The Arranged Marriage Read Online Free PDF

not to partake of anything. It was like ignoring the efforts to please. Possibly Michelle felt no need to please in return. She had only taken black tea with a slice of lemon, disdaining all the food offered.
    Not that it was any of her business how these relationships worked, Gina told herself, but she had the strong feeling Isabella wasn’t overly fond of her grandson’s choice. Neither was she. Although it could be jealousy prompting the dislike that was growing in leaps and bounds.
    Marco provided a fortuitous distraction, pelting across the lawn with his hands cupped together to contain something. “Look what I found, Mama!” he crowed excitedly.
    “Come and show me, Marco,” Isabella called, turning in her chair to beckon him to her.
    Her encouraging smile—or her natural air of authority—drew him to the other side of the table and he came to a triumphant halt between Isabella and Michelle. His eyes danced delightedly at the older woman and Gina knew he was basking in her indulgent interest, wanting to show off to her.
    “It’s a surp’ise!” he told her, beaming sheer mischief.
    “I like surprises,” Isabella assured him.
    “Look!” he cried, uncupping his hands like a master magician.
    A small cane toad instantly leapt from his uncovered palm, straight onto Michelle Banks’ lap.
    She jumped up from her chair, shrieking with horror, her hands moving in frantic, scissor-like slaps to get the creature off her. Perversely it hopped onto her arm before escaping to freedom, and Michelle shuddered all over at having suffered its touch on her skin.
    “You filthy child!” she flung at Marco. “Bringing that slimy thing up here and letting it jump on me!”
    She stepped towards him, her face screwed into venomous fury, her long lean body bending forward, arm outswinging.
    The realisation that she was going to hit Marco had Gina leaping to her feet. But she was too far away to stop it, too shocked to even call out “No!”
    It was Alex, surging from his chair, who caught Michelle’s arm, halting it in midair, his fingers closing around it with warning force and lowering it her side. Virtually in the same instant, Isabella acted, reaching out and scooping Marco back from the line of fire.
    “There is no harm done, Michelle,” Alex stated, his voice hard with command, the power of the man literally shimmering from him in such strong waves, Gina instinctively held her breath, her heart thumping wildly against the constriction in her chest.
    He was defending her son...saving him from the physical abuse his fiancée would still deliver, given half a chance.
    “No harm!” Michelle screeched, her body snapping upright, her gaze slicing daggers at Alex for intervening. Frustrated in one act of violence, she bared her teeth at Marco who shrank back, not understanding his offence. “You’ve ruined my trousers with your filthy carelessness,” she accused, her rage unabated.
    “Hardly ruined,” Alex bit out, his jaw tightening at this further outburst.
    “Boys will be boys.” Isabella’s tone was deliberately temperate but she flashed a quelling look at Michelle as she put her arm around Marco in a comforting hug. “All living creatures are fascinating to them at this age.”
    “Cane toads!” Michelle raved on, her revulsion still volatile. “Ugly, creepy cane toads!”
    Marco was cowering back in the protective circle of Isabella’s arm, fright stamped on his face as he stared, goggle-eyed at his attacker.
    Gina shook herself out of the gut-knotting tension. Her son needed her help, her reassurance. Alex and Isabella King were protecting him but she was his mother.
    “I’m sorry the toad accidentally leapt on you, Michelle,” she said quietly, “but please don’t blame my son for it. Marco thinks catching toads is good. He sometimes helps one of his uncles do it and he’s used to being praised for bringing them to him.”
    Blazing outrage was swung directly on her. “You let him help his uncle