“And it’s easier to find a way out before the wedding than after,” Belinda muttered.

Tamara took a fortifying breath. “My father hasn’t pressed anything.” Sort of. If it hadn’t been for her father’s conditions on the merger of Kincaid News with Melton Media, Sawyer would never have proposed. It was a humiliating way to have received her first marriage proposal, but a humiliation that brought salvation for her business. “In fact, I’ve hardly ever given a decision this much calculated thinking.”

“Uh-oh,” Pia breathed. “Calculated thinking for a wedding? Oh, Tamara!”

Tamara repressed a sigh. Of course, Pia, the eternal romantic, would be shocked and alarmed at the idea of a marriage of convenience.

“Beats the opposite,” Belinda put in. “I don’t recommend the impetuous elopement.”

Tamara raised her hand. “Hear me out.”

“I’m all ears,” Belinda replied. “This I have to hear.”

Tamara steadied herself. “You both know Pink Teddy Designs has been in financial difficulty for some time.” It was a painful admission. Her business was everything to her—her dream, her quest for validation. “But what you don’t know is that recently things have come to a head. My rent is set to increase and I’ve tapped out my credit.”

Belinda’s eyes narrowed. “So you’re marrying Sawyer for financial reasons?” she guessed. “Can I just weigh in with the fact that money is on my list of bad reasons to get married?”

Pia shook her head. “It’ll never last.”

Tamara pushed at her breakfast plate. “I don’t want it to last!”

Pia’s eyes rounded. “And what about poor Tom?”

“Poor Tom is on his way to Los Angeles, hot on the trail of a record deal, thanks to Sawyer.”

“Wonderful,” Belinda remarked sarcastically.

“I mentioned my father had a long-cherished wish to unite the Kincaid and Langsford families,” Tamara said. “But what I didn’t mention is that he’s made his agreement to Melton Media’s merger with Kincaid News conditional on Sawyer convincing me to marry him.”

Pia gasped, her hand briefly covering her mouth. “You’re willing to throw away your chance to marry for love?”

Tamara was tempted to say she was a bit cynical about love after the examples set by her parents, but she stifled her reply. She supposed in Pia’s business, it was helpful—maybe even necessary—to believe in true love. Why disabuse her friend?

And, truth be told, Tamara conceded, she wasn’t a hardened cynic. Her secret indulgence was chick flicks that made her misty-eyed. She’d wonder whether it was possible to find a man who set her pulse racing and held her close to his heart. She’d wonder if, despite her parents’ example, a happily-ever-after was attainable for her.

She pasted a smile on her face. “No, don’t worry. I’m not giving up the chance of love forever. With any luck—” her lips twisted self-deprecatingly “—a second marriage will be the charm.”

“Or third,” Belinda muttered.

“Or third,” she agreed, since it was clear her friend was hoping for a third wedding.

Thrusting aside the fact that her own father had been married three times, Tamara quickly explained the terms of her agreement with Sawyer for a short-term marriage of convenience: Kincaid News in return for the money to save Pink Teddy Designs.

“I don’t know,” Pia said doubtfully when she’d finished, shaking her head.

“What could go wrong?” Tamara asked. “In six months, a year at most, we both go our separate ways.”

“Famous last words,” Belinda said. “It’s taken me more than two years to get an annulment.”

Tamara needed to know her friends were behind her. More importantly, she needed both her friends’ help if she was to convince her father that she and Sawyer had succumbed to dynastic expectations rather than come up with a plan of their own.

“I need you both to act as if you believe Sawyer and I have finally decided to do our family duty,” she said baldly. “Otherwise I’ll never convince my father.”

Pia’s eyes widened, and Belinda snorted disbelievingly.

“Your father will never buy it,” Belinda said.

“It’s my only hope.”

Her only hope, and Pink Teddy’s.

Neither Belinda nor Pia had a ready reply, but Tamara could tell from their expressions that they reluctantly understood her predicament.

She sucked in a breath. “So will you do it? Will you show up when I marry—” she stumbled over the word, and Belinda looked at her keenly “—Sawyer? Even if it turns out to be in a drafty British castle?”

Belinda sighed. “I’ll bring my Wellingtons.”

“And I’ll help coordinate,” Pia chimed in.

Tamara glanced from one to the other of her friends. “Even if Colin and Hawk are almost certainly going to be there at Sawyer’s invitation?”

There was a palpable pause.

Pia grimaced. “You know you can count on me. Just keep me away from the hors d’oeuvres.”

“I’ll bring my attorney,” Belinda added grimly.

Tamara laughed.

For a moment, thanks to her friends, she could forget just how complicated a situation she was getting into.

Still, this was surely going to be some wedding.

Six

“Tell him to come in,” Sawyer said into the speakerphone, and then rose from behind his desk.

Floor-to-ceiling windows revealed a spectacular view of the Hudson River. The corporate offices of Melton Media were located on the upper floors of a gleaming midtown Manhattan building.

Sawyer had taken several strides when his office door opened and Viscount Kincaid strolled in.

“Melton,” the viscount acknowledged jovially as he came forward and shook hands.

Sawyer wasn’t fooled for a second. Though Tamara’s father was a couple of inches shorter than his own six-two, the older man had an air of prepossession and command that only someone born into authority or accustomed to it for a long time could exude.

In Kincaid, diabolically, the genial visage of a Santa Claus was joined to the shrewd mind of a Machiavelli—a trap for the unwary.

“Shall we proceed down to the executive dining room?” Sawyer asked.

It was well before the daily news deadline for East Coast newspapers going to press, but they were both busy men.

Tags: Anna DePalo Aristocratic Grooms Billionaire Romance
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