In Bed With...Collection

‘Oh, I think any judge would find good reason for that,’ Bryce drawled, hugging Sunny even closer. ‘My wife is such a warm contrast to you, Kristen…’

‘I’m a Parrish!’ she declared with belligerent arrogance. ‘That name means something. I’ll be listened to, Bryce Templar!’

‘Yes, you undoubtedly will be,’ he agreed uncaringly. ‘The media will gobble up every bit of it as you prove you’ve been badly done by, revealing your avaricious little soul to the whole world in a public courtroom. You think you’ll win their sympathy?’

Angry heat speared across her cheekbones. ‘So…you figure you’ve got all the angles covered so you can cheat me.’

The words were flying so fast and furiously, Sunny was only catching the fact that Kristen was a gold-digger. Big time! Despite the name she set such store by.

‘No agreement was reached, Kristen,’ Bryce stated bitingly. ‘You weren’t content with what was offered.’

‘What about this agreement?’ She thrust her left hand up in a clenched fist, showing off the huge diamond ring on her engagement finger. ‘It shows something.’

‘Yes. It shows my good will, which you proceeded to flout.’

She tossed her head defiantly. ‘Well, don’t think you’re getting it back!’

‘I don’t want it back. I don’t want anything remotely associated with you. We have nothing left to say to each other.’

‘Except through our lawyers!’

‘Agreed. Now if you don’t mind…’

Sunny was subjected to a scathing look. ‘Congratulations! You’ve got yourself a cold, calculating pig and you’re welcome to him!’

Having delivered her best exit line, Kristen Parrish flounced a quick about-turn and strode out of the chapel, her stiff back eloquently denying any wounds whatsoever.

Just like Derek, Sunny couldn’t help thinking. Rejection was never a palatable situation, but rejection in favour of someone else…that could definitely bring out the worst in some people.

Both she and Bryce had been badly misled in choosing their first partners for marriage. The question was…had they made the right choice now?

Sunny hoped so. With all her heart she hoped so. Yet she couldn’t shake the feeling they had both been driven into this choice by a rebound effect…Bryce seemed to be everything Derek wasn’t…and she was a warm contrast to Kristen Parrish.

A windfall marriage…

She shivered.

Bryce’s arm instantly tightened around her. ‘I’m sorry you were subjected to that, Sunny,’ he said ruefully. ‘My big mistake…’

She sighed, lifting her gaze to his in anxious query. ‘Am I a windfall, Bryce?’

‘Yes.’ His eyes simmered with hot possessiveness. ‘The best windfall that’s ever come my way and I consider myself the luckiest man alive to have you as my wife, Sunny.’

Instead of Kristen, she thought.

‘And I need, very much, to be alone with you,’ he added softly.

He drew her with him, out of the chapel, into the elevator, back to their suite, and while Sunny took comfort from his desire for her, she couldn’t stop the questions whirling around in her mind.

When had he calculated the difference between her and Kristen?

When had he decided to marry her instead?

And the bottom line—marrying to please his father—was she simply a better candidate? A cheaper candidate? The bargain basement bride?

CHAPTER ELEVEN (#ud535c0fb-8216-5cc4-a273-7d8e9771b73f)

THE moment they were in their suite with the rest of the world shut out, Bryce turned her into his embrace. Sunny didn’t mean to stiffen up, but she couldn’t quite feel right, pretending nothing had happened to colour things differently. Her hands pressed nervously against Bryce’s chest, holding her bouquet between them, her heart thumping painfully instead of happily.

‘It’s worrying you, isn’t it…all that Kristen said?’ Bryce quietly probed.

‘Not…not all of it.’ She fiddled with his boutonniere, wishing Kristen hadn’t turned up. But there was no joy in hiding her head in the sand, now that she was more aware of circumstances.

‘Tell me what’s preying on your mind, Sunny. Let me fix it.’

‘You didn’t tell me about her.’

‘She was irrelevant to us.’

No, she wasn’t irrelevant, Sunny thought, and such a ruthless wipe-out of a woman he’d planned to marry—without any second chance offered—did not sit well with her. It was too…too uncaring.

‘You were still engaged to her until this morning,’ she reminded him, shying away from Kristen’s accusation of him being a cold, calculating pig, yet calculation had to have come into his actions, given his need for a wife and the time pressure involved. To give up Kristen before he had secured Sunny’s consent…had he? Had he really?

‘Technically I was still engaged to her, yes,’ he answered. ‘In my heart, no.’

‘In your heart, Bryce?’ She lifted her eyes to scan his, to see how much he meant by that.

‘When I asked you to marry me last night, you had completely obliterated any possibility of my ever marrying Kristen. I could never have gone back to her after you, Sunny.’

He looked and sounded genuinely sincere.

His grimace held a wealth of distaste as he added, ‘I called Kristen at seven o’clock this morning, making it absolutely clear that everything was ended.’

She frowned, remembering similar words he’d spoken much later. ‘I heard you talking on the phone to someone just as I was coming downstairs.’

‘My lawyer. He had to be notified.’

‘Because of the…the prenuptial agreement?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why did you do that with her? Was it the only way for you to get a wife and child…to buy them?’

His mouth twisted in a fleeting expression of bitter self-mockery. Then his whole face seemed to harden, his eyes reflecting a deep inner cynicism as he replied, ‘Prenuptial agreements are quite common in the States, Sunny, especially since divorce has become a national pastime and a boon to lawyers who are out to get their cut. In a financial sense, such agreements offer both protection and security.’

They weren’t common in Australia. Or perhaps they were amongst the very wealthy. Not having ever moved in those circles, she simply didn’t know.

‘If that is your practice here, Bryce, why didn’t you offer one to me?’ she queried, the bargain basement bride tag nagging at her sense of self-worth.