The Wedding Bargain

He considered her plea, turning it over in his mind. He wasn’t prepared for this. Still, what harm would it do? Working the viticulture side of the family business certainly had its advantages come wintertime in that things definitely slowed down for him once he’d finished winter cane pruning on the vineyard. There was no other pressing business holding him at The Masters, nothing to prevent him from taking a week off work, if that’s the time it took for Shanal to ready herself to face the world again. Besides, there were three bedrooms on the boat.

Movement in the cabin caught his attention. Mac was getting fidgety, casting them a curious glance every now and then. Raif had to make a decision. Leave her to her own devices, or go with her. He knew what Ethan would do. More importantly, what Ethan would expect him to do.

Sometimes family honor was a bitch.

“Fine,” he said with a huff of breath. “I’ll come with you.”

Three

Relief swamped her and she put out her hands to grasp his.

“Thank you. I owe you so much already—”

Raif pulled away from her and stood up. “You don’t owe me anything.”

She felt his withdrawal as if it was a slap. She lifted a hand to her throat as she watched him go back inside the main cabin. God, she’d made such a mess of all this. Did he regret rescuing her today? She wouldn’t blame him if he did. It was one thing to whisk her away from the scene of her shattered future, quite another to continue on the journey with her. She was asking such a lot from him. And it wasn’t as if they’d ever been close.

Aware of his crush on her, she’d always made a point of keeping her distance, never doing anything to lead him on. She’d felt that in the long run, that was the kinder choice—though admittedly, that had been as much for her sake as for his. Ever since he’d transitioned from schoolboy to young man, there had been something about Raif that had made the hairs on the back of her neck stand to attention. Something indefinable that always put her on edge when he was around, and that made her uncomfortably aware of herself and her body’s reactions to him.

She’d told herself way back then that it was ridiculous. She had her whole life planned out, and someone like Raif had no place in it. He already had that devil-may-care attitude to life, while she was always quieter, more considered in her decisions. They’d had nothing in common whatsoever aside from Ethan as a link.

But that had been nearly a decade ago. A lot had changed, for both of them, since then. He’d become fully a man, and was now even more confident, more self-assured, with that air of entitlement and power that all the Masters men effortlessly exuded. And she? Well, she was still that nerd with her nose in her research, and she was no less discomfited by his presence than she’d ever been.

That moment back at his house, when his fingertips had touched her spine, had felt electric. All her nerve endings had jittered with the shock of it—and now the two of them would be confined together for the better part of the next few days. She started to wonder if she’d made a mistake in asking him to stay.

From inside, she could hear Raif’s deep voice as he talked to Mac. Soon after, the two men hugged briefly and Mac debarked. Raif assumed his position at the helm and started up the engine. Mac cast them off from the pier with a wave. As the boat eased into the murky river waters, swollen with recent winter rain, Shanal felt a little of the tension that gripped her body begin to ease. She rose from the chair and went inside.

“I guess this has put a spanner in everything for you,” she said, as Raif met her gaze.

His broad shoulders lifted in a nonchalant shrug. “It’s not a problem. I’ll let the family know I’ll be away for a few days, and besides, I have nothing more important to deal with right now.”

She felt the slight in his words—the implication that she was no more than a minor irritation to be dealt with—and stifled a sigh. “You’re probably wondering why I ran away.”

Again, that casual lift of his shoulders. “Not my business.”

She struggled to find the words to begin to tell him. To explain her sudden overwhelming sense of suffocation and irrational fear. Standing at the altar—was it only a couple of hours ago?—and listening to the priest had forced her to see the rest of her life stretching out before her. None of it being as she’d planned.

Sure, as Burton’s wife she’d still be heavily involved in her research—finding refuge in facts and figures and analysis—and she’d finally hold the position she’d craved for years. When it had come to negotiating their prenuptial agreement—a clinical document designed to appoint Shanal as head of research within the facility and to outline the terms of the large monetary settlement to be made to her upon their marriage—she’d had one thing only on her mind. Security. Not happiness. Not love—well, except for the love she bore for her parents, and her desire to lift the strain and sorrow from her father’s frail shoulders for the life he had left.