Society Bride

However, she discovered as she stepped through the sliding glass doors that led to the terrace, she wouldn’t be alone outside. Protected from the snow by a generous overhang, a tall, dark figure leaned against the bricks not ten feet away from her, one knee bent, his foot braced against the wall behind him. He had one hand curved under the bowl of a champagne flute that was filled nearly to the brim with bubbly golden wine, the other shoved deep into his trouser pocket. His head was tipped back, and he was staring at the sky, but he didn’t seem to be seeing much of anything.

Garrett Fortune, she realized. Mac’s best man. She’d barely exchanged a dozen words with him, but the sight of him standing there alone, a tall, dark silhouette against a swirl of white, ignited a spark of heat inside her that quickly blossomed into a near forest fire. She didn’t know why he should wreak such havoc with her senses. But all through the rehearsal last night and all during the wedding this evening, Renee’s every instinct had homed in on him as if he were a beacon of salvation in the blackest night.

And although he had barely acknowledged her, there had been moments when she’d caught him eyeing her in a way that left her feeling oddly flustered. Bereft. Hot. The man roused a yearning inside her unlike anything she’d felt before.

It was the strangest thing. Renee had never yearned for anything before. Wanted, yes. Desired, certainly. But this yearning business was something completely different. Before, whenever she’d wanted or desired, her father had made sure she got whatever was necessary to fulfill her, or Renee went about achieving fulfillment for herself. But something told her this yearning she felt every time she came within twenty feet of Garrett Fortune wouldn’t be so easy to satisfy.

“Hi.” Renee greeted him, trying to be friendly. After all, they would be sharing a terrace.

He started, snapping his head around to look at her. His stiff stance eased when he saw who had hailed him, but he still appeared wary.

Strange, Renee thought. Usually it was the woman alone at night who claimed the right to feel cautious when confronted by the opposite sex. Somehow, though, she wasn’t the least bit threatened by Garrett. On the contrary, she sensed a wall of defense surrounding the guy.

“Hi, yourself,” he replied. His voice was deep, smooth, warm, reminding Renee of a generous shot of cognac—old cognac, the kind that went down oh, so smoothly and heated you up from the inside out.

In spite of that, she shoved her hands deep into her coat pockets. “The snow is beautiful, isn’t it?” she asked, taking a few steps toward him.

He stared at the fat flakes plummeting down, and for the first time, she noted that he wasn’t wearing a coat. Just a dark, clearly very expensive suit, a crisp white dress shirt and a night-colored tie. In spite of the freezing temperatures—or perhaps in defiance of them—he’d loosened that tie, and had unfastened the top button of his shirt. Somehow she got the impression that being comfortable was infinitely more important to him than being exposed to the elements.

Then again, those elements seemed to be almost inherent in his nature. As warm as he made her feel inside, his reception to her was a bit chilly.

“Beauty can be deceiving,” he said, turning toward her. “This is supposed to turn into a full-force blizzard before the night is over. In this case, beauty can be downright dangerous.”

When he turned, his face was thrown into the light tumbling from a nearby window, and Renee noticed again what an exceedingly handsome man he was. He was quite a bit older than she—probably in his mid-thirties. The light gilded his light brown hair—hair that was longer than one might expect on a man suited to suits. His eyes were pale brown, and his mouth…

She bit back a sigh, as she always did when her gaze settled inevitably on Garrett’s mouth. His mouth was at once soft and fierce, inviting and wary, luscious and forbidding. Much like the man himself, she thought.

She shrugged. “There’s no reason you can’t enjoy it now, though,” she said, clutching her coat more tightly around her. “Seems harmless enough for the time being.”

“The operative word here being ‘seems,’” he said.

She smiled. “Or maybe the operative words would be ‘for the time being.’”

“Or maybe it’s the ‘harmless’ part I should be worrying about,” he said. “Maybe that’s what’s really so deceiving.”

Renee eyed him thoughtfully. “Something tells me we’re having two totally different conversations here.”

He chuckled, but the sound was less than happy. “Yeah. Story of my life.”

The moment he uttered the words, Garrett Fortune realized they were stained with bitterness. And his new companion noticed, too, because her smile—a smile that had nearly blinded him, so dazzling had it been—immediately fell. And when it did, suddenly, somehow, he felt as if a door slammed shut deep inside his soul.

Man, his emotions must be rubbed raw tonight if he was reacting like this to a woman like Renee Riley. Oh, sure, she was cute and everything, even seemed kind of sweet, from what he’d seen of her at last night’s rehearsal and tonight’s wedding. But harmless? Not bloody likely. Not to him. She was exactly the kind of woman he knew to avoid.

God, he hated weddings. Why hadn’t he made up some lame excuse to give Mac—like he was bleeding from a mortal wound or something—and just stayed home?

His cool reception didn’t deter Renee. She covered the distance between them in a half-dozen easy strides. Then she took up a place beside him at the wall, adopting a stance much like his. Well, except that her stance was nearly a foot shorter than his, and she probably weighed a good hundred pounds less.

Garrett fought back a smile at the sight of her and enjoyed an idle sip of his champagne. He frowned when he noted her attire. Of course, she was the maid of honor, he reminded himself. But the least she could have done was put on a decent pair of shoes before coming out in the cold. The snow was only a few inches deep on the terrace, but it easily brushed her feet where her shoes ended and her stockings began. At this rate, she’d be taking home frostbite as a wedding favor.

Dim debutante, he thought. Then again, at least she was wearing a coat, which was more than he could say for some people standing on this terrace. But he was bad-tempered and self-destructive, right? Everybody said so. He was entitled.

“So…what did you think of the wedding?” she asked, clearly striving to end what was fast becoming an awkward moment.

Relieved at the introduction of small talk, Garrett took another sip of his wine. “I thought the wedding was beautiful,” he said amiably, “especially for one thrown together so quickly.”

“Yeah, me, too,” she agreed as she hugged her coat to herself again. “Mollie did a wonderful job. Of course, she’s a friend of Kelly’s so I’m sure she added a lot of extra special touches.”

“And I also think marriage is a complete waste of time and a total farce,” Garrett added as if she hadn’t spoken. Funny, he wasn’t sure when, exactly, he’d decided to say such a thing aloud.

His companion blinked in surprise at his announcement before expelling a soft sound of disbelief. “Well, gosh, don’t hide your feelings,” she said dryly. “If you want to voice an opinion, just spit it out.”

He smiled at that, then uttered another rough chuckle. “Sorry,” he replied, even though he felt not one iota of regret. “That just kind of popped out.”

“Yeah, I’ll say it did.”

He sighed and turned, leaning his shoulder against the wall so that he could observe her more intently. She was young, probably still in college. Pretty, though, in an uptown-girl kind of way. Dark curls tumbled riotously about her face, falling low over pale green eyes encircled by long, sooty lashes. The cold air had stained her cheeks with red, and her lips… He bit back a restless sound. Her lips, too, were touched with crimson, though whether the color resulted from cosmetics or the cold, he honestly couldn’t have said.

If he kissed her, he bet he could find out for sure.

Startled by the thought, Garrett pushed it away and forced himself to focus on the conversation at hand.

“I’ve just seen too many people get married for the wrong reasons, that’s all,” he said by way of an explanation. “Then things start going bad, and a messy divorce clinches all the nasty feelings.”

“Gee, you sound like you’re speaking from experience,” Renee said quietly.

For a moment, he wondered where she got off making such a personal observation about someone she barely knew. Then he realized that he’d been the one to start it. He had no one to blame but himself.

So he replied frankly. “Maybe that’s because I am.”

Renee eyed him thoughtfully for a moment, but instead of pursuing his confession, she asked, “Are you suggesting that Kelly and Mac married for the wrong reasons?”

Garrett shrugged. “Well, it’s not exactly a love match when a man marries a woman who got herself knocked up by his little brother, is it?”

“Excuse me,” she said indignantly, quick to jump to her friend’s defense, “but a woman doesn’t get herself pregnant all alone, you know. Chad Fortune—that jerk—had a little something to do with the whole thing.”

Garrett expelled an impatient sigh. “Yeah, and now Mac is the one paying for it.”

“You make it sound like he was forced to marry Kelly against his will.”

“Wasn’t he?”

“Of course not. He was the one who made the offer.”

“And she was the one who jumped at the chance to be a Fortune wife.”

“Oh, come on,” Renee said, straightening to her full height of what couldn’t possibly be more than five feet four inches, clearly spoiling for a fight.

Garrett smiled the most predatory smile he could summon and straightened to his own six-feet-plus, fully ready to take her on.