Marriage: For Business or Pleasure?

Marriage to Nick Mancini in exchange for her dream?

She couldn’t entertain the thought for a second, let alone acknowledge the tiny voice that reminded her she’d do anything to achieve her goal.

Well, marriage to Nick didn’t fall into the category of anything. It fell into the category of certifiable lunacy.

He set her away from him, his glib smile at odds with the surprising tenderness in his eyes.

‘Well, I guess that proves being my wife wouldn’t be all bad.’

She summoned her temper, needing it to anchor her threadbare control, that wavered the moment he mentioned the physical benefits to a possible marriage.

‘If you think I’d ever agree to your proposal, you’re mad.’

He shrugged, stepped away.

‘Hey, I’m not the one who wants a promotion. Ball’s in your court, Red.’

She hated hearing the nickname only he had ever called her trip from his tongue with familiarity. She hated the blunt truth of his casual statement even more.

She did need this promotion. It was the only way to get closure on a past she’d rather forget.

Studying him through narrowed eyes, she said, ‘Not that I’d contemplate your crazy scheme for one second, but if I did, what’s in it for you?’

Something furtive, mysterious, shifted behind his steady stare before he blinked, eradicating the enigmatic emotion in an instant.

‘It’s time I married.’

‘Why?’

Why now? Why me? was what she really wanted to ask, but she clamped down on the urge to blurt her questions.

Why he was doing this? Why would he suggest something so outlandish when they shared nothing these days but a residual attraction based on old times’ sake?

He shrugged and she hated his nonchalance in the face of something so important. She would’ve given everything she owned to be married to him once and now he’d reduced it to a cold, calculating business proposition that hurt way more than it should.

‘I’m expanding the business, building more hotels in key cities around the world, but overseas investors won’t take me seriously because of my age. They see a young, wealthy single guy and immediately think I’m a playboy dabbling in business for fun.’

He rolled his shoulders, tilted his head from side to side to stretch his neck and she stifled the urge to massage it as she used to. He’d always had tense muscles after a hard day’s farm work, had relaxed under her soothing hands.

Her palms tingled with the urge to reach out, stroke his tension away. So she balled her hands into fists and swallowed the unexpected lump in her throat. Damn memories.

He rubbed the back of his neck absent-mindedly, oblivious to her irrational craving to do the same. ‘Marriage will give me respectability in their eyes, solidify my entry into wider business circles and open up a whole new investment pool.’

She stared at him, so cool, so confident, admiring the powerful businessman he’d become, lamenting the loss of the bad boy who hadn’t given a toss what people thought of him.

‘That’s it?’

He nodded, showed her his hands palm up as if he wasn’t hiding anything.

‘That’s it.’

‘Why me?’

It had been bugging her since he’d first laid out his outlandish proposal, why a guy like him with charm to burn would choose her for his crazy scheme. ‘Surely the legendary Nick Mancini would have a bevy of babes around here eager to tie you down?’

His eyes glittered as she inwardly cursed her choice of words and rushed on. ‘I mean, why me in particular? What have I got to offer?’

‘Do you really want me to answer that?’

Her breath hitched at the clear intent in his loaded stare and she took a step back. ‘Yes.’

To her relief, he shrugged, the heat fading from his eyes. ‘You’re a motivated businesswoman. You wouldn’t have flown halfway around the world to make your pitch the best if you weren’t. And I need that. Someone with a clear vision in mind, a business goal.’

He pinned her with a firm glare. ‘Someone who won’t cloud the issue with emotion, which is exactly what would happen if I chose a local wife.’

His hand wavered between them. ‘This marriage between us is a straightforward business proposal, a win-win for us both. What do you think?’

She thought he was mad, but most of all she thought she was a fool for wishing his preposterous proposal held even the slightest hint of emotion she still meant something to him other than as a means to gaining respectability.

Summoning what was left of her dignity, she nodded. ‘I’ll get back to you.’

‘You do that.’

His confident grin grated. He knew she was buying time to contemplate his marital equivalent of a pie chart.

With her mind spinning, she stalked across the room, head held high, his soft, taunting chuckles following her out of the door.

Chapter Four

‘SO, THE prodigal daughter returns.’

From the moment Brittany knew she’d be returning home she’d been bracing for this confrontation.

However, no matter that she told herself it was ridiculous, no amount of deep breathing, or steeling her nerves, or trying to remember how far in the past it all was could calm her in any way as she faced her father for the first time in ten years. She could feel her hands shaking.

She paused at the entrance to his apartment, one of the few in the exclusive Jacaranda special accommodation home for the elderly.

Not that Darby Lloyd would ever admit to his seventy-two years. He’d had work done on his face several times, had hair plugs to arrest a threatening bald patch and continued to wear designer clothes better suited to a man half his age.

But pots of money or cosmetic work or fancy clothes couldn’t buy health and that was one thing he didn’t have these days.

Five years ago, he’d tried to guilt her into quitting her job and returning to look after him as he grew older and more bitter. He’d nearly succeeded. However, some deep part of her had resisted his pressure. He had been a cruel tyrant who’d controlled her life until she’d come into a small inheritance from her mum when she’d turned eighteen and fled as far from him as she could get. She simply couldn’t go back to the hell she’d left behind.

In her heart, she desperately wanted to be anywhere but in front of the man who would have ruined her life if she’d let him, but her pride wouldn’t let her pay a visit to her hometown and not see him. She was older and stronger—surely she could stand to face him now? She had come here today to prove to herself she’d finally set the past to rest. Working harder, longer, than everyone else might keep the memory demons at bay, but she knew if she stopped, slowed down her frenetic pace, the old fears could come crowding back to fling her right back to the dim, dark place ten years earlier.

And she’d be damned if she let that happen. In a way, she should thank dear old Dad for shaping her into the woman she was today: strong, capable and successful, everything he’d said she’d never be.

But there was more to this visit and she knew it, no matter all her self talk to the contrary.