Convenient Brides Read Free Page B

out of the window. “We’ll soon be there.”
    Huddling even farther into the corner, she said, “Where’s ‘there’ exactly?”
    “Le Bourget. It’s the airport most commonly used by private jets.”
    Soon—much too soon for Callie’s peace of mind—they arrived, and in short order had cleared security, passed through the departure gate and were crossing the open tarmac to where a Lear jet waited, its engines idling. Buffeted by the wind, she mounted the steps to the interior, and barely had time to fasten her seat belt before the aircraft was cleared for takeoff.
    Was she crazy to have allowed Paolo to coerce her into changing her travel plans? she wondered, as Paris fell away below, and the jet turned its nose to the southeast. Did he have an ulterior motive? Or was she looking for trouble where none existed?
    “You’re very silent, Caroline,” he observed, some half hour later. “Very withdrawn.”
    “I just lost my sister,” she said. “I’m not exactly in a party mood.”
    “Nor am I suggesting you should be, but it occurs to me you might wish to discuss the funeral arrangements…” He paused fractionally, his long fingers idly caressing a glass of sparkling water. “Or the children.”
    “No,” she said, turning to stare at the great expanse of blue sky beyond the porthole to her left. “Not right now. It’s all I can do to come to terms with the fact that I’ll never see Vanessa again. I keep hoping to wake up and find it’s all a horrible dream. Perhaps once I’ve seen the children, and your parents…How are they coping with this terrible tragedy, by the way? Your parents, I mean?”
    “They’re even more devastated than you claim to be.”
    Sure she must not have heard him correctly, she swung back to face him and found him watching her with chilling intensity. “Are you suggesting I’m faking how I feel, Paolo?”
    Raising his glass, he rotated it so that its cut crystal facets caught the light and flung it at her in a blur of dazzling reflections. “Well, if you are,” he said silkily, “it wouldn’t be the first time, would it, cara? ”
    There was nothing kindly in his regard now, nothing compassionate, nor did he pretend otherwise. In that instant, she knew that she should have listened to her instincts. Because, in stepping aboard the Rainero corporate jet, she’d made a fatal mistake.
    She’d put herself at the mercy of a man who, whatever his stated reasons for meeting her in Paris, no more cared about her now than he had nine years ago. He was exactly the same callous heel who had ruined her life once, and given half a chance, he’d do the very same thing a second time.

Chapter Two
    “S O YOU don’t bother to lash out at me for such a remark?” he drawled. “You don’t take exception to the fact that I imply you’re less than honest?”
    Swamped in an anger directed as much at herself as at him, Callie retorted, “Don’t mistake my silence for an admission of guilt, Paolo. It’s simply that I’m floored by your audacity. You may rest assured I take very great exception to your accusation.”
    “But you don’t deny the truth of it?”
    “Of course I do!” she spat. “I have never lied to you.”
    “Never? Not even by omission?”
    Again, she was left speechless, but from fear, this time. He couldn’t know the truth—not unless Vanessa or Ermanno had told him.
    Oh, surely not! They stood to gain nothing by doing so, and would have lost what they most cared about.
    “You’ve turned rather pale, Caroline.” Utterly remorseless, Paolo continued to torment her. “Could it be that you remember, after all?”
    Less certain of herself by the second, Callie fought to match his offhand manner. “Remember what, exactly?”
    “The day your sister married my brother—or more precisely, the night following the wedding.”
    So her secret was safe, after all! But as relief washed over her, so, too, did a wave of embarrassment. “Oh,” she muttered,