His Black Sheep Bride (Aristocratic Grooms 1)

She was like Eve being tempted by the apple, Tamara thought. How had he known she’d always wanted to be a designer? Even though she knew it was part of his persuasive ploy, it was refreshing to have someone at least pretend to take her dream seriously.

“I remember visiting Dunnyhead once,” he mused, naming her father’s estate in Scotland. “You were wearing a bead bracelet that you’d made yourself.”

Tamara was surprised Sawyer remembered. Her father had given her a jewelry-making kit during her stay at Dunnyhead. She’d just turned twelve, and it had been one of the few times after her parents’ divorce her father had seemed aware of her interests and hobbies.

She’d strung together translucent green beads from the kit into a fair semblance of a hippie bracelet. Her father, she recalled, hadn’t been particularly impressed. Still, she’d kept her beaded creation for years afterward.

During that stay at Dunnyhead, she recalled she’d played with her younger sisters, Julia and Arabella, who’d been five and two. But until this moment, she hadn’t remembered Sawyer’s visit.

“Who did you want to be when you grew up?” Sawyer probed, his tone inviting. “You must have had someone you aspired to be like.”

“I wanted to be an original,” she replied, her defenses lowering a notch.

Sawyer gave a low laugh. “Of course. I should have guessed. Tamara Kincaid has always been unique.”

Despite herself, a smile of shared amusement rose to her lips. “After the divorce,” she divulged, “my mother kept some pieces from Bulgari, Cartier and Harry Winston that my father had given her.”

“And I bet you loved putting them on,” he guessed.

“My father wouldn’t let me play in the family vault,” she deadpanned.

“I’d let you play with the Melton jewels,” he joked, but his eyes gleamed like polished stones. “Hell, you could wear them to your heart’s content.”

“Trying to bribe me?” she said lightly.

“Whatever works.”

Her eyes came to rest beyond Sawyer. She saw her workbench scattered with the implements of a jeweler’s trade.

All of it, however, was in danger of disappearing from her life. And suddenly, inexplicably, what Sawyer offered was so very tempting.

Would it be so bad?

“It wouldn’t be terrible,” he said, as if reading her mind. “A short-term marriage of convenience gets us what we both want, and then we go our separate ways.”

“As opposed to my father’s proposal of a real but bloodless and indefinite dynastic marriage?”

Sawyer inclined his head.

“You’re proposing that we double-cross my father?”

“I wouldn’t put it that way,” Sawyer replied, “but one rascal deserves another, don’t you think?”

The image that his words conjured brought an involuntary smile to her lips. Would it matter to her father what type of marriage she and Sawyer contracted if the bottom line was that he got what he wanted—seeing Kincaid News into capable hands?

And yet. “We’ll never convince my father that we have a real marriage.”

Sawyer arched a brow. “We’ve just proven we’ll have no problem convincing people the passion is real.”

She felt a rippling warmth suffuse her.

When had she turned so hot and bothered where Sawyer was concerned? Perhaps when she’d discovered their kisses had her seeing a kaleidoscope of colors.

Still, she hedged. “You said this would be a marriage of convenience.”

He gave her a bland look. “Are you asking whether I’d expect you to share my bed?”

She kept her expression unchanged, but at her sides, her fingers curled into her palms. “I just want us to be clear.”

He smiled lazily. “The answer is no. That is, unless you decide you’d like to be in my bed.”

“Hardly,” she replied tartly.

His eyes laughed at her. “A man can dream.”

She felt a quiver in response to his compelling magnetism. She turned away to hide her reaction, surveying her domain, and then hugging herself. What was she willing to give up to save this?

Not too discriminating to do business with the devil.

Sawyer’s words came back to her, and now she knew he was right.

“Six months,” she said without looking at him. “That should be more than enough time—”

“However long it takes.”

“You said it would be short-term,” she countered, her tone faintly accusatory.

He settled his hands on her shoulders, warm and caressing. “I’m looking forward to it.”

When he bent and nuzzled her neck, she closed her eyes. He kissed her throat, and she couldn’t help thinking he was sealing the deal.

And then a moment later, he was gone, out the door.

With her fingertips, she touched the still warm and tingly spot where he’d kissed her.

What had she done by bargaining with the devil?

“I’m going to marry Sawyer Langsford.”

Her statement was met with a joint gasp.

Tamara looked from one to the other of her friends. Pia’s eyes had gone wide, while Belinda just looked at her in frozen silence, her coffee cup halfway to her lips.

They were sitting in Contadini having a casual Sunday brunch, but her announcement blew the relaxed atmosphere right out of the water.

Tamara glanced at Pia. “Any chance you can squeeze a small and hasty English wedding into your schedule for next month?”

“Oh, dear Lord,” Belinda breathed, rolling her eyes. “Tell me you’re not pregnant!”

Tamara looked at her friend in alarm. “Of course not!”

Was it her use of the word hasty that had made Belinda jump straight to pregnancy?

Belinda set down her cup. “Well, we can rule out drunk, since it’s Sunday morning and you’re sipping orange juice, so…what is going on?”

“She looks sane to me,” Pia murmured to Belinda, who nodded in agreement.

Belinda and Pia were both back in New York for the moment, and Tamara had decided that now, at one of their regular brunches, was as good a time as any to spring her momentous news on them.

“Of course I haven’t lost my mind,” she said.

At least, she didn’t think she had.

Belinda gave her a penetrating look. “Has your father strong-armed you into this? I know he saw you and Sawyer together at the wedding reception—”

“Oh, Tamara,” Pia jumped in, her brow puckered, “there has to be a way out!”