Leigh Michaels - Bride By Design

“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.

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 voice.

“We want him to feel good about the decision.”

“That’s why I called the limo service instead of suggesting the hotel shuttle or a cab. If you don’t think that’s enough, why don’t you go meet him?”

“Well, I could, I suppose. But what about you? It’s been a whole month since you’ve seen him, Eve. Greeting him here on the sales floor—in front of the staff and all—just doesn’t seem right.”

“You needn’t worry about a public display of affection embarrassing the staff.” Eve shuffled papers and bent her head over her desk once more.

Henry ignored the hint. “Why don’t you take the rest of the afternoon off and go meet him? And don’t worry about bringing him back here. Tomorrow will be soon enough for him to start getting acquainted with the details.”

“I’m busy, Henry.”

“Too busy to greet your fiancé? All right, my dear. If you can’t break away, you can’t.”

Eve folded her arms and looked at him suspiciously. When Henry started sounding saintly, it was generally time to duck for cover.

He sat down opposite her desk and gestured at the papers scattered across her desk. “So tell me about this ad campaign we’re going to be running.” His eyes were bright and expectant.

Eve was stuck, and she knew it. The truth was that if she’d had to take a quiz on the new slogans which the ad agency had suggested to promote Birmingham on State, she would have flunked, despite the fact that she’d been looking at the ad mockups all afternoon.

And it was apparent Henry knew it, too. Something about the solid way he was occupying the chair said he’d planted himself for the rest of the afternoon—or as long as it took to drive her out.

“Fine,” she said, pushing her papers away. “I’ll go to the airport. I don’t know why I’m going, as I’m fairly sure David will be able to recognize his own name on the sign the limo driver will be holding up. But since you insist—”

“Don’t hurry back,” Henry suggested. “Show him around the city a little, introduce him to his new home.”

“I am not a tour guide.”

“Then take him out for dinner. Everybody’s got to eat.”

After that, Eve couldn’t wait to get out of the store before Henry could add to his list. And just in case he had afterthoughts, she turned off her cell phone as she went out the door.

Unfortunately, the cab she hailed just outside the store made record time on the freeway, and so here she was—sitting in a lounge at O’Hare with sixty minutes to waste. She hadn’t even had the sense to bundle the ad campaign into a briefcase to bring along, so she had nothing to do but think.

And thinking too much, she had long ago discovered, could be a dangerous activity. She had tried not to think about David in the last month, since he’d caught his plane back to Atlanta after their fateful lunch. The idea that in less than a week she was going to commit herself for life to a total stranger was just too much to contemplate.

Well, not quite a total stranger, she reflected. They’d talked on the phone several times.

Though it might be more accurate to say a few times.

“As long as you’re being truthful,” she muttered, “you might as well admit you’ve only exchanged words with him three times since you agreed to marry him.”

And those occasions had been when Henry had handed her the phone. Neither Eve nor David had initiated the contacts, and the conversations had been terse and stilted. The fact was that they didn’t know each other any better now than they had when they’d struck their bargain.

Not that it mattered much how well they knew each other, she reminded herself. Even though the actual wedding was still a few days off, they were committed. The legal papers regarding Birmingham on State were drawn, waiting only to be signed. The marriage license was ready.

David wouldn’t back out, that was certain. Once the business had been placed within his reach, he would have married a boa constrictor rather than let the business slip away.

And as for Eve…

She had made up her mind months ago, when Henry had first hinted at his plan. Long before she’d ever met David Elliot. Since it didn’t matter to her anymore who she married, she might as well please her grandfather and preserve the business which meant so much to both of them. So she had made a conscious decision to trust Henry’s judgment.

Not that it had been such an enormous leap of faith to believe in her grandfather’s wisdom, because one thing was dead certain: the man Henry had selected for her couldn’t possibly turn out to be a more unfortunate choice than her own had.

Travis...

Allowing herself to think about Travis Tate was like probing a sensitive spot on a tooth. The pain was no longer constant, as it had been in the beginning. But the agony of grief and loss could flare up—as it had today—at the slightest reminder, without warning and without giving her any chance to brace herself against it.

Still, it was a little easier to bear now. With time, Eve told herself, perhaps it would recede even more, until someday it might be nothing more than a low-level but ever-present heartache. And it was a little comfort—though very little—to know that she had done the right thing. As much as the decision had hurt, she couldn’t have lived with herself had she done anything else.

A woman sitting nearby tossed a magazine toward the wastebasket—but missed—as she went to greet a passenger. Eve watched them walk toward the door, then picked up the discarded magazine and began to flip through the pages, hardly seeing the articles. Every few minutes a new gush of passengers came down the concourse, and she glanced up not at them but at the monitor overhead, where the flight from Atlanta was still listed as expected to arrive on time.