Elizabeth Harbison - Taming of the Two

“You don’t have to really get married,” Bianca hastened to correct her. “Just tell Daddy you are. As long as he believes you’re getting married, I can go ahead and plan my wedding.”

Kate dropped her hands in her lap and looked at her sister coolly. “Tell Daddy I’m getting married.”

Bianca nodded eagerly. “That’s right.”

“Invent a fiancé, plan a fake wedding, move into an imaginary home, and churn out and raise pretend children, presumably for the next thirty or forty years, until I retire with my nonexistent husband to bounce grandchildren I never had on my knee.”

“Well…” It looked as though the light was finally dawning on Bianca. “I guess you’re right.”

Kate threw her hands in the air. “Hallelujah. She has finally seen the light.”

Bianca nodded. And for a moment it seemed she had really seen the idiocy of her plan. But then she said, “We’ll have to find a real guy.” She tapped her chin thoughtfully.

“What?”

“Or maybe hire an actor.”

Kate’s jaw dropped. She gave Bianca a full ten, fifteen seconds to laugh and say she was kidding, but Bianca’s face remained completely serious. “Do you hear what you’re saying?” Kate asked at last. “Now you want to hire an actor? And have me pretend to marry him?”

“Well…”

“All this so you can mollify Dad’s old-fashioned, narrow-minded, Old World chauvinism? No way.”

Henry Gregory was adamant that his younger daughter couldn’t marry until his oldest had. But she knew it had come from the same place so many of his ideas about men and women came from: the old country and his own strict upbringing.

Before Kate’s mother had died, her father had left the business of the children to her. He’d been the parent who played with the girls, the soft touch who’d always had a smile and a wink for them even when they were in trouble.

But once Kate’s mother, Helen, had passed away, Henry had been like a lost animal, pacing the floors and trying to figure out the ways of the girls who, up to then, had just been playthings. Once he had the sole responsibility of raising Kate and Bianca, he had taken the job very seriously, even at the expense of losing his softer side with them.

“What else can I do?”

“You and Victor should just get married. Just do it. Elope. Dad will get over it.”

“What if he doesn’t? What if I do that and he disowns me and fires Victor?” Victor Blume was Bianca’s fiancé and her father’s top trainer.

“There’s no way he’s going to fire Victor,” Kate said, “he’s too valuable. And as for disowning you, that’s just silly.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because he loves you, Bianca, and he wants you to be happy. Even if it means going against his crazy outdated sixteenth-century notions of propriety.”

“What if you’re wrong?”

“I’m not.” Kate looked at her sister and shook her head firmly. “Look, I promise he’s just being an old blowhard.”

Bianca looked unconvinced. “Well, if you think about it, he’s really only looking after you. He doesn’t want you to be a lonely old spinster. You could give him real peace of mind if you convinced him you were happily engaged to someone.”

Kate gave her sister a long hard look before turning back to the desk and picking up a pen. It wasn’t worth responding to such an idiotic contention. “This conversation is finished, Bianca. Close the door on your way out, would you?” She looked back at the ledger and found the thing she was looking for. An item marked “Fire Essence” with a deposit amount of four hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars.

As their supply of frozen semen from the great racehorse Fireflight dwindled, the price was going up. This was a great opportunity to convince her father to invest in something solid so he’d have a nice nest egg no matter what happened with the races.

She was going to talk to him about it right away, before he got the idea to reinvest the money into something risky. He thrived on risk—it was a real worry for her.

She picked up the phone and dialed her father’s extension, but was stopped when Bianca stepped forward and took the receiver from Kate, pushing the off button.

“What about this…” Bianca began, using her persuasive voice again. “How about if you just give dating a try. Go out with a couple of guys, see where it leads. Maybe this whole problem would solve itself, naturally and honestly.”

Kate laughed. “How altruistic of you.”

“Believe it or not, Katie, I do care about you. It would probably do you some good to date a little bit instead of just working all the time.”

Kate scoffed. “I’ve dated every eligible guy in town—all four of them—and, with all due respect, thanks but no thanks.”

“Not every guy,” Bianca persisted. “For example, Ben Devere’s back. You never went out with him, even though,” her voice became conspiratorial, “honestly, I think he’s always had a thing for you.”

Kate bristled at the mention of Ben Devere. Talk about a risk she wasn’t willing to take! She’d bet on that one before and lost.

The black sheep son of the otherwise decent family who owned the property adjoining Gregory Farms, Ben Devere had always been a wild child and more than a little dangerous. When they were children, he used to set off fireworks down on the property border and when Kate cried and begged him to stop, he’d just laughed and lit another one.

When they were in high school he used to take his Jeep four-wheeling all over the pastures, which annoyed both her father and his own to no end, but which amused him enough to keep doing it. He was a wild kid, in stark contrast to her own serious nature, and they had butted heads over their differences repeatedly while growing up. In junior high school, he’d called her “Serious Sally” and she’d privately been a little afraid of his untamed ways.

But Kate could also remember, with crystal clarity, a time when she’d seen him shoot his own dog as it ran in the paddock. She’d watched the whole thing in sheer horror, then run away without looking back, vowing to never go within sixty yards of the Devere Ranch again. It was proof of what she’d already begun to suspect: Ben wasn’t what he seemed at all. Sure, people thought he was charming and smart, and more than one girl—heaven knew!—had fallen for his charisma. But the fact was, Ben Devere wasn’t who he appeared to be.

That conclusion made Kate more comfortable with what he’d done to her.

Ben had been regarded in high school and in town as a hot playboy; the kind of guy girls wouldn’t count on to call them in the morning, but with whom they were willing to take the chance nonetheless. If the stories were true, scores of women had fallen prey to his charms. Even Kate had kissed him once at a party, the summer after their senior year. It had been a hell of a kiss, and for a few weeks afterward, she’d harbored hopes that he would call and that perhaps…well, whatever. Later, she realized it had only been a heat of the moment hormonal rush for Ben.

But perhaps had never come and Kate had learned to regret having admitted to her affection for him. She’d also learned to regret having trusted him. If his friend Lou Parker was to be believed, he’d only been with Kate as a joke, the response to a dare. Lou’s subsequent advances on her had only served to make the insult that much greater.

Shortly after that, Ben Devere had left town and, after the humiliation she’d been through, she was glad to see the back of him. She’d hoped he’d never come back.

But now he had.

And her sister, who should have known better, was actually suggesting she date him.

“No way,” she said to Bianca, and reached down to pet her dog, Sierra, who was lying at her feet. She’d had the retriever for twelve years now, and he was getting old and thin, but he was a member of the family. “I’d rather become a nun. Now let me get back to work, I have to talk to Dad about the finances.”