by Jane Porter
“Well, I’m not leaving you here,” Trey growled, his square jaw growing thicker by the second.
She gazed up at him and then at Troy, torn between admiration and exasperation. Her brothers were good-looking, damn good-looking, without an ounce of fat on them. They were made of hard, honed muscle that wrapped their arms and legs like steel and they were every bit as rigid.
Her smile was bittersweet. “Trey, you don’t have a choice.” She’d once enjoyed fighting with them, stirring her brothers up, trying to get a rise from them, but things were different now. The stakes were far higher. “This is my home—”
“That’s absurd,” Troy interrupted roughly. “Home is the Lazy L ranch, home is Dad, Brock, the kids.”
She shook her head, aware of Wolf standing there, just behind her shoulder. She was grateful to have him with her and even more grateful he was letting her handle this her way. “Not anymore.”
Trey cleared his throat, making a rough sound of disgust. “You’re telling me the ranch isn’t home?”
She looked from Trey to Troy and back. The twins had the same jaw, the same high cheekbones, the same blue eyes as clear as the Montana sky. “I’m sorry you’ve had a wasted trip. But tell Dad I’m fine. Tell him I’ll try to come home for Christmas—”
“You’ll come to Montana and tell him yourself,” Troy interrupted brusquely, folding his arms, pulling the fabric of his white dress shirt even tauter. The snug fabric shaped the width of his chest and the thick biceps and triceps in his arms. “And while you’re there, be sure to explain just how it was that you nearly died, because we know all about it. We know you were rushed to the hospital, had your stomach pumped and kept for a day under observation.”
Alexandra felt Wolf’s warmth and presence. She wasn’t sure if he’d taken a step toward her or she’d taken a step back, but she could feel him there—his size, his strength, his fierce personality—and again it reassured her. All her life her brothers had trampled over her wishes, but this time having Wolf in her corner settled her. Gave her confidence. “What you heard, what you read in the paper was a mistake,” she said carefully. “It’s not what really happened.”
“So you didn’t try to kill yourself?” Troy demanded, voice dropping to a husky growl. “Because that nearly broke Dad’s heart. He loves you more than the five of us boys put together.”
Troy might as well have stabbed her with an ice pick, she thought, lips parting in silent protest as tears filled her eyes. The idea of her dad worrying about her, suffering because of her, was more than she could bear. “I’ll call him,” she said softly, her voice breaking. “I’ll call him tonight.”
Trey loomed over her. “You’ll go home tonight and you’ll talk to him in person. Properly. The way you should.”
She felt rather than saw Trey’s finger jabbing at her, emphasizing his disgust. She swiped away a tear, livid with him, both of them, realizing all over again why she’d left home. She loved her brothers and hated her brothers and couldn’t understand how any relationship could be so complicated. They protected her and disciplined her and talked at her until she felt absolutely trapped.
She angrily wiped away another tear. “I never tried to kill myself. The media got it wrong. Somebody was being funny and put something in my drink.”
Troy and Trey exchanged thunderous glances. “What kind of lifestyle is this?” Trey snapped. “You’re too thin, too tan, too made-up. You’re not Alex at all.”
“I am,” she protested.
“You’re not,” Troy said more gently. “You’re some Hollywood paper doll. But that’s not who Dad raised you to be, and Mom wouldn’t be proud either.”
Every word her brothers said hurt, but this last, this condemnation that her mother wouldn’t have approved, cut her to the quick. She looked away, eyes closing, stunned by the depth of her pain.
She couldn’t do this anymore, couldn’t take this anymore. She turned to Wolf, put her hand on his forearm. “I want to go,” she whispered. “Can we please just go?”
His narrowed gaze swept her tear-streaked face. “Of course. Whatever you want.”
But before they could take two steps, Trey reached out, grabbed Alexandra’s arm. “And what will I tell Dad?”
Wolf swiftly knocked Trey’s hand from Alexandra’s arm. His features contorted. “Don’t touch her like that again. She’s a woman, not one of your cows.”
Trey’s expression darkened. “She’s my sister, and I love her and I want what’s best for her.”
“If you want what’s best,” Wolf answered evenly, “then tell your father she’s happy and doing well in Los Angeles with me.”
“With you,” Troy repeated icily.
“And just who the hell are you to make decisions for Alexandra?” Trey asked, hands knuckling to fists.
Alexandra knew the twins were formidable opponents. Just like armored tanks, they rolled right over their opposition, and she sensed they were going to roll right now.
“Your sister’s fiancé,” Wolf answered quietly. “We’re engaged to be married.” He looked from one to the other. “Didn’t you know?”
“Engaged?” Trey could barely get the word out, and Alexandra couldn’t meet his eye, too shocked to think of a single thing to say.
Wolf, her fiancé? Engagement? Oh, how quickly this had escalated.
Troy pointed to her bare left hand. “There’s no ring.”
“It’s still secret,” Wolf said, smiling faintly. He seemed to have no problem with the story and looked downright amused by her brothers’ sudden tailspin.
Alexandra struggled to think of something to say, but her mind was strangely blank. Everything had been fine until Paige spilled the drink on her gown, but that one spilled drink had consequences she couldn’t have dreamed of.
Ruined dress. Lethal cocktail. Headline news. Now an engagement to Wolf. Amazing how fast one problem had snowballed into this!
“Secret,” Troy was repeating, lower lip curling. He might have moved from Montana to Seattle and exchanged horses for fast cars, but he was still a very tough cowboy underneath. “What kind of bullshit is this about a secret engagement?” he demanded, rocking back on his heels. “Why keep it quiet? Are you ashamed of her?
“Where we come from, Shanahans are respected, and so Alexandra has always been respected,” he continued. “Maybe this is Hollywood. Maybe you think you’re so special you can treat Alexandra any way you want, but you’ve got another think coming. Alexandra’s a good girl, the sweetest girl you’ll ever meet, and she deserves to be treated right.”
The entire time Troy was talking, Wolf was looking at Alexandra, one black eyebrow half cocked. She struggled to maintain a pinched, if not terrified, smile.
As Troy fell silent, the corner of Wolf’s mouth tilted in a dry smile. “The only reason it’s secret is that I haven’t had a chance to ask your father for Alexandra’s hand yet.”
“You’re going to ask him?” Troy asked bluntly.
“Yes,” Wolf answered.
“When?”
Wolf’s brows drew together. “That’s really none of your business, is it?”
“I hope you’re serious,” Trey growled, “because Alexandra doesn’t deserve to have her heart stepped on.”
Alexandra would have laughed if the situation weren’t so serious. It’d been four years since she left home, but Trey and Troy were still the same. They used to threaten the local guys if they came near her. Little Alexandra was too good to be touched. Little Alexandra was a nice girl, a sweet girl, a virgin. She shuddered inwardly, remembering.
If she didn’t have any experience when she came to Los Angeles it was because her brothers had made sure that no man came near her. Apparently Dillon had put a bounty on the head of anybody who tried to get too friendly with his baby sister. And in her brother Dillon’s mind, anything past first base was too friendly.
Trey reached into his pocket, drew out his wallet. “How much would it take to get rid of you? Five millio
n? Ten? What do you want?”
Alexandra blanched, the blood draining from her face. “Trey.”
“Name your price,” Troy echoed.
“My price?” Wolf’s hard, cynical expression bordered on incredulous. “You think I can be bought?”
“We’re willing to try.” Troy wasn’t the least bit apologetic. “We want you gone.”
“That’s pretty obvious. But my relationship with Alexandra has nothing to do with you, and the only one who has a say in how we proceed with our engagement—” Wolf paused, looked pointedly at Alexandra “—is your sister.”
They were all looking at her now, waiting for her to respond. Her mouth dried and she licked her lips, trying to find her voice. Maybe it didn’t matter that she couldn’t find her voice, because she didn’t have the foggiest idea of what to say.
“Is it true?” Trey asked roughly. “Is this your dream man? This is who you want to marry?”
Alexandra’s gaze clung to Wolf’s. They’d find a way out of this one later—they’d have to—but for now she’d do anything to keep her brothers from dragging her back to Montana. Montana wasn’t home anymore, hadn’t been home for years. “Yes.”
“So when’s the wedding?” Troy persisted.
“Soon,” Wolf replied, taking Alexandra’s hand in his and kissing the back of her fingers. “We’d planned to elope, marry on location in Zambia.”
“Zambia?” Troy spluttered.
“Marry Alexandra in Africa?” Trey thundered. “That’s not going to happen. No way. Not a snowball’s chance in hell.”
Troy’s square jaw hardened, his blue eyes splintering with cool shards of light. “If you’re going to marry her, you marry her here, where her family can attend. Do you understand?”
Wolf’s own jaw firmed, but wry amusement touched his eyes. “Hard not to. You have such a way with words.”
Glancing down into Alexandra’s pale face, he smiled a small, mocking smile. “It’s a California wedding.”
They never did have lunch, and Alexandra found the long drive back to Wolf’s house nothing short of agonizing. Wolf was beyond quiet. He looked like the Grim Reaper at the wheel. She did her best to avoid looking at him, but even with the sun shining and the temperature outside in the seventies, Alexandra couldn’t stop shivering.
Wolf had promised her brothers a California wedding.
In less than two weeks.
A wedding in less than two weeks. That was laughable. Hilarious. So why wasn’t she laughing?
Why did she want to cry?
Alexandra squeezed her eyes shut as her teeth began to chatter. It was just the shock, she told herself. As soon as she and Wolf figured a way out of this mess, she’d be fine. They just needed to put their heads together and come up with a plan.
Fast.
“Take a hot bath when we get home,” Wolf said, merging into traffic on Highway 1. They were probably just ten or fifteen minutes from his house now. “Or better yet, I can turn on the hot tub for you. It’s just off the deck in the garden. Has a great view of the water. That might help your chill.”
She bundled her arms across her chest. “We’ve got to think of a way out of this, something plausible, something that will keep my family out of Los Angeles and away from me.”
Wolf gave her a peculiar look. “Were you not at the Mondrian with me? Did you not hear what I heard? Those brothers aren’t going away until you’re married. They’re taking hotel rooms in town and camping out until the dirty deed is done.”
And that just might be why she was violently shivering. She was doomed. Wolf, too.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m really sorry about all of this. If I’d just stayed at the party, none of this would have happened.”
“Celebrity is a messy business.”
Alex grimaced. Talk about cold comfort. “So what do we do now?”
“We get married.”
“You mean pretend to get married.”
Wolf shot her a darkly amused glance. “Your brothers don’t strike me as the pretend type, and frankly pretending has gotten us into this mess. I think it’s time we sorted things out properly. A real wedding with a real priest, real guests and real champagne.”
Which meant real publicity, too, she thought, stifling a groan.
The PR game had completely taken over her life, and she didn’t like it. She’d didn’t even know who she was anymore, what with the stylists and designers and makeup artists constantly fixing her up, making her presentable. She was ready for the old Alexandra to return. The one that went to work every day on time, slept seven and a half hours every night and wore black, navy and gray because that way people might take her seriously.
Lately she’d actually begun to miss just being ordinary.
“I think this has gone far enough, Wolf, don’t you?” she asked quietly.
“If I did, I wouldn’t have just proposed.”
She ground her teeth in mute irritation. “It wasn’t much of a proposal.”
“Apparently I am your dream man.”
She could have screamed with vexation. “That was a mistake.”
“One your brothers latched onto.” He signaled a lane change as they neared the house. “I imagine they’ve already been in contact with your dad by now.”
Alexandra pressed her fists against her eyes. She didn’t want to hear any more, didn’t want to picture her brothers on the phone with her dad. Because Wolf was right. That’s exactly what Troy and Trey would have done. Called Dad. Then called Brock, Dillon and Cormac. They’d all be jumping on airplanes soon.
“If I got down on one knee, would you feel any better?” Wolf asked without the least bit of sympathy for her plight.
She lifted her head, glared at him. “No.”
He shrugged and turned down the small green-hedge-lined lane leading to his beach house. “Exactly. So why bother with the theatrics?”
No two weeks had ever passed faster, and no elaborate, star-studded wedding had ever been planned so quickly. Wolf made a few calls to industry insiders, and within a day the wedding ceremony was set, the reception site booked. Within three days the myriad details—including guest list, bridal gown, colors, flowers, dinner menu and entertainment—had been addressed. And by the fourth day the hand-embossed wedding invitations were sent.
Alexandra laughed until she cried when she received an invitation to her own wedding.
It was all so horrible it was funny.
She, Alexandra Shanahan, who’d lost a lot of sleep at fifteen fantasizing about Wolf Kerrick, was now marrying him in Santa Barbara in little over a week.
Santa Barbara, a ninety-minute drive north of Los Angeles on Highway 1, perches snugly between the Santa Ynez Mountains and the gorgeous Pacific Ocean. The town, a mixture of red-tiled adobe homes, huge estates and historic landmarks, also has some of the best surfing in California. Little wonder that everyone from John Travolta to Oprah Winfrey has a second home there.
And now Alexandra was about to be married there.
Pacing her small dressing room at the Denzinger estate, she kept glancing at the little clock on her dressing room table. Just a half hour now until the ceremony began.
She trembled in her white satin beaded shoes.
She couldn’t believe Wolf was insisting they go through with the wedding. There was no reason to get married. Wolf could just head to Africa and she could make excuses, claim cold feet, lack of compatibility. Anything but marriage!
Alexandra marched back across the carpet and stole yet another look at the clock. Twenty-five minutes.
Twenty-five minutes until she became his wife.
And Alexandra, who hated to cry, knew she was about to cry now. Not delicate tears but huge, depressed sobs.
Until now she had always thought of herself as the ultimate cynic, a bona fide nonromantic. She didn’t believe in falling in love, had never felt an urge to marry or to be a mother for some guy’s children. But now, confronted by a very public w
edding to a man she still barely knew, Alexandra was aghast.
She couldn’t believe she was marrying to seal a business deal, to propel herself higher up the ladder of success. Even for a cynic, this was a really big deal.
Even for a cynic, this was wrong.
She couldn’t do this. Not for Wolf, not for her family, not for anyone. She needed to get out of here, escape before she made a fool of herself in front of every guest and every camera.
Alex stopped pacing, turned, pressed a knuckled fist to her mouth, forgetting her carefully applied lipstick.
She didn’t like running away, but she didn’t know how else to get out of this. Her family certainly wasn’t going to listen. And Wolf … well, he was heading to Zambia day after tomorrow. He’d be fine.
Glancing down, she took in her full white gown, a fairy-tale dress for a fairy-tale wedding that she refused to let happen.
She reached for the back of her gown, tried to tug the hooks open, but there were too many—absolutely dozens—hidden in a satin-lined seam in her dress. She couldn’t undress without assistance, and there was no one she could ask to help.
If she wanted to go, she’d have to leave like this.
Alexandra crossed to her travel tote bag tucked between the vanity and the corner of the room. She checked inside for her wallet. With a sigh of relief she saw it was there. Good. For a moment she’d feared all her cash and credit cards would be, with her luggage, already at the hotel.
Alex grabbed her wallet and left the rest.
She’d just buy what she needed whenever she got wherever she was going, because she certainly couldn’t go back to her house in Culver City. She wasn’t even sure she’d have a job waiting for her after she stood Wolf up at the altar. But those were problems she’d worry about later.
Alexandra left the changing room, slipping quietly down the mansion’s long sunlit corridor, away from the spacious public rooms to the working quarters of kitchen, laundry and garage.
She passed several uniformed housemaids but didn’t make eye contact, too intent on getting away before someone checked on her in the bridal dressing room and discovered her gone.
