The Bridal Chase

The Bridal Chase

Darcy Maguire

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Darcy Maguire spends her days as a matchmaker, torturing tall, handsome men, seducing them into believing in love and romancing their socks off! And when she’s not working on her novels, she enjoys gardening, reading and going to the movies. She loves to hear from readers. Visit her at www.darcymaguire.com.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER ONE

ROXANNE GRAY glanced up at the ceiling dragging in a ragged breath. The bar was crass, loud and a cliché, but it had to be at his local.

She figured she had to seem available and willing to roll between the covers with him with only the smallest effort on his part.

Oh, gawd. What had she got herself into?

It had taken her for ever to work out that she couldn’t just go anywhere to pick him up. It couldn’t be at a library or he’d think she was too smart to fall straight into bed with him. And it couldn’t be at a shopping mall because, goodness, although she’d be awfully comfortable and at home, she couldn’t wait that long until he went into one.

Roxanne toyed with the stem of her glass to still her shaking hands. It couldn’t be on public transport because he probably didn’t take it—he was the sort of guy who would have a really nice car parked somewhere…and if by chance he did take the bus or train, what was the likelihood he’d consider a woman who made eye contact? Even if it was just for sex?

She glanced around the room, taking a deep breath to calm herself, pushing the thought far from her mind. Just meeting him was all she had to worry about, for now.

His workplace had seemed a nice safe environment for her to engineer a meeting with him, but there were just too many rules for office decorum and propriety to wade through before she’d have been able to get what she needed.

She glanced towards the door, the thought of escape on her mind. She didn’t have to step this far out of her comfort zone to prove anything…or did she?

Roxanne shook herself. This had to be done. She needed a quick, efficient approach and this was it. The only logical option left to her was a club like this.

She had to smile at the cliché she made, sitting at a bar in a short black dress with a plunging neckline. She clutched her strawberry daiquiri as if it was a lifeline to sanity.

She couldn’t believe she was doing this…

Roxanne stroked the book beside her, struggling with her rising panic. It had given her a few ideas on how to do this. She’d picked it up from a little bookshop down the street. It dedicated an entire chapter to the arts of picking up a woman…she couldn’t find one on how to pick up a guy. Either it wasn’t that hard or women didn’t usually do it. Either way, she figured the book had at least given her a few hints.

She took another gulp of her daiquiri, savouring the fruity sweetness, praying the double jigger of rum she’d asked for had given her the courage to go through with this.

Gawd, she hoped he liked her and fell into her trap—hook, line and sinker.

Roxanne tried to smile at the barman, but failed. The mass of pick-up lines swirled in her head, the litany of conversation starters, and the burden of the result she was looking for was all she could cope with.

She swung around on her stool, trying to ignore the cold knot forming in her belly. The bar was filling fast with suits from all quarters of the city sector stopping in for a quick drink before the long haul homeward, most probably to partners and kids. Some just meeting up with others to take the trip with, or to join friends to go out somewhere else.

The bar was a trendy place deep in Sydney’s business sector, with just the right balance of class and approachability. The artworks on the walls were modern, the solid colours lit by bright lights shining only on them, the rest of the room bathed in the shadows and the reflected light, giving a mood of intimacy and privacy despite the lack of space.

The black faux-marble bar stretched almost across the room, with matching tables with their own chrome bar stools perched beside them, placed to maximize the capacity rather than for comfort zones. And Roxanne was as far from her comfort zone as she could get.

She didn’t want to be here, or meet him.

Cade Taylor Watson…what a name. She glanced at the photo of him that she was using as a bookmark. His large square jaw, his strong brow, his chiselled features giving his image a strength and a presence that she could feel right down to her toes.

Her hand still shook as she lifted her glass again. This wasn’t going to be easy.

She took a big gulp of her drink, scanning the room again, half-afraid she’d missed him, yet more terrified that she hadn’t.

He stood by the door.

Her heart slammed into her chest.

He was easy to spot. He stood a good six inches taller than the suits around him. His finely tailored suit was deep blue. His hair was cut short at the sides, the longer top slightly spiked, the colour an almost rusty-blond that seemed to match his eyes—a golden hazel, and his gaze careered around the room.

His attention rested on her only a moment and kept moving, obviously looking for someone…else.

She let out the breath she was holding, the pressure in her chest easing. O-kay. So he hadn’t been magnetically drawn to her the way she’d sort of hoped he would. She would have preferred it if he’d locked eyes with hers, his feet moving him closer, and she would have dazzled him with her pick-up lines and conversation starters.

Dammit. Now she had to go and break the ice herself.

She gulped some more of the Dutch courage in her glass. Could she just sit on this stool and hope she radiated enough charm and allure that he’d buy her a drink? Could she afford to wait, to rely on her looks and short black dress to get her the result she needed?

No.

She jerked to her feet, slowly smoothed down the fabric of her dress on the off chance he was watching, picked up her handbag and sauntered over to the guy.

Her blood rushed hot and fiery to her cheeks.

She walked slowly, conscious of the thrust of her breasts, of the sway of her hips, of the distance that was vanishing between her and where he sat on his stool at a small table near the window.

This was it. She could do this. She was a professional…or temping as one, and that was as good as being one, wasn’t it?

He was hunched over the small table, a pen in his hand, scribbling on a napkin. His shopping list? His workload? A dear Jane letter?

She tapped him on his large square shoulder, acutely aware of the warmth under her fingertip, of the man beneath the suit and just how long it had been since she’d been this close to one, let alone touched one.

Roxanne swallowed hard. ‘Excuse me,’ she said softly. Darn it, a woman on the prowl didn’t have confidence issues. She should be strong, independent and daring.

He turned towards her, the pen in his hand. ‘Yes?’

His deep rich voice washed over her, seeping into her skin and making every nerve stand on alert.

She opened her mouth but the words wouldn’t come—Cade Taylor Watson…was a hunk!

His warm gaze met hers and careered over her in quick assessment, taking in her attire, and hopefully the shape of her body that she’d slithered into the dress.

Was he thinking how nicely they’d fit together? How her hands would feel running over that incredibly fine body of his, of her lips tracing the muscles on his wide chest, of her curling her fingers in his light hair, or of them fusing together?

Roxanne opened her mouth, and closed it. So, he was more handsome than she could have imagined…there was an energy about him that wasn’t captured in the photo, that one could only feel in the flesh, first hand. And dammit she was feeling it.

‘Can I help you?’ he offered, his golden-flecked eyes warm and inviting.

She licked her lips, the welcoming flicker she saw boosting her will. ‘I—’ Oh, help. Weather? Politics?

A straight-out invitation to get down and dirty with her?

He raised an eyebrow, rotating the pen in his right hand like a mini baton.

‘I…’ She pulled her attention from the sexy shape of his lips to meet his eyes. She could do this. She’d researched, practised and was primed. She clenched her hands by her sides. ‘Are your legs tired?’ She tried to smile like the book said. ‘Because you’ve been running through my dreams.’

‘Wow,’ he murmured, a smile fighting his sensuous mouth. ‘I don’t think I’ve heard that one before.’

‘Ever used it?’ she said in a rush.

‘No, but I have used a few others in my time.’

She couldn’t help but smile. This wasn’t so bad. He wasn’t going to jump on her or anything…pity. It would have made this so much easier. ‘I probably should have gone with something about the weather…’ she offered tentatively.

He rubbed his jaw as though trying to smother his smile. ‘Wouldn’t have been as memorable or as cute.’

She clasped her hands gently in front of her, holding them tightly, a bubble of excitement rising up inside. They were talking, clicking. This was going to be no problem at all. ‘Thanks, you wouldn’t believe how hard this is.’

Cade nodded, raising an eyebrow, putting the pen in his shirt pocket along with the napkin. ‘I know. I’ve done it enough times myself but I have to say it’s not often I get the opportunity of being on the receiving end.’

‘Really? I would think that women everywhere would take a punt and chat you up.’ Was she smiling too much? She could feel her cheeks aching…she was. She tried to sober under his warm gaze.

‘You’re the first.’

‘So—’ She glanced wildly around the room. This was it. Phase two. She’d got his attention, now all she had to do was get a sign he wanted to do more than chat to her. ‘Can I—’

Someone tapped her on the shoulder. She turned, pulling her gaze away from Cade’s, forcing herself to focus on the interruption rather than the gorgeous challenge at hand.

‘You left your book, Miss,’ the barman said, thrusting something towards her. ‘On the bar.’

Oh, no. She yanked the book out of the guy’s hands where he was brandishing it around for everyone to see, including Cade. How to be a Stud was not going to help her cause at all.

She stuffed the book into her handbag, fighting with the corners to get the zip up, the seconds melting into a minute that felt too long.

Roxanne swung around to face her mark, forcing a smile on her face.

His seat was empty.

A sense of loss filled her. She tried to laugh at her defeat, but couldn’t. What had happened?

Had he gone to get her a drink, gone to the bathroom, or to talk to a friend? Roxanne scanned the room but there weren’t any tall rusty-blond hunks to be seen.

She’d lost him.

What was her sister going to say when she heard about this? She was meant to be helping her, not making a mess of things.

A glimpse of a blue suit caught her eye through the sign on the front window. Cade Taylor Watson was on the footpath outside, his arm around a woman.

She moved closer to the window.

Roxanne recognised her instantly, the sight a steel weight in the pit of her belly, reminding her of her decision to do this, of her sister and of her miserable failure.

She sagged against the windowsill. She’d mucked it up. Her first attempt at being a private investigator-cum-seductress and she’d failed, miserably, but then she hadn’t had long.

He’d been late.

She was early.

And she was left with nothing.

CHAPTER TWO

CADE glanced back towards the bar, a dull ache sliding into his chest.

Given different circumstances, like a few months earlier, and it would have taken a hurricane to tear him away from a unique and tantalising woman like her. Now all it took was Heather.

He’d had no other choice. Heather had arrived right on time. He’d wanted to say goodbye to the tall, curvaceous beauty with the pick-up line and amazing smile, but it was wise not to have. Heather would not have understood.

Heather may be beautiful, successful and classy, but tolerant she was not. Meeting her at a gallery opening just after deciding it was time to settle down and get married had seemed like fate. She’d seemed perfect.

He steered Heather towards the car park, focusing on the footpath and his fiancée beside him and not the woman he’d just left.

He should have said something to her. It didn’t have to be a lot. Just to let her know that he appreciated her wit, her attention and her smile. The thought of putting her off being so confident and charming…

The guilt sat heavy in his gut.

He swung to Heather. ‘So how was your day?’ he blurted, opening the door on his black Lexus.

‘Oh, just the usual, honey. What about yours?’ she lilted, shooting him one of her dazzling smiles.

‘Fine.’

She swung and faced him, stabbing him with a piercing gaze, her eyes glittering dangerously. ‘Did I see you talking to a pretty woman back there?’

The question was loaded, like a double-barrelled shotgun aimed at his chest. He knew she’d already come to her own conclusion, her tone said it all.

He shrugged as innocently as he could manage.

Damage control was all he could offer. ‘The one that wanted to know the time?’ he offered diplomatically, striding around the car.

The woman had wanted to pick him up but Heather didn’t have to know that. It would just upset her, and there was no way in the world he wanted to do that.

Besides, nothing had happened.

‘So where are we going tonight?’ she said more cheerily as though she’d already dropped the matter.

He was thankful. He didn’t want to go there… He wasn’t sure he should be feeling like this, about anyone except Heather.

He just didn’t seem as close to his fiancée as he first had been. There was no doubt that she had heaps to do, what with her busy career, her obligations to family and friends and planning their wedding.

The wedding seemed to take all the spare time she had, despite having a wedding planner and both his and her mothers’ help. But then the wedding was only two weeks away now.

He took a deep breath. It would all be fine after the wedding. Like it used to be. Besides, everyone loved her. He loved her. There wasn’t anything more to it.

Cade just wished their approaching nuptials didn’t occupy all her time. He’d wanted to spend a lot of time with her, get to know her even more.

He sighed. He guessed they had the rest of their lives for that.

‘Does dinner at The Palace sound okay to you?’ he asked, slipping behind the wheel.

Heather liked to be wined and dined at the finest of places and surprised with treats and gifts, and he loved seeing her happy. Which reminded him. He reached into the back seat and pulled out a small wrapped package. ‘For you.’

‘Oh, thank you,’ she lilted, fluttering her eyelashes at him as he started the car. ‘You know I love surprises, darling.’

He nodded, starting the car, quelling the image of being with that tall, mysterious beauty. He had everything and there was no way he’d risk that for anything.

He glanced at the woman who would soon be his wife, the tension easing from his shoulders. She was impeccably dressed, as she always was. Groomed and preened to perfection; even after a day’s work at the fashion house that she managed she looked like a million dollars. Not the same sort of perfection as the stranger in the bar…hers was more a natural beauty, something she had without effort.

He could almost smell the stranger’s sweet vanilla scent on the edge of his memory.

He caught himself. It didn’t matter. Heather loved her top-shelf perfume, her designer wardrobe, his family and him…that was all that mattered.

They were going to have the perfect life together. She was everything he’d always wanted.

Roxanne dropped her head on to the desk, lifting and dropping it again for good measure. Why?

What was wrong with her?

Why had she even tried to pick the guy up with only minutes before his fiancée turned up? As if he was going to do anything then anyway…he wouldn’t have even been considering her. There would be no way even the most daring man would risk it.

She couldn’t stop thinking about it.

She rubbed the sore spot on her forehead. Maybe his impending date wouldn’t have mattered to him if her dress had been shorter, sexier, red?

She sighed, dropping her head again on to the desk and staying there, covering her face. She was hopeless.

What sort of professional was she? She hadn’t even looked at her watch to check out how much time she had…hadn’t even thought about it after he had walked in that door, towering above the mortals, looking like a god in that tailored suit.

She would have thought it would have been easier, especially after all those detective novels she’d read and the shows she’d watched on TV.

She stared around the small office in the two-storey walk-up that her sister, Nadine, had found to run her business. It wasn’t exactly typical of an investigator’s office.

It was small, the size of a small apartment, with enough room for two desks, a couple of wastepaper baskets and three walls of filing cabinets that Nadine’s daughter, Rory, had decorated with crayon.

A small pile of toys sat in the corner on a miniature desk where Rory came to help out when pre-school was out and the holidays were on.

One window looked out on the neighbouring office block’s western wall and had floral curtains and the other faced the street with pink blinds that wouldn’t go down.

The outer office was painted a soft peach with the paint that her sister had left over from painting her daughter’s bedroom, with a sofa that had seen better days and a pile of magazines from the Dark Ages.

Despite appearances, Nadine said the business was going quite well…if you didn’t count today’s disaster or the fact that Roxanne had been left to hold the fort—and she had no experience in this type of fort at all.

What she was going to do now with the Cade case she had no idea. Half of her wanted to shove the thing into the filing cabinet and forget about it, the other half hankered to go and see the guy again, to try again.

Could she?

No. It would be too obvious and far too awkward for her, and the fact that her track record with men was a disaster had to be taken into account.

The door burst open.

Nadine rushed into the room, carrying an armload of files. ‘What are you still doing here?’ She glanced at her watch. ‘It’s late.’

Roxanne looked at the clock on the wall. ‘Yes.’ But she hadn’t wanted to go home and face her sister until she’d worked out what to do.

‘Don’t think you can weasel overtime out of me.’ Her sister shot her a smile that looked a lot like her own, like her hair and her eyes—if there hadn’t been three years between them they could have been twins.

Nadine flicked back the wisps of her auburn-tinted brown hair. ‘How’s it going anyway? Are you finding everything okay? Taking notes for every call? Being polite?’ She dumped the files on to the desk. ‘Can you file these while you’re hanging round?’

Roxanne rubbed her forehead to ease the pain and sat up straighter. ‘Sure, but shouldn’t you be at home with Rory? I’ve got this all covered.’

Her sister scooped up the papers from a tray on her desk. ‘I’ve got a sitter with her for an hour so I haven’t got much time…I just wanted to catch up on paperwork… Are you sure you’re all right with this? I know I sort of dropped this on you, but you were jobless…’

Roxanne stood up. ‘I’m fine. Everything’s fine. I’m handling everything. I’ve had plenty of experience in office management.’

Nadine nodded, heading for the door. ‘Not this kind of office, I’ll bet.’

Roxanne’s mind shot to the scene earlier in the bar. That was for sure.

‘And I forgot to tell you, if there’s anyone who can’t wait until next week just pass them on to the private investigators that I wrote there in the appointment book.’

Roxanne’s gaze wandered over to the number scrawled on the top of the book. Just great. She could have told her that earlier.

The elegant woman had come in first thing this morning, insisting on getting the job done at the soonest possible time, threatening to take her business elsewhere if Roxanne couldn’t guarantee an immediate start.

‘And ring me if there’s a problem at all; I can track down a sitter for Rory for an hour or so while she’s sleeping. I can be a mother and troubleshoot messes at the same time.’

Roxanne froze. Her messes. She could hear Nadine’s accusation as clearly in her tone as every other time that her sister had come and saved the day for her, whether she wanted saving or not.

Since their mother had passed away Nadine had taken over the role with a vengeance. Well, she wasn’t a teenager any more and Nadine didn’t need to know she’d gone and tried to do a job herself and made a mess of it.

So, she had messed up the first time. She wasn’t going to run to Nadine at the first sign of trouble, she wasn’t going to pass the buck and she certainly wasn’t going to show that she wasn’t prepared to go out there in the real world again and put herself on the market.

She could face Cade Taylor Watson again.

Roxanne was up to the task, just not today, not without some more preparation and planning. She’d blundered in earlier, but not again.

She straightened the papers on the desk with quick, jerky movements, avoiding her sister’s gaze. Saying no to that client wouldn’t have been good for Nadine’s business anyway and the business was all her sister had after her jerk of a husband ran off with his secretary.

Nadine had taken up where her ex’s investigating business had left off. She didn’t just do the general private investigating work that her husband had done with a few marital jobs thrown in. Marital was her speciality.

Roxanne was behind the idea of testing a man’s fidelity one hundred and fifty per cent. She wished she’d known about it years ago—her life would have been so different if she had.

Nadine yanked open the door. ‘So, call me if you have any problems. In the meantime, just make appointments and take messages.’

Roxanne nodded, clamping down on the urge to confess her foray earlier. ‘I’m here to help,’ she blurted, plastering a smile on her face.

She would have come to help her sister earlier, but she had been committed elsewhere, in another state, with her own life, job, apartment and lover…

Now, she wasn’t.

She should have come as soon as she heard Nadine was starting up her own business and saved herself a lot of distress instead of staying in Melbourne.

‘How’s Rory?’ Roxanne blurted. If her daughter hadn’t been sick Nadine would have been here when the client had come in. She would have known exactly what to do and how to pull it off without a hitch, first time round. ‘Better?’

‘Not really.’ Her sister glanced behind her, frowning. ‘I’ve got to get back just in case she wakes up and needs me.’

Roxanne nodded.