She dragged her eyes from the soothing river and leveled a look at him, piercing to his soul.
“You…heard?” She licked her lower lip and bit it, worry clouding her pretty eyes.
He’d started this, and he couldn’t hold back the avalanche now.
“I work at Crockett, Bowie, and Houston, as you probably guessed from the elevator ride, and I happened by while you were explaining it to Cora.” He sounded like he’d been eavesdropping. “But in my defense, you weren’t exactly trying to keep it a secret.”
Rather than getting upset with him for intruding on her privacy, she actually just looked sad.
“It’s such a lame situation. If it were only about me, I’d probably just leave, let the jerks kick me out, even though I am completely innocent.”
Of course she was innocent. Zach couldn’t imagine any scenario to the contrary.
“But I’ve got the restaurant, and its responsibilities, its future. My business partner completely depends on my being there every single day. She doesn’t cook.”
“Oh.” That did sound like a burden tougher than a mutton chop. Piper Quinn turned to him, her look weary, but still beautiful.
“Not to brag or anything, but I’m the chef she’s built all the business around. Most of our customers come there because they want to taste my food. I can cook anywhere, true, but Mitzi believed in me enough to put everything she had into Du Jour—into me.”
Things were starting to clarify. Piper’s need to stay in the country wasn’t selfish, it was noble.
“We’re so close to breaking out, so close to actually starting to turn a profit, which is tough as a new restaurant, that it’d be tragic to throw it all away. If I have to leave the country, Mitzi is stuck with no chef, no restaurant, and a Riverwalk property mortgage. You, I’m sure, have an idea what that’s valued at.”
Zach knew. He considered buying a place closer to work last year when he got sick of the commute. The prices were like someone thought this bit o’ real estate was Manhattan Island, not endless-acreage Texas. He’d stuck with his bachelor apartment, much to CBH’s traditional-minded, frowning disapproval.
But even more frown-inducing, apparently, than my studio apartment with a swamp cooler is my lack of a wife. Which is why I’m here tonight. Mostly.
“While most people would be saying, Yay, free one-way trip to New Zealand, your loyalty to your friend is impressive.” True fidelity was a rare trait.
This comment spurred her to life, and she sat forward shaking her head quickly.
“It’s Mitzi who’s loyal. She believed in me from the beginning—so much so, that I think if I left, she wouldn’t even bother hiring another chef. She’d shutter the place instead. Frankly, it’s at the superstitious level.” Piper herself seemed as if it even spooked her. “I couldn’t leave someone like that hanging, could you?”
Zach thought about it. He’d never really had anyone believe in him to that extent. There, too, lay her burden. Interesting.
“No. Not someone like that.”
At first, it might be true that the main traits Zach had noticed about Piper were the inexorable attraction he’d felt between them, and the powerful magnetic effect her gorgeous eyes and incredible figure had over him. But then, he’d been drawn like a salivating dog to her cooking skills—and who could blame him?
Now, however, as she’d bared her soul and the motivations linking her to her actions, he’d stopped being a complete guy as he’d been allowed a glimpse at the real woman before him. Piper Quinn was far more than a gorgeous package who had mad skills in the kitchen. Here sat a woman who loved her parents, despite their foibles; who would stick fiercely by a friend who’d sacrificed for her; who’d made a mistake along the way but owned up to it and would consider going to extremes to fix it.
A woman who just became exponentially more attractive to him in this moment. By comparison to any of the starry pinpoints of dimness in the sky he’d dated in recent memory, Piper Quinn was a supernova.
“Now you see why I have to stay.”
“Well, that—and the pressing necessity to avoid the fat-amassing lifestyle at Hobbit Household Estates.”
“You get it.” Piper smiled at him, her teeth showing, straight and white and perfect. The luminosity of that smile went through his torso to his toes and came back up again, settling in his core. She tugged a bite of bread from the loaf. “Who made this bread? It’s perfect.”
No, she was.
They ate and talked about nothing important for a few placid moments on the water. Zach’s mind, though, was working like crazy, going over his prep notes. When the chocolate was broken out, he saw his moment. Chocolate made the most delicate situations better.
“Piper, I’ve never tried to be someone’s knight in shining armor. I’m just a guy. But I saw what kind of a spot you were in today, and I’m pretty sure Cora mentioned some options on the down low.” Zach could easily picture Cora insisting that nothing come back on her for slipping Piper some information.
“Yes, but I didn’t hear them from her. They were not legal advice.” After using her hands to put air quotes around significant phrases in Cora’s repertoire, Piper held up her fingers, numbering the three options. “Deportation, going into hiding, or marriage.”
“Going into hiding. That’s a good one.” Zach hadn’t considered the possibility of going into hiding. Instead, he would have said filing a lawsuit against ICE as a delay tactic, but that was because he was a lawyer. Lawyers filed suits. “Except that as far as you’re concerned, hiding can’t be on the table any more than deportation can.”
“I can’t do that to Mitzi.”
“That leaves you with the one glaring choice remaining, marriage.” The word made Zach’s mouth go unexpectedly dry, and his heart started pounding, neither of which effects he’d anticipated. After countless court appearances and arguments in front of judges and the wealthiest property owners of the largest state in the continental U.S., he’d never gotten wobbly like this.
But he re-collected his chutzpah, pressing back the nerves that he refused to let dominate.
“And if you’ll have me,” he cleared his throat, her pure green eyes suddenly glued to him and making his heart thunder, “that marriage could be to me.”
The words bounced across the water like a dragonfly, zipping away, never to return.
Suddenly recalling the essential custom, he slid to one knee in the boat, which rocked dangerously for a moment before steadying via the gondolier’s pole.
“Zach—” Piper lifted a hand to her throat, as if stricken. He couldn’t read the look on her face. He slipped his hand into his jacket pocket and produced the ring from the jewelry counter. With blood rushing in his ears, he continued with his prepared speech.
“This is sudden, no question, but I like you, Piper. More and more the longer we talk. And unless I’m wildly mistaken, I think you like me.” He swallowed hard, the magnitude of what he was doing growing to the height of the twenty-four story Canopy Hilton hotel above them.
Even though it had seemed like nothing but a business arrangement this afternoon, a means to an end, something inside him whispered it was much more. He faltered a moment. What am I doing? His throat constricted.
But he couldn’t back out now, not with the ring exposed, the candlelight on the water, the cello music driving him on—and then there were her eyes: luminescent and fearful and hopeful.
“Zach—” she said again, quavering and throaty.
“Piper Quinn. Will you marry me?”
Chapter Eight
Piper reached over and gripped the side of the boat so she didn’t fall off her bench—literally—into the dark water.
Marry him? This stranger, with the incredible dark hair and the earnest eyes and the smile that could sell tooth-whitening products?
“But,” she stumbled, “you just met me. How could you—?”
Traitorous tears welled in her eyes. The beneficence of others never ceased to am
aze her. Much as she’d love to trust it, so many twists in her life this week had nearly curdled her belief in the goodness of mankind. Good things couldn’t be happening, not to her.
Or could they?
Zach Travis remained kneeling at her feet, that velvet box open, extending toward her, waiting for her acceptance or rejection. The beautiful stone glinted fiery and alive in the light of the candles of the gondola. It was her favorite color—spring green. How had he known?
Confusion slapped her like the water against the side of the gondola, along with a few eddies of hope and relief and curiosity.
But, no. How could she accept it?
Not yet. Not until she knew a few more things.
“Seriously, why are you doing this?” She reached out and closed the box, patting his hand and then resting hers atop of his, where his warmth radiated into hers. She thought she sensed a pulsation from his wrist—that told her something: he was in earnest. This wasn’t a joke.
“Believe me, I know this comes as a shock.” He sat back up on his bench, his knee resting against hers. Stupid heart rate—hers skyrocketed every time his body touched hers. She hated how little control she had over her physiology when she was around this guy. Walking over here, with her arm in his, she’d had to hold on for dear life because her thigh muscles had turned limp. Her body sensed his virility as though if she even let him kiss her, she’d be pregnant with his baby. Triplets.
How would it be if she said yes?
She shushed that dangerous thought instantly.
“You’ve got a situation where you’re in need of a husband—the sooner the better. From my vantage point, you don’t have anything to lose by saying yes.”
Nothing to lose! Ha! What about her self-respect? She couldn’t be taking handouts—like diamond rings, for instance—from handsome strangers when she looked like some damsel in distress. What about her boyfriend? Suddenly running off and marrying someone else probably didn’t fit into Chad’s definition of faithful, which he’d extracted her promise of before he left.
Along with that, what about her virginity? If she were to take this guy’s ring and his offer, he’d obviously expect to reap the benefits of his magnanimity—in bed. She hadn’t maintained her purity all these years to sell it for something so cheap in the eternal scheme of things as citizenship.
And, probably most distressing of all, this guy she just met yesterday couldn’t love her. He didn’t even know her. Please. As if she’d give something that precious, guarded with fierceness in today’s permissive climate, to someone who wasn’t in love with her.
Not even.
Chad factored back into the moment, as well, especially when considering she’d been dating Chad for months, and all the while he’d been patient with her standards. They might actually have been what kept him interested: the thrill of the chase.
Her consternation right now wasn’t simply that she didn’t want to jeopardize Chad’s trust in her—even if it was for the restaurant and to avoid the shire and to keep Mitzi happy.
In fact, this was bigger than any of that. This had to do with the woman Piper saw herself to be.
Which meant she had a terrible, accusatory question she must ask Zach, whether it sounded awful or not.
“What’s in it for you?”
“Ah, we’ve come to that.” Zach handed her the closed ring box, which she tried to push away, but he pressed it into her hand, the velvet crushing against her fingertips. She did love velvet. But velvet boxes and velvet words…she couldn’t necessarily believe them.
“I need the unvarnished truth. Give me all of it. I have a right to know, so don’t hold back because I’ll be able to tell.”
He laughed. “Oh, you will, huh?”
“It’s my native New Zealander’s superpower.” Okay, this was a lie, especially since she’d lived in Bexar County all her life, but she couldn’t have him snowing her. “Much stronger than Spidey senses.” Her parents had gone through a Marvel Comics phase as well.
Zach looked out at the winking lights of the Riverwalk. They were nearly back at their starting place along the loop already. He looked back at her and crossed his arms over his chest, as if guarding himself for the spear she might throw at him when he exposed himself with the truth.
“It’s possible,” he said, low and grave, “that I need a wife as much as you need a husband.”
Okay. Well, that was unexpected.
“There are online dating sites for your kind of problem.”
“Ah, but none of those women have the gorgeous green eyes you have. Or if they do, it’s digitally enhanced.”
He thought she had gorgeous eyes? She gulped back the rushing tide of attraction and replaced it with the healthier emotion: skepticism. She gave him the eyebrow as a prompt and was impressed when he read it correctly.
“Fine. Here’s the full-on truth. As you know, I’m an associate at Crockett, Bowie, and Houston.”
“Congratulations. They are the finest in town, I’m told.”
“The oldest and the best. I worked hard to get there, and I’ve worked even harder since I’ve been there. Long hours, late nights, total dedication.”
“Good for you.” What was his point?
“Yes, and no. What I’d like is to stop being an associate there and make partner. And I think they’d like that, too.”
“What does this have to do with me?”
“Everything, actually. Because the firm is entrenched in traditionalism, there are standards any prospective partner must meet. I’ve met all those standards but one, as far as I can tell—my marital status.”
Piper took a moment to digest this information.
“So marry that Kinsey person. She seemed ready to take things to the next level.”
Zach practically snorted. “She isn’t an option. Would never be an option.”
“Your Grandma Vada wouldn’t approve, I take it.”
Zach’s face tugged into that half smile that was Piper’s resolve’s kryptonite.
“The truth is, I only discovered recently from an unnamed source within the firm’s hierarchy that marriage was a prerequisite to promotion.”
“How recently?” Piper couldn’t help narrowing her eyes.
“Today.”
Well, he’d sprung into action. He’d bought the ring, and everything—unless it was a relic from a previous relationship gone wrong. Or worse. She gulped and pressed on with her grilling of Zach Travis, when in one sense she should really be bathing his feet in tears of gratitude.
“Forgive me for sounding crass, but where did you get the ring? Please don’t tell me it was your mother’s. I couldn’t sport an heirloom under false pretenses.”
He shook off that suggestion.
“Don’t worry. It was a purchase. Zales Jewelers really likes me today.”
Then she worried how much it cost.
Piper’s every nerve stood on end as her mind traveled all manner of dangerous roads. This could be the answer she needed. Then again, Chad was still in the picture. Her offer dangled, unaccepted and yet unrejected. She should curtail the one before accepting the other, shouldn’t she? Wouldn’t that be the right thing to do? Meanwhile, she and Chad had a history—and possibly a future. Maybe. But what if he didn’t come back from Costa Rica in time to get her out of this fix? Would they have a future if she were booted off the continent? It was hard to picture a besotted Chad Floyd trailing after her to New Zealand to demand she return to his life. Or maybe she’d been reading him wrong. He did seem to want her, and respect her, enough to keep dating her all these months.
Confusion swirled, threatening to tug her into a vortex.
Chad hadn’t given her a return date. He’d refused to even venture a guess, on the grounds it might jinx his chances in the tournament. However, he definitely implied his trip would be more than a weekend, possibly much longer, as long as the competition lasted.
How long would that be?
The biggest question grabbed her
by the throat and began to squeeze: What if Chad didn’t make it back in time?
“Look, I know what you’re thinking.”
“I doubt that.”
“No, you’re nervous. You think I’m using you. You think this is all just a little too convenient. You think I’m here with some crazy ulterior motive, or that you might get hurt.”
Not exactly, but, “That’s partly right.”
“Like I said on the phone, this could simply be a business arrangement.”
“Business.” Uh, with the chemistry between the two of them being the tinderbox it already was—liable to inflame with the tiniest spark—business might be the last thing on her mind the second they tied the knot. Wisdom whispered she shouldn’t put herself in range of such explosive heat. She wasn’t asbestos.
“Yes. Business. Like with a contract. But we’d have to have an oral contract.”
Her skin glowed hot, and she didn’t answer for a heart-pounding second.
“Nothing written, you mean?” Oh. She got it. Both of them were on thin ice. “No paper trail.”
“Exactly. I’m glad you understand. You’re quick, Piper. I like that about you.”
He liked things about her? He hardly knew her.
“This is so fast, Zach.” Of course, this morning, she’d been desperate to think of how to get Chad to marry her today, so here went the pot and the kettle and the color name-calling.
“Maybe, but let’s look at it this way.” He reached over and took her hand, an incendiary move, as far as her skin was concerned. “There I was, with this huge road block to my success. There you were, standing in my office, with your own road block. Was that coincidence? Luck? I don’t know. I don’t really care, but I think if we reject this chance, we’ll be thumbing our noses at fate. And everyone knows you don’t want to anger fate.”
This man, with his million-dollar smile and his legal training and his job at the city’s highest power law firm believed in fate?
“Or heaven,” she murmured before she could stop the words’ escape from her mouth. “I mean…I see what you’re saying.”
He sat blinking at her, his face earnest, biting his lower lip like he was bating his breath for her answer, a flash of vulnerability there, aching and throbbing, and then gone as soon as it came, igniting her desire to say yes, if only to see that side of Zach again.
Illegally Wedded Page 8
