The Bride Said Never. Sandra Marton. CHAPTER ONE

The Bride Said Never

Sandra Marton

CHAPTER ONE

DAMIAN SKOURAS did not like weddings.

A man and a woman, standing before clergy, friends and family while they pledged vows of love and fidelity no human being could possibly keep, was the impossible stuff of weepy women's novels and fairy tales.

It was surely not reality.

And yet. here he was, standing in front of a flower bedecked altar while the church organ shook the rafters with Mendelssohn's triumphal march and a hundred people oohed and ahhed as a blushing bride made her way up the aisle toward him.

She was, he had to admit, quite beautiful, but he knew the old saying. All brides were beautiful. Still, this one, regal in an old-fashioned gown of white satin and lace and clutching a bouquet of tiny purple and white orchids in her trembling hands, had an aura about her that made her more than beautiful. Her smile, just visible through her sheer, fingertip-length veil, was radiant as she reached the altar. Her father kissed her. She smiled, let go of his arm, then looked lovingly into the eyes of her waiting groom, and Damian sent up a silent prayer of thanks to the gods of his ancestors that it was not he.

It was just too damned bad that it was Nicholas, instead. Beside him, Nicholas gave a sudden, unsteady lurch.

Damian looked at the young man who'd been his ward until three years ago. Nick's handsome face was pale.

Damian frowned. " Are you all right? " he murmured. Nick's adam's apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed. " Sure. "

It's not too late, boy, Damian wanted to say, but he knew better. Nick was twenty-one; he wasn't a boy any longer. And it was too late, because he fancied himself in love.

That was what he'd said the night he'd come to Damian's apartment to tell him that he and the girl he'd met not two months before were getting married.

Damian had been patient. He'd chosen his words carefully. He'd enumerated a dozen reasons why marrying so quickly and so young were mistakes. But Nick had a ready answer for every argument, and finally Damian had lost his temper.

" You damned young fool, " he'd growled, " what happened? Did you knock her up? "

Nick had slugged him. Damian almost smiled at the memory. It was more accurate to say that Nick had tried to slug him but at six foot two, Damian was taller than the boy, and faster on his feet, even if Nicholas was seventeen years younger. The hard lessons he'd learned on the streets of Athens in his boyhood had never quite deserted him.

" She's not pregnant, " Nick had said furiously, as Damian held him at arm's length. " I keep telling you, we're in love. "

" Love, " Damian had said with disdain, and the boy's eyes had darkened with anger.

" That's right. Love. Dammit, Damian, can't you understand that? "

He'd understood, all right. Nick was in lust, not love; he'd almost told him so but by then he'd calmed down enough to realize that saying it would only result in another scuffle. Besides, he wasn't a complete fool. All this arguing was only making the boy more and more determined to have things his own way. .

So he'd spoken calmly, the way he assumed his sister and her husband would have done if they'd lived. He talked about Responsibility and Maturity and the value in Waiting a Few Years, and when he'd finished, Nick had grinned and said yeah, he'd heard that stuff already, from both of Dawn's parents, and while that might be good advice for some, it had nothing to do with him or Dawn or what they felt for each other.

Damian, who had made his fortune by knowing not just when to be aggressive but when to yield, had gritted his teeth, accepted the inevitable and said in that case, he wished Nick well.

Still, he'd kept hoping that either Dawn or Nick would come to their senses. But they hadn't, and now here they all were, listening to a soft-voiced clergyman drone on and on about life and love while a bunch of silly women, the bride's mother included, wept quietly into their hankies. And for what reason? She had been divorced. Hell, he had been divorced, and if you wanted to go back a generation and be foolish enough to consider his parents' marriage as anything but a farce, they were part of the dismal breakup statistics, too. Half the people here probably had severed marriages behind them including, for all he knew, the mealy-mouthed clergyman conducting this pallid, non-Greek ceremony.

All this pomp and circumstance, and for what? It was nonsense.

At least his own memorable and mercifully brief foray into the matrimonial wars a dozen years ago had never felt like a real marriage. There'd been no hushed assembly of guests, no organ music or baskets overflowing with flowers. There'd been no words chanted in Greek nor even the vapid sighing of a minister like this one.

His wedding had been what the tabloids called a quickie, an impulsive flight to Vegas after a weekend spent celebrating his first big corporate takeover with too much sex and champagne and not enough common sense. Unfortunately he'd made that assessment twenty-four hours too late. The quickie marriage had led to a not-so-quickie divorce, once his avaricious bride and a retinue of overpriced attorneys had gotten involved.

So much for the lust Nick couldn't imagine might masquerade as love.

A frown appeared between Damian's ice-blue eyes. This was hardly the time to think about such things. Perhaps a miracle would occur and it would all work out. Perhaps, years from now, he'd look back 'and admit he'd been wrong.

Lord, he hoped so.

He loved Nick as if he were his own flesh and blood.

The boy was the son he'd never had and probably never would have, given the realities of marriage. That was why he'd agreed to stand here ~d pretend to be interested in the mumbo jumbo of the ceremony, to smile at Nick and even to dance with the plump child who was one of the bridesmaids and treat her with all the kindness he could manage because, Nick had said, she was Dawn's best friend and not just overweight but shy, too, and desperately afraid of being a wallflower at the reception afterward.

Oh, yes, he would do all the things a surrogate father was supposed to do. And when the day ended, he'd drive to the inn on the lake where he and Gabriella had stayed the night before and take her to bed.

It would be the best possible way to get over his disappointment at not having taught Nick well enough to protect him from the pain that surely lay ahead, and it would purge his mind of all this useless, sentimental claptrap.

Damian looked at his current mistress, seated in a pew in the third row. Gabriella wasn't taken in by any of it, Like him, she had tried marriage and found it not to her liking. Marriage was just another word for slavery, she'd said, early in their relationship... lately, he'd sensed a change. She'd become less loving, more proprietorial. " Where have you been, Damian? " she'd say, when a day passed without a phone call. She'd taken his move to a new apartment personally too; he'd only just in time stopped her from ordering furniture for him as a " surprise. "

She hadn't liked that. Her reaction had been sharp and angry; there'd been a brittleness to her he'd never seen before-though today, she was all sweetness and light.

Even last night, during the rehearsal, there'd been a suspicious glint in her dark brown eyes. She'd looked up and smiled at him. It had been a tremulous smile. And, as he'd watched, she'd touched a lace handkerchief to her eyes.

Damian felt a twinge of regret. Perhaps it was time to move on. They'd had, what, almost six months together but when a woman got that look about her...

" Damian? "

Damian blinked. Nicholas was hissing at him out of the side of his mouth. Had the boy come to his senses and changed his mind?

" The ring, Damian! "

The ring. Of course. The best man was searching his pockets frantically, but he wouldn't find it. Nick had asked Damian to have it engraved and he had, but he'd forgotten to hand it over.

He dug in his pocket, pulled out the simple gold band and dropped it into Nick's outstretched hand. Across the narrow aisle, the maid of honour choked back a sob, the bride's mother, tears spilling down her cheeks, reached for her ex-husband's hand, clutched it tightly, then dropped it like a hot potato.

Ah, the joys of matrimony.

Damian forced himself to concentrate on the minister's words.

" And now, " he said, in an appropriately solemn voice, " If there is anyone among us who can offer a reason why Nicolas Skouras Babbitt and Dawn Elizabeth Cooper should not be wed, let that person speak or forever-"

Bang!

The double doors at the rear of the church flew open and slammed against the whitewashed walls. There was a rustle of cloth as the guests shifted in the pews and turned to see what was happening. Even the bride and groom swung around in surprise.

A woman stood in the open doorway, silhouetted against the sunlight of the spring afternoon. The wind, which had took the doors from her hands, ruffled her hair wildly around her head and sent her skirt swirling around her thighs.

A murmur of shocked delight spread through the church. The minister cleared his throat.

The woman stepped forward, out of the brilliance of the light and into the shadowed interior. The excited murmur of voices, which had begun to die away, rose again.

And no wonder, Damian thought. The latecomer was incredibly beautiful.

She looked familiar, but surely if he'd met her before, he'd know her name. A man didn't forget a woman who looked like this.

Her hair was the colour of autumn, a deep auburn shot with gold, and curled around her oval, high-cheek boned face. Her eyes were widely spaced and enormous. They were... what? Gray, or perhaps blue. He couldn't tell at this distance. She wore no jewellery but then, jewellery would only have distracted from her beauty. Even her dress, the colour of the sky just before a storm, was simple. It was a shade he'd always thought of as violet but the fashion police surely had a better name for it. The cut was simple, too: a rounded neckline, long, full sleeves and a short, full skirt, but there was nothing simple about the body beneath the dress.

His gaze slid over the woman, taking in the high, rounded breasts, the slim waist, the gentle curve of her hips. She was a strange combination of sexuality and innocence, though the innocence was certainly manufactured. It had to be. She was not a child. And she was too stunning, too aware of herself, for it not to be.

Another gust of wind swept in through the open doors. She clutched at her skirt but not before he had a look at legs as long and shapely as any man's dream, topped by a flash of something black and lacy.

The crowd's whispers grew louder. Someone gave a silvery laugh. The woman heard it, he was certain, but instead of showing embarrassment at the attention she was getting, she straightened her shoulders and her lovely face assumed a look of disdain.

I could wipe that look from your face, Damian thought suddenly, and desire, as hot and swift as molten lava, flooded his veins.

Oh, yes, he could. He had only to stride down the aisle, lift her into his arms and carry her out into the meadow that unrolled like a bright green carpet into the low hills behind the church. He'd climb to the top of those hills, lay her down in the soft grass, drink the sweetness of her mouth while he undid the zipper on that pale violet dress and then taste every inch of her as he kissed his way down her body. He imagined burying himself between her thighs and entering her, moving within her heat until she cried out in passion.

Damian's mouth went dry. What was the matter with him? He was not a randy teenager. He wasn't given to fantasizing about women he didn't know, not since he'd been, what, fifteen, sixteen years old, tucked away in his bed at night, breathing heavily over a copy of a men's magazine.

This was nonsense, he thought brusquely, and just then, the woman's head lifted. She looked directly up the aisle, her gaze unwavering as it sought his. She stared at him while his heartbeat raced, and then she smiled again.

I know what you're thinking, her smile said, and I find it terribly amusing.

Damian heard a roaring in his ears. His hands knotted at his sides; he took a step forward.

" Damian? " Nick whispered, and just at that minute, the wind caught the doors again and slammed them against the whitewashed walls of the old church.

The sound seemed to break the spell that had held the congregants captive. Someone cleared a throat, someone else coughed, and finally a man in the last pew rose from his seat, made his way to the doors and drew them shut, he smiled pleasantly at the woman, as if to say there, that's taken care of, but she ignored both the man and the smile as she looked around for the nearest vacant seat. Slipping into it, she crossed those long legs, folded her hands in her lap and assumed an expression of polite boredom.

What, she seemed to ask, was the delay?

The minister cleared his throat. Slowly, almost reluctantly, the congregants turned and faced the altar.

" If there is no one present who can offer a reason why Nicolas and Dawn should not be wed, " he said briskly, as if fearing another interruption, " then, in accordance with the laws of God and the State of Connecticut, I pronounce them husband and wife. "

Nick turned to his bride, took her in his arms and kissed her. The organist struck a triumphant chord, the guests rose to their feet and Damian lost sight of the woman in a blur of faces and bodies.

Saved by the bell, Laurel thought, though it was more accurate to say she'd been saved by a C major chord played on an organ.

What an awful entrance to have made! It was bad enough she'd arrived late for Dawn's wedding, but to have interrupted it, to have drawn every eye to her...

Laurel swallowed a groan.

Just last week, during lunch, Dawn had predicted that was exactly what would happen.

Annie had brought her daughter to New York for the final fitting on her gown, and they'd all met for lunch at Tavern on the Green. Dawn, with all the drama in her eighteen-year-old heart, had looked at Laurel and sighed over her Pasta Primavera.

" Oh, Aunt Laurel, " she'd said, " you are so beautiful! I wish I looked like you. "

Laurel had looked across the table at the girl's lovely face, innocent of makeup and of the rough road that was life, and she'd smiled.

" If I looked like you, " she'd said gently, " I'd still be on the cover of Vogue. "

That had turned the conversation elsewhere, to Laurel's declining career, which Annie and Dawn stoutly insisted wasn't declining at all, and then to Laurel's plans for the future, which she'd managed to make sound far more exciting than they so far were.

And, inevitably, they'd talked about Dawn's forthcoming wedding.

" You are going to be the most beautiful bride in the world, " Laurel had said, and Dawn had blushed, smiled and said well, she certainly hoped Nick would agree, but that the most beautiful woman at the wedding would undoubtedly be her aunt Laurel.

Laurel had determined in that moment that she would not, even inadvertently, steal the spotlight. When you had a famous face-well, a once-famous face, anyway-you could do that just by entering a room, and that was the last thing she wanted to do to the people she loved.

So this morning, she'd dressed with that in mind. Instead of the pale pink Chanel suit she'd bought for the occasion, she'd put on a periwinkle blue silk dress that was a couple of years old. Instead of doing her hair in the style that she'd made famous-whisked back and knotted loosely on the crown, with sexy little curls tumbling down her neck she'd simply run a brush through it and let it fall naturally around her shoulders. She hadn't put on any jewellery, and she'd even omitted the touch of lip gloss and mascara that was the only makeup she wore except when she was on a runway or in front of a camera.

She'd even left early, catching a train at Penn Station that was supposed to have gotten her into Stratham a good hour before the ceremony was scheduled to begin. But the train had broken down in New Haven and Laurel had started to look for a taxi when the station public address system announced that there'd be a new train coming along to pick up the stranded passengers in just a few minutes. The clerk at the ticket counter confirmed it, and said the train would be lots faster than a taxi.

And so she'd waited, for almost half an hour, only to find that it wasn't a train that had been sent to pick up the passengers at all. It was a bus and, of course, it had taken longer than the train ever would have, longer than a taxi would have, too, had she taken one when the train had first ground to a halt. The icing on the cake had come when they'd finally reached Stratham and for endless minutes, there hadn't been a cab in sight.

'Aunt Laurel? "

Laurel looked up. Dawn and her handsome young groom had reached her row of pews.

" Baby, " she said, fixing a bright smile to her face as she reached out and gave the girl a quick hug.

" That was some entrance, " Dawn said, laughing.

" Oh, Dawn, I'm so sorry about-"

Too late. The bridal couple was already moving past her, toward the now-open doors and the steps that led down from the church.

Laurel winced. Dawn had been teasing, she knew, but Lord, if she could only go back and redo that awful entrance.

As it was, she'd stood outside the little church after the cab had dropped her off, trying to decide which was preferable, coming in late or missing the ceremony, until she'd decided that missing the ceremony was far worse. So she'd carefully cracked the doors open, only to have the wind pull them from her hands, and the next thing she'd known she'd been standing stage-centre, with every eye in the place on her.

Including his. That man. That awful, smug-faced, egotistical man.

Was he Nicholas's guardian? Well, former guardian. Damian Skouras, wasn't that the name? That had to be him, considering where he'd been standing.

One look, and she'd known everything she needed to know about Damian Skouras. Unfortunately she knew the type well. He had the kind of looks women went crazy for: wide shoulders, narrow waist, a hard body and a handsome face with eyes that seemed to blaze like blue flame against his olive skin. His hair swept back from his face like the waves on a midnight sea, and a tiny gold stud glittered in one ear.

Looks and money, both, Laurel thought bitterly. It wasn't just the Armani dinner jacket and black trousers draped down those long, muscled legs that had told her so, it was the way he held himself, with careless, masculine arrogance. It was also the way he'd looked at her, as if she were a new toy, all gift-wrapped and served up for his pleasure. His smile had been polite but his eyes had said it all.

" Baby, " those eyes said, " I'd like to peel off that dress and see what's underneath. "

Not in this lifetime, Laurel thought coldly.

She was tired of it, sick of it, if the truth were told. The world was filled with too many insolent men who'd let money and power go to their heads.

Hadn't she spent almost a year playing the fool for one of them?

The rest of the wedding party was passing by now, bridesmaids giggling among themselves in a pastel flurry of blues and pinks, the groomsmen grinning foolishly, impossibly young and good-looking in their formal wear. Annie went by with her ex and paused only long enough for a quick hug after which Laurel fell back into the crowd, letting it surge past her because she knew he'd be coming along next, the jerk who'd stared at her and stripped her naked with his eyes... and yes, there he was, bringing up the rear of the little procession with one of the bridesmaids, a child no more than half his age, clinging to his arm like a limpet.

The girl was staring up at him with eyes like saucers while he treated her to a full measure of his charm, smiling at her with his too-white teeth glinting against his too tanned skin. Laurel frowned. The child was positively transfixed by the body-by-health club, tan-by-sunlamp and attitude-by-bank-balance. And Mr. Macho was eating up the adulation.

Bastard, Laurel thought coldly, eyeing him through the crowd, and before she had time to think about it, she stepped out in the aisle in front of him.

The bridesmaid was so busy making goo-goo eyes at her dazzling escort that she had to skid to a stop when he halted, 'What's the matter? " the girl asked.

" Nothing, " he answered, his eyes never leaving Laurel's.

The girl looked at Laurel. Young as she was, awareness glinted in her eyes.

" Come on, Damian. We have to catch up to the others. "

He nodded. " You go on, Elaine. I'll be right along. "

" It's Aileen. "

" Aileen, " he said, his eyes still on Laurel. " Go ahead. I'll be just behind you, "

The girl shot Laurel a sullen glare. " Sure, " Then she picked up her skirts and hurried along after the others.

Close up, Laurel could see that the man's eyes were a shade of blue she'd never seen before, cool and pale, the irises as black-ringed as if they'd been circled with kohl. Ice, she thought chips of polar sea ice.

A pulse began to pound in her throat. I should have stayed where I was, she thought suddenly, instead of stepping out to confront him...

" Yes? " he said.

His voice, low and touched with a slight accent was a perfect match for the chilly removal of his gaze.

The church was empty now. A few feet away, just beyond the doors, Laurel could hear the sounds of laughter but here, in the silence and the lengthening shadows of late afternoon, she could hear only the thump-thump of her heart.

" Was there something you wished to say to me? "

His words were polite but the coldness in them made Laurel's breath catch. For a second, she thought of turning and running but she'd never run from anything in her life. Besides, why should she let this stranger get the best of her?

There was nothing to be afraid of, nothing at all.

So she drew herself up to her full five foot ten, tossed her hair back from her face and fixed him with a look of cool hauteur, the same one she wore like a mask when she was on public display, and that had helped make her a star on runways from here to Milan.

" Only that you look pathetic, " she said regally, " toying with that little girl. "

" Toying with...? "

" Really, " she said, permitting her voice to take on a purr of amusement. " don't you think you ought to play games with someone who's old enough to recognize you for what you are? "

The man looked at her for a long moment, so long that she foolishly began to think she'd scored a couple of points. Then he smiled in a way that sent her heart skidding up into her throat and he stepped forward, until he was only a hand's span away.

" What is your name? "

" Laurel, " she said, " Laurel Bennett, but I don't see-"

" I agree completely, Miss Bennett. The game is far more enjoyable when it is played by equals. "

She saw what was coming next in his eyes, but it was too late. Before Laurel could move or even draw back, he reached out, took her in his arms and kissed her.

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