The Tycoon's Bought Fiancée Read online

  Stephanie sighed. She should never have let Annie talk her into coming to this wedding. Weddings weren’t her thing to begin with. She had no illusions about them, she never had, not even before she’d married Avery, though heaven knew she wished only the best for Dawn and Nicholas. She’d certainly tried to get out of coming north, to attend this affair. As soon as the invitation had arrived, she’d phoned Annie, expressed her delight for the engaged couple, followed by her regrets, but Annie had cut her short.

  “Don’t give me any of that Southern compone,” Annie had said firmly, and then her voice had softened. “You have to come to the wedding, Steffie,” she’d said. “After all, you introduced Dawn and Nicholas. The kids and I will be heartbroken if you don’t attend.”

  Stephanie smiled, put her hands to her hair and smoothed back a couple of errant strands. It had been a generous thing to say, even if it was an overstatement. She hadn’t really introduced the bride and groom, she’d just happened to be driving through Connecticut on her way home after a week on Cape Cod—a week when she’d walked the lonely, out-of-season beach and tried to sort out her life. A drenching rain was falling as she’d crossed the state line from Massachusetts to Connecticut and, in the middle of it, she’d gotten a flat. She’d been standing on the side of the road, miserable and wet and cold, staring glumly at the tire, when Dawn pulled over to offer assistance. Nick had come by next. He’d shooed Dawn away from the tire and knelt down in the mud to do the job, but his eyes had been all for Dawn. As luck would have it, Annie had driven by just as Nick finished. She’d stopped, they’d all ended up introducing themselves and laughing in the downpour, and Annie had invited everyone for an impromptu cup of hot cocoa.

  Stephanie’s smile faded. Avery would never have understood that a friendship could be forged out of such a tenuous series of coincidences, but then, he’d never understood anything about her, not from the day they’d married until the day he’d died….

  “Mrs. Willingham?”

  Stephanie blinked and stared into the mirror. Dawn Cooper—the former Dawn Cooper—radiant in her white lace and satin gown, smiled at her from the doorway.

  “Dawn.” Stephanie swung toward the girl and embraced her. “Congratulations, darlin’. Or is it good luck?” She smiled. “I never can remember.”

  “It’s luck, I think.” The door swung shut as Dawn moved toward the mirror. “I hope it is, anyway, because I think I’m going to need it.”

  “You’ve already got all the luck you’ll need,” Stephanie said. “That handsome young man of yours looks as if he—Dawn? Are you all right?”

  Dawn nodded. “Fine,” she said brightly. “It’s just, I don’t know…it’s just, I’ve been waiting and waiting for this day and now it’s here, and—and—” She took a deep breath. “Mrs. Willingham?”

  “Stephanie, please. Otherwise, you’ll make me feel even older than I already am.”

  “Stephanie. I know I shouldn’t ask, but—but… Did you feel, well, a little bit nervous on your wedding day?”

  Stephanie stared at the girl. “Nervous?”

  “Yes. You know. Sort of edgy.”

  “Nervous,” Stephanie repeated, fixing a smile to her lips. “Well, I don’t—I can’t recall…”

  “Not scared. I don’t mean it that way. I just mean… Worried.”

  “Worried,” Stephanie said, working hard to maintain the smile.

  “Uh-huh.” Dawn licked her lips. “That you might not always be as happy as you were that day, you know?”

  Stephanie leaned back against the vanity table. “Well,” she said, “well…”

  “Oh, wow!” Dawn’s eyes widened. “Oh, Mrs….oh, Stephanie. Gosh, I’m so sorry. That was such a dumb thing to ask you.”

  “No. Not at all. I’m just trying to think of…” Of what lie will sound best. “Of what to tell you.”

  She hadn’t been nervous the day she’d married Avery, or even scared. Terrified was more accurate, terrified and desperate and almost frantic with fear…but, of course, she could never tell that to this innocent child, never tell it to anyone, and the fact she was even thinking about the possibility only proved how frazzled her nerves really were.

  Stephanie smiled brightly. “Because, you understand, it was such a long time ago. Seven years, you know? Seven—”

  Dawn grasped Stephanie’s hands. “Forgive me, please. I’m so wrapped up in myself today that I forgot that Mr. Willingham‘s—that he’s—that you’re a widow. I didn’t mean to remind you of your loss.”

  “No. No, really, that’s all right. I’m not—”

  “I am such an idiot! Talking without thinking, I mean. It’s my absolutely worst trait. Even Nicky says so. Sometimes, I just babble something before I’ve thought it through and I get myself, everybody, in all kinds of trouble! Oh, I am so sorry, Stephanie! Can you forgive me?”

  “There’s nothing to forgive,” Stephanie said gently, smiling at the girl.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “No wonder you looked so sad when I came into the room. It must be so awful, losing the man you love.”

  Stephanie hesitated. “I suppose it is,” she said after a minute.

  “I can just imagine. Why, if anything ever happened to Nicky…if anything were to separate us…” Dawn’s eyes grew suspiciously bright. She laughed, swung toward the mirror, yanked a tissue from the container on top of the vanity table and dabbed at her lashes. “Just listen to me! I am turning into the most maudlin creature in the whole wide world!”

  “It’s understandable,” Stephanie said. “Today’s a very special one for you.”

  “Yes.” Dawn blew her nose. “I feel like I’m on a roller coaster. Up one minute, down the next.” She smiled. “Thanks, Stephanie.”

  “For what?”

  “For putting up with me. I suppose all brides are basket cases on their wedding days.”

  “Indeed,” Stephanie said with another bright, artificial smile. “Well, if you’re sure you’re okay…”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Would you like me to look for your mother and send her in?”

  “No, don’t do that. Mom’s got enough to deal with today. You go on and have fun. Did you pick up your table card yet?”

  Stephanie paused at the door and shook her head. “No. No, I didn’t.”

  “Ah.” Dawn grinned. “Well, if I remember right, Mom and I put you at a terrific table.”

  “Did you?” Stephanie said with what she hoped sounded like interest.

  “Uh-huh. You’re sitting with a couple from New York, old friends of Mom’s and Dad’s. You know, from when they were still married.”

  “That sounds nice.”

  “And my cousin and her husband. Nice guys, both of them. He’s an engineer, she’s a teacher.”

  “Well,” Stephanie said, still smiling, “they all sound—”

  “And with my uncle David. Well, he’s not really my uncle. I mean, he’s Mr. Chambers, but I’ve known him forever. He’s a friend of my parents’. He’s this really cool guy. Really cool. And handsome.” Dawn giggled. “He’s a bachelor, and very sexy for an older man, you know?”

  “Yes. Well, he sounds—”

  The door swung open and two of Dawn’s bridesmaids sailed into the room on a strain of music and a gust of laughter. Stephanie saw her opportunity and took it. She blew a kiss at Dawn, smoothed down the skirt of her suit, and stepped into the corridor.

  Her smile faded.

  Terrific. Annie had put her at a table with an eligible bachelor. Stephanie sighed. She should have expected as much. Even though her own marriage had failed. Annie had all the signs of being an inveterate matchmaker.

  “Oh,” she’d said softly when she’d learned Stephanie was widowed, “that’s so sad.”

  Stephanie hadn’t tried to correct her. They didn’t know each other well enough for that. The truth was, she didn’t know anyone well enough for that. Not that anyone back home thought of
her as a grieving widow. The good people of Willingham Corners had long-ago decided what she was and Avery’s death hadn’t changed that. At least, nobody tried to introduce her to eligible men…but that seemed to be Annie’s plan today.

  Stephanie gave a mental sigh as she made her way to the table where the seating cards were laid out. She could survive an afternoon with Dawn’s Uncle David. He’d surely be harmless enough. Annie was clever. She’d never met Avery but she knew he’d been in his late fifties, so she’d matched Stephanie with an older man. A sexy older man, Stephanie thought with a little smile, meaning he was fiftyor sixty-something but he still had his own teeth.

  She peered at the little white vellum cards, found hers and picked it up. Table seven. Well, that was something, she thought as she stepped into the ballroom. The table would be far enough from the bandstand so the music wouldn’t fry her eardrums.

  Stephanie wove her way between the tables, checking numbers as she went. Four, five… Yes, table seven would definitely be away from the bandstand out of deference to Uncle David, who’d probably think that the dance of the minute was the merengue. Not that it mattered. She hadn’t danced in years, and she didn’t miss it. She just hoped Uncle David wouldn’t take it personally when she turned out to be a dud as a table partner.

  Table seven. There it was, tucked almost into a corner. Most of its occupants were already seated. The trendylooking twosome had to be the New Yorkers; the plump, sweet-faced woman with the tall, bespectacled man were sure to be the teacher and the engineer. Only Uncle David was missing, but he was certain to turn up at any second.

  The little group at table seven looked up as she dropped her place card beside her plate.

  “Hi,” the plump woman said—and then her gaze skittered past Stephanie’s shoulder, her eyes rounded and she smiled the way a woman does when she’s just seen something wonderful. “And hi to you, too,” she purred.

  “What a small world.”

  Stephanie froze. The voice came from just behind her. It was male, low, and touched with satirical amusement.

  She turned slowly. He was standing inches from her, the man who’d sent her pulse racing. He was every bit as tall as he’d seemed at a distance, six-one, six-two, easily. His face was a series of hard angles; his eyes were so blue they seemed to be pieces of sky. Clint Eastwood, indeed, she thought wildly, and she almost laughed.

  But laughing wouldn’t help. Not now. Not after her gaze fell on the white vellum card he dropped on the table beside her.

  Stephanie looked up.

  “Uncle David?” she said in a choked whisper.

  She remembered the way he’d looked at her the first time they’d seen each other. The smoldering glance, the lazy insolence of his smile… There was nothing of that about his expression now. His eyes were steely; the set of his mouth gave his face a harsh cast.

  “And the widow Willingham.” A thin smile curved across his mouth as he drew Stephanie’s chair out from the table. “It’s going to be one hell of a charming afternoon.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  STEPHANIE sat down.

  What else could she do? Everyone at the table was watching them, eyes bright with curiosity.

  David Chambers sat down beside her. His leg brushed hers as he tucked his feet under the table. Surreptitiously, she moved her chair as far from his as she could.

  He leaned toward her. “I carry no communicable diseases, Mrs. Willingham,” he said dryly. “And I don’t bite unless provoked.”

  She felt her face turn hot. His voice had been lowpitched; no one else could have heard what he’d said, but they’d wanted to—she could see it in the way they leaned forward over the table.

  Say something, Stephanie told herself. Anything.

  She couldn’t. Her tongue felt as if it were stuck to the roof of her mouth. She cleared her throat, moistened her lips…and, mercifully, an electronic squeal from the bandstand microphone overrode all conversation in the ballroom.

  The guests at table seven laughed a bit nervously.

  “Those guys could use a good sound engineer,” the man with the glasses said. He grinned, rose and extended his hand toward David. “Too bad that’s not my speciality. Hi, nice to meet you guys. I’m Jeff Blum. And this is my wife, Roberta.”

  “Call me Bobbi,” the plump brunette chirped, batting her lashes at David.

  The other couple introduced themselves next. They looked as if they’d both been hewn out of New England granite, and had the sort of names David always irreverently thought of as Puritan holdovers.

  “Hayden Crowder,” the man said, extending a dry, cool hand.

  “And I’m Honoria,” his wife said, smiling. “And you folks are?”

  “David Chambers,” David said when Stephanie remained silent. He looked at her, and the grim set of his mouth softened. Okay. Maybe he was overreacting to what had happened when he’d first seen her, and to her reaction to it.

  Actually, when you came down to it, nothing had happened—nothing that was her fault, or his. A man looked at a woman, sometimes the moment or the chemistry was just right, and that was that—although now that he was seated next to the widow Willingham, he thought wryly, he couldn’t for the life of him imagine why his hormones had gone crazy back in that church. She was a looker, but so were half a dozen other women in the room. It was time to stop being an ass, remember his manners and get through the next few hours with something approaching civility.

  “And the lady with me,” he said pleasantly, “is—”

  “Stephanie Willingham. Mrs. Avery Willingham,” Stephanie blurted. “And I can assure all of you that I am not here with Mr. Chambers, nor would I ever choose to be.”

  Bobbi Blum looked at her husband. Hayden Crowder looked at his wife. All four of them looked at Stephanie, who was trying not to look at any of them.

  Ohmygod!

  What on earth had possessed her? It was such an incredibly stupid thing to have said, especially after the man seated beside her had made an attempt, however late and unwanted, at showing he had, at least, some semblance of good manners.

  “Do tell,” Bobbi Blum said with a bright smile. She sat back as the waiter set glasses of champagne before them. “Well, that’s certainly very, ah, interesting.”

  Honoria Crowder shot a brilliant smile across the table. “Champagne,” she said briskly. “Isn’t that nice? I always say champagne’s the only thing to serve at weddings, isn’t that right, Hayden?”

  Hayden Crowder swallowed hard. Stephanie could see his Adam’s apple bob up and down in his long, skinny neck.

  “Indeed you do, my dear.”

  “Oh, I agree.” Jeff Blum, eager to do his part, nodded vigorously. “Don’t I always say that, too, Bobbi?”

  Bobbi Blum turned a perplexed smile on her husband. “Don’t you always say what, dear?”

  “That champagne is—that it’s whatever Mrs. Crowder just said it was.”

  “Do call me Honoria,” Honoria said.

  Silence settled over the table again.

  Stephanie’s hands were knotted together in her lap. Everyone had said something in an attempt to ease the tension—everyone but David Chambers.

  He was looking at her. She could feel the weight of his gaze. Why didn’t he say something? Why didn’t she say something? A witty remark, to take the edge off. A clever one, to turn her awful words into a joke.

  When was the band going to start playing?

  As if on cue, the trumpet player rose to his feet and sent a shattering tattoo of sound out into the room.

  “And now,” the bandleader said, “let’s give a warm welcome to Dawn and Nicholas!”

  The Crowders, then the Blums, looked toward the dance floor as the introductions rolled on. Stephanie breathed a small sigh of relief. Perhaps David Chambers’s attention was on the newlyweds, too. Her hand closed around her small, apricot-silk purse. Carefully, she moved back her chair. Now might be the perfect time to make another strategic retreat to the ladies’
room…

  “Leaving so soon, Mrs. Willingham?”

  Stephanie froze. Then, with as much hauteur as she could manage, she turned her head toward David Chambers. His expression was polite and courteous; she was sure he looked the picture of civility—unless you were sitting as close to him as she was, and you could see the ridicule in his eyes.

  Okay. It was time to take a bite, however small, of humble pie.

  “Mr. Chambers.” She cleared her throat. “Mr. Chambers, I suppose—what I said before—I didn’t mean…”

  He smiled coolly and bent toward her, his eyes on hers.

  “An apology?”

  “An explanation.” Stephanie sat up straight. “I was rude, and I didn’t intend to be.”

  “Ah. What did you intend to be, then?” His smile tilted and he moved closer, near enough to make her heartbeat quicken. For one foolish instant, she’d thought he was going to kiss her.

  “I simply meant to make it clear that you and I were not together.”

  “You certainly did that.”

  “I’m sure Annie meant well, when she seated us this way, but—”

  “Annie?”

  “Annie Cooper. Surely, you know—”

  “You were seated on the groom’s side.”

  “I know both the bride and the groom, Mr. Chambers.”

  “But you’re Annie’s guest.”

  “I can’t see of what possible interest it could be to you, sir.”

  Neither could David—except that it had occurred to him. as he’d gone down the receiving line, that word had it that the groom’s uncle, Damian Skouras, had a mistress in attendance at the wedding. Perhaps Stephanie Willingham was she. Or perhaps she was a former mistress. Or a future one. It was a crazy world out there; there was no telling what complications you got into when you drew up guest lists. He’d avoided the problem, his one time in the matrimonial sweepstakes. You didn’t draw up a guest list when you said “I do” at city hall.

  “Humor me, Mrs. Willingham,” David said with a chilly smile. “Why did you choose to sit on the groom’s side?”