The Wedding Charade by Melanie Milburne Page B

but three times. I wonder how many more surprises are in store for me during the next year.’
    ‘You’ll just have to wait and see, won’t you?’ she said with a pert look.
    ‘I am looking forward to it,’ he said and left the room.

CHAPTER SIX
    A S IT turned out, Nic did have to fly back to Rio, or so he had said when he’d phoned on the landline later that day. Jade wondered if he was putting some space between them after The Kiss. She couldn’t help thinking of it in capital letters. Her lips had tingled for hours afterwards. Her tongue kept returning to the tiny nick in her flesh, exploring it in detail. It was a constant reminder of the spontaneous combustion that had occurred between them. Nic had awakened a longing in her that would not go away. It ached and throbbed deep and low in her body, a persistent ache of emptiness she had never felt before.
    She spent a couple of quiet days painting in the villa gardens before the preparations for the wedding began in full force. The flight and travelling arrangements turned out to be far easier than she had expected and the wedding planner had taken care of all the details, so all Jade had to do was turn up for her hair and make-up appointment, and finally slip into her dress and shoes.
    When she finally arrived at the church in the picturesque lakeside town of Bellagio she felt as if she was acting her way through a movie role directed by Nic. Her father walked her into the church, beaming at allthe guests as if he was the proudest of men. Jade went along with the façade of family togetherness but, as she walked past the front pew where her brother most likely would have been if he had still been alive, she felt a pain that was indescribable.
    She looked up and saw Nic standing at the front with the priest. His hazel eyes ran over her, his lips stretched into a proud smile, she assumed for the congregation’s sake. Her heart gave a little skip as his eyes darkened the closer she got. She saw his gaze go to the now healed spot on her lip. His eyes came back to hers, a silent message there that touched her so much she had to look away. She faced the front and listened as the priest began to speak.
    Jade was conscious that this was the very church in which Nic’s baby sister had been christened and then just three months later farewelled from this world. The wedding planner had let slip that this was the first time Nic’s mother had come back to the villa since Chiara’s death all those years ago. Jade wasn’t sure why Nic had insisted on being married here, other than the villa was very private and the perfect place to have a honeymoon. Not that they were having a honeymoon, of course, Jade thought. It was all for the press, the pretence, the society wedding with all the trimmings. It was what everyone expected someone of Nic’s breeding, and hers when it came to that, to do.
    Finally the priest announced it was now time for Nic to kiss his bride and Jade felt a ripple of excitement race through her. She swallowed as he slipped a hand to the curve of her cheek, his touch and gaze as tender as any genuine groom’s could be. She watched in breathless anticipationas his head lowered inch by inch until finally she felt the whisper-soft press of his lips on hers.
    Again Jade was totally sideswiped at how her mouth responded to his. It was as if he had transferred some potent electrical current directly from his mouth to hers. Her lips moved beneath the gentle press of his, softly and shyly at first but then more hungrily as he deepened the kiss with a slow, smooth thrust of his tongue that took her completely by surprise. While it was nothing like the primal savagery of his previous kiss, for some reason the tenderness of this one was even more powerful and mind-blowing. She felt a shockwave of heat envelop her, and her tongue moved against his, tasting him, tasting the essential maleness of his mouth. He tasted minty, fresh and yet hot and erotic and brooding with