Thirty Days to Win His Wife

They’d take care of the divorce. That was why he was here at his first opportunity. Despite what Amelia might think, Tyler wasn’t deliberately dragging his feet. Although, if he was honest with himself, there was a part of him that was sad that he’d never get to touch those soft curves again. He’d always been happy to be Amelia’s friend, but he wouldn’t mind spending a little more time exploring her body before they went back to being just friends. He’d only had one brief taste, and that wasn’t nearly enough for a woman like her.

But in the end, he knew their friendship would outweigh his erection. Amelia was the most important person in his life and he wouldn’t risk that, even to make love to her again. She wasn’t just his best friend; she was a driving force in his life. As a kid, he’d been a nobody lost in the chaos of his large family. At school, he’d been just as invisible. Amelia had seen him when no one else did. She’d seen his potential and lit a fire in him to make something of himself. Over the past ten years he had built up his own company, dealing in precious gems and antiquities. He lived a lifestyle he never could’ve imagined as a poor kid growing up in Vegas. Amelia had made him believe he could do all those things.

No, he wouldn’t risk his friendship with her for the greatest sex ever had in the whole universe.

Tyler looked up to see Amelia watching him from the doorway. She didn’t run and leap into his arms, but at this point, he was no longer expecting an enthusiastic greeting. He was just happy she hadn’t left him standing out here indefinitely.

She took a few hesitant steps into the room, not speaking at all. She looked amazing today. There was a glow about her that lured his gaze to travel over her body, admiring the fit of her sweater dress. The dark purple tunic was gathered beneath her ample breasts and flowed to her knee. She was wearing black leggings and boots with it that enhanced her shapely legs.

The deep V of the dress’s neckline displayed an amethyst pendant he’d sent her for her birthday. The fat teardrop gemstone fell just at her cleavage, drawing his eyes to her breasts. Amelia was petite in many ways, but the Lord had blessed her with enough assets for three women.

He knew he shouldn’t look, but the memories of their wedding night rushed into his brain, and he couldn’t turn away. In an instant, he could see her naked body sprawled across the hotel bed. His palms tingled with the memory of running his hands over every inch of her flawless porcelain skin. Tasting those breasts. Hearing her cries echo through the room.

The lobby was suddenly very warm. It was a cruel trick of the fates to give him a woman so desirable for a wife, then not let him keep her. And he couldn’t keep her. He had to remind himself of that. They’d only disappoint one another and ruin their friendship.

“Hey, Ames,” he said, finally meeting her gaze.

She swallowed hard, watching him warily. With her big dark brown eyes, she almost looked like a doe, easily spooked by any sudden movements. He hated that. She’d never looked at him with anything other than adoration and love before. He supposed getting married had ruined that. This was just his first taste of what it would be like to be in a real relationship with his demanding, high-maintenance best friend. The honeymoon was barely over and he was already in trouble. He definitely shouldn’t have waited this long to talk to her.

“What are you doing here, Tyler?”

Apparently they were skipping the pleasantries. “I came to talk to you.”

Her arms crossed over her chest, her breasts nearly spilling from the dress with the movement. “Now you want to talk? What about the past few weeks when I’ve tried to get hold of you and you just blew me off? When I wanted to talk to you, all this didn’t seem to matter. Am I just supposed to drop everything to talk to you now because you’ve decided you’re ready to deal with this mess?”

Tyler’s lips twisted in thought, his hand rubbing over the rough stubble on his chin. Now did not seem like the time to try to convince her it wasn’t a big deal. She had always been a very emotional person, her temper as easily lit as the flames of her red hair. He’d seen her unleash that fury on past boyfriends and he didn’t ever want to be the recipient. “I’m sorry I didn’t get back with you. I needed to take care of a few things.”

“And I needed you to talk to me!” She took several steps toward him, a strand of auburn hair falling from its clip to frame her face. A red flush rushed to her cheeks and décolletage, marring her pale, creamy skin. “We’re married, Tyler. Married! You can’t just keep ignoring this. As much as I’d like to pretend this never happened, we’ve got to deal with it. Talk about it. Of all the times to ignore me for business, this is the wrong time.”

“I know.” He held out his hands in an appeasing gesture. It hurt him to hear how distraught she was over their situation, but there was nothing to be done. Business was a priority over a fake marriage, even with his best friend. “I should’ve called, I know. I’m sorry. I hopped a flight out here as soon as I could so we could deal with this in person.”

That seemed to calm her down. Her hands fell to her sides, the tension in her shoulders relaxing. Even then, there was a concern lining her eyes. Something was wrong. More than just her irritation with him. He knew Amelia better than anyone else on the planet. A thousand miles apart, he could detect that she was upset over the phone. In person, it was hard to ignore that something wasn’t right.

She crossed her arms over her chest, and he noticed she wasn’t wearing her wedding ring. He could feel his own wedding band encircling his finger. He didn’t know why, but he’d worn it faithfully since the ceremony. Somehow it felt tighter and more irritating when he knew he was the only one wearing it. “Where’s your ring?” he asked.

“It’s at home in my jewelry box. Until five minutes ago, no one knew I was married, Tyler. I can’t strut around here with that giant rock on my hand and not get a million questions.”

She was right about that. Subtlety was thrown out the window after you moved past a couple carats. Her ring was a flawless eight-carat D-color cushion-cut diamond. He’d purchased it a few weeks before the reunion and had been taking it, and a selection of other jewels, with him to LA for a potential buyer. The reunion had only been possible because he could fit it in on his way. When they’d scrambled for last-minute wedding rings, he’d pulled it from the hotel vault. They’d agreed that when the prank was done, she’d return it.

“I’ve wanted to keep this whole situation pretty quiet,” she continued. “The fewer people that know, the better. What’s an adventure to us is a ridiculous mistake to others.”

That was probably true. He slipped his own ring off and dropped it into his lapel pocket, noting how his finger suddenly felt naked. It was amazing how easily he’d adjusted to wearing that ring. He’d only gotten close to putting one on the one time, years ago, and since then he hadn’t given much thought to it. “Is there any way we can go somewhere to talk?” He glanced down at his watch. “It’s still early. I’ll take you out for pancakes, my treat.”

Her face fell into another frown, this time with her delicate brow furrowing. “I can’t right now, Tyler. I’m supposed to be in a staff meeting. You may be able to work whenever and wherever you want, but I’m not a jewel dealer that zips around the country whenever I please. I run a business with partners that count on me. And on Mondays, we have a standing meeting.”

“I’m sure they’d understand. Come on, Ames. It will be like senior ditch day all over again. We can have eggs and sausage and pancakes. Maple syrup. I caught a dawn flight from LaGuardia and came straight here without eating anything. I’m starving.”

Amelia’s eyes narrowed for a moment, then widened with a touch of concern. Her free hand flew to her mouth. “Shut up about the food,” she said.

“What?” What did he say that was so offensive? Breakfast was hardly an unpleasant concept.

“I said, shut up, please.” Her eyes were squeezed tightly shut, her muscles tense as she fought for control. It concerned him. He wanted to run to her, do something, but he didn’t think the gesture would be welcome.

After a moment, she took a deep breath and seemed to recover. “I can’t talk to you right now, Tyler. You just show up out of the blue with no thought to my schedule. I’m not fifteen anymore. I will meet with you, but you’ve got to respect the plans I have. I can meet you for lunch if you want.”

He nodded, knowing she was right. His schedule was flexible, but to assume the same of hers was inconsiderate. “Whatever you need to do, Ames. I’ll take you for barbecue, if you want. I haven’t had some good ribs in a long time.”

She started to nod, then froze as a look of panic spread across her face. “I—” she began, then turned on her heel and dashed around the corner.

Tyler started to follow her but stopped when he heard the unpleasant sound of retching. Apparently barbecue was not terribly appealing to her.

She returned a moment later, her face flushed and her eyes watery. “I’m sorry about that.”

Why was she apologizing? “Are you okay? Did you eat something bad?”

She shook her head, a somber expression in her eyes. “No,” she said. “I’m fine. I’m just...pregnant.”

Two

This was a bad dream.

This was not how her life was supposed to go. Not how this moment was supposed to be. Her first child was supposed to be a blessed occasion. She was supposed to be joyous, not nauseous. Telling her husband the news should be a gloriously happy moment.

Gloriously happy were not the words she would use to describe the look on Tyler’s face. His square jaw was slack, his pale blue eyes wide with panic. Not even his expensive suit could keep her superconfident, successful best friend from instantly transforming back into the startled, unsure teen on his first day at a new school.

She still remembered the day her father, the principal at El Dorado High School, had walked into her freshman English class with a new student in tow. She’d pointed out an empty seat beside her and befriended the new boy. It was the best decision she’d ever made. Tyler was the best friend a girl could have.

Today, looking at that same lost expression on his face, she didn’t know what to do. Hugging him seemed awkward considering the state of their physical relationship and the legal ramifications of their marriage. She didn’t have any words of comfort or wisdom to offer. If she did, she’d say them to herself. She was still reeling from the morning’s dose of unexpected news.

She was pregnant with Tyler’s baby. She just couldn’t figure out how something like that could be possible. From the moment she’d seen the two pink lines on the pregnancy test this morning until she’d announced it to him, it had felt surreal. She loved Tyler more than anyone else. She’d known him since she was fourteen. But having his baby had never been a part of her plan. And Amelia had big plans.

Apparently, it wasn’t part of his plans, either. Before she made her announcement, his gaze had drifted over her body, bringing a flush to her cheeks. It didn’t take much to realize that he was mentally reliving their night together. She understood. Seeing him standing there in his tailored suit with that charming smile had made it hard for her to remember she was supposed to be irritated with him.

Now all he could do was stare at her midsection, looking desperately for some kind of evidence that she was wrong. She wished she were wrong, but she hadn’t needed that test to know the truth. It had only confirmed what the past few days’ misery had made abundantly clear.

“Say something,” she pressed at last.

Tyler cleared his throat and nodded, her words snapping him back into the moment. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I wasn’t expecting...” His voice trailed off.

“I don’t think either of us was expecting any of this. Especially me being pregnant.” Or her throwing up into the lobby trash can. “But what’s done is done. As much as I’d like to go back in time and change things, we can’t. Now we have to figure out what we’re going to do.”

She needed his input desperately because she didn’t know what to do. In any other scenario, Tyler would’ve been the one Amelia ran to for support and advice. If she’d found herself pregnant by another man, he’d be the first person she called in a panic. He would be the one to talk her down and tell her everything was okay. But it was his baby, and somehow that made everything more difficult.

“So do you still need to go to your meeting?” he asked.

Now that the baby was out of the bag, so to speak, the meeting didn’t seem as critical. Her stubbornness had really been more from irritation about his disregard for her plans than anything else. She loved Tyler, but sometimes he forgot he wasn’t the CEO of everything and everyone. He’d steamroll people if they let him. Amelia was one person who never let him.

The meeting wasn’t her number one priority at the moment. She could catch up on the high points later. It was more important to talk to Tyler about what they were going to do. She needed a story, a plan, before she faced her friends again and had to tell them what was going on in any depth whatsoever. They’d be like a firing squad, lobbing questions at her that she didn’t have any answers for. Yet.

“No, let’s just...” She eyed her office, and her gaze strayed to the open doors of the wedding chapel just beyond it.

The white-and-gray chapel was so elegant. Beautifully detailed, yet understated enough not to upstage the bride or her chosen decor. Since the day construction was completed, Amelia had envisioned herself getting married in that same chapel wearing a strapless ivory Pnina Tornai gown. She could easily picture sprays of white and pink roses filling the room with their delicate fragrance. The rows of friends and family crying happy tears.

That was the way her big day was supposed to be. Not at 1:00 a.m. in the Li’l Chapel of Love with the pink bismuth–colored upholstery and dusty silk flower arrangements. She’d been wearing a black cocktail dress, for chrissake. Married in black! No old, no new, no borrowed, no blue. It was blasphemous. And obviously very bad luck. The whole thing made her want to curl into a ball and cry the tears of a five-year-old who’d had her dreams destroyed.

Her office was a convenient place to talk, but the sudden urge to get as far away from the chapel as possible nearly overwhelmed her. “Just get me out of here,” she said.

“You got it.”

She moved quickly, slipping into the coat she’d hung nearby. She should tell the others she was leaving, but she didn’t dare stick her head back in the conference room. She’d text Gretchen once they were on the road and let them know she’d be back later.

They walked out of From This Moment together, Tyler holding the door for her like he always did. He led her through the parking lot to a black BMW parked out front.

“Nice rental,” she said. Whenever she flew somewhere, she usually ended up with some tiny compact car, not a luxury car. That was the difference between her and Tyler, with his jet-set lifestyle and wealthy business associates.

“It’s okay,” he said, opening the door to the passenger side. “I wanted an Audi, but they didn’t have any available.”

“Aw, you poor thing,” she muttered as she climbed inside. Such a hardship. The leather interior was soft, and the car smelled brand-new. Fresh from the factory. She hadn’t experienced that in a long time. She was still driving the little crossover she’d saved up for after graduation. It was ideal for hauling catering supplies, but it was more practical than posh.

It must be nice to have money. She’d never really had a lot. Her father was a math teacher turned high school principal and the sole breadwinner in the family. He did okay, but she’d never considered her family to be more than middle class. As an adult, every penny of her own had gone into making From This Moment a success. Tyler had had even less when they were kids. He was one of six kids in a family that could barely feed two despite his parents’ best efforts.

Driving a brand-new BMW around had been a pipe dream when they were kids. Tyler had done well for himself over the years. No one was prouder than she was of everything he’d accomplished. If he could get his eyes off his smartphone and stay in the country for more than a day at a time, he would make some woman a great husband one day. She just couldn’t fathom that person being her.

“Where are we headed?” he asked.

“There’s a coffee shop a few blocks up, if that’s okay.”

“Sure.” Tyler started the car, pulled out of the parking lot and headed in the direction she’d pointed. A nearby commercial district had restaurants and coffee shops where they could sit down and talk. Considering the state of her stomach, she would pass on the food, but she could get some hot tea. And maybe, if that went okay, a scone.

They didn’t speak in the car on the way there, which was odd for them. They always had a million things to catch up on. They could talk for hours about anything and everything. Now, as she feared, there was tension between them. Sex changed things, as she’d known it would. She’d never wanted their relationship to cross that line for that very reason.

She sighed and looked out the window instead. There would be plenty of things to say, but she could tell neither of them was ready to say them. He’d just found out he was going to be a father. That needed time to sink in. Tyler had never mentioned having an interest in a family—at least, not since he’d broken up with Christine. After that, he’d focused 100 percent on business. This had to be an unexpected blow for him. Amelia had always known she wanted children, but it had still been a shock for her.

Eventually, they arrived at the small independent coffee shop. He opened her door, helped her out and then followed her inside. Tyler bought them both drinks and got himself a giant cinnamon roll while Amelia found a plush couch in the corner away from the others in the shop.

Tyler came over a few minutes later with their things on a tray. He put the drinks on the coffee table and sat beside her. His knee barely grazed hers as he did, but even that simple touch was enough to awaken her nervous system. It was the first time they’d touched since that night. Being in such close proximity to him again was confusing. Her body remembered his touch, aching to lean closer to him and feel his hands on her again. Her brain knew it was a bad idea, but she didn’t want to act childish. It was a simple touch, an innocent one. Just because her libido lit up like the skies on the Fourth of July didn’t mean it meant anything.

Amelia busied herself preparing her tea and distracting herself from Tyler’s nearness. She added a pack of raw sugar and stirred it, waiting for him to say something. She’d already said enough. Now it was his turn.

“So,” he began, after a few bites of cinnamon roll and a sip of his coffee, “do you want to tell your parents first, or mine?”

She tried not to choke on her tea. That was not where she’d expected him to go with this. “Tell them what, exactly?”

“That we’ve gotten married and we’re expecting a baby.”

She shook her head furiously. He must still be in shock. “Neither.”

Tyler frowned at her. “We have to tell them eventually. We can’t just show up at their house with an infant and say, ‘Here’s your grandchild.’”

“I know that,” she argued. “We will have to tell them about the baby eventually. I meant about the wedding. I don’t see why anyone needs to know about it if we’re just going to file for divorce anyway. I’d rather my father not know what we did, to be honest. You know how he is. The only reason he let me go to college in Tennessee was because my grandparents live here. He’s just waiting for me to get into some kind of trouble so he can point out he was right.”

Tyler nodded thoughtfully. “I understand your concerns. I wasn’t planning on telling my family about the wedding, either. I mean, I came to Nashville so we could get the ball rolling on the divorce. But...everything is different now.”

She flinched. “How? How is everything different now?”

“We’re going to have a baby together,” he said, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. “I know we’ve got to work out the logistics, but starting a family is a complicated thing.”

“A f-family?” she stuttered, a feeling of dread pooling in her stomach.

“Well, yeah. I mean, obviously, since you’re pregnant with my child, the divorce is off the table.”

* * *

Amelia’s face flushed as red as her hair, and Tyler knew immediately that he’d said the wrong thing. Or at least, he’d said it in the wrong way. He knew he was right about what they needed to do. Convincing her would take more finessing than just blurting it out the way he had. Amelia didn’t take well to being told what to do. Good job, Dixon.

“Divorce is off the table,” she mimicked with a bitter tone. “You act as though you’re the only one with any say in the matter. I know you’re Mr. Big Shot and you’re used to your word being law, but you aren’t the boss of me, Tyler. You can’t bully me into staying married to you.”

“Of course I’m not the only one with a say,” he soothed. “And I’m not bullying you. As if I even could. You’re the most stubborn woman I know. But we have a child to consider now. What about the baby?”

The baby. Tyler could barely believe he was saying those words out loud. After his engagement with Christine had ended, he’d told himself that he wasn’t going through all that again. The joy and high of love weren’t worth the inevitable crash and destruction at the end. He’d shelved the idea of anything more complicated than sex and focused on his work. Business came a lot easier to him than romance.

That meant that any idea of marriage or family had been put to bed, as well. He’d been okay with that. How were a wife and a family even possible when he was jetting from one place to another and working long hours? He had five siblings to carry on the family name and give his parents the grandchildren they craved. No one would miss his genetic contribution to the world.

And yet, faced with the eventuality of a family, he found the idea didn’t bother him as much as he thought it would. The image of a rambunctious toddler with wild red curls running through the coffee shop formed in his mind. It was so real, he could almost reach out and snatch the giggling child up into his arms. He suddenly wanted that, down to the depths of his soul. When Amelia had told him, he’d been startled, of course, but now he knew what had to be done.

Tyler had been given the chance to have the family he hadn’t realized he wanted, and perhaps he could keep his heart from being destroyed a second time. He was having a child with his best friend. That child needed a stable, loving home, and he and Amelia could provide that. Why would they divorce now?

Amelia’s gaze fixed on his. “What about the baby?” she asked. “You know I’m not the kind of woman that would insist on getting married to someone I didn’t love just because I got pregnant. Why would I insist on staying married to someone I didn’t love just because I got pregnant?”

Tyler tried not to be offended. This wasn’t about him, and he knew that. And he knew that she loved him. She just wasn’t in love with him. He wasn’t in love with her, either. But they could make this work. They had affection, mutual respect and history. Some shotgun marriages started with less. “I know that our marriage and our child are not what you have down in your big notebook of life plans. But don’t you think it’s at least worth giving our relationship a try, for our baby’s sake?”

“Why can’t we just be friends with a baby? We can raise it together. If you’re in Nashville, it makes things easier, but we can do it. We don’t have to be married to have this baby. We don’t have to pretend that our wedding night meant more than it did just because I got pregnant.”