Bride By Design. Leigh Michaels

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СКАЧАТЬ an arm—just a rib.”

      She fidgeted with her teacup, turning it ’round and ’round on the saucer. “As far as that goes,” she said. Her voice was different, almost hesitant, and he was intrigued. “I don’t expect there would be much contact, really. We’d have to share a house, I suppose.”

      “I think Henry would notice if we were living in separate suburbs, yes.”

      “But I don’t see any reason why we couldn’t be civil about it.”

      “Roommates,” he said thoughtfully.

      “If you want to put it that way. And what he’s asking is nothing, really, weighed against Birmingham on State.”

      It all came back to the business, David knew. Eve was absolutely right. Henry Birmingham’s offer presented a chance he could never have achieved on his own. It was an opportunity he could not refuse, whatever the cost—because to turn it down would be to sacrifice his dreams and throw away his talent. There would never be another opening like this.

      He looked across the table at her and felt his future shift—as if he had slid into some kind of time warp—and settle into a new pattern. A pattern that included Birmingham on State. And Eve.

      “Let’s have lunch,” he said, “and plan a wedding.”

      Not that there was much to plan as far as the wedding went, and Eve thought it best to make that clear from the beginning. “I don’t intend to play silly games,” she said. “There will be no white satin beaded with pearls, no train-bearers, no morning suits and spats, no orange blossoms, and no—”

      “No illusion.”

      She looked at him sharply, studying him for the first time. He was good-looking enough, though perhaps his face was just a little too roughly cut to be considered exactly handsome. He had ordinary brown hair and anything-but-ordinary brown eyes, flecked with gold and surrounded by long, curly lashes. And the air of self-confidence he projected gave him a certain presence.

      “Isn’t that what they call the stuff they make veils out of? Illusion?” He sounded quite innocent, but there was more of an Atlanta drawl in his voice than Eve had detected before. “I’m sure I’ve heard that somewhere.”

      No illusions…. That was what he’d meant, of course. But since it was exactly what she’d been getting at, Eve could hardly take offense. “None. Also no bridesmaids, no wedding cake in little decorated boxes for guests to take home, no romantic first waltz, no garter to remove and throw to the bachelors in the crowd—”

      “Now why doesn’t that surprise me,” he said.

      It obviously hadn’t been a question, but Eve thought she saw puzzlement as well as a tinge of relief in his eyes. The puzzlement annoyed her just a little. Did he really believe that the height of every young woman’s ambition was an elaborate wedding ceremony, no matter what circumstances lay behind the marriage?

      The relief he displayed, however, she had no trouble understanding. She didn’t doubt that if she insisted he would have agreed to the most formal wedding ever organized —even if he’d had to grit his teeth and get half smashed to make it through the ceremony—for no price would be too high in return for what he was getting. A wedding was only one day. Birmingham on State would be forever.

      But Eve was glad that she’d thought it all through ahead of time and made her decision. Their reasons for marrying were perfectly good ones, but the world would never understand them. And standing in front of an altar, making solemn religious vows and pretending starry-eyed love—or even fondness—that they didn’t feel, would be sheer hypocrisy. Far better to have a low key and private civil ceremony, and let the world think what it liked.

      “And, of course, no guest lists of thousands,” she finished. “So if your mother is the managing type who’ll be disappointed that she isn’t the general in charge of an extravaganza, you can tell her from me that it isn’t going to happen.”

      “She died when I was eighteen,” David said quietly.

      Eve caught her breath with a painful gulp. “I’m sorry. I let myself get carried away, and I never stopped to think…”

      “You couldn’t have known.” He toyed with a bread stick. “You didn’t mention a ring in that catalog of traditions you don’t plan to indulge in.” He was looking appraisingly at her left hand, which was lying cupped on the red-checked tablecloth.

      She looked down at her bare fingers and summoned all her self-control to keep from moving her hand out of sight. “If you’re already turning over designs in your head for some stunning engagement ring, don’t bother.”

      He frowned. “You don’t want a ring? Henry Birmingham’s granddaughter not wear an engagement ring? Besides, it’s what I do, Eve. People would expect—” He stopped suddenly.

      “Exactly. And while you were creating it you’d be thinking not of what I liked or wanted, because you don’t even know that. You’d be thinking of the impression it would make on the people who saw it. Thanks, but I’d just as soon not be a walking billboard.”

      “Dammit, Eve, you’re making some pretty big assumptions here—such as concluding that I wouldn’t even ask what you’d like to wear.”

      “You want to know? Fine, I’ll tell you. I want a platinum band.”

      “Much better for your coloring than gold. What about a stone? A diamond, or would you rather have color?”

      “Just a band. A plain platinum band. No diamond, no decoration.”

      He looked at her for a long moment, and then he said, sounding grim, “Purely utilitarian. Just like the marriage. I’m beginning to get the picture.”

      “Good,” she said. “Because then we understand each other.” And, with her hand shaking only a very little, she picked up her cup and sipped her lukewarm tea.

      CHAPTER TWO

      EVE arrived at the airport a full hour before David’s plane was due to land.

      A whole hour to kill, she thought as she settled into the area set aside for greeting incoming passengers. It was just a good thing David would never know how early she was. He might conclude that she’d been in a rush because she was anxious to see him, when the truth was that she had merely been escaping from Henry—and spending an hour in a lounge at O’Hare was a small price to pay if it meant she didn’t have to deal with her grandfather for a while.

      The fifth time this afternoon that Henry had put his head into her office to ask if she’d heard from David yet today, Eve had lost her temper. “He’s a grown man, Henry. He can get himself onto a plane without directions from me. I’ve ordered a limo to meet him at O’Hare, and the driver has full instructions to take him to the hotel so he can drop off his luggage, then bring him to the store. What else do you want?”

      “That just doesn’t seem very friendly, somehow,” Henry said. “I mean, the boy’s making a big change by coming out here. Giving up a lot.”

      “I’m sure he feels quite comfortable about the sacrifice he’s making.” Eve didn’t bother to keep the sarcasm out of her СКАЧАТЬ