The Ceo's Contract Bride

Gwen parked her station wagon in the secured basement parking allocated to Libby’s waterfront apartment, then rode the lift to her floor. Outside the apartment the pain in Gwen’s stomach wound up another notch. Judging by the racket on the other side of the door Libby hadn’t had time to cancel the party—if she’d even retrieved Gwen’s message by now. Gwen swiftly depressed the doorbell and turned away, forcing herself to take in a deep, steadying breath. The outlook through the massive window at the end of the corridor, over Auckland’s Waitemata Harbour, usually had a calming effect on her, but tonight the city view glittered like tears reflected on the inky harbour, doing nothing to soothe her splintered thoughts.

“Gwen! Where the hell have you been?” Libby’s voice penetrated the worry that encapsulated her brain. “And where’s Steve?” she whispered, grabbing Gwen by the arm and dragging her inside.

“Libby, didn’t you get my message? I need to talk to you. In private.”

“Private? Sorry, chickie, but there’s no privacy here.” She threw out a hand to encompass the seething throng of guests.

“No, Libby. I mean it. We have to talk.” She grabbed hold of Libby’s arm, but the other woman slipped from her grasp.

“There’s the door again, I’ll be back in a minute. Here,” she grabbed a glass of champagne from a tray full of filled glasses on the sideboard and pushed it into Gwen’s hand. “Wrap yourself around this while I see who it is. Maybe it’s Steve.”

Gwen put out a hand to stop her friend, but it was useless. Libby was on a roll and nothing short of a three-foot-thick plate of steel would halt her in full stride.

People pressed around. Many, colleagues of Steve’s—some, her own clients she’d grown to like and respect. All of whom were oblivious to her turmoil and none of whom she knew well enough to slit an emotional vein and pour her news to, except Libby. Gwen scanned the room, nervously waiting for her friend to return. The babble of conversations seethed around her until she thought she would scream.

“Hey, everybody, look who’s arrived!” Libby shouted above the crowd.

Heads turned, Gwen’s included, as Declan was ushered into the room. His eyes searched the sea of heads, and Gwen pressed herself against the wall, as if she could make herself invisible by blending into the paintwork. Too late. He found her. He dropped a kiss on Libby’s cheek and, with one of his killer smiles firmly on his face, started to work his way through the room, heading straight in her direction. People parted before him, like the Red Sea.

“Everyone, can I have your attention, please?” Libby’s voice again rang out. Voices slowly stopped midconversation and all heads turned. “One of our guests of honour is here at last. The other’s obviously running late, but in the meantime I’d like you all to charge your glasses in a toast to my favourite buddy and our bride-to-be.”

Gwen felt the room tilt slightly as a sudden flurry of activity saw glasses rapidly being refilled in preparation for a toast. “No-o-o.” The strangled protest was lost in the babble of noise around her.

Declan saw tension paint stark lines of fear on Gwen’s face. His stomach tightened in a knot. He wasn’t too late. Clearly Libby didn’t know about Steve’s desertion—yet.

A raised hand from Libby, obviously relishing playing hostess, drew the assembly to quiet again. “Now I know some of you haven’t seen Gwen in a while, and I’m sure she joins me in thanking you for celebrating with us.” She turned and bestowed a beaming, loving smile at her pale-faced friend. “Please, everyone, raise your glasses to Gwen. May you have many, many happy years.”

“To Gwen!” Voices echoed all around her and multiple clinks of crystal repeated throughout the room. Declan watched as the remaining colour leached from Gwen’s face, leaving it ghostly pale. She swayed slightly on legs that appeared to have become too weak to bear her slender frame.

An instinctive surge of protection billowed through him. He pressed forward, determined to reach her side before she collapsed. As his arm slipped around her waist a shout penetrated the air.

“So, where’s your lucky man, Gwen?”

The tightly wound tension in her body transferred itself to him as all eyes swivelled to Gwen, who right now looked nothing like a radiant bride-to-be should. Sheer terror flew across her face, her colourless lips incapable of moving. The growing silence around them hung in the air like a fully charged rocket about to be launched.

As if suddenly aware of his presence she turned slightly towards Declan. Her eyes locked onto his, their shimmering grey depths reflecting a fierce combination of fear, distress and barely veiled entreaty.

Electricity curled through him, until he felt as though he crackled with unearthed energy. This was his opportunity. Decisively, he linked his free hand through the cold trembling fingers of hers. He drew them to his lips and brushed a kiss across the whitened knuckles.

His eyes still locked with hers, he pitched his voice to ring through the room.

“I’m right here.”

Two

With only three short syllables Gwen was trapped in a nightmare that had grown to gargantuan proportions.

In shocking, sudden silence lipsticked mouths dropped open, eyebrows shot into hairlines and glasses of champagne raised in a toast remained clutched in hands still poised in the air. In the surreal atmosphere, all eyes turned to the tall, commanding presence of the man whose impossible response still reverberated through the room.

A bone-deep chill invaded Gwen’s body and held her as still as a marble statue. This couldn’t be happening. Not to her. She could get out of this. Surely all she had to do was laugh it off as a clever joke. Except she’d never felt less like laughing in her whole life.

The sureness of Declan’s strong arm hooked around her waist sent warmth spreading through her body.

The sound of a single set of hands applauding drew Gwen’s eyes to her friend Libby. Nice surprise, her friend mouthed silently, a grin spread across her face as wide as the Auckland Harbour Bridge. One by one, each of the guests joined in until cries of congratulations filled the room. People thronged around them, eager to pass on good wishes to the ‘happy’ couple. All the while Gwen kept a smile pasted to her face, leaving Declan to bear the brunt of the questions.

At some time, in the crush of perfumed bodies, he let go of her hand. Despite herself, she couldn’t help but feel lost. Seeking out her friend, she found Libby leaning against the back wall of the room, a self-satisfied smile painted on her face.

“Well, you’re a dark horse. Fancy not telling me!”

“I tried to talk to you when I got here. But, Libby, it’s not what you think—”

“Whatever, Gwen. I’m thrilled to bits for you, but what about Steve? How did he take the news?”

“He…I…”

“He’s taken an extended leave of absence,” Declan interrupted, arriving like a dark shadow on Gwen’s horizon. “We’re sorry to have broken the news to you like this, Libby. We’d hoped to tell you sooner, hadn’t we, hon?”

His eyes shot Gwen a dark challenge, underlying the steel in his voice, which warned her to agree, before he tucked her back against his side. Awareness of him, of every breath he took, seared through her thin clothing.

“Sometimes you absolutely know when it’s right,” he continued smoothly. “Besides, we’ve known each other for years and now we have the rest of our lives to find everything out about one another. Don’t we?” He prompted her with a squeeze.

Gwen’s mouth dried. He wasn’t serious. He couldn’t be. He could barely stand to be in the same room as her, yet now he’d become her latest fashion accessory. His strong fingers increased their pressure under her rib cage, reminding her she had to make a response. She swallowed, trying to moisten her throat and allow the words that were trapped inside to come out.

“Y-yes.” Good Lord! Was that her voice?

A tiny frown creased between Libby’s eyebrows. “Gwen? Are you certain you’re doing the right thing?”

Gwen drew in a deep breath. “Yes.”

Thank goodness. Her voice was stronger now. More definite, although she’d never felt more adrift in her entire life.

Declan dipped his head to her temple. “Good move.” His warm lips moved intimately against her skin. To anyone in the room it looked like a caress.

“If you’re certain…” Libby’s voice trailed away, doubt still clear in her tone.

“We’ve never been more certain of anything in our lives.” Declan’s voice resonated confidence. “Do you mind if we have a moment together, in private? You will excuse us, won’t you?”

“Certainly. Why don’t you use my bedroom?” Libby offered generously—too generously in Gwen’s opinion.

“No!” Gwen’s voice shot like a bullet. “I mean, the balcony will do fine. No one will bother us out there.”

The last thing she needed was to be in a bedroom with Declan Knight. She pulled free of his clasp, once again struck by an inane sense of loss, and stumbled slightly as the heel of her strappy sandal hooked on the thickly carpeted floor. A strong grip at her elbow steadied her. Did he have to be so constantly close he could touch her?

“Okay?” He reached past her to open the glass slider that led onto the semicircular balcony.

“I’m fine. At least, I will be once we sort this mess out.”

She turned, freeing herself from his hold and tried to ignore the glow of challenge that lit his eyes at her action. A glow that was doing funny things to her sensitive stomach. More indigestion, she decided. Except this felt different. It was a fire in her belly all right, but this burn was molten, enticing and as forbidden as it had been eight years ago.

Declan slid the door closed behind them, the double-glazed floor-to-ceiling windows cutting out almost all sound from inside. Marooned on a dark island, the shimmer of lights reflected across the harbour.

“What do you want to sort out first?” He crossed his arms over the broad expanse of his chest and leaned back against the waist-high concrete wall that scalloped the balcony. Backlit by the streetlights behind him, he towered there, large and powerful. His dark head haloed like some fallen angel.

“Our engagement for one thing. What the heck are you playing at? I don’t want to marry you and I know for certain you don’t want to marry me, either.”

“You’re right. But the way I see it, it’s the perfect solution to our problems.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. How on earth could our marriage be a solution to anything? We’ve barely even spoken since Renata died.” Spoken? No. But they had done so much more.

“This has nothing to do with Renata.” He bit the words out. She could see the tension drawn on his face, the hardening of his jaw. “Smile.”

“What?” Had he lost his mind?

“Smile. Everyone inside can see us and we’ve just announced our engagement. They expect you to look happy, not as if you’d like to tip me over this balcony.”

“Don’t tempt me,” she answered, her voice low and angry. The thought had sudden appeal, but instead of seeing Declan tumbling from the balcony all she had was a vivid memory of Renata’s body tumbling past her on the rock face that had almost sent them both to their doom. No, she couldn’t joke about that, not even for a minute. Gwen forced her lips into an approximation of a smile.

“That’s better.” Declan’s voice rumbled through the dark night air. “Now come over here and put your arms around me.”

“No way.” A chill shivered over her arms, raising goose bumps on her flesh, belying the warmth of the balmy humid evening.

“Then I’ll come over to you.”

Before she could protest Declan covered the short distance between them, draped her limp arms around his waist and linked his own around hers.

“There now, that didn’t hurt a bit.”

Hurt? Maybe not in the physical sense, but there was an ache deep down inside her that had been her constant companion for longer than she wanted to acknowledge. A pain that couldn’t be assuaged and had taken eight years to learn to ignore. Damn him for opening that wound again.

“So, are you happy now?” Her words dropped bitterly from her lips.

“Hardly. This is all for show. If we’re going to make this work we have to look the part.”

“Make it work? I haven’t even agreed to this charade. In case you hadn’t already noticed I’m supposed to be engaged to Steve,” she snapped. His arms were warm bands around her, his fingers stroking in lazy circles against the small of her back. Gwen forced herself to listen to him and to ignore the spirals of pleasure that radiated traitorously from his touch.

“I believe that could be disputed, considering he’s abandoned you to face the wedding without him. Besides, you’re not exactly heartbroken he’s gone. Angry at him, for sure. He’s cleaned you out. But heartbroken? I doubt it.”

Gwen flinched as the truth in his words cut her to her core. Yes, Steve had abandoned her, but worse, Declan was right. With Steve she’d thought she could be safe. After all, wasn’t that what had attracted her to him in the first place? No crazy emotions living on the surface of their life. No wild declarations of burning passion. He’d been a biddable man. Someone she could rely on, or so she’d thought. A man who would be a reliable father and a supportive partner. A man who sounds about as exciting as a well-made foundation garment, a little voice taunted from the back of her mind.

Gwen gathered what was left of her dignity. “Look, I’ll tell Libby the truth when everyone is gone. She’ll help me call around, cancel the wedding. It was only going to be small. It won’t take long.”

A vise clamped around her chest. What the heck was she going to do then? Thanks to Steve, she didn’t even have enough left in her account to buy groceries—let alone meet the demands of the loan now secured against the house that had been part of her family for generations. A swell of nausea rocked her. She was going to lose her home—her one bastion of security since the day her mother had shucked her off like last year’s fashion.

Declan interrupted her misery. “So don’t cancel.”

Gwen reached deep to draw the courage she needed to answer him. “Give me one good reason why I should want to pretend to be engaged to you.”

“There’s no pretend about it. We will get married. Under New Zealand law we have just enough time to make your original wedding date, too.”

“Did you slip and bang your head or something?” Gwen leaned back slightly, deliberately ignoring the contact of her hips against his lower body, and looked hard in his eyes. “There’s no way I’m marrying you.”

“Yes, you are. Look, it’s certainly not my idea of the ideal solution, either, but right now it’s the only way you’re going to get your money back. As your husband, I can make sure of that.”

Gwen was lost for words. Even though the reality of Steve’s defection had only just begun to sink in, some glimmer of hope still clung to the thought that she’d get the money back from him, somehow.

“The way I see it,” Declan continued, “we both stand to benefit from a wedding.”

“No—”

“Hear me out. Once Crenshaw’s found, I will find a way to get the money back, you can count on it. But in the meantime his actions have put me in a very difficult position. You’ve heard about the Sellers tender?”

Gwen nodded. She’d more than heard about it. She’d been eagerly awaiting the outcome of the sale tender for the Art Deco hotel in the hope it would be redeveloped in keeping with its distinctive history. Then she could put in a proposal of her own to subcontract to the successful company. With her expertise in the restoration of old furnishings, and her skill in sourcing the materials required to redecorate to suit the period of the properties she’d worked on, she was in high demand. But a contract like the Sellers Hotel—that would launch her into an entirely new sphere altogether.

“I’ve put a bid together to purchase the property, but no thanks to Steve’s creative accounting I’ll have to withdraw from the tender unless I have the funds to continue the development—unless I can get my hands on a hefty sum of money. Now, I have that money at my disposal, but the only way I can access it is to marry. And that’s where you come in.” He dipped his head closer to hers, his dark eyes boring into her own. For all intents and purposes, to the guests whose buzz of conversation filtered in muffled snatches through the glass door to the balcony, they looked like a couple in love. The length of his legs seared through the fabric of her skirt. The outline of his muscled thighs and the weight of his hips pressed against her. Logic demanded she pull back, loose herself from his grasp and denounce his crazy idea for the fraud it was. To get the wild beat of her heart back under control.

“You have to marry? That’s archaic,” Gwen protested.

“It’s the way it is. My mother was a traditionalist and wanted to see all her boys settled before accessing our trust funds.”

A trust fund he’d already have had access to if she hadn’t let Renata talk her into attempting that cliff face when it was way beyond Gwen’s experience. But she couldn’t let her guilt at Renata’s death drive her into making yet another mistake. “And how would this advantage me? All I can see is a win-win for you here. Getting married isn’t just something you do to access a trust fund, for goodness sakes! No, it’s too important. I can’t—I won’t do it.”

“I’ll repay the money Steve stole from you.”

Gwen pulled out of his arms and walked across the balcony until she could go no farther from him. Declan felt the loss of her form against his body as if she’d been carved from him. As much as he denied it, they fit well together. Too well. In the evening darkness he studied her face carefully, watching as emotions chased across its surface until an implacable calm replaced the confusion. “C’mon, Gwen. What do you say?”

“I don’t want to do this.”

“It’s gone beyond what we want to do, Crenshaw’s seen to that. We need to make a decision, Gwen. Tonight.”

“Why do we have to do all this? Why can’t you just take out a business loan?” Light from a streetlamp caressed her white-blond hair and silhouetted her slender shape against the darkness like a sculptor’s loving touch.

“Because I wouldn’t get the loan.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Cavaliere Developments is one of the most successful and fastest-growing companies in the industry. Even I know that.”

Declan clenched his fists at his sides, then released his fingers, one by one. He had to convince Gwen, and the only way out was the truth, no matter how much it hurt. “When Renata died I had to keep busy, keep moving, keep working. I didn’t have the necessary capital then to expand at the rate I wanted to for the company to gain a foothold in the marketplace, nor did I want to spend the time I needed on the business end of things. All I wanted was to be so dog tired by the end of each day that I couldn’t even think any more.” He rubbed a hand across his eyes. The pain of that time still as raw in his memory as the day he’d laid Renata’s broken body to rest. He drew in a ragged breath and pressed on. “The old man stepped in, offered to act as guarantor for me and help run things from the administration side, if I gave him a voting position on the board. It was only supposed to be for a limited time.”

“I don’t understand. Why would that stop your company from getting the contract?” Gwen’s question hung in the air, her confusion evident in her tone.

“Because he’s already made it clear he’ll veto any application for funds for a project this size. He likes to control people. He likes to think he can control me.”

“And if you have the trust fund?” she prompted.

“I can bankroll the whole project myself.” Please don’t let her say no.

“I see. I imagine there are a lot of jobs riding on this, too.”

“Yes, there are.”

Her shoulders sagged as if all the air had been drawn out of her.

“All right.” Her reply was a mere ripple of sound in the night air.

“You’ll do it?” Hope leaped in his chest.

“Yes, but only on certain conditions.”

“What sort of conditions?”

She paced the width of the balcony before coming to a halt in front of him again. “You contract me to work on the Sellers building for the duration of the refit.”

He could live with that. In fact he was more than happy with the agreement. She’d made her mark in domestic restorations but with her skill she could only benefit his operation. Despite how he felt about Gwen, he was enough of a businessman to recognise an advantage when he saw it.

“Done. We’ll sort out the nuts and bolts of your contract with Connor tomorrow and get this tied up legally. Don’t worry about him knowing, he can be trusted to keep our arrangement confidential. Anything else?”

“No sex.”

Declan arched one eyebrow. “Do you mean with anybody else, or just with each other?”

“With anybody. I mean it,” she reiterated fiercely, wrapping her arms about her body like armour. “Absolutely no sex. I won’t be made a fool of. If this marriage is to look real, then you can’t see anyone else.”

Yeah, well, he could live with that, too. In fact, he was more than happy to live with that. The one time…no, it didn’t bear thinking about. It was enough that she had agreed to go along with this crazy scheme. “Fine by me. But we have to look like a married couple when we’re around other people, be comfortable together, you know—physically. Especially around the rest of my family. They might accept this sudden engagement, but they’ll suspect a sham if we don’t behave like a newly wed couple, and if my dad suspects a sham, I can kiss that trust fund goodbye.”

“Won’t they ask questions anyway?”

“Probably. But that’s my problem. I’ll handle it.” He sighed. “Anything else?”

“About the financial terms of the contract…”

Declan had had enough. “It’ll be worth your while—I promise.”

“It had better be.” Her eyes were opaque pools of emptiness. What was going on in that head of hers?

“It’s a deal, then?” He had to be certain she wasn’t going to back out of this.

“One more thing.”

He bit back an expletive. She had him between a rock and a hard place, and he hated it. Hated being beholden to her. “What is it?” Amazingly the words sounded civil.

“The length of our marriage—three months, tops.”

“Three months! That’s ridiculous. Twelve or my father will definitely smell a rat.”

“That’s far too long. Six, then.”

“Six months?” Declan considered it for a moment—that would work, just. He nodded sharply.

Gwen extended her hand to him and he took it, noting this was the first time she’d voluntarily reached out and touched him, tonight anyway. Laughter from inside penetrated the glass, reminding him they were in full view of the party going on inside. He turned her hand slightly, noting the tracery of blue veins beneath the silver-pale skin at her wrist. He bent forward and lifted her wrist to his lips, pressing them against satin skin where her pulse beat frantically, like a captured butterfly. She clearly wasn’t as unmoved as she tried to project.

“Just keeping up appearances,” he smiled grimly when she yanked her hand away as though his touch had burned her. “Oh, and Gwen?”

“What?”

“Thank you. You won’t regret it.”

“Regret it?” Gwen gave a sharp laugh as she turned to go inside. “I already do.”

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