To Make A Marriage

‘I hope you don’t intend telling Harrie and Danie that!’ He smiled.

Andie didn’t return his smile. ‘I don’t happen to believe that’s true for them; I’m as sure as they are that Quinn and Jonas are the right men for them.’

He was bored with the subject of Harrie and Danie; it was Andie he was interested in. It always had been. ‘It’s really good to see you here today,’ he told her sincerely.

Andie frowned at the statement. ‘I would hardly miss my own sister’s wedding!’

‘I can think of a couple of other family occasions you’ve missed this summer,’ he persisted. ‘The summer fête,’ he added as she looked at him questioningly, referring to the fête held every June at Rome Summer’s—Andie father’s—estate. ‘A family weekend at the estate a week later. Your father said that you had the flu.’

Andie shrugged, a smile playing about those peach-coloured lips. ‘If that’s what Daddy said, then that’s what I had,’ she dismissed. ‘No mystery there.’

He took two glasses of champagne from a passing waiter; the wedding reception was being held at one of London’s leading hotels. He held one of the glasses out to Andie, but was surprised when she shook her head and reached for a glass of orange juice instead. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve given up drinking champagne?’ he exclaimed, knowing that in the past champagne was the only alcohol Andie had ever drunk.

‘It’s a new diet I’m trying out,’ she dismissed, taking a sip of the juice.

‘Diet?’ He scowled, looking down at her already more than slender frame. ‘You’re far too thin as it is—’

‘You’re starting to sound like Rome now,’ Andie taunted, blonde brows raised as she looked up at him from under thick dark lashes.

An irritated flush coloured the hardness of his cheeks. The last thing he wanted was to sound like her father, damn it! It was the very last thing he felt like whenever he was around her. Although, perhaps, to Andie, fourteen years his junior, that was exactly what he seemed…

‘It’s being featured in Gloss next month,’ Andie continued lightly, referring to the monthly magazine of which she was senior editor. ‘I thought I would try it and see if it really works.’

He scowled. ‘You need to diet like—’

‘You need to earn any more money?’ she finished with barbed sweetness. ‘Have you never heard the phrase, “you can never be too rich or too thin”?’

His gaze narrowed thoughtfully at that slight edge to her tone. They had met briefly a couple of times during the last few months, never long enough to have a real conversation, as they were doing now, but he had been sure the flu excuse Rome had given him had been genuine and it hadn’t been because Andie had been deliberately avoiding him. Now he wasn’t so sure…

‘I’ve heard it,’ he grated. ‘But I don’t think you believe it any more than I do.’

‘Really?’ Her manner had definitely changed now, that hardness still there in her voice. ‘We’ve known each other a long time, granted—but I don’t think that gives you the right to tell me what I think!’

He reached out and grasped her arm. ‘Andie—’

‘I think you’re going to have to excuse me,’ she cut in firmly, having glanced across the room to where the bride and groom were now taking their seats at the top table in preparation for the start of the meal that was about to be served. ‘It looks as if I’m needed.’

She was needed, all right. By him! He had felt this way about her since the day he’d looked at her, on her eighteenth birthday, and realised she was no longer an impish child but a beautiful, desirable woman. Almost eight years ago, he groaned inwardly.

His hold on her arm tightened. ‘Andie, have dinner with me one evening next week,’ he prompted forcefully.

She turned to look at him with cool green eyes. ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea, do you?’

Good idea, be damned. This woman, it seemed, made him lose all sense of what was a good idea every time he came near her!

‘I really do have to go,’ she insisted, gently but firmly removing her arm from his grasp before placing the half-drunk glass of juice in his now free hand. ‘I hope you enjoy the rest of the wedding,’ she added with banal politeness.

He had never enjoyed a wedding in his life, had determined long ago that he would never marry. But as he watched Andie walk gracefully across the room to take her place at the top table; he knew he would do anything to make Andie his own. Anything…

CHAPTER ONE

‘I’M REALLY sorry to interrupt, Miss Summer, but there’s someone outside to see you!’

Andie looked up with a frown, having been poring over a fashion layout that lay sprawled across the top of her desk. She had asked April not to disturb her for an hour, desperately trying to meet today’s deadline, but as she looked at her secretary’s expectantly flushed face her frown deepened.

‘And who might that someone be, April?’ she prompted dryly, knowing it had to be someone important—or April wouldn’t have disturbed her at all.

April drew in a deep, excited breath. ‘It’s—’

‘Adam Munroe,’ the man himself announced with a smile as he strolled into the office, dressed as impeccably as usual, his charcoal-grey suit tailored across the width of his shoulders and the narrowness of his waist and thighs, his pale blue shirt made of silk, only the bright blue and yellow pattern of his tie giving any indication of the less than conservative nature that lurked beneath his outward appearance.

The arrival of Adam Munroe in the office was reason enough for April to have gone all aflutter, Andie allowed ruefully as she slowly put her marker pen down on the desk-top.

A long-time friend of her father’s, Adam was a well-known film producer, but, with his tall, rugged good looks, and silver-blonde hair, he was gorgeous enough to have starred in one of the films he’d financed.

‘Thank you, April,’ Andie told her secretary dismissively, a slightly knowing smile playing about her lips as she watched April’s slow retreat out of the room, the girl’s avid gaze fixed on Adam the whole time.

Not that Andie could exactly blame April for that, either; Adam had been breaking female hearts with his charming elusiveness ever since she could remember. Elusive, because Adam always made it plain to the women he became involved with that the friendship would never lead to a permanent relationship. Not very romantic, but it certainly didn’t seem to deter those women from becoming involved with him. In fact, the opposite!

Andie stood up slowly. ‘After totally captivating my secretary so that I doubt I will get any more work out of her today—to what do I owe the honour of this visit, Adam?’ she teased as she moved forward to kiss him lightly on the cheek.

He grinned, warm pale grey eyes surrounded by long dark lashes. ‘I was just passing, and wondered if you would care to join me for lunch?’

She raised blonde brows. ‘Isn’t eleven-thirty in the morning a little early for lunch?’ she queried.

He shrugged, making himself comfortable on the edge of her desk, disturbing several of the photographs that lay there in the process. ‘Not when you haven’t had any breakfast yet, no,’ he observed pointedly.

Andie gave a wry smile, shaking her head. ‘Hectic night again, hmm, Adam?’ she taunted, moving back behind the desk to look up at him with mocking green eyes.

‘Not particularly,’ he replied dryly. ‘I don’t seem to be sleeping too well at the moment.’

‘You—’

‘Alone, that is,’ he put in before she could complete her comment.

Andie chuckled. ‘Maybe that’s your problem; you obviously aren’t used to it!’

‘Very funny.’ He scowled. ‘The problem with you Summer sisters is that you have no respect for your elders!’

Andie held back her smile this time, although it lurked in the brightness of her eyes and the slight curve of her lips. ‘Have Harrie and Danie been casting aspersions too?’ She referred to her two older, now married, sisters.

Adam gave a grimace. ‘When haven’t the three of you teased me unmercifully?’

It was true, of course. But Andie and her sisters had known Adam, almost as an honorary uncle, for twenty years, and the fact that most women fell over themselves to meet him had been a constant source of amusement to the three of them as they’d been growing up. School friends, and then university friends, and eventually work friends, had constantly sought invitations to their father’s home in the hope that Adam might be a guest at the same time.

‘You know you love it, Adam,’ she said.

‘What I would love is some lunch.’ He stood up. ‘Going to keep me company?’ He quirked blonde brows enquiringly.