilah was wearing a black and white frothy bridesmaid dress that made her tiny figure look more than ever like a delicate fairy’s. Her heart-shaped face and almond brown eyes glowed between the wings of her waterfall-straight dark hair. She was quite exquisite in a dainty doll-like way and suddenly Emmie felt like a great hulking giantess, standing as she did comfortably six feet tall in her heels.
‘Emmie...’ Bastian murmured, leaning close so that his breath warmed her cheek and the scent of his cologne brought back a shattering memory of how it had felt to be in his arms the night before when such a recollection was least welcome. He rested a light hand against her spine, a contact that made her bristle like a Rottweiler ready to attack. ‘I’m relieved you’re here. I’m having a trying morning.’
‘Misery loves company,’ Emmie remarked, noting the petulant expression Lilah was now sporting. Nessa thought her brother’s ex was a gold-digger but right then, her own ego bruised as it was by Bastian’s rough treatment, Emmie thought he deserved to fall victim to a gold-digger.
‘Never a rose without a thorn,’ Bastian quipped in the same style, disconcerting Emmie with the comeback.
‘You actually have a sense of humour,’ Emmie noted, pleased by her tone of indifference, for he would have had to torture her to get a warmer reaction out of her.
‘No, Lilah killed it. She arrived an hour ago and upset Nessa within the first five minutes,’ Bastian told her wryly.#p#分页标题#e#
‘Nessa will be fine. Your sister is worried about you.’ Although goodness knows why that would be, said Emmie’s inflection.
‘All you have to do is act as though we’re inseparable,’ Bastian informed her half under his breath.
‘That’s quite a challenge, Bastian.’
A hand closed over her slim shoulder as Bastian turned her round, forcing her to collide with his glittering dark eyes. ‘It wasn’t a challenge for you last night, glyka mou.’
Last night? The discovery that he fought dirty did not surprise Emmie and mortified colour leapt into her cheeks, her brittle composure splintering at that full-on reminder of her weakness. ‘Yes, but then I had drunk a little too much,’ she countered in a forced whisper while smiling with determination at a couple walking past them. ‘And even a frog could contrive to look like Prince Charming in the condition I was in.’
Bastian flipped her round to face him again. ‘You were not drunk,’ he ground out in an aggressive undertone.
‘I don’t see why it should bother you so much...you weren’t the virgin who ended up with the frog!’ Emmie snapped back at him vitriolically.
Smouldering black-lashed golden eyes assailed her, a line of dark colour suddenly accentuating his high cheekbones. His beautiful mouth compressed with iron control. ‘I suggest we drop the subject.’
‘You mentioned it first,’ Emmie reminded him with spirit.
Bastian muttered something in Greek that sounded nasty.
‘I’m sorry but I really do hate you,’ Emmie confided shakily.
It was dawning on Bastian that the apology had not been worth its weight in gold or indeed in any currency, and he was genuinely quite shocked that he had not been able to charm Emmie into forgiving him. A fleet of limousines pulled up to take the bridal party and her relatives to the village church, and with difficulty Bastian suppressed his roaring sense of annoyance with the world in general to appreciate the pretty picture his kid sister made as she came down the stairs in her wedding dress.
Emmie sat silent in the limo driving them at a stately pace along the picturesque road, which was bounded by sandy beach on one side and olive groves and hills on the other. She wished she had not voiced that final outburst and longed even for better control over emotions that seemed to be operating on a terrifyingly high-powered level unfamiliar to her. But she had told Bastian the truth, the absolute truth: she hated him for even briefly thinking that she might be the kind of woman who sold her body for profit, but she hated herself for having succumbed to his dubious charms even more. Nor did she need a brain transplant to appreciate that Bastian Christou was not accustomed to being handed the frozen mitt—his expectation that his blue-blooded birth, power, influence and great wealth entitled him to more flattering treatment fairly shone from the tension in his bold bronzed profile.