The Eleventh-Hour Groom

‘If she has any sense.’ Beth tried to implant some doubt in his mind. Though she knew full well that her stepmother was well aware that without Jay the boat yard would go downhill fast. Not only was he a talented designer, he ran the place with extreme efficiency. Her father had tried to get him to buy into the business on many occasions, just to keep him there, but Jay had always refused the offers.

‘Anyway I’ve been offered another job,’ he said suddenly.

‘What?’ Beth sat straighter in her chair. ‘Where? Here, on the island?’

Jay grinned. ‘No. The Bahamas.’

Those words shocked her more than her father’s will. The thought that Jay would leave was unbearable.

‘They’ve made me a good offer. I think I’m going to accept it, subject to a few loose ends here—’

‘You can’t!’ She stared at him in horror.

‘Why not?’

‘Because I think you should stay here and marry me.’

She remembered the silence that had followed her words. The way Jay had looked at her, the quizzical lift of his eyebrow.

‘Call me old-fashioned, Beth,’ he drawled, ‘but, where I come from in the States, it’s usual for the men to propose to the women—’

‘Don’t be facetious, Jay. I’m proposing a business deal,’ she stipulated quickly. She remembered sounding confident, she remembered holding the darkness of his eyes with a direct gaze. ‘If you marry me, I’ll sign half the business over to you and we can share the profits.’

‘I never realised you were so business-orientated,’ Jay drawled, sitting back in his chair and staring at her as if he had never seen her before.

She shrugged. ‘Maybe you don’t really know me that well.’

‘Maybe I don’t.’

‘So what do you say?’

‘I don’t know. I’ll have to think about it.’

He hadn’t even wanted her wrapped up with gifts…that had stung. Only for the rum kicking in, blocking out the pain, she might have grinned and let it go, said she’d been joking. ‘Okay, I’ll give you a sixty-forty split, seeing as you will be doing most of the work,’ she found herself saying instead. ‘That’s my last offer.’

‘So, let’s just get this straight. You are suggesting that we get married to fulfil the terms of your father’s will. Then what?’ His eyes narrowed. ‘A quickie divorce a few weeks later when the business has been signed over?’

‘No!’ She frowned. ‘We can’t do that. Dad stipulated in his will that we should live together and stay married for at least a year.’

‘Good old Henry thought of everything, didn’t he?’ Jay murmured sardonically. ‘Did he stipulate instructions for our sleeping arrangements as well?’

The heat of embarrassment seared through her. Before she could think of a suitably sarcastic reply he went swiftly on. ‘So how long do you want to play this charade for?’

‘I don’t know.’ She shrugged. ‘Do we have to put a date on it? After all, it’s not as if either of us are serious about anyone else, is it? Shall we just see how things go?’

There was a moment’s silence, a moment when he just stared at her and she felt incredibly foolish…

‘Okay.’ His agreement when it came nearly bowled her off the seat in surprise. ‘But if we get married we do it properly.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘We sign a premarital contract.’ Suddenly he was the one dictating conditions. ‘We put the terms of our marriage down in black and white.’

‘Fine,’ she agreed airily.

‘And I’ll buy into the business.’

‘There’s no need—you’ll automatically own half of it once we’re married—’

Jay cut across her. ‘I don’t want something for nothing, Elizabeth. Anyway, we can use the money to invest in the boat yard. It needs updating.’

It had only been when she had sobered up that she had wondered about the sanity of the situation.

And now, nearly eighteen months down the line, older and wiser she sat opposite him across this dinner table and wished that she had never gone through with the charade. But it was too late for regrets.

The waiter brought their food. Elizabeth toyed with the meal for a while. She had absolutely no appetite.

‘Did I tell you that Cheryl is getting married again?’ Jay said suddenly. ‘She wrote to tell me about it last week. Or rather to tell us about it… She still thinks we are together.’

Beth’s eyes widened. ‘Who is she marrying?’

Jay shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I think she said his name was Alan. She met him on a cruise.’

Elizabeth smiled. ‘Well, I’m glad she’s found happiness again. I know she missed Dad terribly.’ In fact Cheryl had felt so lonely in the house she had once shared with Elizabeth’s father that she had sold up soon after his death and moved back to the States. She was living in Florida now.

‘She’s invited us to the wedding.’ Jay told her.

‘Really? In Florida?’

Jay shook his head. ‘She’s coming back to Jamaica to get married. They’re having a wedding and honeymoon package. Getting married on the beach.’

‘Like we did.’ The words slipped out.

‘Yes.’ His eyes moved over her face thoughtfully. ‘You were the eleven o’clock bride,’ he said. ‘Do you remember? They’d posted the notice on the hotel board, between the times of the diving lessons.’

She smiled. That red-hot day in Jamaica was etched on her memory for all time. The gentle sea breeze billowing her veil behind her. The scent of the tropical flowers, the calm turquoise waters of the Caribbean lapping against the sugar-white sand. ‘Of course I remember. We both laughed about it…said we were the ones taking the deepest plunge of all.’

‘Wasn’t that deep a plunge, though, was it?’ he remarked wryly. ‘Six months. People get longer than that for robbery.’

‘We may have only been together for six months, but we’re still married,’ she reminded him, then wondered why she’d felt the need to say that.

‘What’s the matter: frightened that your stepmother might contest the will because we didn’t stay together for the stipulated twelve months?’ he drawled wryly.

‘Don’t be ridiculous; Cheryl wouldn’t do something like that. She was never interested in the boat yard, anyway.’

‘Which was why you felt you could safely leave after six months I suppose.’ There was a hard, mocking edge to Jay’s tone. ‘You had it all figured out, didn’t you, Beth?’

He made her sound so calculating, but nothing could have been further from the truth. She had taken a gamble when she had married him, a gamble that one day he might feel something for her, fall for her the way she had for him. It had been a wild, impossibly romantic dream destined to just bring her pain. She shook her head. ‘No, Jay. That was the problem,’ she told him quietly. ‘I didn’t have anything figured out. I just made a mistake. Marriage is too important to reduce it to a mere business venture.’