Wear My Ring: The Secret Wedding Dress / The Millionaire's Marriage Claim

It had happened with the first flash of Mae’s pretty little solitaire as Mae had giddily told her Clint had proposed. The diamond dazzling her as the sun caught an edge, piercing her right through the middle, tearing every plan, every belief, every comfort she had that she wasn’t alone in believing love wasn’t priority number one.

She pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes, heat and tears squeezing past them.

What was wrong with her? Her best friend was in love. Getting married. Actually happy. Because of that her world had crumbled?

She’d always thought the hot spot that flared in her stomach whenever she looked at Mae and Clint together was fear for her friend. She’d been kidding herself. It was envy. Deep, torturous, craving certainty that she’d never experience even a tenth of the love and affection they shared. It had run so deep that for months she hadn’t even been able to face going on a date that would only remind her she was destined to be alone.

The tears came so fast she began to sob. And then to choke. And then she couldn’t breathe. Her lungs felt as if they were being squeezed from the inside out. The only way she’d ever breathe again was to get out of the damn dress.

She tugged at the straps, but they dug into her shoulders. She yanked at the deep neckline, but it wouldn’t budge. Her trembling fingers wrenched at the zip at her back and—

She stilled, one foot braced indecorously on an ottoman, her arms doing some crazy pretzel move behind her.

The zip was stuck.

Like something out of a movie, the next hour of her life flashed before her eyes. She had to leave in ten minutes if she had a hope of getting to work on time. And first up that day? The final presentation of her Brazilian proposal.

Determination steeling her, Paige took a breath, sniffed back any remaining threads of self-pity, gripped the zip between unwavering fingers, and tugged.

Nada.

Argh! What was she going to do?

Mae and Clint lived only a couple of suburbs over, but in peak-hour traffic it would take for ever for one of them to get to her. The neighbour next door was in hospital getting a nose job. If she called on Mrs Addable upstairs her predicament would be all over the building before she even left the apartment.

Maybe she could wear the thing. She could cover most of it up. Her chartreuse beaded cardigan. Her cropped chocolate jacket. Her fringed grey cowboy boots. And accessories. Lots of fabulous accessories. She pictured the conference room: Callie holding court with the fawning assistants, Geoff hovering over the pastry tray trying desperately not to eat one, her assistant Susie looking up at her as if she were the bee’s knees as she waltzed in … wearing a wedding dress.

With a sob Paige gave in and slumped to her back on her bed.

Gabe stood in the ground level foyer of the Botany Building, rubbing a hand across the back of his neck. It had been a hell of a week. The two other mobs who’d lined up to hear out the ramblings of a rabble of tech-nerds on nanotechnology applications had been the hardest competitors he’d been up against in an age. He’d been lit by the honest to goodness thrill of the chase, and the flicker of brilliance he’d spent his career chasing felt, if not imminent, then at least possible for the first time in a long time.

And yet Gabe felt unpredictably relieved at being back. The cold didn’t seep into his bones like before. The trundle of trams didn’t give him a twitch. And even the Gothamesque skyline didn’t appear quite so unforgivingly stark. In fact with the morning sun pouring over the jut of skyscrapers, glorious Finders Street train station, and the gleaming, snaking river, the city had looked downright pretty.

Maybe he’d missed his bed, with its him-shaped dent. Or maybe he’d missed what could have been in his bed, all long and warm and languid, a warm smile lighting up her deep blue eyes, her lush pink mouth—

The lift binged.

Gabe discreetly repositioned himself. Whoever might be in the lift didn’t need to see how a week without Paige in his bed had affected him. But without even opening its doors, the lift headed back up without him.

A muscle twitched in his cheek. ‘Now, this I didn’t miss.’

The lift paused on the eighth floor. Paige’s floor. He checked his watch. She might not yet have left for work. He could drop in. Say ‘hi’. Shore up their plans for dinner that night. He actually laughed out loud. As if he’d be able to stop at just that.

No, he needed to get into the office to debrief Nate on the deal. He needed to get back to the piles of paperwork that needing reading before he signed on the dotted line to list BonaVenture on the stock market. So that he could get out there again, back amongst the sharks where he belonged.

And yet as he eyeballed the lift his mind didn’t wander to the big wide world waiting for him. His fingers twitched at the thought of burying themselves in masses of silken blonde hair. His mouth watered as he imagined the sweet taste of soft pink lips. He hardened at the thought of burying himself deep inside a woman who knew how to take him to the brink and right on over the other side.

He checked his watch again. His feet twitched and he stared at the lift, as if eyeballing it would make it come back to him.

Screw it.

Three long strides took him to the door to the stairs; he pushed through and took them two at a time, a surge of adrenalin all but giving him wings. His blood pumping hard through his veins as he got ever closer to number eight.

He reached her floor, jogged to her apartment, and, before he could talk himself out of it, banged on her door with a closed fist, feeling a connection to his caveman ancestors. If he was able to do more than grunt before kissing that heavenly mouth of hers he’d deserve a damn medal.

She was home. The shuffle of bare feet on her polished wood floor brought on a heavy heat in his groin. ‘Paige,’ he called, his voice as gruff as a bear’s. ‘It’s me.’

Then, listen as he might, he heard nothing, not even a breath. He hadn’t imagined it, had he? Conjuring up sounds of her that weren’t even there? He started as the doorknob squeaked and turned in its socket. Then the door opened as if in slow motion.

It had been barely a week since he’d seen her, yet the moment he looked into her beautiful face his heart skipped a beat. He’d heard the expression, but before that moment he’d not known it felt like stepping off the top of a tall building with only a faint hope there’d be a dozen firemen waiting below with a big trampoline.

Paige blinked at him, her gorgeous blue eyes smoky with smudged eyeliner. Her hair was all a tumble. Her skin flushed pink. The woman looked so gorgeously rumpled he throbbed for her, and it took every effort not to throw her over his shoulder and toss her down on the bed and take her before they’d even said hello.

Cleary a glutton for punishment, he slid his gaze down her gorgeous body to find it encased in—

What the—?

He blinked. And again.

Well, he thought as his libido limped into hiding as though it had been kicked where it hurt most, you don’t see that every day.

CHAPTER EIGHT (#ulink_1b8d46d7-5368-5786-bccd-2fbe48d586e1)

‘ARE we a tad overdressed for this time of the morning?’ Gabe asked.

‘What do you think?’ Paige asked, before swallowing so hard the tendons on her neck looked about to snap.

‘I think you’re wearing a wedding dress.’ Even as he said the words a pulse began to beat in his temple. ‘Is it yours?’

After a long second she nodded, her eyes like those of a puppy who’d been kicked. As if she were the one who should be feeling hard done by, not the guy she was sleeping with who’d just come back from a week away to find himself staring down a bride.

Right. Okay. Think. Not an easy thing to do considering he was fighting against the unwieldy mix of raging lust and abject horror wrestling inside him.

‘And you’re wearing it because …’ You’ve been married before? You’re getting married today? You missed me that much …?

Wow. Had everything somehow been leading to this? No matter all the safeguards he’d put in place, had he been outfoxed again? Should he have paid more heed to Hitchcock’s warnings after all? He’d give her a minute to explain. Two at most. And if he wasn’t a hundred and ten per cent thrilled with the answers he was outta there.

‘The zip’s stuck!’ She turned, lifted her hair and flashed him an expanse of beautiful back. And creamy-coloured lace, and pearl looking things and—

Gabe lifted his eyes to the ceiling. ‘That’s not exactly … I meant why do you own a … you know?’

‘Took you long enough to ask.’

Gabe was fairly sure he’d only been at her apartment door for a minute but apparently he’d passed through the looking glass, so who knew? ‘Forgive me if my mind’s working at about thirty per cent velocity, but what the hell are you talking about?’

‘Oh, come on. You knew about the dress.’

Gabe shook his head, hard, hoping it might send him back to the right dimension. ‘What precisely am I meant to know about it?’