His Forbidden Fiancee

“Oh, I suppose that’s all right,” the woman replied, then gestured him forward. “So, as I was saying, Luke, you must spend the next month in the lodge in order to fulfill the requirements of Hunter’s will. Your friend Nathan was here last month and your brother Matthias will then take your place in the fifth month.”

Luke knew all that. A while back, letters had been received by each of the remaining “Seven Samurai” as they’d called themselves in college. The six had lost touch after the death of Hunter Palmer and graduation, but with the arrival of those letters they’d been reminded of the promise they’d once made to one another as they closed in on getting their diplomas. Though they were from families of distinction and wealth, they’d been determined to each make their own mark on the world. In ten years, they’d vowed.

Over a table filled with empty beer bottles they’d pledged to build a lodge on the shores of Lake Tahoe and in ten years, each of them would take the place for a month. At the end of the seventh month, the plan had been that they’d all come together for a celebration of their friendship and the successes they’d achieved.

But after Hunter’s illness and subsequent death, that dream had died with him.

Though apparently not for Hunter. Even aware he wouldn’t be there to share it with them, he’d made arrangements for a lodge to be built at the lake. The letters he’d written to each of the friends said that he expected them to honor the vow they’d taken all those years ago.

The caretaker stepped aside as they reached another arched doorway. “And here’s the master bathroom.”

As Luke stepped inside, the fantasy blond popped back into his thoughts. The light of a fire was tracing her skin again, all that pretty, pretty skin, as she lowered herself into the deep porcelain tub that was surrounded by slate and butted up against yet another fireplace. The ends of her hair darkened as they swished against her wet shoulders. Bubbles played peekaboo with her rosy nipples.

“Do you think you’ll be comfortable here?”

Sidetracked again by his enticing little vision, Luke was jolted once more by the sound of the caretaker’s voice.

Damn! What was the matter with him? he wondered, firmly banishing the distracting beauty splashing in his suddenly sex-obsessed brain.

“I’ll be just fine here, thank you.” Even though he was going to be “just fine” three months early, all for the sake of his brother.

He must have been scowling at the thought, because the woman’s eyebrows rose. “Is something wrong?”

“No. Not at all.” There was no reason to expose the family laundry to a stranger. “I guess I’m just thinking of…of Hunter.”

The woman’s gaze dropped. “I’m sorry.” The toe of her sensible black shoe appeared to fascinate her. “I think…I think he intended this as a nice gesture.”

“Hunter Palmer was a very nice man.” The best of the seven of them. The very best. Luke let himself remember Hunter’s wide grin, his infectious laugh, the way he could rally their group to do anything from nailing all the furniture in the freshman-dorm rec room to the ceiling to organizing a charity three-man basketball tournament senior year.

Hunter had been part of Luke’s squad. They’d won the whole shebang, too. What a team they’d made, Hunter and Luke…and Matt.

In those days, like never before and never since, Luke and Matt had played on the same side.

But it was Hunter who Luke had been thinking of when he’d agreed to take his brother’s place for the next month. Their dead friend’s last request had been for the six other men to spend time at the lodge he’d built. If they fulfilled his request, then twenty million dollars and the lodge itself would be turned over to the town of Hunter’s Landing, here on the shores of Lake Tahoe.

Luke wasn’t going to be the reason that didn’t happen, no matter how he felt about his brother.

So he followed the caretaker through the rest of the rooms, keeping his mind off the fantasy blond by thinking of the twin switcheroo and how he was replacing Matt Barton, #1 bastard. He spent little time looking on the framed Samurai photos mounted in the second-floor hallway. If he were really playing the part of Matt, Luke thought, it would mean keeping his tie knotted tight, his smiles as cold as Sierra snow, and his mind open to how he could take advantage of any situation without regard to kith, kin or even common decency.

That was how his brother operated.

Finally the caretaker gave him the ornate keychain that contained the house key and departed, leaving Luke alone inside the big house with only his grim thoughts for company. The place was quiet and absent of any signs of Nathan Barrister—who had been staying here the month before—unless you counted the hastily written note Luke had found from him. But Nathan hadn’t gone far. He’d fallen for the mayor of Hunter’s Landing, Keira Sanders, and now they were flitting between the Tahoe town and sun-filled Barbados, where his old friend was presumably mixing business with pleasure.

Jacket and tie discarded, Luke found a beer in the overstocked fridge and settled himself by the window of the great room. Through the trees was another spectacular view of the lake. It wasn’t its famous clear-blue at the moment, not only because it was settling into evening, but also because gray clouds were gathering overhead.

Dark clouds that reflected Luke’s mood.

What the hell was he going to do with himself for a month?

Nathan had done okay here, apparently. His note said it wasn’t “exactly the black hole I thought” and he’d occupied himself by jumping into a full-on love affair. Luke didn’t wish that potential quagmire on himself, though a visit from that blond sweetheart of his imagination might make the month pass just a little bit faster. It was too damn bad she couldn’t stroll out of his fantasies and straight into this room.

Yes, that would make the thirty days more interesting.

Except it wasn’t going to happen unless Matt had invited someone to join him here. And even if that were the case, blond sweethearts just weren’t Matt’s type. Being identical twins didn’t mean they had identical taste when it came to women.

Luke hooked his heels around a nearby ottoman and dragged it closer as the first drops of what appeared to be a heavy spring rain started to hit the windows and roll down like tears. Yeah, he’d be crying, too, if the vision from his daydream showed up on his doorstep looking for Matt.

Though he shouldn’t rule that out, come to think of it. His brother might set up just such a thing to shake Luke’s cage. Matt ruined Luke’s life any chance he got.

To be fair—unlike his brother—Luke had to admit that it was their father, Samuel Sullivan Barton, who had sowed the seeds of their ugly rivalry. He’d run their childhood like an endless season of The Apprentice, with himself playing Donald Trump, constantly orchestrating cutthroat competitions between his two sons.

Their enmity had abated in college. But after Hunter had died, so had their father, and he’d left behind one last contest that rekindled his sons’ competitive fire. Whichever twin made a million dollars first would win the family holdings. Both of them had separately gone to work on developing wireless technology—Luke doing it hands-on, using his engineering degree, while Matt tapped into his undeniable business acumen to hire someone to work with him.

When it came to any kind of gadgetry, his brother was all thumbs. But when it came to building a successful team, Matt was a master.

Of course, that time he’d ensured his mastery by bribing a supplier and knocking Luke right out of the running. Matt had made the first mil and won all the family assets, to boot.

Luke hadn’t spoken to his brother since, though he’d gone on to do a damn fine job with his own company—a meaner and leaner version of what Matt continued to build upon with the Barton family wealth behind him. That was Luke in a nutshell these days: a leaner—okay, maybe by only a pound or two—but definitely meaner version of his brother Matt.

Working his ass off had a way of doing that to a man, Luke thought. And maybe bitterness, too. He couldn’t deny it.

The rain was really coming down now, and the house took on a chill. He got up and lit the fire laid in the great room’s massive fireplace—it took up one huge stone wall—and the flames set him thinking about his blond again.

When he got back to his own condo in the San Francisco Bay Area he was going to have to make a few phone calls, apparently. This fantasy woman was a new fixation for him. Work usually was his only obsession—work and finding some way to pay back his brother at some future date—so his sex life was more sporadic than people believed. It looked as if he needed to be paying more attention to his bodily needs, though.

Or maybe the blame rested on this house, he thought. Or the fireplaces. That bed.

The blond continued insinuating herself into his thoughts. He could practically smell her now. Her scent was like rain—clean, cool rain—and he’d sip the drops off her mouth, her neck, her collarbone.

Closing his eyes, he rested his head against the back of the chair. As his fantasy played on, his heart started to hammer.

Except that it wasn’t his heart.

His eyes popped open. He stared out the windows, trying to determine if the pouring rain or the waving trees were causing the loud drumming.

He decided it was neither one.

Luke set his beer down and rose, following the noise to the front door. Who the hell would be here now and in this spring deluge?

He jerked open the door. As he took in the dark shadow of a figure on the porch, a chilly blast of wind and a spray of rain wafted over him. Suppressing a shiver, he fumbled for the light switches. Brightness blazed over the porch and in the foyer.

The shadowy figure became a woman.

Her white blouse was plastered to her body. Wet denim clung to her thighs.

She raised a hand to her hair and tried fluffing the drenched stuff. A few locks gamely sprung from straight strands into bedraggled curls that hinted at gold.

Luke looked back at her clothes again.