His Black Sheep Bride (Aristocratic Grooms 1)

“Tell me you’re not dating another sad sack.” What a waste.

She gave him a withering look.

“So that’s why you’re attending the wedding without a date,” he continued, knowing he proceeded at the risk of incurring her wrath.

“It hasn’t escaped my notice you’re here alone, as well,” she shot back.

“Ah, but there’s a reason.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Which is…?”

“I’m interested in merging Kincaid News into Melton Media. Your father is happy to oblige…if I marry his daughter.” He cocked his head, and then echoed Viscount Kincaid’s words with mock seriousness. “’Keep everything in the family, you see.’”

Her eyes widened, and then she said something under her breath.

“Exactly,” Sawyer agreed, and then his lips quirked up. “After all, look at all the trouble you and your sisters have given him so far. You’ve all refused to fall in line. Your father’s pinning his hopes on the third generation.”

The song ended, and she made to pull away from him, but he tightened his arm around her waist. He sensed her resistance for a moment, but then he swung her deftly in a semicircle as the band moved into the next song.

He wasn’t ready to let her end their conversation just yet.

And then, she felt good in his arms, he admitted, as delicious curves pressed against him.

If she were anyone else, he’d have been charming her into giving him her phone number—and maybe more. He’d have looked forward to sleeping with her.

He’d have to play his cards more carefully with Tamara, but the end reward would be infinitely greater.

Tamara gave him an artificial smile. “You sound like my father. Are you sure you’re not the same person?”

Sawyer returned her smile with a feral one of his own. Tamara’s father was fit and trim for a man of seventy, but that’s where the physical similarity between the two of them ended. However, the viscount’s salt-and-pepper hair and grandfatherly visage disguised a sharp mind and cutthroat business instincts.

“We’ve both got the stomach for high stakes,” Sawyer responded finally.

“Yes, how can I forget?” she retorted. “Business before pleasure and family.”

He shook his head. “So bitter for someone whose lifestyle has been bankrolled by the family fortune.”

“It’s been at least a decade since I was young enough to be bankrolled, as you put it,” she countered. “I support myself these days—by choice.”

He raised his eyebrows. So Tamara’s image of an independent woman was more than mere show.

“I think the word bitter applies to different circumstances—like going through three divorces,” she said pointedly.

“And yet, the viscount strikes me as someone who’s far from unhappy with life. In fact, he’s such a romantic, he’s trying to get you to walk down the aisle.”

“With you?” she scoffed. “I think not.”

His eyes crinkled with reluctant admiration, even if it was at his expense. “You’re a blunt-spoken New Yorker.”

She arched a brow. “A woman after your own heart, you mean? Don’t you wish!”

“My first marriage proposal, and turned down flat.”

“I’m sure it’ll do no damage to your reputation,” she replied. “You media tycoons do know how to spin a story.”

After a moment, he gave a bark of laughter. “For the record, what makes me an undesirable marriage partner?”

“Where do I begin? Let me count the ways…”

“Give me the five-second news bite.”

“I understand why my father would want a son-in-law like you…”

He looked at her inquiringly.

“You’re both peers of the realm and press barons,” she elaborated.

“And those are bad characteristics?”

“But I also know why I don’t want a husband like you,” she went on without answering him. “You’re too much like my father.”

Back to that topic, were they? “Would it help to point out I don’t have three ex-wives?”

She shook her head. “You’re wedded to your media empire. The news business is your first love. You live and breathe for wheeling and dealing.”

“I suppose the existence of ex-girlfriends isn’t enough proof to the contrary?” he asked wryly.

“And what reduced them to ex status?” she probed.

He cocked a brow. “Maybe things just didn’t work out.”

“The key word there being work,” she returned. “Namely yours, I assume. My father lives and breathes the media business, even at the expense of people who love him.”

He let the conversation lapse then, since it was clear they were at loggerheads. She hadn’t said it, but it was clear she included herself among the victims who’d fallen by the wayside on the road of her father’s ambition.

They danced in silence, but from time to time he glanced down at her averted face as she scanned the dancing and milling guests, looking as if she was searching for some escape.

She was quite a challenge. She was obviously marked by her parents’ long-ago divorce and her father’s overweening ambition, and unwilling to repeat her parents’ mistakes.

He might have admired her unwillingness to sell herself short in the romance department. But as it happened, in these circumstances, he was the man who was being judged as not quite up to snuff.

With little effort, Tamara evoked all his latent ambivalence. He himself was the product of an ill-fated marriage between a British lord and an American socialite. So he had firsthand experience with free-spirited women who didn’t adapt well to marrying into the tradition-bound British aristocracy.

His mother had named him after Mark Twain’s most famous character, for God’s sake. Who’d ever heard of a British earl named for someone conjured by a quintessential American author?

For a moment, Tamara made him doubt what he needed to do in order to get his hands on Viscount Kincaid’s media holdings.

Then his jaw hardened. He’d be damned if he’d worked this hard to get to where he was only to be stymied by a few inconvenient conditions—including the existence of a sad-sack boyfriend.

When the music faded away, Tamara made to pull away, and he let her break free of his hold.

“We’re done,” she said, a challenge in her voice.

He let one side of his mouth quirk up. “Not nearly, but it’s been a pleasure so far.”