Loe raamatut: «The Pearl House»

One

Kyle Messena’s gaze narrowed as the bridal car pulled up outside Dolphin Bay’s windblown, hilltop church. The bride, festooned in white tulle, stepped out of the limousine. A drift of gauze obscured her face, but sunlight gleamed on tawny hair that was heart-stoppingly familiar.

Adrenaline pumped and time seemed to slow, stop, as he considered the stunning fact that, despite his efforts to prevent Eva Atraeus marrying a man whose motives were purely financial, she had utterly fooled him and the wedding he had thought he had nixed was going ahead.

Kyle had taken two long, gliding steps out of the inky shade cast by an aged oak into the blistering heat of a New Zealand summer’s day before the ocean breeze whipped the veil from the bride’s face.

It wasn’t Eva.

Relief unlocked the fierce tension that gripped him.

A tension that sliced through the indifference to relationships that had shrouded him for years, ever since the death of his wife and small son. Deaths that he should have prevented.

The unwanted, brooding intensity had grown over the months he had been entrusted with the duty of ensuring that the heiress to an Atraeus fortune married according to a draconian clause in her adoptive father’s will. Eva, in order to get control of her inheritance, had to either marry a Messena—him—or a man who genuinely wanted her and not her money.

Acting as Eva’s trustee did not sit well with Kyle. He was aware that his wily great-uncle, Mario, had named him as trustee in a last game-playing move to maneuver him into marrying the woman he had once wanted but left behind. Confronted by the mesmerizing power of an attraction that still held him in reluctant thrall and unable to accept that the one woman he had never been able to forget would marry someone else, Kyle had been unable to refuse the job.

A gust of wind whipped the bride’s veil to one side, revealing that she was a little on the plump side. Her hair was also a couple of shades lighter than the rich dark mane shot through with tawny highlights that had been a natural feature of Eva’s hair ever since he’d first set eyes on her at age sixteen.

Kyle’s jaw unlocked. Now that he had successfully circumvented Eva’s latest marriage plan, he was ready to leave, but when a zippy white sports car emblazoned with the name of Eva’s business, Perfect Weddings, pulled into a space, Kyle knew he wasn’t going anywhere.

Eva Atraeus, dressed in a pale pink button-down suit that clung in all the right places, closed the door with an expensive thunk. Cell held to one ear, she hooked a matching pale pink tote over her shoulder and started toward the church doors, her stride fluid and distractingly sexy in a pair of strappy high heels. At five feet seven, Eva was several inches too short for the runway, but with her elegant, curvy figure, mouthwatering cheekbones and exotic dark eyes, she had been a knockout success as a photographic model. Gorgeous, quirky and certifiably high maintenance, Eva had fascinated gossip columnists for years and dazzled more men than she’d had hot dinners, including him.

Every muscle in Kyle’s body tightened on a visceral hit of awareness that had become altogether too familiar.

A faint check in her step indicated that Eva had spotted him.

As the bridal party disappeared into the church, she terminated her call and changed direction. Stepping beneath the shade of the oak, she shoved the cell in her tote and glared at him. “What are you doing at my wedding?”

Kyle clamped down on his irritation at Eva’s deliberate play on the “my wedding” bit. It was true that it was supposed to have been her actual wedding day. Understandably, she was annoyed that he’d upset her plan to leverage a marriage of convenience by offering the groom a lucrative job in Dubai. The way Kyle saw it, he had simply countered one employment opportunity with another. The fact that Jeremy, an accountant, had taken the job so quickly and had even seemed relieved, more than justified his intervention. “You shouldn’t have arranged a wedding you knew couldn’t go ahead.”

Her dark gaze flashed. “What if I was in love with Jeremy?”

He lifted a brow. “After a whole four weeks?”

“You know as well as I that it can happen a whole lot faster than—” She stopped, her cheeks flushed. Rummaging in her bag, she found sunglasses and, with controlled precision, slipped them onto the bridge of her nose. “Now you get to tell me what you’re doing at a private wedding. I’m guessing it’s not just to have another argument.”

He crossed his arms over his chest. “If you think you can kick me out, forget it. I’m a guest of the groom. I manage his share portfolio.”

She took a deep breath and he watched with objective fascination as the flare of irritation was replaced by one of the gorgeous smiles that had graced magazines and posters and which had the power to stop all male brain function. “That’s thin, even for you.”

“But workable.”

“And here I was thinking you were here to make sure I hadn’t pulled off a last-minute coup and found another groom.”

He frowned at the light, floral waft of her perfume and resisted the impulse to step a little closer. “It’s not my brief to stop you marrying.”

Her head tilted to one side. Through the screen of the lenses her gaze chilled. “No, it’s to stop me marrying the man of my choice.”

“You need to choose better.” Out of an impressive discard pile during the last few months, on three different occasions, Eva had selected a prospective groom. Unfortunately, all three had been strapped for cash and willing to sign prenuptial agreements that spelled out the cutoff date for the marriage: two years to the day, the exact time period specified in Mario’s will. Kyle had been honor-bound by the terms of the will to veto the weddings.

“Jeremy was perfect husband material. He was attractive, personable, with a reasonable job, his—”

“Motive was blatantly financial.”

Her expression turned steely. “He needed money to cover some debts. What is so wrong with that?”

“Mario would spin in his grave if you married a man with a gambling addiction.”

There was a small icy silence, intensified by the strains of the wedding march emanating from the church. “If I have to marry Mr. Right according to Kyle Messena, then maybe you should choose someone for me. Only I’ll need to marry him by—” she checked the slim pink watch on her wrist “—next month. Since now, thanks to you, I only have three weeks left to marry before my inheritance goes into lockdown for the next thirteen years.”

Despite Kyle’s resolve to withstand the considerable pressure he had always known Eva would apply, a twinge of guilt made his stomach tighten.

Women and relationships in general had always proved to be a difficult area for him. It was a fact that he was more comfortable with the world of military operations or the clinical cut and thrust of his family’s banking business. He could do weapons and operational tactics; he could do figures and financial markets. Love and the responsibility—and the searing guilt that came with it—was something he would not risk again. “It isn’t my intention to prevent you getting your inheritance.”

Eva’s serene smile disappeared. “No,” she said with a throaty little catch to her voice. “It’s just turning out that way.”

Spinning on her heel, Eva marched back to her car.

Kyle frowned. Eva’s voice had sounded suspiciously husky, as if she was on the verge of tears. In the entire checkered history of their relationship, he had only ever seen Eva, who was superorganized with a serene, kick-ass calm, cry twice. Of course, she had cried at Mario’s funeral almost a year ago. The only other occasion had been close on eleven years ago when he’d been nineteen. To be precise, it had been the morning after Mario had hauled them both over the coals for a passionate interlude on Dolphin Bay’s beach.

Memory flickered. A hot, extended twilight, a buttery moon sliding up over the sea, the clamor of a family party at the resort fading in the distance as Eva had wound her arms around his neck. He’d drawn a deep breath, caught the scent of her hair, her skin. Every muscle had tensed as he’d dipped his head and given in to the temptation that had kept him in agony most of the summer and kissed her…

If Mario hadn’t come looking for Eva, they would have done a lot more than just kiss. The interview with Mario that had ensued that night had been sharp and short. As gorgeous and put-together as Eva had looked at age seventeen, she had more than her share of vulnerabilities. The product of a severely dysfunctional family, Eva needed security and protection, not seduction. Mario hadn’t elaborated on any of those details, but the message had been plain enough. Eva was off-limits.

Until now.

He had no illusions about why Mario had done a complete about turn and made him a trustee, when for years he had treated Kyle as if he was a marauding predator after his one and only chick. For years Eva had stubbornly resisted Mario’s attempts to find her a safe, solid husband from amongst the sons of his wealthy business associates. Mario, forced to change tack, had swallowed his objections to the “wild Messena boys,” and had then tried to marry Eva off to both of Kyle’s older brothers, Gabriel and Nick. When that strategy had failed because Gabe and Nick had married other women and Kyle’s younger brother Damian had a long-standing girlfriend, in a last desperate move, Mario had finally settled on Kyle as a prospective bridegroom.

His gaze still locked on Eva, Kyle strolled back to his Maserati. Now that he knew Eva wasn’t the bride, he should drive back to Auckland. Back to his ultrabusy, smoothly organized life. If he left right away, he could even make the uncomplicated dinner date he had with Elise, a fellow banking executive he had been seeing on and off for the past few months, mostly at business functions.

But as he approached the Maserati, which was nose to tail with Eva’s white sports car, he couldn’t shake the sense that something about the way Eva had stormed off had not rung true. It occurred to him that the tears he thought Eva had been about to cry could have been fake. After all, she had taken acting classes. She had been good enough that she had even been offered a part in a popular soap, but had turned it down because it had conflicted with her desire to start her own wedding planning business.

Suddenly positive that he had been duped, he dropped the Maserati’s key back into his pocket. There could be only one reason why Eva wanted him to feel guilty enough that he bypassed the reception. She had already found a new candidate for groom and he would be attending as her guest. Since she only had three weeks to organize her final shot at a wedding, keeping her new prospective groom close made sense, because time was of the essence.

Certainty settled in when he caught the tail end of a conversation with someone named Troy. His jaw tightened. Troy Kendal, if he didn’t miss his guess. A flashy sports star Eva had met less than a week ago in a last, desperate attempt to recruit a groom. Out of nowhere, the jealousy he had worked hard to suppress because it was just as illogical as the desire that haunted him, roared to life.

If Eva had been crying, they had been crocodile tears.

She had been getting rid of him.

In no mood to leave now, Kyle waited until Eva terminated the call and dropped the phone in her bag. “We need to talk.”

“I thought we just did.”

Dropping her bag on the passenger seat, she dragged off her sunglasses and checked her watch, subtly underlining the fact that she was in a hurry to leave. Without the barrier of the lenses, and with strands of hair blowing loose around her cheeks, she seemed younger and oddly vulnerable, although Kyle knew that was an illusion, since Eva’s reputation with men was legendary. “There’s a solution to your problem. If you marry a Messena, there are no further conditions, other than that the marriage must be of two years’ duration.”

Her brows creased as if she was only just considering an option that had been bluntly stated in the will. “Even if I wanted to do that, which I don’t, that’s hardly possible, since Gabriel and Nick are both married, and Damian’s as good as.”

Kyle’s jaw clamped at the systematic way she ticked his brothers off her fingers, deliberately leaving him off the list. As if her fingers had never locked with his as they’d strolled down the dimly lit path to Dolphin Bay, as if she had never wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him.

“There’s one other Messena,” Kyle said flatly, his patience gone. “I’m talking you, me and a marriage of convenience.”