Bride By Design

She drew in a sharp breath and for a moment he thought she was going to throw her teacup at him. He watched with fascination as the color rose in her cheeks, as she fought for and regained self-control. So she wasn’t quite as chilly as she’d seemed; the glacier appeared to have a crack or two.

“Neither,” she snapped.

“That’s good. I’ve never given much thought to the idea of raising kids, but I guess if I was stuck with a couple of rug rats I’d rather they be mine.”

He could almost hear the tinkle of ice in her voice. “You certainly won’t have to worry about rug rats.”

“You’re pretty certain I’m going to agree to this crazy plan.”

“It would be very foolish of you to walk away. To be Henry Birmingham’s hand-picked successor is a solid-gold opportunity.”

“I wonder what he’d do if I turned him down,” David mused.

Eve shrugged. “Probably work his way on through his list.”

“What list?” He recalled a comment Henry had made almost carelessly. At the time David had been too flattered by the idea that the king of jewelry design had noticed him at all to pay much attention to the details. But suddenly he remembered the remark all too well. Henry hadn’t just told David he was talented. He’d said something about him being one of the three best young designers in the country. So Henry had a list of three…at least.

Eve’s gaze flicked over him. “Don’t take it personally. You can’t think you’re the only gifted young man in the country. Or that Henry would gamble the future of his business on the first man who seemed to meet his specifications, without looking any further.”

“How far down his list was I?”

“I don’t know exactly.” Her voice was calm and level.

“I see. That’s one of the few things he didn’t share with you.”

“Quite right. If it makes you feel any better, you’re the first one he’s asked me to meet.”

So if there had been others higher on Henry’s list, they hadn’t passed all the hidden tests along the way. “That’s a relief. I think.”

“Anyway, now that he’s made the offer, it doesn’t matter where you ranked. Any designer with sense wouldn’t worry about how his number happened to come up, he’d gladly give an arm for this opportunity.”

“Actually,” David mused, “you’re wrong about that. Henry isn’t asking for an arm—just a rib.”

She fidgeted with her teacup, turning it ’round and ’round on the saucer. “As far as that goes,” she said. Her voice was different, almost hesitant, and he was intrigued. “I don’t expect there would be much contact, really. We’d have to share a house, I suppose.”

“I think Henry would notice if we were living in separate suburbs, yes.”

“But I don’t see any reason why we couldn’t be civil about it.”

“Roommates,” he said thoughtfully.

“If you want to put it that way. And what he’s asking is nothing, really, weighed against Birmingham on State.”

It all came back to the business, David knew. Eve was absolutely right. Henry Birmingham’s offer presented a chance he could never have achieved on his own. It was an opportunity he could not refuse, whatever the cost—because to turn it down would be to sacrifice his dreams and throw away his talent. There would never be another opening like this.

He looked across the table at her and felt his future shift—as if he had slid into some kind of time warp—and settle into a new pattern. A pattern that included Birmingham on State. And Eve.

“Let’s have lunch,” he said, “and plan a wedding.”

Not that there was much to plan as far as the wedding went, and Eve thought it best to make that clear from the beginning. “I don’t intend to play silly games,” she said. “There will be no white satin beaded with pearls, no train-bearers, no morning suits and spats, no orange blossoms, and no—”

“No illusion.”

She looked at him sharply, studying him for the first time. He was good-looking enough, though perhaps his face was just a little too roughly cut to be considered exactly handsome. He had ordinary brown hair and anything-but-ordinary brown eyes, flecked with gold and surrounded by long, curly lashes. And the air of self-confidence he projected gave him a certain presence.

“Isn’t that what they call the stuff they make veils out of? Illusion?” He sounded quite innocent, but there was more of an Atlanta drawl in his voice than Eve had detected before. “I’m sure I’ve heard that somewhere.”

No illusions…. That was what he’d meant, of course. But since it was exactly what she’d been getting at, Eve could hardly take offense. “None. Also no bridesmaids, no wedding cake in little decorated boxes for guests to take home, no romantic first waltz, no garter to remove and throw to the bachelors in the crowd—”

“Now why doesn’t that surprise me,” he said.

It obviously hadn’t been a question, but Eve thought she saw puzzlement as well as a tinge of relief in his eyes. The puzzlement annoyed her just a little. Did he really believe that the height of every young woman’s ambition was an elaborate wedding ceremony, no matter what circumstances lay behind the marriage?

The relief he displayed, however, she had no trouble understanding. She didn’t doubt that if she insisted he would have agreed to the most formal wedding ever organized —even if he’d had to grit his teeth and get half smashed to make it through the ceremony—for no price would be too high in return for what he was getting. A wedding was only one day. Birmingham on State would be forever.

But Eve was glad that she’d thought it all through ahead of time and made her decision. Their reasons for marrying were perfectly good ones, but the world would never understand them. And standing in front of an altar, making solemn religious vows and pretending starry-eyed love—or even fondness—that they didn’t feel, would be sheer hypocrisy. Far better to have a low key and private civil ceremony, and let the world think what it liked.

“And, of course, no guest lists of thousands,” she finished. “So if your mother is the managing type who’ll be disappointed that she isn’t the general in charge of an extravaganza, you can tell her from me that it isn’t going to happen.”

“She died when I was eighteen,” David said quietly.

Eve caught her breath with a painful gulp. “I’m sorry. I let myself get carried away, and I never stopped to think…”

“You couldn’t have known.” He toyed with a bread stick. “You didn’t mention a ring in that catalog of traditions you don’t plan to indulge in.” He was looking appraisingly at her left hand, which was lying cupped on the red-checked tablecloth.

She looked down at her bare fingers and summoned all her self-control to keep from moving her hand out of sight. “If you’re already turning over designs in your head for some stunning engagement ring, don’t bother.”

He frowned. “You don’t want a ring? Henry Birmingham’s granddaughter not wear an engagement ring? Besides, it’s what I do, Eve. People would expect—” He stopped suddenly.

“Exactly. And while you were creating it you’d be thinking not of what I liked or wanted, because you don’t even know that. You’d be thinking of the impression it would make on the people who saw it. Thanks, but I’d just as soon not be a walking billboard.”

“Dammit, Eve, you’re making some pretty big assumptions here—such as concluding that I wouldn’t even ask what you’d like to wear.”

“You want to know? Fine, I’ll tell you. I want a platinum band.”

“Much better for your coloring than gold. What about a stone? A diamond, or would you rather have color?”

“Just a band. A plain platinum band. No diamond, no decoration.”

He looked at her for a long moment, and then he said, sounding grim, “Purely utilitarian. Just like the marriage. I’m beginning to get the picture.”

“Good,” she said. “Because then we understand each other.” And, with her hand shaking only a very little, she picked up her cup and sipped her lukewarm tea.

CHAPTER TWO

EVE arrived at the airport a full hour before David’s plane was due to land.

A whole hour to kill, she thought as she settled into the area set aside for greeting incoming passengers. It was just a good thing David would never know how early she was. He might conclude that she’d been in a rush because she was anxious to see him, when the truth was that she had merely been escaping from Henry—and spending an hour in a lounge at O’Hare was a small price to pay if it meant she didn’t have to deal with her grandfather for a while.

The fifth time this afternoon that Henry had put his head into her office to ask if she’d heard from David yet today, Eve had lost her temper. “He’s a grown man, Henry. He can get himself onto a plane without directions from me. I’ve ordered a limo to meet him at O’Hare, and the driver has full instructions to take him to the hotel so he can drop off his luggage, then bring him to the store. What else do you want?”

“That just doesn’t seem very friendly, somehow,” Henry said. “I mean, the boy’s making a big change by coming out here. Giving up a lot.”

“I’m sure he feels quite comfortable about the sacrifice he’s making.” Eve didn’t bother to keep the sarcasm out of her voice.

“We want him to feel good about the decision.”

“That’s why I called the limo service instead of suggesting the hotel shuttle or a cab. If you don’t think that’s enough, why don’t you go meet him?”

“Well, I could, I suppose. But what about you? It’s been a whole month since you’ve seen him, Eve. Greeting him here on the sales floor—in front of the staff and all—just doesn’t seem right.”

“You needn’t worry about a public display of affection embarrassing the staff.” Eve shuffled papers and bent her head over her desk once more.

Henry ignored the hint. “Why don’t you take the rest of the afternoon off and go meet him? And don’t worry about bringing him back here. Tomorrow will be soon enough for him to start getting acquainted with the details.”

“I’m busy, Henry.”

“Too busy to greet your fiancé? All right, my dear. If you can’t break away, you can’t.”

Eve folded her arms and looked at him suspiciously. When Henry started sounding saintly, it was generally time to duck for cover.

He sat down opposite her desk and gestured at the papers scattered across her desk. “So tell me about this ad campaign we’re going to be running.” His eyes were bright and expectant.

Eve was stuck, and she knew it. The truth was that if she’d had to take a quiz on the new slogans which the ad agency had suggested to promote Birmingham on State, she would have flunked, despite the fact that she’d been looking at the ad mockups all afternoon.

And it was apparent Henry knew it, too. Something about the solid way he was occupying the chair said he’d planted himself for the rest of the afternoon—or as long as it took to drive her out.

“Fine,” she said, pushing her papers away. “I’ll go to the airport. I don’t know why I’m going, as I’m fairly sure David will be able to recognize his own name on the sign the limo driver will be holding up. But since you insist—”

“Don’t hurry back,” Henry suggested. “Show him around the city a little, introduce him to his new home.”

“I am not a tour guide.”

“Then take him out for dinner. Everybody’s got to eat.”

After that, Eve couldn’t wait to get out of the store before Henry could add to his list. And just in case he had afterthoughts, she turned off her cell phone as she went out the door.

Unfortunately, the cab she hailed just outside the store made record time on the freeway, and so here she was—sitting in a lounge at O’Hare with sixty minutes to waste. She hadn’t even had the sense to bundle the ad campaign into a briefcase to bring along, so she had nothing to do but think.

And thinking too much, she had long ago discovered, could be a dangerous activity. She had tried not to think about David in the last month, since he’d caught his plane back to Atlanta after their fateful lunch. The idea that in less than a week she was going to commit herself for life to a total stranger was just too much to contemplate.

Well, not quite a total stranger, she reflected. They’d talked on the phone several times.

Though it might be more accurate to say a few times.

“As long as you’re being truthful,” she muttered, “you might as well admit you’ve only exchanged words with him three times since you agreed to marry him.”

And those occasions had been when Henry had handed her the phone. Neither Eve nor David had initiated the contacts, and the conversations had been terse and stilted. The fact was that they didn’t know each other any better now than they had when they’d struck their bargain.

Not that it mattered much how well they knew each other, she reminded herself. Even though the actual wedding was still a few days off, they were committed. The legal papers regarding Birmingham on State were drawn, waiting only to be signed. The marriage license was ready.

David wouldn’t back out, that was certain. Once the business had been placed within his reach, he would have married a boa constrictor rather than let the business slip away.

And as for Eve…

She had made up her mind months ago, when Henry had first hinted at his plan. Long before she’d ever met David Elliot. Since it didn’t matter to her anymore who she married, she might as well please her grandfather and preserve the business which meant so much to both of them. So she had made a conscious decision to trust Henry’s judgment.

Not that it had been such an enormous leap of faith to believe in her grandfather’s wisdom, because one thing was dead certain: the man Henry had selected for her couldn’t possibly turn out to be a more unfortunate choice than her own had.

Travis...

Allowing herself to think about Travis Tate was like probing a sensitive spot on a tooth. The pain was no longer constant, as it had been in the beginning. But the agony of grief and loss could flare up—as it had today—at the slightest reminder, without warning and without giving her any chance to brace herself against it.

Still, it was a little easier to bear now. With time, Eve told herself, perhaps it would recede even more, until someday it might be nothing more than a low-level but ever-present heartache. And it was a little comfort—though very little—to know that she had done the right thing. As much as the decision had hurt, she couldn’t have lived with herself had she done anything else.

A woman sitting nearby tossed a magazine toward the wastebasket—but missed—as she went to greet a passenger. Eve watched them walk toward the door, then picked up the discarded magazine and began to flip through the pages, hardly seeing the articles. Every few minutes a new gush of passengers came down the concourse, and she glanced up not at them but at the monitor overhead, where the flight from Atlanta was still listed as expected to arrive on time.

There was no question in her mind that she had made the right choice—the only choice—where Travis was concerned. But that didn’t mean she could ever put it all behind her.

A woman couldn’t stop loving someone simply because he was out of her reach. Caring wasn’t like a faucet, to be turned on and off at will. It was more like an artesian spring bubbling up when and where it willed, unstopping and unstoppable.

Of course, the fact that she had given her heart so completely to Travis meant there was no chance of another love in her life. Eve had accepted that, but it wasn’t something she cared to explain. Even Henry didn’t know the entire story, and she wasn’t about to tell every man who invited her out for dinner that she could never be interested in him because she was permanently and forever in love with someone else.

As a matter of fact, in the months since she had made her decision about Travis, it had been even more difficult than usual for her to remain aloof from other men. The male of the species seemed to find the world-weary and obviously uninterested Eve more attractive—or perhaps just more of a challenge—than ever before.

I have my reasons, she had told David, for wanting the protection of a wedding ring. Once married, she would no longer have to be on guard every instant for fear that some man would think she was flirting, leading him on, indicating an interest she was far from feeling.

The possibility that she was interested in him would never occur to David, of course, because he knew better. That was why he would make such an ideal husband. The bargain they had struck certainly wasn’t doing him any harm—the benefits he was getting from the marriage were immense. And since neither of them was under any illusion that their marriage would ever be anything verging on romance, there would be no need to pretend or to be on guard against a slip of the tongue or an action that might be misinterpreted.

Not even Henry was unrealistic enough to hope that they had fallen in love at first sight. Or that they’d do so any other time along the way, either. And though he’d no doubt be saddened when he realized, somewhere down the road, that the heir he hoped for wasn’t going to materialize—well, even the most intimate of marriages didn’t always produce offspring. Being childless didn’t prove anything.

The arrangement was perfect, Eve told herself. And the case of nerves that she was suffering was nothing more than any woman felt on taking such an irrevocable action. It didn’t indicate doubt.

In fact, she wished that she’d been able to convince Henry to hold the wedding tonight and have it over with. What was the sense of waiting any longer?

Another stream of passengers strode by, but Eve was paying no attention. She was watching a man in a dark blue uniform who had just taken up his stance at the edge of the waiting area, holding a sign that said Elliot. The limo driver, right on time.

It would be pretty funny, Eve thought, if David spotted the driver but walked right past her. For a moment, she toyed with the idea of staying where she was, her magazine hiding her face, and waiting until they’d gone. She could always tell Henry that she’d missed David in all the airport traffic….

A passenger stopped abruptly beside her, momentarily blocking the man behind him and making him dodge and swear, but Eve didn’t notice him at all until he spoke softly. “Eve?”

She jerked around to face him. That voice, she thought. It can’t be— “Travis?”

“Eve,” he said, and there was a tremor in his usually smooth voice. “My darling Eve. How did you know…from my secretary, of course. That’s how you found out I’d be coming in today. I didn’t know you were keeping in touch with her.”

She shook her head. But she couldn’t keep herself from looking at him, drinking in the sight of him. He looked more elegant than ever, she thought, his tailoring perfect and every white-blond hair in place, with a trench coat slung casually over his arm and a slim alligator-skin sample case in one hand.

“I didn’t dare to hope,” he said, and his voice cracked. “I’ve longed for you so, my darling. I’ve tried to do as you asked. I’ve tried so hard, but it simply hasn’t worked. I can’t stop thinking of you, dreaming of you, wanting you. And you obviously can’t forget me either, or you wouldn’t be here to meet me.” He sounded triumphant. “Let me hear you say it, Eve. Tell me you’re here because you’ve changed your mind.”

If only I could change my mind, she thought, but I can’t—because nothing is different. She summoned every ounce of courage and self-control she possessed. “I’m not here to meet you, Travis.”

He seemed to falter for an instant before regaining his conviction. “But of course you are. Why else would you be sitting here?” He put out an arm as if to draw her against him. “It’s not exactly the hot spot of the city.”

The agony and the uncertainty and the self-questioning that had haunted Eve in the days while she was making her decision swept over her again in waves. It was all starting over again, she thought in despair. She felt herself wavering, moved by the way his voice had trembled with earnestness. Perhaps she’d been wrong after all to turn her back on what they’d shared, to deny them the chance at a life together….

No, she told herself firmly. Her decision, made with such grief and pain and logic, could not have been wrong. This momentary vacillation was the madness.

But how was she going to convince Travis of that, when she was having trouble persuading herself?

Something beyond Travis caught her eye, and she looked over his shoulder at a passenger who was coming down the concourse. A tall, broad-shouldered, ever-so-slightly rumpled passenger—but then David wasn’t in the habit, as Travis was, of spending hours every day on airliners.

David, she thought, and relief surged through her.

She tossed aside the magazine she’d been holding, ducked past Travis, and ran to meet David. She saw his eyebrows go up slightly just as she flung herself against him with her face lifted to his. “Kiss me,” she said in an urgent undertone.

He dropped his briefcase, his arms closed around her, and his mouth came down, hard and demanding, on hers.

This is a good man to have around in an emergency, Eve thought. No questions, no hesitation, just prompt and effective action.

His first kiss was long and deep and hot, the assured embrace of a lover who hadn’t the slightest doubt that his caress would be welcomed and encouraged. Very effective action, in fact. Eve was feeling a little shaky herself, and she couldn’t begin to imagine what this must look like to a casual observer.

David ended the kiss, held her a fraction of an inch away from him for a moment, and then, as if she had stirred a hunger that wouldn’t allow him to let her go, pulled her even closer, wrapping her more tightly in his arms, and kissed her as if the first caress had been only a casual greeting.

By the time he finally raised his head, Eve’s brain was as full of static as a badly tuned radio. She could hear bits of conversation from people in the concourse, but she was having trouble making sense of the words. “Lucky guy,” one man observed in a low tone. “That’s quite a welcome home, buddy.” And a woman sniffed and said to her companion, “Really! Did you see where he’d put his hands? These young people—don’t they realize others aren’t interested in watching their bedroom acrobatics in public?”

That at least answered her question about how their display had appeared to bystanders, Eve thought philosophically.

Trying not to be obvious about it, she glanced over her shoulder, but she couldn’t catch sight of Travis.

“If you’re looking for the guy you were talking to,” David said, “he stuck around to watch for a bit, then he just melted away. I’m assuming, of course, that was the desired effect.”

He sounded as calm as if he’d just given her a peck on the cheek. And he still had hold of her arm, as if he was afraid she’d collapse if he let go.

“I’m perfectly capable of standing up on my own,” Eve said.

He immediately let go of her and stooped to pick up the thick, well-worn briefcase he’d dropped when she flung herself against him. “Don’t forget your magazine.”

“What? Oh, it’s not mine.”

“Really? When I first caught sight of you, you were holding it as if you were defending it with your life. Or maybe more like it was a shield to protect you. I don’t suppose you’d like to tell me what that little scene was all about.”

No, Eve thought, and almost said so before she realized that it was absolutely necessary to give him some kind of explanation. “It was just…” She stopped. “He was just somebody that I thought shouldn’t know about our…our…”

“Our little agreement,” David said helpfully. “You know, I was already starting to wonder whether you weren’t being too optimistic about how much of a public image we’ll have to maintain in order to be convincing as a married couple. Merely sharing living space might satisfy Henry for the moment, but what about other people? Like…whoever it was you were impressing there.”