The Most Coveted Prize(23)

because that was what would make her stronger.





CHAPTER TEN


WEDDING dresses. Alena was trying her best to avoid looking at them, but  it was next to impossible when she was surrounded by them as she sat in  the salon of an exclusive upmarket wedding dress designer whilst a  variety of models paraded dresses in front of her for inspection. It had  been Vasilii, of course, who had made the appointment for her. She  couldn't care less what she wore for a wedding she didn't want to a man  who didn't want her and had never wanted her-even if he had pretended  otherwise. She'd rather wear sackcloth and ashes.

Her throat went tight as she fought against the upsurge of misery that  threatened her. It wasn't because of any treacherous feelings for Kiryl  that she was feeling like this. He meant nothing to her now-less than  nothing. No, it was the sight of all those white dresses, with their  symbolism of happiness and hope, so outdated in modern-day society with  their fragile delicacy, their sheer impracticability, their inability to  withstand the reality of a world that would trample on them. Rather  like marriage itself. Entered into with such dreams and hopes. But not  for her. Her marriage would not be like that.

As she had come into the showroom two other women had been leaving,  mother and daughter by the look of them, their shared happiness in the  smiles they exchanged reminding Alena of all that she had lost with the  death of her own mother. Her mother would never have let this happen to  her. Her mother. Alena closed her eyes and blinked against the dryness  of a pain that went too deep for tears.

She would have to choose something, of course. There was no point in  drawing out this senseless parody of what choosing her wedding dress  should be. The model standing in front of her now was wearing a gown so  beautiful that the sight of it should have filled her heart with  delight. Had she been a true bride-to-be, about to marry the man she  loved, then this would be the dress she would have chosen, Alena  recognised. The slender column of silk-satin was cut and seamed so that  it fell elegantly to the floor after gently caressing the model's body,  its neckline and arms covered by the most delicate lace that Alena had  ever seen. Tiny crystal bugle beads sewn into the seams at the back of  the dress to form a train gave just the right amount of shimmer. It was  the kind of wedding dress she would have loved to have worn for Kiryl  had he been the man she'd originally thought him.

The sight of the dress, so beautiful, representing that special  something of a love that should be pure filled her with more pain. She  couldn't bear to be there any more. She couldn't bear to think of  wearing one of these beautiful gowns at a ceremony that would be  meaningless for a marriage that would be devoid of all the things  marriage should be. She didn't care what she wore.

Abruptly she stood up, her action bringing the hovering saleswoman swiftly to her side.

"I have to go,' she told her shakily.

"But your gown-you haven't chosen anything.'

"You choose,' Alena told her. "I can't.'

"But you'll need to try the dress on,' the saleswoman protested.

Alena shook her head.

"No. Just choose something for me and then have it altered and sent to the apartment, please.'

They had her measurements. They'd measured her when she arrived. The  last thing she felt like doing now was standing in front of a mirror  looking at a reflection of herself in a dress for a wedding she didn't  want.

All the other arrangements had now been made. Their engagement had been  announced within hours of the deal made by Kiryl and Vasilii, and now  their June wedding was less than three weeks away. Not that Alena had  been involved with the plans for the ceremony. Over the weeks that had  passed since their engagement she had flatly refused to have anything  whatsoever to do with it, leaving the two men she now thought of as her  betrayers to make what arrangements they chose. They were to be married  in a civil ceremony in St Petersburg, followed by a lavish wedding  party-and that was the final call ous treachery as far as Alena was  concerned. That she should be forced to "celebrate' a travesty of  everything she had hoped her marriage would be in the city that meant so  much to her, where she had believed she had found a love as perfect as  the one shared by her parents.                       
       
           



       

Her only solace in the humiliation and misery she was being forced to  endure was her involvement with the charity. Vasilii had not been  inclined to agree to her demand to be allowed to take control of it  initially, when she had returned to his office to confront him with her  demand, but Kiryl had stepped in, his expression shuttered and his voice  devoid of emotion as he spoke to her brother.

"I would prefer it if you would agree. It will give her something to do whilst I am away on business.'

For a minute she had been tempted to say that she had changed her mind,  that simply by speaking as he had Kiryl had contaminated the charity,  just as he had contaminated what she had thought of as their love. But  then the new cool and clinical Alena she had become reminded her that  the charity would ultimately be her escape route to a freedom in which  she'd control her own life, so she had bitten back her rejection and  Vasilii had nodded his head and given way.

After her morning spent looking at wedding dresses she didn't want to  wear, the last thing Alena felt like doing was going to view the  townhouse in exclusive Knightsbridge that Kiryl had arranged for them to  rent for the brief duration of their marriage. Alena didn't care where  they lived. All she cared about was getting back her self-respect, and  that could never happen whilst she was married to Kiryl. Kiryl, however,  had insisted that it was necessary for her to give approval to the  house he had chosen, and Vasilii had backed him up.

Before she had realised the truth about Kiryl she would have been  thrilled at the thought of living anywhere with him, never mind this  smart townhouse, Alena admitted as she got out of a taxi outside the  address Kiryl had given her. The house was Georgian in style, in a  pretty leafy square with its own private garden.

Climbing the steps, Alena rang the bell to one side of the highly  glossed black-painted door. To her dismay it was Kiryl, not the estate  agent she had assumed would be there, who opened the door for her.

Automatically she stepped back, flinching when Kiryl reached out and  took hold of her arm to draw her into the hallway of the house, with its  immaculate off-white-painted walls and its wrought-iron staircase that  curled elegantly upwards.

"Why are you here?' Alena demanded, pulling herself free of Kiryl's  hold. "After all there's no one here to see us acting out this  …  this  appalling charade.'

"Perhaps I wanted to make sure that the house is to your liking,' Kiryl  responded in a terse voice, before telling her curtly, "I suggest that  we start upstairs and then work our way down. If there's anything you  don't like, please let me know. I've taken the house fully furnished,  but obviously if you wish to change anything-'

"There's only one thing I want to change, and that's the fact that I  ever met you,' Alena told him bitterly, heading for the stairs.

The house had obviously been handed over to a top interior designer to  work on. On the uppermost floor were a guest suite and two smaller  bedrooms sharing a bathroom. From the window of one of them she could  see down into the private garden in the square. Two young women were  sitting on a bench there, buggies parked close to them.

Children. Alena's heart ached as though someone was tearing it apart.

"Are you happy with these rooms?' Kiryl asked.

Although she had her back to him, Alena could feel him standing behind  her. If she turned round she would be so close to him that all it would  take for her to be in his arms was one single small step. In his arms.  That was the last thing she wanted. The security she had thought was  there for her with him had never been anything more than a lie-just like  everything else about him.

"Am I really supposed to believe that you care what I think?' she challenged.

Down in the garden, one of the women lifted a small child out of its  buggy. Alena had to turn away to escape from that emotive sight. Once-

a lifetime ago now-she had actually dreamed of having Kiryl's children.  Children to whom they could both give the love Kiryl himself had been  denied as a child. How deluded she had been. Delighted, deluded and  deceived. Blindly, Alena headed for the stairs.

In the square hallway at their foot, Kiryl opened one of the doors, telling her, "This is the master bedroom suite.'

Unwillingly Alena stepped past him and into the room. Large and  rectangular, it was decorated in the same off-white colour scheme,  broken up by the rich colour of the dark grey silk curtains and the wall  paper behind the bed. Like the room upstairs she had just left, it too  looked down onto the square's garden.