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He’d have to play his cards more carefully with Tamara, but the end reward would be infinitely greater.

  Tamara gave him an artificial smile. “You sound like my father. Are you sure you’re not the same person?”

  Sawyer returned her smile with a feral one of his own. Tamara’s father was fit and trim for a man of seventy, but that’s where the physical similarity between the two of them ended. However, the viscount’s salt-and-pepper hair and grandfatherly visage disguised a sharp mind and cutthroat business instincts.

  “We’ve both got the stomach for high stakes,” Sawyer responded finally.

  “Yes, how can I forget?” she retorted. “Business before pleasure and family.”

  He shook his head. “So bitter for someone whose lifestyle has been bankrolled by the family fortune.”

  “It’s been at least a decade since I was young enough to be bankrolled, as you put it,” she countered. “I support myself these days—by choice.”

  He raised his eyebrows. So Tamara’s image of an independent woman was more than mere show.

  “I think the word bitter applies to different circumstances—like going through three divorces,” she said pointedly.

  “And yet, the viscount strikes me as someone who’s far from unhappy with life. In fact, he’s such a romantic, he’s trying to get you to walk down the aisle.”

  “With you?” she scoffed. “I think not.”

  His eyes crinkled with reluctant admiration, even if it was at his expense. “You’re a blunt-spoken New Yorker.”

  She arched a brow. “A woman after your own heart, you mean? Don’t you wish!”

  “My first marriage proposal, and turned down flat.”

  “I’m sure it’ll do no damage to your reputation,” she replied. “You media tycoons do know how to spin a story.”

  After a moment, he gave a bark of laughter. “For the record, what makes me an undesirable marriage partner?”

  “Where do I begin? Let me count the ways…”

  “Give me the five-second news bite.”

  “I understand why my father would want a son-in-law like you…”

  He looked at her inquiringly.

  “You’re both peers of the realm and press barons,” she elaborated.

  “And those are bad characteristics?”

  “But I also know why I don’t want a husband like you,” she went on without answering him. “You’re too much like my father.”

  Back to that topic, were they? “Would it help to point out I don’t have three ex-wives?”

  She shook her head. “You’re wedded to your media empire. The news business is your first love. You live and breathe for wheeling and dealing.”

  “I suppose the existence of ex-girlfriends isn’t enough proof to the contrary?” he asked wryly.

  “And what reduced them to ex status?” she probed.

  He cocked a brow. “Maybe things just didn’t work out.”

  “The key word there being work,” she returned. “Namely yours, I assume. My father lives and breathes the media business, even at the expense of people who love him.”

  He let the conversation lapse then, since it was clear they were at loggerheads. She hadn’t said it, but it was clear she included herself among the victims who’d fallen by the wayside on the road of her father’s ambition.

  They danced in silence, but from time to time he glanced down at her averted face as she scanned the dancing and milling guests, looking as if she was searching for some escape.

  She was quite a challenge. She was obviously marked by her parents’ long-ago divorce and her father’s overweening ambition, and unwilling to repeat her parents’ mistakes.

  He might have admired her unwillingness to sell herself short in the romance department. But as it happened, in these circumstances, he was the man who was being judged as not quite up to snuff.

  With little effort, Tamara evoked all his latent ambivalence. He himself was the product of an ill-fated marriage between a British lord and an American socialite. So he had firsthand experience with free-spirited women who didn’t adapt well to marrying into the tradition-bound British aristocracy.

  His mother had named him after Mark Twain’s most famous character, for God’s sake. Who’d ever heard of a British earl named for someone conjured by a quintessential American author?

  For a moment, Tamara made him doubt what he needed to do in order to get his hands on Viscount Kincaid’s media holdings.

  Then his jaw hardened. He’d be damned if he’d worked this hard to get to where he was only to be stymied by a few inconvenient conditions—including the existence of a sad-sack boyfriend.

  When the music faded away, Tamara made to pull away, and he let her break free of his hold.

  “We’re done,” she said, a challenge in her voice.

  He let one side of his mouth quirk up. “Not nearly, but it’s been a pleasure so far.”

  He watched as her green eyes widened. Then she whirled away and stalked off.

  Two

  The three-way conference call might as well have been invented for the girlfriend gab fest, Tamara thought.

  She’d just dialed Belinda and Pia from her office phone. After Saturday’s wedding disaster, she’d held off on calling. It was somewhat uncharacteristic behavior for her after a girlfriend crisis, but the truth was she’d been nursing a proverbial hangover herself. Plus, let’s face it, this wasn’t any old run-of-the-mill crisis involving men, money or bad bosses. It wasn’t every day a woman had a bomb land on her wedding in the form of a heretofore unknown husband.

  But now it was Monday morning. It was past time, Tamara thought, that she checked in and saw how her friends were holding up.

  “Well, Mrs. Hollings is all over this one,” she began without preamble after putting her girlfriends on speaker phone. “I swear if I ever get my hands on that woman…”

  The thought that the old dragon of gossip was in Sawyer’s employ only made her more irate.

  Turning her mind in a different direction, she softened her tone. “Are you okay, Belinda?”

  “I’ll live through this,” her friend responded. “I think.”

  “Are you still, ah, married to Colin Granville?” Pia asked, voicing the question Tamara herself wanted to ask.

  “I’m afraid so,” Belinda admitted. “But not for long. Just as soon as I get the marquess—” she stressed Colin’s title sarcastically “—to agree to a valid annulment, everything will be all right.”

  “A quick end to a quick marriage…” Pia said brightly before trailing off uncertainly.

  None of them needed a reminder of Belinda’s ill-fated run to a Las Vegas wedding chapel.

  Tamara knew that the Wentworths and Granvilles had been neighbors and rivals in the Berkshire countryside for generations. It was likely why Belinda had wanted her marriage to the Marquess of Easterbridge undone quietly, and had kept mum to everyone, including even her closest girlfriends, about the apparently short-lived elopement.

  “Colin isn’t giving you a hard time about the annulment, is he?” Tamara asked.

  “Of course not!” Belinda replied. “Why would he? After all, it’s not as if we had a real marriage. We dashed into a Las Vegas wedding chapel. The next morning we regretted our mistake. Colin said he’d take care of the annulment!”

  “Let’s back up to the part where you went into the chapel,” Tamara said drily. “How did it happen? You dash to the airport to avoid missing a flight. You dash into a supermarket for some milk.”

  “You might even dash into Louis Vuitton to grab their latest it bag,” Pia suggested.

  “Exactly,” Tamara went on. “But you do not dash into a wedding chapel to get hitched on the fly.”

  Belinda sighed. “You do if it’s Vegas, and you’ve just run into someone…unexpected. And you’ve had a drink or two that have gone straight to your head.”

  Pia’s groan of commiseration sounded over the phone.

  Tamara wondered how much blame t
o place on a couple of drinks, and how much on Colin himself. Her meticulous friend wasn’t the type to get tipsy, at least not without a reason.

  “You didn’t change your name to Granville, did you?” Tamara asked. “Because if you did—”

  Pia gasped. “Oh, Belinda, tell me you didn’t! Tell me you didn’t legally become one of the enemy!”

  “Not to mention you would have been misrepresenting yourself as Belinda Wentworth for the past two years,” Tamara commented.

  She cringed for her friend. It looked as if Belinda, who was always so self-possessed, had dug herself a hole.

  “Don’t worry, I didn’t change my last name,” Belinda responded drily.

  “So it was okay to marry a Granville, but not to become one?” Tamara quipped. “I love the way the tipsy you thinks.”

  “Thanks,” Belinda retorted. “And don’t worry—the tipsy me is not getting out of her locked and padded cell again.”

  Tamara laughed, but then quickly sobered. What was it about a man with a title that made a woman lose her head? Her thoughts drifted to Sawyer, and then, annoyed with herself, she focused on the topic at hand again.

  Among their trio of friends, Belinda had always been the levelheaded, responsible one. After getting her degree in the history of art from Oxford, she’d begun a respectable career working at a series of auction houses. Tamara just couldn’t picture Belinda eloping in Vegas with her family’s nemesis. Pia, maybe, Belinda, no.

  “There wasn’t an Elvis impersonator involved, by chance, was there?” she heard herself ask.

  Pia stifled a giggle.

  “No!” Belinda said. “And I just want this headache to disappear!”

  “Not likely,” Tamara remarked. “I don’t see Colin going away quietly.”

  “He will,” Belinda replied adamantly. “What would make him want to stay in this ridiculous marriage?”

  Now there was the million-dollar question, Tamara thought. Belinda sounded as if she was trying to convince herself as much as anyone else.

  Tamara decided to turn the conversation in a different direction, to take the pressure off Belinda.

  “Pia, I saw you stalking off to the kitchen at one point,” she said. “You looked upset.”

  “I wasn’t upset about Colin crashing the wedding,” Pia responded. “Well, I was upset for Belinda. But I had s-someone—ah, other things on my mind.”

  Pia’s slight stutter was in evidence, and Tamara knew it only came out these days when her friend was agitated about something.

  Tamara decided to probe delicately. “Ah, Pia…these other things wouldn’t have anything to do with a certain very toff British duke-turned-financier, would it?”

  Pia gasped. “That didn’t make Mrs. Hollings’s column, too, did it?”

  “I’m afraid so, sweetie.”

  Pia moaned. “I’m doomed.”

  According to the Jane Hollings column that had appeared in Sawyer’s newspaper that morning, there had been an argument at Belinda’s wedding reception between Pia and the Duke of Hawkshire. Reportedly, Pia had discovered at the reception that the duke was none other than the man she’d known only as Mr. James Fielding when she’d been involved with him a few years before. Upon the discovery of how she’d been mislead, Pia had apparently smashed some hors d’oeuvres into the duke’s face.

  “Pia, please,” Belinda said, obviously trying to lighten the mood. “Doomed is committing bigamy.”

  “Which you didn’t!”

  “Almost.”

  “N-no one will want to hire a wedding planner who’s a security risk to wealthy and titled guests!” Pia wailed.

  “Did you really sleep with Hawkshire?” Belinda asked.

  “He was Mr. Fielding at the time!”

  “Oh, Pia.”

  “Oh, sweetie,” Tamara said at the same time.

  Naturally, Tamara thought darkly, Sawyer was friends with the duke as well as with Belinda’s yet-to-be-annulled husband. Of course both of Sawyer’s good friends would be disreputable.

  “Well, it seems like we all had a great wedding,” Tamara said. “Sorry, Belinda.”

  A sigh sounded over the phone. “No apologies necessary,” Belinda said. “Not even the best spin doctor could put a good face on Saturday’s disaster. It’s not every day a bride almost acquires two husbands.”

  They all shared in some self-conscious laughter.

  “Well, what made Saturday so bad for you, Tamara?” Belinda asked.

  “In short?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sawyer Langsford. Lord Odious himself.”

  Pia giggled.

  “Oh, I don’t think Sawyer is so terrible,” Belinda remarked.

  “Putting aside his friendship with Colin, you mean?” Tamara asked.

  “Okay, I see your point,” Belinda conceded.

  “Sawyer is good-looking,” Pia said. “Those topaz eyes, and all that rich, burnished hair—”

  Tamara made a face. “Whose side are you on?”

  “Well, yours.”

  “Good.”

  “What about Sawyer’s presence put you out?” Belinda asked. “You’ve socialized before without any problem, as far as I could tell.”

  “Because we’ve always ignored each other,” Tamara replied. “But my father seeing the both of us in the wedding procession reminded him of the cherished idea that he and the previous earl had of having their children marry each other.”

  Pia spluttered. “You and Sawyer?”

  “Hilarious, I know,” Tamara responded.

  “Oh, rats,” Belinda said. “If I’d known, I’d have suggested to Tod that he pick another groomsman.”

  Tamara grimaced. “It’s not something I like to talk about. In fact, it’s an idea I’ve been hoping was dead and buried. But then Sawyer made it clear on Saturday that he’s willing to entertain the idea.”

  Pia and Belinda gasped.

  Exactly, Tamara thought.

  When she’d heard Sawyer was to be in the wedding party, she’d figured she was a big enough girl to handle it. But she hadn’t foreseen Sawyer’s proposal.

  “You and Sawyer are so different!” Pia said. “You’re the Bridget Jones to his Mr. Darcy.”

  Tamara closed her eyes in existential pain. “Please. Bridget and Darcy ended up together.”

  “Oops, sorry!”

  Tamara knew Pia was a romantic. Being a wedding planner suited her friend’s personality. The only surprising thing was that Pia herself wasn’t married. But then, Pia had had her own experience with an odious man.

  “So what’s next for you two?” Tamara asked, wanting to change the subject.

  “I’m flying to England for a few days on business.”

  “And I’ll be in Atlanta to consult with a client on a wedding.”

  “Abandoning the field of battle?” Tamara couldn’t resist joking.

  “Never!” Belinda declared.

  “In a sense,” Pia said at the same time.

  “I’m regrouping and marshalling my forces,” Belinda went on, “including getting a lawyer.”

  “In meantime,” Pia said, “I’ll be coming up with some spectacular ideas for Belinda’s second act as a bride.” She added uncertainly, “Or should I say, third act…?”

  There was a pause as everyone seemed to wince.

  Then Tamara noticed a light flashing on her phone. “On that note, I think I have a call coming in.”

  As Tamara ended the call with Belinda and Pia, she wondered for which of the three of them Saturday would prove to be most portentous.

  Her parting exchange with Sawyer came back to her.

  She’d told him they were done, and he, damn him, had just replied insouciantly, “Not nearly, but it’s been a pleasure so far.”

  One week later, Tamara wondered at her rotten luck.

  Sawyer, again.

  Usually she ran into him only once every few months. Maybe a couple of times a year.

  But here he was—at a big fashion
party taking place in a large TriBeCa loft. Minor celebrities, socialites and journalists were here to appreciate an up-and-coming designer.

  But what was Sawyer doing here?

  Tamara had seen a reporter for Sawyer’s newspaper, The New York Intelligencer, at the party. Sawyer’s own presence certainly was not necessary.

  She knew he attended his share of parties, but this one was not the type he usually attended. Last time she checked, he didn’t have a particular interest in fashion. In fact, she was sure his suits came from an old and stuffy Savile Row tailor with a warrant from the queen.

  Sawyer’s presence was a reason to keep up her guard, but at least she had body armor tonight in the form of a date.

  She looked around. Tom hadn’t yet returned with their drinks.

  As she scanned the room, however, she noticed Sawyer walking toward her. Rats.

  She turned, but just as she ducked behind the heavy velvet curtain that encircled the perimeter of the room—obviously in place to hide blank walls and elevator doors from the view of the assembled guests—a familiar voice reached her.

  “Leaving the field of battle?”

  She halted, irritated that his words echoed her own to Belinda, but unwilling to show him any reaction.

  Squaring her shoulders, she swung back toward him. “Never.”

  He gave a predatory smile. “Good.”

  She waved her hand toward the curtain to indicate the crowd on the other side. “I was simply trying to avoid getting blood on the designer labels in our latest skirmish.”

  “Thoughtful of you.”

  She tilted her lips in the semblance of a smile. “You might try it sometime.”

  After a moment, he had the indecency to chuckle.

  “What are you doing here?” she blurted.

  “I received an invitation, I accepted.”

  She frowned. “I’ve never seen you at a fashion event before.”

  “There’s always a first time. Otherwise life would be boring.”

  She felt heat stain her cheeks, and shook off the feeling he was making a sexual suggestion about her…them.

  “I suppose,” she responded coolly, “though I also know there are certain things I don’t care to try.”

  She tried to ignore the fact that her pulse had begun to skitter and skip the minute she’d heard his deep voice resonating behind her.