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High-Society Bachelor
Krista Thoren
His Blue-Chip BrideEveryone in their tiny town was convinced that Deborah Clark and Cameron Lyle were the perfect couple. Everyone but Deborah and Cameron, of course. She was the perky girl next door who planned children's parties. And this serious-minded businessman was the town's most eligible bachelor, accustomed to wining and dining glamorous women. So when these total opposites concocted the ideal solution to outwit the town's matchmakers, they quickly found themselves in way over their heads. Cameron had always thought of Deborah as a sweet girl, but now there was no mistaking the soul-searing heat that flared between them. Could this high-society bachelor convince her that the only solution was…a trip to the altar?
“I’d like to clarify a couple of points,” Cam said, clearing his throat
He’d never realized how intimate his study could be. Maybe because he didn’t usually bring a woman into it in the wee hours. Especially not a woman enjoying chocolate torte the way Deborah was. She didn’t merely eat it. She savored it. Occasionally her eyes closed and an expression of pure bliss spread over her features.
“I would, too.” Deborah seemed in no hurry, though. She took another bite of her cake. Hypnotized, Cam stared at her mouth. Right from the beginning, he’d noticed she had really great lips. Tonight they were off-the-scale great.
“But you go first.” With a delicate sweep of her tongue, Deborah licked chocolate off her full lower lip.
Cam stifled a groan. How was he supposed to get this woman out of his thoughts when she sat there eating cake like…like…that?
This was impossible.
Dear Reader,
Happy New Year! Harlequin American Romance is starting the year off with an irresistible lineup of four great books, beginning with the latest installment in the MAITLAND MATERNITY: TRIPLETS, QUADS & QUINTS series. In Quadruplets on the Doorstep by Tina Leonard, a handsome bachelor proposes a marriage of convenience to a lovely nurse for the sake of four abandoned babies.
In Mindy Neff’s Preacher’s In-Name-Only Wife, another wonderful book in her BACHELORS OF SHOTGUN RIDGE series, a woman must marry to secure her inheritance, but she hadn’t counted on being an instant wife and mother when her new husband unexpectedly receives custody of an orphaned baby. Next, a brooding loner captivates a pregnant single mom in Pregnant and Incognito by Pamela Browning. These opposites have nothing in common—except an intense attraction that neither is strong enough to deny. Finally, Krista Thoren makes her Harlequin American Romance debut with High-Society Bachelor, in which a successful businessman and a pretty party planner decide to outsmart their small town’s matchmakers by pretending to date.
Enjoy them all—and don’t forget to come back again next month when a special three-in-one volume, The McCallum Quintuplets, featuring New York Times bestselling author Kasey Michaels, Mindy Neff and Mary Anne Wilson is waiting for you.
Wishing you happy reading,
Melissa Jeglinski
Associate Senior Editor
Harlequin American Romance
High-Society Bachelor
Krista Thoren
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
For Vikki Thoren
Wonderful person, loving sister, classy lady.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Krista Thoren grew up in Indiana. After ten years of college teaching, she now stays home with her toddler. She writes whenever possible, especially if the alternative is cleaning. Krista has too many hobbies and not nearly enough time. She lives near Chicago with her husband and daughter.
Books by Krista Thoren
HARLEQUIN AMERICAN ROMANCE
908—HIGH-SOCIETY BACHELOR
Dear Reader,
I’m happy to be writing for Harlequin American Romance. As both reader and writer, I enjoy books that feature a strong sense of community. In High-Society Bachelor, shop owners are friendly and loyal. Still, Deborah Clark and Cameron Lyle find that the community grapevine is more active than they’d like!
The idea for this book came largely from classic movies featuring elegant parties and sophisticated heroes. But I also wondered what would happen when a compassionate white lie backfired. My love of humor and fondness for cats combined to produce Libby, a cat with personality to spare.
I loved writing High-Society Bachelor, and I hope you’ll have a great time reading it.
Best wishes,
Contents
Chapter One (#u5034190a-a5fe-5662-97ba-a759f08ee608)
Chapter Two (#u843d25ef-4994-50e0-b2e6-32d95c76d178)
Chapter Three (#u4ff2d922-92d7-5ed2-9c22-bb2682466474)
Chapter Four (#uccfc9a8c-0eae-541f-883b-e011c44e7b86)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One
“I expected more of a welcome from my girlfriend.”
Deborah Clark stared at the man who leaned with nonchalant grace against the corridor wall outside her apartment. During the three months since she’d moved in above his office, Cameron Lyle had said about two dozen words to her, most of them brusque. Lofty and remote, that was him. Like Mount Everest, only not as warm.
And now he was making no sense.
“Your what?”
Then she remembered and drew in a sharp breath. Uh-oh. Her throat felt like something big and sharp had lodged in it.
Now she knew why he was here. This time it wasn’t because her music was too loud, her cat too curious or her mail too abundant. No, this time it really was her fault.
The question was, how had he found out?
He crossed his arms and fixed a sharp green gaze on her. “My girlfriend.” His polite tone and neutral expression gave her no clues as to his mood. His eyes showed a flicker of something that, in anyone else, she might have interpreted as humor. But in her admittedly limited experience of this man, he’d shown no signs of having a sense of humor. Maybe someone as good-looking and rich as he was never got the chance to develop one.
Deborah forced her thoughts to a halt. “I can explain the whole thing,” she said in her most cheerful tone.
“You can?” He gave her that intense stare again, the one that always made both her brain and her mouth run amok. Which was silly, since it wasn’t as if she cared what he thought of her. Wealthy man-about-town types didn’t appeal to her.
Deborah nodded. “Yes. It’s simple, really. In fact, you wouldn’t believe how simple it is.” Right, as in simpleminded. She couldn’t believe it herself.
“Are you going to let me come in?” It wasn’t really a question. At that moment, as if to underline his demand, the door downstairs opened, sending an icy blast of January air up the stairway.
“Come in?” She didn’t want him in her apartment. He was too big, too…male. But under the circumstances, she didn’t have much choice. “Well, I guess so, if it’s necessary. But I’m sure we can settle this very quickly, without taking too much of your time.” Or hers. She was running a tight deadline on arrangements for the Tyler twins’ birthday party, and their mother was not a calm woman.
“We need to talk.” He brushed past her, and with his six-foot-plus frame inside it, her apartment immediately shrank to shoebox size. His aftershave smelled fresh and piney.
“Talk?” Deborah took a breath and forced herself not to say anything else for five seconds. She wasn’t letting any man, especially one in pinstripes, turn her into a parrot. The problem was, Cameron Lyle made every cell in her body go haywire. He always did. He’d stand and look at her without saying anything at all. He didn’t smile much, either. The man should learn how to smile. It was, after all, a very natural thing to do, and it put people at ease.
But Cameron Lyle wouldn’t know anything about that. And if he did, the idea of putting people at ease probably wouldn’t be a selling point.
Deborah pointed to the couch. “Have a seat. Are you allergic to cats?”
He raised one dark brow. Now that he did well. It was obvious that he disapproved of not only her music, but practically everything else about her, too. She’d gotten a lot of brow action from him over the past three months. He had strong, very masculine brows to go with a strong, very masculine face. And his jaw was way more aggressive than any jaw she would consider going out with.
Deborah grimaced. She didn’t want to guess where that thought had come from. It wasn’t as if she even liked the man, for heaven’s sake. He was the only person she knew who consistently challenged her natural optimism and good humor.
Still, he had to have a good side to him somewhere. After all, he attracted an amazing number of women. How many times had she gone downstairs to chat with his assistant, Barb, and found some glamorous woman waiting for him?
“No,” said Cameron finally, settling himself onto her couch.
Deborah sat down in the armchair opposite the sofa and tried to remember what he was saying no about. “Cat hair,” she explained after a moment. “Cat dander, to be more accurate. Libby sheds, and the hair doesn’t always vacuum up completely. So it’s a good thing you’re not allergic. Now, let me tell you how this boyfriend-girlfriend thing came about.” She took a long, steadying breath. “Actually, I never used the word boyfriend to Marilyn. I just said I’d been seeing someone, and she asked who, and I said you.”
“I see.”
What that meant, and what exactly he saw, was a mystery to Deborah. His face gave nothing away. But based on all her other encounters with Cameron Lyle, disapproval had to figure in there somewhere.
“Strictly speaking, I do see you from time to time,” she pointed out, trying not to sound as defensive as she felt. “But of course Marilyn drew her own conclusions.” Which I did nothing to correct.
She wanted to clear her throat, but that would make her sound as nervous as she was. Instead she traced a pattern on the arm of her chair. So much for telling herself that Cameron would never find out about her little misrepresentation, and that even if he did, he dated so many women he wouldn’t notice one more in the crowd.
Wrong on both counts.
Deborah stifled a sigh. It would be nice if he would stop looking at her as if she were a zoo exhibit. His gaze was too intense. It made her feel completely off-balance. Plus, using the word “boyfriend” in connection with the man seated opposite her went beyond weird. Not only were they an unlikely pair, but there was nothing boyish about him. He was all lean muscle and hard edges.
In short, all man.
Which, of course, she had noticed even when she had been engaged to Marilyn’s son, Mark.
His gaze held steady on her face. “I’ll admit I’m curious as to why you didn’t use your fiancе if you needed to claim a boyfriend. I’d have thought he would be the ultimate in convenience.”
Deborah blinked. Aside from those two sentences being the longest ones he’d ever sent in her direction, he was apparently the only person in this little corner of Indianapolis who hadn’t heard the news.
The interest her broken engagement had generated in Tulip Tree Square had taken Deborah totally by surprise, but as her friend Ann had pointed out, their small community of shop owners was closely knit, and people had to talk about something. If they didn’t care about sports, then love lives were a decent alternative.
Tulip Tree Square needed more sports fans.
“I don’t have a fiancе,” Deborah said.
His brows shot up, but not in a supercilious way this time. He looked genuinely surprised. In his eyes she saw a quick flash of something else, too, something undefinable, before his gaze dropped to her left hand. For the first time since her breakup, Deborah was acutely conscious of her bare ring finger.
“No fiancе,” he murmured.
“Right. Not anymore. Mark broke it off a month ago. And his mother was so concerned about me that I had to say something to reassure her. We had lunch together, except she wasn’t eating any of hers, and she badly needs to get her strength back after her surgery—”
Deborah stopped. She simply had to control herself. She had to ignore his intense eyes and her own embarrassment and remember that this man didn’t care two hoots about Marilyn not eating any of her roast beef au jus sandwich. Or that she’d been like an extra mother to Deborah for years. There wasn’t much Deborah wouldn’t do for Marilyn. A little white lie hadn’t seemed too terrible if it brought her peace of mind.
“His mother. I suppose that would be Marilyn Snyder,” observed the lofty Mr. Lyle.
“Right.” Her own mother’s best friend. Now that her mom had remarried and moved to Florida, it was up to Deborah to keep an affectionate eye on Marilyn during her convalescence. “You know her, obviously,” Deborah added.
“Only slightly. Committee work.”
She nodded. “Well anyway, Marilyn had an emergency appendectomy a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, her appendix exploded on the operating table, and the infection got really nasty.”
He winced. “I see.” He looked like he wished he didn’t. “I had no idea she had a son. She didn’t mention him to me at all during our conversation.”
Deborah lifted one shoulder. “Well, since she thinks you’re my new boyfriend—which, as I’ll repeat, is not what I told her—she probably decided against mentioning an ex-fiancе. Besides, Marilyn hasn’t been too thrilled with Mark lately.”
That was an understatement. When Mark had broken off their engagement, his mother had been crushed. Deborah’s mother hadn’t turned any handsprings, either, because she and Marilyn had decided years ago that Deborah and Mark would make a perfect couple. The two mothers had been a lot more upset about the breakup than Deborah had been. Which, in the end, had told them all a lot.
She and Mark were both lucky to have escaped marriage. After all, Mark couldn’t even decide which graduate degree to go for. He was obviously not ready to commit to any woman. And in the days following their breakup, Deborah had realized he wasn’t the man for her.
All things considered, the two of them were lucky their mothers had given up gracefully.
But there was no point in going into details. Even if Cameron Lyle were interested, which he wouldn’t be, it was none of his business.
“Marilyn’s clearly a big fan of yours,” he said. “Wanted to let me know how happy she is that you’re having some fun these days.”
Deborah stifled a groan. Marilyn, sweetheart that she was, had said those very words to Deborah, but somehow, coming from beautifully chiseled masculine lips, they sounded a lot less innocent.
