The Tycoon's Virgin Bride

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Last summer Leonora had traveled to Maine and had sought out her children. In the intervening months she and Travis had built a solid relationship; but according to Travis, Jenessa was indifferent to the sudden appearance of a mother she’d never known and had always assumed was dead.

“Another family gathering,” Leonora said dryly. “I’m as well as could be expected.”

“Under the circumstances, you look great.”

She was tall and slim, her long black hair streaked with gray, her every movement imbued with a dancer’s grace. “So you’re to be Samantha’s godfather,” she said.

“And Jenessa’s the godmother,” Bryce replied with a lift of his brow. “I met her for the first time three weeks ago. Talk about the original ice maiden.”

“When I first saw Travis last summer, he was very angry with me for abandoning him when he was only six. In retrospect, I prefer his anger to the impeccable good manners with which Jenessa treats me. As though I was a chance-met stranger who means nothing to her.”

“She’s a very talented artist.”

“You’re right. I’d like to go to her opening at the Morden Gallery next month…will you be there?”

“I might.”

“She’s also exceptionally beautiful,” Leonora said, a twinkle in her eye.

“I’ve wondered if that’s why Travis asked me to go and visit her. Matchmaking. He ought to know better.”

Leonora laughed. “Perhaps you should go and say hello to him. The ceremony’s supposed to start in a few minutes.”

“We’ll talk again afterward,” he promised, and headed toward Travis and Julie; but on the way, he was hailed by Brent Strathern, Jenessa’s twin brother. “Hi there, Bryce, how’s it going?” Brent said breezily.

Brent was handsome, charming and—in Bryce’s opinion—spoiled rotten. “Fine. I’ll be happier when I’ve done my thing with Samantha,” he replied amiably.

Brent bared his teeth in a smile. “You’re like me—you’ve had the sense never to get hitched.”

Bryce didn’t like being bracketed with Brent, who was known to be a womanizer and suspected of dubious financial dealings. He said mildly, “Your sister doesn’t seem to have matrimony in mind, either.”

“Jenessa? Who’s she going to meet in a dump like Wellspring?”

“Artistically, it’s not doing her any harm.”

“Contemporary art’s nothing but a big scam,” Brent said edgily. “So she can slop paint on a canvas…big deal.”

It was interesting, Bryce thought, that the privileged twin was jealous of the twin who’d been ignored by her father for years. “I suspect there’s a little more to Jenessa’s paintings than that,” he said. “I guess I’d better say hello to my host and hostess…excuse me, Brent.”

“See you later,” Brent said.

Not if I can help it, thought Bryce, and strode between the rose beds toward Charles and Corinne.

Charles Strathern was tall and thin-haired, his handsome face underlaid by obstinacy rather than real strength. Corinne, as always, looked as serene and imperturbable as if she’d stepped out of the pages of a fashion magazine. However, her passion for roses was responsible for the beauty of their setting; Bryce had often thought there was more to Corinne than met the eye.

He shook Charles by the hand and kissed Corinne’s cool cheek. “It’s a real pleasure to be here,” he said. “The garden’s lovely, Corinne. And the weather couldn’t be better.”

“A very happy occasion,” Charles said bluffly.

“She’s a sweet baby,” Corinne added. “The charm of being a grandparent, of course, is that you can hand your grandchild back to the parents whenever you like.”

It was difficult to imagine Corinne dealing with a dirty diaper. Bryce kept this thought to himself, and answered Charles’s queries about his latest travels. “So you and Jenessa are to be the godparents,” Charles said. “I’m glad Jenessa came. She hasn’t been to Manatuck for many years.”

From Travis, Bryce already knew that Jenessa had no use for her father, whose main aim from the time she was little had been to crush her artistic impulses: impulses she’d presumably inherited from her runaway mother. “Then she’s seeing it at its best,” he said smoothly.

“She has a show opening next month in Boston,” Charles labored on. “We thought we might attend.”

Charles and Corinne owned a luxurious mansion in Back Bay, one of Boston’s most prestigious addresses. “Jenessa could be on the brink of a highly successful career,” Bryce said blandly.

“She graduated from Columbia’s School of the Arts,” Charles remarked. “A very fine school.”

Bryce’s heart gave a great jolt in his chest; the rose garden, the polite chatter of the assembly and the soft sighing of the waves vanished from his consciousness as if they no longer existed. “Columbia?” he rasped. “When?”

Not noticing Bryce’s tone, Charles did some quick mental calculations. “She enrolled twelve years ago. So she must have graduated when she was twenty-one.”

Twelve years ago Jenessa had been seventeen. The same age as the spike-haired art student who’d said she wanted to sketch him after that lecture he’d given at Columbia.

But the art student had had eyes that were almost purple.

Contacts, Bryce. Colored contacts.

The way Jenessa moved, the elegance of her lean, capable fingers, that elusive sense that somewhere he’d seen her before…his intuitions had been dead-on. He had.

In his bed. Twelve years ago.

Jan Struthers had been Jenessa Strathern. What a fool he’d been not to make the connection.

“Bryce, are you all right?” Corinne asked.

Hastily Bryce pulled himself together, furious that he’d revealed, if only partially, the shock of his discovery to Charles and Corinne. “Sorry, I was just wondering if I’d met her on a visit I made to Columbia some years ago,” he said with a minimal degree of honesty.

Charles gave a hearty laugh. “Computers and art don’t go together,” he said, “so I rather doubt it. Bryce, I saw that article about you in the Financial Times recently, where they were explaining how extremely well you’ve done by maintaining your independence from any of the big corporations. You’re to be congratulated, that’s not an easy road.”

Talk about your career, Bryce. Talk about anything other than the fact that Jenessa Strathern, a woman you lust after, has already been in your bed. When she was still a teenager. “That’s high praise, Charles,” he said wryly. “But you know me—what other choice did I have? I’m far too single-minded, not to say stubborn, to work for someone else.”

It was true. He’d always been a loner; for many years it had suited him to go his own way, both in his business life and his personal life. “But thanks for the compliment,” he added. “Now maybe I’d better go and say hello to the proud parents, and take a peek at Samantha. I only hope she doesn’t cry when I pick her up.”

“If she does, pass her back to her mother,” Corinne said with a mocking smile.

“Good advice,” he grinned. Excusing himself, Bryce crossed a pebbled path and a stretch of manicured lawn toward the arbor. Through his long struggle to reach the international reputation Charles had applauded, he’d learned a number of lessons, the first of which had been to mask his feelings. Discouragement, ambition, anger, despair: he’d taught himself to hide them all. But could he dissemble the chaos of emotion in his chest right now from his best friend and from the woman who’d gone to his hotel room when she was only seventeen? He wasn’t sure he could.

He’d soon find out. “Hi Travis, Julie,” he said. “Hello, Jenessa.”

Travis clapped him on the shoulder, his black hair ruffled by the wind; in a time-honored ritual, Bryce punched Travis lightly on the chest. The two men were similar in height, and since sports were one of their shared interests, were both of athletic build. But there the similarities ended, for Travis’s emotions, since he’d met Julie, were much more on the surface than those of his friend. Open up, man, Travis was apt to say to Bryce: with as much effect as if he’d addressed the walls of a squash court.

Julie gave Bryce a friendly kiss on the cheek, while Jenessa said in a voice as cool as the ocean, “Hello, Bryce.”

She looked rather like the ocean, he thought, in her pale turquoise linen dress, her matching hat circled by a froth of white flowers. Her unruly curls framed her face; her makeup accentuated the elegance of her cheekbones and the depths of her eyes. Blue eyes. Not purple. Fathoms deep, and unfathomable.