A Tainted Beauty by Sharon Kendrick

Author:Sharon Kendrick
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781408974322
Publisher: HarlequinUKLtd
Published: 2012-07-02T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

‘I’M SCARED,’ said Lily.

Staring at her ghostly image, she looked up to meet Danielle’s eyes, which were reflected back at her in the silvered opal mirror. ‘I know it’s stupid, but I am.’

‘Because?’ asked Danielle patiently.

Lily touched her fingers to the exquisite veil which flowed down over her shoulders and the woman in the mirror mimicked the movement. Would it sound crazy to admit to feeling lost in Il Baia—this vast Neapolitan hotel of Ciro’s, where she and Danielle had been staying in the days leading up to today’s ceremony? Or to try to explain that the beautiful city of Naples and strange language were a complete culture shock to someone who’d spent most of her life in and around Chadwick Green? It was as if the reality of Ciro’s wealthy life and powerful influence had only just sunk in and she wondered whether she would be equipped to deal with it. In the passion of the moment, it had been all too easy to say yes to his proposal of marriage—but here in the sumptuous confines of his life, she wondered how she would cope with being his wife.

She shrugged and the delicate silk of the bodice whispered over her shoulders. ‘I can’t imagine living here in Naples.’

Danielle made a minor adjustment to the wreath of white roses which sat on top of Lily’s piled up hair. ‘Oh, Lily,’ she said, her voice as briskly cheerful as it had been all morning. ‘All that will change with time. You’ve got to give yourself a chance. It’s just normal pre-marital nerves, that’s all.’

Was it? Lily wondered. Her mother’s pearls gleamed softly at her neck and her heart was beating out a strange new rhythm as she gazed at herself in all her wedding finery. Did all brides feel this way? As if they were poised on a very high diving board but not quite sure how deep the water beneath them was? Probably not. But then, most brides knew their husband far more intimately than she knew Ciro.

She had thought that once she’d agreed to marry him he would want to consummate their relationship, but that hadn’t been the case. He wanted to hold off until their wedding night. He told her he loved the fact that she’d refused him. That it made her different from every woman he’d ever known. He told her that he found it a challenge to wait—that his desire for her was building and building with every day that passed.

The waiting game was almost over and tonight was the big night—when they would be joined together in the most fundamental way of all. But Lily wished this terrible sense of foreboding would leave her. The sense that something was slightly off kilter. Was it because she still hadn’t plucked up the courage to tell him about her relationship with Tom—even though Tom no longer mattered? She’d kept putting it off and putting it off, unwilling to cast any shadows over the sunny days leading up to the wedding.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.