Barbara Dunlop - The Billionaire’s Bidding

“What did you tell her about me?” Emma asked as she craned her neck to watch the stunning blooms. Wow. The Vanderbilts’ gardener had nothing on the Garrisons’.

“That I was marrying you for your hotels,” he said.

“You did not.”

“Actually, I told her I was helping you out of a financial jam. She guessed the part about the hotels.”

That surprised Emma. “Well, at least I don’t have to lie to her.”

“You don’t have to lie to anyone else either.”

Okay, now that was about the most ridiculous thing Emma had ever heard. “Yeah, I have to lie.”

“We tell them we’re getting married,” he explained. “We tell them we couldn’t be happier-which, when you consider the money, has got to be true. And we tell them we’re co-managing McKinley Inns. All perfectly valid.”

“And what do we do when they ask about our feelings? You planning to pull a Prince Charles?”

He glanced her way, raising an eyebrow. “A Prince Charles?”

“When Prince Charles was asked if he loved Diana, he said ‘whatever love is.’”

Alex chuckled.

“Hey, you pull a Prince Charles on me, and I’ll pull a Mrs. Nash on you.”

“What’s a Mrs. Nash?”

“I don’t know, but she does something that intimidates you, and I’m going to find out what it is.”

“You’re crazy.”

“Like a fox.” Emma glanced back out the windshield to see the three-story white building rising up in front of them. “I swear your house is bigger than some of my hotels.”

“That’s why I bought an apartment in Manhattan.”

“You kept getting lost?”

Alex laughed.

The building grew closer and seemed to get taller. White stone pillars gleamed in the morning sun. Dozens of dormered windows delineated the three, no, four stories, while a fountain dominated the circular drive’s center garden.

“You spin me around three times in there, I swear you’ll never have to see me again.”

“Good tip,” said Alex as he brought the car to a smooth halt in front of the polished staircase.

She pulled a face, but he just laughed at her.

They exited the car and started climbing the wide steps.

“We have to talk about this,” said Emma, trying not to feel outdone by Alex’s status and old money.

“About my house?”

“About everything. How this marriage thing is going to work. How much time we’ll have to spend together. How we’ll coordinate our schedules.”

Alex reached for the handle on the massive front door. “We can coordinate schedules over breakfast.”

She supposed they could schedule a regular morning call. “What time do you get up?”

“Around six.”

Emma nodded. “I usually eat about seven. We could talk on the phone over coffee.”

“The phone?”

“You’d rather e-mail?”

“I’d rather eat at the same table. Dining room, breakfast nook, kitchen, pool deck, I don’t care-”

“What are you talking about?”

He reached for the ornate knob on the huge double doors. “Breakfast. Pay attention, Emma. We’re talking about breakfast.”

“Where?”

“Here, of course.”

Emma stopped dead. “Here?”

“Can you think of a better place?”

“My penthouse.”

He smirked as he pushed open the door. “You want to share your bedroom with me?”

“We don’t have to live together.”

“Sure we do. We’ll be married.”

In name only. And even if they did spend time in the same residence, it couldn’t be here.

Emma walked tentatively into the cavernous rotunda foyer, gazing upward. It definitely couldn’t be here. “Regular people don’t live like this,” she said. “It’s practically a palace.”

“That’s because great-great-great Grandpa Hamilton was British royalty. The second son of an earl.”

Emma gazed at the row of portraits sweeping off down the main hallway. “Why does that not surprise me?”

“The Earl of Kessex,” said Alex. “It’s a small holding just south of Scotland. However, his older brother inherited the property and the title. So Hamilton became an admiral in the British navy. I guess he always wanted the trappings because he bought the original eight hundred acres and built this place.”

Emma made her way slowly down the hallway, peering at the old portraits of nobility.

“This guy,” said Alex, pointing to a distinguished man in a dress navy uniform, gold tassels on his shoulders, medals adorning his chest, with a saber clutched in his left hand. He looked proud, serious, intense. In fact, take away the hat, the moustache and about twenty-five years, and he looked surprisingly like Alex.

Emma stepped back and glanced from one to the other.

“Yeah, yeah,” said Alex. “I know.”

“It explains a lot,” said Emma. “It’s genetics that make you so intent on expanding the family empire.”

“Oh, I like her,” came a woman’s voice. She had a British accent, and her staunch declaration was quickly followed by the tapping of her heels on the hardwood floor.

Embarrassed, Emma pulled away from Alex.

The woman was taller than Emma, maybe five feet ten in her sensible shoes. Her hair was dyed sandy blond and cut fashionably short so that it feathered around her narrow face. She had on a straight skirt, a high collar and minimal makeup, and a pair of reading glasses dangled from a gold chain around her neck.

“You don’t deserve her,” the woman said to Alex.

“Mrs. Nash. May I present Emma McKinley, my fiancée.”

It was the fist time Alex had used the title, and it made Emma’s stomach clamp with guilt.

“You’re quite certain you want to do this?” Mrs. Nash asked Emma, carefully searching her expression.

“Quite certain,” said Emma. And she was. There were a million reasons against marrying Alex. But the one reason in favor of marrying him was pretty compelling.

“Well, let’s get a look at you, then.” Mrs. Nash glanced her up and down with a critical eye.

“Mrs. Nash,” Alex protested.

“Amelia’s,” she pronounced.

Emma looked to Alex.

“Emma can pick her own wedding dress,” said Alex.

Her wedding dress? So far Emma had blocked that tiny detail from her mind-along with the church, the flowers, the cake and the groom. Most especially the groom. And the kiss from the groom. And the shiver of arousal she got even now when she thought about their engagement kiss on Saturday night.

“If you’re going to do this,” said Mrs. Nash. “And let me go on record here and now as being dead set against your doing this. For the sake of the family, you’re going to do it right.”

“We can do it right without Amelia’s dress,” said Alex.

“You definitely don’t want Cassandra’s.” Mrs. Nash spoke to Emma. “Or Rosalind’s.”

“I was thinking of something from Ferragamo or Vera Wang,” said Alex.

“New?” asked Mrs. Nash with obvious horror.

“What’s wrong with Cassandra and Rosalind’s dresses?” asked Emma, partly to appease Mrs. Nash, but also partly to put Alex in his place. If he thought he was picking out her wedding dress, he had another think coming.

“Rosalind died young, dear.”

“Oh, I’m so-”

“It was in nineteen-forty-two,” Alex put in.

“Oh.” Okay. So maybe condolences weren’t necessary.

“And Cassandra.” Mrs. Nash clicked her tongue. “She was a most unhappy child.” She cast a knowing look at Alex. “And you two have quite enough problems without the dubious karma of that dress.”

“It’s a very generous offer,” Emma said to Mrs. Nash. “But I’m sure I can find something on Fifth-”

“Do you want the world to believe you’re marrying for love?”

Emma hesitated, thinking of poor Princess Diana. “We do.”

Mrs. Nash divided her disdain between both of them. “I must say, if I’m to be a coconspirator in this folly, then you will have to take my advice.”

Emma almost said yes, ma’am.

“A Garrison,” Mrs. Nash continued, “would never buy a wedding dress off the rack. Now, let’s take a look at the ring, shall we?”

Alex slanted an accusatory glare at Emma, and she guiltily inched her hands behind her back.

“I, uh, left it at home.”

“Indeed.” But then, instead of leveling a criticism, Mrs. Nash gave a decisive nod. “Just as well. We’ll be needing the Tudor diamond for this.”

Emma didn’t know what the Tudor diamond was, but it sounded old and sentimental, and most certainly valuable. She shook her head. “I don’t want any of Alex’s heirlooms.”

“But of course you do.”

“No, really-”

Alex slipped an arm around her shoulder. “Mrs. Nash is right, Emma.”

She shook her head more vigorously, fighting the reaction to his touch. Why did this stupid sensation have to rise up every time he put his hands on her? It was beyond frustrating, and it made no sense whatsoever.

Sure, he was a fit, sexy man who smelled like cedar musk. And he was rich and smart, with a brilliant if convoluted set of ethics that she couldn’t help but admire.

And he sometimes seemed to have her best interests at heart. And every once in a while he showed a soft spot or a wicked streak of humor. She liked that. She didn’t want to, but there was no point in denying he could make her laugh.

“You need to save those for your real bride,” she insisted.

“That would be you,” said Mrs. Nash. “You are his real bride.”

“No, I’m…” She turned to Alex for support.

He shrugged his shoulders, and she felt completely adrift. The heirloom ring, on top of everything else, suddenly seemed ridiculously overwhelming.

“We need to get organized,” Emma told him. Maybe if they made a list-the prenup, the ceremony, where they’d live, how long they had to stay together. Maybe then she’d feel like things were under control.

“Exactly,” Mrs. Nash agreed. “And we’ll begin with the Tudor diamond. It’s being stored in the safe in the Wiltshire bedroom. I trust you remember the combination, Alex?”

“I remember the combination, Mrs. Nash.”

“Well, we’re not keeping the liquor in there, so you won’t have had a use for it lately.”

“I should have fired you years ago,” said Alex, but there was clear affection in his tone.

Their banter made Emma feel even more like an interloper. “I’m sure the ring isn’t intended-”

“You might take a look through the rest of the collection while you’re up there,” Mrs. Nash added. Then she winked at Alex. “Nothing says commitment quite like flawless emeralds.”

Alex nodded to Mrs. Nash and patted Emma’s shoulder. “Shall we?”

No, they shouldn’t. She had to slow this thing down. They had to get organized. “We need to talk,” she said with renewed vigor.

“We can talk in the Wiltshire bedroom.”

“You’ll definitely have to write these into the prenup.” Perched on the edge of the four-poster bed, Emma had given up trying to reason with Alex. Instead, she slid a serpentine pattern ruby-and-diamond choker over her forearm. She’d have to be blind not to appreciate the brilliance of the jewels against her pale skin. A more mercenary person might be plotting ways to keep the necklace.

McKinley Inns had certainly allowed Emma and Katie to grow up with a lot of advantages in life, but it was still a relatively small company, and there’d been lean times with their family business. It was hard to imagine a threat to the Garrison wealth. Alex had produced an emerald necklace that looked to be a hundred years old. And she could only guess at the fortune tucked away in the leather and velvet boxes of the multi-shelved safe.

Alex extracted yet another case from a high shelf. “Would that be in favor of you or me?”

“I’m an option?” she joked. “Because a girl could get attached to some of these things.”

So far, they’d discovered a sapphire pendant, several diamond bracelets, a man’s ruby ring, even a tiara dripping with so many teardrop diamonds that Emma was sure it should be in a museum.

Still, the serpentine choker outshone them all.

“Afraid I can only lend them to you.” He smiled at her as he crossed the room, his eyes going a shade of smoke she was beginning to like. “But we’ll say yes to some of the party invitations, so you can show them off.”

“Only if we bring along a bodyguard.” She’d be scared to death wearing the necklace in public.

“You don’t need a bodyguard.” He waggled his eyebrows. “You’ve got me.”

She couldn’t help but grin at that one. “Okay. But only if you bring along great-great-great Grandpa Hamilton’s saber.”

“You don’t think it might attract attention?”

“I thought attracting attention to us was your mission in life.”

He snapped open the newly discovered case. “Touché.”

“I, on the other hand.” She gave in to temptation and looped the heavy choker around her neck. “Am trying to be classy and circumspect about our engagement.”