The CEO's Accidental Bride

by Barbara Dunlop

  Something dangerous flared in Zach’s intense gray eyes. It was darkly sensual and completely compelling.

  Her body answered with a rush of heat and a flare of longing that sent a throbbing message to every corner of her being.

  She struggled through the muddle of emotions clouding her brain. “The people who make tractor parts also have tickets to Lincoln Center. They do care about your lobby.”

  “It’s a building, not a piece of art.” The yacht lurched, and his hand brushed against hers. She nearly groaned out loud.

  “It can be both,” she rasped.

  Things could do double duty.

  Look at Zach. He was both an adversary and a—

  What? What was she saying?

  He could be her lover?

  “Kaitlin?” His voice was strangled, while his gaze flared with certain desire. His full lips parted, his head tipping toward hers.

  The boat rolled on a fresh set of waves, and she gripped the rail, transfixed by the sight of his body closing in on hers.

  She flashed back to Vegas.

  He’d kissed her there.

  How could she have ever doubted it?

  Elvis had pronounced them husband and wife, and Zach had thrown his arms around her, kissing her thoroughly and endlessly. It was only the cheers from the crowd that had finally penetrated their haze and forced them to pull apart. It was a miracle they hadn’t slept together that night.

  Why hadn’t they slept together that night?

  She remembered getting into the elevator with a couple of her female coworkers, then stumbling into her room and dropping, fully dressed, onto the plush, king-size bed.

  No Zach.

  But he was here now.

  And they were alone.

  And she remembered. She wished she didn’t. But she remembered his lips on hers, his arms around her, the strength of his embrace, the taste of his mouth, the sensual explosions that burst along her skin.

  She wanted it again, wanted it so very, very much.

  She gave in to her desire and leaned ever so slightly forward. His mouth instantly rushed to hers. His free arm snaked around her, pressing against the small of her back, pulling her tight as the deck surged beneath them.

  She pressed forward, arms twining around his neck. Her lips softened, parted. He murmured her name, and his hand splayed farther down her spine. His tongue invaded, and the taste of him combined with the scent of the salt air, the undulation of the boat and heat of his hands brought a moan from her very core.

  He shifted so that his back was to the rail. His free hand caressed her cheek, brushed through her hair, moved down to her neck, her shoulder. He pushed off the strap of her dress, then his lips followed, tasting their way along her bare, sensitized skin.

  His kisses, his passion, made her gasp. She tangled her fingers through his hair, pushing her body tightly against his, shifting her thighs as his leg slipped between them. His hand cupped her breast through the flimsy fabric of her dress, while his lips found hers again, and she bent backward with the exquisite pressure of his hot kiss.

  The boat lurched again, and they lost their balance, stumbling a few steps sideways.

  Zach was quick to steady her, clasping her tightly to him, lips next to her ear.

  “You okay?” His voice was hollow.

  “I’m—” She drew a shaky breath.

  Was she okay? What on earth had she just done? One minute they were arguing over office sizes, the next they were practically attacking each other.

  He held her tight. Neither spoke as they drew deep breaths.

  Finally, he stroked her messy hair. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “That we’ve both gone completely insane?”

  He chuckled low. “That’s pretty close.”

  “We can’t do this.”

  “No kidding.”

  “You need to let go of me.”

  “I know.” He didn’t move.

  “I’m blackmailing you. You’re trying to outflank, outmaneuver and outthink me along the way. And then we’re getting divorced.”

  “As long as we’re both clear on the process.”

  The flutter in her stomach told her there was way more to it than that. But she had to fight it. She couldn’t let herself be attracted to this man. She certainly couldn’t let herself kiss him, or worse.

  They were adversaries. And this was her one chance to get her life back. And she couldn’t let any lingering sexual desire mess that up.

  “You need to let me go, Zach.”

  Four

  After a long, sleepless night, and a lengthy heart-to-heart with Lindsay as they drove up the coast of Long Island, Kaitlin watched her friend browse through a tray of misshapen silver coins in a small beachfront antique shop.

  “I never thought I’d hear myself say this.” Lindsay selected one plastic-wrapped item and read the provenance typed neatly on the attached card. “But, as your lawyer, I must strongly advise you not to sleep with your husband.”

  “I am not sleeping with my husband,” Kaitlin reminded her. And she had absolutely no intention of going there. Desire and action were two completely different things.

  Two women checking out a painting in the next aisle slid their curious gazes to Kaitlin, and their expressions shifted from smirks to bemusement.

  Kaitlin leaned a little closer to Lindsay and whispered, “Okay, that just sounds stupid when I say it out loud.”

  “He’s playing you,” said Lindsay, dropping the first coin and switching to another, turning it over to read.

  “Neither of us meant for it to happen,” Kaitlin pointed out. Zach’s shock and regret had seemed as genuine as hers.

  Lindsay glanced up from the coin, arching her a skeptical look. “Are you sure about that?”

  “I’m sure,” Kaitlin returned with conviction. They’d both sworn not to let it happen again. It was as much her fault as his.

  “And what were you doing right before you kissed him?” Lindsay gave up on the coin rack and meandered her way across the shop floor.

  Kaitlin followed, only half paying attention to the merchandise. Lindsay was the one who’d suggested driving up the coast to visit antique stores. They’d never done it before, but Kaitlin was game for anything that would distract her.

  “We were on deck,” she told Lindsay. “Fantastic boat, by the way.”

  “You mentioned that. So, were you eating? Drinking? Stargazing?”

  “Arguing art versus architecture.” Kaitlin took her mind back to the first minutes of the return trip. “He wanted to see my designs.”

  “I rest my case.” Lindsay lingered in front of a glass case displaying some more gold coins. “Aha. This is what I was looking for.”

  “What case?” asked Kaitlin. What was Lindsay resting?

  Lindsay fluttered a dismissive hand, attention on the coins. “The case against Zach.” Then she tapped her index finger against the glass in answer to a clerk’s unspoken question. “I’d like to see that one.”

  “I don’t follow,” said Kaitlin.

  “The coin is from the Blue Glacier.”

  “Yes, it is,” the clerk confirmed with an enthusiastic smile, unlocking the case and extracting a plastic-covered, gold, oblong coin.

  “You were resting your case,” Kaitlin prompted.

  Lindsay inspected the coin, holding it up to the sunlight and turning it one way, then the other. “You were arguing with Zach about art versus architecture. Which side were you on, by the way?”

  “Zach’s afraid my renovation plans will be impractical,” explained Kaitlin. “I told him architecture could be both beautiful and functional. He’s stone-cold on the side of function.”

  “Not hard to tell that from his building.” Lindsay put down her purse and slipped the coin under a big magnifying glass on a stand on the countertop.

  “When did you become interested in coins?” asked Kaitlin. Lindsay was going through quite a procedure here.

&nb
sp; “The two of you were fighting,” Lindsay continued while she peered critically at the coin. “I’m assuming you were winning since, aside from holding all the trump cards, you were right.” She straightened. “Then suddenly, poof, he’s kissing you.”

  The clerk eyed Kaitlin with obvious interest, while Lindsay gave Kaitlin a knowing look. “Do you think there’s a slim possibility it was a distraction? Do you think, maybe, out of desperation to seize control of the project, your husband might be trying to emotionally manipulate you?”

  Kaitlin blinked. Manipulate her?

  “You know,” Lindsay continued, “if you gave away the fact you thought he was hot—”

  “I never told him he was hot.”

  “There are other ways to give yourself away besides talking. And you do think he’s hot.”

  The clerk’s attention was ping-ponging between the two women.

  Kaitlin realized she probably had given herself away. On numerous occasions. And while they were arguing on the boat, her attraction to Zach must have been written all over her face.

  But what about Zach? Had he felt nothing? Could he actually be that good an actor? Had he pounced on an opportunity?

  Humiliation washed over her. Lindsay was right.

  “Darn it,” Kaitlin hissed under her breath. “He was faking?”

  Lindsay patted her arm in sympathy, her tone going gentle. “That’d be my guess.”

  Kaitlin scrunched her eyes shut.

  “I’ll take this one,” Lindsay told the clerk. Then she wrapped a bracing arm around Kaitlin’s shoulders. “Seriously, Katie. I hate to be the one to say this. But what are the odds he’s falling for you?”

  Lindsay was right. She was so, so right. Kaitlin had been taken in by a smooth-talking man with an agenda. He didn’t want her. He wanted her architectural designs, so he could shoot holes in them, talk her out of them, save himself a bundle of money. His interests were definitely not Kaitlin’s interests.

  How could she have been so naive?

  She clamped her jaw and took a bracing breath.

  Then she opened her eyes. “You’re right.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Don’t sweat it. I’m fine,” Kaitlin huffed. She caught a glimpse of the hefty price tag on the coin and seized the opportunity to turn the attention from herself. “You know that’s two thousand dollars?”

  “It’s a bargain,” said the clerk, punching keys on the cash register.

  But Lindsay wasn’t so easily distracted. “I think he’s trapped. I think he’s panicking. And I think he thinks you’ll be more malleable if you fall for him.”

  “How long have you been interested in antique coins?” Kaitlin repeated. Notwithstanding her desire to change the subject, it really was a lot of money.

  “I’m not interested in coins,” Lindsay replied. “I’m interested in pirates.”

  Oh, this was priceless. “You’re fixating on Dylan Gilby?”

  “Wrong. I’m fixating on Caldwell Gilby. I’m proving that smug, superior Dylan does, indeed, owe his wealth to the ill-gotten gains of his pirate ancestor.”

  “The Blue Glacier was sunk by pirates,” the clerk offered as she accepted Lindsay’s credit card to pay for the purchase.

  “By the Black Fern,” Lindsay confirmed in a knowledgeable and meaningful tone. “Captained by dear ol’ Caldwell Gilby.”

  The clerk carefully slid the coin in a velvet pouch embossed with the store’s logo. “The captain of the Blue Glacier tried to scuttle the ship against a reef rather than give up his cargo. But the pirates got most of it anyway. A few of the coins were recovered from the wreck in 1976.” The clerk handed Lindsay the pouch. “You’ve made a good purchase.”

  As they turned for the door to exit the pretty little shop, Lindsay held up the pouch in front of Kaitlin’s face. “Exhibit A.”

  Kaitlin searched her friend’s expression. “You have got to get back in the courtroom.”

  “Weren’t we talking about you?” asked Lindsay. “Kissing your husband?”

  “I don’t think so.” Kaitlin was going to wallow through that one in private.

  Lindsay dropped the coin into her purse and sobered. “I don’t want you getting hurt in all this.”

  Kaitlin refused to accept that. “I’m not about to get hurt. I kissed him. Nothing more.” That was, of course, the understatement of the century.

  Still, they’d come to their senses before anything serious had happened. Or maybe Kaitlin was the one who’d come to her senses. Zach hadn’t been emotionally involved on any level. Even now, he was probably biding his time, waiting for the next opportunity to manipulate her all over again.

  “He’s only after one thing,” Lindsay declared with authority.

  Kaitlin struggled to find the black humor. “And it’s not even the usual thing.”

  Lindsay gave Kaitlin’s shoulder another squeeze. “Just don’t let your heart get caught in the crossfire.”

  “My heart is perfectly safe. I’m fighting for my career.” Kaitlin wouldn’t get tripped up again. She couldn’t afford it. She was fighting against someone who was even less principled than she’d ever imagined.

  Dylan showed his disagreement, backing away from Zach’s office desk. “I am not stealing corporate secrets for you.”

  Zach exhaled his frustration. “They’re my corporate secrets. You’re not stealing them, because I own them.”

  “That’s the Harper family style,” Dylan sniffed in disdain. “Not the Gilbys’.”

  “Will you get off your moral high horse.” It was all well and good for Dylan to protect his family name, but it had gotten completely out of hand the past few weeks.

  “I have principles. So, sue me.”

  “I give you the key to my car.” Zach ignored Dylan’s protests and began to lay out a simple, straightforward plan.

  Dylan folded his arms belligerently across the front of his business suit. “So I can break in to it.”

  “So you can unlock it. There is no breaking required.”

  “And steal Kaitlin’s laptop.”

  “Her briefcase is probably a better bet,” Zach suggested. “I suspect the laptop has a password. You photocopy the drawings. You put them back. You lock my trunk, and you’re done.”

  “It’s stealing, Zach. Plain and simple.”

  “It’s photocopying, Dylan. Even Kaitlin’s pit bull of a lawyer—”

  “Lindsay.”

  Zach rapped his knuckles on his desktop. “Even Lindsay would have to admit that intellectual property created by Kaitlin while she was on the Harper Transportation payroll belongs to the company. And the company belongs to me.”

  “And to her.”

  Zach, exasperated, threw up his hands. “Whose side are you on?”

  “This doesn’t feel right.”

  Zach glared at his lifelong friend, searching for the argument that would bring Dylan around to logic. He couldn’t help but wish a few of Caldwell’s more disreputable genes had trickled down through the generations.

  It wasn’t as if they were knocking over a bank. It was nothing more than a frat prank. And he owned the damn designs. And while they might technically be half hers, they were also half his—morally, they were all his—and he had a corporation to protect. A corporation that employed thousands of people, all of them depending on Zach to make good decisions for Harper Transportation.

  “I need to know she won’t ruin me,” he said to Dylan. “We know she’s out for revenge. And think about it, Dylan. If she was only worried we’d disagree on the aesthetics of the renovation, she’d flaunt the drawings in my face. She’s up to something.”

  Dylan stared in silence for a long minute, and Zach could almost feel him working through the elements of the situation.

  “Up to what?” he finally asked, and Zach knew he had him.

  “Up to spending Harper Transportation into a hole we can’t climb out of then walking away and letting me sink.”

  “You think she’d
—”

  “I don’t know what she’d do. That’s my point. I don’t know anything about this woman except that she blames me for everything that’s wrong in her life.”

  Even as he said the words to Dylan, Zach was forced to silently acknowledge they weren’t strictly true. He knew more than that about Kaitlin. He knew she was beautiful, feisty and funny. He knew her kisses made him forget they were enemies. And he knew he wanted her more than he’d ever wanted any woman in his life.

  But that only meant he had to be tougher, even more determined to win. His feelings for her were a handicap, and he had to get past them.

  “If it was you,” Zach told Dylan in complete honesty, “if someone was after you, I’d lie, cheat and steal to save you.”

  Dylan hesitated. “That’s not fair.”

  “How is it not fair?”

  “You’d lie, cheat and steal at the drop of a hat.”

  Zach couldn’t help but grin. It was a joke. Dylan had no basis for the accusation, and they both knew it.

  Zach rounded the desk, knowing Dylan was on board. “That’s because I’m a pirate at heart.”

  “And I am not.”

  Zach clapped Dylan on the shoulder. “But I’m working on you.”

  “That’s what scares me.”

  “You may be a lot of things,” said Zach, “but scared isn’t one of them.”

  Dylan shook his head in both disgust and capitulation. “Give me your damn car keys,” he grumbled. “And you owe me one.”

  Zach extracted his spare key from his pocket and handed them to Dylan. “I’ll pay it back anytime you want. We’ll be at Boondocks in an hour. The valet parking is off Forty-fourth.”

  Dylan glanced down at the silver key in his palm. “How did it come to this?”

  “Lately, I ask myself that every morning.”

  Dylan quirked a half smile. “Maybe if you’d get yourself back on the straight and narrow.”

  “I am on the straight and narrow. Now get out there and steal for me.”

  Dylan on side, Zach cleared his evening’s schedule and exited his office, making his way to the third floor. He had been making a point by putting Kaitlin in such a cramped space. It occurred to him that Dylan might be right. His moral compass could, in fact, be slipping.