Bridesmaid with Attitude

She took a breath, wondering what she was about to get herself into. ‘Yes.’

‘Then you’re going to have to fall in love with me.’

Theo Berkeley watched in amusement as a range of expressions ran across the woman’s face—from surprise, to disbelief, to confusion and back again.

She was quite something to look at: tall, with a curvy but well-toned body, and a head of long, blonde-tipped chocolate-brown curls. She also had the most striking eyes he’d ever seen. They looked golden in the meagre light trickling in through the workshop windows, and they glowed with the fiery determination that she’d repeatedly exhibited since walking in here.

She was for real—he could tell.

He’d met women like her before—one woman in particular from his past he’d rather not be reminded of had been very much like her—and it made him wary. So much so that when she’d made that move to touch him he’d instinctively snatched her hand away from his chest, as though it might burn him with the fever he felt flickering away at the edges of his memory.

This woman was dangerous, pure and simple, but he had an idea that he could use that to his advantage if he was careful. He needed someone like her—someone who wouldn’t be afraid to stand up to his mother. Unlike the women he’d most recently dated. If he was going to make the crazy plan he’d been toying with for the last few minutes work, she needed to have the gumption and the initiative to be able to win over his fastidious mother.

Judging by the way she’d stood up to him this woman clearly had those qualities in abundance, and it seemed like a gift from the gods that she’d landed here in his workshop right when he needed her. It was fate.

Either that or he was being seriously punished for something.

She finally seemed to pull herself together and put out a hand to lean back on the workbench behind her, dipping her head and giving him an amused look. ‘You’re kidding, right?’

‘Not kidding.’

‘Why would you need me to fall in love with you?’

‘I don’t, really, but in order to get my mother off my back and be allowed to run this estate as I see fit I need to be able to produce a girlfriend whom she believes is a viable option for future nuptials and the furthering of the family line.’

She gave an exaggerated shudder at his crass analysis. ‘Why do you need a fake girlfriend? Haven’t you got the pick of a harem of women you can call on for just this purpose, My Lord?’

He raised a laconic eyebrow. ‘Earls don’t tend to have harems—you’re confusing us with sheikhs.’

‘And you don’t have a real girlfriend to dangle under her nose?’ she asked.

She was not rising to his sarcasm; which impressed him. Normally women would blush and stutter when he was in an irascible mood.

He gave a terse shake of his head. ‘My life’s complicated right now. I’m trying to build up this business and pay my overheads here. I don’t need the added stress of a relationship.’

She narrowed her eyes, clearly seeing where this was going. ‘But if you did have a girlfriend your mother would leave you alone and perhaps turn a blind eye to you holding wedding receptions here?’

‘She could probably be persuaded to let a good friend of my girlfriend hold her reception here. That she could just about deal with, I’m sure. In fact she’d probably jump at the idea. It would give her a sense of power and control over you, which she could utilise in the future. You’d be indebted to her. She could use that to her advantage.’

She shook her head, her expression radiating disgust. ‘How is she able to have so much power over you?’

‘Because I’ve been disinherited and, according to my late father’s will she legally owns this place and can sell it from under me at any time if the whim takes her. It’s been her bargaining chip since my father died a few years ago. If I don’t fall in line with her grand plans she’ll take away my inheritance. I love this place. It’s been my home since the day I was born and I’m not giving it up that easily. I want to grow my business from here and also raise the funds to be able to renovate the house sympathetically.’

‘Seriously? That all sounds like something from the Dark Ages.’

He shrugged. ‘She’s been trying to manipulate me my whole life.’

‘And you’re not the type of guy to give in to manipulation,’ she stated, giving him a wry smile.

He crossed his arms. ‘I actively rebel against it.’

Her expression became serious. ‘So, let me get this straight. You need to convince your mother that you’re not the closed-off loner she thinks you are so she’ll get off your back and let you live your life of happily single earldom in your mansion with only your tools for company?’

He fought hard against the smile that played at the corners of his mouth. ‘Interesting choice of words, but in essence you’re right on the money. So I need a girlfriend who will satisfy my mother but who won’t expect anything to come from this. We’ll pretend to be madly in love with each other while she’s here visiting—which I’m hoping will only be for the next week or two—then, when she’s safely under the illusion that I’m well on the way to marital bliss and has agreed to give me full control over how the place is run, we’ll be able to call it quits. It’ll be a purely business relationship.’

She widened her eyes. ‘Wow. Cold. I’m guessing lines like that haven’t had the desired effect on the women you’ve dated in the past?’

‘Not exactly, no. For some reason the women I’ve been involved with recently seem to want hearts and flowers from me, and as I’m sure you’ve probably guessed by now, I’m not that kind of guy.’

She smiled. ‘I have. Because I’m not that kind of guy either.’

He snorted. ‘Sounds like we’re meant for each other.’

She looked away from him, crossing her arms and frowning as if she was thinking things over.

‘Surely this plan’s only going to work in the short term? Won’t she quickly move on to nagging you to set a wedding date?’ she asked, fixing him with her mesmerising golden gaze again.

‘Hopefully she’ll be so busy trying to bag husband number three by then she’ll leave me alone a while longer. The rest I’ll have to play by ear in the future. I just need enough time right now to get my business off the ground and start making money. Then I’ll be in a stronger negotiating position.’

The look she gave him was one of respectful awe. ‘Okay, look, give me a few minutes to think over your madcap plan and I’ll get right back to you.’

He raised an eyebrow. The mere fact that she hadn’t already stormed away in disgust was encouraging. ‘Sure. Take your time.’

‘I’ll be back.’

‘I don’t doubt it,’ he said to her retreating figure.

Sighing, he rubbed his hand over his forehead, trying to relieve the achy tension there. The whole ‘madcap plan’, as she’d called it, was a long shot, but anything was worth a punt at this point.

After giving up a well-paid but mercenary job working for a blue-chip engineering firm in London, he needed to be left to his own devices here in order to build up his own fledgling business until it began to turn a decent profit.

The weddings had been a great source of revenue, but he wouldn’t be able to go back to doing them until his mother was satisfied he was on his way to settling down.

What he’d neglected to mention was that the real reason his mother was keeping such a tight grip on his inheritance was because she was afraid he was going to slip back into the dark underbelly of the life he’d wallowed in a few years ago and fritter it all away on drink and fast women. He’d been a major source of embarrassment to her during those years, and she was determined not to allow him to put her through that again. Not that he intended to. Those crazy, hedonistic, sex-and-drugs-filled days were well and truly behind him now.

Turning back to the bandsaw, he ran another sheet of metal through it, finding a calming solace in the screech of the hard materials as they tore against each other.

Most unnervingly, the woman he’d just propositioned reminded him a little too keenly of the women he’d used to play with during that dark time, and he was aware he’d need to keep a firm grip on his impulses if he was going to stay on the straight and narrow with her around.

She had something about her that intrigued him. An iron will not dissimilar to his own.

Flicking off the machine, he put the two pieces of metal onto the workbench and started marking out where he needed to drill holes into them.

If she came back and said no, the only other option was actually to get married, so his mother would reinstate his inheritance—both money and estate—but he didn’t want to do that for a number of reasons, the biggest of which was the fact that he’d never met anyone he thought he’d be capable of putting up with on a day-to-day basis. He liked his space, and he had a horrible feeling a wife would want to mess with his carefully constructed life plans.

It would be a cold day in hell, the day he bent to someone else’s will again.

Emily paced around the well-manicured grounds of the manor house, her brain ticking over like a revved-up engine.