Billion Dollar Bride

“What about flower petals. They’d be in keeping with your theme, I think.”

That pleased her. Then she asked gravely, “Do you think we’ll have to go to London for the armor and the costumes?”

Anna struggled with her expression again. She’d indulged many extravagances in the years that she’d been in business, but she’d never traveled out of the country to outfit the wedding party.

“I…think we can find everything we need here,” she said. “I know Mr. Cahill has given you a considerable budget for the wedding, but think of the fun you’ll have shopping on your honeymoon if you conserve a little here and there.”

Caroline batted that notion away with a pen she’d picked up off Anna’s desk. “Oh, there’ll be no real honeymoon. Austin and I aren’t a love match. Everyone knows that. We’re going straight to his place on Kauai after the wedding to make a baby.”

Anna stared at her. “Really,” she said.

“Really.” Caroline waggled the pen between her thumb and forefinger as she explained. “He’s one of the richest men in Texas, you know, and I don’t know what brought it on, but he just got to thinking one day that he had no one to leave everything to. He has a mother, but that’s it.”

“He’s never been married?”

“Never. He can’t take his mind off business long enough. Anyway, we’ve been friends since we met at a Junior League dinner three years ago. We both have a lot of money, and neither one of us believes in love. Austin was jilted by his fiancée a couple of years ago when she used her position in his company to help a rival firm take him over.” Her grim expression suggested Cahill’s reaction. “They failed, but since then, he’s had it with women.”

“But what about you? Don’t you want love in your marriage?”

Caroline smiled wryly and shook her head. “I had parents who took vacations without me and regularly forgot my birthday. But that meant I could do whatever I wanted, and I rather like that now. I’d hate to have to change for someone. So our arrangement will be perfect. No one interferes with our lives.”

“Marriage,” Anna suggested mildly, “will interfere with your life.” It had almost ruined hers, but she kept that to herself. “A baby will play havoc with it.”

“All I have to do is produce the baby.” Caroline shrugged gracefully and looked around the office, as though happy with her lot in life. “Then I can stay or not, depending on how I feel. The baby’s for him.”

Anna continued to stare at her in disbelief. “You probably don’t understand this now,” she said, “before it’s actually happened to you. But you won’t be able to carry a baby for nine months, deliver it, then just go your merry way.”

Caroline nodded with a gravity Anna found both distressing and sad. “I will,” she insisted. “I don’t stick to anything. Not school, not work, not friends. Austin’s the longest relationship of any kind I’ve ever had. I don’t know how to do them, so it’s easier not to try.”

Anna felt desperate to reach her. She’d had a loveless marriage herself when she’d been Caroline’s age, and it had shaken something deep down, some belief in the world’s underlying goodness, in the nobility of man.

She’d been able to go on, even to be happy again, because she was part of a large and wonderful family. But she’d been changed forever.

And she’d carried and delivered a baby. She knew walking away would not be as easy as Caroline imagined, despite her claims of never having known love.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” she asked, putting a hand to Caroline’s knee. “For a man to marry a woman solely for the purpose of creating an heir to a fortune is medieval!”

Caroline laughed musically and pinched Anna’s fingers, the serious moment erased. “That’s what gave me the idea for the theme!”

“Ms. Maitland?” The office door opened, and Eden Ross, Anna’s part-time secretary and occasional baby-sitter, peered around it, her dark eyes wide and her cheeks flushed. “Mr., um, Austin… No, no,” she corrected herself, her usual high-school-senior sophistication wobbling precariously. “That’s his first, um…Mr….”

“Cahill,” a helpful male voice offered quietly from the other side of the door.

Eden closed her eyes in mortification, but she regained her professional demeanor. She drew a breath and squared her shoulders. “Mr. Cahill is here for Ms. Lamont.”

“Show him in, please.” Anna smiled to let Eden know the occasional slipup was never fatal. The girl was smart, responsible and determined, but she took herself too seriously.

When Eden pushed the door open, Anna immediately understood her confusion.

A tall, well-built man walked in and unconsciously took control of the room. The quiet, feminine office with its striped silk wallpaper, lavender carpet and Hepplewhite desk took on a decidedly masculine mood.

In a finely tailored gray suit that covered broad shoulders and long legs, he walked to Caroline’s side. He had dark brown hair cut very short, blue eyes the color of dusk, a strong, straight nose and a jaw that probably won him arguments before he ever said anything.

Anna felt as though she should stand—not out of courtesy, but because the room suddenly hummed with energy and sitting down seemed unacceptable.

Besides, he was worth a bundle, and his fiancée was apparently determined to spend a significant portion of it on a Wonderful Wedding. Anna rose as Caroline began introductions.

“Austin, I’d like you to meet our wedding planner, Anna Maitland,” Caroline said as she stepped comfortably into his arm. “Anna, this is my fiancé, Austin Cahill.”

“I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Cahill.” Anna extended her hand, feeling small. It wasn’t just his size, she decided as he told her with a brief smile that the pleasure was his. It was his stature, a sort of presence that said, I can do anything, and I’m different from other men because of that.

She couldn’t help but wonder while her hand was swallowed in his why such a man would find it necessary to make a deal with a woman to get a child.

AUSTIN CAHILL would have given anything not to have to deal with all the fuss and feathers that went with a society wedding. But Caroline had agreed to his unorthodox request to give him a child, and the least he could do was give her the wedding she wanted.

He could afford to be generous today, anyway, emotionally as well as financially. He’d just made a deal for prime land outside of Austin. Eventually the site would accommodate a mall that included an indoor children’s playground in an atrium, a library, conversation areas and athletic courts for bored husbands. Several of his peers had laughed at the notion, but he had faith in his plan.

One day his child would inherit a fortune in nine figures. He took great pride in that knowledge.

His child, he thought as he glanced around an office that looked like an eighteenth-century drawing room. Would he sire a boy or a girl? It didn’t matter, really. The child would be made up of his genes, and that just about guaranteed a good business head.

He wrapped his arm more tightly around Caroline, grateful she was willing to be part of such an unusual marriage. And for her “beautiful” genes, which their child would undoubtedly inherit.

She hugged him briefly and he held on, ignoring the small pinch of disappointment that tried to cloud his vision at these moments. They were good friends. He felt great affection for her. She didn’t want love from him. So why did his heart insist on reacting to the fact that it wasn’t there?

They had fun together, enjoyed each other’s company, but whenever they touched, he got that pinch, and though it didn’t deter him, it unsettled him.

“I’m telling you, Austin,” Caroline was saying, “we are so lucky to get Anna. She has a dozen other clients right now, but she’s taking us on because she and Camille worked together on that project for the hungry. You remember? We went to the dinner.”

And because she’s going to charge me a fortune, he thought, to fulfill all your wild ideas. She’ll probably be able to retire on what you have in mind.

He reached across a small desk to shake hands with this paragon. The woman was strikingly beautiful, if a man had a preference for brunettes. Personally, he’d sworn off them since Lauren. It was a senseless prejudice, he realized, but since he’d been unable to see what was inside his former fiancée and protect himself from her deception, it was a sort of defense mechanism to stay away from women who had her outward appearance.

Still, this woman had none of Lauren’s petite fragility.

She was five-seven or maybe five-eight, with a woman’s maturity in her breasts and hips. His mind took her out of the silky white blouse and cranberry suit and put her in black lace. Accustomed to Caroline’s slender, leggy proportions, he’d forgotten how much he’d once appreciated roundness in a woman.

She had eyes the color of dark ale, and rich, deep brown hair, bundled up in a knot at the back of her head. It was side-parted and glossy in the sunlight shining through the window, and he could imagine how glorious it would look if she wore it loose.

This was the kind of woman who should bear a child, he thought. One who seemed all warmth and soft curves.

Then he noticed that the expression in her eyes was pitying and sad. That snapped the moment back into place.

“Ms. Maitland,” he said, drawing his hand away, erasing his previous thoughts. “The pleasure is mine. Carrie has some pretty wild ideas. Do you think you’ll be able to accommodate them?”

She nodded. “All except the butterflies.”

He’d been against that one himself, though he hadn’t said much about it. He didn’t want to do anything to discourage Caroline from going through with their arrangement.