Anne McAllister - The Inconvenient Bride

“Do you need anything?” he asked her. It seemed like the least he could do. “A briefing?”

She looked at him, incredulous. “To meet your father?”

“Never mind,” he said, feeling like a fool. “Well, fine. If there’s nothing you need—” he picked up his briefcase, set it on his lap and opened it “—I’ve got work to do.”

She was married.

To Dominic Wolfe.

It would have been funny if it hadn’t been so real. If he hadn’t been sitting less than a foot away from her in his suit that probably cost more than two months’ rent on her apartment. If he hadn’t had his nose stuck in papers that Sierra was sure had to do with a merger that would allow him control of more wealth than the average small country.

Had she lost her mind?

Apparently. Never very much given to second guessing herself, even Sierra couldn’t refrain from second guessing this.

What on earth had possessed her? Why had she said yes to Dominic’s outlandish proposal?

She knew he didn’t love her.

Most of the time he barely acted as if he even liked her!

Except in bed.

In bed they were dynamite. In bed things happened that Sierra wouldn’t have believed could ever happen—especially between Dominic and herself.

Out of bed, though, she feared they had nothing in common at all.

He was using her against his father. He’d admitted as much.

Well, she was using him to help Frankie, she reminded herself. And she hadn’t even admitted that.

Not that he would care. He wouldn’t even ask. He’d just cut the check.

Her husband. Dominic Wolfe!

“Someday,” her mother used to warn her, “you’re going to bite off more than you can chew, missy.”

“Someday, kiddo,” her far more blunt farmer father used to say, “you’re going to leap without thinking and land headfirst in the manure pile.” Only he hadn’t said manure pile. He’d been a little more graphic.

That was about where Sierra felt she’d landed right now.

She shivered inside her jacket and considered opening the door and throwing herself out into traffic. With luck she’d be squashed by a passing taxi.

With her luck, she’d be knocked over by a bicycle messenger and Dominic would simply peel her off the pavement, mop her off and trundle her away to meet with his father.

God.

It was as close to a prayer as Sierra had been in a while. She was not big on praying. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe in God. Or prayer. She did. But for the weak and the downtrodden and the desperate.

Not for herself. And definitely not when it came to asking for things. Asking was for people who couldn’t help themselves.

Sierra had always been sure she could.

Until now.

What on earth was she going to do now?

She shot a quick glance at the man sitting next to her. He had his briefcase open on his lap and was running his pen down a column of figures. His pen probably cost more than the rent on her apartment!

But it wasn’t just about money. It was about style. About values. About their whole very different approaches to life.

Like this restaurant they were heading toward.

She didn’t dare hope that Dominic was taking her to an uptown diner or a groovy little club for his little tête-à-tête with daddy.

No, it was bound to be one of those stuffy obnoxious places, all wood-paneling and hunt club prints of dogs with dead birds in their mouths. A muffled elegant place where the maître d’ would look down his ski-jump of a nose and seat her behind a potted palm—if he even deigned to seat her at all.

What if they didn’t even let her in?

A momentary shaft of humiliation and panic stabbed her in the gut before she realized that of course they would let her in.

She was going to be on the arm of Dominic Wolfe. He’d cow them and loom over them and pass them fifty bucks on the side and they might look askance, but they’d let her in.

And then they’d spill soup in her lap.

Or expect that she’d do it herself.

She started to bite her thumbnail, then jammed her hand into the pocket of her jacket. She was not going to bite her nails in front of Dominic. It was why she painted them wild and outrageous colors in the first place—so she’d remember not to bite them.

She wasn’t going to betray by the slightest flicker that her heart was in her throat and that her stomach was in knots.

No, sir. She wasn’t.

She’d learned long ago that fear got you nowhere. Her older sister Mariah had taught her that back when Sierra was only seven years old.

In those days her biggest terror had been water. When she was four, Terry Graff had knocked her into the swimming pool. She’d swallowed half of it before her father had fished her out. For the next three years she hadn’t stuck a toe in.

While all the other kids had laughed and splashed and swam and played, she’d stood quaking on the side, watching. Then some of the bigger kids had realized she was afraid—and instead of leaving her alone, they’d dragged her in.

She’d gone kicking and screaming and flailing and floundering. She’d made a complete fool of herself before Mariah had run at them with a stick and scared them off. When she’d dragged Sierra, shaking and crying back out, she’d said the seven most important words anyone had ever told her.

“You can’t let them see you’re afraid.”

Sierra had done her damnedest never to let anyone see her fears ever since.

She’d spent her life making sure she got over them. And, if she had to say so herself, she’d done a bang-up job. She’d outgrown her early panics. She’d discovered the world was a pretty dandy place.

But every once in a while she felt like that little girl on the poolside. But she wasn’t going to show it. She was going to march right up to the restaurant and, even if she resembled a Day-Glo raccoon, she was going to look them straight in the eye and never bat a lash.

Dominic might well be sorry he’d asked her to be his bride.

But he’d never feel sorry for her.

She’d see to that!

The maître d’ was agog.

His normally impassive features became positively animated at the sight of Dominic and his guest. For a split second his eyes gawped. But then he schooled his features, stiffened his spine and assumed an expression of something that might best be described as “determined indifference.”

As well it might be, Dominic thought. If he was willing to pay Le Sabre’s exorbitant prices, he ought to able to bring his damn dog to dinner if he so chose!

Gripping Sierra firmly by the arm, he smiled at the maître d’. “Good evening, Flaubert. Has my father arrived?”

Flaubert fixed a thin smile on his face. “He has, Mr. Wolfe. He and the lady and the other gentleman arrived a few moments ago. They’ve already been seated. I understood you were to be four for dinner?” One brow lifted, but he determinedly did not look at Sierra.

Dominic’s back stiffened. “There’s been a change in plans.”

For a split second the maître d’ seemed about to argue. Then his mouth pressed into a tight line and beckoned a waiter. The man scurried to his side. At Flaubert’s whispered words, he shot an astonished gaze in their direction, then nodded and hurried toward the dining room.

“It will take just a moment.” Flaubert paused. Once more his gaze skated right over Sierra to focus on Dominic. “Would the…young lady…like to…check her coat and er…?” He eyed the tackle box with distaste.

“I’ll keep it, thanks,” Sierra said before Dominic could open his mouth.

But it was as if she hadn’t spoken. Flaubert continued to look at Dominic for an answer.

Dominic’s teeth came together and he put an arm around her shoulders. “We will check the box. I think it might get in the way in the dining room, don’t you?” He looked to Sierra for a nod which, after a moment’s stubbornness, he got. Then he turned back to the maître d’. “My wife will keep her coat, thank you.”