“You don’t trust me.”

But he still wants her in his bed

If event planner Teresa St. Claire can pull off the wedding of the year, she’ll save her career and her troubled younger brother. But her gorgeous ex, billionaire businessman Liam Christopher, interferes, insisting he wants to help. Teresa has to do this alone—to protect both him and her brother. Yet the ties binding her to Liam aren’t so easily broken...

JOSS WOOD loves books and travelling—especially to the wild places of Southern Africa and, well, anywhere. She’s a wife, a mum to two teenagers and slave to two cats. After a career in local economic development, she now writes full-time. Joss is a member of Romance Writers of America and Romance Writers of South Africa.

Also by Joss Wood

Mills & Boon Desire

The Ballantyne Billionaires

His Ex’s Well-Kept Secret

One Night to Forever

The CEO’s Nanny Affair

Little Secrets: Unexpectedly Pregnant

Love in Boston

Friendship on Fire

Hot Christmas Kisses

The Rival’s Heir

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

Redeemed by Passion

Joss Wood

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-09255-5

REDEEMED BY PASSION

© 2019 Harlequin Books S.A.

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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Version: 2020-03-02

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Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Epilogue

About the Publisher

One

Liam Christopher tipped his head up and tracked the winking light of a jet above him. That could, for all he knew, be Brooks Abbingdon’s jet carrying Teresa away from him. The image of Teresa curled up in Brooks’s lap, him comforting her as she cried—because, hell, if anyone deserved to cry it was Teresa St. Claire—flashed on his retina and his grip tightened on the crystal tumbler in his hand. He heard a sharp crack and a second later, expensive liquor ran over his palm and under the wristband of his watch.

Liam opened his hand and looked at the cracked glass and its sharp shards. Surprisingly, there was no blood. Transferring the broken glass from his hand to the coffee table on the balcony, he shook the droplets of his Manhattan cocktail off his hand before reaching for his pocket square and wiping the liquid away.

Well, that was a waste of good booze. Liam looked back into the luxurious Presidential Suite of the Goblet Hotel and saw his friend Matt Richmond pacing the area between the designer sofas and the dining table. Matt was pissed and he had a right to be. His gala evening was ruined and would be long remembered for all the wrong reasons.

And it was all Teresa’s fault. Well, not her fault exactly—she hadn’t known that her brother would show up and ruin months of work—but as the event planner, the buck stopped with her.

Would her company recover from this? He doubted it. Would she? Teresa was tough but she’d had a couple of hard knocks lately. When Matt asked her to leave the retreat immediately, taking her brother with her, Teresa knew that her reputation was about to take another beating, and Liam understood why she felt the need to run. Why would she want to stay and witness the pitying looks, the cruel smirks, hear the caustic comments?

She also wanted to run from him. And that, he understood most of all.

Seeing movement in the room behind him, Liam turned his head to watch Nadia approach Matt, her eyes on her man. Matt was still on the phone but he held out his hand and Nadia tucked herself into his side, her arms encircling his waist. Matt dropped a kiss on her head before continuing his conversation. Liam’s stomach cramped with what he thought might be jealousy. He’d never believed in true love—hadn’t been exposed to it growing up—but maybe it did exist; maybe it was just as rare as hell. Matt had found his Holy Grail in Nadia but Liam wasn’t naive enough to believe that everybody, most especially him, would be that lucky.

Love, he was convinced, wasn’t for him.

Matt threw his phone onto the sofa behind him and pulled his wife into his body, burying his face in the crook of her neck. Although Nadia was a foot shorter than Matt, Liam knew that he was sucking strength from her, that Matt was leaning on her. They were a unit, taking turns to lead and to follow, to give and receive strength. They were two trees growing together, sharing soil and water, their branches and roots intermingling.

It struck him that he and Teresa were two separate pine trees planted in a regimented row. They both stood tall, took the wind, never bent. They’d been planted too far apart—and too much had happened between them and to them—to bridge the gap to be able to even start to explore anything deeper than flash point sex.

Liam turned away and walked to the edge of the balcony, gripping the balustrade with tight fingers. Maybe Teresa’s leaving, her breaking it off for good, was—as she’d said—what was best for her, him, Christopher Corporation. For everybody involved.

And if that was true then why did he feel like week-old crap?

Hearing Matt’s footsteps he turned his head and saw Matt approaching him, a bottle of bourbon in his hand. Matt raised his eyebrows at the broken glass and, without words, handed Liam the bottle. Liam took a hefty sip before dropping the bottle to his side, holding it in a loose grip. By the time dawn broke, he was going to be best buds with this bottle.

“Where’s Nadia?”

Matt leaned his butt against the railing and rolled his head from side to side to release the knots in his neck. Liam didn’t bother; his knots were now permanent residents. “She went to bed,” Matt replied. He glanced at his watch. “It is almost three in the morning.”

“It was a hell of a night.” Liam took another hit from the bottle, ignoring his still-sticky hand. He glanced up, saw another jet and forced himself to meet Matt’s eyes. “I feel like I should apologize.”

“For what?” Matt asked, his eyes and tone weary. “You didn’t cause Teresa’s brother to ruin my gala evening.”

“Neither did Teresa,” Liam responded, needing to defend her.

“Tell me about her brother,” Matt said, moving to the sofa and dropping down. He immediately tucked a pillow under his head and propped his feet up onto the coffee table.

Ordinarily, Liam would never consider divulging someone else’s secrets but this was Matt, his best friend, and he trusted him implicitly. He also needed Matt’s sharp brain to help him make sense of what was, at this crazy hour, the senseless.

“It’s a tangled mess but I’m going to tell you what I do know, gathered from what Teresa has told me, along with what my investigator dug up.

“So years ago, Joshua, her brother, liked drugs and alcohol a little too much and got himself in debt with some unsavory characters. They offered him a job to pay off the money. He became a chauffeur—”

“And he, knowingly or unknowingly, ferried drugs,” Matt finished for him.

Matt was, by far, the sharpest tool in the shed. “Yep. He was busted and was jailed. Via Mariella Santiago-Marshall, Teresa employed the talents of The Fixer—”

Matt whistled his astonishment. “I’ve heard of him. He’s—”

Liam raised an eyebrow. “Effective?”

“I was going to say ruthless but that works, too.”

“Anyway,” Liam continued, “he got Joshua’s charges dropped, him out of jail and across the country. The kid didn’t learn and has raked up another huge gambling debt. A mafia-type organization has bought that debt from the original crew and it’s rocketed to an impossible sum.”

“How much?”

“Seven million dollars,” Liam replied. “Several weeks back Teresa was told that he’d been kidnapped but that turned out to be BS. Teresa’s been informed that she needs to repay his loan, but she doesn’t have that kind of cash, and they’ve never called her back, as far as I know.”

“Pay it for her, offset it against the cost of the shares you are going to buy from her when she’s completed her yearlong mandatory stint on the board of Christopher Corporation,” Matt suggested. “As per the terms of your father’s will.”

“Teresa is hoping that she can delay repaying them until she’s sold her shares. She wants to keep me out of the equation. Hell, maybe she’s shopping around for a better deal for the shares.” The thought of Teresa selling those shares to anyone else made his stomach whirl. If she did that, he would no longer have the thin sliver of control over Christopher Corporation he did now.

“Nobody has given Teresa, or Joshua, a firm deadline for the repayment of the debt.”

“Weird,” Matt agreed. “So it should be imperative that he keep his head down, even stay out of sight. Then why would Joshua crash a highly visible, live-streamed event?

“What does Teresa think?” Matt asked, after a moment’s silence.

“I don’t know since she blew me off and hightailed it back to Seattle in Abbingdon’s private plane,” Liam muttered his sour reply. He pulled his cell out of his pocket and hit the speed dial number that would connect him to Teresa. It didn’t mean anything that he’d moved his personal assistant, Duncan, to number two on his list and Teresa to number one. It meant nothing. At all.

Liam listened to her phone ring and urged her to pick up. He needed to know that she was okay, that Joshua was okay—God, the kid hadn’t looked, or sounded, good. And he wasn’t talking about the bruise his fist made on his jaw. Her phone went to voice mail and he dropped a hard “Call me” order into her message system.

Liam placed the bourbon bottle on the coffee table, sat down in the chair opposite Matt and rested his forearms on his knees. He released a series of low but intense f-bombs.

“That kind of sums up my feelings about this evening,” Matt commented. “I’ve been doing damage control but there’s not much spin you can generate when everything is caught on video and then live-streamed.”

Liam winced. “How many views?”

“Far too many.” Matt lifted his glass in a sarcastic salute. “I’ve got to admit, when Teresa messes up, she does it properly.”

“She didn’t know her brother was in town, never mind that he was going to do that,” Liam retorted.

“So defending her seems to be your default reaction tonight,” Matt commented, hitting the nail on its head.

Liam sent his best friend a hard stare. “What’s your point, Matt?”

“It’s been one drama after another with her, starting with the fact that you thought she had an affair with your dad.”

“She explained that. My father was her mentor and good friend.”

Matt rolled his eyes. “They had to be very good friends for him to leave Teresa a twenty-five-percent stake in Christopher Corporation worth millions.”

When Matt put it like that, all his fears and insecurities about their relationship floated to the surface. Was he being conned? Could he believe Teresa’s version of what happened? In his final hours, Linus did confirm that there had been nothing between them but friendship and Liam wanted to believe him, them. But he’d been raised to believe that everyone lied so how the hell could he trust anything they said? Anything anybody said?

He thought he could, at least, trust his parents to some degree but their latest lie had been the biggest of his life. As his father lay dying, he realized that it was scientifically impossible that his parents, with their blood groups, could produce a child with his blood group. Ergo, either only one of them was his biological parent or he was adopted. Hell of a thing to realize at the age of thirty-two.

Was it any wonder he was so messed up when it came to relationships?

It was late and Liam was done with talking. He wanted this conversation to end so he told Matt that Teresa wanted nothing more to do with him. Liam caught the look of relief on Matt’s face. “You’re happy about that?”

Matt shook his head. “Happy is the wrong word...” He sat up, swinging his feet off the table. “It’s just that relationships shouldn’t be this hard, bud. Over the past few months you’ve thought that she’s a liar, a gold digger and an opportunist. You’ve slept with her and then slept with other women.”

No, he hadn’t. “I tried to sleep with someone else to get her out of my system.”

Matt waved his explanation away. “Whatever. She hit the tabloids, dragging you along with her. Those scum-suckers informed the world that she had an affair with your father and that she only slept with Linus to get her hands on the company.”

He knew this. He’d goddamn lived it. “Do you have a point and are you going to get to it in the near future?”

“My point is that, while I actually like Teresa—”

“You could’ve fooled me.” Liam’s interjection was bone-dry.

“I do like her,” Matt said. “She’s smart, super-organized and she’s an amazing event planner. Yeah, I’m mad as hell that tonight ended the way it did, but intellectually, I get that it wasn’t her fault. But her career did not need this and if she was boycotted before, it’s going to be nothing like what’s going to happen to her now.”

Liam gripped the bridge of his nose. God.

Matt’s long sigh was audible. “But at the end of the day, my loyalty is to you. And, as your friend, I am telling you that I don’t think she is good for you because, frankly, you look like crap.”

Well, that wasn’t news.

“Are you in love with her?”

Liam’s head shot up and his eyes slammed into Matt’s. His throat closed as panic crept up. In his sappier moments lately, he’d flirted with the idea of love, but that was just a result of hormones and stupendous sex. No, of course he wasn’t in love with Teresa; he didn’t believe in love. But he was attracted to her, stupidly so. And attraction was easily confused for that other emotion. He croaked a “No.”

Matt stood up and gripped his shoulder. “Can I then just point out that this woman you profess not to love has the innate ability to mess with your head and your life? That’s an enormous amount of power for someone you just like to sleep with.”

Craphelldammit.

“Go to bed, Matt.”

Matt smiled for the first time that evening. “Yep, that’s where I’m heading. Into the arms of the woman who, instead of messing with my head and life, actually makes my life better and brighter.”

Liam glared at his friend as he walked back into the hotel room and thought about returning to his own suite, to the empty king-size bed waiting for him. But the night was mild, this sofa was quite comfortable and he had a bottle to keep him company. And really, he had too much on his mind to sleep.

Liam lay back and tucked a pillow under his head and watched the light of airplanes move between the stars.

* * *

Right, exactly what level of hell had she reached?

Teresa St. Claire had experienced hot—Liam Christopher believing that she’d had an affair with his father—and knew what blistering felt like when her face was plastered over the front pages of the tabloid press accusing her of stealing Liam’s fortune.

But tonight she’d stood inside the flames, her skin melting.

Now, as Brooks Abbingdon’s jet cut through the dark night, Teresa felt frozen, her heart encased in dry ice. Maybe true hell was this dead-on-the-inside, will-never-recover feeling.

Teresa flopped down into the chair opposite Brooks Abbingdon and eyed her brother through half-closed eyes. A bright blue bruise colored his jaw, and his lower lip was swollen. She loved Joshua, but right now she didn’t like him even a little bit. The only man she felt remotely charitable toward was Brooks Abbingdon, who’d offered her a ride out of the nightmare that was her latest professional disaster zone. He was also sitting across from her, ankle on his knee, deep in thought.

Teresa swallowed down a groan and felt her stomach cramp. Her reputation, along with her company, had been dancing on the knife-edge of ruin for weeks but her brother gate-crashing her most illustrious clients’ gala evening and, worse, grabbing the mic from singer Jessie Humphrey and placing himself front and center while ranting about rich losers and liars had pushed her off that sliver-thin edge.

And since she would be, if she wasn’t already, person very non grata by morning, why had Brooks Abbingdon, CEO of Abbingdon Airlines, rushed to her rescue? He was rich, successful and gorgeous so she had no idea why he’d offered them a lift on his plane heading back to Seattle. But she wasn’t complaining; she needed to get Joshua back under the radar as soon as possible and Brooks had offered her a way out.

Joshua was hunched over in his seat, mumbling to himself. Thank God he’d stopped ranting, his words and sentences not making any sense.

Teresa couldn’t pull her eyes off his face. Joshua had been a pain in her ass, especially these past few years, but he was her baby brother; she’d always looked after him. Initially, she’d blamed his actions on a combination of drugs and alcohol, but earlier she’d touched his left arm and he’d cried out. Teresa rolled back his sleeveshirt to see a small but distinctive puncture mark on his forearm. In a place where it would be difficult for him to self-inject. Like so much else about this night, nothing made sense.

But hell, why was she surprised? This was her insane life; everything and anything was possible.

Teresa looked from Joshua to Brooks and found his eyes studying her. Teresa waited for the kick of attraction, for a spark, and sighed when nothing happened. Maybe she wasn’t responding to him because she was exhausted and overwrought because Brooks was everything she normally found attractive in a man. At six-four or so, he was tall but perfectly proportioned with wide shoulders, narrow hips and long, muscular legs. His voice, carrying the accent of an expensive British education, was deep and luscious, his face masculine and sexy, and his skin the color of old sepia photographs.

But he wasn’t, dammit, Liam.

Gah!

As if she’d summoned him, Teresa heard the discreet beep of her phone and there was his name, flashing on the screen. Her heart whimpered and her stomach clenched. Nope, she couldn’t talk to him, not tonight, possibly never again. For the past few months, since she’d stumbled back into his orbit, she’d felt off-kilter and was constantly uncertain about what she’d face on any given day. She’d been a duck, serene on the outside but paddling like hell under the water. As a result, she was utterly drained on just about every level. Tonight she’d bled out every pint of energy she’d ever possessed.

Teresa simply did not know if she’d be able to pick her head up, struggle on. Curling up in a ball and weeping sounded far more fun than fighting another day.

She was done. Possibly for good.

Brooks cleared his throat and Teresa lifted her head to see him holding out a tumbler of whiskey. Taking the glass, she glanced at Joshua. He’d fallen asleep, his head between the edge of the seat and the wall of the plane. Tossing back her whiskey, she lowered the glass and met Brooks’s sympathetic eyes.

“Would you like another?” Brooks asked, his words holding the snap of Eton and Oxford.

Teresa shook her head. “If I do, I’ll collapse in a heap and then you will have two St. Claires to deal with.”

Teresa blew out her breath and gestured to Joshua. “I am so sorry. I know I’m repeating myself, but I don’t know how he found out where I was working or what prompted him to—” She hesitated, looking for words. Destroy my career? Embarrass the hell out of me? Bankrupt my business? “—do what he did.”

Brooks lifted his shoulder in a quick shrug. When he didn’t respond, Teresa took a deep breath and bit the bullet. “I will absolutely understand if you want to rescind your offer to have me plan your wedding.”

Brooks stared at her for a long time and Teresa resisted the urge to squirm. She wouldn’t blame him if he pulled his offer for her to plan his wedding; he’d floated the offer earlier that evening, back at the gala, before her carefully planned event went to hell on horseback.

Unbidden, snapshots of the evening jumped onto the big screen of her mind. Joshua ripping the microphone from Jessie’s hand, his incoherent screaming. Liam, bigger and stronger than her lanky brother, tackling him to the ground, his fist connecting with Joshua’s face. And all of it streaming live to Jessie’s fans around the world.

Teresa placed her hand on her heart and tried to rub the pain away. But nope, it wasn’t going anywhere.

Brooks tapped a long finger against the Waterford tumbler and shook his head. “Up until your brother’s unfortunate interruption, the gala evening, and the weekend, was going well. I’m intelligent enough to see how much work you put into the preparations and how dedicated you are to your job. What he did wasn’t your fault.”

At the unexpected vote of support, Teresa felt her eyes sting. “Thank you.”

“Let’s discuss my wedding.”

Teresa frowned. It was close to three in the morning, she was exhausted and, after a crappy evening, Brooks wanted her to talk flowers and food? Teresa slapped back her frustration. He was offering her a lifeboat as she treaded water in a stormy sea.

Okay, then. She’d talk weddings. “Sure.”

Then she realized that she had no idea who Brooks was marrying and, come to think of it, was still surprised to hear of his engagement. She’d pegged him as a confirmed bachelor, someone who wasn’t interested in settling down. She pulled a smile up onto her face. “Who’s the lucky lady?”

Brooks stared at her for a moment, his eyes not leaving hers. “You will be informed in due course.”

Okay, then. That was a super-weird response. Teresa worked hard not to show her shock, to react in any way other than polite acquiescence. Why the secrecy? Wasn’t the bride supposed to be part of these discussions? What was going on here?

Her thoughts scrambling, Teresa linked her hands around her knees and tried to corral her thoughts. Right, moving on. “Do you have a preference on where you would like to marry? When? How many guests? What’s your budget?”

Brooks held her eyes when he dropped what Teresa hoped would be the last bombshell of the evening. “You have an unlimited budget and I’m offering to pay double your normal fee.”

“What’s the catch?” she asked, not sure that she wanted to know.

Brooks smiled. “I need you to organize the wedding of the year so that it can take place on the thirtieth.”

“Of what month?” She needed at least six months to prepare; six months was tight but doable.

Brooks held her eye and didn’t flinch. “I’m getting married on the last Saturday of this month, Teresa.”

Two weeks?

Frick.

Teresa held out her glass and nodded to the whiskey bottle. “Can I have another? And, respectfully, are you insane? There is no way I can plan a wedding in two weeks.”

Brooks pulled out his phone and dialed. “She said she can’t do it,” he said to the person on the other line. He then handed her the phone. “He wants to talk to you.”

Two

There was a method to his madness...and a madness to his methods. Shakespeare’s quote, Brooks Abbingdon thought, had never been more apt. His particular method of madness was to marry.

In two weeks’ time.

Teresa hung up the phone and looked at him with wide, defeated eyes. “I’d be...” she hesitated “...happy to do your wedding. Two weeks is no problem.”

Another success for The Fixer and that meant that another hefty bill would be landing in his Brooks’s inbox soon. Fact: sometimes you had to pay for things to go your way.

Seeing that Teresa was at the end of her rope—it was the early hours of the morning and she’d had a hell of a day—Brooks told her to rest and Teresa immediately dropped her head back and closed her eyes. She’d been shocked by his time frame; hearing that he had yet to choose a bride might cause her brain to explode.

Because, really, who planned a wedding without securing a bride?

Apparently, he did.

Brooks stretched out his legs and jammed his hands into the pockets of his suit pants, mostly to hide the small tremor in his fingers. Married? Him? He’d always believed, still did, that wedding rings were the world’s smallest, strongest pair of handcuffs. But here he was, about to get hitched because his grandfather refused to listen to reason.

Stubborn old bastard.

Lester Abbingdon desperately wanted to invest in a friend’s yet-to-be-developed chain of luxury boutique hotels. Brooks wasn’t convinced that the investment would provide a decent, or any, return. But Lester rather fancied the idea of being the world’s next hotel mogul and, since he couldn’t take money from the swimming-in-cash Abbingdon Trust, he was determined to raise the money he needed by selling his personal stake in Abbingdon Airlines. Brooks had no intention of dealing with a new partner, of having to justify his decisions or, far worse, ask for permission to do what he wanted, when he wanted, with his company.

No, the only option was to buy his grandfather’s shares from him and in order to raise the cash needed—without having to get banks or other investors involved—that meant, yippee-doo-dah, getting married.

Brooks stared out the window into the inky blackness and remembered his first visit to the stuffy offices of the Abbingdon Trust’s lawyers. He’d been twenty-one and in their wood-paneled offices, they told him that, as the only Abbingdon heir, he was entitled to a sizeable monthly income from the trust but he was also set to inherit a crap-ton of cash on his twenty-fifth birthday. If he was married.

The offer would only be renewed every five years and at twenty-five, using Lester’s money to buy his first two cargo planes, he’d opted not to marry—he’d been having too much fun playing the field and had no intention, and no need, to sacrifice his freedom. Ditto at thirty but at thirty-five, Abbingdon Airlines was worth the inconvenience. He wanted control and for control he needed cash; to get the cash he needed to marry...

He’d established and grown Abbingdon Airlines; it was his hard work that had made the company one of the most trusted and respected companies in the country. His clients knew that they could rely on him to get them, or their goods, where they needed to go in the shortest time possible. But Lester wanted to go and play Monopoly with real-life assets and had placed him between a rock and a hard place. Shouldn’t ninety-year-old men be smoking cigars and playing bridge?

And of course, every time they spoke about this deal, Lester never failed to remind him that he was ecstatic that he was being forced to marry and that maybe, God willing, he’d get a much-desired great-grandchild, preferably a grandson, out of the deal. Lester then launched into his oft-repeated lecture on his lack of commitment to providing an heir to continue the Abbingdon line, that if he didn’t hop to it—his words—six hundred years of DNA-soaked history would cease to exist. The art and furniture collected over twenty-four generations would scatter to private collectors all over the world. Abbingdon Castle and its surrounding land would be sold to the highest bidder. The Abbingdons weren’t royalty but they were damn close.

And it all rested on Brooks’s shoulders...

Or in his loins.

He’d have a kid, one day. Not now. Right now all he wanted to do was save his company.

Brooks took a sip of his whiskey, staring past young Joshua St. Claire—sleeping now, thank God—to the inky night beyond the window of his Global 7000 jet. The kid was so out of it, he barely registered that he was on a private jet and hadn’t noticed the rich leather seats, the fine wood veneers and the stylish carpets and stonework. This jet had just hit the market but he owned one and, being aviation crazy, it annoyed him that neither of his two guests appreciated their luxurious mode of transport.

And his annoyance had nothing to do with the aircraft’s hefty price tag, which was upward of half a billion dollars. This plane was superbly designed, exquisitely manufactured and brilliantly engineered. It was, in its way, a masterpiece. And his guests, like his grandfather, didn’t share his passion for anything with an engine and two wings.

His business was damn good. And his life, up until two weeks ago, had been friggin’ amazing.

Yet, here he was, planning his wedding. And because the Abbingdon Trust paid for all Abbingdon weddings, he was going to take full advantage and turn his wedding into a massive networking event, inviting all his present clients and anybody he thought could be a potential client. If he was going to put his head in a hangman’s noose, then he was going to swing in style.

All he now needed was a bride.

Brooks looked at the cool beauty in the chair across from him and cocked his head. Teresa St. Claire was beautiful; there was no doubt about it. Tall and slim, she rocked an old-school Grace Kelly vibe, classy as hell. Despite the rumors and gossip swirling around her she’d held her head high and he’d yet to see her unhinged, to break into a sweat.

He liked calm women, women who could keep it together when their lives were falling apart. That showed a strength of character few women—hell, few men—possessed. Teresa St. Claire was beautiful, sexy and smart. What more could he want in a wife? The Fixer had also suggested her as a candidate to be his wife; said that she was a possibility and that he could, possibly, make that happen.

Marrying Teresa would’ve been an elegant, and quick, resolution to his current problem. Except for the little problem that she was crazy about Liam Christopher... He wasn’t the most perceptive guy in the world but even he noticed the way she looked at Christopher. Part exasperation, part denial, part annoyance but mostly like all she wanted to do was strip him naked and do several things to him that were X-rated. Brooks knew that he was marrying for convenience, as a means to an end, but he certainly didn’t need to watch his wife pine for someone else. Or wish he was someone else.

So he refused The Fixer’s offer and settled for his arranging for Teresa to organize his blowout wedding.

What could The Fixer have on her to (a) think that he could get her to agree to marriage and (b) to get her to undertake such a massive event on such short notice? It had to be something...

But Teresa’s past didn’t concern him and he had bigger worries. Like who might say yes to his crazy-ass proposal to marry him.

In two weeks’ time.

Happy bloody birthday to him.

* * *

Teresa leaned back in her chair and stared out the high-arched windows of her waterfront office in Seattle, just a few blocks from Pike Market. She loved her view, her open-plan office with its high ceilings, industrial lighting and its hardwood floors. But today all she could think about was the look of betrayal on Joshua’s face as she left him at the tightly controlled and monitored rehab facility two hours away. He understood that he had to lie low but, damn, his tightly crossed arms and the emotion washing in and out of his eyes nearly dropped her to her knees.

She wanted to believe his denials about his addictions, she really did. But she still didn’t know how to explain that small puncture mark on his arm. Had someone injected him and then, in his woozy and hazy state, manipulated him to take a flight across the country to Napa to gate-crash Matt’s party? Was that possible or was she overreacting, allowing her imagination to run wild because she so badly wanted to believe him?

All her anxiety about Joshua would simply evaporate if she could pay off Joshua’s debt. Then they’d both be free. She’d been such a naive fool to believe that when the drug-running charges against Joshua were dropped—thanks to The Fixer—he would get his life together. Silly her.

Most women in their late twenties were concerned about their careers, their young children or their new marriages—and, frequently, a combination of all three—but no, she spent her time stressing about unpaid debts to criminals, her inconvenient attraction to a man who blew hot and cold but whom she couldn’t avoid, and rocketing from crisis to crisis. It was times like these that Teresa wished she had a mother to turn to but her mom, like her brother, relied on her. Since her father’s death, she’d been the glue holding their family together, the strong one, the capable one, the one who could always make a plan.

It would be so nice to rely on someone else, to have someone in her corner loving and supporting her but she was terrified that that person would, just like her father had, fade on her. Sharing the load meant opening up, allowing herself to be vulnerable, exposing herself...

What if that person left, disappeared on her, leaving her to waft in the wind? No, it was better to hang tough...

Besides, there was only one person who’d scaled her walls to peek inside her soul—she hadn’t told anyone else but Liam about Joshua and the stress she was under—and he was even more closed up and messed up than she was. They were a hell of a pair...

Teresa heard a throat clear and lifted her head to see Corinne hovering by her partly open door as if deciding whether to knock or not. Teresa dropped her hands, swallowed her sigh and gestured her assistant inside. Corinne’s face reflected the grim mood of the rest of her colleagues: they were worried about the future of Limitless Events, and Teresa didn’t blame them. For any event company, Saturday’s events would be a death knell and she had no doubt that most of her people were brushing up their résumés.

Teresa gestured for Corinne to sit. When Corinne’s eyes met hers, she saw her curiosity and knew a dozen questions were hovering on Corinne’s tongue. Teresa’s respect for her increased when Corinne just powered up her iPad and asked a simple question. “So, what’s the plan?”

Teresa tucked a strand of hair that had fallen from her loose bun behind her ear. “The plan is that we arrange Brooks Abbingdon’s big blowout wedding.”

Corinne’s brown eyes widened. “He’s getting married? To whom?” Corinne read the social pages and entertainment magazines with utter dedication and Teresa knew that she was wondering whether she’d missed a crucial piece of gossip.

“He didn’t say.”

Corinne looked at her like she was, finally, losing it. “I’m sorry? I don’t understand.”

Yep, crazy. “Brooks didn’t tell me who he was marrying. I suspect it’s someone very famous and intensely publicity-shy. And that’s okay. We don’t need her input because Brooks was very explicit in what he wanted.”

Corinne leaned forward, her expression intense. “So what does he want?”

Teresa half smiled. “He wants me to recreate Delilah Rhodes and Alex Dane’s wedding. With one crucial difference...”

Corinne bounced up and down and gestured Teresa to keep talking. “What? What’s the difference?”

“Delilah and Alex had a massive budget.”

“Our budget is smaller? Dammit. Okay, we can get creative.”

Teresa shook her head. “No, we have an unlimited budget. We can spend what we like, how we like, but it’s got to be blow-your-socks-off amazing. But we only have two weeks to get everything organized.”

Corinne pulled a smile up onto her face in an effort to appreciate the joke. “Ha ha.”

“I wish I were joking. But I’m not. Brooks has thrown Limitless Events a lifeline. Minimal time is the cost of that lifeline.” Teresa forced a smile of her own. “But, if we work every hour of the day, maybe we’ll all still have jobs at the end of the month.”

Teresa watched as confusion and disbelief flew across Corinne’s face and gave her assistant a minute to take in the news. She’d come into her office thinking that the company could not possibly recover from Saturday night’s fiasco but instead of getting pink slips, they were going to organize the wedding of the year.

How did this happen? Why was this happening? Teresa couldn’t answer Corinne’s questions, not without explaining that she owed someone a favor and that this was his way of collecting. The Fixer had told her, when he checked on Joshua to see if the $7 million debt was real, that she owed him a nonmonetary favor and she was finally being asked to cough up.

She’d always worried that The Fixer would ask her to do something illegal, something below board—she wasn’t an idiot; she knew that he wasn’t a law-abiding angel—and she was so relieved that he was asking her to use her skills to repay her debt. Yeah, Brooks’s time frame was totally ludicrous but, compared to some of the scenarios she’d imagined, this was child’s play. And, thank God, legal.

And best of all, Brooks was still going to pay her. Bonus.

Teresa couldn’t help wondering how Brooks had heard of The Fixer and whether asking for help on organizing his wedding was all he’d asked of the man who, it was reported, could arrange anything, anywhere. She’d heard of The Fixer through her previous boss, Mariella Santiago-Marshall, but how had Brooks connected with her sure-his-hands-are-dirty angel? It had to be word of mouth, whispered over boardroom tables or over glasses of five-hundred-dollar whiskey. But unlike hers, The Fixer’s fee to Brooks was sure to be hard cash.

Hey, she didn’t care. She was ridding herself of one debt. And she’d use the enormous fee Brooks had offered her to pay some of Josh’s debt, hoping to placate Joshua’s money lender and buy them some time.

But nobody would be getting paid if they didn’t get to work. Teresa looked at Corinne and issued the first of many instructions. “I’d like you to make up a mood board of all our most expensive weddings to show to Brooks, to get an idea of what he does and doesn’t want. Focus on the Newport Bridge wedding.”

When Corinne left the room, Teresa stood up and walked over to her window and watched the Seattle-Bremerton ferry cross Elliott Bay. She placed her hand on the window and sighed at the wet, miserable day. Normally, the weather didn’t bother her but today it just reminded her of her soggy heart, her tear-soaked soul.

She missed Liam...

Get used to it; you’re going to be missing him for a long, long time.

Never again would she feel his mouth on hers, the scratch of his two-or three-or four-day stubble on her skin. Her body wouldn’t hum in pleasure as he traced her lips with his, drawing out the anticipation of his tongue moving into her mouth to tangle with hers. She doubted that she’d ever again experience the flood of wet, warm heat between her legs as his hands tightened on her hips and he laid siege to her mouth.

Memories of how he made her feel rushed over Teresa. He’d slowly, too slowly, pull her shirt from the waistband of her trousers or skirt, his fingers drawing bright, bold patterns on her skin. Liam loved to turn her around in order to trace the bumps of her spine, his hard and rigid cock pressing into her butt. No matter how much she begged, Liam treated her like a present he wanted to take his time opening, slowly removing her clothes, one feminine piece at a time. His words burned her skin—“You’re so pretty,” “God, I want you,” “Can’t wait to watch you come”—and with a flick of his tongue across a lace-covered nipple, he’d have her hovering on the edge of an orgasm, desperate to take flight.

He’d take his time, too much time, before slipping his fingers into her panties, to find the heat between her slick folds. He always knew how to touch her, whether it was with a flick of his finger or a swipe of his tongue. He’d bring her to orgasm, sometimes once, a couple of times twice, with his fingers and his tongue, not entering her until she was limp and languid and so very, very well loved.

Then he’d push inside her, hot and long and devastatingly masculine and build her up again. And again. And yet again before allowing her to crash and burn and flame.

None of that would happen again.

The thought made her want to cry. But she didn’t because she was Teresa St. Claire, and when had tears helped with anything? No, the best she could do was to soldier on because that was what she did best.

Like brightly colored pieces of a shattered mosaic pile, Teresa always picked up all the pieces she could and rearranged them to make a new pattern or picture. But damn, it was getting harder and harder to do.

* * *

In his office at the Abbingdon private airport on the outskirts of Seattle, Brooks lifted his head to watch an ACJ—an Airbus Corporate Jet—land on the runway to the left of his office on the top floor of the office block that housed Abbingdon Airlines’ headquarters. The jet was exquisite and the touchdown perfect on the slick runway. Brooks looked at his watch and yep, the limousines were leaving their hangar to pick up the twenty guests who had flown in, as he’d heard, for Carmen, playing at the Seattle Opera House. He’d been offered tickets to attend but couldn’t remember by whom.

Brooks shrugged. It didn’t matter since he didn’t have time to waste attending the theater when he had a wife to find, a future to secure.

Pulling his eyes off the ACJ and its fluid, feminine lines, Brooks looked at his computer monitor and opened the email he’d received while he was salivating over the jet. Brooks read the two-word correspondence:

For consideration.

Knowing, without a smidgen of doubt, that the message was from The Fixer, Brooks double-clicked on the first of three files. A photograph of a raven-haired beauty popped up in front of him and Brooks lifted his eyebrows in appreciation. Beneath the photograph The Fixer had a brief paragraph detailing why she was a suitable candidate to become the first Mrs. Brooks Abbingdon. In Mari Ruiz’s case, she was a divorcée who’d been skinned by her husband, leaving her with a taste for high living but with no one to fund it. She had two degrees, was a champion ballroom dancer and spoke three languages. She was also a gourmet cook.

Mmm, interesting. Brooks opened the next file, a sultry redhead, who was a young widow looking for a dad for her three kids, all under the age of seven. Brooks dismissed her immediately; this situation was messed up already without adding kids to the chaos. Sighing, Brooks opened the third file and sucked in a surprised breath.

Well, well. Nicolette Ryan wasn’t someone he’d expected to find on his computer at nine thirty in the morning. He knew Nicolette, had been introduced to her once or twice and he’d had her microphone pointed in his face on various occasions. She was intelligent and witty and, holy hell, with her long black hair and petite frame, and those expressive, brown-black eyes, as sexy as sin. He liked her. She was the one journalist most of his friends and acquaintances found tolerable.

But why was she on his list of prospective brides? Intrigued, Brooks read The Fixer’s report. Nicolette Ryan was, per his comments, brainy and ambitious and wanted to make a break into serious reporting. Apparently, she’d been floating a documentary film to any producer who’d listen but nobody was taking her seriously. The project was important to her—personally important and related to something in her past—and The Fixer was convinced that there was little she wouldn’t do to see the project on the big screen.

Brooks scrolled down, annoyed to realize that The Fixer hadn’t explained his cryptic comment about her past. Brooks touched the reply button and banged out a quick message asking for an explanation. He was about to hit the Send button when the thought occurred that, had The Fixer wanted him to have that information, he would’ve given it. A demanding email wouldn’t change his mind.

The point was: Nicolette Ryan wanted something and if he could provide her the means to achieve that goal, she might be amenable to a temporary marriage.

Brooks flipped back to look at the picture of the sultry brunette but, compared to Nicolette, she looked over-the-top, too high-maintenance.

He’d met Nicolette; he liked her and there’d been a buzz of attraction when they spoke. It wasn’t love at first sight—who believed in that anyway?—but something definitely arced between them.

He was hopeful. After all, everyone had their price—his was Abbingdon Airlines—and he just needed to find out whether her documentary was important enough to her to sacrifice her single status. God, he hoped so.

He was running out of time.

Three

Nobody in Seattle refused to take his calls and Teresa St. Claire wouldn’t be the first.

Liam stepped into the large open-plan office and met the wide eyes of the young receptionist sitting behind a sleek desk. Early twenties, first job out of college, wide eyes and desperate to please. Child’s play.

“I’m on my way to see Ms. St. Claire.”

Liam had to give her credit; she did jump up from her desk and did try to run after him, but his legs were longer and her headphones were connected to her laptop. Besides, he was a foot taller, bigger and broader; how on earth could she stop him?

Walking across the open-plan offices, he ignored the buzz of chatter his presence generated and ignored the eyes boring into his back. Limitless Events occupied one corner of the top floor of this building and high, arched windows flooded the office with natural light. He flicked a glance outside; it was still raining, and he thought that Teresa had a hell of a view. Slowing down, he approached a messy desk in front of the only self-contained office and growled when he saw that the doors were closed. He looked at Teresa’s PA, surprised to see her leaning back in her chair, legs crossed, a smirk on her pretty face.

“To what do we owe the honor of your illustrious presence, Mr. Christopher?” Oh, yeah, there was a ton of snark under the sweet smile.

“Cut the crap, Corinne. You know damn well that I’ve left six messages and that I’ve been trying to talk to her since early Sunday morning,” Liam retorted. “She’s avoiding me.”

“So you thought the best way to deal with her was to show up at her place of work?” Corinne had the audacity to roll her eyes. “Do you know anything about women, Mr. Christopher?”

Obviously not. Up until Teresa appeared in his life, he thought he had. He could charm them into bed, show them a good time and when he was bored, extracted himself quietly, easing his way out of their lives with flowers or perfume or more expensive gifts, depending on the woman and the situation. Once, when that Russian ballet dancer refused to go quietly, he’d needed to say goodbye with a holiday in Cannes and a diamond tennis bracelet. But generally, women weren’t difficult.

And then there was Teresa...

“Can I go in?”

Corinne bared her teeth at him. “Let me see if she has time for you.”

Before Corinne could connect the call, Liam turned at the sound of a door opening. Teresa stood in the open doorway, looking beautiful but fragile. Her creamy complexion was two shades paler than usual, her sexy mouth was pulled tight and the bags under her eyes were a darker blue than her irises. But as he was coming to accept, Teresa could look like a ghoul and she’d still manage to turn him on.

“What are you doing here, Liam?”

Since there was only one answer to that question—he wanted to speak to her, dammit!—he shook his head and took two steps in her direction. When he stood close enough to her to inhale her sweet breath, close enough for his chest to flirt with hers, he placed both hands under her elbows and lifted her off her feet. Hell, his woman, this woman, needed to eat more! Walking her backward, he deposited her inside her office, back on her two-inch, ice-pick heels—black today to match her severe black suit and, probably, her mood—and kicked the door shut with his foot.

When he heard the snick of the lock, he shoved his hands into the pockets of his suit pants. His hands, stupid things, desperately wanted to pull that black sweater from her skirt and lift it up and over her head. Would her bra be black, too? Her panties? He thought so but he sure as hell would like to make sure.

“I do not appreciate you barging into my office,” Teresa told him, trying to sound snotty.

“I do not appreciate you not taking my calls,” Liam whipped back, not fazed by her cool eyes and her tight mouth. He knew her well enough to see the pain lurking beneath all that liquid, velvet blue, knew that she was fighting the urge to weep or scream.

She had a right to.

Liam couldn’t resist running a thumb over her cheekbone, skirting the edges of her eye sockets. “Have you slept at all since the weekend?”

He knew that her pride had her wanting to lie but at the last minute she shook her head. “No, I’ve dozed here and there.”

“Things will seem better after you’ve slept.”

Teresa stepped away from him and walked away, dropping into the sleek office chair behind her desk. She placed her hands on the table and her amazing eyes flashed blue fire. “So if I sleep, will I wake up and find that my brother didn’t gate-crash Matt’s party, you didn’t hit him, he wasn’t seen on YouTube and I didn’t have to force him to stay in rehab, with him insisting that he’s not an addict? Will that just all go away with some sleep?”

She had him there. “No.”

“Exactly.” Teresa scratched her forehead and she released a long stream of air and her shoulders fell from somewhere near her ears. “I don’t want to fight with you, Liam.”

“I don’t want to fight, either.”

“But I can’t deal with you right now. Right now I have another commission, an event to organize, and everything is riding on it.” Teresa picked up a pen and rolled it between her palms. “I can’t be distracted and I need to focus. And I really do believe that it’s better that we not see each other anymore.”

“BS,” Liam shot back. “You’re just feeling overwhelmed. Possibly scared.”

Teresa nodded. “Sure I am. But maybe I am also trying to protect you. I’m not good for you, Liam.”

Liam slapped his hands on his hips, anger coursing through him. She sounded too much like his mother, who’d made her own disparaging comments about Teresa over the past few weeks. Not good enough, a tart, so little class. They were both wrong but there was only one person whose mind he wanted to change. “I’m a big boy. I don’t need you protecting me.”

“No matter what I say, there are people out there, including your mother, who believe I had an affair with your father, who think I’ve only latched on to you because I have my eyes on your company.”

He didn’t give a rat’s ass what other people thought and, honestly, he didn’t care much what his mother thought. “So? Let them think what they want.”

A pencil hit his chest and dropped to the floor. Liam looked at it, raised one eyebrow and returned his eyes to Teresa’s face. On the plus side, she had color in her cheeks. She also looked like she was about to blow.

“Liam, listen to me. You and me, it’s... Whatever the hell we had, it’s over! Whatever it was, it’s done.”

Liam sent her a steady look. “I’m not trying to be a jerk, Teresa, but it’s not as easy as that.”

“Just go, Liam. Please.”

God, this woman was as stubborn as a boulder. He could tell her that their attraction hadn’t died, that it would take more than her calling it to end this craziness between them. They couldn’t just switch off the taps and walk away. Like her, he couldn’t define what they had but it sure as hell wasn’t something that could be simply and easily dismissed. He’d tried that several times and it never worked. But that argument wouldn’t work with her so he latched on to what was tangible. “Linus’s will stipulates that we still have to work together at Christopher Corporation for a whole year.”

His statement detonated fireworks in her eyes. And not the good kind. “The corporation? That’s what you are thinking about?”

Well, no. He was thinking about taking her to bed but knew that if he made that suggestion he might leave her office minus a few of his essential body parts.

And that thought pissed him off, big-time. And once he acknowledged his anger, it took on a life of its own. He’d been worrying about her for days and he had to storm her citadel to check whether she was okay.

Teresa placed her fingertips on her forehead. “We can’t keep doing this, Liam. At some point we have to accept that we are bad for each other.”

Liam surged to his feet, walked over to her chair and placing his hands on her waist, pulled her up. He gripped her luscious butt and yanked her into him, allowing his hard erection to push into her stomach. “Feel that? That isn’t bad, dammit!”

Teresa looked up at him and he could see her body warring with her brain, each equally stubborn. He dipped his head down and slapped his lips against hers. Her mouth immediately opened beneath his and he swept inside, determined to show her that desire like this was worth fighting for, holding on to, keeping. Yeah, they weren’t great at communicating but this, this they could do. This they couldn’t fake, lie about, deny.

As for the other stuff, they could work on it...

Liam felt Teresa soften and when she pressed her breasts into his chest, he slowed his kiss down, needing to savor her, to explore her intense combination of flavors. He could taste her hazelnut-flavor coffee, toothpaste and a tart sweetness that was all Teresa. Pulling her jersey up, he placed his hands on her lower back, easily spanning her slim waist. The smell of soft, fragrant, heated skin drifted up to his and he felt his knees soften, his head swim. This was the only woman who’d ever managed to create fog in his brain, remove the saliva from his mouth, shut down his thought processes.

Not for the first time Liam decided that she scared the crap out of him.

Liam pulled back from the kiss and lifted his hand to hold the back of her head, his fingers pushing up and under the loose bun she habitually wore. Risking her ire but needing to see her hair down, he pulled out her pins and her thick blond hair cascaded over his hands, down her back. With her hair down she looked softer, more vulnerable and younger and, if that were at all possible, sexier.

Teresa rested her cheek on his pec and lightly placed her hands on his waist as if she couldn’t decide whether to hold him or not. “Stop fighting me, Teresa, and let me hold you.”

Teresa stiffened in his arms and then he heard her long sigh and slowly, so slowly, her arms moved around his body and she buried her nose in his shirt.

“Everything is so messed up, Liam.”

And she was, as she always did, trying to handle everything herself. “I know, honey.”

“I can’t let you help. I don’t know how to accept help,” Teresa said, her voice so low he had to bend his head to hear her soft words. “I need to sort this out myself, Liam.”

He dropped a kiss into her hair. “Why?”

Teresa took her time answering. “Because people have told me, all my life, that they would be there for me. Then they left.”

“I won’t do that to you, Teresa.”

Teresa pulled back, pulled her teeth between her lips and when Liam looked into her eyes, the pain within them nearly dropped him to his knees. “Maybe, maybe not. But I can’t take that chance because you, disappointing me again, is a step too far, a bridge that will blow up once I cross it. I’m not strong enough to cope with that, as well as the rest of my life falling apart. Frankly, Liam, I’m starting to believe that I’m not very strong at all.”

Teresa walked over to her desk, stared down at it and tapped her finger on the sleek wood. He watched her profile as her eyes moved from her desk to the window to right at the view of Elliott Bay. When she spoke again, he heard her uncertainty and, dammit, the fear in her voice. “I need some time, Liam, probably quite a bit of it.”

“I can’t give that to you,” Liam replied.

Christopher Corporation, and the terms of his father’s will, demanded her presence and involvement in the company. And besides, if he gave her the space she demanded, wouldn’t he be doing exactly what she expected, running when she needed him to plant his feet and stick?

“My brother owes money to dangerous people. Money that I am in the process of trying to find. I have a high-society, over-the-top wedding to organize in two weeks’ time so that I can save my company’s reputation and buy us some time with those previously mentioned mobsters. And I still need to face Matt Richmond and apologize once again for ruining his gala evening.”

“While organizing a wedding isn’t in my skill set, I am thrilled you have work and I know you will do a fantastic job. I will bring you late-night pizzas and early-morning coffee if that’s what you need me to do.” She was listening to him so he took the opportunity to float a few options available.

“Allow me to lend you the money to pay off your brother’s debts. I have the money and we can work out a repayment plan because I know that you are too proud to take a handout. Yeah, apologizing to Matt is something I can’t do for you but I can hold your hand while you do it.”

Teresa closed her eyes and Liam desperately wanted to rub away the single tear that dared to escape. But he knew that if he acknowledged her emotion, he’d lose her. So he just kept his eyes on her face and waited for her response.

“Please go, Liam. Go before I take you up on one or all of your sweet offers. Go before I start to believe in you.”

To hell with that. Instead of walking to the door, Liam wrapped his arms around her and held on tight. Resting his chin in her hair, he held her until he felt her body stiffen, until she started to push away. Knowing he’d pushed her far enough today, he decided to retreat so he placed a kiss on her temple and released his grip. “I’m going to go. But I’ll call you later, okay?”

Teresa nodded.

Liam tipped her chin up with the side of his thumb and waited until her eyes met his. All that deep, velvety blue was a sharp smack to his heart. “And when I do, take my damn calls.”

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