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Bound By Marriage
Nalini Singh
How else to describe the pact Jessica Randall had made with wealthy New Zealand rancher Gabe Dumont? In exchange for marriage and an heir, he would save her family property. The agreement was calculating, completely devoid of any tenderness, just like the man himself. Their relationship was supposed to be a simple arrangement.Instead, it was fraught with secrets and mistrust, jealousy and ultimatums–emotions that wouldn't allow her to maintain the distance she needed. Worse, the sizzling attraction between them made this marriage of convenience decidedly inconvenient.
Bound by Marriage
Nalini Singh
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To Wanda, who makes me a better writer.
And to the Brainstorming Desirables and NZRomance
e-mail groups, who between them, can answer any
research question ever invented!
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 Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Coming Next Month
One
The last person Jess Randall expected to see as she walked out of the arrival gate at Christchurch International Airport, was the man she was about to marry. “Gabriel. What are you doing here?”
“You’ve been living in L.A. for a year and that’s all you have to say?”
Flustered, she leaned forward to drop a quick kiss on his cheek. It felt unfamiliar, awkward. “Sorry, I was just surprised. Aren’t you busy with station work?”
“I wanted to talk to you about something. But first things first.” He bent his head and, without any prelude, kissed her full on the mouth.
Knocked completely off her bearings, she couldn’t do anything but clutch at his shirt in an effort to keep herself upright. Her heart was a staccato drumbeat in her ears, her blood a rush of thunder. And all around her burned a rough male heat that demanded everything she had.
It was the most intimate kiss they’d ever shared, the closest their bodies had ever come. And it made her nerves tighten in sheer panic. Not because she didn’t like it, but because she did.
“Welcome home,” he said, releasing her. The look in those green eyes was unmistakable—Gabriel Dumont was a man more than ready for his wedding night.
Legs not quite steady, she watched him pick up her bags. He led her through to the domestic part of the airport and across the road to the landing field used by smaller planes. The Jubilee, one of Angel Station’s two planes, sat waiting for them.
Fear—of Gabe’s expectations, but mostly of her own inexplicable response to his touch—had such a stranglehold on her that she was barely aware of hopping on board. Over the past year, she’d convinced herself that her marriage would be a calm, steady, business-like affair, never once considering what it might mean to be Gabriel’s wife in truth…to be touched and claimed in ways that obliterated the distance she needed to survive this bargain.
Her heart stuttered as he settled in beside her, taking the pilot’s seat. Taking control. A man who knew what he wanted and exactly how he wanted it, her fiancé was not someone who could ever be ignored.
Though he was tall and undeniably strong, his musculature was lean and powerful, not bulky. When he moved it was like watching a wild stallion in its prime; healthy and magnificent and proud. The faded burn scars on his left arm and back took nothing away from that—they possibly even contributed to the overwhelming sense of masculinity that surrounded him. Add in the pure green eyes and that sun-shot hair, and it almost seemed as if he’d become more beautiful in the year’s absence…more wrong for her.
Gabe might have the looks that stopped women in their tracks, but it was the same kind of beauty as that of a tiger in the wild—dangerous and definitely untouchable. Not for the first time, she wondered at the lunacy of her decision to marry a man she knew so little about, notwithstanding that she’d grown up as his neighbor.
“So, what did you learn in L.A.?” he asked, long after they were safely in the air.
Still unsettled by the effect of his kiss, she had to fight to keep her voice calm. “That I can paint.”
“We both knew that, Jess. It was why you went to the States in the first place.”
“True.” She’d wanted to study under renowned painter Genevieve Legraux. “What I meant was I found out I could paint on a level that might support a career.” It had been a startling discovery for a woman who’d spent her whole life helping her parents on their small sheep station, snatching only pieces of time for her art.
“Genevieve encouraged me to submit my work to some galleries.” She’d even dared send something to Richard Dusevic, an Auckland-based and very well connected gallery owner who could make or break an artist’s career.
“You didn’t mention that during my calls.”
She shrugged, her mind flicking back to those twice-weekly conversations. They’d lasted no more than a few minutes at most but had inevitably left her feeling lost and confused. “I wanted to show you the actual paintings.” Because she knew that Gabe took nothing on faith. “They should be arriving soon—I shipped them.”
The sun glinted off his hair as he nodded. “Will you miss Los Angeles?”
“No.” She looked out the window. They were passing over the patchwork quilt of the Canterbury Plains. Soon they’d be in the Mackenzie Country, a stunning piece of paradise hidden in the shadow of New Zealand’s Southern Alps and the only place she’d ever truly called home. “I needed to get out of here for a while but not for always. I’m back to stay.”
“Are you?”
Picking up the edge in his tone, she turned from the window. “What kind of a question is that? We’re getting married…unless you’ve changed your mind?” Maybe he’d actually fallen in love with one of those sensual, confident women who graced his bed in an ever-changing parade. Her hands curled into fists at the thought.
“I’m ready.” He made a small adjustment to the controls. “It’s you I’m worried about.”
“I promised I’d return ready for marriage. And I have.” Shell-shocked by the twin blows of her father’s death and the foreclosure of Randall Station, she hadn’t had the strength to be anyone’s wife twelve months ago, much less that of a man like Gabriel.
“Damon and Kayla have separated.”
Her mind couldn’t make sense of the words. “What? But I thought you said Kayla was pregnant.”
“Heavily. Your boyfriend walked out on her three months ago.”
It was a slap. “Damon is my friend, nothing more.” Her fists tightened hard enough to hurt.
“No matter how much you wish otherwise?” He glanced at her, eyes so icy she could see nothing except her own reflection.
“Yes. No matter how much I wish otherwise,” she admitted, in spite of her humiliation. “He never loved me, not like he loves Kayla.”
“Doesn’t much seem like it. The boy’s running around with anything in possession of a pair of breasts.”
The blunt words brought heat to her cheeks. “He’s hardly a boy. He’s the same age as me.” And twenty-six was plenty old enough to grow up and grow up hard.
“He’s acting like a child right now.” Gabe ignored her statement. At thirty-five, he was nine years older and the gap was never more apparent than at times such as this.
“How did it happen?” she asked, white noise crashing through her mind. “And why didn’t you tell me before?”
He gave her an odd look. “Didn’t Damon?”
“What?” She tucked her hair behind her ears. “No, we haven’t talked since I left.”
“Never?”
“No,” she lied, trying not to think of that single phone call Damon had made from a bar four months ago. He’d been drunk, but he’d said things no married man should have said…things she shouldn’t have listened to. “Is it looking bad?”
“Rumor is they’re heading for divorce.”
“Poor Kayla.”
“Hypocrisy, Jess? I didn’t expect that from you.”
Her cheeks blazed anew. “No matter what you think, I wouldn’t wish that kind of pain on any woman. Unless…did she ask for the separation?”
“Not from the way she’s looking.”
“I can’t believe Damon would walk out on his marriage.”
“Maybe he finally realized what he’d given up.” There was no mistaking the challenge in Gabe’s voice. “What are you going to do?”
“Do?” She was still reeling from the implications of his first sentence.
“We’re getting married tomorrow and I plan on us staying that way. So if you’re intending on chasing off after Damon, you sure as hell better tell me now.”
Jess took a shuddering breath and let it out again. “How am I supposed to make any kind of decision right this second?”
“The same way you decided to marry me and use my money to go to L.A.”
“Don’t you throw that in my face! You agreed to me leaving the area for a year.”
Tanned skin pulled tight over the ruthless angle of his jaw. “Answer the damn question. Do you want to get married or not?”
In truth, she didn’t really have a choice. If she backed out, she’d lose her last fragile grip on the land that had once been Randall Station. “How much to buy back Randall?” Gabe had never particularly wanted it. The only reason he’d stepped in during the foreclosure was because she’d gone to him begging. But that didn’t change the fact that he now owned it. Owned her.
He snorted. “You didn’t have that kind of money then and you don’t have it now. Neither does Damon.”
Both undeniable facts. She also owed Gabe for the year in L.A.—a year she’d so desperately needed to grow up. And growing up was exactly what she’d done. She might love Damon, but she’d made a promise to her father on his deathbed and she would keep it. A Randall would always remain on Randall land. “I’ll marry you.”
“You’ll be signing a pre-nup.”
She heard the unsaid statement loud and clear. “I won’t be trying to get the land back in a divorce. You bought it free and clear.” And in doing so, he’d saved it from the developers who would have destroyed it completely.
Paying the price he’d demanded—marriage—hadn’t seemed like such a sacrifice then. Especially since she’d believed that the marriage would ask nothing from her in terms of emotional commitment, allowing her to keep body and soul safe. Protected. It had never crossed her mind that Gabe might not permit her that distance.
Until he’d kissed her.
“My lawyer will bring over the papers tomorrow morning.”
“Fine.” Gabriel’s money itself had never been the thing she was after. It was losing the right to step foot on the very land she’d been entrusted to hold that she couldn’t bear.
Silence filled the cockpit. Dropping her head against the seat, she tried to think past the painful knot in her throat. Damon was separated. A small, selfish part of her, the part that had loved Damon forever, wanted to tell Gabe to call off the wedding. But she’d stopped lying to herself a long time ago. Even if Damon was acting like a single man again, he’d never once seen her as anything other than his best friend.
To counter that logic her mind insisted on remembering Damon’s unexpected phone call, the things he’d said. Swallowing, she fought back with the knowledge that he’d been drinking. He hadn’t meant it. Any of it. She couldn’t afford to think otherwise.
“What’s with the weight loss?” Gabe’s sharp question cut through the air like a knife.
“It just happened.” A combination of grief, shock and the stress of those first few months in a strange city. “I thought you’d be pleased.” Because his women had always been long-limbed, slender beauties. Even now she was short and not quite skinny.
“I’m not marrying you for your body.”
She bit her lower lip. “No.” Despite that devastating kiss, she knew too well that rich, successful and extremely attractive Gabriel Dumont wasn’t marrying her for her body. Nor was he marrying her for her wit or her confirmed knowledge of station life. No, Gabriel was marrying her for one simple, practical reason: unlike every other woman who’d ever crossed his path, she had no romantic illusions about him.
She didn’t want or expect him to love her, not now, not ever. And that made her imminently suitable to marry a man who had no ability to love, and didn’t want to be bothered with a wife who’d disrupt his life with dreams of romance. “I got a dress in L.A. For the wedding,” she said, in an effort to fill the emptiness between them.
Gabriel wasn’t buying Jess’s apparent calm. “Not the least bit hesitant?”
“You gave me a year. I’m ready now.”
