The CEO's Accidental Bride / Paper Marriage Proposition

The CEO’s Accidental Bride

Barbara Dunlop

Paper Marriage Proposition

Red Garnier

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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The CEO’s Accidental Bride

Barbara Dunlop

“It only took us five minutes to get married, no reason why the divorce should take any longer.”

“Glad you see it that way.” He gave a sharp nod, and his hand went to the inside pocket of his suit. “Of course, I’ll want to cover any inconvenience.” He extracted a gold pen and a brown leather check book, flipping open the cover and glancing at her. “A million?”

Kaitlin blinked in confusion. “A million what?”

He breathed a sigh of obvious impatience. “Dollars,” he stated. “Don’t play coy, Kaitlin. You and I both know this is going to cost me.”

Was he that desperate?

Wait a minute. Was he desperate?

Dear Reader,

I have a passion for historic buildings—big or small, opulent or plain. From the passageways of the Tower of London to the faded boards of a broken-down shed on a lonely prairie highway, I love to imagine who built a house, who walked its halls, who lived, who loved, and who might have died there all those years ago.

Billionaire Zach Harper is descended from pirates. His family castle, built on an island off the coast of New York, is a living museum and the centerpiece of his heritage. But when he accidentally marries architect Kaitlin Saville at a wild Vegas office party, everything is at risk.

I hope you enjoy Zach and Kaitlin’s story. I modeled the Harper family castle after the real life Craigdarroch Castle in Victoria, British Columbia. If you’re interested, there’s a link to the castle on my website.

Happy reading!

Barbara

www.barbaradunlop.com

About the Author

BARBARA DUNLOP writes romantic stories while curled up in a log cabin in Canada’s far north, where bears outnumber people and it snows six months of the year. Fortunately she has a brawny husband and two teenage children to haul firewood and clear the driveway while she sips cocoa and muses about her upcoming chapters. Barbara loves to hear from readers. You can contact her through her website at www.barbaradunlop.com.

For my fabulous editor, Kathryn Lye

One

Zach Harper was the last person Kaitlin Saville expected to see standing in the hallway outside her apartment door. The tall, dark-haired, steel-eyed man was the reason she was packing her belongings, the reason she was giving up her rent-controlled apartment, the person who was forcing her to leave New York City.

Facing him, she folded her arms across her dusty blue Mets T-shirt, hoping her red eyes had faded from her earlier crying jag and that no tear streaks remained on her cheeks.

“We have a problem,” Zach stated, his voice crisp, and his expression detached. His left hand was clasped around a black leather briefcase.

He wore a Grant Hicks suit and a pressed, white shirt. His red tie was made of fine silk, and his cuff links were solid gold. As usual, his hair was freshly cut, face freshly shaved, and his shoes were polished to within an inch of their lives.

“We don’t have anything,” she told him, curling her toes into the cushy socks that covered her feet below the frayed hem of her faded jeans.

She was casual, not frumpy, she told herself. A woman had a right to be casual in her own home. Where Zach Harper had no right to be in her home at all. She started to close the door on him. But his hand shot out to brace it.

His hand was broad and tanned, with a strong wrist and tapered fingers. No rings, but a platinum Cartier watch with a diamond face. “I’m not joking, Kaitlin.”

“And I’m not laughing.” She couldn’t give one whit about any problem the high-and-mighty Zach Harper might encounter during his charmed life. The man not only got her fired, but he also had her blackballed from every architectural firm in New York City.

He glanced past her shoulder. “Can I come in?”

She pretended to think about it for a moment. “No.”

He might be master of his domain at Harper Transportation and at every major business function in Manhattan, but he did not have the right to see her messy place, especially the collection of lacy lingerie sitting under the window.

He clenched his jaw.

She set her own, standing her ground.

“It’s personal,” he persisted, hand shifting on the briefcase handle.

“We’re not friends,” she pointed out.

They were, in fact, enemies. Because that was what happened when one person ruined another person’s life. It didn’t matter that the first person was attractive, successful, intelligent and one heck of a good dancer. He’d lost all rights to … well, anything.

Zach squared his shoulders, then glanced both ways down the narrow corridor of the fifty-year-old building. The light was dim, the patterned carpets worn. Ten doors opened into this particular section of the fifth floor. Kaitlin’s apartment was at the end, next to a steel exit door and a fire alarm protected by a glass cover.

“Fine,” he told her. “We’ll do it out here.”

Oh, no, they wouldn’t. They wouldn’t do anything anywhere, ever again. She started to step back into the safety of her apartment.

“You remember that night in Vegas?” he asked.

His question stopped her cold.

She would never forget the Harper corporate party at the Bellagio three months ago. Along with the singers, dancers, jugglers and acrobats who had entertained the five-hundred-strong crowd of Harper Transportation’s high-end clients, there was a flamboyant Elvis impersonator who’d coaxed her and Zach from the dance floor to participate in a mock wedding.

At the time, it had seemed funny, in keeping with the lighthearted mood of the party. Of course, her sense of humor had been aided that night by several cranberry martinis. In hindsight, the event simply felt humiliating.

“The paper we signed?” Zach continued in the face of her silence.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she lied to him.

In fact, she’d come across their mock wedding license just this morning. It was tucked into the lone, slim photo album that lived in her bottom dresser drawer beneath several pairs of blue jeans.

It was stupid to have kept the souvenir. But the glow from her evening on Zach’s arm had taken a few days to fade away. And at the time she’d put the marriage license away, those happy minutes on the dance floor had seemed somehow magical.

It was a ridiculous fantasy.

The man had destroyed her life the very next week.

Now, he drew a bracing breath. “It’s valid.”

She frowned at him. “Valid for what?”

“Marriage.”

Kaitlin didn’t respond. Was Zach actually suggesting they’d signed a real marriage license?

“Is this a joke?” she asked.

“Am I laughing?”

He wasn’t. But then he rarely laughed. He rarely joked, either. That night, she’d later learned, was quite the anomaly for him.

A cold feeling invaded her stomach.

“We’re married, Kaitlin,” he told her, steel eyes unflinching.

They were not married. It had been a lark. They’d been playacting up there on the stage.

“Elvis was licensed by the state of Nevada,” said Zach.

“We were drunk,” Kaitlin countered, refusing to believe such a preposterous claim.

“He filed a certificate.”

“How do you know that?” Her brain was revving into overdrive, calculating the possibilities and the potential consequences.

“Because my lawyers tell me so.” He gave a meaningful glance past her shoulder, into the apartment. “Can I please come in?”

She thought about her mystery novels covering the couch, the entertainment magazines that were sitting out on the coffee table, the credit card and bank statements in piles beside them, revealing her shopping habits for the past month. She remembered the telltale, half-eaten package of Sugar Bob’s doughnuts sitting out on the counter. And, of course, there was the box of sexy underwear on full display in the afternoon sunshine.

But, if he was telling the truth, it wasn’t something she could ignore.

She gritted her teeth and ordered herself to forget about his opinion. Who cared if he found out she had a weakness for Sugar Bob’s? In a matter of days, he’d be out of her life. She’d leave everything she’d ever known, start all over in another city, maybe Chicago or Los Angeles.

Her throat involuntarily tightened at the thought, and her tears threatened to freshen.

Kaitlin hated being uprooted. She’d started over so many times already, leaving security and normalcy behind as she moved from one childhood foster home to another. She’d been in this small apartment since she started college. And it was the only place that had ever felt remotely like home.

“Kaitlin?” he prompted.

She swallowed to clear the thick emotions from her throat. “Sure,” she told him with grim determination, stepping aside. “Come on in.”

As she shut the door, Zach took in the disarray of packing boxes littering the apartment. There wasn’t anywhere for him to sit down, and she didn’t offer to clear a chair. He wouldn’t be staying very long.

Though she tried to ignore it, her glance shifted involuntarily to the underwear box. Zach tracked her gaze, his resting on the mauve-and-white silk teddy her friend Lindsay had bought her for Christmas last year.

“Do you mind?” she snapped, marching over to pull the cardboard flaps shut.

“Not at all,” he muttered, and she thought she heard a trace of amusement in his tone.

He was laughing at her. Perfect.

The cardboard flaps sprang back open again, and she felt the unwelcome heat of a blush. She turned to face him, placing her body between Zach and her underwear.

Behind him, she spied the open box of Sugar Bob’s. Three of the doughnuts were missing, transferred from the white cardboard and cellophane container to her hips around nine this morning.

Zach didn’t appear to have an ounce of fat on his well-toned body. She’d be willing to bet his breakfast had consisted of fruit, whole grains and lean protein. It was probably whipped up by his personal chef, ingredients imported from France, or maybe Australia.

He perched his briefcase on top of a stack of DVDs on her end table and snapped open the latches. “I’ve had my lawyers draw up our divorce papers.”

“We need lawyers?” Kaitlin was still struggling to comprehend the idea of marriage.

To Zach.

Her brain wanted to go a hundred different directions with that inconceivable fact, but she firmly reined it in. He might be gorgeous, wealthy and intelligent, but he was also cold, calculating and dangerous. A woman would have to be crazy to marry him.

He swung open the lid of the briefcase. “In this instance, lawyers are a necessary evil.”

Kaitlin reflexively bristled at the stereotype. Her best friend, Lindsay, wasn’t the least bit evil.

For a second, she let herself imagine Lindsay’s reaction to this news. Lindsay would be shocked, obviously. Would she be worried? Angry? Would she laugh?

The whole situation was pretty absurd.

Kaitlin anchored her loose auburn hair behind her ears, reflexively tugging one beaded jade earring as a nervous humor bubbled up inside her. She cocked her head and waited until she had Zach’s attention. “I guess what happens in Vegas sometimes follows you home.”

A muscle twitched in his cheek, and it definitely wasn’t from amusement. She felt a perverse sense of satisfaction at having put him even slightly off balance.

“It would help if you took this seriously,” he told her.

“We were married by Elvis.” She clamped determinedly down on a spurt of nervous laughter.

Zach’s gray eyes flashed.

“Come on, Zach,” she cajoled. “You have to admit—”

He retrieved a manila envelope. “Just sign the papers, Kaitlin.”

But she wasn’t ready to give up the joke. “I guess this means no honeymoon?”

He stopped breathing for a beat, and there was something familiar about the way his gaze flicked to her lips.

She was struck by a sudden, vivid memory, instantly sobering her.

Had they kissed that night in Vegas?

Every once in a while, she had a fleeting image of his mouth on hers, the heat, the taste, the pressure of his full lips. She imagined that she could remember his arms around her waist, pulling her tight against his hard body, the two of them molding together as if they belonged.

In the past, she’d always chalked it up to a fevered dream, but now she wondered …

“Zach, did we—”

He cleared his throat. “Let’s try to stay on track.”

“Right.” She nodded, determinedly pushing the hazy image out of her mind. If she’d kissed him even once, it was the worst mistake of her life. She detested him now, and the sooner he disappeared, the better.

She reached out her hand and accepted the envelope. “It only took us five minutes to get married, no reason why the divorce should take any longer.”

“Glad you see it that way.” He gave a sharp nod, and his hand went to the inside pocket of his suit. “Of course, I’ll want to cover any inconvenience.” He extracted a gold pen and a brown leather checkbook, flipped open the cover and glanced at her. “A million?”

Kaitlin blinked in confusion. “A million what?”

He breathed a sigh of obvious impatience. “Dollars,” he stated. “Don’t play coy, Kaitlin. You and I both know this is going to cost me.”

Her jaw involuntarily dropped a notch.

Was he crazy?

He waited expectantly.

Was he desperate?

Wait a minute. Was he desperate?

She gave her brain a little shake. She and Zach were husband and wife. At least in the eyes of the law. Clearly, she was a problem for him. She doubted the high-and-mighty Zach Harper ran into too many problems. At least, none that he couldn’t solve with that checkbook.

Huh.

Interesting.

This time, Kaitlin did chuckle, and tapped the stiff envelope against the tabletop. She certainly didn’t want Zach’s money, but she sure wouldn’t say no to a little payback. What woman would?

This divorce didn’t have to happen in the next five minutes. She’d be in New York for at least another couple of weeks. For once in his life, Mr. Harper could bloody well wait on someone else’s convenience.

She took a breath, focused her thoughts and tried to channel Lindsay. Lindsay was brilliant, and she’d know exactly what to do in this circumstance.

Then, the answer came to Kaitlin. She raised her brows in mock innocence. “Isn’t New York a joint property state?”

Zach looked confused, but then his eyes hardened to flints.

He was angry. Too bad.

“I don’t recall signing a prenup,” she added for good measure.

“You want more money,” he spoke in a flat tone.

All she really wanted was her career back.

“You got me fired,” she pointed out, feeling the need to voice the rationale for her obstinacy.

“All I did was cancel a contract,” he corrected.

“You had to know I’d be the scapegoat. Who in New York City is going to hire me now?”

His voice went staccato. “I did not like your renovation design.”

“I was trying to bring your building out of the 1930s.” The Harper Transportation building had infinite potential, but nobody had done anything to it for at least five decades.

He glared at her a moment longer. “Fine. Have it your way. I got you fired. I apologize. Now how much?”

He wasn’t the least bit sorry for having her fired. He didn’t care a single thing about her. The only reason he’d even remembered her name was because of the accidental marriage. And he’d probably had to look that up.

She squared her shoulders beneath the dusty T-shirt, determined to take this victory. “Give me one good reason why I should make your life easier?”

“Because you don’t want to be married any more than I do.”

He had a fair point there. The mere thought of being Zach Harper’s wife sent a distinct shiver coursing its way up her spine.

It was distaste. At least she was pretty sure the feeling was distaste. With any other man, she might mistake it for arousal.

“Mrs. Zach Harper.” She pretended to ponder, warming to her stubborn stance as she purposely slowed to note her half-packed apartment. “Don’t you have a roomy penthouse on Fifth Avenue?”

He clicked the end of his pen, slowly lowering it to his side. “Are you daring me to call your bluff?”

She cracked her first genuine smile in three months. He wouldn’t do it. Not in a million years. “Yeah,” she taunted boldly. “Go ahead. Call my buff.”

He stepped closer, and an annoying buzz of awareness tickled its way through her stomach. They stared each other down.

“Or you could leave the divorce papers,” she offered with mock sweetness. “I’ll have my lawyer read them over next week.”

“Two million,” he offered.

“Next week,” she retorted, trying not to show her shock at the exorbitant figure. “Summon up some patience, Zachary.”

“You don’t know what you’re doing, Katie.”

“I’m protecting my own interests,” she told him.

And there was something to be said for that. Seriously. Who could guess what his lawyers had hidden in the divorce documents?

They were both silent. Horns honked and trucks rumbled by five floors below.

“I don’t trust you, Zach,” she informed him tartly. Which was completely true.

His expression hardening by the second, he stuffed the pen into his pocket, then deliberately tucked the checkbook away. He closed and latched the briefcase, and sharply straightened the sleeves of his jacket.

Seconds later, the door slammed shut behind him.

Zach slid into the passenger seat of the black Porsche Carrera idling at the curb outside Kaitlin’s Yorkville apartment building and yanked the door shut behind him.

“Did she sign?” asked Dylan Gilby, as he slipped the gearshift into First.

Zach tugged the seat belt over his shoulder and clicked the latch into place. “Nope.”

He normally prided himself on his negotiating skills. But there was something about Kaitlin that put him off his rhythm, and the meeting had been a colossal failure.

He didn’t remember her being so stubborn. To be fair, he hadn’t known her particularly well. They’d met a few times before the party, but it was only in passing while she was working on the renovation plans for his office building. He remembered her as smart, diligent, fun-loving and beautiful.

He had to admit, the beautiful part certainly still held true. Dressed to the nines in Vegas, she was the most stunning woman in a very big ballroom. Even today, in a faded baseball T-shirt and jeans, she was off the charts. No wonder he’d gone along with Elvis and said “I do.” He was pretty sure, in that moment, he did.

“You offered her the money?” asked Dylan.

“Of course I offered her money.” Zach had wanted to be fair. Well, and he’d also wanted the problem solved quickly and quietly. Money could usually be counted on to accomplish that.

“No go?” asked Dylan.

“She’s calling her lawyer,” Zach admitted with a grimace, cursing under his breath. Somehow, he’d played it all wrong. He’d blown his chance to end this neatly, and he had nobody to blame but himself.

Dylan flipped on his signal light and checked the rearview mirror on the busy street. He zipped into a tight space between a Mercedes and an old Toyota. “So, basically, you’re screwed.”

“Thank you for that insightful analysis,” Zach growled at his friend. Harper Transportation could well be on the line here, and Dylan was cracking jokes?

“What are friends for?” joked Dylan.

“Procuring single malt.” If ever there was a time that called for a bracing drink, this was it.

“I have to fly today,” said Dylan. “And I get the feeling you’ll need every brain cell functioning.”

Zach braced his elbow against the armrest as the car angled its way through traffic on the rain-dampened street. He reviewed the conversation with Kaitlin like a postgame tape. Where had he messed it up?

“Maybe I should have offered her more,” he ventured, thinking out loud. “Five million? Do people say no to five million?”

“You might have to tell her the truth,” Dylan offered.

“Are you out of your mind?”

“Clinically, no.”

“Tell her that she’s inherited my grandmother’s entire estate?”

Hand the woman control on a silver platter? Did Dylan want to guarantee Zach was ruined?

“She did, in fact, inherit your grandmother’s estate,” Dylan pointed out.

Zach felt his blood pressure rise. He was living a nightmare, and Dylan of all people should appreciate the outrageousness of the situation.

“I don’t care what kind of paperwork was filed by the Electric Chapel of Love,” Zach growled. “Kaitlin Saville is not my wife. She is not entitled to half of Harper Transportation, and I will die before—”

“Her lawyer may well disagree with you.”

“If her lawyer has half a brain, he’ll tell her to take the two million and run.” At least Zach hoped that was what her lawyer would say.

The two of them were married. Yes. He’d have to own that particular mistake. But it couldn’t possibly be a situation his grandmother had remotely contemplated when she wrote her will. There was the letter of the law, and then there was the spirit of the law. His grandmother had never intended for a stranger to inherit her estate.

He had no idea if New York was, in fact, a joint property state. But even if it was, he and Kaitlin had never lived together. They’d never had sex. They’d never even realized they were married. The very thought that she’d get half of his corporation was preposterous.

“Did you think about getting an annulment?” asked Dylan.

Zach nodded. He’d talked to his lawyers about that, but they weren’t encouraging. “We never slept together,” he told Dylan. “But she could lie and say that we did.”

“Would she lie?”

“What do I know? I thought she’d take the two million.” Zach glanced around, orienting himself as they approached an entrance to Central Park. “We going anywhere near McDougal’s?”

“I’m not getting you drunk at three in the afternoon.” Dylan shook his head in disgust as he took a quick left. The Porsche gripped the pavement, and they barely beat an oncoming taxi.

“Are you my nursemaid?” asked Zach.

“You need a plan, not a drink.”

In Zach’s opinion, that was definitely debatable.

They slowed to a stop for a red light at another intersection. Two taxi drivers honked and exchanged hand gestures, while a throng of people swelled out from the sidewalk in the light drizzle and made their way between the stopped cars.