Hitched! (21 page)

‘There are no guarantees, Frith,’ he said. ‘I can’t promise
that everything will always go according to plan, but we can promise to hold
together and trust each other. We’ll both need to do some giving and some
taking. Maybe you’ll get a job somewhere else one day. Maybe we’ll decide to
spend some time near Whellerby again. Happiness isn’t about place, it’s about
being together. We don’t know what’s going to happen, but we can agree that
whatever we face, we face it together, that if there are decisions to be made,
we make them together.’

His blue eyes searched my face. ‘That means giving up your
independence, yes. If we get married, we’ll be a shared enterprise from now on
and it won’t always be easy. It’s up to you to decide if it’s worth it, if you
love me enough to take the risk. If you don’t, I’ll go back to Whellerby and the
Sultan can find another advisor for his stud.’

I looked at George, loving every line of him. I thought about
my mother, and how lonely she had been without Dad. It had been easy for me to
blame him, but I didn’t know what had happened. Maybe they had both missed
chances to make the marriage work. At least they had tried.

Was
I
brave enough to try?

Then I thought about waking up with George every morning, about
going home to him every evening. I thought about the way he drove me mad and
made me laugh and understood me the way nobody else had ever done. George
accepted me for what I was and all he asked in return was that I believed in
him. That didn’t seem so much to ask.

I couldn’t spend my life being afraid of feeling, I realised. I
had a chance to spend it with a man who made my heart sing. Was I really going
to turn my back on that again? The abyss still yawned before me, but this time I
knew exactly what I had to do.

‘So it’s marriage or nothing?’ I peeped a glance at him under
my lashes.

‘That’s the deal,’ said George firmly.

‘Then I’ll take the risk if you will.’

A slow smile started in the blue eyes and lit up his whole
face, and only then did I realise that he really hadn’t been sure how I would
answer. George lifted me up and swung me round with a shout of triumph. ‘We’ll
take it together,’ he said, and kissed me.

It was much later when I stirred against him. I traced a
pattern on his chest with a fingertip.

‘There’s just one thing that bothers me about this marriage
idea.’

George opened one eye. ‘Only one? Well, that’s a step
forward.’

‘Funny you should mention steps,’ I said, propping myself up on
one elbow so that I could look down into his face. ‘I would really feel happier
if we could have
some
sort of plan.’

‘Ah, I see where you’re going,’ said George indulgently. ‘You
think we should set ourselves some SMART goals?’

‘We can be flexible about how we get there, but I like to know
where I’m going.’

‘All right, let me see...’ He took my hair and tucked it behind
my ears. ‘Our goal is to build a strong and lasting marriage. Is that specific
enough for you?’

‘Yes, but is it measurable?’

‘We’ll know if it’s strong,’ said George, ‘as long as we’re
both prepared to compromise, so it’s definitely attainable, if we take it one
day at a time.’

I had a momentary doubt. ‘But is it realistic?’

‘It’ll mean talking and laughing and loving. What’s more
realistic than that?’

‘It
might
work,’ I acknowledged. My
fingertip crept lower, circling, circling. ‘We can’t make our goal time-bound,
though, can we?’

George pretended to give it some thought. ‘I don’t know about
that. How does forever sound to you?’ he said, and I smiled as I leant over to
kiss him.

‘It sounds perfect.’

* * * * *

Keep reading for an excerpt of
The One That Got Away
by Kelly Hunter.

Available now from the Harlequin KISS line of books.

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ONE

‘You could marry me,' said Max Carmichael as he stared
at the civic centre drawings on Evie's drawing table. The drawings were his, and
very fine they were indeed. The calculations and costings were Evie's doing, and
those costings were higher—far higher—than anything she'd ever worked on
before.

Evie stopped chewing over the financials long enough to spare
her business partner of six years a glance. Max was an architect, and a
visionary one at that. Evie was the engineer—wet blanket to Max's more fanciful
notions. Put them together and good things happened.

Though not always. ‘Are you talking to me?'

‘Yes, I'm talking to you,' said Max with what he clearly
thought was the patience of a saint. ‘I need access to my trust fund. To
get
access to my trust fund I either have to turn
thirty or get married. I don't turn thirty for another two years.'

‘I have two questions for you, Max. Why me and why now?'

‘The “why you” question is easy: (a), I don't love you and you
don't love me—'

Evie studied him through narrowed eyes.

‘—which will make divorcing you in two years' time a lot
easier. And (b), It's in MEP's best interest that you marry me.' MEP stood for
Max and Evangeline Partnership, the construction company they'd formed six years
ago. ‘We're going to need deep pockets for this one, Evie.' Max tapped the plans
spread out before them.

She'd been telling him this for the past week. The civic centre
build was a gem of a project and Max's latest obsession. High-profile,
progressive design brief, reputation-enhancing. But the project was situated on
the waterfront, which meant pier drilling and extensive foundation work, and MEP
would have to foot the bills until the first payment at the end of stage one.
‘This job's too big for us, Max.'

‘You're thinking too small.'

‘I'm thinking within our means.' They were a small and nimble
company with a permanent staff of six, a reliable pool of good subcontractors,
and the business was on solid financial footing. If they landed the civic centre
job they'd need to expand the business in every respect. If they got caught with
a cash-flow problem, they'd be bankrupt within months. ‘We need ten million
dollars cash in reserve in order to take on this project, Max. I keep telling
you that.'

‘Marry me and we'll have it.'

Evie blinked.

‘Shut your mouth, Evie,' murmured Max, and Evie brought her
teeth together with a snap.

And opened them again just as quickly. ‘You have a
ten-million-dollar trust fund?'

‘Fifty.'

‘Fif— And you never thought to
mention
it?'

‘Yeah, well, it seemed a long way off.'

He didn't
look
like a
fifty-million-dollar man. Tall, rangy frame, brown eyes and hair, casual
dresser, hard worker. Excellent architect. ‘Why do you even need to
work
?'

‘I
like
to work. I want this
project, Evie,' he said with understated intensity. ‘I don't want to wait ten
years for us to build the resources to take on a project this size. This is the
one.'

‘Maybe,' she said cautiously. ‘But we started this business as
equal partners. What happens when you drop ten million dollars into kitty and I
put in none?'

‘We treat it as a loan. The money goes in at the beginning of
the job, buffers us against the unexpected and comes out again at the end. And
we'd need a pre-nup.'

‘Oh, the romance of it all,' she murmured dryly.

‘So you'll think about it?'

‘The money or the marriage?'

‘I've found that it helps a great deal to think about them
together,' said Max. ‘What are you doing Friday?'

‘I am not marrying you on Friday,' said Evie.

‘Of course not,' said Max. ‘We have to wait for the paperwork.
I was thinking I could take my fiancée home to Melbourne to meet my mother on
Friday. We stay a couple of nights, put on a happy show, return Sunday and get
married some time next week. It's a good solution, Evie. I've thought about it a
lot.'

‘Yeah, well, I haven't thought about it at all.'

‘Take all day,' said Max. ‘Take two.'

Evie just looked at him.

‘Okay, three.'

* * *

It took them a week to work through all the
ramifications, but eventually Evie said yes. There were provisos, of course.
They only went through with the wedding if MEP's tender for the civic centre was
looking good. The marriage would end when Max turned thirty. They'd have to
share a house but there would be no sharing of beds. And no sex with anyone else
either.

Max had balked at that last stipulation.

Discretion regarding others had been his counter offer. Two
years was a long time, he'd argued. She didn't want him all tense and surly for
the next two years, did she?

Evie did not, but the role of betrayed wife held little
appeal.

Eventually they had settled on
extreme
discretion regarding others, with a
two-hundred-thousand-dollar penalty clause for the innocent party every time an
extramarital affair became public.

‘If I were a cunning woman, I'd employ a handful of women to
throw themselves at you to the point where you couldn't resist,' said Evie as
they headed down to Circular Quay for lunch.

‘If you were that cunning I wouldn't be marrying you,' said Max
as they stepped from the shadow of a Sydney skyscraper into a sunny summer's
day. ‘What do you want for lunch? Seafood?'

‘Yep. You don't look like a man who's about to inherit fifty
million dollars, by the way.'

‘How about now?' Max stopped, lifted his chin, narrowed his
eyes and stared at the nearest skyscraper as if he were considering taking
ownership of it.

‘It'd help if your work boots weren't a hundred years old,' she
said gravely.

‘They're comfortable.'

‘And your watch didn't come from the two-dollar shop.'

‘It still tells the time. You know, you and my mother are going
to get on just fine,' said Max. ‘That's a useful quality in a wife.'

‘If you say so.'

‘Dear,' said Max. ‘If you say so,
dear
.'

‘Oh, you poor, deluded man.'

Max grinned and stopped mid pavement. He drew Evie to his side,
held his phone out at arm's length and took a picture.

‘Tell me about your family, again,' she said.

‘Mother. Older brother. Assorted relatives. You'll be meeting
them soon enough.'

She'd be meeting his mother this weekend; it was all arranged.
Max showed her the photo he'd just taken. ‘What do you reckon? Tell her
now?'

‘Yes.' They'd had this discussion before. ‘Now would be
good.'

Max returned his attention to the phone, texting some kind of
message to go with the photo. ‘Done,' he muttered. ‘Now I feel woozy.'

‘Probably hunger,' said Evie.

‘Don't you feel woozy?'

‘Not yet. For that to happen there would need to be
champagne.'

So when they got to the restaurant and ordered the seafood
platter for lunch, Max also ordered champagne, and they toasted the business,
the civic centre project and finally themselves.

‘How come it doesn't bother you?' asked Max, when the food was
gone and the first bottle of champagne had been replaced by another. ‘Marrying
for mercenary reasons?'

‘With my family history?' she said. ‘It's perfectly normal.'
Her father was on his fifth wife in as many decades; her mother was on her third
husband. She could count the love matches on one finger.

‘Haven't you ever been in love?' he asked.

‘Have you?' Evie countered.

‘Not yet,' said Max as he signed for the meal, and his answer
fitted him well enough. Max went through girlfriends aplenty. Most of them were
lovely. None of them lasted longer than a couple of months.

‘I was in love once,' said Evie as she stood and came to the
rapid realisation that she wasn't wholly sober any more. ‘Best week of my
life.'

‘What was he like?'

‘Tall, dark and perfect. He ruined me for all other men.'

‘Bastard.'

‘That too,' said Evie with a wistful sigh. ‘I was very young.
He was very experienced. Worst week of my life.'

‘You said best.'

‘It was both,' she said with solemn gravity, and then went and
spoiled it with a sloppy sucker's grin. ‘Let's just call it memorable. Did I
mention that he ruined me for all other men?'

‘Yes.' Max put his hand to her elbow to steady her and steered
her towards the stairs and guided her down them, one by one, until they stood on
the pavement outside. ‘You're tipsy.'

‘You're right.'

‘How about we find a taxi and get you home? I promise to see
you inside, pour you a glass of water, find your aspirin and then find my way
home. Don't say I'm not a good fiancé.'

‘Vitamin B,' said Evie. ‘Find that too.'

Max's phone beeped and he looked at it and grinned. ‘Logan
wants to know if you're pregnant.'

‘Who's Logan?' Even the name was enough to cut through her
foggy senses and give her pause. The devil's name had been Logan too. Logan
Black.

‘Logan's my brother. He's got a very weird sense of
humour.'

‘I hate him already.'

‘I'll tell him no,' said Max cheerfully.

Minutes later, Max's phone beeped again. ‘He says
congratulations.'

* * *

It couldn't be her. Logan looked at the image on his
phone again, at the photo Max had just sent through. Max looked happy, his wide
grin and the smile in his eyes telegraphing a pleasurable moment in time. But it
was the face of the bride-to-be that held and kept Logan's attention. The glossy
fall of raven-black hair and the almond-shaped eyes—the tilt of them and the
burnt-butter colour. She reminded him of another woman...a woman he'd worked
hellishly hard to forget.

It wasn't the same woman, of course. Max's fiancée was far more
angular of face and her eyes weren't quite the right shade of brown. Her mouth
was more sculpted, less vulnerable...but they were of a type. A little bit fey.
A whole lot of beautiful.

Entirely capable of stealing a man's mind.

Logan hadn't even known that Max was
in
a serious relationship, though, with the way Max's trust was set
up and Max's recent desire to get his hands on it, he should have suspected that
matrimony would be his younger half-brother's next move.

Evie, Max had called her. Pretty name.

The woman he'd known had been called Angie.

Evie. Angie. Evangeline? What were the odds?

Logan studied the photo again, wishing the background weren't
so bright and their faces weren't quite so shadowed. The woman he'd known as
Angie had spent the best part of a week with him. In bed, on their way to bed,
in the shower after getting out of bed... She'd been young. Curious.
Frighteningly uninhibited. There'd been role play. Bondage play. Too much play,
and he'd instigated most of it. Crazy days and sweat-slicked nights and the
stripping back of his self-control until there'd been barely enough left to walk
away.

At a dead run.

He'd been twenty-five at the time, he was thirty-six now and he
doubted he'd fare any better with Angie now than he had all those years ago.

He squinted. Looked at the photo again.
Could
it be Angie? They were very long odds. He'd never kept in
contact with her; had no idea where she was in the world or what she was doing
now.

No, he decided for the second time in as many minutes. It
wasn't her. It couldn't be her.

‘She pregnant?' he texted his brother.

‘Hell, no,' came Max's all-caps reply, and Logan grinned and
sent through his all-caps congratulations. And then deleted the picture so that
he wouldn't keep staring at it and wondering what Angie—his Angie—would look
like now.

* * *

Evangeline Jones felt decidedly nervous as Max helped
her out of the taxi and followed her up the garden path to his mother's front
door. It was one thing to agree to a marriage of convenience. It was another
thing altogether to play the love-smitten fiancée in front of Max's family.

‘Whose idea was this?' she muttered to Max as she stared at the
elegant two-storey Victorian in front of them. ‘And why did I ever imagine it
was a good one?'

‘Relax,' said Max. ‘Even if my mother
doesn't
believe we're marrying for love, she won't mention it.'

‘Maybe not to
you
,' said Evie, and
then the door opened, and an elegantly dressed woman opened her arms and Max
stepped into them.

Max's mother was everything a wealthy Toorak widow should be.
Coiffed to perfection, her grey-blonde hair was swept up in an elegant roll and
her make-up made her look ten years younger than she was. Her perfume was
subtle, her jewellery exquisite. Her hands were warm and dry and her kisses were
airy as she greeted Evie and then retreated a step to study her like a specimen
under glass.

‘Welcome to the family, Evangeline,' said Caroline, and there
was no censure in that controlled and cultured voice. ‘Max has spoken of you
often over the years, though I don't believe we've ever met.'

‘Different cities,' said Evie awkwardly. ‘Please, call me Evie.
Max has mentioned you too.'

‘All good, I hope.'