The Bride and the Bargain. Allison Leigh
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ever worked for.
The phone vibrated in his palm. “Figured you were playing newlywed with your bride,” he answered.
“I beg your pardon?”
The voice was female. Smooth. Lilting.
Definitely not J.T.
“Amelia.” There was no baby crying in the background this time. No television that he could hear. No other voices at all—childish or adult. “Sorry about that. I thought you were my brother.”
“Oh. Well, I—”
“I didn’t mean to scare you off earlier. About dinner.”
“You didn’t.”
She was a poor liar. He could hear it in her voice. And now that she’d called, he was going to make darn sure not to take another misstep. “Okay. What can I do for you?”
She hesitated so long he wasn’t sure she was going to answer. And then, when she did answer, it was in one heck of a rush. “Wecouldmeetforcoffee.”
Fortunately, he was a native Seattleite. Coffee flowed in his veins, and he understood any sentence containing that magic word just fine. “Sure. Sounds good.” Better than good, if his lightening mood was any indication. “You said you’re new to the area. Do you have a place in mind?” He’d prefer to name the place so that he could pick the setting and be assured that nobody would blow his cover. But he was treading carefully—an act that did not come naturally to him.
She named a coffeehouse that he’d never heard of, though, taking the decision out of his hands. “It’s near the running park,” she told him. “The, um, the day after tomorrow? Around seven? In the morning, I mean,” she added hurriedly.
He didn’t have to guess hard to tell that she was not in the habit of asking men to meet her. Not when she was practically tripping over her words in the process. “Perfect.”
She hesitated again. “Really? You won’t be running at that hour or something?”
He didn’t bother reminding her that it had been well before 7:00 a.m. when he’d tripped over her on the running path. Nor did he have to look at his calendar to know that two days from now, he had a breakfast meeting at five, followed by departmental meetings starting at exactly seven. “Really,” he assured her. “Seven is ideal.”
In this instance, everyone else would have to work their schedules around his.
“Okay then. I’ll…I’ll see you then. Matt.”
He looked out the window again, seeing his reflection and the faint smile playing around his lips. “I’m looking forward to it. Amelia.”
The fact that the words were true wasn’t something he was going to delve into too deeply.
Chapter Four
By the time she was to meet Grayson Hunt at Between the Bean, Amelia had worked out in her head a dozen times over exactly what she would say to the man.
The first, being that she knew just exactly who he was.
The second, that she was Daphne’s sister and well aware of his threatened lawsuit against her if she hadn’t dropped her claims about Timmy.
There were many things that Amelia wasn’t good at, and lying topped every list, so it was definitely time to stop it.
Unfortunately, second runner-up to things that Amelia was not good at were confrontations.
If only Jack hadn’t been within earshot. She could have gotten everything out within the safety of a non-face-to-face telephone call.
And would probably have had the man hang up on her the second she’d done so.
Face-to-face was definitely a better option, no matter how uncomfortable it made her.
She’d failed plenty of times in her thirty years, but not this time.
“Not this time,” she repeated under her breath as she paid for two tall coffees and two oversize cranberry muffins.
Armed in her favorite iron-gray suit with her hair smoothed back in a sleek knot, at least she felt far more herself than she had wearing the running togs of Daphne’s that she’d been borrowing. On top of that, she’d arrived a full twenty minutes early only to find herself too nervous to sit still at the little round corner table that she’d procured in the bustling shop. There were a few umbrella-topped tables on the sidewalk outside the coffeehouse, but rain or shine, Amelia had yet to see them ever empty.
So she’d waited in the line that waxed and waned, sometimes snaking out the door, and gone ahead and ordered for them both.
The purple-haired girl at the counter made no comment as Amelia counted out change to pay for her order. After several visits of Amelia’s since she’d discovered the place, the clerk—Suki—had gotten used to Amelia’s coin method. “You extra hungry today?” Suki dropped the change in the aging cash register and added several napkins to the thin cardboard box containing the muffins.
“I’m meeting someone.”
“A man?”
Amelia carefully balanced the cups and the cardboard container. “Yes.”
Suki’s brows shot up, disappearing beneath her spiky bangs. “Well, you go, girl.”
Not knowing whether to laugh or be insulted, Amelia started to head back to the table. Only her feet stopped dead still at the sight of Grayson Hunt turning his wide shoulders slightly as he entered the narrow doorway.
His sharp gaze spotted her immediately—not hard considering the miniscule dimensions of the shop—and she swallowed past the hard knot that formed in her throat.
She’d come armed in a suit, while he’d donned a loud crimson-and-lime Hawaiian-print shirt that hung loose over well-worn blue jeans. A Seahawks ball cap was pulled close over his forehead.
To shield his looks? Or protect that thick brownish-blond hair of his from the rain?
All the things she’d heard and read about the man told her that last was pretty unlikely.
But then, so were the jeans. In all the articles she’d seen about him, all the photos she’d amassed, all the arcane video sound bites she’d unearthed, she’d never once seen the man photographed wearing such casual attire.
Pity, a devilish brain cell noted.
The man, devil or not, looked seriously good in jeans.
He reached her in two steps, and his hands—seeming as long and lanky as the rest of him—took the coffees from her. “Morning. You look different.”
“I don’t wear sweats to work,” she pointed out and nearly winced at the way her voice sounded breathless. She cleared her throat. “I saved that table over there. The one with the satchel on top.”
He looked over his shoulder and nodded, setting off ahead of her and cutting a swath for her to pass through the line that had stretched out the doorway all over again. She followed and with her hand freed, wrapped it around the cardboard container.
It had to be nerves causing the tingling from where his fingers had grazed hers. It had to be.
Not even her fiancé had caused sensations like that when he’d touched her. Not that there had been a whole lot of touching going on between John and Amelia. He’d been more interested in touching Pamela.
She’d seen that with her own eyes.
She moistened her lips and set the muffins on the table, pulling her briefcase off the chair and setting it on the floor. She realized with a start that Grayson wasn’t taking the chair closest to the window—he was standing there, holding it out for her.
That knot was back in her throat again, threatening to choke her. She managed a smile and slipped into the seat, painfully