Can't Buy Me Love. HEATHER MACALLISTER

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      WHEN ALEXIS O’HARA ARRIVED at the Inn at Maiden Falls, Colorado, for her wedding and encountered an ex-boyfriend also checking in, she gave him a cool I’m-looking-good-and-aren’t-you-sorry-you-dumped-me smile. When he informed her he was representing her fiancé in the pre-nup negotiations, she did what any successful, independent, modern woman did when faced with the unthinkable: she called her mother.

      Abandoning her luggage in the center of a lovely Aubusson rug as soon as she got to her room, Alexis stared unseeingly out the window at the gorgeous Rocky Mountain vista, cell phone pressed to her ear. “Mom?”

      “You’ve changed your mind,” Patty O’Hara said flatly.

      “No! Why do you keep assuming that every time I call?”

      “Oh, I don’t know—maybe the week-long engagement to a man I’ve never before heard you mention in a romantic context?”

      “This isn’t that sort of marriage.”

      “What sort of marriage is it?”

      Alexis began to speak, fully intending to extol the virtues of compatibility, admiration and shared interests, but heard herself say, “It’s an I’m-tired-of-dating marriage.”

      “Oh, one of those. I thought it was an old-fashioned marry-an-old-guy-for-his-money marriage.”

      Alexis gritted her teeth, then craftily pointed out, “He’s fifty-four. That’s only two years younger than you. Are you saying you’re old?”

      “I’m saying I’ve been married to a fifty-four-year-old man and I know what it’s like.”

      She was talking about Alexis’s father. Alexis preferred not to think of her father in that context. “But you haven’t been married to a rich fifty-four-year-old man.”

      There was silence.

      “Mom?”

      “I was giving you time to think. You’ve been rushing around like a madwoman and I know you haven’t fully considered what you’re doing.”

      “I had plenty of time to think on the plane.” Actually, she’d fallen asleep on the plane. Missed the honey peanuts and everything. “I’m not changing my mind.”

      “I’m still not cutting the tags off my dress until I have to walk to my seat.”

      “Mom.” Alexis pressed the area between her eyebrows.

      “Alexis, as with any mother, I just want you to be happy. Now, I know you didn’t call to argue and I’m in the middle of packing. What’s up?”

      “Dylan’s here.” Alexis was proud that her voice sounded calm and matter-of-fact.

      “Do I know her?”

      “Him.”

      “Well, you never know these days with one-size-fits-all names.”

      “Like Pat?” Alexis asked dryly, although no one ever called her mother Pat.

      “A nickname for Patricia. What’s Dylan a nickname for?”

      Alexis exhaled. “Trouble.”

      “Why?”

      How could her mother have forgotten? “Law school? The guy who drop-kicked my heart into orbit around Planet Pity?”

      “Oh. That Dylan.”

      “Yes, that Dylan! How could you forget that Dylan?”

      “There’ve been…so many…”

      Yes, her heart had made many trips to Planet Pity since then. But it had orbited longer over Dylan than anyone else. “Mom, he’s negotiating the pre-nup for Vincent.”

      “You be careful with that pre-nup. Don’t sign anything without reading it first.”

      “Mom! I’m a lawyer, too! You’re missing the point. Dylan is representing my fiancé.”

      “Do you still have feelings for him?” her mother asked carefully.

      “Yes—hate!”

      “I thought you were over him.”

      “I…am.” The unguarded rush of pleasure she’d experienced when she’d seen him in the lobby was just a holdover from their school years. “And I don’t hate him. I haven’t thought of him.” Much. “But he’s going to be negotiating my pre-nup with Vincent!”

      “He apparently doesn’t feel that it’ll be a conflict of interest.”

      “That’s СКАЧАТЬ