A Perfect Stranger

A Perfect Stranger
Terry McLaughlin

Charismatic Nick Martelli is all smoldering good looks and animal magnetism.Unfortunately, he's not the man Sydney Gordon is nearly engaged to–the man who's waiting for her to come back from Europe and accept his marriage proposal.And Nick's certainly not what you'd think of as ideal husband material. Sydney needs somebody steady to help her rein in her impulsive nature… Doesn't she?

A Perfect Stranger

Terry McLaughlin

For Mom, a fellow tour survivor

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER ONE

SYDNEY GORDON stared at the engagement ring glittering in the candlelight and wondered what to say. What to do.

What to feel.

One thing she shouldn’t be feeling was panic. No woman in her right mind would have this lung-squeezing, temple-throbbing reaction to a proposal from sweet, stable, handsome Henry Barlow, an attorney with a beautiful new home, a solid investment portfolio and an excellent chance of earning a partnership with a law firm in Truckee, California, before the end of the year.

Which meant she must be going crazy.

Even now the proof was bubbling through her, right along with the champagne in her nearly empty flute—those same fizzy, self-destructive impulses that had driven her from one disaster to another after her father had died four years ago and left her an unexpected insurance benefit and the means to go down in well-financed flames. Dropping out of her postgrad work in Education to dabble in Theater Arts. Leaping into an affair with an actor and dashing off to a regional Shakespeare festival. Playing an infamous seductress onstage and getting her heart stomped to pieces behind the scenes. Adding several more strands of gray to her mother’s carefully coiffed hair. Getting duped, dumped, ditched, disillusioned and nearly disowned, though not necessarily in that order.

“Do you like it?” asked Henry.

“The ring?” Sydney gulped the rest of her champagne and gave him a brilliant smile. “It’s beautiful. Absolutely perfect.”

Henry would never disillusion her. Just look how carefully he’d staged this moment: the sunset view of Lake Tahoe from the restaurant window, the champagne tilting in an ice bucket, the jazz trio playing his sentimental request.

And that fabulous ring—the one-carat emerald-cut diamond with four baguettes set in a platinum band. She knew all this because Henry had just finished explaining it in great detail, along with a brief lecture on the importance of cut, clarity and something else she’d forgotten already.

She bit her lip, trying to remember. No good. Whatever he’d said, it was gone now.

“I’d like you to wear it while you’re gone,” he said.

“Gone?” She blinked. “Oh—the tour. Um…”

He reached for her hand, his grip as warm and steady as always. She hoped hers wouldn’t seem clammy and limp by comparison.

“I’m going to miss you,” he said.

“I’ll only be in Europe a couple of weeks.”

Two weeks—not much time to erase any lingering unease over those minor glitches during her substitute teaching stint and replace them with the image of an organized, responsible educator. Two weeks to chaperone a group of high school students on an early-summer tour through England and France, to make an excellent impression on the North Sierra school administration and secure that full-time position in the English department. To make a success of herself, at last.

Henry gave her fingers a gentle squeeze, and she realized she’d been drifting. She smiled again and reminded herself to be grateful she’d found a man like this, a man who cared enough to arrange every detail of this romantic setting. A man who would help her smother her impulses to be…well, impulsive.

There certainly was nothing impulsive about Henry. Witness his smooth wind-up: a minor adjustment of his stylish silk tie, that perfectly confident smile as he refilled her flute with champagne. Henry was so…so…

Perfect.