Here Comes the Bride (6 page)

“Nicholas, I think Walter may have hit something,” Winnie said, tugging at Nick’s arm. “Please go and check on him.”

“I think he’s fine, Auntie,” Nick replied as Walter came loping into view a moment later.

“That wall got a little close,” Walter said. “Knocked a chip or two of paint off the fender.”

“Who cares about an old fender?” Winnie said. “It’s you I’m worried about.” She
smoothed the lapels of his jacket and patted his chest. “Are you all right, Walter?”

“Ah, you were worried about me, Win?” He looked pleased at the possibility.

“I most certainly was.”

Winnie linked her arm through his and they swept through the front door of the restaurant, oblivious to everything around them.

“So far this evening is a total failure,” Fiona said, then started into the restaurant behind the couple.

Nick caught up to her just inside the doorway. “Have you got a better idea? If so, let’s hear it.”

He didn’t know why he was as snappish as a crossed bear, even though the afternoon hadn’t put him in a great mood. Touching Fiona, tasting her lips, feeling the press of her body against his had left him wanting.

Fiona had succinctly pointed out how wrong they were for each other. And they were. But that didn’t mean spending the evening with her, in the company of Walter and Winnie, close but unable to touch, would be easy.

Unbearable. That was what it would be. Unbearable. And he had no choice but to endure it. Unless, of course, he wanted to see his aunt walk down that aisle with Walter.

“Are you coming?” Fiona asked, apparently
choosing not to answer his barbed question.

She looked so damned tempting in that pale silk shirt and those matching pants that teased around her legs. Her hair was twisted into a French braid, a satin ribbon wound through it. Her scent was a whisper of something soft and feminine and threatening to his peace of mind.

“I’m right behind you,” he said, and swallowed hard.

Right behind her meant watching the jiggle of her sexy backside as she strutted across the crowded restaurant behind Walter and Winnie.

As soon as they settled into their seats, the older couple decided they wanted a bottle of champagne to celebrate their upcoming nuptials.

When the waiter arrived with the bottle, Walter proposed a toast. “Here’s to us and our new life together,” he said, his eyes on his bride-to-be.

Nick frowned at the pair over the rim of his glass.

Fiona flashed him a do-something-or-else look.

He drummed his fingers on the table and somehow avoided her pointed stares until the food arrived.

As Walter aimed a morsel toward his
mouth Nick decided he’d light the evening’s first stick of dynamite, hoping it would sizzle and explode like a bombshell.

“You know, Walter, that’s going to be the last steak you enjoy in a
looong
while. Auntie will have you eating the stuff her health guru promotes.”

That should do it, Nick thought. You didn’t take a man’s red meat away from him without provoking a war.

The older man frowned at Nick, then turned to Winnie. “Win just has my best interest at heart, don’t you, sweet Win?”

The gaze of longing he bestowed on his intended was enough to give Nick indigestion.

“I just want to keep you young and virile,” Winnie gushed back.

“Clever, Killian. Got any more brilliant ideas up your sleeve?” Fiona asked, leaning in close.

“No, but I’ll think of something. I always do.”

“Make it sooner rather than later.”

“What are you two whispering about over there?” Winnie asked, directing her gaze across the table.

Nick and Fiona sat up straighter in their chairs.

“Nothing, Auntie,” Nick replied. “Nothing at all.” He shot Fiona a daggered look, his
voice a low growl. “What are you trying to do? Blow this plan?”

“
What
plan?”

“
Our
plan—or have you forgotten we’re in this thing together?”

What was the matter with her tonight? Fiona wondered. Nick was right; they were in this together. It was just that she was so worried about her father. That was all it was.

And maybe a little frustration thrown in.

Nick looked like a mixture of elegant and arrogant in his tux. And sexy. Her fingers itched to loosen that perfect black tie, work loose the pearl studs down the front of his pleated shirt, and …

Tonight was business. Underhanded business maybe, but business. She needed to keep herself focused—and not on Nick.

She decided to forgo dessert and watch while the others indulged. She alternated between telling herself the sinful-looking mousse was probably artificial tasteless chocolate and thinking up something that would precipitate an argument between their two dinner companions. She’d considered, then discarded, three ideas that were no better than what Nick had tried.

Across the table the soon-to-be newlyweds were spooning mousse into each other’s mouths as if it were an aphrodisiac and whispering sweet nothings Fiona wasn’t sure she
wanted to hear. She shot a glance at Nick. He was scowling at the pair over his dessert. A smudge of dark chocolate clung to one corner of his mouth, and Fiona fought back the tempting urge to flick her tongue over it. The sexy corner of Nick’s mouth was territory best left unexplored.

If this evening wasn’t going to be a total nonevent, she needed to come up with something on her own, she decided.

She twisted her napkin in her lap for a moment before an idea came to mind, an idea that just might save the day—or rather, the night.

She cleared her thorat to gain her audience’s attention. “Dad,” she began, her voice deceptively innocent. “You’ll never guess who I saw the other day.”

“Who was that, Fiona?” Her father gave her a cursory glance then returned his gaze, along with a besotted smile, to Winnie.

Fiona tried to swallow the last of her guilt over what she was about to do, tried to convince herself it was for her father’s own good. “Adele Winston,” she said.

But her father wasn’t listening. If she’d hoped the name of the lovely lady who came into the antique shop and often asked about Fiona’s father would trigger a reaction, she’d been wrong.

But Nick was looking at her with a curious
glint in his eye. “Who is Adele Winston?” he demanded.

Fiona turned toward him. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter.”

He leaned close. “An old girlfriend. Is that what you’re saying? Admit it—your father is a womanizer. What happened? Did Adele catch on to him before he led her to the altar?”

Fiona gasped at Nick’s leap to a wrong conclusion. “He is not a womanizer. And no, Adele didn’t catch on.… I mean …” She glanced across the table. Winnie and Walter weren’t paying any attention to anyone around them. Certainly not to her and Nick. “I mean … I was going to make it up. As a part of
the scheme
.”

“And some scheme,” Nick ground out. “I’ll bet it works just great too.”

She glanced across the table again. “
Our
scheme,” she said, louder this time since the pair weren’t listening, anyway.

But then, neither was Nick. His face told her he didn’t believe a word of it. Fiona dropped her head into her hands and massaged her throbbing temples. This was one royal backfire. When she looked up again, Nick was staring across the table.

At nothing.

At no one.

The table was empty.

One moment Walter and Winnie were
holding hands and purring at each other, the next they’d disappeared, slipped away while she and Nick were arguing. Fiona turned back to Nick.

He shrugged. “Maybe it was something we said.”

Fiona groaned. “This is all your fault. Now they’ve gone off to … to … to do heaven only knows what!” She wasn’t ready to think about what that something might be.

Nick brushed away a springy curl that had slipped from her braid and teased at her cheek. “I could get into that.”

Fiona sucked in a breath at the contact. “I think what we’d better do is come up with Plan B.”

“This is not the lunch I had in mind. I apologize,” Nick said as he watched Fiona fork the last of her Chinese takeout into her pretty mouth. “I hadn’t planned to come into the office at all today, but Jasmine insisted this was a case that couldn’t wait.”

His secretary had told him the woman had called, distraught and crying. Nick was always a sucker for a lady in trouble. He supposed that was why he hadn’t chucked his practice a long time ago and gone to work on dull, corporate cases.

Still, he wasn’t sure how much more misery
and suffering he could take without life warping him more than it already had.

Last night he and Fiona had agreed to meet for lunch today to map out Plan B. Nick had wanted to take her to his favorite Chinese restaurant, but after Jasmine had phoned about the tearful client, they’d had to settle for takeout.

“What kind of a case is it?” she asked, setting her empty container on the desk in front of her.

Nick tried hard not to notice how delectable she looked in her white, wrap-styled sundress. His gaze strayed to the tie closure at her narrow waist. One tug, he thought, one tug on those ties and the thing would come apart, revealing the prize underneath.

He raised his gaze back to her eyes. “Can’t talk about it.” He didn’t want to talk about it, even if he could. For some strange reason he didn’t want the sadder side of life he came up against daily to touch Fiona even slightly. “It’s a divorce case. Ninety-nine percent of my practice is divorces.”

Fiona nodded. She recalled her father telling her about Nick’s law office. His practice was successful, according to what Winnie had told him. Judging from the seven secretaries in the front office, and the way Fiona sank into the expensively thick caramel-colored
carpet as if ankle-deep in quicksand, Winnie hadn’t exaggerated that success.

He’d introduced her to Jasmine, his personal secretary, a tall, leggy blonde, who seemed to adore her boss. The girl was friendly, and Fiona couldn’t help but warm to her.

She had been a showgirl down on her luck in this hard town when Nick found her and gave her a job. Fiona had suspected Nick could play the tough courtroom lawyer—she’d seen the hard side of him more than once—but she began to believe there might be a mushy center as well to that encased heart of his.

Just then the intercom on his desk buzzed.

Nick stabbed a finger at the button. “Yes?” His tone was brisk, professional.

Jasmine’s low, sultry voice came through. “Your appointment is here.”

“Thanks, Jas.”

Fiona stood up. “I’ll, uh, get out of your way.”

He slid his arms into the sleeves of the suit jacket that he’d taken off earlier and adjusted the knot on his tie. “Sit still. Jas will show her into the conference room. Make yourself at home.”

With that he strode out of the room.

“Can I get you anything? Coffee? A soft
drink?” Jasmine poked her head in the door with a warm smile.

Fiona smiled back. “No, nothing, Jasmine. Thanks.”

Fiona would have liked to talk with her, but she knew Jasmine was busy. She’d have liked to ask her more about Nick, the man behind the desk, the generous boss. The cynical man who held life at arm’s length.

Fiona suspected the reasons he was opposed to this upcoming wedding were far different from the ones he voiced aloud.

What were they?

She paced the richly appointed office, fingering a lamp shade, a letter opener, a painting on the wall, as if one of them would give up the answer. His large cherrywood desk was piled high with work he’d no doubt put off in order to save his aunt from the fate of marriage to Fiona’s father.

Amid the stack of legal papers and file folders was a framed picture. Fiona picked it up. It was a snapshot of Nick, his arm around two women. One of the women was Winnie, the recipient of Nick’s warm gaze and all-too-infrequent smile.

It was true, she realized, a picture was worth a thousand words—or at least this one was. The photo had captured all the love Nick felt for his aunt Winnie, a rare and special kind of love.

Nick was a man of deep feelings—when he chose to show them. When he gave of himself it was completely, irrevocably. He asked nothing in return. Fiona thought of Jasmine. Nick had cared, given her a new start, and she obviously worshiped her boss for it. He loved Winnie with a fierceness that showed. For a moment she allowed herself to wonder what it would be like to be the one special woman in Nick’s life. To experience the ferocity of his love.

A shiver ran down her spine.

She had no doubt that if he allowed himself to trust one woman enough, that would be the kind of love he would give.

Her gaze fell on the third person in the picture. The pretty face with the bright smile bore a strong resemblance to Winnie. It was the face of a woman who met life head-on, grasped at it with feverish excitement, much like Winnie did.

This was Camille, whom Fiona would meet tonight when her flight from India arrived.

Another evening with Nick—and her soon-to-be family.

His client had taken up more of his time than Nick had anticipated. But the meeting had been no different than he’d expected.

The woman had alternated between crying over her husband and threatening to surgically alter the man’s body. For his misdeeds—of which she had a long list—she wanted a quick and ruthless divorce.

That was what they all wanted.

And what he got for them.

He tunneled a hand through his hair. Why, he wondered, couldn’t two people realize they were ill suited
before
they exchanged marriage vows? Did love blind them to all the clues, their differences, their incompatibilities?

Wedded bliss didn’t last, sometimes past the ink drying on the marriage certificate.

A legal pad of notes tucked under his arm, Nick headed for his private office, feeling an overwhelming need to see Fiona.

She stood at the window, gazing down at the street, the heat of the day shimmering off the pavement, the tops of the cars that shuttled by. At the sound of the door opening she spun around.

Nick stood in its frame, his blue eyes as dark as approaching dusk, his hair ruffled, as if he’d driven his fingers through its thickness.