His Black Sheep Bride / The Billionaire Baby Bombshell: His Black Sheep Bride / The Billionaire Baby Bombshell

He smiled lazily. “The answer is no. That is, unless you decide you’d like to be in my bed.”

“Hardly,” she replied tartly.

His eyes laughed at her. “A man can dream.”

She felt a quiver in response to his compelling magnetism. She turned away to hide her reaction, surveying her domain, and then hugging herself. What was she willing to give up to save this?

Not too discriminating to do business with the devil.

Sawyer’s words came back to her, and now she knew he was right.

“Six months,” she said without looking at him. “That should be more than enough time—”

“However long it takes.”

“You said it would be short-term,” she countered, her tone faintly accusatory.

He settled his hands on her shoulders, warm and caressing. “I’m looking forward to it.”

When he bent and nuzzled her neck, she closed her eyes. He kissed her throat, and she couldn’t help thinking he was sealing the deal.

And then a moment later, he was gone, out the door.

With her fingertips, she touched the still warm and tingly spot where he’d kissed her.

What had she done by bargaining with the devil?

“I’m going to marry Sawyer Langsford.”

Her statement was met with a joint gasp.

Tamara looked from one to the other of her friends. Pia’s eyes had gone wide, while Belinda just looked at her in frozen silence, her coffee cup halfway to her lips.

They were sitting in Contadini having a casual Sunday brunch, but her announcement blew the relaxed atmosphere right out of the water.

Tamara glanced at Pia. “Any chance you can squeeze a small and hasty English wedding into your schedule for next month?”

“Oh, dear Lord,” Belinda breathed, rolling her eyes. “Tell me you’re not pregnant!”

Tamara looked at her friend in alarm. “Of course not!”

Was it her use of the word hasty that had made Belinda jump straight to pregnancy?

Belinda set down her cup. “Well, we can rule out drunk, since it’s Sunday morning and you’re sipping orange juice, so … what is going on?”

“She looks sane to me,” Pia murmured to Belinda, who nodded in agreement.

Belinda and Pia were both back in New York for the moment, and Tamara had decided that now, at one of their regular brunches, was as good a time as any to spring her momentous news on them.

“Of course I haven’t lost my mind,” she said.

At least, she didn’t think she had.

Belinda gave her a penetrating look. “Has your father strong-armed you into this? I know he saw you and Sawyer together at the wedding reception—”

“Oh, Tamara,” Pia jumped in, her brow puckered, “there has to be a way out!”

“And it’s easier to find a way out before the wedding than after,” Belinda muttered.

Tamara took a fortifying breath. “My father hasn’t pressed anything.” Sort of. If it hadn’t been for her father’s conditions on the merger of Kincaid News with Melton Media, Sawyer would never have proposed. It was a humiliating way to have received her first marriage proposal, but a humiliation that brought salvation for her business. “In fact, I’ve hardly ever given a decision this much calculated thinking.”

“Uh-oh,” Pia breathed. “Calculated thinking for a wedding? Oh, Tamara!”

Tamara repressed a sigh. Of course, Pia, the eternal romantic, would be shocked and alarmed at the idea of a marriage of convenience.

“Beats the opposite,” Belinda put in. “I don’t recommend the impetuous elopement.”

Tamara raised her hand. “Hear me out.”

“I’m all ears,” Belinda replied. “This I have to hear.”

Tamara steadied herself. “You both know Pink Teddy Designs has been in financial difficulty for some time.” It was a painful admission. Her business was everything to her—her dream, her quest for validation. “But what you don’t know is that recently things have come to a head. My rent is set to increase and I’ve tapped out my credit.”

Belinda’s eyes narrowed. “So you’re marrying Sawyer for financial reasons?” she guessed. “Can I just weigh in with the fact that money is on my list of bad reasons to get married?”

Pia shook her head. “It’ll never last.”

Tamara pushed at her breakfast plate. “I don’t want it to last!”

Pia’s eyes rounded. “And what about poor Tom?”

“Poor Tom is on his way to Los Angeles, hot on the trail of a record deal, thanks to Sawyer.”

“Wonderful,” Belinda remarked sarcastically.

“I mentioned my father had a long-cherished wish to unite the Kincaid and Langsford families,” Tamara said. “But what I didn’t mention is that he’s made his agreement to Melton Media’s merger with Kincaid News conditional on Sawyer convincing me to marry him.”

Pia gasped, her hand briefly covering her mouth. “You’re willing to throw away your chance to marry for love?”

Tamara was tempted to say she was a bit cynical about love after the examples set by her parents, but she stifled her reply. She supposed in Pia’s business, it was helpful—maybe even necessary—to believe in true love. Why disabuse her friend?

And, truth be told, Tamara conceded, she wasn’t a hardened cynic. Her secret indulgence was chick flicks that made her misty-eyed. She’d wonder whether it was possible to find a man who set her pulse racing and held her close to his heart. She’d wonder if, despite her parents’ example, a happily-ever-after was attainable for her.

She pasted a smile on her face. “No, don’t worry. I’m not giving up the chance of love forever. With any luck—” her lips twisted self-deprecatingly “—a second marriage will be the charm.”

“Or third,” Belinda muttered.

“Or third,” she agreed, since it was clear her friend was hoping for a third wedding.