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About the Author
FIONA BRAND lives in the sunny Bay of Islands, New Zealand. Now that both of her sons are grown, she continues to love writing books and gardening. After a life-changing time in which she met Christ, she has undertaken study for a Bachelor of Theology and has become a member of The Order of St. Luke, Christ’s healing ministry.
Needed: One Convenient Husband
Fiona Brand
www.millsandboon.co.uk
ISBN: 978-1-474-03846-1
NEEDED: ONE CONVENIENT HUSBAND
© 2016 Fiona Gillibrand
Published in Great Britain 2020
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
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Contents
Cover
About the Author
Title Page
Copyright
Note to Readers
Dedication
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Epilogue
About the Publisher
For the Lord. Thank You.
I am the light of the world.
Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.
—John 8:12
One
Kyle Messena’s gaze narrowed as the bridal car pulled up outside Dolphin Bay’s windblown, hilltop church. The bride, festooned in white tulle, stepped out of the limousine. A drift of gauze obscured her face, but sunlight gleamed on tawny hair that was heart-stoppingly familiar.
Adrenaline pumped and time seemed to slow, stop, as he considered the stunning fact that, despite his efforts to prevent Eva Atraeus marrying a man whose motives were purely financial, she had utterly fooled him and the wedding he had thought he had nixed was going ahead.
Kyle had taken two long, gliding steps out of the inky shade cast by an aged oak into the blistering heat of a New Zealand summer’s day before the ocean breeze whipped the veil from the bride’s face.
It wasn’t Eva.
Relief unlocked the fierce tension that gripped him.
A tension that sliced through the indifference to relationships that had shrouded him for years, ever since the death of his wife and small son. Deaths that he should have prevented.
The unwanted, brooding intensity had grown over the months he had been entrusted with the duty of ensuring that the heiress to an Atraeus fortune married according to a draconian clause in her adoptive father’s will. Eva, in order to get control of her inheritance, had to either marry a Messena—him—or a man who genuinely wanted her and not her money.
Acting as Eva’s trustee did not sit well with Kyle. He was aware that his wily great-uncle, Mario, had named him as trustee in a last game-playing move to maneuver him into marrying the woman he had once wanted but left behind. Confronted by the mesmerizing power of an attraction that still held him in reluctant thrall and unable to accept that the one woman he had never been able to forget would marry someone else, Kyle had been unable to refuse the job.
A gust of wind whipped the bride’s veil to one side, revealing that she was a little on the plump side. Her hair was also a couple of shades lighter than the rich dark mane shot through with tawny highlights that had been a natural feature of Eva’s hair ever since he’d first set eyes on her at age sixteen.
Kyle’s jaw unlocked. Now that he had successfully circumvented Eva’s latest marriage plan, he was ready to leave, but when a zippy white sports car emblazoned with the name of Eva’s business, Perfect Weddings, pulled into a space, Kyle knew he wasn’t going anywhere.
Eva Atraeus, dressed in a pale pink button-down suit that clung in all the right places, closed the door with an expensive thunk. Cell held to one ear, she hooked a matching pale pink tote over her shoulder and started toward the church doors, her stride fluid and distractingly sexy in a pair of strappy high heels. At five feet seven, Eva was several inches too short for the runway, but with her elegant, curvy figure, mouthwatering cheekbones and exotic dark eyes, she had been a knockout success as a photographic model. Gorgeous, quirky and certifiably high maintenance, Eva had fascinated gossip columnists for years and dazzled more men than she’d had hot dinners, including him.
Every muscle in Kyle’s body tightened on a visceral hit of awareness that had become altogether too familiar.
A faint check in her step indicated that Eva had spotted him.
As the bridal party disappeared into the church, she terminated her call and changed direction. Stepping beneath the shade of the oak, she shoved the cell in her tote and glared at him. “What are you doing at my wedding?”
Kyle clamped down on his irritation at Eva’s deliberate play on the “my wedding” bit. It was true that it was supposed to have been her actual wedding day. Understandably, she was annoyed that he’d upset her plan to leverage a marriage of convenience by offering the groom a lucrative job in Dubai. The way Kyle saw it, he had simply countered one employment opportunity with another. The fact that Jeremy, an accountant, had taken the job so quickly and had even seemed relieved, more than justified his intervention. “You shouldn’t have arranged a wedding you knew couldn’t go ahead.”
Her dark gaze flashed. “What if I was in love with Jeremy?”
He lifted a brow. “After a whole four weeks?”
“You know as well as I that it can happen a whole lot faster than—” She stopped, her cheeks flushed. Rummaging in her bag, she found sunglasses and, with controlled precision, slipped them onto the bridge of her nose. “Now you get to tell me what you’re doing at a private wedding. I’m guessing it’s not just to have another argument.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “If you think you can kick me out, forget it. I’m a guest of the groom. I manage his share portfolio.”
She took a deep breath and he watched with objective fascination as the flare of irritation was replaced by one of the gorgeous smiles that had graced magazines and posters and which had the power to stop all male brain function. “That’s thin, even for you.”
“But workable.”
“And here I was thinking you were here to make sure I hadn’t pulled off a last-minute coup and found another groom.”
He frowned at the light, floral waft of her perfume and resisted the impulse to step a little closer. “It’s not my brief to stop you marrying.”
Her head tilted to one side. Through the screen of the lenses her gaze chilled. “No, it’s to stop me marrying the man of my choice.”
“You need to choose better.” Out of an impressive discard pile during the last few months, on three different occasions, Eva had selected a prospective groom. Unfortunately, all three had been strapped for cash and willing to sign prenuptial agreements that spelled out the cutoff date for the marriage: two years to the day, the exact time period specified in Mario’s will. Kyle had been honor-bound by the terms of the will to veto the weddings.
“Jeremy was perfect husband material. He was attractive, personable, with a reasonable job, his—”
“Motive was blatantly financial.”
Her expression turned steely. “He needed money to cover some debts. What is so wrong with that?”
“Mario would spin in his grave if you married a man with a gambling addiction.”
There was a small icy silence, intensified by the strains of the wedding march emanating from the church. “If I have to marry Mr. Right according to Kyle Messena, then maybe you should choose someone for me. Only I’ll need to marry him by—” she checked the slim pink watch on her wrist “—next month. Since now, thanks to you, I only have three weeks left to marry before my inheritance goes into lockdown for the next thirteen years.”
Despite Kyle’s resolve to withstand the considerable pressure he had always known Eva would apply, a twinge of guilt made his stomach tighten.
Women and relationships in general had always proved to be a difficult area for him. It was a fact that he was more comfortable with the world of military operations or the clinical cut and thrust of his family’s banking business. He could do weapons and operational tactics; he could do figures and financial markets. Love and the responsibility—and the searing guilt that came with it—was something he would not risk again. “It isn’t my intention to prevent you getting your inheritance.”
Eva’s serene smile disappeared. “No,” she said with a throaty little catch to her voice. “It’s just turning out that way.”
Spinning on her heel, Eva marched back to her car.
Kyle frowned. Eva’s voice had sounded suspiciously husky, as if she was on the verge of tears. In the entire checkered history of their relationship, he had only ever seen Eva, who was superorganized with a serene, kick-ass calm, cry twice. Of course, she had cried at Mario’s funeral almost a year ago. The only other occasion had been close on eleven years ago when he’d been nineteen. To be precise, it had been the morning after Mario had hauled them both over the coals for a passionate interlude on Dolphin Bay’s beach.
Memory flickered. A hot, extended twilight, a buttery moon sliding up over the sea, the clamor of a family party at the resort fading in the distance as Eva had wound her arms around his neck. He’d drawn a deep breath, caught the scent of her hair, her skin. Every muscle had tensed as he’d dipped his head and given in to the temptation that had kept him in agony most of the summer and kissed her…
If Mario hadn’t come looking for Eva, they would have done a lot more than just kiss. The interview with Mario that had ensued that night had been sharp and short. As gorgeous and put-together as Eva had looked at age seventeen, she had more than her share of vulnerabilities. The product of a severely dysfunctional family, Eva needed security and protection, not seduction. Mario hadn’t elaborated on any of those details, but the message had been plain enough. Eva was off-limits.
Until now.
He had no illusions about why Mario had done a complete about turn and made him a trustee, when for years he had treated Kyle as if he was a marauding predator after his one and only chick. For years Eva had stubbornly resisted Mario’s attempts to find her a safe, solid husband from amongst the sons of his wealthy business associates. Mario, forced to change tack, had swallowed his objections to the “wild Messena boys,” and had then tried to marry Eva off to both of Kyle’s older brothers, Gabriel and Nick. When that strategy had failed because Gabe and Nick had married other women and Kyle’s younger brother Damian had a long-standing girlfriend, in a last desperate move, Mario had finally settled on Kyle as a prospective bridegroom.
His gaze still locked on Eva, Kyle strolled back to his Maserati. Now that he knew Eva wasn’t the bride, he should drive back to Auckland. Back to his ultrabusy, smoothly organized life. If he left right away, he could even make the uncomplicated dinner date he had with Elise, a fellow banking executive he had been seeing on and off for the past few months, mostly at business functions.
But as he approached the Maserati, which was nose to tail with Eva’s white sports car, he couldn’t shake the sense that something about the way Eva had stormed off had not rung true. It occurred to him that the tears he thought Eva had been about to cry could have been fake. After all, she had taken acting classes. She had been good enough that she had even been offered a part in a popular soap, but had turned it down because it had conflicted with her desire to start her own wedding planning business.
Suddenly positive that he had been duped, he dropped the Maserati’s key back into his pocket. There could be only one reason why Eva wanted him to feel guilty enough that he bypassed the reception. She had already found a new candidate for groom and he would be attending as her guest. Since she only had three weeks to organize her final shot at a wedding, keeping her new prospective groom close made sense, because time was of the essence.
Certainty settled in when he caught the tail end of a conversation with someone named Troy. His jaw tightened. Troy Kendal, if he didn’t miss his guess. A flashy sports star Eva had met less than a week ago in a last, desperate attempt to recruit a groom. Out of nowhere, the jealousy he had worked hard to suppress because it was just as illogical as the desire that haunted him, roared to life.
If Eva had been crying, they had been crocodile tears.
She had been getting rid of him.
In no mood to leave now, Kyle waited until Eva terminated the call and dropped the phone in her bag. “We need to talk.”
“I thought we just did.”
Dropping her bag on the passenger seat, she dragged off her sunglasses and checked her watch, subtly underlining the fact that she was in a hurry to leave. Without the barrier of the lenses, and with strands of hair blowing loose around her cheeks, she seemed younger and oddly vulnerable, although Kyle knew that was an illusion, since Eva’s reputation with men was legendary. “There’s a solution to your problem. If you marry a Messena, there are no further conditions, other than that the marriage must be of two years’ duration.”
Her brows creased as if she was only just considering an option that had been bluntly stated in the will. “Even if I wanted to do that, which I don’t, that’s hardly possible, since Gabriel and Nick are both married, and Damian’s as good as.”
Kyle’s jaw clamped at the systematic way she ticked his brothers off her fingers, deliberately leaving him off the list. As if her fingers had never locked with his as they’d strolled down the dimly lit path to Dolphin Bay, as if she had never wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him.
“There’s one other Messena,” Kyle said flatly, his patience gone. “I’m talking you, me and a marriage of convenience.”
Two
Eva choked back the stinging refusal she wanted to fling at Kyle. She didn’t know why she reacted so strongly to him or the idea that they could marry. Mario’s previous attempts to marry her off to other Messena men had barely ruffled her.
A year ago, when she had read the terms of the will and absorbed the full import of that one little sentence, she had been so horrified she had wanted to crawl under the solicitor’s desk and hide. The whole idea that Kyle, the only available Messena husband—and the one man who had ditched her—should feel pressured to marry her, had been mortifying. “I don’t need a pity proposal.”
The wind dropped for a split second, enclosing them in a pooling, tension-filled silence that was gradually filled with the timeless beauty of the wedding vows floating from the church.
“But you do need a proposal. After two years, once you’ve got your inheritance, we can dissolve the marriage.”
Kyle’s clinical solution contrarily sent a stab of hurt through her, which annoyed her intensely.
A former Special Air Service soldier, Kyle had the kind of steely blue gaze that missed nothing. He was also tall and muscular, six foot two inches of sleek muscle, with close-cut dark hair and the kind of grim good looks and faintly battered features, courtesy of his years in the military, that mesmerized women.
All of the men in the Messena and Atraeus families seemed to possess that same formidable, in-charge quality. Usually, it didn’t ruffle her in the slightest, but Kyle paired it with a blunt, low-key insight that was unnerving; he seemed to know what she was going to do before she did it. Added to that, she wouldn’t mind betting that he had gotten rid of some of her grooms with a little judicious intimidation.
The idea of marrying Kyle shouldn’t affect her. She had learned early on to sidestep actual relationships at all cost. The plain fact was, she wouldn’t have trusted in any relationships at all if it hadn’t been for Mario and his wife picking her up when they’d found her on the sidewalk near their home one evening twelve years ago.
When they’d found out she was on the run from her last home because her foster father had wandering hands, they had phoned the welfare people. However, instead of allowing her to be shunted back into another institutional home, Mario had made a string of phone calls to “people he knew” and she had been allowed to stay with them.
Despite her instinctive withdrawal and the cold neutrality that had gotten her through a number of foster homes, Mario and Teresa had offered her the kind of quiet, steady love that, at sixteen, had been unfamiliar and a little scary. When they had eventually proposed adopting her, the plain fact was she hadn’t known how to respond. She’d had the rug pulled emotionally so many times she had thought that if she softened and believed that she was deserving of love, that would be the moment it was all taken away.
In the end, through Mario’s dogged persistence, she had finally understood that he was the one person who wouldn’t break his word. Her resistance had crumbled and she had signed. In the space of a moment, she had ceased to be Eva Rushton, the troubled runaway, and had become Eva Atraeus, a member of a large and mystifyingly welcoming family.
However, the transformation had never quite been complete. After watching her own mother’s three marriages disintegrate then at age seventeen finding out why, she had decided she did not ever want to be that vulnerable.
She caught a whiff of Kyle’s cologne and her stomach clenched. And there was her problem, she thought grimly. Although, why the fiery tension, which should have died a death years ago—right after he had dumped her when she was seventeen—still persisted, she had no clue. It wasn’t as if they had ever spent much time together or had anything in common beyond the youthful attraction. Kyle had married someone else a couple of years later, too, so she knew that what they had shared had not affected him as deeply as it had her.
Now, thanks to Kyle’s interference, she had three weeks to marry anyone but him, and the clock was ticking…
Frustration reignited the nervous tension that had assaulted her when Jeremy had informed her he was backing out of their arrangement, but now that tension was laced with a healthy jolt of panic. Mario Atraeus couldn’t have chosen a better watchdog for the unexpected codicil he had written into his will if he had tried.
She had been so close to marriage, but now Jeremy had run like a frightened rabbit. She couldn’t prove that Kyle had engineered the job offer to get rid of Jeremy. All she knew was that he had used the same tactic twice before. Every time she got someone to agree to marry her, Kyle got rid of him.
Although why Kyle had stopped her marrying a man who had been eminently suitable, and whom she had actually liked in a lukewarm kind of way, she didn’t know. Given their antagonistic past, she had thought Kyle would have been only too glad to discharge a responsibility that had been thrust on him, and which he could not possibly want.
Just like he hadn’t wanted her.
Frowning at the thought of the brief, passionate interlude they had shared eleven years ago, she met Kyle’s gaze squarely. “Thanks, but no thanks.”
Dropping into the little sports car’s bucket seat, she snapped the door closed. The engine revved with a throaty roar. Throat tight, still unbearably ruffled that he had actually had the gall to give her a pity proposal, she put the car in gear. Spinning the car in a tight turn, she headed in the direction of the Dolphin Bay Resort, where the reception was being held.
Her jaw tightened at the thought that even the location of the reception was tainted with memories of Kyle and the one time he’d kissed her. In starting her wedding business, though, she’d had to be pragmatic. The Dolphin Bay Resort was family run and offered her a great discount. She would have been flat-out stupid not to use the venue.
Still fuming, Eva strolled into the resort to oversee the gorgeous, high-end fairy-tale wedding she had designed as a promotional centerpiece for her wedding planning business. A perfect wedding that should have been hers, if only Jeremy hadn’t cut and run.
Cancel that, she thought grimly. If only Kyle hadn’t paid Jeremy off with a lucrative job offer in sandblasted Dubai! Taking a deep breath and reaching for her usual calm control, she checked her appearance in one of the elegant mirrors that decorated the walls. The reflection that bounced back was reassuring. Lately her emotions were all over the place, she was crying at the drop of a hat, she actually wanted to watch rom-coms and she was having trouble sleeping.
None of that inner craziness showed. She looked as calm and cool and collected as she wished she felt, her mass of tawny hair smoothed into an elegant French pleat, her too curvy figure disguised by a low-key skirt and jacket in a pastel pink that matched her shoes and handbag. The businesslike but feminine image achieved a balance between the occasion and her role as planner.
More importantly, it ensured that she did not compete with the bride or other female guests in any way. She had learned that lesson at what would have been her first wedding when the groom had gotten a little too interested in her and the bride had cancelled.
Eva walked through to the ballroom where the reception was being held and lifted a hand to acknowledge the waitstaff, all of whom she knew well thanks to the half dozen weddings she had staged at Dolphin Bay. She tensed as she glimpsed commiseration in the normally businesslike gaze of the maître d’ as he mopped around an ice sculpture of swans she had recklessly commissioned because this was supposed to be her one and only wedding day.
The five-tiered extravaganza of a cake, snow-white icing sparkling with crystals and festooned with clusters of sculpted flowers so beautifully executed they looked real, stopped her brisk movement through the room. Out of the blue, the emotion she had been working hard to stamp out grabbed at her. She had wanted to make this a day she would remember all of her life. Unfortunately, that had been achieved since it would be difficult to forget that her perfect wedding now belonged to someone else.
Stomach churning with a potent cocktail of frustration, panic and a crazy vulnerability caused by the fact that Kyle seemed intent on stopping her attempts to achieve a workable, safe marriage, she spun on her heel and made a beeline for the kitchen.
Bracing herself, she pushed the double doors open and stepped into a hive of gleaming white walls and polished steel counters. The cheerful clattering and hum of conversation instantly stopped. Eva’s chest squeezed tight as waves of sympathy flowed toward her, intensifying the ache that had started in her throat and making tears burn at the back of her eyes. The jolt of emotion was crazy, given that she hadn’t loved Jeremy in the least and marriage had not been on her horizon until Mario had literally forced her to it with that clause in his will. A clause designed to railroad her into the kind of happiness he had shared with his wife and which he had thought she should also have, whether she wanted it or not.
Until she’d started planning this wedding, she had thought Mario had been utterly wrong in believing he could make her want to be married. But every detail of planning her own wedding had confronted her, throwing together the stark realities of her life and cruelly highlighting the parts she couldn’t have: the romance and the happy-ever-after ending that true love promised. Most of all, it emphasized the happy aftermath she would never experience: her own babies.
She had known since she was seventeen, thanks to a rare genetic disorder she carried, that she shouldn’t have children. The disorder had proved fatal for her twin and two siblings, which had made her doubly wary about the whole concept of marriage. There was always the possibility that she could meet someone who didn’t care about the disorder and who would be happy to adopt, but she had difficulty getting past the fact that she literally carried death in her genes.
In retrospect, it had been a huge mistake giving in to the temptation to design a wedding that patently did not go with a marriage of convenience. It smacked of wish fulfilment, and it had opened up a Pandora’s box of needs and desires she had thought she had put behind her. She should have settled for a registry office ceremony. No fuss, no bother, no emotion.
Pinning a smile on her face, she breezed through the large bustling kitchen and waved at the head chef, Jerome, a Parisian with two Michelin stars. Jerome had designed the menu personally for her. He sent her an intense look brimming with passionate outrage and sympathy, even though he knew she had managed to sell the wedding on to a couple who had been desperate to marry quickly, owing to a surprise pregnancy.
Eva flinched at the concept that her pretty young bride not only had her perfect wedding, but was also pregnant. She could not afford to dwell on the painful issue that while she could not have children, other women could, and at the drop of a hat.
Keeping her professional smile firmly fixed, Eva fished her menu out of her bag and ran through it with Jerome. For once there were no last-minute glitches. Every aspect of this wedding appeared to be abnormally perfect. After dutifully admiring the exquisite mountain of cupcakes, which Jerome was decorating—her favorite forbidden snack—she escaped back to the reception room before he could toss his icing palette knife down and pull her into a comforting bear hug.
Kyle had proposed.
The kitchen doors made a swishing sound as they swung closed behind her. Eva stared blindly at the crisp white damask on the tables, the sparkle of crystal chandeliers and lavish clusters of white roses. She did not know why Kyle had the power to upset her so. It wasn’t as if she was immersed in the painful, oversentimental first love that had gripped her at age seventeen. It wasn’t as if she still wanted him.
As the wedding guests began to spill through the doors, she rummaged in her handbag, found and slipped on a pair of the most unflattering glasses she’d been able to buy. The lenses were fake, just plain glass, but the heavy, dark rims served to deflect the attention that her good looks usually attracted.
Fixing a smile on her face, she did a brisk circuit of the main reception room, which she and her assistant, Jacinta, had dressed earlier. Waiters were loading silver trays with flutes filled with extremely good champagne she had sourced from an organic vineyard. Trays of her favorite canapés from the five-star kitchen were lined up in the servery.
The reception was heartbreakingly gorgeous. Since it was supposed to have been her own, she had put a great deal of thought into every detail, no expense spared. The only consolation was that she would be very well paid. And, in three weeks’ time, if she was still unwed, she would be in desperate need of cash in order to retain her house and keep her business afloat.
The doors to the kitchens behind her swished open as guests began to seat themselves at tables. Jacinta Doyle, her sleekly efficient personal assistant, came to stand beside her, a folder in one hand. Jacinta gave her a look laden with sympathy but, tactfully, kept things businesslike. Halfway through a list of minor details, she stopped dead. “Who is that?”
An annoying hum of awareness Eva was desperate to ignore made her tense. Adjusting the glasses, which were too heavy for her nose, she frowned at the rapidly filling room. Her mood plummeted when she saw Kyle. “Who do you mean, exactly? There must be a hundred people in the room.”
“He is hot.” Jacinta, who was hooked into the sophisticated, very modern dating scene with a new man on her arm every week, clutched dramatically at her chest before pointing Kyle out just in case Eva hadn’t noticed him. “I’m in love.”
Irritation flared, instant and unreasoning. “I thought you were dating Geraldo someone-or-other.”
“Gerard. His visa ran out, and his money.” She shrugged. “He went back to France.”
Eva pretended to be absorbed in her own checklist of things to do. “Don’t let your heart beat faster over Kyle, because you’ll be wasting your time. He’s too old for you, and he’s not exactly a fun type.”
“How old?”
The irritation morphed into something else she couldn’t quite put her finger on. “Thirty,” she muttered shortly.
“I wouldn’t call that old. More…interesting.”
Something inside Eva snapped. “Forget Kyle Messena. He isn’t available.”
Jacinta sent her a glance laced with the kind of curiosity that informed Eva she hadn’t been able to keep the sharpness out of her voice. “Kyle Messena. I thought he looked familiar. Didn’t he lose his wife and child in some kind of terrorist attack overseas? But that was years ago.” She pointedly returned her gaze to Kyle, underlining the fact that she could look at him any time she liked, for as long as she liked.
Even more annoyed by the speculation on Jacinta’s face, as if she was actually considering making a play for Kyle, Eva consulted her watch. “We’re ten minutes behind schedule,” she said crisply. “You check the timing for service with the chef. I’m going to get a cold drink then have a word with the musicians. With any luck we’ll get out of here before midnight.”
With a last glance at Kyle, Jacinta closed the folder with a resigned snap. “No problem.”
But there was a problem, Eva thought bleakly. The kind of problem she had never imagined she would suffer from ever again. For reasons she did not understand, Jacinta’s interest in Kyle had evoked the kind of fierce, primitive response she had only ever experienced once before, years ago, when she’d heard that Kyle was dating someone else.
She needed to go somewhere quiet and give herself a stern talking-to, because somehow, she had allowed the unwanted attraction to Kyle to get out of hand, to the point that she was suddenly, burningly, crazily jealous about the last man she wanted in her life.
Three
Kyle strolled to the bar, although if he were honest, the drive to get a cold beer over settling for the champagne being served had more to do with the fact that Eva was headed in that direction.
Eva’s expression chilled as he leaned on the bar next to her. The faint crease in her smooth brow as she sipped from a tall glass of what he guessed was sparkling water somehow made her look even more spectacularly gorgeous, despite the disfiguring glasses. It was a beauty he should have been accustomed to, yet it still made his stomach tighten and his attention sharpen in a completely male way.
She met his gaze briefly before looking away. An impression of defensiveness made him frown. Normally Eva was cool and distant, occasionally combative, but never defensive.
She placed the glass down on the counter with a small click. “I thought you had left.”
The unspoken words, now that you’d made sure I hadn’t secretly gotten married, seemed to hang in the air. Kyle shrugged and ordered a beer. “I decided to stick around. We still need to have a conversation.”
“If it’s about the terms of the will, forget it. I’ve read the fine print—”
“You’ve ignored the fine print.” She had certainly failed to notice that he was her primary marriage candidate.
The faint blush of color in her cheeks flared a little brighter, sharpening Kyle’s curiosity. Eva was behaving in a way that was distinctly odd. He was abruptly certain that something had happened, something had changed, although he had no idea what.
She sent him a breezy professional smile, but her whole demeanor was evasive. “If you don’t mind, I really do need to work.”
Usually, Eva was as direct and uncompromising as any man. The blush and the avoidance of eye contact didn’t fit, unless… His heart slammed against his chest, spinning him back to the long summer days they had spent on the beach as teenagers. For a split second he wondered that he had missed something so obvious. But he guessed he had been so absorbed with trying to control the desire that had come out of left field that he had failed to see that Eva was fighting the same battle.
She tried to sidestep him, but the bar area was now filling up with people, lining up for drinks. Feeling like a villain, but riveted by the discovery, he moved slightly, just enough to block her in. She stopped, a bare inch from brushing against his chest.
Kyle’s stomach tightened as he caught another whiff of Eva’s perfume. He knew he should leave her alone and let her get on with her job. But the desire to evoke a response, to make Eva admit that she wanted him, was too strong. “The whole point of Mario’s will was that he wanted you to marry someone who would actually care about you and who wasn’t in it for the money.”
“I know what Mario wanted, no one better. What I don’t get is why you’re so intent on enforcing a condition that is patently ridiculous?”
Kyle’s gaze narrowed at the way Eva carefully avoided the issue of his proposal. “You’re family.”
“Distant and only on paper. It’s not as if I’m a real Atraeus.”
Kyle’s brow’s jerked together. “Your name is Atraeus.”
Eva dragged in a breath, relieved that the unnerving sense that Kyle had seen right through her desperate attempt to seem normal and completely impervious to him had dissipated. “That doesn’t change the fact that I’m adopted. I’m not blood.” And that she could still remember what it felt like to wear secondhand clothes, eat cereal for dinner and fend off her mother’s boyfriends. She was a very poor cuckoo in a diamond-encrusted nest.
“Mario wanted to help you. He wanted you to be happy.”
She drew a breath. The clean scent of his skin deepened the panicked awareness that was humming through her. “I’m twenty-eight. I think that by now I know what it takes to be happy.”
“And that would be paying some guy to marry you?”
Eva’s brows jerked together. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but barely fifty years ago, arranged marriages were common in both the Messena and the Atraeus families.”
“Last century, maybe.”
“Then someone should have told that to Mario. And it underlines my point that a marriage of convenience is not the worst thing that could happen.” And it wasn’t as if she actually wanted to be loved. She had seen what had happened to her mother when she had become emotionally needy. Relationship train wreck followed by train wreck, the plunging depression and slow disintegration of Meg Rushton’s life. It had all been crowned by her mother’s inability to care for Eva, the one child who had survived the disorder.
A young man tried to squeeze in beside Eva. Kyle blocked him with a wolf-cold glance and a faint shift in position. In the process, his arm brushed against hers, sending a tingle of heat through her that made Eva even more desperate to get away. With grim concentration, she stared over Kyle’s broad shoulder at the bottles of spirits suspended at the rear of the bar and tried not to love the fact that Kyle’s behavior had been as bluntly possessive as if they had been a couple. That was exactly the kind of thinking she could not afford.
Kyle’s gaze, edged with irritation, captured hers. “Let’s put this in context. If a man is unscrupulous enough to take your money for marriage, chances are he won’t have a problem pressurizing you until you give in to sex.”
Eva’s heart thumped hard in her chest at the thought that Kyle could possibly have a motivation that was tied in with caring about her, that in his own hard-nosed way, he had been trying to protect her. The next thought was a dizzying, improbable leap—that Kyle had a personal interest in stopping her from having sex with other men because he wanted her.
Annoyed that she should even begin to imagine that Kyle’s concern was based on some kind of personal desire for her when she knew he regarded her as a spoiled, shallow good-time girl, she put the revelation in context. Kyle was gorgeous, megawealthy and successful, but the reality was that, like his older brothers and her macho Atraeus cousins, shunt him back a few centuries, give him a sword and buckler and he would fit right in. Just because he was being protective to the point of being intrusive didn’t mean he was attracted to her. It was just part of his DNA. “I know how to handle men. Believe me, sex will not be an issue.”
Kyle’s gaze dropped to her mouth. “Then, honey, you don’t know men very well.”
Her heart pounded a little harder, not at the implication that she was naive about men in general, but at the low, rough timbre of his voice and the sudden revelation that Kyle did find her attractive.
Eva swallowed against the sudden dryness in her throat. The fingers of her right hand curled tight against the childish urge to press the heel of her palm against the sharp pounding of her heart.
Someone else jostled her to get to the bar. Kyle said something low and curt, his arm curled around her waist as he pulled her against his side. The move was more courteous and protective than overtly sensual, but even so, another hot pang shot clear to her toes.
He released her almost immediately, but not before his gaze touched on hers, filled with unexpected knowledge. Another shockwave went through her. If she’d thought Kyle hadn’t noticed that she was still crazily attracted to him, she was wrong. He knew.
“Damn, let’s get out of here.”
Taking her hand, he forged a path through the now-busy bar, and out of the blue, memories she’d buried flooded back. Kyle’s fingers linked with hers years ago, the carefree flash of his grin as they’d escaped from the crowded party. The way the earth had stopped spinning and she’d forgotten to breathe when they had run down to the beach and long weeks of swimming and talking together had finally reached a flash point.
Breath suddenly constricted, she pulled her hand free and tried to ignore the heated tingling of the brief contact.
Kyle stopped, coincidentally, right beside the wedding cake. “You might think you can handle marriage to some guy you’ve only just met, but I know for a fact you’ve never even lived with a man.”
The memories winked out with the suddenness of a door slamming. Her temper flared at the evidence that Kyle had been prying into her life. “Just because I haven’t had a long-term relationship—”
“The way I heard it, you haven’t had any real relationships.”
She dragged off the glasses, her eyes flashing fire. “How can you know this stuff?” Although she knew the answer had to be Kyle’s younger sisters, the Messena twins, Sophie and Francesca. Over the years she had become good friends with the twins, so of course they knew exactly how her life had played out. No doubt Kyle had engaged Sophie and Francesca in some kind of casual conversation, gathering intelligence. They would not have realized that telling Kyle she didn’t go in for casual relationships would matter. “I knew it. You’ve been spying on me.”
“Checking up on you. It’s part of the brief.”
And with his military background, Kyle had a certain skill set. When he had gone into the army, she had still been lovesick enough to keep tabs on him. Not satisfied with the rank and file, he had done officer training, then had gone into the Special Air Service, the SAS. When he had been sent on his first overseas assignment, she had lost sleep for weeks, wondering if he had been wounded or even killed. Then she had learned that he had come back from the mission just fine and gotten married on his days off. It was then she had decided she would never worry about him again.
She folded her arms across her chest, glad to have that salutary reminder about just how meaningless that long-ago holiday romance and kiss on the beach had been. “I am not a job.”
“No.” He stared at the monster cake with a faintly incredulous gaze. “You’re a pain in the butt.”
Her chin shot up. “Then why do the job?”
“Believe me, if Mario had chosen someone else, I would have been more than happy.”
“Ditto.”
A muscle jerked fascinatingly along the side of his jaw. Bolstered by the unmistakable sign of tension, Eva delivered the only ultimatum she had. “Then unless you want to keep tabs on me for the next thirteen years as my trustee, maybe you should let me get on with the business of getting married.”
“Troy Kendal will never marry you.”
She should have been shocked by the flat pronouncement, but in a weird way, after the relentless research he had conducted into all of her other grooms, she had half expected him to find out. “You don’t know that.”
The resolute quality of his gaze, as if he would let her marry Troy over his dead body, sent a forbidden little thrill through her. She drew a breath in an effort to still the rapid pounding of her heart. Something was definitely, seriously wrong with her. She should have been angry, desperate. She shouldn’t like it that Kyle was systematically getting rid of her grooms.
She slid her glasses back onto the bridge of her nose, suddenly needing the camouflage. “This conversation is over. I have a business to run.”
Kyle dragged his gaze from the mesmerizing sight of Eva walking away, gripping her official clipboard. His frown deepened when he noted a familiar figure giving him the kind of narrowed, assessing stare he had gotten used to over the past few months. Kendal was new on the list of men Eva had dated since Mario had died. He also deviated from the pattern of older, biddable admirers Eva had approached in order to find a manageable, paid husband.
Kendal was twenty-four, which made him younger than Eva by four years. He was also a well-known professional rugby player with a list of stormy liaisons behind him. Recently, Kendal had been sidelined by injury and had missed the cut for the new season, which meant his career was stalled. According to the research Kyle had done, he was also currently strapped for cash.
His jaw tightened as Kendal slung his arm around Eva’s waist. He knew exactly where and when Eva had picked Kendal up, because he had conducted the surveillance himself. It was four nights ago at a trendy singles bar in downtown Auckland.
He relaxed marginally as Eva detached Kendal’s arm with the kind of brisk efficiency that spelled out loud and clear that whatever bargain she had struck with Kendal, it was purely business. Which suited Kyle, since Kendal had the kind of reputation with women that sent a cold itch down his spine.
Kyle found a seat in the shadow of a large indoor palm, where he could keep an eye on Eva and Troy. Taking out his phone, he made a call to a contact. His family’s bank poured a lot of money into sponsoring professional rugby. A few minutes later, after pledging a further personal donation from his own funds, contingent on a contract offer to Kendal, he hung up.
A waiter placed a plate of food in front of him. Kyle ate without tasting, intent on Kendal as the man took a call on his cell. Minutes later, Kendal left the wedding with a pretty blonde who had been seated at his table.
Kyle’s phone buzzed. After receiving confirmation that Kendal had verbally accepted a contract offer, he terminated the call and sat back in his chair.
Eva wouldn’t be happy with him. She was smart and would know exactly what he had done, but Kyle couldn’t regret getting rid of Kendal. He was the kind of unsavory guy he wouldn’t trust with any of the women he knew, family or not.
With Kendal now out of the picture, Eva’s last marriage scheme had just collapsed.
The thought filled him with relief. If Eva had picked someone she could love, he would not have intervened. Instead, she had chosen a list of controllable men who really did just want money. Losers who were not immune to the fact that Eva was drop-dead gorgeous and distractingly sexy. Kyle knew exactly how the masculine mind worked. Platonic agreement or not, it would have only been a matter of time before Eva would have found herself maneuvered into bed.
His stomach tightened on a hot punch of emotion.
Over his dead body.
Kendal sliding his arm around Eva’s waist had sealed his decision in stone.
Eva had turned him down, but in the space of an hour the game had changed. She wanted him. Up until now he had been content to keep his distance and let Eva exhaust her options, but now he was no longer prepared to stand back or let any other man enter the picture. She would accept his proposal; it was just a matter of time.
Eva was his.
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