The Millionaire Takes A Bride. Kate Little

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ let him stay right here in her living room, where she could keep her eye on him. And let him believe that she was the hopeful bride.

      After all, Georgia reasoned, a man like Jackson Bradshaw deserved at least one torturous night on her sofa for trying to prevent her dear sister’s wedding.

      Two

      When Georgia came down the next morning, the couch was empty, the bedding neatly folded. The bathroom door was shut, and she heard the shower running. She had dressed in jeans and a dark-blue T-shirt after a quick shower upstairs. Her short honey-blond hair was damp and curling from the humidity. She hardly looked like a woman who planned to be married shortly, she reflected. Of course, try to tell Jackson Bradshaw that. His suspicious mind would reason that she was merely trying to trick him and perhaps had a wedding gown on underneath her outfit.

      Never one to wear much makeup, she had taken the time to cover the dark shadows under her eyes with a dab of concealer and slap on a bit of lip gloss. She needed a little boost to her self-confidence this morning in order to take on the “dragon” again.

      She swiftly got the coffee maker started and pulled out the ingredients for breakfast from the refrigerator. She was a good cook—a great cook, some said—and she now strategized that Jackson Bradshaw’s temperament might be improved by a tasty meal.

      She imagined that he hadn’t eaten during his long, arduous journey last night and would appreciate a good breakfast—crisp bacon, blueberry pancakes, scrambled eggs and freshly squeezed orange juice. And even if the good food didn’t mollify his contentious personality, the distraction of chewing and swallowing would at least slow down his interrogation.

      For Georgia fully expected another interrogation this morning regarding the whereabouts of Will Bradshaw. Or perhaps Jackson thought all he had to do was hang around Georgia in order to catch the slippery groom?

      She didn’t want him hanging around here all day, she reflected as she whipped the pancake batter with nervous energy. Something about the man positively…unnerved her. It wasn’t just his difficult personality. That she could deal with. If only he was short, paunchy, balding…why, she’d have no problem at all dealing with him. But no, he had to be so…so…outrageously attractive it made her brain blow a fuse when he so much as smiled at her. Thank goodness he was such a sourpuss he rarely did.

      She lowered the heat under a skillet of simmering bacon and sliced some fruit into a colorful bowl.

      No, she hadn’t been attracted to a man in such a way in a long, long time. It would have been funny actually, if it wasn’t so annoyingly perverse, that of all the men she’d met lately, she should have such a reaction to this one.

      “Just my luck,” Georgia reflected wryly as she tested the griddle.

      “What’s your luck?” a deep voice interrupted her thoughts.

      Georgia looked up, trying to hide her surprise. “Umm…just talking to myself about the weather. It’s still pouring out.”

      “Yes, I noticed…. Though they say rain is good luck on a wedding day,” he added pointedly.

      “Oh, yes. My wedding. I nearly forgot,” she replied dryly. She lightly slapped her forehead. “Thanks for the reminder.”

      “Not at all,” he replied politely.

      She finally lifted her head and took a good look at him.

      If he’d looked good last night in damp, rumpled clothes and a day’s growth of beard, he looked even better now. Fresh from the shower, he wore the borrowed black T-shirt that was attractively form-fitting and a pair of gray sweatpants that hung low on his slim hips. He’d obviously used the little plastic razor she’d found and had only nicked himself once, on the chin, she noticed. Her hands itched to test the smoothness of his lean cheeks.

      She abruptly turned back to her cooking. “Help yourself to coffee. Breakfast will be ready in a few minutes.”

      “Smells good in here.” He poured himself a mug of coffee. “I never have time for a real breakfast.”

      “Well, this is a real one, a high-cholesterol special. I hope you’re not a health food freak or anything like that?”

      “Even if I was, right now I could eat anything you put in front of me.”

      She laughed. “Did you sleep okay?”

      “Once I transferred from that back-breaking sofa to the floor.”

      “Yes, I imagine the floor would have been more comfortable after all,” she agreed, the corner of her mouth itching to smile.

      He leaned on the counter and sipped his coffee, watching her. The thoughtful expression on his face unnerved her. She wished he would go and sit at the table or something, but she didn’t want to ask him outright. His nearness made her self-conscious, and she focused on the pancakes. She didn’t want them to get overcooked and tough. She tested the edge of one with the spatula, then flipped it expertly.

      “You do that very well,” he observed.

      “I was a cook in a diner once,” she confided, “one of my many employment experiences. But you probably know all about the exciting chapter of my life from your…research?” she prodded him.

      “My research?” His cheeks looked a bit flushed under his bronzed complexion. “Oh, yes, I do remember reading that,” he admitted. “It’s hard work for a woman, cooking in a diner,” he added thoughtfully.

      “It’s hard for anyone,” she corrected. “But the lady who owned the place was a good sort. She let me take Noah along sometimes when I couldn’t get a sitter.”

      “You took your baby to work with you?” he asked in disbelief. “Was that…safe for him?”

      “He was fine. I’d set him up on the counter in his little infant seat. All the waitresses took turns holding him and playing with him. They made such a fuss over him, they spoiled him silly. You’d think he had about ten grandmas.”

      She turned and looked at him. She and this man were obviously from different worlds—different planets, in fact. Clearly, he’d never known what it meant to struggle to pay the bills, pay the rent, stretch every dollar to the end of the month. There was no way to explain that reality to him. She would be wasting her breath even trying.

      “It was either take him…or get fired,” she added. “And I needed my paycheck.”

      “I understand,” he said thoughtfully.

      “No, I don’t think you do,” she replied. Someone like Jackson Bradshaw could research someone like her for ages, and though they might get the facts in black-and-white, they’d never understand the whole story, she reflected.

      The kitchen suddenly felt small, his presence distracting her. Disturbing her. The sound of the rain steadily beating on the windowpanes made the room feel close and airless.

      She suddenly thought about the way he’d kissed her—and the way she’d reacted to him. Neither of them had spoken about it afterward, and she certainly wasn’t about to start the morning off on that topic. When she’d thought it over later, she wondered if he was perhaps testing her. Trying СКАЧАТЬ