Joss Wood - Married To The Maverick Millionaire

Over the years his bright blond hair had deepened to the color of rich toffee, but those eyes—those brilliant, ice-green eyes—were exactly the same, edged by long, dark lashes and strong brows. She wasn’t crazy about his too-long, dirty-blond beard and his shoulder-length hair, but she could understand why the female population of Vancouver liked his appearance. He looked hard and hot and, as always, very, very masculine. With an edge of danger that immediately had female ovaries twitching. After a lifetime of watching women making fools of themselves over him—tongues dropping, walking into poles, stuttering, stammering, offering to have his babies—she understood that he was a grade-A hottie.

When she was wrapped around him earlier she’d felt her heart rate climb and that special spot between her legs throb. Mmm, interesting. After five years of feeling numb, five years without feeling remotely attracted to anyone, her sexuality was finally creeping back. She’d started to notice men again and she supposed that her reaction to Quinn had everything to do with the fact that it had been a very long time since she’d been up close and personal with a hot man. With any man.

It didn’t mean anything. He was Quinn, for God’s sake! Quinn! This was the same guy who had tried to raise frogs in the family bath, who had teased her mercilessly and defended her from school-yard bullies. To her, he wasn’t the youngest but best hockey coach in the NHL, the wild and woolly adrenaline junkie who provided grist for the tabloids, or the ripped bad boy who dated supermodels and publicity-seeking actresses.

He was just Quinn, her closest friend for the best part of twenty years.

Well, eighteen years, to be precise. They hadn’t spoken to each other for six months before her wedding or at any time during her marriage. It was only after Toby’s death that they’d reconnected.

“Mrs. Carter, I’m glad I’ve finally reached you.”

Mrs. Carter? Cal’s stomach contracted and her coffee made its way back up her throat. She swallowed and swallowed again.

“I’ve sent numerous messages to your email address at Carter International, but you have yet to respond,” Moore continued. “I heard you were back in the country so I finally tracked down your cell number.”

Cal shrugged. Her life had stopped the day Toby died and she seldom—okay, never—paid attention to messages sent to that address.

“I’m sorry. Who are you?”

“Toby Carter’s lawyer and I’m calling about his estate.”

“I don’t understand why, since Toby’s estate was settled years ago,” Cal said, frowning.

Moore remained silent for a long time and he eventually spoke again. “I read his will after the funeral, Mrs. Carter. Do you remember that day?”

No, not really. Her memory of Toby’s death and burial was shrouded in a mist she couldn’t—didn’t want to—penetrate.

“I handed you a folder, asked you to read the will again when you felt stronger,” Moore continued when she failed to answer him. “You didn’t do that, did you?”

Cal pushed away the nauseating emotions that swirled to the surface whenever she thought or talked about Toby and forced herself to think. And no, she hadn’t read the will again. She didn’t even remember the folder. It was probably where she left it, in the study at Toby’s still-unoccupied house.

“Why are you calling me, Mr. Moore?”

“This is a reminder that Mr. Carter’s estate has been in abeyance for the last five years. Mr. Carter wanted you to inherit, but he didn’t want to share his wealth with your future spouse. His will states that if you have not remarried five years after his death, you inherit his estate.”

“What?”

“His estate includes his numerous bank accounts, his properties—both here and overseas—and his shares in Carter International. Also included are his art, furniture and gemstone collections. The estate is valued in the region of $200 million.”

“I don’t want it. I don’t want anything! Give it to his sons.”

“The will cannot be changed and his assets cannot be transferred. If you remarry before the anniversary of his death, then you will no longer be a beneficiary of Mr. Carter’s will and only then will his estate be split evenly between his two sons.”

Toby, you scumbag. “So I have to marry within four months to make sure that his sons inherit what they are—morally and ethically—entitled to?” Cal demanded, feeling her heart thud against her rib cage.

“Exactly.”

“Do you know how nuts this is?”

After begging her to read his emails, Moore ended the call. Cal closed her eyes and pulled in deep breaths, flooding her lungs with air in order to push back the panic. Everything Toby owned was tainted, covered with the same deep, dark, controlling and possessive energy that he’d concealed beneath the charming, urbane, kind personality he showed the world.

Cal scrunched her eyelids closed, trying not to remember the vicious taunting, her confusion, the desperation. He was five years dead and he could still make her panic, make her doubt herself, turn her hard-fought independence into insecurity. She couldn’t be his heir. She didn’t want to own anything of his. She never wanted to be linked to him again.

To remain mentally and emotionally free of her husband, she couldn’t be tied to anything he owned. She’d marry the first man she could to rid herself of his contaminated legacy.

Cal turned as she heard the door to the lounge slide open and saw Quinn standing there. She pulled a smile onto her face and hoped that Quinn was too involved in his own drama to notice that she’d taken a starring role in one of her own.

Quinn frowned at her, obviously seeing something on her face or in her eyes to make him pause. “Everything okay?” he asked as he gestured her inside.

Cal nodded as she walked back into the lounge.

“Apart from the fact that I need a husband, I’m good.” Cal saw the shocked expressions that followed and waved her comment away. “Bad joke. Ignore me. So, have you found a solution to your problem? Any ideas on how to get Quinn some good press?”

Wren leaned forward and crossed her legs, linking her hands over her knees, her expression thoughtful. “I wish you weren’t joking, Cal. Quinn marrying you would be excellent PR for him.”

Mac and Kade laughed, Quinn spluttered, but Cal just lifted her eyebrows in a tell-me-more expression.

“You’re PR gold, Callahan. You are the only child of a fairy-tale romance between your superrich father and Rachel Thomas, the principal soloist with the Royal Canadian Ballet Company, who is considered one of the world’s best ballerinas. You married Toby Carter, the most elusive and eligible of Vancouver’s bachelors until these three knuckleheads came along. The public loves you to distraction, despite the fact that you are seldom in the city.”

Could she? Did she dare? It would be a quick, convenient solution.

Cal gathered her courage, pulled on her brightest smile and turned to Quinn. “So, what do you think? Want to get married?”

Two

Cal called a final good-bye to Quinn’s friends and closed the sliding door behind them. She walked through the main salon, passed the large dining table and hesitated at the steps that would take her belowdecks to the sleeping cabins below. Quinn had hurried down those stairs after she’d dropped her bombshell but not before telling her that her suggestion that they marry was deeply unamusing and wildly inappropriate.

She hadn’t been joking and the urge to run downstairs and explain was strong. But Cal knew Quinn, knew that he needed some time alone to work through his temper, to gather his thoughts. She did too. To give them both a little time, she walked back into the kitchen and snagged a microbrew from his stash in the fridge. Twisting the top off, she took a swallow straight from the bottle. She’d been back in Vancouver for less than a day and she already felt like the city had a feather pillow over her face.