Winning Back His Bride

“Bye, Chlo.”

Geneva stopped at the elevator and pushed the down button. She heard someone behind her and turned.

“Where are you off to?” Michael asked. “A working lunch?”

Damn. She’d almost made it. Did he have a homing device on her? “Actually I’m checking out more chapels.”

“Good. I’m glad I ran into you. I’ll come along.”

Was it technically running into her if he did it deliberately? Clearly he had an agenda, she just wasn’t sure what he had in mind. “Along?”

“I’d like some input. We can take the limo.”

Geneva hoped he wasn’t serious or it was going to be a very long afternoon. “Thanks anyway, Michael. But I need my car. I have things to do. Appointments,” she said vaguely.

“I’ll take you where you need to go.”

“I understand you want details. But I’m the wedding planner. I’m supposed to be doing the legwork.”

“The thing is, I like legwork,” he said, his gaze dropping to her hem.

Geneva resisted the urge to look down. She already knew her skirt was short, but now she wished it was a suit of armor.

“Michael, this is my job,” she insisted, looking up at him. “However much you feel the need to micro-manage, you must have more important things to do than weed out wedding chapels.”

“Nothing is more important than my sister.” His eyes darkened.

“You don’t need to supervise. I have nothing to report yet. I know you have no reason to trust me, but I’ll do my best to make sure Teri has exactly what she wants,” Geneva assured him.

“There are some things she wants that you can’t do. Like the family touch.”

And she wasn’t family. She’d almost been a Sullivan. But almost only counted in horseshoes and hand grenades.

“This is important to me,” he said. “Teri doesn’t have her mother to help shop for her wedding dress. She doesn’t have her father to walk her down the aisle.”

“Teri has you.” Geneva hadn’t meant to say that, but the words popped out. Probably because Geneva felt a twinge of remorse for being so cynical. Michael was many things, but a jerk wasn’t one of them.

He’d been both mother and father to his sister and he’d done a fine job raising her when he was practically a boy himself. He was a good man. It would be so much easier if he wasn’t, if she could simply dislike him. But she couldn’t. And that was the biggest problem of all.

He looked down. “And I don’t want her to forget that I’ll always be there for her, especially on her wedding day.”

Geneva nodded. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

That wasn’t a lie. Michael was always on her mind, whether she wanted him there or not. But she saw the shadows in his eyes for a split second and the expression tugged at her heart. This wasn’t about her.

The elevator dinged just before the doors opened. Michael looked at her. “Geneva, stop arguing and get in.”

She got in and a few minutes later was sitting beside him in the back of his limousine. The luxurious interior was leather, plush carpet and the spicy scent of Michael. As they pulled out from beneath the covered hotel entrance, tinted windows shielded them from the desert heat and curious stares, because limos in Vegas signaled a possible celebrity sighting.

Geneva glanced at Michael and knew there wasn’t anything to shield her from him. His showing up unexpectedly was probably part of his ongoing strategy to mess with her mind. How annoying that it was working.

She stole another glance and noticed he was casually dressed in a black knit shirt and khaki slacks. Another good look, although she doubted he had a bad one.

Then she thought about what he’d said. The words about family hung heavy in the air and she searched for something to break the tension.

“You know,” she started, “I don’t think you ever met my family.”

He frowned, thinking. “Now that you mention it… Why is that?”

“It’s a long story. Suffice it to say that if my parents had been at our wedding, my bombshell would have been just a footnote to their hostilities.”

“Oh?”

“Mom would have argued with Dad that her husband should walk me down the aisle and give me away.”

“Even though he’s your stepfather?”

“She’d have come up with a reason and dug her heels in. And Dad—” She shook her head. “If she said white, he’d say black.”

“Fight do they?”

“Like the Montagues and Capulets,” she agreed. In her own story the only casualty had been her heart, by her own hand. But it was still a tragic ending thanks to the baggage she carried, a by-product of her childhood. “I always thought it was ironic that they named me after a city in a country that prides itself on remaining neutral. The two of them can’t be in the same room and have a civil conversation. But it was worse when they were actually married.”

“How long ago did they divorce?”

“A long time. I was about ten,” she said, remembering the fear and uncertainty she’d felt, huddled in her room with her hands over her ears, trying to shut out the fighting, the nasty accusations and name-calling. She met his gaze, trying hard to hide the remembered pain. “But it was for the best. Things were ugly between the two of them for a very long time. And they kept trying to make it work because of me.”

“Is that what you meant when you said sometimes the right thing can be a mistake?”

Actually she’d meant Michael’s reason for going through with their wedding. But it would be best to let him think that she’d been talking about her parents.

“Yeah,” she agreed. “That’s what I meant.”

He studied her. “You never told me about growing up in a battle zone.”

“No?”

She frowned as she thought back. It was hard to believe she’d never mentioned her traumatic childhood. Then she remembered the combustible attraction she and Michael had shared. When they’d been in the same room, sparks flew. Everything about their affair had been red-hot and they’d been consumed only with each other. They’d done everything with their mouths except talk.

It was inevitable that the passion would burn out, that the embers would turn to ashes. If there’d been more than the baby holding them together, Michael wouldn’t have disappeared without a word. If the wedding had gone forward, they’d have ended up hating each other. Divorce wars would have been inevitable. That fate was part of what had scared her about marrying him.

She didn’t want to end up hating Michael. She also didn’t want to be attracted to him, but so far she hadn’t figured out how to make her attraction stop.