The CEO's Accidental Bride

Dylan’s voice went serious again. “What exactly do you need her to do?”

Zach spun the glass again. “Come to her senses.”

“Zach. Seriously. Quit wallowing in self-pity.”

Zach took a bracing breath. “Okay. Right. I need her to scale back. Build me a reasonable quality, standard office building. No marble pillars. No fountains. No palm trees. And no mahogany arch. And especially no two-thousand-gallon saltwater aquarium.”

Dylan thought about it for a moment. “So, make her want to do just that.”

“How?” Zach demanded. “I’ve tried everything from bribery to reason. It’s like trying to use a rowboat to turn the Queen Mary around.”

Dylan was quiet for a few more minutes. Zach tried to focus his thoughts. He tried to get past the emotions clouding his brain and think rationally. But it didn’t seem to be working.

“What about Sadie?” asked Dylan.

“What about her?” Zach didn’t follow.

“Sadie left Kaitlin the company.”

“And?” How was that a plus in Zach’s present circumstances?

“And Kaitlin would have to be downright callous not to care about what Sadie would want.”

“You think I should convince Kaitlin to respect Sadie’s wishes?” That would be an awful lot easier if Sadie had actually left wishes. But her only wish seemed to be for Zach’s wife to control him.

Dylan lifted his glass in a toast, ice cube clinking against the crystal. “That’s exactly what I think you should do.”

“What wishes? Where wishes? Sadie left no wishes, Dylan.”

“Would she want a flashy, avant-garde showpiece?”

“Of course not.” Zach’s grandmother Sadie was all about heritage and tradition. She had been the guardian of the Harper family history Zach’s entire life, and she had an abiding respect for everyone that went before her.

“Then help Kaitlin learn that,” Dylan suggested.

Zach couldn’t see that happening. “She’s already accused me of emotionally manipulating her.”

“Did you?”

“No.” Zach paused. “Well, I made a couple of passes at her. But it wasn’t manipulation. It was plain old lust.”

“Better stop doing that.” Dylan drank.

“No kidding.” Though, if Zach was realistic, it was probably a whole lot easier said than done.

Zach still couldn’t see Dylan’s plan working. “I doubt she’ll listen to me long enough to learn about Sadie. And, even if she does, she’ll assume I’m lying.” At this point, there was no way Kaitlin would believe anything Zach said.

“Don’t tell her about Sadie.”

“Then how…” Zach tapped his index finger impatiently against the table.

Dylan gave a secretive little smile and polished off his drink. “Show her Sadie.”

Zach gave his head a shake of incomprehension, holding his hands palms up.

“Take her to the island,” said Dylan. “Show her Sadie’s handiwork. Then ask her to design something for the office building that respects your grandmother. Kaitlin seems pretty smart. She’ll get it.”

Zach stilled. It wasn’t a half-bad idea. In fact, it was a brilliant idea.

He let out a chopped laugh. “And you claim to be honest and principled.”

“I’m not suggesting you lie to her.”

“But you are frighteningly devious.”

“Yeah,” Dylan agreed. “And I’ve got your back.”

Six

“He’s after something,” Kaitlin said as Lindsay plunked a large take-out pizza from Agapitos on Kaitlin’s small, dining room table. “A guy doesn’t make an offer like that for no reason.”

Lindsay returned to the foyer, kicked off her shoes and dropped her purse, refastening her ponytail.

It was Sunday afternoon. The Mets game was starting on the sports channel, and both women were dressed in casual sweatpants, loose T-shirts and cozy socks.

“No argument from me,” she said as she followed Kaitlin into the compact kitchen area of the apartment. “My point is only that you should say yes.”

Kaitlin pulled open the door to her freezer and extracted a bag of ice cubes. “And play into his hands?”

Lindsay’s voice turned dreamy. “A private island? Mansions? All that delicious pirate history? I don’t care what he’s up to, we’re going to have one hell of a weekend.”

Kaitlin paused, blender lid in her hand, and stared at Lindsay. “We?”

The announcer’s voice called a long fly ball, and both women turned to watch the television in the living room. The hit was caught deep in center field, and they both groaned their disappointment before turning back to the drink making.

Lindsay hopped up on one of the two wooden stools in front of the small breakfast bar, pushed aside the weekend newspaper and leaned on her elbows. “You’re not going to Serenity Island without me.”

“I’m not going to Serenity Island at all.” Kaitlin dumped a dozen ice cubes into the blender. There was no way in the world she’d spend an entire weekend with Zach.

“It’s the chance of a lifetime,” Lindsay insisted.

“Only for those of us with a pirate fetish.” Kaitlin added mango, pineapple, iced tea, mint and vodka to the ice cubes, mixing up their secret recipe for mango madness. It was a Sunday tradition, along with the take-out pizza and a baseball game.

“It’s not a fetish,” Lindsay informed her tartly. “It’s more of an obsession.”

Kaitlin hit the button on the blender, filling the apartment with the grinding noise. “You want to sleep with a pirate,” she called above the din. “That’s a fetish. Look it up.”

Lindsay’s grin was unrepentant. “First off, I have to prove he’s a pirate.”

With the mixture blended, Kaitlin hit the off switch and poured it into two tall glasses. Lindsay shifted back to her feet, headed for a cupboard and grabbed a couple of stoneware plates and put a slice of pizza on each of them.

“Here’s something,” Kaitlin began as they made their way back to the living room. “Put on that red-and-gold dress, and the Vishashi shoes, then tell him you’ll sleep with him if he admits he’s a pirate.” She stepped to one side so that Lindsay could go around and take her usual spot on the couch beside the window.

“That’s not ethical,” said Lindsay with a note of censure.

Kaitlin scoffed out a laugh. “As opposed to arriving on his island to gather evidence against him?”

“It’s not like I’m going to break into his house,” Lindsay offered reasonably.

“You’re definitely not going to break into his house, since we’re not going.”

“Spoilsport.”

Kaitlin settled on the couch and snagged one of the plates of pizza, gaze resting on the baseball game while she took a bite of the hot pepperoni and gooey cheese. She sighed as the comfort food hit her psyche. “I don’t want to think about it anymore.”

“Going to Serenity Island?”

“Zach. The renovation. The arguments. The kisses. Everything. I’m tired. I just want to sit here, watch the game and dull my senses with fat and carbs.”

“That seems like a big waste of time.” But Lindsay took a bite of the Agapitos, extrathick, stuffed-crust pizza and stared at the action on the television screen in silence.

Though Kaitlin tried to concentrate on the players, her mind kept switching back to Zach and his possible motives for the invitation. “I wish I had your capacity for mental chess games,” she ventured out loud.

“How exactly did he ask you?” asked Lindsay, shifting at her end of the couch so she was facing Kaitlin, obviously warming up for a good discussion.

Kaitlin thought back to the moment in her office. “He was polite—excruciatingly polite—and I think a little nervous. He said he wanted me to learn about his family, get a better understanding of his grandmother.”

“Any kisses, caresses, groping…?”

Kaitlin made a gesture that threatened to toss her pizza at Lindsay. “Just words.”

“Were you disappointed?”

“No.”

“Are you lying?”

“Only a little.” Zach was one incredibly sexy man and, for better or worse, he turned Kaitlin on like there was no tomorrow. She couldn’t stop it. She could barely fight the urge to act on it. Which was why visiting Serenity Island was one very, very bad idea.

There was a full count on the batter, and they both turned to watch Campbell swing and miss.

Kaitlin took a generous gulp of the mango madness. Then she gestured with her glass. “I know he’s trying to outsmart me.”

“Good thing we’re onto him,” Lindsay said.

“He gets me alone, he’ll try seducing me. I know he thinks it’s to his advantage.” And it probably was. She couldn’t think straight when he kissed her. Heck, she couldn’t think straight when he looked at her.

“So turn the tables on him.”

“Huh?”

“Seduce him back.”

Kaitlin nearly choked on her pizza. Seduce Zach? Seduce Zach? Why not just jump off the top of his building and be done with it? “Are you kidding me?”

“Two can play at that game, baby.” Lindsay gave a sage nod. “Women have been getting their own way through sex for thousands of years.”