Have Honeymoon, Need Husband. Robin Wells
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only about their money. He wanted me to promise things I knew the hotel couldn’t deliver in order to get convention bookings, and I refused to lie. The hotel lost a major piece of business because I wouldn’t do things his way. So I resigned before I got fired.”
Grudging admiration filled Luke’s chest. As much as he didn’t want to like this woman, he couldn’t help but respect her for refusing to compromise her principles. He raised his glass in a brief salute. “Good for you. Not many people have the courage of their convictions.”
Josie gave a rueful grin. “I’m afraid my convictions didn’t result in a very flattering job reference. I can’t land another job in the hotel industry to save my life. So when my father asked me to fill in for a few months while his office manager recovered from major surgery, I moved back to Tulsa.”
“Is that when you met your fiancé?”
Josie nodded. “He’s an attorney at my father’s firm. We started dating when I moved back, and three months later we were engaged.”
Luke watched her toy with her salad, trying not to notice the way the candlelight gleamed on her dark hair and lit her blue eyes. Curiosity was burning a hole in him.
It was none of his business, he warned himself. The less he knew, the better off he’d be.
But he couldn’t resist asking the question, anyway. “So what happened?”
“With the wedding? I narrowly avoided making the mistake of my life, that’s what happened.” She took a sip of champagne and regarded him over the rim of her glass. “Do you want the whole story?”
He was dying for it, but he feigned indifference. “Only if you want to tell me.”
Josie put down her glass and leaned forward. “Well, I was a nervous wreck before the ceremony. I thought some exercise might calm my nerves, so I went for a walk down a back hallway of the church. I ended up outside the room where Robert and the best man were waiting. I could hear their voices through the air vents.”
“And?” Luke prompted.
Josie’s full lips thinned into a narrow line. “I learned a few things about the man I was about to marry.”
“What things?”
“For starters, that his idea of matrimony doesn’t include fidelity.”
The whole thing was probably nothing more than a mis-understanding, Luke thought. Most likely the lovebirds would be back together before the weekend was. out. He picked up the champagne bottle and refilled her glass. “When you just hear part of a conversation, it’s easy to draw the wrong conclusion.”
Josie shook her head. “This conversation left no other conclusion to be drawn. Robert gave a graphic account of his all-night exploits with the jump-out-of-the-cake girl from his bachelor party. When his friend said it was hard to believe he was finally going to settle down, Robert laughed and replied, ‘Who said anything about settling down? As far as I’m concerned, getting married is nothing but a career move.’”
Josie placed her napkin on the table and pushed back her chair, shaking her head in disgust. “He only wanted to marry me so Dad would make him a partner. He didn’t even try to deny it when I confronted him.”
“You confronted him?”
Josie nodded. “I marched right into the room and told him I’d heard the whole conversation. He went white as a ghost. He begged for my forgiveness—and pleaded with me not to tell my father. Can you imagine the nerve?”
What was hard for Luke to imagine right now was any man preferring another woman over Josie. Her hair had dried into a mass of shiny, unruly curls that swayed when she moved her head, and her heart-shaped face was as sweet as a valentine, despite its indignant expression. Her eyes had the longest, silkiest lashes he’d ever seen on a human being, and they held him as enthralled as her story.
“What did you do?” he asked.
“Fortunately, my sister Sara had followed me into the hallway and heard the whole conversation—otherwise Robert probably would have tried to lie his way out of it. Sara helped explain things to my parents while I got the heck out of there. To avoid a scandal, it was agreed that the minister would announce that the wedding was postponed by mutual agreement.”
Luke shook his head in amazement. “You’ve had quite a day.”
Josie reached for her glass. “I’ll drink to that.”
For a person who’d been through such an ordeal, she sure seemed composed. But she’d left out a key element, Luke reflected: she hadn’t said how she felt about the man. If she’d planned to marry him, she must have cared for him.
“What did you see in this guy in the first place?” Luke asked.
Josie had been asking herself the same question, and she didn’t like the answers. They reflected too poorly on her decision-making abilities. They pointed out all too clearly how heavily she’d relied on the opinions of others, how little she’d trusted her own judgment.
She pushed out of her chair and crossed the room to the fireplace. Leaning against the mantel, she settled on a partial answer. “I honestly don’t know.”
Luke stood and joined her before the fire. His gaze was as warm on her face as the fire was on her back. “Was it just a physical thing?”
The question startled her so much she replied without thinking. “Oh, no. It wasn’t physical at all.”
“If you’d gone through with the ceremony, I imagine things would be getting pretty physical right about now.” Luke’s voice was tinged with sarcasm.
Josie gazed into the fire and swallowed hard. She hadn’t really allowed herself to think about that part of the marriage. Every time she’d started to wonder about it, her mind had shut down, refusing to pursue the train of thought. She’d told herself it would all work out when the time arrived. Now she realized she’d avoided thinking about it because the necessary feelings were missing.
“Surely you’d kissed him,” Luke persisted.
“Well, yes, but there wasn’t any—I mean—” Josie swallowed once more. Her eyes locked on his lips as they had in the barn, and again she felt that strong, magnetic tug. “Nothing happened,” she murmured in a voice at least an octave lower than usual.
He stepped closer, his gaze trapping hers. “Nothing else happened, or you felt nothing when you kissed him?”
“Yes. Both.” Mercy, his eyes were sexy…so dark and intense and probing. With a jolt she realized she was looking at a mirror image of the attraction unfurling in her belly. She knew she should avert her gaze, but she couldn’t pull her eyes away.
Sparks flew between them, filling the air like the scent of the cedar logs on the fire, raising the temperature of the room. Her voice lowered to a husky whisper. “Nothing ever happened.”
But something was happening now.
Luke moved closer until he was standing directly in front of her. The air all but disappeared from her lungs. A log snapped on the fire, and heat blazed between them.
Attraction, hot and primitive and strong, curled between them like smoke. A shiver snaked up Josie’s arm and down her spine. She knew she was staring, but she couldn’t pull her eyes away. If the building had caught fire, she doubted she could have moved to save her life.
The loud, impertinent ring of a telephone shattered the spell.
Luke strode across the room and jerked the phone off the table. “Hello?” he demanded.
Josie watched, dazed and jelly-kneed, her heart still racing like a runaway horse.
A scowl crossed his face. “One moment.” He turned to Josie, his face stony, his eyes inscrutable, and thrust out the receiver. “It’s for you. It’s Robert.”