A Business Engagement

“The Duchess returned from her afternoon constitutional about an hour ago,” Jerome volunteered. The merest hint of a shadow crossed his lean face. “She was leaning rather heavily on her cane.”

Sharp, swift fear pushed aside Sarah’s worry about her sister. “She didn’t overdo it, did she?”

“She said not. But then, she wouldn’t say otherwise, would she?”

“No,” Sarah agreed in a hollow voice, “she wouldn’t.

Charlotte St. Sebastian had witnessed the brutal execution of her husband and endured near-starvation before she’d escaped her war-ravaged country with her baby in her arms and a king’s ransom in jewels hidden inside her daughter’s teddy bear. She’d fled first to Vienna, then New York, where she’d slipped easily into the city’s intellectual and social elite. The discreet, carefully timed sale of her jewels had allowed her to purchase an apartment at the Dakota and maintain a gracious lifestyle.

Tragedy struck again when she lost both her daughter and son-in-law in a boating accident. Sarah was just four and Gina still in diapers at the time. Not long after that, an unscrupulous Wall Street type sank the savings the duchess had managed to accrue into a Ponzi scheme that blew up in his and his clients’ faces.

Those horrific events might have crushed a lesser woman. With two small girls to raise, Charlotte St. Sebastian wasted little time on self-pity. Once again she was forced to sell her heritage. The remaining jewels were discreetly disposed of over the years to provide her granddaughters with the education and lifestyle she insisted was their birthright. Private schools. Music tutors. Coming-out balls at the Waldorf. Smith College and a year at the Sorbonne for Sarah, Barnard for Gina.

Neither sister had a clue how desperate the financial situation had become, however, until Grandmama’s heart attack. It was a mild one, quickly dismissed by the iron-spined duchess as a trifling bout of angina. The hospital charges weren’t trifling, though. Nor was the stack of bills Sarah had found stuffed in Grandmama’s desk when she sat down to pay what she’d thought were merely recurring monthly expenses. She’d nearly had a heart attack herself when she’d totaled up the amount.

Sarah had depleted her own savings account to pay that daunting stack of bills. Most of them, anyway. She still had to settle the charges for Grandmama’s last echocardiogram. In the meantime, her single most important goal in life was to avoid stressing out the woman she loved with all her heart.

She let herself into their fifth-floor apartment, as shaken by Jerome’s disclosure as by her earlier meeting with Devon Hunter. The comfortably padded Ecuadoran who served as maid, companion to Charlotte and friend to both Sarah and her sister for more than a decade was just preparing to leave.

“Hola, Sarah.”

“Hola, Maria. How was your day?”

“Good. We walked, la duquesa and me, and shopped a little.” She shouldered her hefty tote bag. “I go to catch my bus now. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Good night.”

When the door closed behind her, a rich soprano voice only slightly dimmed by age called out, “Sarah? Is that you?”

“Yes, Grandmama.”

She deposited her purse on the gilt-edged rococo sideboard gracing the entryway and made her way down a hall tiled in pale pink Carrara marble. The duchess hadn’t been reduced to selling the furniture and artwork she’d acquired when she’d first arrived in New York, although Sarah now knew how desperately close she’d come to it.

“You’re home early.”

Charlotte sat in her favorite chair, the single aperitif she allowed herself despite the doctor’s warning close at hand. The sight of her faded blue eyes and aristocratic nose brought a rush of emotion so strong Sarah had to swallow before she could a reply past the lump in her throat.

“Yes, I am.”

She should have known Charlotte would pick up on the slightest nuance in her granddaughter’s voice.

“You sound upset,” she said with a small frown. “Did something happen at work?”

“Nothing more than the usual.” Sarah forced a wry smile and went to pour herself a glass of white wine. “Alexis was on a tear about the ski-resort mock-up. I had to rework everything but the page count.”

The duchess sniffed. “I don’t know why you work for that woman.”

“Mostly because she was the only one who would hire me.”

“She didn’t hire you. She hired your title.”

Sarah winced, knowing it was true, and her grandmother instantly shifted gears.

“Lucky for Alexis the title came with an unerring eye for form, shape and spatial dimension,” she huffed.

“Lucky for me,” Sarah countered with a laugh. “Not everyone can parlay a degree in Renaissance-era art into a job at one of the country’s leading fashion magazines.”

“Or work her way from junior assistant to senior editor in just three years,” Charlotte retorted. Her face softened into an expression that played on Sarah’s heartstrings like a finely tuned Stradivarius. “Have I told you how proud I am of you?”

“Only about a thousand times, Grandmama.”

They spent another half hour together before Charlotte decided she would rest a little before dinner. Sarah knew better than to offer to help her out of her chair, but she wanted to. God, she wanted to! When her grandmother’s cane had thumped slowly down the hall to her bedroom, Sarah fixed a spinach salad and added a bit more liquid to the chicken Maria had begun baking in the oven. Then she washed her hands, detoured into the cavernous sitting room that served as a study and booted up her laptop.

She remembered the basics from the article Beguile had run on Devon Hunter. She wanted to dig deeper, uncover every minute detail she could about the man before she crossed swords with him again tomorrow evening.

Two

Seated at a linen-draped table by the window, Dev watched Sarah St. Sebastian approach the restaurant’s entrance. Tall and slender, she moved with restrained grace. No swinging hips, no ground-eating strides, just a smooth symmetry of motion and dignity.

She wore her hair down tonight. He liked the way the mink-dark waves framed her face and brushed the shoulders of her suit jacket. The boxy jacket was a sort of pale purple. His sisters would probably call that color lilac or heliotrope or something equally girlie. The skirt was black and just swished her boot tops as she walked.

Despite growing up with four sisters, Dev’s fashion sense could be summed up in a single word. A woman either looked good, or she didn’t. This one looked good. Very good.

He wasn’t the only one who thought so. When she entered the restaurant and the greeter escorted her to the table by the window, every head in the room turned. Males without female companions were openly admiring. Those with women at their tables were more discreet but no less appreciative. Many of the women, too, slanted those seemingly casual, careless glances that instantly catalogued every detail of hair, dress, jewelry and shoes.

How the hell did they do that? Dev could walk into the belly of a plane and tell in a single glance if the struts were buckling or the rivets starting to rust. As he’d discovered since that damned magazine article came out, however, his powers of observation paled beside those of the female of the species.

He’d treated the Ten Sexiest Singles list as a joke at first. He could hardly do otherwise, with his sisters, brothers-in-law and assorted nieces and nephews ragging him about it nonstop. And okay, being named one of the world’s top ten hunks did kind of puff up his ego.

That was before women began stopping him on the street to let him know they were available. Before waitresses started hustling over to take his order and make the same pronouncement. Before the cocktail parties he was forced to attend as the price of doing business became a total embarrassment.

Dev had been able to shrug off most of it. He couldn’t shrug off the wife of the French CEO he was trying to close a multibillion dollar deal with. The last time Dev was in Paris, Elise Girault had draped herself all over him. He knew then he had to put a stop to what had become more than just a nuisance.

He’d thought he’d found the perfect tool in Lady Eugenia Amalia Therése St. Sebastian. The blonde was gorgeous, vivacious and so photogenic that the vultures otherwise known as paparazzi wouldn’t even glance at Dev if she was anywhere in the vicinity.

Thirty minutes in Gina St. Sebastian’s company had deep-sixed that idea. Despite her pedigree, the woman was as bubbleheaded as she was sumptuous. Then she’d lifted the Byzantine medallion and the game plan had changed completely. For the better, Dev decided as he rose to greet the slender brunette being escorted to his table.

Chin high, shoulders back, Sarah St. Sebastian carried herself like the royalty she was. Or would have been, if her grandmother’s small Eastern European country hadn’t dispensed with royal titles about the same time Soviet tanks had rumbled across its border. The tanks had rumbled out again four decades later. By that time the borders of Eastern Europe had been redrawn several times and the duchy that had been home to the St. Sebastians for several centuries had completely disappeared.

Bad break for Charlotte St. Sebastian and her granddaughters. Lucky break for Dev. Lady Sarah didn’t know it yet, but she was going to extract him from the mess she and her magazine had created.

“Good evening, Mr. Hunter.”

The voice was cool, the green eyes cold.

“Good evening, Ms. St. Sebastian.”

Dev stood patiently while the greeter seated her. A server materialized instantly.

“A cocktail or glass of wine before dinner, madam?”

“No, thank you. And no dinner.” She waved aside the gilt-edged menu he offered and locked those forest-glade eyes on Dev. “I’ll just be here a few minutes, then I’ll leave Mr. Hunter to enjoy his meal.”

The server departed, and Dev reclaimed his seat. “Are you sure you don’t want dinner?”

“I’m sure.” She placed loosely clasped hands on the table and launched an immediate offensive. “We’re not here to exchange pleasantries, Mr. Hunter.”

Dev sat back against his chair, his long legs outstretched beneath the starched tablecloth and his gaze steady on her face. Framed by those dark, glossy waves, her features fascinated him. The slight widow’s peak, the high cheekbones, the aquiline nose—all refined and remote and in seeming contrast to those full, sensual lips. She might have modeled for some famous fifteenth-or sixteen-century sculptor. Dev was damned if he knew which.

“No, we’re not,” he agreed, still intrigued by that face. “Have you talked to your sister?”

The clasped hands tightened. Only a fraction, but that small jerk was a dead giveaway.

“I haven’t been able to reach her.”

“Neither have I. So what do you propose we do now?”

“I propose you wait.” She drew in a breath and forced a small smile. “Give me more time to track Gina down before you report your medallion missing or...or...”

“Or stolen?”

The smile evaporated. “Gina didn’t steal that piece, Mr. Hunter. I admit it appears she took it for some reason, but I’m sure...I know she’ll return it. Eventually.”

Dev played with the tumbler containing his scotch, circling it almost a full turn before baiting the trap.

“The longer I wait to file a police report, Ms. St. Sebastian, the more my insurance company is going to question why. A delay reporting the loss could void the coverage.”

“Give me another twenty-four hours, Mr. Hunter. Please.”

She hated to beg. He heard it in her voice, saw it in the way her hands were knotted together now, the knuckles white.

“All right, Ms. St. Sebastian. Twenty-four hours. If your sister hasn’t returned the medallion by then, however, I...”

“She will. I’m sure she will.”

“And if she doesn’t?”

She drew in another breath: longer, shakier. “I’ll pay you the appraised value.”

“How?”

Her chin came up. Her jaws went tight. “It will take some time,” she admitted. “We’ll have to work out a payment schedule.”

Dev didn’t like himself much at the moment. If he didn’t have a multibillion-dollar deal hanging fire, he’d call this farce off right now. Setting aside the crystal tumbler, he leaned forward.

“Let’s cut to the chase here, Ms. St. Sebastian. I had my people run an in-depth background check on your featherheaded sister. On you, too. I know you’ve bailed Gina out of one mess after another. I know you’re currently providing your grandmother’s sole support. I also know you barely make enough to cover her medical co-pays, let alone reimburse me for a near-priceless artifact.”

Every vestige of color had drained from her face, but pride sparked in those mesmerizing eyes. Before she could tell him where to go and how to get there, Dev sprang the trap.

“I have an alternate proposal, Ms. St. Sebastian.”

Her brows snapped together. “What kind of a proposal?”

“I need a fiancée.”

For the second time in as many days Dev saw her composure crumble. Her jaw dropping, she treated him to a disbelieving stare.

“Excuse me?”

“I need a fiancée,” he repeated. “I was considering Gina for the position. I axed that idea after thirty minutes in her company. Becoming engaged to your sister,” he drawled, “is not for the faint of heart.”

He might have stunned her with his proposition. That didn’t prevent her from leaping to the defense. Dev suspected it came as natural to her as breathing.

“My sister, Mr. Hunter, is warm and generous and openhearted and...”

“Gone to ground.” He drove the point home with the same swift lethality he brought to the negotiating table. “You, on the other hand, are available. And you owe me.”

“I owe you?”

“You and that magazine you work for.” Despite his best efforts to keep his irritation contained, it leaked into his voice. “Do you have any idea how many women have accosted me since that damned article came out? I can’t even grab a meatball sub at my favorite deli without some female writing her number on a napkin and trying to stuff it into my pants pocket.”

Her shock faded. Derision replaced it. She sat back in her chair with her lips pooched in false sympathy.

“Ooh. You poor, poor sex object.”

“You may think it’s funny,” he growled. “I don’t. Not with a multibillion-dollar deal hanging in the balance.”

That wiped the smirk off her face. “Putting you on our Ten Sexiest Singles list has impacted your business? How?”

Enlightenment dawned in almost the next breath. The smirk returned. “Oh! Wait! I’ve got it. You have so many women throwing themselves at you that you can’t concentrate.”

“You’re partially correct. But it’s not a matter of not being able to concentrate. It’s more that I don’t want to jeopardize the deal by telling the wife of the man I’m negotiating with to keep her hands to herself.”

“So instead of confronting the woman, you want to hide behind a fiancée.”

The disdain was cool and well-bred, but it was there. Dev was feeling the sting when he caught a flutter of movement from the corner of one eye. A second later the flutter evolved into a tall, sleek redhead being shown to an empty table a little way from theirs. She caught Dev’s glance, arched a penciled brow and came to a full stop beside their table.

“I know you.” She tilted her head and put a finger to her chin. “Remind me. Where have we met?”

“We haven’t,” Dev replied, courteous outside, bracing inside.

“Are you sure? I never forget a face. Or,” she added as her lips curved in a slow, feline smile, “a truly excellent butt.”

The grimace that crossed Hunter’s face gave Sarah a jolt of fierce satisfaction. Let him squirm, she thought gleefully. Let him writhe like a specimen under a microscope. He deserved the embarrassment.

Except...

He didn’t. Not really. Beguile had put him under the microscope. Beguile had also run a locker-room photo with the face angled away from the camera just enough to keep them from getting sued. And as much as Sarah hated to admit it, the man had shown a remarkable degree of restraint by not reporting his missing artifact to the police immediately.

Still, she didn’t want to come to his rescue. She really didn’t. It was an innate and very grudging sense of fair play that compelled her to mimic her grandmother in one of Charlotte’s more imperial moods.

“I beg your pardon,” she said with icy hauteur. “I believe my fiancé has already stated he doesn’t know you. Now, if you don’t mind, we would like to continue our conversation.”

The woman’s cheeks flushed almost the same color as her hair. “Yes, of course. Sorry for interrupting.”

She hurried to her table, leaving Hunter staring after her while Sarah took an unhurried sip from her water goblet.

“That’s it.” He turned back to her, amusement slashing across his face. “That’s exactly what I want from you.”

Whoa! Sarah gripped the goblet’s stem and tried to blunt the impact of the grin aimed in her direction. Devon Hunter all cold and intimidating she could handle. Devon Hunter with crinkly squint lines at the corners of those killer blue eyes and his mouth tipped into a rakish smile was something else again.

The smile made him look so different. That, and the more casual attire he wore tonight. He was in a suit again, but he’d dispensed with a tie and his pale blue shirt was open at the neck. This late in the evening, a five-o’clock shadow darkened his cheeks and chin, giving him the sophisticated bad-boy look so many of Beguile’s male models tried for but could never quite pull off.

The research Sarah had done on the man put him in a different light, too. She’d had to dig hard for details. Hunter was notorious about protecting his privacy, which was why Beguile had been forced to go with a fluff piece instead of the in-depth interview Alexis had wanted. And no doubt why he resented the article so much, Sarah acknowledged with a twinge of guilt.

The few additional details she’d managed to dig up had contributed to an intriguing picture. She’d already known that Devon Hunter had enlisted in the Air Force right out of high school and trained as a loadmaster on big cargo jets. She hadn’t known he’d completed a bachelor’s and a master’s during his eight years in uniform, despite spending most of those years flying into combat zones or disaster areas.

On one of those combat missions his aircraft had come under intense enemy fire. Hunter had jerry-rigged some kind of emergency fix to its damaged cargo ramp that had allowed them to take on hundreds of frantic Somalian refugees attempting to escape certain death. He’d left the Air Force a short time later and patented the modification he’d devised. From what Sarah could gather, it was now used on military and civilian aircraft worldwide.

That enterprise had earned Hunter his first million. The rest, as they say, was history. She hadn’t found a precise estimate of the man’s net worth, but it was obviously enough to allow him to collect hundred-thousand-pound museum pieces. Which brought her back to the problem at hand.

“Look, Mr. Hunter, this whole...”

“Dev,” he interrupted, the grin still in place. “Now that we’re engaged, we should dispense with the formalities. I know you have a half-dozen names. Do you go by Sarah or Elizabeth or Marie-Adele?”

“Sarah,” she conceded, “but we are not engaged.”

He tipped his chin toward the woman several tables away, her nose now buried in a menu. “Red there thinks we are.”

“I simply didn’t care for her attitude.”

“Me, either.” The amusement left his eyes. “That’s why I offered you a choice. Let me spell out the basic terms so there’s no misunderstanding. You agree to an engagement. Six months max. Less, if I close the deal currently on the table. In return, I destroy the surveillance tape and don’t report the loss.”

“But the medallion! You said it was worth a hundred thousand pounds or more.”

“I’m willing to accept your assurances that Gina will return it. Eventually. In the meantime...” He lifted his tumbler in a mock salute. “To us, Sarah.”

Feeling much like the proverbial mouse backed into a corner, she snatched at her last lifeline. “You promised me another twenty-four hours. The deal doesn’t go into effect until then. Agreed?”

He hesitated, then lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “Agreed.”

Surely Gina would return her calls before then and this whole, ridiculous situation would be resolved. Sarah clung to that hope as she pushed away from the table.

“Until tomorrow, Mr. Hunter.”

“Dev,” he corrected, rising, as well.

“No need for you to walk me out. Please stay and enjoy your dinner.”

“Actually, I got hungry earlier and grabbed a Korean taco from a street stand. Funny,” he commented as he tossed some bills on the table, “I’ve been in and out of Korea a dozen times. Don’t remember ever having tacos there.”

He took her elbow in a courteous gesture Grandmama would approve of. Very correct, very polite, not really possessive but edging too close to it for Sarah’s comfort. Walking beside him only reinforced the impression she’d gained yesterday of his height and strength.

They passed the redhead’s table on the way to the door. She glanced up, caught Sarah’s dismissive stare and stuck her nose back in the menu.

“I’ll hail you a cab,” Hunter said as they exited the restaurant.

“It’s only a few blocks.”

“It’s also getting dark. I know this is your town, but I’ll feel better sending you home in a cab.”

Sarah didn’t argue further, mostly because dusk had started to descend and the air had taken on a distinct chill. Across the street, the lanterns in Central Park shed their golden glow. She turned in a half circle, her artist’s eye delighting in the dots of gold punctuating the deep purple of the park.

Unfortunately, the turn brought the redhead into view again. The picture there wasn’t as delightful. She was squinting at them through the restaurant’s window, a phone jammed to her ear. Whoever she was talking to was obviously getting an earful.

Sarah guessed instantly she was spreading the word about Sexy Single Number Three and his fiancée. The realization gave her a sudden, queasy feeling. New York City lived and breathed celebrities. They were the stuff of life on Good Morning America, were courted by Tyra Banks and the women of The View, appeared regularly on Late Show with David Letterman. The tabloids, the glossies, even the so-called “literary” publications paid major bucks for inside scoops.

And Sarah had just handed them one. Thoroughly disgusted with herself for yielding to impulse, she smothered a curse that would have earned a sharp reprimand from Grandmama. Hunter followed her line of sight and spotted the woman staring at them through the restaurant window, the phone still jammed to her ear. He shared Sarah’s pessimistic view of the matter but didn’t bother to swallow his curse. It singed the night air.

“This is going turn up in another rag like Beguile, isn’t it?”

Sarah stiffened. True, she’d privately cringed at some of the articles Alexis had insisted on putting in print. But that didn’t mean she would stand by and let an outsider disparage her magazine.

“Beguile is hardly a rag. We’re one of the leading fashion publications for women in the twenty to thirty-five age range, here and abroad.”

“If you say so.”

“I do,” she ground out.

The misguided sympathy she’d felt for the man earlier had gone as dry and stale as yesterday’s bagel. It went even staler when he turned to face her. Devon Hunter of the crinkly squint lines and heart-stuttering grin was gone. His intimidating alter ego was back.

“I guess if we’re going to show up in some pulp press, we might as well give the story a little juice.”

She saw the intent in his face and put up a warning palm. “Let’s not do anything rash here, Mr. Hunter.”