Once in Paris by Diana Palmer

like magnets as they walked from the big black stretch limo into the wedding chapel where he’d arranged for them to be married.
    She had a ring, also quickly purchased. It was a Victorian replica, of fourteen-karat gold, a wide band embossed with ivy leaves in an exquisite pattern of yellow gold. The ring was outlined by tiny bands of white gold. It suited Brianne’s slender finger and she loved it. But Pierce was still wearing his old wedding ring. She didn’t have the nerve to ask him to change it. That, she told herself, was probably a mistake. But she didn’t have time to worry about it, because everything happened so quickly.
    The minister performed the ceremony with two paid witnesses to attest to it. Pierce lifted Brianne’s veil and bent to kiss her with careless tenderness. His face was very somber, and she wondered if he was remembering his first marriage. She was certain that it hadn’t been performed someplace like this. She saw the need for a quick ceremony, because if they’d had a formal wedding, Kurt would surely have found some way to stop them from marrying. But she mourned silently for the beautiful long gown she’d always assumed she’d be married in, andfor the love that wasn’t present on the bridegroom’s face. That Pierce liked her, and wanted her, she knew for certain. But would that be enough to keep them together, with all the love on one side and Pierce living with a beautiful ghost?
    She looked into his black eyes with faint misgiving.
    He tapped the end of her nose. “Stop glowering,” he teased. “We’re going to be happy.”
    â€œOh, I do hope so,” she said fervently.
    He sighed. The teasing light went out of his eyes to be replaced by something entirely new as he looked at her in the modern coatdress that showed her long, elegant legs to their best advantage. “You’re very young,” he said quietly.
    â€œI’ll get wrinkles soon enough, right now if you like. I can soak my face in water until it starts to shrivel,” she volunteered with a grin.
    He chuckled. “Hooligan,” he accused. “You’re going to run me ragged.”
    â€œI promise to do my best,” she said.
    They shook hands with the minister and his wife and the witnesses, concluded the paperwork and the fee, and went back outside to climb into the black limo.
    â€œWe’re married,” Brianne murmured with awicked glance at her brand-new husband. “How about taking me to the nearest motel and loving me half to death?”
    He only smiled, like an adult indulging a small child. “There’s nothing I’d like better,” he said carelessly. “But we have to catch the next flight out of here.”
    Her expression fell. “We aren’t having a honeymoon?”
    â€œBrianne, we got married to save you from Sabon,” he said seriously. “I enjoyed making love to you by the pool. Someday, maybe I’ll do it properly. But this isn’t the time. We’ve got some major complications cropping up that you don’t know about yet. I couldn’t bear to tell you and spoil our wedding. But the ceremony’s over and you have to know.”
    â€œKnow what?” she asked with a cold premonition.

Chapter Six
    P ierce grimaced, as if he didn’t want to say it. She stared at him with her heart pounding and her eyes like green saucers.
    â€œAll right, I suppose I can’t keep it from you any longer,” he said heavily. “I phoned Arthur at the beach house while you were changing at the hotel. Your mother called and asked for you. It seems she’s had a slight…accident. She’ll be all right,” he said quickly when her face began to pale. “She told Arthur that she slipped and fell on the steps, but he said she sounded pretty scared and she needed to speak to you urgently. He didn’t tell her where we were, only that we’d be back