The Wedding Bargain

by Yvonne Lindsay

  “You’ve been home a week now,” he said calmly, but she could see the vein pulsing high on his forehead, at the edge of his hairline. She’d learned that was the marker that he was less than pleased. “I thought you might have made some effort to discuss our wedding by now.”

  “I...” Her voice trailed away. There was nothing to say.

  “I’ve been more than reasonable, Shanal—I’ve given you a week to pull yourself together after your unfortunate behavior. But I think you can appreciate that I will not wait forever. I want you as my wife. Set a date.”

  There was a grim note of determination to his voice that sent a shiver down her spine. She held back a sigh and swiveled her chair around to face him.

  “Twelfth of September,” she said, as firmly as she could. She pulled her calendar up on her phone and scrolled through the dates. “But no fuss this time. Just something small.”

  He nodded. “Excellent. I’ll make the arrangements. I’m glad to see you’ve come to your senses. The twelfth is perfect timing. I’ll be back by then.”

  “Back? From where?” He hadn’t mentioned anything about having to go away anywhere in the lead-up to their original wedding day.

  “I’m needed at our facility in California. An urgent and unexpected matter. I leave tomorrow.”

  Shanal fought to hide her relief. Not having his oppressive presence around would be small compensation for the next few weeks, at least.

  “A problem?” she asked.

  “Nothing I can’t handle,” he replied smoothly.

  He stepped forward and raised a hand to grip her chin and tilt her face upward, then bent down to kiss her. His lips were cold and smooth, so very much like the man himself. Despite his coaxing, she kept her mouth firmly closed. This was nothing like the warmth and slow burning need she’d shared with Raif. In fact, if two men could be polar opposites, then Burton and Raif were that. Instead of desire gently unfurling within her, she felt the sting of distaste. Instead of anticipation, she felt only dread.

  She would submit when it was time, but right now, with the memory of Raif’s kisses still so sweet and fresh in her mind, this embrace of Burton’s was nothing but a travesty. She jerked back slightly as he suddenly released her and straightened, looking down upon her once more, his face impassive.

  “See if you can’t drum up a little enthusiasm for my touch while I’m gone, hmm? And I expect I don’t have to tell you this, but stay away from Raif Masters.”

  And with that parting shot he was gone. He didn’t need to verbalize a threat. She knew what would happen if she saw Raif again and Burton found out. All bets would be off the table and he’d follow through on his threats against her. As much as Burton Rogers coveted her, he wouldn’t share her with anyone else—certainly not a second time.

  He was not a man who liked to be thwarted. She knew her appeal to him had grown out of his need to surround himself with rare and beautiful things. The way he looked at her, as if she were a priceless artifact, made her feel more objectified than if he’d wolf-whistled every time he saw her. Her intelligence only served to make her more appealing to him, she knew for a fact. And as his wife, she’d never leave his employ. All of that played into his original reasons for proposing. And now, ever since the wedding day that wasn’t, she got the sense that his competitiveness with Raif just made him more determined to “win” her away from his rival and lock her into marriage vows once and for all.

  Despite the way everything inside her railed against Burton’s dictates, she wouldn’t be making any effort to see Raif again. He’d used her—he hadn’t even attempted to deny it. And even more galling, she’d been his willing partner in that. The man had swamped her with feeling, with emotion. He had cut past all the clinical and careful ways she’d lived her life to date, and made her aware of everything with a clarity that had taken her breath away. And it had all happened so darn fast.

  How could she trust it? She was the kind of person who measured everything twice, examined every minute detail over and over. Who took the greatest care before committing to a decision, whether it be work or social or even what shoes to wear with her outfit each morning.

  Raif was the antithesis of that. He was impulsive and daring. Physical and creative. Her body burned anew as she remembered just how creative he could be. They’d spent only one intimate night together, and one equally intimate morning, learning one another’s bodies as if they were maps to a pirate’s bountiful treasure, but the memories they’d created burned with perpetual ferocity, making her nights ever since barren and empty by comparison.

  Shanal let go of the breath she’d been holding. She’d thought the idea of marrying Burton before was impossible. Marrying him now was going to be a great deal more difficult than she had ever imagined. But she’d do it. She had no other choice.

  Ten

  Raif pulled up outside Shanal’s parents’ home. Shanal hadn’t taken his calls last Friday at work, nor would she come to the phone over the weekend. An attempt to see her at Burton International had led to being escorted from the building by security—whether by Burton’s dictate or Shanal’s, he couldn’t be sure.

  There was nothing left but to try and catch her here, at home. Raif knew Mr. and Mrs. Peat were out because he’d just passed them in their specially modified car, heading the other way. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel for a minute before grabbing the garbage sack he’d stowed on the seat beside him, and getting out the car. Bringing the Maserati probably hadn’t been the best idea, but he’d realized that only after he’d shoved and squeezed the bag full of the foaming concoction of material that was Shanal’s wedding dress into the trash bag and put it in the passenger seat beside him. And once he’d gotten it into the car, there was no way he was dealing with hauling it back out until it was time to pass it over once and for all.

  Shanal’s car was nowhere to be seen, but he knocked on the front door of the house anyway, and counted slowly under his breath, waiting for an answer. Nothing. Seconds later, he noticed her little hatchback slowing outside the house. From his vantage point on the front porch he saw the moment she recognized his car parked out front.

  She pulled into the driveway and looked toward the front door, her face pale and her beautiful eyes huge as she saw him standing there. For a second he thought that she’d shove the car into Reverse and back out of there and away from him as fast as she could. Instead she appeared to hasten to get out the car. She all but ran the short distance to the front door.

  A waft of her scent, that combination of spice and flowers that he would never again be able to smell without thinking of her, tantalized him. She looked tired. He’d bet good money that Burton was responsible for that, too. It made Raif want to physically remove Shanal from the man’s noxious sphere. But, he reminded himself grimly, she’d made her choice and that choice had not been him.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked in a fierce undertone, looking over her shoulder at the road—almost as if she was afraid she was being watched.

  “I had to return this. I imagine you’ll be needing it again soon?” He deliberately let the jibe fall from his lips.

  She flinched as if the words had held more sting than he’d intended. “Thank you,” she said stiffly, raising her eyebrows a little at the receptacle he’d chosen to return the dress in. She took the bag from him and then stood to one side as if, dress delivered and accepted, she now expected him to leave.

  “And we need to talk,” he continued.

  “There’s nothing to talk about. Please leave.”

  “Not until you answer at least one question.”

  “Fine,” she huffed, her eyes drifting up and down the street before returning to his face. “Spit it out.”

  “Why are you marrying him?”

  “Because I have to. You’ve asked your question. I’ve answered it.
You can go now. If Burton knew you were here—”

  “What?” he interrupted. “What would he do?”

  “Please, Raif, just leave,” she begged.

  A sour taste filled Raif’s mouth when he recognized the fear behind her words. “What? Can’t you do anything without his approval? And you’re telling me you want to marry him? Is he really the kind of man you want to be bound to for the rest of your life?”

  “I’ve asked myself a lot of things, Raif, but it all comes back to the same thing. He’s the man I’m going to marry.”

  Raif shoved a hand through his hair. “I just don’t get it. Why him? You don’t love him, I know that for a fact. A woman like you... Well, I doubt you’d have shared yourself with me the way you did if you actually had feelings for him. Unless...unless you were using me. Playing me off against him for some crazy reason. Was that what it was?”

  If anything, her face paled even more. The garbage sack fell from her fingers and her eyes filled with tears. “Is that what you think? That I’d do something like that?”

  “Is it true?”

  She shook her head vehemently. “No, it’s not. Now, I’ve answered more than one question. Consider the extras a bonus and please leave.”

  Shanal reached into her handbag and pulled out a house key. Her hand was shaking as she fitted it to the lock. Raif reached to take the key from her and finish the job, but she pulled away so quickly when his fingers brushed hers that the key fell to the floor. He bent to pick it up, and shoved it into the lock, giving it a sharp turn and pushing the door open. He extracted the key and made a show of handing it back to her carefully so that they didn’t need to touch at all this time.

  “I’m not going to let this go, Shanal. You ran away from him once.”

  “That was a mistake. Finding out you used me to get back at Burton helped me to realize what I need to do,” she said breathlessly, and pushed past him to get inside the house.

  “Shanal, really? Do you honestly think that what we shared together was about revenge?”

  She sighed deeply. “No,” she admitted with a huff of air, and started to close the door.

  “I’m still here for you. Confused as hell about why you’re doing this, but here for you. Do you understand me?”

  “I don’t need you, Raif. I have Burton. Goodbye.”

  The door shut in his face. He considered knocking on it, demanding she explain further, but he knew it would be futile. He went back to his car, and all the way home replayed her words over and over in his mind. Not once had she mentioned caring for Burton or, heaven forbid, loving him. So why the hell was she going through with this again?

  Love was, or at the very least should be, the only reason one person married another. Marriage was a lifetime commitment. It was the blending of two people to make a better whole. A combination of personalities that knitted together with one thread. It was the root stock of a family, the basis for generations to come. What sense was there in starting a relationship like that without a strong foundation of love in the place first?

  As he pushed the Maserati the winding miles back to his home, Raif realized that, more than anything, he wanted a real, loving marriage—and he wanted it with Shanal. His foot eased a little on the accelerator as a new revelation filled him. He loved her, and probably had since he was a teenager. All those little barbs they’d flung at one another, on his side at least, had masked deeper feelings. Feelings he’d hidden after the embarrassment of her rejection all those years ago. But deep down, underneath it all, he loved her and, subconsciously at least, he hadn’t been able to settle for anyone else. He’d been prepared to wait.

  Accepting the knowledge brought a strange sense of peace, easing the turmoil of his thoughts. It was right. Maybe the timing hadn’t been the best for them in the past, and by the looks of things, it certainly wasn’t now, but Raif wasn’t about to let her go. Initial failure had never discouraged him from striving to reach his goals before, and he wasn’t about to let it knock him back now. Whether she knew it or not, the waiting was over.

  Shanal Peat was his. He had only to convince her of that, to gain her full trust. Then and only then would she let him know the true reason why she was thinking about marrying Burton. She hadn’t even been able to lie about her reason for marrying him. If she’d have said she loved him then maybe, just maybe, Raif might have stepped back.

  He chewed the thought over in his mind and then barked a cynical laugh. Who was he kidding? There was no way on this earth he would accept that a woman as sensitive and vulnerable as Shanal could love a man like Burton Rogers. But could she love Raif? He certainly hoped so, because suddenly the idea of a life without her in it loomed very emptily ahead.

  * * *

  Shanal lifted her head in shock at the doctor’s words. “Pregnant?”

  A roaring sound filled her ears. She couldn’t be pregnant. It just wasn’t possible. She knew the doctor continued to talk to her, and somehow she must have responded, but she failed to grasp his words. She’d come to the surgery, on her mother’s insistence, for a general checkup, because she’d been feeling off-color and overtired these past few weeks. While Shanal was ready to blame her general malaise on the stress she was feeling with her wedding in only two weeks’ time, not to mention her current workload, she was not prepared for this.

  And then there were the daily calls from Burton, checking up on her even though she had a very strong suspicion he also had people watching her every movement. He’d dropped a bombshell last night, telling her he’d wrapped up his business early and would be home tomorrow. She’d hung up from the call and felt so ill with nerves at the prospect of seeing him again that she’d been forced to head straight for the bathroom as her stomach rejected its contents. She’d put it down to anxiety, but it seemed the cause was something far more alarming.

  This morning, her mother had been insistent that she see her doctor, and Shanal had been lucky enough to fit into his schedule, thanks to a cancelation. Now this. Her hand automatically fluttered to her lower belly, to where a child was forming. Her baby—and Raif’s.

  This was unarguably the worst thing that could happen to her right now. There had been only the one time without protection. She’d been off the pill for just three days. She’d believed the odds of her becoming pregnant to be so remote as to be unsustainable, and yet here she was. Her head swam as she tried to adjust to the news. She was going to be a mother.

  Fear and exhilaration battled with equal strength inside her. What on earth was she to do? She certainly couldn’t marry one man while she was pregnant with another man’s child. How was she going to tell either of them?

  By the time she was outside the doctor’s office and back in her car she was no clearer on what to do. She’d shoved the fistful of brochures the nurse had given her into her handbag without even looking at them. She couldn’t push more information into her brain just yet. She was still struggling to accept the fact that her life was on the cusp of massive change at a level she’d never imagined.

  “Your fiancé will be excited, I’m sure,” the nurse had said with a cheerful smile and a knowing look at the ring Shanal had been forced to wear again.

  Excited was not the word she would use, mainly because given the fact they’d barely done more than share several lukewarm kisses, Burton would know there was no chance the baby was his. He hadn’t pressured her into anything more, saying he was happy to wait until their wedding night. The wedding night that had never happened. Her stomach clenched on that thought. The nurse was looking at her brightly, expecting a reply. Shanal could only murmur an indistinct sound in response. She dreaded the thought of his actual reaction. The last thing she wanted was to give the manipulative man beneath the courteous veneer another reason to tighten the leash he already had her on.

  Shanal started the car and pointed it in the direction of her pa
rents’ home. Somehow she’d get through today. And then tomorrow, when Burton returned; she’d get through that, as well. She didn’t want to think past that point because the variables were far too many and most of them too awful to even consider. One step at a time. That’s what took her through her research and that’s what would get her through the next twenty-four hours, too.

  On Saturday, Shanal drove to Burton’s inner-city apartment when she received his call to say he was home. He’d sounded pleased when she’d said she needed to see him, but she doubted he’d sound that way for long once he heard what she had to say. All the way up in the elevator, she twisted the strap of her handbag round and round, letting it go to unravel, then she’d start all over again. It was much like her stomach felt right now, she thought. Caught up in a coil of tension that would release momentarily, then wind back up. Each time tighter than before.

  The door to Burton’s apartment swung open before she could so much as raise her hand to press the bell.

  “Come in,” he said, leaning forward to kiss her, his expression of welcome freezing just a little when she averted her head so his lips grazed her cheek and not their intended target. “I’ve missed you, darling. Did you miss me, too?”

  Oh, she had. She absolutely had. But not in the way he obviously hoped—more like how someone missed an aching tooth once it had been pulled. “It’s been quiet without you,” she said in a weak compromise.

  He laughed, the sound forced and artificial in the soullessly beautiful, magazine-spread-style perfection that was his apartment. It had never bothered her before, but somehow now it felt empty of personality. More like a stage than a home and nothing at all like Raif’s house, which, although modern, was furnished in a warm and comfortable manner. What she’d seen of it during her short time there, anyway.

  “I’m flattered that you were in such a hurry to see me. Come, let me get you something. A cup of tea? Coffee?”