Honor-Bound Groom Read Online Free PDF

intrinsically linked with the del Castillos’. Whether there’s any truth to the curse or not, everyone here is lapping up the story. Promises of happily ever after and all that. Honestly, they’ve made it all sound so sweet it’s almost enough to give you cavities.” Giselle finished with a high-pitched laugh that didn’t quite ring true.
    â€œSo you don’t believe in happily ever after?”
    â€œSweetie,” Giselle replied with a smile stretching her generous lips into a wide curve of satisfaction, “what’s more important is if Alex believes in it. And we bothknow he’s far too pragmatic for that. Besides, it’s not like you two are going to have a real marriage.”
    â€œWell, I certainly expect we’ll have a real marriage. Why else would we even bother?”
    â€œOh, dear, you mean he hasn’t said anything yet?”
    Loren felt her already simmering temper begin to flare. “Said anything about what?” she asked through clenched teeth.
    â€œAbout keeping up appearances, of course. Though perhaps he thought it would be clear. After all, if he’d had any interest in a real marriage he’d have wanted to have some say in the organization of the wedding ceremony and reception, wouldn’t he? Instead, he gave me carte blanche. But don’t you worry, I’ll make sure you have a day to remember.”
    â€œWell, I’d like to go over the wedding details with you later on, when I’m more rested,” Loren asserted, pausing for effect. “Then I’ll more than happily take the arrangements off your hands. I’m sure you have far more important things to occupy yourself with.”
    Loren chose to ignore the rest of what the woman had said. She knew she and Alex had little time before their proposed wedding date only two weeks away, but surely he hadn’t left everything to his assistant—his personal assistant, she corrected herself.
    â€œOh, but I have everything under control. Besides, Alex has signed off on what I’ve done already. To change anything now would only cause problems.”
    The implication that Loren would bear disapproval from Alex for those problems sat very clearly between the two women. Loren took a steadying breath. She wasn’t up to this right now but she knew what Giselle was doing. She’d probably taken one look at Loren and totally underestimated her. Clearly Giselle had somekind of bond with Alex that she didn’t want to let go. Maybe she’d even harbored a notion of a relationship with him.
    Whatever might have happened between Alex and Giselle before she had arrived home, Loren was his fiancée, and she’d prove she was no walkover. Her battle with her mother to come here in the first place had proven to her that she was anything but that.
    â€œWell,” she said, injecting a firm note into her voice, “we’ll see about that once I’ve checked everything over and conferred with Alex.” At the other woman’s sharply indrawn breath she added, “It is my wedding, after all.”
    Loren settled back against the soft leather upholstery and gazed out the window of the speeding limousine, wondering if she had gone too far in establishing where she stood with Giselle. Perhaps she’d been oversensitive, worn out as she was with travel. But underneath Giselle’s self-assuredness and apparent solicitude she sensed a vague but definite threat, as if she was stepping where she wasn’t fully welcome by coming back to Isla Sagrado.
    She stifled a sigh. She’d expected her homecoming to be different, sure, but when push came to shove she couldn’t forget what—or more importantly, who —had brought her here.
    Alex.
    Just thinking about him created a swell of longing deep inside. Without thinking, she traced the outline of her lips with her fingertips, silently reliving their last kiss. If she tried hard enough she