A Scandal in the Headlines - By Caitlin Crews Page 0,55

what he knew was right.

He would do his penance instead, as small as it was in the grand scheme of things. He would keep his hands off her until he married her. He would torture himself, and pretend that made this all right. That it made him something other than what he was: his father’s son.

Alessandro simply didn’t have it in him to let her go.

Four days later, by a special license she hadn’t asked how he’d managed to obtain, Elena married Alessandro Corretti in a small civil ceremony. It was 10:35 in the morning, in a small village outside of Palermo that Elena had never heard of before. But then, she didn’t know the name of the man who married them, either, though he had introduced himself as the local mayor. Nor did she know either of the two witnesses who stood with them, both happy to take handfuls of Alessandro’s euros for so little of their time.

It took all of twenty minutes.

In the private antechamber even more of Alessandro’s money had secured for them, Elena stared at herself in the room’s small mirror and ran her fingers down the front of the dress she wore. It was a rich, deep cream. It had delicate sleeves and fell from a pretty scooped neck into a flattering A-line that ended at her knees. Her hair was twisted back into a sophisticated chignon, and she wore a single strand of stunning pearls around her throat to match the diamond-and-pearl clusters at her ears. She looked elegant and chic. Polished. Smart.

She looked nothing at all like herself.

And why should you? a caustic voice inside her demanded. Elena Calderon was no more. She was Alessandro’s wife now. Signora Elena Corretti.

She swallowed against the tide of emotion she didn’t dare examine here, and chanced a look in Alessandro’s direction. He was her husband. Her husband.

But he didn’t love her.

Better to deal with the repercussions of that sooner rather than later, she thought, bracing herself. Better to ensure she didn’t fall prey to her own imagination, her own precarious hopes. And what better place to make everything between them perfectly clear than the lounge of a town hall in a sleepy village, fitted with two ugly chairs and a desperate-looking sofa arranged around a cracked wood floor?

Congratulations on your hasty and secretive wedding, Signora Corretti, she mocked herself. No expense or luxury was spared for your happy day!

Alessandro stood near the closed door, on his mobile. The phone had beeped some thirty seconds after they’d signed the register. He’d announced he needed to take the call, and had waved her back into the antechamber she’d used before the ceremony.

She was almost positive she’d seen pity on the mayor’s face before Alessandro had closed the door behind them.

“When do you think we should divorce?” she asked briskly when he ended his call, looking out through the small windows at the Sicilian countryside. Proud mountains with vineyards etched into the lower slopes. Red-roofed houses clinging to green hillsides. Olive groves and ancient ruins. All of it piercingly, hauntingly lovely. There was no reason at all it should have made her chest ache. “Did you have a particular time frame in mind?”

When he didn’t respond, Elena turned away from the window—

And found him staring at her in amazement.

“We have been married for ten minutes, Elena,” he said in a voice that made her skin pull tight. “Possibly fifteen. This conversation seems a trifle premature.”

“This was the only reasonable choice I had, as you pointed out, and a convenient way to fix the Niccolo problem.” She was suddenly too aware of the rings he’d slid onto her finger—a trio of flawless diamonds set in platinum on the drive over, and a diamond-studded platinum band during the ceremony, such as it was. It occurred to her that she was, in fact, deeply furious with him. She’d wanted this to mean something. She’d wanted it to matter. She was an idiot. “Nothing more than that. What does it matter if we discuss it now?”

He went incandescent. She actually saw him catch fire. His dark eyes were ferocious, his mouth flattened, and she was certain she could hear his skin sizzle with the burn of his temper from across the tiny room.

And it didn’t scare her. She welcomed it. It was a happy alternative to the icy cold CEO who’d taken Alessandro’s place since they’d returned to Sicily. Since the paparazzi had found them and plastered their faces across every gossip magazine