“What if what I really want is to stay married?”

It wasn’t, but Jason was in a reckless mood after all his careful plans had unraveled in the course of an afternoon. One kiss wasn’t enough to get him completely over the destruction this woman had caused. Plus, she’d piqued his curiosity about the divorce. Why was it so important to her? There were a lot of women who might find it convenient to be married to someone from a powerful fashion-industry family.

The fact that she didn’t intrigued him.

Of course, Meredith had always been one of a kind.

Her genuine smile hit him in the not-yet-cooled lower half, further proving the point. No woman had ever turned him on with simply a grin. Except his wife, apparently.

From Fake to Forever
Kat Cantrell

www.millsandboon.co.uk

KAT CANTRELL read her first Mills & Boon novel in third grade and has been scribbling in notebooks since she learned to spell. What else would she write but romance? She majored in literature, officially with the intent to teach, but somehow ended up buried in middle management in corporate America, until she became a stay-at-home mum and full-time writer.

Kat, her husband and their two boys live in north Texas. When she’s not writing about characters on the journey to happily-ever-after, she can be found at a soccer game, watching the TV show Friends or listening to ’80s music.

Kat was the 2011 Mills & Boon So You Think You Can Write winner and a 2012 RWA Golden Heart Award finalist for best unpublished series contemporary manuscript.

Contents

Cover

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Epilogue

Extract

Copyright

One

Normally, a surprise trip to Manhattan ranked high on Meredith Chandler-Harris’s list of Really Cool Things. A visit to one of the most highly respected fashion houses in the world hit the list even higher than that. Having to tell the man she’d spent two years trying to forget that they were married, not so much. It pretty much ruined Manhattan, fashion and—hell, even martinis.

That had been Jason’s drink.

Meredith shifted as unobtrusively as possible on the leather couch as she waited for the receptionist to admit her to the inner sanctum of Jason Lynhurst, chief operating officer of Lyn Couture. Who was also Meredith’s husband. Apparently.

“Mr. Lynhurst will see you now,” the receptionist called in her frostiest voice.

Meredith always got frosty from women, who were largely unforgiving of the assets God had bestowed on her at birth. And she especially expected frosty from a woman who’d tried not-so-politely to show Meredith the door. She obviously had no clue who she was dealing with.

Lyn Couture bustled beyond the reception area, with sharply dressed men and women engaged in a myriad of tasks. Fascinated, Meredith craned her neck to peek at chalk outlines of sleek outfits stenciled on parchment and fabric swatches laid out on cluttered desks.

This was where the alchemy of fashion and style converged. It was enough to make a woman giddy. She adored everything about clothes: buying them, wearing them, owning them, matching them. But to a woman who wanted to buy half of her sister’s wedding-dress-design company, Lyn Couture was so much more than a place of business—this was a mecca for like-minded people.

Even Meredith had a pair of Lyn jeans. Of course, she hadn’t known who Jason was when she’d caught his eye across the dance floor at that club in Vegas. She’d only known that he moved like a man comfortable in his own body and had cheekbones to spare. And she’d wanted a piece of him. Only to learn two years later she’d bitten off a much bigger piece than she’d ever dreamed.

Curious gazes swung in Meredith’s direction as she followed Frosty Receptionist to the corner office.

“Mr. Lynhurst?” the receptionist called through the open door. “Your visitor is here.”

Mr. Lynhurst. Please. That man had done more wicked things to Meredith in one weekend than all the men since then...combined. Much to her chagrin. Wasn’t there one who could make her forget the perfection of the man who had rocked her world so very long ago?

“Thanks, hon. I’ll take it from here.” Meredith skirted the receptionist and swept into the office as if she owned it because that’s how you got people’s attention.

And she needed Jason’s attention. Because she had to talk him into a quiet divorce. Immediately. It was the only way she’d be able to stomach approaching her father about a loan so she could buy into her sister’s business.

Plus, she wasn’t ready to be married, to Jason or anyone. Not until she figured out who she was going to be when she grew up. That was why in the cold light of morning, the Las Vegas-style marriage ceremony from the night before had seemed like the opposite of a good idea. The paperwork was never supposed to be filed, but here she was. Married to Jason.

The man in question sat behind a glass desk, modern and sharp. Much like the man. As their gazes collided...and held...her breath stuttered. Oh, yeah. That was why no man in existence could erase Jason from her mind.

Those cheekbones. To die for. Artfully messed-up spiky pale blond hair, begging for her fingers to slide through it as she pulled him down for a scorching kiss. Witty, sensual and, God Almighty, he listened when she talked. Men rarely glanced above Meredith’s shoulders, but Jason had asked her opinions, accepted her thoughts.

He was the man she’d compared to all other men and found them lacking. And two years hadn’t diminished his potency in the slightest.

Jason rose from behind his desk, mouthwatering in a slim dark suit likely conceived, created and cut yards from his office.

“Meredith. You look well.” If she’d surprised him with this unexpected visit, he kept it from his smooth voice.

“Thanks for seeing me on short notice.” Well, wasn’t this pleasant? Two people reacquainting themselves, who’d never thought they’d lay eyes on each other again. No point in beating around the bush. “We have a problem. The more quickly and quietly we can resolve it, the better.”

A shield snapped over his expression. “I sincerely hope you are not about to tell me you got pregnant and are just now getting around to mentioning it to me.”

What kind of woman did he take her for? She tamped back the ire. They really didn’t know each other very well. Their wild weekend in Vegas had been about being at a crossroads, not about finding a lifelong mate.

The marriage had been a mistake. They both knew that.

“No, nothing like that.” Meredith waved it off and perched on the edge of one of the chairs flanking Jason’s desk, hoping he’d take the hint and sit back down. This was a friendly visit.

He relaxed, slightly, but didn’t sit down. “Then anything else is manageable. What can I do for you?”

This was so weird. She’d spent hours upon hours sliding her slick body against this man’s. Her tongue had tasted every inch of the skin hiding under that suit. They were strangers, then and now. And yet, not strangers. It felt oddly like they’d seen each other only yesterday.

“So, funny story.” She grinned as if it really was. “Remember how we found that all-night marriage-license place and then thought it would be so great to tie the knot in Vegas to seal the Grown-Up Pact?”

The Grown-Up Pact.

It had seemed brilliant at the time...after four rounds of tequila shots and countless cosmopolitans and martinis. After that first initial meeting of gazes, they hadn’t left each other’s company the rest of the weekend. They’d embarked on a seemingly endless conversation during which Meredith spilled more of her soul to this man she’d just met than she ever had to anyone else. And he’d claimed the same. They’d both been searching for something, anything, to help them navigate the bridge between the caprices of youth and the rest of their lives.

The Grown-Up Pact had never been about staying married, but about proving they could do grown-up things, that a commitment like marriage wasn’t so scary if they could do it together.

Ironic how the marriage that was supposed to prove they were grown-ups had resulted in a very adult problem.

“Of course I remember,” he said. “It was the only time I’ve ever acted on a stupid idea.”

She sighed. That made one of them. She did stupid things all the time. The Grown-Up Pact should have given her the fortitude to move past her beauty-pageant pedigree and find a place in the world where she could be appreciated for what went on between her temples. But she hadn’t found that place, not yet.

“Turns out the marriage license got filed somehow.”

“What?” Jason’s expression turned flinty. “How did that happen? You were supposed to shred the license.”

“I did! Well, I threw it away.” She had to have thrown it away. The problem was she couldn’t precisely recall the actual throwing away part. “No one said anything about shredding.”

“That’s what you do with something you don’t want to fall into the wrong hands, Meredith.” That seemed to be enough to get him to finally sit down. “Credit card numbers, legal documents. Marriage licenses that you realize the next morning you never should have registered for in the first place.”

He threaded fingers through his messy hair and her own fingers flexed in response, aching to feel him again. It was a brutal reminder that she’d half thought they might catch up for old times’ sake, once they sorted out this stupid mistake she’d made. One last roll in Jason’s bed would probably cure her for good and then she could finally move on.

The fierce expression on his face didn’t exactly put a warm fuzzy in her tummy.

“So, it happened,” she said. “We’re legally married and have been for two years. Now we need to deal with it. And then maybe we can, you know, have a drink or two later?”

The suggestion wasn’t at all subtle, but no one did brazen better. She had a perverse need to see if any of the spark between them still existed.

“Deal with it? Oh, I see. You’re here because you saw the announcement of my engagement and you want a payoff.” He nodded wearily. “How much do you want?”

Jason was engaged? That was great. Obviously he’d want to handle this quickly and quietly, as well. She kept trying to convince herself of the greatness and failed.

The disappointment at learning he’d moved on so much better than she had was bitter and sharp. There would be no catching up, then. No last wild weekend.

“I don’t want your money, Jason. Just a no-fault, no-division-of-assets divorce.”

“Sure.” His sarcasm was thick. “As soon as you found out I was Bettina Lynhurst’s son back in Vegas, little dollar signs must have danced before your eyes. Admit it. You filed the marriage license on purpose, hoping to cash in later. Frankly, I’m shocked it took this long for your trick to play out.”

Her mouth fell open. “You’ve obviously forgotten I’m a Chandler and a Harris. I don’t need your piddly fashion-empire fortune. My father’s money built Houston. So keep your snotty dollar signs, sign the divorce papers and go about your business.”

Of course, she’d cut up all her father’s credit cards, but Jason didn’t need to know that.

For God knew what reason, Jason grinned. The tension leeched away as he sat back in his chair. “I wish I could say I’d forgotten how sassy you are. If you’re not here for money, what are you here for?”

“Is this rocket science?” Airily, she motioned to him so it would seem like something other than the really big deal it actually was. Her family could not find out she hadn’t taken care of this problem. “It’s in both our interests to get a quiet divorce. So I’m here to get that done.”

“You already have papers drawn up? Great. Give me a copy and I’ll shoot them to my lawyer. As long as everything’s in order, I’ll sign and mail you a copy. Thanks for coming by. I’ll walk you out.”

He stood. She didn’t. “What guarantee do I have that you won’t spill all of this to the media?”

If her father found out how supremely rash his daughter had acted, he’d never agree to give her a loan to buy half of Cara’s design business. And Meredith wanted to prove once and for all she had what it took to make something of herself.

This loan was the key to the rest of Meredith’s life. Finally, she’d be able to call herself something other than a pageant winner. Finally, other people would have something to call her besides a former Miss Texas: a grown-up.

Jason’s laughter was harsh. “Why in the world would I want to advertise something so ridiculous as a spontaneous wedding in Las Vegas to a woman I’d just met who’s boneheaded enough to accidentally file the marriage license?”

“Well, don’t hold back, sweetie. Tell me how you really feel.” She eyed him. “We’re on the same page. I’d prefer no one found out I married someone boneheaded enough to have me. Here’s a copy of the papers.”

“I’ll have my lawyer check them out. Don’t go anywhere,” he advised. “I want to settle this before you leave town.”

“I’ll be around for a few days, but no longer, so make it snappy.”

With a flourish, she wrote the name of her hotel and her cell-phone number on a sticky note and pasted it to his lapel in a senseless effort to touch him one last time.

Shame about that fiancée. More was the shame that Jason Lynhurst was totally over Meredith.

But the biggest shame was that she couldn’t say the same.

* * *

Meredith. Of all the freaking people to waltz into Jason’s office on an otherwise unremarkable Friday.

She was the only woman who’d ever enticed him out from behind his all-business exterior, the only woman who could claim she’d slept in his bed, when normally, he kept women away from his personal space. Their brief relationship had been crazy, wild, the stuff of his hottest fantasies—and totally out of character.

Meredith was also the only woman he’d ever considered truly dangerous. For his well-being, his future, his state of mind. And definitely dangerous to his self-control. Because he couldn’t resist her back in Vegas and he had a feeling nothing had changed.

This was not the time, nor the place, to dwell on that.

He had a meeting with Avery in fifteen minutes and his sister was going to lord it over him for being late. And getting across town at this hour was more impossible than wishing himself invisible. Hefting his messenger bag to his other shoulder, Jason hailed a taxi instead of taking the company car because it would take too long to retrieve it from the garage.

Yet another disruption in his jam-packed day, thanks to that blast from the past.

Once Jason slid into the cab, his mind immediately flipped back to the bombshell Meredith had dropped on him. Apparently he couldn’t resist thinking about her any more than he could resist that come-hither look she’d used so effectively in Vegas to drive him just this side of insane.

Married. To Meredith.

Once, it had seemed like a fantastic plan, to bond himself—symbolically, of course, as part of the Grown-Up Pact—to a woman who seemed to effortlessly understand his misery and pain and then take it all away.

Their brief affair had its place. In the history books.

Vegas had been a spontaneous trip, born out of his confusion and frustration over his parents’ announcement. Not only were they divorcing after thirty years of marriage, but they were also splitting apart Lynhurst Enterprises, the company they’d founded. Lyn Couture to Bettina, Hurst House Fashion to Paul. Jason would stay at Lyn and Avery would go to Hurst House. Everyone seemed fine with it—except no one asked Jason’s opinion.

He hated it. The legacy he’d been born to, depended on, planned for, was gone. Fractured beyond repair. All at once, he couldn’t deal with it and jetted off to forget in Vegas.

Meredith had been a balm to his broken soul. Exactly what he’d needed at the time, and she’d honed his focus. If it hadn’t been for the turmoil going on at home, he’d never have been open to what she’d offered, but thank God he’d decided to play by different rules for one weekend. He’d left her in that hotel room with a kiss and a thank-you and flown back to New York with new purpose.

He’d reunite Lynhurst Enterprises under one umbrella again or die trying.

That was what he’d hoped to gain with the Grown-Up Pact. A direction, a sense that he could take on this new paradigm and succeed. And the seed of his plan was about to bear fruit.

This meeting with Avery was the next step. Lyn belonged with Hurst House and Jason belonged at the helm as the CEO of the newly repaired company. At least in this, he and Avery agreed and they’d put their animosity aside to work toward it in secret. Today, they’d start putting their takeover plan into action.

Because he couldn’t help himself, Jason did an internet search on his phone for the Clark County, Nevada, marriage registrar, and sure enough, a quick search revealed the plain-text record of his very legal marriage to Meredith Lizette Chandler-Harris.

A blip in judgment, one he couldn’t imagine explaining to the people in his real life. That’s why they’d tracked down the officiant who’d performed the ceremony and asked for the license back so it couldn’t be filed. So what had happened? Jason called his lawyer to let him figure it out and jumped from the cab at the coffeehouse Avery had selected for their clandestine takeover bid, which was near her pretentious Tribeca loft.

As expected, his sister waited, not so patiently, at the back booth. Drumming her fingers in annoyance, she glared at Jason all the way across the room.

“Where have you been? I’m meeting with the Project Runway advertising people in an hour.” Avery’s snootiness was in full force today. “Not all of us got a cushy position at Lyn doing Mother’s bidding twenty-four seven. I have an actual job to do.”

“Hello to you, too,” he responded mildly. Avery liked nothing more than to rile him, so he never indulged her. “Since you’re so busy, you should have picked a place closer to Midtown.”

Jason pulled the paperwork from his bag, which detailed the restructuring of Lyn Couture and Hurst House Fashion back into one company, and set the document on the wooden tabletop. This had been his contribution, while Avery had managed the branding and design aspects, as they hoped to launch the re-formed company with a new spring line. The publicity would be great for all their labels. She also planned to give notice at Hurst House and take a job at Lyn in an effort to make a merger more attractive.

Avery glanced at the sheaf of papers he’d slaved over for weeks. Then she did a double take and raised her brows. “This says you’re going to be the CEO. Except you aren’t. I am.”

“Are you insane? Why do you think I’ve been so passionate about this—so I can work for you instead of Mom?” Avery was delusional. She couldn’t handle a CEO position and besides, it was his. He’d gone to Harvard to get a business degree in anticipation of it. “I’ll take care of you, don’t worry.”

She tossed her long blond hair. “Why do you think I’ve been working on this? Lynhurst Enterprises is mine.”

“Like hell.” Avery had come to hate the split and wanted Lynhurst reunited as much as he did or he’d never have agreed to work with her. Why hadn’t he seen that she’d also developed an appetite for power?

“I’m the oldest—it’s a given that I’ll take over the company once we get it back the way it was.”

“It’s not a given,” Jason countered fiercely and lowered his voice. “I’ve worked harder and longer than anyone, including you.”

His entire life had been groomed toward the concept of stepping into his father’s shoes as the head of Lynhurst. Avery and Bettina had critical roles on the design and marketing side, of course, but they weren’t visionaries. They couldn’t keep a huge ship like Lynhurst afloat and steer it in the right direction, especially not after merging the two halves. It took more than a good eye for color to manage a business.

“That’s a complete lie.” She flicked manicured fingers at Jason’s face, a crafty smile playing about her thin lips. “Whose idea was it to tackle this puppy together? Not yours. It has more punch if we’re united and take this proposal to Mom and Dad as fait accompli. Without that, you’d have nothing. Tell me you didn’t think I was going to hand over the top spot to you, little brother.”

A deliberate jab, like birth order meant something in the grand scheme of things.

“There’s no ‘handing over’ of anything. I’ve earned that position with these merger plans, not to mention what I’ve accomplished as COO of Lyn Couture.” Hell, he’d earned the CEO position with his coup of an engagement to Meiling Lim alone.

His fiancée’s father owned the largest textile business in Asia, and Jason’s marriage to Meiling would solidify the partnership between Lyn Couture and overseas manufacturing houses. It was a match negotiated over the boardroom table and made excellent business sense.

Meiling’s delicate features and proper demeanor represented exactly the kind of wife an up-and-coming CEO needed. They liked each other and had similar goals for their union, namely, that it would benefit their families. Neither of them expected a love match and, in fact, they both preferred this sort of arrangement. He would gladly include her in his life and they’d have a calm, advantageous marriage...unlike the tumultuous, frenzied, crazy-making one he’d have with someone like Meredith.

The last thing he needed was a woman in his life who goaded him into making bad decisions. He’d leave that kind of woman to his father.

Jason was incredibly fortunate Meiling’s traditional family seemed forward-thinking enough to overlook his Western heritage. He was a man navigating a world largely populated by women. He needed an edge. Meiling was it. Nothing could stop his careful plans.

Except for Avery’s misguided notion of slipping CEO out from under him. Which would happen when camels learned to swim.

“Why don’t we worry about who will be the boss when the merger is done?” Jason suggested smoothly.

They needed to focus on more important things or there wouldn’t be a CEO position to fill. Bettina and Paul were very comfortable in their current roles as CEOs of their halves, especially Bettina since she largely depended on Jason to advise her, but the winds of change were upon his parents whether they liked it or not.

Avery scowled but nodded. “Fine. For now. But don’t think you’re getting away with something. I’m not going to back off. Let’s get to work.”

They hashed out details for the next twenty minutes until his sister had to jet to her Project Runway meeting. In the cab back to Lyn, Jason dialed Meiling. It was only appropriate she hear about the marriage-license snafu from him. Hopefully she would appreciate the expedience of already having divorce papers in hand. Once his lawyer looked over them, it would be a done deal and he’d never have to see Meredith again...except in his mind where her luminous eyes beckoned him into an upside-down world where pleasure and understanding and connection didn’t seem like such foreign concepts.

He had to stop thinking about her. It was disrespectful to Meiling, if nothing else. There was no scenario in which Meredith being in his life—even briefly—made a bit of sense.

Two

It was past seven o’clock, but Meredith’s stomach seemed stuck on Central Standard Time and dinner had about the same appeal as a tetanus shot. Nerves. Everything rode on this very quiet, very quick divorce.

Lars, her father’s lawyer, had been so patient when he’d explained that he’d found the marriage record during a thorough investigation of her father’s beneficiaries. If her father hadn’t decided to update his will, she might never have known the marriage to Jason existed and thankfully, it had come out before she approached her father about the loan.

Without a prenuptial agreement, Jason could claim to be a beneficiary to her father’s billions if he chose to fight for them in court. Thank God Lars had been her father’s lawyer since before she was born and was sweet on her. He’d agreed to keep her stupidity a secret until she took care of the divorce and then he’d advised her to come clean to her father or he would be forced to mention it on her behalf.

A legal marriage she didn’t know about smacked of carelessness, and she couldn’t stand the thought of asking her father for a loan in the same breath as admitting a mistake she hadn’t yet fixed. Her sister, Cara, would never do something rash like a quickie Vegas wedding to a man she’d just met, let alone mess up the undoing of it. Meredith wanted to prove she could be as responsible as Cara. Once Meredith had Jason’s signature, she could present the marriage and divorce as a package deal, and hopefully everyone would agree she’d handled it like an adult who deserved a loan and a partnership opportunity in a successful business.

Good thing Meredith wasn’t hungry. If one of the trendy restaurants around her hotel tried to swipe her credit card to pay for the exorbitant menu prices, the plastic would probably catch fire and disintegrate. The credit limit on her Visa was laughable, but she’d qualified for it all by herself. No one could take away the satisfaction of paying her own way—that was what the Grown-Up Pact should have helped her realize, but it had taken a lot longer for the epiphany than she’d expected.

She hadn’t counted on sticking around this expensive Manhattan hotel over the weekend, but she recognized Jason’s wisdom in being available, just in case.

No biggie. She probably didn’t need to eat anyway. Better to get used to lean times now because once she bought into Cara’s business, she’d have a loan to repay on top of a paltry savings account.

Listlessly, she ran through the TV channels a fourth time. When her cell phone beeped, she greedily grabbed it in hopes of taking her mind off Jason.

Except it was a text from the man himself: I’m in the lobby. Text me your room number.

A quick, sharp thrill shot through her midsection. Oh, she didn’t fool herself for a minute. He wasn’t here to take her up on the ill-advised invitation for a drink. The man was engaged and she sincerely hoped he wasn’t the kind of guy who’d fool around on his fiancée. If he was interested in “catching up,” she wasn’t—poaching on men in committed relationships wasn’t her style.

She texted him back and hightailed it to the bathroom to splash on some perfume and freshen her makeup because Chandler-Harris women did not allow anyone to see their cracks.

The knock startled her despite her expecting it. That was fast.

She opened the door and the dark expression on Jason’s face swept out to engulf her and not in a good way. The back of her neck crawled. “What’s wrong?”

“Just let me in. I’m not having this conversation with you while lounging in the hall.”

Silently, she pushed the door wide, forcing him to slide past her to enter the room. It was a deliberate ploy, but his solid body brushed hers deliciously and she wasn’t sorry she’d done it.

Jason filled the hotel room and she couldn’t tear her gaze from him. “I take it you aren’t planning to ask me to dinner. Which would be totally fine, by the way. I haven’t eaten yet.”

“You’ve ruined everything,” he said shortly. “Everything. I’ve worked so blasted hard for two years, and in one afternoon, it’s gone. Poof.”

“What are you talking about? I’m here to fix the problem.”

“I told my fiancée the cute story of a torrid weekend in Vegas and how, get this, it’s so funny, but it turns out I’m still married. She was not amused. In fact, she was so unamused, our engagement is over.”

“Oh, Jason! I’m so sorry.” Meredith’s hand flew to her mouth involuntarily. How terrible. He had to be beside himself. No wonder his mood seemed so black. “I never imagined—”

“So here’s how this is going to go. You cost me a very important contact in the textile industry. You owe me. And you are going to pay, starting right now.”

She took a step backward as his ire rolled over her. “Uh, pay how?”

This was not the man she remembered from Vegas. He looked the same, had the same rocking body and a voice that should be required by law to talk dirty to her twenty-four seven. But this Jason Lynhurst was harder, more brittle. She didn’t like it.

“In as many unpleasant ways as I can devise,” he muttered and swept her with a look. “But not that way. This is strictly business, sweetheart. I need you to do something for me.”

Since he’d just lost his fiancée, and likely was nursing a broken heart, she’d let the condescension slide. “I’m truly sorry that your fiancée is upset. I’m sure you can smooth things over. Do that thing with your mouth, you kno—”

“Meiling is not upset.”

Fire flared from his gaze, giving her a great big clue who the upset party was in this equation. Since he’d interrupted her again, she crossed her arms and perched on the desk so he could burn off that mad.

“If she’s not upset, what is she?”

Jason started pacing, rearranging his spiky hair with absent fingers as he stomped around in her small room, shedding his suit jacket as he went.

“She’s unwilling to associate with someone who would marry a stranger in a crass Vegas wedding and then fail to follow up to ensure the marriage was dissolved. Her exact words.” He tossed his jacket on the bed with a great deal more force than necessary. “I’ve embarrassed her in front of her family, and in her world, that’s unforgivable. So there’s no smoothing it over.”

The light dawned. “You weren’t in love with her.”

Why that made her so happy, she couldn’t pinpoint. But the realization moved through her with a wicked thrill nonetheless.

Jason shot her an annoyed glare. “Of course not. It was a business arrangement, and now I’ve lost the in I had into the Asian textile market. Lyn needed Meiling’s connections. Since this is all your fault, you owe me.”

Okay, this was not what she’d anticipated. Where was the sensitive, passionate man she’d spent many luscious hours with once upon a time? He’d been replaced with a coldhearted suit who possessed not a shred of romance in his soul.

“My fault?” She tightened her crossed arms before she used one to right-hook him to the ground. “Seems like your fiancée—sorry, ex-fiancée—called it exactly right. You didn’t follow up, either. Actually, you should be thanking me that I came to you with the truth before you got married. You’d be guilty of bigamy. Imagine explaining that to your Meiling.”

“I depended on you to destroy the papers.” He made a noise of disgust. “I shouldn’t have, obviously.”

That stung. Mostly because the implication—that she couldn’t be counted on and wasn’t smart enough to handle a simple task—was actually true in this case. “You’re not endearing me to your cause, honey. Doesn’t seem like I owe you anything but an apology. Which I’ve already given.”

“You want to play hardball?” He advanced on her, the look in his eyes enigmatic and edgy. “Fine. I can indulge you. I lost an advantage and you’re going to help me regain it. Granted, you don’t have Meiling’s connections, but I’m sure you’ve got many tricks up your sleeve. Until I get back on track, what’s my hurry to sign the divorce papers?”

He stopped not a foot from her as his meaning sank in. He wasn’t going to give her the divorce unless she did whatever it was that he wanted. Which still hadn’t been clearly established.

Poking a finger in the center of his chest, she held her ground. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“Try me. I’ve got nothing to lose.”

Gazes deadlocked, they stared at each other. No way would she blink first. Or move her index finger from his hard torso.

God in Heaven, that beautiful face of his. She soaked it in and something sharp tore right through her abdomen. Many a morning over the past two years, she’d woken in a cold sweat with no idea what she’d dreamed, but certain Jason Lynhurst had played a starring role in it. That face lingered in her mind’s eye far past the time when she should have forgotten it.

And here he was. Her fingers relaxed and flattened against his chest, easily, as if her palm belonged there. He glanced down and back up, meeting her gaze again with lowered lids. As if the thrumming tension had wound through him with equal fervor.

“If you’ve got nothing to lose, then I’d be more than happy to try you,” she murmured.

She bunched his shirt in her fist and reeled him in. He hesitated for an eternity and then their lips met. The sweet taste of Jason swept through her and it was as if they’d never been apart. She nearly wept as Jason’s arms came around her, drawing her closer.

This was the Jason of Vegas, the one she’d worked so hard to forget and couldn’t.

Oh, yes. Her heart burst into motion, pumping euphoria through her veins as if it hadn’t beaten in two long years. Hungrily, he sucked her deeper into the kiss and sparks danced behind her eyelids.

She pulled back, chest heaving from the effort of not diving into him with abandon. As they stared at each other, locked in a long moment, a glimpse of the man he’d been flitted through his features.

Something pulled at her heart. Oh, that was not good. That was why she’d never forgotten him—he’d taken a piece of her she’d never meant to give.

“Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, can we start over?” she asked, her voice more tremulous than she would have liked.

Because she’d just realized letting him go in Vegas might have been the biggest mistake of her life.

* * *

In spite of it all, a chuckle spilled from Jason’s mouth and reluctantly, he let his arms drop from the siren he’d somehow wound up kissing. He’d come here to wring her neck, but instead, she’d expertly defused his mood.

But that didn’t mean they’d be falling right back into a crazy-town affair, not when so much was at stake. Not when he couldn’t seem to keep his hands off her. “Depends on what the definition of starting over is.”

Meredith pursed her kiss-stung lips, and he decided it was better to put a little more distance between them. She was even more dangerous than he’d realized and he refused to follow in his father’s footsteps. Paul had left Bettina for a younger, sexier wife, with no regard to the consequences to his company or his family. Obviously, it was in the Lynhurst blood to let passion rule, but that didn’t have to be Jason’s fate and someone had to step up where his father had failed.

Jason had a vision for putting the pieces of his life back together and no woman would sway him from realizing it. He was stronger than his father.

While he flopped into one of the overstuffed chairs in the sitting area of her hotel room, she crossed to the minibar and pulled two beers from the fridge, flipped off the caps expertly and handed him one.

“I don’t want to be at odds, Jason. You’re upset. I get that. But don’t come in here slinging ultimatums and expect me to fall in line. Let’s do this differently.”

What the hell. He loosened his tie, guzzled a third of the cold dark beer and raised his eyebrows. “Which is how?”

She took the opposite chair and swung it around to face him, settling into it with her beer. Kicking off her heels, she curled her feet under her and propped her chin on her hand. “Talk to me. Like you used to. Tell me what you want in exchange for the divorce. I might volunteer to give it to you, for old times’ sake.”

Like you used to. As if they had history.

But really, didn’t they? Just because it had only been one weekend didn’t make it any less significant, whether he’d like to go back in time and erase it or not.

“What if what I really want is to stay married?”

It wasn’t, but he was in a reckless mood after all his careful plans had unraveled in the course of an afternoon. One kiss wasn’t enough to get him completely over the destruction this woman had caused. Plus, she’d piqued his curiosity about the divorce. Why was it so important to her? There were a lot of women who might find it convenient to be married to someone from a powerful fashion-industry family. The fact that she didn’t intrigued him.

Of course, Meredith had always been one of a kind.

Her genuine smile hit him in the not-yet-cooled lower half, further proving the point. No woman had ever turned him on with simply a grin. Except his wife, apparently.

“You don’t want to stay married any more than I do,” she said. “The fact that you’re threatening me with it tells me you need something very badly. What?”

His return smile shouldn’t have been so easy, but her mind had always been the most attractive thing about her. He might never have left Vegas with a solid idea of how to heal the fractures in his life without her influence. Why not continue the trend?

“Do you remember why I was in Vegas?”

“I remember everything, including that cute birthmark on your butt. Your parents divorced and split up Lynhurst. You were a wreck over it.” She waggled her brows. “Or you were until I distracted you.”

It had happened two years ago. The memories shouldn’t be so sharp, but they were...for both of them, obviously. “You did take care of me, quite well. And vice versa, if I recall.”

“Oh, yeah. That was never in question.” She shut her eyes for a beat and hummed happily under her breath. “Best nineteen orgasms of my life.”

“You kept track?”

She glanced at him from under lowered lashes, her gaze hot and full of appreciation. “Darling, I didn’t have to keep track. Every one of them is burned into my center. Indelibly.”

He let himself drown in memories of her for a moment. None of the barriers he easily employed with other women seemed to have an effect on her anyway. “Yeah. I can see your point.”

The experience was scored across his soul, as well. Meredith had brought out a wild side he hadn’t even realized existed. Or maybe it only existed because of her, which was all the more reason to stay far away.

“Was there a reason you brought that up?” Meredith asked. “We seem to be stuck on it, when I could have sworn you had something else entirely you wanted to chat about.”

He shook his gaze free from the seductive depths of Meredith’s gaze and cleared his throat.

Obviously, he needed to take a cold shower if he hoped to accomplish anything. Whatever power she held over him couldn’t be allowed to interfere with the endgame. “I spent the last two years executing the plan I came up with in Vegas. It’s simple. Reunite Lyn Couture and Hurst House under the Lynhurst Enterprises umbrella and step into the CEO position. Who better to run it than me, right?”

Slinging a shapely leg over the arm of the chair, she tossed back the last of her beer as her skirt rode up to reveal a healthy slice of gorgeous thigh. “Yep. You’ve got CEO written all over you.”

“Meiling was a part of that plan.” A critical part. She was the kind of wife a CEO needed, not the overblown sex goddess in the opposite chair. But he had to work with what he had. “Now that she’s out of the picture, I have to come up with plan B.”

“That’s where I come in.”

He nodded, relieved for some odd reason that she still read him so well. “I don’t want to use the divorce as leverage.”

“But you will.”

Transparency meant she saw the not-so-nice-guy parts, as well, and that made him a little uncomfortable. He shrugged. “This is my legacy. I cannot fathom veering from the course I’ve laid out and that means I have to improvise if I want to fix the rift in my family’s company. You fill the gap where Meiling’s advantage used to be and I’ll sign the divorce papers.”

Meredith was a loose cannon—prone to dropping projectiles wherever she went. But she had a sharp wit and determination and best of all, she wanted something from him. That was the best combination possible under the circumstances.

“Why don’t you sign them now and I’ll offer to help as a thank-you?” she countered sweetly and that was the opening he’d been waiting for.

He cocked his head. “Why are you so hot for a divorce from a guy you didn’t even know you were married to last week? Am I such a bad catch?”

Her giggle warmed his insides. A lot. Too much.

“I have never thought of you as a fish.”

Which didn’t answer the question at all. He should sign the papers right now and let her go back to Houston. But he couldn’t, and he really didn’t want to examine why it was so important that Meredith help him because he suspected it had too much to do with this nameless draw between them.

And that was a problem. One of many.

But he did need an edge; that much was still true.

If Avery would only drop her bid for CEO, he wouldn’t have to play this game of chicken with Meredith. But Avery would definitely dig in her heels and she was a Lynhurst—that made her a treacherous opponent. He didn’t for a minute underestimate his sister’s vindictiveness or her strategic mind. He’d let her have the CEO position over his dead body. Meredith was his secret advantage and she owed him.

Now he had to figure out how she could help.

“This goes both ways, you know.” He flipped a hand between them. “I’m talking. You have to talk, too. Tell me why this divorce is so important.”

She sighed and her expression blanked. It was wrong on her. Normally, her beautiful face glowed with expressiveness and he was a little sorry he’d brought up the question. But not entirely. She’d been trying to weasel out of spilling this information for too long.

“You have a dream and so do I,” she said and it was clear she was choosing her words carefully. “I’ve been advised that in order to pursue mine, it would be beneficial to have my affairs in order. Correction—affair. I have no interest in being married. To you, or anyone. So sign the papers and everyone wins.”

Now he was thoroughly intrigued, especially because he’d never in a million years label the reuniting of Lynhurst as a dream. It was a fact. “What’s your dream, Meredith? Tell me.”

“Why?” she asked suspiciously. “More leverage?”

Oh, yeah, she was no dummy. And that turned him on as much as everything else in her full package. More maybe. The fact that she was so savvy about his motivation changed it instantly. “No, because I’m curious. My mouth has been between your legs. That gives me special rights to know what’s between your ears, too.”

Her long, slow smile blew the blank expression away. Better. And worse.

“You win. But only because that’s a great point and I happen to like it.” She retrieved another beer and handed him a second, as well, then settled into her chair.

He tapped the longneck. “Trying to get me drunk so you can take advantage of me?”

She snorted. “Honey, I don’t need alcohol for that.”

Unfortunately, she might be right. All the more reason to nail down an agreement about their future interaction—which would be minimal. “So I made a great point. You liked it. Spill your beans.”

“I’m buying into my sister’s wedding-dress business.” And then she clammed up with a show of drinking her beer.

There was more. He could sense it beneath the surface. “Seems like being married might be a bonus for that line of work.”

“It’s not, okay? Not this way.” She shook her head. “I can’t tell my family I did tequila shots in Vegas and wound up married to some guy. They’d never take me seriously again.”

As he thoroughly and uniquely understood the sentiment, he grinned. “You make it sound tawdry. You can’t tell them we fell in love?”

“Please. You can’t even say that with a straight face and neither could I. They’d wonder why we haven’t had any contact in two years, for one thing.”

“Now that you mention it, I’m curious. Did you ever think about looking me up?”

He had briefly entertained the idea of contacting her on the plane home but then dismissed it as he hashed through mental plans about what it would take to get Lynhurst Enterprises back together. Besides, no one could be involved with Meredith long-term; the idea was ludicrous. She wasn’t the kind of woman you settled down with. She was too lush, too distracting, too...everything. She’d compelled him to make stupid decisions without even opening her mouth.

He’d known then she’d spell disaster for his plans. Regrettably, he’d underestimated how catastrophic she’d ultimately be.

“Not once.” Casually, she lifted the beer to her lips. Too casually, and he saw the guilt in the depths of her eyes. But why she’d lie was a mystery. “We agreed to part ways in Vegas. The Grown-Up Pact wasn’t about actually staying married, right? It was about proving we could take grown-up steps. If we could do it together, we could do it apart. So why stonewall me on this divorce? Makes no sense.”

“Does, too. Getting married had value. Staying married has advantages, too.”

“For you. Though I have yet to hear how.”

The time had come to lay it all on the line. “In order to reunite Lynhurst Enterprises, I have to take a strategic plan to the executive committees of Lyn Couture and Hurst House Fashion. My former fiancée’s father owns the largest textile company in Asia and our marriage would have solidified a partnership with Lyn Couture, thus lowering production costs dramatically. Hurst House would want to benefit from this association and from my leadership.”

Meredith could never fill that gap, but there had to be some way to spin this situation to his advantage.

“My sister, Avery,” he continued, “was the second half of the plan. She runs the branding and marketing for Hurst House and we planned for her to quit Hurst House to come work for Lyn. Without her, the company would flounder, thus forcing my father, the current CEO of Hurst, to consider merging.”

There was more, much more, but he kept those cards close to the vest. She didn’t need to know his entire strategy.

“That’s quite brilliant.” Genuine appreciation shone from Meredith’s gaze. “Sorry a weekend in Vegas a million years ago messed it all up.”

The weekend in Vegas had helped him conceive this plan. Without it, he might never have come up with it. Ironic that the same weekend had come back to bite him.

“There’s more. Avery’s not on board with the plan anymore. She wants the CEO spot and I wouldn’t put it past her to cook up her own scheme.” Instantly, he knew how Meredith could provide that missing advantage. “I need someone she doesn’t know to be my spy at Hurst House. Someone firmly on my side who can tell me what she’s up to.”

Meredith lit up but then quickly tamped back her excitement. “You want me to be a spy in a New York fashion house? In exchange for a divorce? That doesn’t seem like a fair trade.”

“Really?” Nonchalantly, he swallowed the last of his beer. “What would?”

A crafty glint in her eye raised the hair on the back of his neck.

“You have to put me on the payroll.”

That’s what she wanted? He’d expected her to ask for full marriage benefits, which would have been very difficult to refuse. Though he would have refused, for the sake of Lynhurst. He couldn’t afford to let a woman cloud his vision. “Sure. I have no problem compensating you, though you’d have to be on the payroll at Hurst so no one suspects anything. What else?”

“The marriage stays a secret, now and after the divorce is final. I can’t let it become known or my wedding-dress dream is over.”

“That’s easy. I don’t care for anyone to know about it, either.”

If Avery got ahold of that bit of information, she’d use it to her advantage somehow. The last thing Jason needed was to give someone leverage—someone other than him, that was.

She eyed him. “That’s not what it sounded like a minute ago. You were all set to blab to your family about how we were in love.”

“I was kidding. Love might make the world go round, but it tears businesses apart.” Like his parents’ failed marriage had done to Lynhurst Enterprises. He’d never repeat his father’s mistakes. “The only reason to marry someone is if it gets you closer to where you want to be.”

“I see. Marriage is your weapon. How romantic.” She rolled her eyes. “Lucky me.”

“Marriage is a tool,” he corrected. “Romance is for losers who can’t figure out how to get a woman into bed. I suffer from no such limitations.”

“You might be surprised at what I consider romantic.” She swept him with a heated once-over that slammed through him with knock-down, drag-out force.

“You’re not going to be my wife in anything other than the legal sense. This is a strictly platonic deal, Meredith. I’m serious.”

Her laugh rolled through him. “We’ll see about that. It’s not like you’re suffering from a broken heart.”

He had the distinct feeling he’d inadvertently challenged her to turn him into a liar. “So that means we’re agreed?”

“I’ll help you in exchange for the divorce, but only for a few weeks. I want twenty grand, not some measly minimum-wage salary. And you have to foot the bill for my hotel room.”

He stuck out his hand and Meredith shook it. “Welcome to Lynhurst.”

“Happy to be on board.” She pulled him closer, skewering him with a sultry gaze. “What does a girl have to do to get the COO to take her to dinner?”

Three

Meredith spent Monday morning shopping at Barneys and cursed her meager credit limit. She’d packed a few days’ worth of outfits for her unexpected trip to New York, not nearly enough for the two or three weeks she now planned to stay. And nothing in her suitcase would fly as a wardrobe for an employee at a high-class place like Hurst.

She still couldn’t quite believe she had landed a job in a real fashion house. It was a dream come true, but one of those usually unattainable childhood dreams like becoming an astronaut or ballerina. And part of the dream was getting to dress the part.

Asking Jason for an advance on her salary would have invited too many questions, so she made do with the sale rack. Most of the clothes were out of season. She’d be outed as a fraud in a New York minute. No pun intended.

But still, it was a morning shopping at Barneys in Manhattan and life did not suck. Except for the part where she still didn’t have the divorce papers signed...and she’d have to take an extended vacation from her job with her sister.

For the past two years, she’d assisted Cara as she designed and sold wedding dresses to Houston brides. Cara had recently begun selling her dresses in an upscale boutique and business was booming. Meredith wanted to make more of a contribution than simply as an assistant. What else could she do but buy in as a partner? Wedding dresses were Cara’s first love and she excelled at the design side. Meredith might as well help on the financial side. She had little else to offer.

This was her chance to prove she had what it took. To prove everyone wrong who thought there wasn’t anything more to Meredith than the stuff they saw on the outside.

Cara was in Barbados. Or was it Saint Martin? Meredith could never keep track of which resort her brother-in-law had dragged her sister to. Keith, her sister’s husband, ran around the Caribbean fixing up resorts in his consultant job and Cara traveled with him. Hopefully she’d understand Meredith’s need for time off without asking too many questions.

Meredith made a mental note to call her sister later.

Her phone buzzed and she keyed up the text message from Jason: Where are you? I’m at the hotel.

She texted him back: Shopping. Be back soon.

What was that all about? Was she supposed to sit around and wait for His Highness to appear? He might have his precious leverage—and she was still a little miffed about it, make no mistake—but that didn’t mean Meredith planned to jump when he said jump.

When she got to the hotel after dallying an extra ten minutes just because, Jason was waiting for her in the lobby. He didn’t notice her right away. Unashamedly, she watched him as he talked on the phone.

The man was unparalleled in the looks department. Clean-cut, gorgeous cheekbones, equally comfortable in a suit, jeans or nothing at all. It was enough to make a girl salivate.

And then he saw her. A smile spread across his face and sent a shiver down her spine.

Platonic was not going to happen. She was in New York for a couple of weeks, they were married, for God’s sake, and they’d certainly had plenty of sex in the past. Why would he even say something so ridiculous?

They’d walked away from each other once and it hadn’t worked out so well. It was time to try not walking away.

He pocketed his phone and stood.

“You should give me a key,” he suggested when she met up with him as he strode toward the elevator.

“In case you want to make a middle-of-the-night visit to your wife? Because I’m totally okay with that.”

He chuckled and stuck his palm against the open elevator door so Meredith could enter ahead of him. “Because I’m paying for the room. I might as well use it to make private phone calls instead of letting everyone in the lobby hear about Lyn’s strategic plans.”

Why was he so against resuming their relationship? It wasn’t as if she was asking him to stay married—that wasn’t what she wanted, either. Once she got herself established in a career, then she could think about whether she actually wanted to get married. Some women—like Cara—dreamed of nothing but white dresses and bouquets, but Meredith had never thought marriage was all that great of a goal.

Figuring out how to be a grown-up was the scary, frustrating can’t-see-the-light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel quandary Meredith couldn’t dig her way out of. That goal felt as out of reach as it had two years ago.

She stuck her tongue out at him and fished the extra card key out of her purse, then handed it over. “Seems like a waste of a good hotel room to me. Sorry you had to hang out in the lobby, sugar, but perhaps you should have told me to expect you and I would have been here,” she said without a trace of irony.

She hadn’t heard from him all weekend. Not that she’d expected to.

He waved it off and followed her to her room. “I was in the neighborhood, so I came by to go over all the arrangements I’ve made for you at Hurst House.”

“Already?” Her throat got a little tight as this Machiavellian deal of Jason’s got real.

What did she know about being a spy, in a fashion house or otherwise? The people at Jason’s father’s company would see through her instantly. If she failed at helping Jason get his plans back on track, would he refuse to sign the papers to spite her?

She should have gotten more of this established before she agreed. Actually, she should have told him no and demanded the divorce. But she well remembered how destroyed he’d been over the company splitting up, and she did have a little bit of fault in the marriage becoming legal in the first place, though how the paperwork had gotten submitted still baffled her. Her father’s lawyer guessed that someone filed it on their behalf, probably a well-meaning hotel maid, but they’d never know for sure. Too much time had passed for anyone to remember.

She felt horrible about her part in it, and if she wished to prove she wasn’t actually a scatterbrain, this was her opportunity. She couldn’t abandon Jason. Adults took responsibility for mistakes and accepted consequences. Period.

“Yeah, already.” His eyebrows went up. “You think I have time to waste? Avery doesn’t rest, and she’s too smart to underestimate. She’ll have alternate plans in place in hopes of upstaging me. I can feel it.”

“So what am I going to be doing?”

“You mentioned the other night at dinner that you’d been working as a designer’s assistant. So it was a no-brainer to put you in that same role at Hurst House.”

“Just like that?”

She would be working for a God-honest designer. If it was that easy to get a job working in the fashion industry in New York, could she have been doing it all along?

Her throat opened a little. At least she didn’t have to learn a whole new job to be Jason’s spy.

Except working with Cara was miles and miles away from working with an established clothing label. Cara loved her and if Meredith occasionally messed up, it didn’t feel like the end of the world. That’s why buying into Cara’s business was so important. It wasn’t like Meredith could work with just anyone. It was the only opportunity available to her.

“Just like that. After I called my mother and asked her to recommend you, she called Hurst House Human Resources and informed them you’d be arriving tomorrow morning. The vice president of HR still has a guilt complex over defecting to Hurst House, so he’d pretty much do whatever my mom says.”

“I see.” How crazy was that? If only the rest of Meredith’s appointed task went so easily. “And that’s it? I show up, help one of the designers and wait around for Avery to stroll by? What if I never even see her?”

Why had she agreed to this again?

“You’ll have to wing it. If you want the divorce badly enough, you’ll figure out how to get the information I need.”

Oh, so that’s why he needed leverage. He didn’t have any idea how this was supposed to go and hoped she’d be desperate enough to figure it out for him.

She snorted to cover her rising panic. “Lucky for you I’m a fast thinker.”

“It’s not luck.” He shot her a strange look. “If I didn’t think you could handle it, I never would have suggested this idea. You’ve got one of the sharpest minds of anyone I’ve ever met and I have no doubt you’ll put your own spin on the assignment. In fact, I’m counting on it.”

He thought she was smart. The revelation planted itself in her abdomen and spread with warm fingers. And of course, that alone motivated her in a way nothing else could. “You got it. I’m gonna be the best spy you’ve ever seen.”

Jason was the only man who’d ever seen past her skin to the real Meredith underneath. She’d never dreamed it would come to mean so much. Being here in his presence again, after all this time, had solidified why no other man did it for her.

But it had also brought home an ugly truth.

In Vegas, it had been okay to be clueless and spill all her uncertainty because Jason was at the same place. He’d grown up after coming home, like they’d planned. She hadn’t. And that seemed to have everything to do with why he was so different.

She wanted the Jason of two years ago. And this unexpected extra time together gave her the perfect opportunity to peel back the layers of this new version of the man she’d married to see if she could find him again.

* * *

By ten o’clock the next morning, Meredith wished for a mocha latte, a bubble bath and that she’d never heard of Hurst House. Allo, the only-one-name-required in-house designer she’d been assigned to assist, hated her. Allo hated everyone as best Meredith could tell.

Allo called for shears yet again—the third time he’d changed his mind about whether he wanted chalk or shears—so Meredith trotted obediently to the table where all of Allo’s tools had to be carefully stored when not in use. Even if he planned to use them in the next five minutes.

She placed the shears in Allo’s outstretched hand and waited for the next round of barked instructions.

“Non, non, non.” Allo threw the shears on the floor and kicked them across the beautiful blond hardwood. “I said pins. Take the cotton out of your head and pay attention.”

“Pins. Coming right up,” she muttered and cursed under her breath as she crossed to the cabinet yet again.

Tomorrow she’d wear flats. And bring cyanide to flavor Allo’s chai tea. Not really, but she’d fantasized about it more than once after being told to remake the beverage four times.

Who was Meredith to question the genius of Allo, who had single-handedly launched Hurst House into the stratosphere with his line of ready-to-wear evening gowns? She’d even been a little tongue-tied when she’d first met him and secretly hoped she might absorb some of that genius. She still might. If she didn’t kill him first.

None of Allo’s assistants lasted longer than two months, according to the gossip she’d overheard in Human Resources that morning.

No wonder Bettina’s phone call had netted Meredith a job so fast.

Now all she had to do was figure out how to casually run into Avery, pump her for secret information about her plans to thwart Jason’s bid for CEO and then take over the world. Easy as pie.

At lunchtime, Meredith wearily contemplated the wilted salad and unidentifiable meat on offer in the building’s cafeteria. The shopping trip to Barneys had been a wasted effort since everyone employed at Hurst House wore the Hurst House label, a small fact Jason could have mentioned. So her credit card was maxed out unnecessarily—though the off-the-shoulder Alexander Wang dress she’d found buried in the sale rack was amazing and she loved it. But having an amazing dress meant a low-cost and tasteless lunch.

All in the name of couture espionage.

“I wouldn’t recommend the Salisbury steak.”

Meredith glanced behind her and recognized Janelle, the girl from Human Resources who had performed Meredith’s employee orientation. “Is that what it is? I wondered.”

Janelle laughed. “They like to keep us guessing.”

It was unusual to get such a friendly reception from another woman, and Meredith needed all the friends she could get if she hoped to score any information useful to Jason’s cause. “What would you recommend for someone on a budget?”

Janelle pointed to the unrecognizable off-white lumps behind the Salisbury steak. “Chicken. Can’t go wrong with that. It doesn’t taste like anything in the first place, so it’s hard to ruin it.”

“Point taken.” Meredith collected her lunch plate and inclined her head toward Janelle. “Any other first-day advice? I mean besides don’t take a job working for Allo. That one I figured out on my own.”

“Yeah, sorry about that.” With a sympathetic smile, Janelle jerked her head in the direction of the dining room. “We made a pact in HR to do what we can to convince you to stay. Allo generates more paperwork for us than the tax department. Sit with me and I’ll give you the scoop.”

Oddly grateful for the support, Meredith followed Janelle to an unoccupied table as the other woman chatted about how to get around Allo’s strident personality, how to win points and anything else she deemed worthwhile.

It wasn’t until lunch was nearly over that Meredith got the break she’d been waiting for.

Janelle folded her napkin and glanced at her watch. “I’ve got to get back. I’ll see you at the Garment Center gala tonight, right?”

“I don’t know. What is it?”

“Samantha was supposed to invite you. I told her to send you an email with the details.” Janelle looked annoyed. “Hurst House is a supporter of Save the Garment Center and there’s a fund-raiser tonight. Avery Lynhurst—oh, she’s the vice president of Marketing, if you haven’t met her yet—is running the event and she wants all employees there. It makes her look good.”

What better place to get in front of Jason’s sister than a social event? And as a brand-new Hurst House employee, all the more reason to make sure she met everyone in attendance.

And it was a fashion-industry event that she got to attend. The thought made her downright cheerful.

“I’ll be there,” Meredith pledged and watched Janelle as she left the lunchroom.

As soon as Janelle was out of sight, she called Jason, who answered on the first ring.

“You have news, I trust?” he asked shortly, and the undercurrent said she was interrupting him, so she better make it good.

“There’s an event tonight,” she murmured softly in case anyone was listening in. “A Garment Center thing. Avery’s going to be there, so I am, too. It’s an opportunity to chat with her without raising any alarms.”

“Excellent.” Jason’s voice warmed. “I’d forgotten about the gala, but you’re right, it’s perfect.”

“There’s one problem. I don’t have anything to wear.”

“That’s the exact opposite of a problem,” he said drily. “It so happens I know a couple of people in the evening-wear business. I’ll swing by your hotel at six.”

“You don’t know what size I wear.”

“Sweetheart, I’m a Lynhurst and that’s plain insulting. Trust me,” he advised with a chuckle. “See you tonight.”

And that promise alone got her through the afternoon with Allo, the master of terror.

By tonight, she’d be one step closer to getting Jason’s signature on the divorce papers. Then she could go back to Houston and get started on the rest of her grown-up life.

That had always been the plan. It should still be the plan. But she feared she’d spend the rest of her life dreaming of the man she’d divorced and continue to date lackluster men who couldn’t begin to compare.

How had getting a man’s signature on a piece of paper complicated everything so much?

Four

Jason pounded on the door of Meredith’s hotel room for the fourth time and juggled the zipped garment bags. Again. When had he become an errand boy for a woman who’d probably never owned a clock in her life?

Enough was enough. He’d said six. It was six-oh-seven and Meredith had given him a key. And all the clothes he’d brought were heavy. If he didn’t let himself in, they’d be late to the gala, and it would be more difficult to enter separately, keeping up the ruse that they didn’t know each other.

But what if she was in the shower or blow-drying her hair in a little satin robe? One or the other was the most likely reason she hadn’t heard his many knocks.

That decided it.

It would serve her right to gain an audience if she was naked in the bathroom. A guy could hope.

Bobbling the garment bags until his fingers closed around the card key in his pocket, he cleared the threshold and dumped his cargo on the bed. His wife strolled from the bathroom at the same moment, clad in nothing but a skimpy towel, revealing miles and miles of legs and toned arms.

All that bare skin seared his retinas. The full force of her slammed into the backs of his knees, weakening them dangerously. It was one thing to barge into a hotel room on the possible assumption the female occupant might be undressed; it was another to get his wish.

His tongue went numb and every drop of blood in his body drained into the instant bulge in his pants.

How could he have walked away from that in Vegas? He couldn’t tear his gaze from her and a half whimper, half growl crawled out of his throat before he could stop it.

She didn’t even have the grace to look startled or embarrassed.

“Hey, you,” she called and pulled some frothy concoction of lace from her suitcase without censor, like men appeared in her bedroom unannounced on a regular basis.

Maybe they did. He frowned. Why did that thought make the back of his throat feel as if it was on fire?

“Uh, hey.” He cleared his throat as she slid a foot into the sexy panties.

Instantly, he whirled to face the window. Apparently she intended to get dressed as if he wasn’t even here. And what had he expected when he’d cavalierly charged into her room?

“Surely you’re not shy all of a sudden. You’ve seen everything I’ve got and then some.”

He could hear the smile in her voice. “It’s the ‘and then some’ that’s the problem,” he muttered.

This was ridiculous. The thought of his wife with another man made him want to claw the paint off the walls, yet she wasn’t really his wife and they were not going to repeat the craziness of the first round of their relationship. They had no relationship. And that’s how it was going to stay.

She laughed. “You’re wearing a tux. Are you going, too?”

“Yeah. You don’t think I expect you to do this all on your own, do you?”

Of course, the plan to accompany her had formed well before she’d reminded him what happened when they spent more than five seconds in a room together. Abrupt loss of focus. Instant desire to do nothing more than spend several hours in bed, with Meredith’s soft laugh and softer skin against his.

The woman turned him stupid instantly.

“What, you don’t trust me?” she asked coquettishly. “I’m dressed. You can stop pretending to have some misguided sense of modesty.”

“I’m not pretending. Just because we’re married doesn’t mean I should get a free show.”

He turned to face the interior of the room and got an eyeful of Meredith’s idea of dressed—a bra-and-panty set skimpy enough that it should be illegal. God, she was going to kill him.

The freaking bath towel had covered more flesh. Her smile said she knew exactly what she was doing to him.

“Honey, you can fantasize about keeping this platonic to your heart’s content. Just don’t hold it against me if I give you something else to fantasize about.” She raised her eyebrows suggestively. “What did you bring me?”

A hard-on the size of a subway train, apparently. “Clothes. I don’t remember what.”

She huffed out a sigh. “I’ll check it out myself, then.”

This heightened sense of awareness was merely the product of the close confines and distinct lack of sex over the past few months. Maybe if he could get a dress on her, and they got the hell out of this very private hotel room, he could breathe again.

Obviously, he had more in common with his hormonally driven father than Jason would have liked.

She unzipped the garment bag on top of the pile and squealed. “Oh, Jason.”

His name in her throaty come-and-get-me voice washed over him, tightening the already massive erection he probably wasn’t hiding as well as he hoped.

Who was he kidding? It didn’t matter if they left the hotel room; this evening was going to suck regardless because he couldn’t think about anything but sex where Meredith was concerned.

He put some steel in his spine and pulled the glittery dress from the hanger. “It’s one of Allo’s. Vogue revealed it in a spread last week, but it’s not in stores yet. I thought you might like to be the first woman to wear it out.”

“What?” Her mouth gaped. “Me? You want me to wear a just-revealed dress designed by Allo to a fashion-industry event?”

Undisguised glee radiated from her expression and he forgot what he’d been about to say. Why did pleasing her make him feel as if he’d been given a gift?

“Put it on,” he said, his voice husky and foreign. He cleared his throat. “I want to see it on you.”

She complied, sliding her lithe legs through the opening at the top and gathering it into place against her torso. Then she presented her back, lifted her dark fall of gorgeous hair away and called over her shoulder, “Zip me up?”

Since his fingers were already straining for the zipper before she’d finished speaking, it seemed the answer was yes. He crossed to her and her heat reached out to engulf him. Slowly, he skated the zipper up its track, following the line of her bare flesh above it with his gaze.

Wrong way, his brain screamed. Unzip! Unzip!

He resisted. Barely. But his fingers wouldn’t let go of the zipper pull, even though the dress was as zipped as it could be. Meredith’s exotic perfume wrapped around him and somehow, his nose was nearly buried in her still-damp hair. It smelled like green apple. He sucked in a breath and the combination of scents and the essence of her wove through his senses.

She swayed, brushing his arousal with her shapely rear. He sought the curve of her waist, meaning to push her forward a step but instead rested his hands there as he drew her backward, flush with his body. Her head tipped back against his shoulder and she moaned so sexily, the answering spike of lust nearly blinded him.

So he shut his eyes and let his lips trail down her exposed throat. She tasted decadent and sinful and he wanted to sink into her.

“Jason,” she murmured and twisted in his arms to peer up at him, her gaze heavy with unconcealed desire.

The kiss they’d shared roared back on a wave of unsuppressed memory and he ached to lay his lips on hers again. Her face tipped up, bringing her mouth within centimeters of his and paradise was within his reach.

But then she murmured his name again and said, “I’m absolutely okay with being really late to the gala. But are you?”

Rationality swamped him and cooled his ardor in a snap. “Yeah, no. Not really.”

He stepped back. Meredith’s mystifying and infuriating pull on him hadn’t diminished, that was for sure. He didn’t like it when someone had that much leverage over him, especially when he couldn’t envision how she’d use it to her advantage.

Best-case scenario, she’d use it to get him into bed and leave it at that. He didn’t ever count on best-case scenarios and besides, she’d have to try a lot harder to break his will.

His subconscious dissolved into gales of laughter and then reminded him that she’d been the one to halt what had almost turned into an invigorating reintroduction to the pleasures of his wife’s body.

“All right, then.” She smiled softly and he ignored the slight hitch it put in his gut. “Stop being so sexy and we’ll have a much better shot of getting through the door.”

He rolled his eyes. “The rest of the clothes are for you, too. I heard a rumor that you made a faux pas by wearing Alexander Wang your first day on the job. Allo is jealous of him. He wanted that Balenciaga job that Wang landed.”

If Jason had known that weasel of a vice president in HR would stick Meredith with Allo, he’d have specified otherwise. Too late now. He couldn’t risk pulling any strings to get her reassigned or someone might get suspicious. But he could help her earn some points with her extremely difficult boss and the new clothes would accomplish that like nothing else. Allo was a narcissist to the core.

Meredith raised a brow. “Why, exactly, did you need me as a spy when you apparently already have plenty?”

“Nobody gossips about anything relevant to my merger plans.” He waved a dismissive hand. “Only what people are wearing. Welcome to the world of fashion. And now you have a wardrobe worthy of the design floor at Hurst House.”

The new wardrobe was also a bit of a thank-you, and he hoped she liked what he’d painstakingly picked out among the castoffs from Fashion Week.

“Wait, there’s more than this dress? I figured the other bags held backups in case this one didn’t fit.” Meredith dug through the garment bags and squealed some more over the geometric dresses, skirts and angular tops from Hurst’s newest line. None of it was available in stores yet, either.

“There you go insulting me again. You can try all of it on later,” Jason advised. “We should leave. I have an out-of-the-way place in mind for a quick dinner. I’m sorry I can’t take you to Nobu, or some place you might enjoy more, but we can’t chance being photographed together.”

She gave him an indecipherable look. “You don’t have to take me to dinner at all. We’re not dating. Just married.”

“Which is why I should take you to dinner. Don’t you think a wife should be treated better than a woman I’m simply dating?”

“Well...yeah.” She tossed the four-hundred-dollar V-neck silk blouse on the bed. “But I thought you were Mr. No-Romance. Marriage is a tool, you said. I’m here to help you get a boring executive’s job so you’ll sign the divorce papers.”

Romance? Dinner wasn’t a precursor to seduction. Why was he torturing himself like this again? He threw up his hands. “Fine. Don’t eat, then. We’ll go to the gala and I’ll shove you out of the car three blocks away so you can walk. Sound like a plan?”

“Good thing for you new clothes put me in a forgiving mood. So I’ll overlook your bad attitude.” As she stepped into a pair of sky-high stilettos—Miu Miu unless he missed his guess—she shot him a sunny smile. “And I would love to go to dinner. Thank you for asking.”

Point taken. He groaned. “Meredith, would you like to go to dinner?”

She crossed to him and patted his cheek. “Maybe you should take some husband lessons if you hope to marry someone for real. Because, honey, you’re obviously out of practice. For someone who thinks of marriage as a tool, you sure haven’t figured out how to use it yet.”

Her husky voice put plenty of innuendo in the statement, making it crystal clear she thought he was a moron for not taking advantage of what she was offering.

He followed her out of the hotel room and prayed her next suggestion wasn’t an offer to be his tutor. Because he had the horrible feeling he might accept.

* * *

The third glass of champagne disappeared much more quickly than the second, and Meredith forced herself not to reach for a fourth. Avery Lynhurst still hadn’t made an appearance and if Meredith was forced to watch another supermodel hit on Jason, she couldn’t be held responsible for her actions.

It was bad enough that she couldn’t keep her eyes off him. And worse, he didn’t seem to be similarly afflicted. It was as if she didn’t exist.

Meredith smiled at the buyer for Nordstrom who’d been chatting her up for ten minutes. Some of the most powerful people in the New York fashion scene milled about in the Grand Ballroom of the iconic Plaza hotel and it was a bit dizzying to be in the midst of it.

Everyone in attendance dazzled in top-tier labels, and she voraciously soaked in the visual panorama. One lucky woman had somehow scored a Galinda Gennings gown adorned with real diamonds.

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