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Billion Dollar Bride
Muriel Jensen
Austin Cahill had parlayed his business savvy to the point that he had everything he wanted out of life. Except, of course, a child. And Caroline Lamont had happily agreed to provide him with one.Event planner Anna Maitland was a pro at themed extravaganzas. Medieval knights and ivy-draped bowers were right up her alley. So Caroline Lamont had to have her orchestrate Texas's wedding of the year.Landing the account for the Cahill-Lamont nuptials had an unexpected fringe benefit. Anna's son, Will, got to meet his idol, Austin Cahill. The problem was, the charismatic Mr. Cahill was proving pretty irresistible to Will's mom, too, even though she was doing a bang-up job of arranging his wedding to another woman!
From Megan Maitland’s Diary
Dear Diary,
Less than a year ago, I despaired of ever seeing my brood settled, and suddenly they’re falling like flower petals. A mother’s prayers answered!
Anna, bless her, may put a stop to my run of success, however. She defines the “once burned, twice shy” maxim. I’ve seen her give men a longing glance, then turn away as though convinced she’ll never find happiness in a relationship and has decided not to even try.
She uses her son, Will, as an excuse, but I think he should be her reason to round out their family. He’s brilliant, all right, but he’s still a little boy. His uncles do their best to give him their attention, but now they have wives and are planning families of their own. Will needs some kind man’s undivided attention.
Isn’t it ironic that Anna’s been hired to plan Austin Cahill’s wedding, when he’s just the man whose business genius my stock-market-savvy grandson holds in such awe? I consider the man quite a catch myself. Sigh! If only Anna could have gotten to him first! But now I’m getting greedy. Even a mother can’t have everything!
Dear Reader,
There’s never a dull moment at Maitland Maternity! This unique and now world-renowned clinic was founded twenty-five years ago by Megan Maitland, widow of William Maitland, of the prominent Austin, Texas, Maitlands. Megan is also matriarch of an impressive family of seven children, many of whom are active participants in the everyday miracles that bring children into the world.
When our series began, the family was stunned by the unexpected arrival of an unidentified baby at the clinic—unidentified, except for the claim that the child is a Maitland. Who are the parents of this child? Is the claim legitimate? Will the media’s tenacious grip on this news damage the clinic’s reputation? Suddenly rumors and counterclaims abound. Women claiming to be the child’s mother are materializing out of the woodwork! How will Megan get at the truth? And how will the media circus affect the lives and loves of the Maitland children—Abby, the head of gynecology, Ellie, the hospital administrator, her twin sister, Beth, who runs the day-care center, Mitchell, the fertility specialist, R.J., the vice president of operations, even Anna, who has nothing to do with the clinic, and Jake, the black sheep of the family?
Please join us each month over the next year as the mystery of the Maitland baby unravels, bit by enticing bit, and book by captivating book!
Marsha Zinberg,
Senior Editor and Editorial Coordinator, Special Projects
Billion Dollar Bride
Muriel Jensen
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Muriel Jensen is the award-winning author of over sixty books that tug at readers’ hearts. She has won a Reviewer’s Choice Award and a Career Achievement Award for Love and Laughter from Romantic Times Magazine, as well as a sales award from Waldenbooks. Muriel is best loved for her books about family, a subject she knows well, as she has three children and eight grandchildren. A native of Massachusetts, Muriel now lives with her husband in Oregon.
To David Charbonneau and Diane Dezielle
and our special connection.
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER ONE
ANNA MAITLAND turned in the swivel chair at her desk to keep Caroline Lamont in sight as she paced the lavender and cream office.
“I see a medieval English theme,” Caroline said, her voice hushed as though she were describing a vision. “Ivy-trimmed bowers, costumed knights, the wedding party dressed appropriately and arriving on horses.”
Anna smiled and nodded. When a Wonderful Weddings client planned to “perform” rather than be married, there was little she could do but give her what she wanted. Anna had always considered fulfilling dreams her business, but her work wasn’t half as much fun when a client insisted on making it “theater.”
“And when we turn around to leave the church,” Caroline went on, “I’d like butterflies to be released!” Her voice rose a little in her excitement over the idea, and she spread her arms wide to suggest a cloud of monarchs fluttering around her.
“I’m afraid I can’t provide that, Caroline,” Anna said, continuing to smile.
Caroline came to sit on the edge of Anna’s desk. She was tall and coltish and absolutely gorgeous. She had chin-length dark blond hair framing gray eyes that widened or narrowed with the intensity of her mood. It was early April in temperate Austin, Texas, and she wore a casual sweater and pants the color of early-blooming lavender crocuses.
“Sure you can,” she said, her glossy lips curving in a smile. “They’re the rage now. I think you get them from a nursery or something.”
Anna nodded. “Or an insect farm. They’re shipped overnight in a special, refrigerated container, individually boxed for each guest. You can do that if your heart is set on it, but you’ll have to make the arrangements, and you’ll have to accept delivery and handle every part of it.”
Caroline blinked in apparent mystification. “They don’t sting or anything. There’s no need to be afraid of them.”
It was difficult for Anna to maintain a serious look. She hadn’t expected to like Caroline Lamont when they’d been introduced at Maitland Maternity Clinic’s twenty-fifth anniversary party last month. Caroline had a reputation in the press and among Texas society as a fun-loving party girl who enjoyed her family’s oil money. Her sister, Camille, worked hard for charity, but from all indications, Caroline did nothing worthwhile but appear front and center at every social event Texas had to offer.
Anna had expected a frivolous snob. But Caroline seemed to be more of a frivolous nice person. Eager to indulge herself, she was nonetheless pleasant and courteous, seemingly unaware that there was a world outside the rarefied one she occupied.
“I’m not afraid of butterflies,” Anna said patiently. “But I could never do anything that would result in one being put in a box.”
“But they’re not hurt. They fly away.”
“Would you like someone to put you in a box, just so that when you stepped out of it, you’d look pretty for that person?”
Caroline considered a moment and did not appear to find the idea disagreeable. “I suppose it would depend upon who was opening the box.” She smiled thoughtfully then shook her head. “Guests could toss rice or birdseed instead, but that’s so mundane—not to mention messy.”
“What about flower petals. They’d be in keeping with your theme, I think.”
That pleased her. Then she asked gravely, “Do you think we’ll have to go to London for the armor and the costumes?”
Anna struggled with her expression again. She’d indulged many extravagances in the years that she’d been in business, but she’d never traveled out of the country to outfit the wedding party.
“I…think we can find everything we need here,” she said. “I know Mr. Cahill has given you a considerable budget for the wedding, but think of the fun you’ll have shopping on your honeymoon if you conserve a little here and there.”
Caroline batted that notion away with a pen she’d picked up off Anna’s desk. “Oh, there’ll be no real honeymoon. Austin and I aren’t a love match. Everyone knows that. We’re going straight to his place on Kauai after the wedding to make a baby.”
Anna stared at her. “Really,” she said.
“Really.” Caroline waggled the pen between her thumb and forefinger as she explained. “He’s one of the richest men in Texas, you know, and I don’t know what brought it on, but he just got to thinking one day that he had no one to leave everything to. He has a mother, but that’s it.”
“He’s never been married?”
“Never. He can’t take his mind off business long enough. Anyway, we’ve been friends since we met at a Junior League dinner three years ago. We both have a lot of money, and neither one of us believes in love. Austin was jilted by his fiancée a couple of years ago when she used her position in his company to help a rival firm take him over.” Her grim expression suggested Cahill’s reaction. “They failed, but since then, he’s had it with women.”
“But what about you? Don’t you want love in your marriage?”
Caroline smiled wryly and shook her head. “I had parents who took vacations without me and regularly forgot my birthday. But that meant I could do whatever I wanted, and I rather like that now. I’d hate to have to change for someone. So our arrangement will be perfect. No one interferes with our lives.”
“Marriage,” Anna suggested mildly, “will interfere with your life.” It had almost ruined hers, but she kept that to herself. “A baby will play havoc with it.”
“All I have to do is produce the baby.” Caroline shrugged gracefully and looked around the office, as though happy with her lot in life. “Then I can stay or not, depending on how I feel. The baby’s for him.”
Anna continued to stare at her in disbelief. “You probably don’t understand this now,” she said, “before it’s actually happened to you. But you won’t be able to carry a baby for nine months, deliver it, then just go your merry way.”
Caroline nodded with a gravity Anna found both distressing and sad. “I will,” she insisted. “I don’t stick to anything. Not school, not work, not friends. Austin’s the longest relationship of any kind I’ve ever had. I don’t know how to do them, so it’s easier not to try.”
Anna felt desperate to reach her. She’d had a loveless marriage herself when she’d been Caroline’s age, and it had shaken something deep down, some belief in the world’s underlying goodness, in the nobility of man.
She’d been able to go on, even to be happy again, because she was part of a large and wonderful family. But she’d been changed forever.
And she’d carried and delivered a baby. She knew walking away would not be as easy as Caroline imagined, despite her claims of never having known love.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” she asked, putting a hand to Caroline’s knee. “For a man to marry a woman solely for the purpose of creating an heir to a fortune is medieval!”
Caroline laughed musically and pinched Anna’s fingers, the serious moment erased. “That’s what gave me the idea for the theme!”
“Ms. Maitland?” The office door opened, and Eden Ross, Anna’s part-time secretary and occasional baby-sitter, peered around it, her dark eyes wide and her cheeks flushed. “Mr., um, Austin… No, no,” she corrected herself, her usual high-school-senior sophistication wobbling precariously. “That’s his first, um…Mr….”
“Cahill,” a helpful male voice offered quietly from the other side of the door.
Eden closed her eyes in mortification, but she regained her professional demeanor. She drew a breath and squared her shoulders. “Mr. Cahill is here for Ms. Lamont.”
“Show him in, please.” Anna smiled to let Eden know the occasional slipup was never fatal. The girl was smart, responsible and determined, but she took herself too seriously.
When Eden pushed the door open, Anna immediately understood her confusion.
A tall, well-built man walked in and unconsciously took control of the room. The quiet, feminine office with its striped silk wallpaper, lavender carpet and Hepplewhite desk took on a decidedly masculine mood.
In a finely tailored gray suit that covered broad shoulders and long legs, he walked to Caroline’s side. He had dark brown hair cut very short, blue eyes the color of dusk, a strong, straight nose and a jaw that probably won him arguments before he ever said anything.
Anna felt as though she should stand—not out of courtesy, but because the room suddenly hummed with energy and sitting down seemed unacceptable.
Besides, he was worth a bundle, and his fiancée was apparently determined to spend a significant portion of it on a Wonderful Wedding. Anna rose as Caroline began introductions.
“Austin, I’d like you to meet our wedding planner, Anna Maitland,” Caroline said as she stepped comfortably into his arm. “Anna, this is my fiancé, Austin Cahill.”
“I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Cahill.” Anna extended her hand, feeling small. It wasn’t just his size, she decided as he told her with a brief smile that the pleasure was his. It was his stature, a sort of presence that said, I can do anything, and I’m different from other men because of that.
She couldn’t help but wonder while her hand was swallowed in his why such a man would find it necessary to make a deal with a woman to get a child.
AUSTIN CAHILL would have given anything not to have to deal with all the fuss and feathers that went with a society wedding. But Caroline had agreed to his unorthodox request to give him a child, and the least he could do was give her the wedding she wanted.
He could afford to be generous today, anyway, emotionally as well as financially. He’d just made a deal for prime land outside of Austin. Eventually the site would accommodate a mall that included an indoor children’s playground in an atrium, a library, conversation areas and athletic courts for bored husbands. Several of his peers had laughed at the notion, but he had faith in his plan.
One day his child would inherit a fortune in nine figures. He took great pride in that knowledge.
His child, he thought as he glanced around an office that looked like an eighteenth-century drawing room. Would he sire a boy or a girl? It didn’t matter, really. The child would be made up of his genes, and that just about guaranteed a good business head.
He wrapped his arm more tightly around Caroline, grateful she was willing to be part of such an unusual marriage. And for her “beautiful” genes, which their child would undoubtedly inherit.
She hugged him briefly and he held on, ignoring the small pinch of disappointment that tried to cloud his vision at these moments. They were good friends. He felt great affection for her. She didn’t want love from him. So why did his heart insist on reacting to the fact that it wasn’t there?
They had fun together, enjoyed each other’s company, but whenever they touched, he got that pinch, and though it didn’t deter him, it unsettled him.
“I’m telling you, Austin,” Caroline was saying, “we are so lucky to get Anna. She has a dozen other clients right now, but she’s taking us on because she and Camille worked together on that project for the hungry. You remember? We went to the dinner.”
And because she’s going to charge me a fortune, he thought, to fulfill all your wild ideas. She’ll probably be able to retire on what you have in mind.
He reached across a small desk to shake hands with this paragon. The woman was strikingly beautiful, if a man had a preference for brunettes. Personally, he’d sworn off them since Lauren. It was a senseless prejudice, he realized, but since he’d been unable to see what was inside his former fiancée and protect himself from her deception, it was a sort of defense mechanism to stay away from women who had her outward appearance.
Still, this woman had none of Lauren’s petite fragility.
She was five-seven or maybe five-eight, with a woman’s maturity in her breasts and hips. His mind took her out of the silky white blouse and cranberry suit and put her in black lace. Accustomed to Caroline’s slender, leggy proportions, he’d forgotten how much he’d once appreciated roundness in a woman.
She had eyes the color of dark ale, and rich, deep brown hair, bundled up in a knot at the back of her head. It was side-parted and glossy in the sunlight shining through the window, and he could imagine how glorious it would look if she wore it loose.
This was the kind of woman who should bear a child, he thought. One who seemed all warmth and soft curves.
Then he noticed that the expression in her eyes was pitying and sad. That snapped the moment back into place.
“Ms. Maitland,” he said, drawing his hand away, erasing his previous thoughts. “The pleasure is mine. Carrie has some pretty wild ideas. Do you think you’ll be able to accommodate them?”
She nodded. “All except the butterflies.”
He’d been against that one himself, though he hadn’t said much about it. He didn’t want to do anything to discourage Caroline from going through with their arrangement.
