The Billionaire's Baby Plan / Marrying the Northbridge Nanny: The Billionaire's Baby Plan
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“I’m surprised you didn’t take care of the gown, then, too.”
“Your taste is excellent. But if you prefer, I can make a few calls to some designers I know.”
“Gosh. Thanks.” She shivered and her sarcasm was shaky.
“You’re cold.” He suddenly pulled her close to him, wrapping his overcoat around her.
It was like being engulfed by a blast furnace. And for the life of her, she couldn’t pull away.
“Better?” His voice dropped, whispering against her temple.
Her fingers curled against his shoulders, easily discerning the hard feel of him beneath the soft wool. No extra padding in that coat, at all. “Not really,” she admitted.
“It won’t all be bad. Have you seen the Mediterranean?”
She shook her head. She had to fight against the urge to lean against him. To just let him take her weight, and everything else on her plate…
But wasn’t that what he was doing, anyway?
“I’ve arranged a private villa in the French Riviera for the honeymoon.”
Honeymoon. She almost laughed. Or cried. Because he was covering all of his bases as far as appearances went. “I don’t want to be away from the office for even a week.”
“You will be, and it’ll be three weeks.”
Her gaze flew to his. “That’s impossible. I can’t just flit off for—” She broke off when the door behind them opened again.
“What on earth is taking so.” Emily’s voice trailed off at the sight that met her. “Long?” Her eyebrows lifted in silent demand.
Lisa tried to untangle herself from Rourke’s arms, but he wasn’t cooperating. Which left her to peer over his shoulder at her mother. But when she opened her mouth to explain, nothing came. “I…I—”
“Blame it on me, Mrs. Armstrong,” Rourke said smoothly. Without releasing Lisa, he tucked her against his side and turned to face Emily, his hand extended. “It’s good to meet you again.”
Again? Startled, Lisa looked from his face to her mother’s.
The insistent inquiry on Emily’s face was replaced by surprise. And no small amount of confusion. “Mr. Devlin. How nice to see you.”
“Your mother and I were on the same charitable board a few years ago,” he told Lisa. The smile he directed at Emily was both rueful and charming. “I’m afraid I forgot to mention it before.” He looked at Lisa, the very picture of devoted man. “We’ve been busy with…other matters.”
Her cheeks burned. She wondered if he’d studied the way Ted Bonner was always looking at Sara Beth, because he had the whole besotted thing down to an art. She glanced at her mother, who was now eyeing her with even more surprise.
“You are…seeing…Rourke Devlin?”
She would have had to have been a stone to miss her mother’s implication.
Her chin lifted. She smiled a little and let her left hand slide down to the center of Rourke’s chest. There was no way that her mother could miss the diamond on her finger. “Yes.”
Emily’s lips parted. She blinked a little. And Lisa knew that she probably should be ashamed of enjoying, just a little, the sight of her mother so obviously at a loss for words.
“I hope you don’t mind that I didn’t speak to you and Dr. Armstrong before now,” Rourke smoothly stepped into the verbal void. “But your daughter has a way of making me forget all convention.”
Lisa nearly choked over that.
But Emily was recovering quickly. Her smile was still more than a little puzzled. Proof that she couldn’t understand what appeal Lisa might have for a man like him. But she stepped back in the doorway, extending her hand. “Of course we don’t mind,” she was saying. “Lisa is an adult. She makes her own decisions. Now come in out of the chill. We’ve got most of the family here,” she continued when Rourke let go of Lisa and nudged her back inside the house. “Though it would have been perfect if Derek and Olivia could have been here for such an announcement.” She gave Lisa a censorious look, as if Lisa had deliberately chosen the timing to annoy her.
But there was nothing but delighted pleasure again in Emily’s face when she pushed the door closed and tucked her arm through Rourke’s to lead him through her graciously decorated home.
Following behind them, Lisa blew out a silent breath.
At least now she didn’t have to figure out a way to break the unlikely news that she was going to marry the man.
In that, she supposed she ought to be grateful.
“Everyone, look who’s here.” Emily’s voice had taken on a cheerful slant by the time they entered the drawing room. “Darling.” She went first to Gerald. “You remember Rourke Devlin, don’t you?”
Rourke shook the older man’s hand. “It’s good to see you, Dr. Armstrong.”
Gerald waved that off. “Gerald,” he insisted. “And of course I remember the last time.” He sounded irritated that Emily might suggest he wouldn’t. “He was at the Founder’s Ball. Lisa, get the man a drink.” He gestured to the leather chair that until a few years ago, had been his own preferred perch. “You’ve met my eldest son, Paul, and his fiancée?”
Aware of the surprised looks that were passing between her brother and Ramona as the two greeted Rourke, Lisa went to the bar. She couldn’t very well ask Rourke what he preferred to drink—presumably that would be something a “normal” fiancée would know—so she poured him a glass of the same wine she was drinking.
Though, as she carried it over to him and he tugged her down onto the arm of the chair and held her there with his implacable hand around her hips, she was rather wishing that she’d chosen a much stronger drink for herself. Instead, she held her own glass with tight fingers and it was then—seemingly all at once—that the rest of them noticed the ring on her finger.
Ramona gasped.
Paul muttered an uncharacteristic oath.
And Gerald just slapped his hand on his thigh. “Well, my God, Lisa-girl. Aren’t you full of surprises!”
She smiled, hoping it didn’t look as weak as it felt, and avoided her brother’s eyes. Of all those present, he was the one least likely to be convinced about her and Rourke’s sudden match. “Wait until you hear Rourke’s plans for the wedding,” she said and smiled down at her intended bridegroom with a sudden hint of sadistic relish.
Let him be the one to tell Emily Stanton Armstrong that the wedding was already in the works.
And she’d have no say in the details, whatsoever.
“My pleasure,” he said smoothly. But instead of launching into the litany of wedding arrangements that he’d already, arrogantly made, he lifted her free hand and pressed his thumb unerringly against her erratic pulse.
Then he smiled a little and sent her brief little spurt of satisfaction packing when he pressed his mouth slowly, intentionally, against her palm.
She forgot about her mother and everyone else. Except Rourke. And the fact that he’d plucked all control right out of the hand he was kissing.
Chapter Five
“You look beautiful.” Lisa’s sister, Olivia, fussed for a moment with the lightweight veil that streamed down Lisa’s back from the small jeweled clasp where it fastened around her low chignon. “This has got to be one of the most romantic marriages I’ve ever heard of.” Her dark eyes met Lisa’s as she squeezed her hand. “This has been a remarkable year. I’m so happy for you and Rourke.”
“Thanks.” Lisa stared at herself in the long mirror of the luxurious hotel suite where she’d spent the night before her wedding. She’d traveled from Boston just yesterday morning and, in the thirty-six hours since, had been pinned and tucked into the wedding gown that she now wore, and her body from head to toe had been primped and fussed over by a crew of hairdressers, masseuses and aestheticians. And not two hours earlier, all buffed and polished, she’d stood in her perfectly fitted ivory gown on the terrace of her beautiful suite for the formal portrait that her mother had insisted upon. She’d been catered to and fussed over, and if she’d been given her fondest wish, she would have been miles and miles away from all of it.
There was something really wrong with surrounding herself with all the trappings of a fairy-tale wedding when the reason for it in the first place was anything but a fairy-tale romance. Lisa kept waiting for someone to stop and point them out as the counterfeit couple that they were, only nobody did.
Not Rourke’s family, who’d hosted the rehearsal dinner the evening before at an unexpectedly quaint, homey Italian restaurant that Lisa had learned had once belonged to his grandparents, but was now run by Lea, mother of the impish Tanya. And definitely not by Lisa’s parents. Emily might have been frustrated by her inability to run what she considered “her” territory—her daughter’s wedding—but she was nevertheless glorying in the fact that Lisa was making such an unexpectedly advantageous match.
Lisa dragged her thoughts together. “And, you know, thanks for being my matron of honor,” she offered to her sister. Olivia looked ethereal in her close-fitting royal-blue gown. Thanks to being Mrs. Jamison Mallory, she hadn’t needed to prevail upon any of Rourke’s connections to come up with an outfit befitting the occasion. “I know it was short notice.”
Olivia laughed a little. “I’m glad to do it, Lisa.” She swept a slender hand down her tea-length skirt. “Actually, I assumed you’d want Sara Beth to stand up with you. You’re so close.”
Lisa would have been glad for her best friend’s support even if Sara Beth didn’t know the full details of her and Rourke’s arrangement. But Sara Beth had already been with Lisa for much of the day. She’d arrived at the hotel that morning before the buffers and the polishers with a bottle of champagne and a determination to see Lisa through what she suspected wasn’t the “perfect romance” that had been touted in the news as soon as the media got a whiff of Rourke Devlin’s impending nuptials.
But now, Sara Beth was already at the cathedral, giving support to her husband who was serving as Rourke’s best man.
“I love Sara Beth, too. But you’re my sister,” Lisa said.
Olivia looked touched. “Well. Don’t make my mascara run now, when it’s time for us to leave for the ceremony. I hope that Jamison hasn’t let Kevin lose the rings.” She turned to retrieve the orchid bouquets that had been delivered to Lisa’s suite earlier. “He’s so excited about being the ring bearer but I think a lot of it may have to do with getting to walk beside Chance’s stepdaughter, Annie. He’s fascinated with her red hair.”
Panic rippled through Lisa’s stomach, and it had nothing to do with either Kevin or little Annie. With Olivia’s attention elsewhere, she quickly swallowed down the last of her champagne. Courage, even in liquid form, seemed definitely called for.
Then she hefted up her trailing gown and took her bouquet from her sister. Like it or not, it was showtime.
Rourke pulled back his cuff and looked at his watch.
“Don’t worry.” Ted clapped him on the back. “The Plaza is only minutes away. She’ll be here.”
“I know. I just want to get it over with.”
Ted smiled. “And get on with the wedding night?”
Rourke didn’t deny it. He hadn’t told his old friend any of the details behind the sudden marriage; leaving intact Ted’s assumption that Rourke’s interest in Lisa had carried them away.
The pretense wasn’t entirely a pretense, anyway. Since that night with Lisa at her parents’ home, he hadn’t seen her again until the previous day when they’d both put their signatures on his prenup before joining the rest of their families and friends for the rehearsal and the dinner following.
Holding her in his arms, dropping kisses on her lips. None of it had been a hardship and if anything, he was more than a little preoccupied with thoughts of what was to come after the “I do’s” were said.
“Gentlemen?” The woman in charge of keeping them on time poked her head into the room where Ted and Rourke were waiting. “We’re ready for you.”
Ted grinned and gave him a thumbs-up before preceding him to the chapel. The organist was already playing when he and Ted lined up in front of the priest.
He was surprised to feel a jolt of nervousness when he turned to wait for his bride. It wasn’t a common sensation. His mother sat in the front pew, beaming her pleasure at him. Behind her were his sisters and their husbands and broods. Tanya was bouncing in her seat, alternating between pouts and smiles. She’d given him hell the evening before for stooping to marry someone else before she became available.
Young Kevin Jamison appeared, his focus much more squarely on the pillow he was carrying which bore the wedding rings, than it was on where he was walking. Fortunately, his sidekick, Annie Labeaux—who was practically preening in her ruffled yellow dress—knew her marks perfectly, and kept Kevin coming in a forward motion.
Then Lisa’s sister appeared, gliding up the aisle like the dancer he knew she’d once been. Tanya bounced again and, despite her mother’s grasping hands, managed to stand up on her pew to wave both hands at him.
He waved back, earning a soft chuckle from most of the guests. But he wasn’t really listening because Lisa had appeared at the rear of the chapel.
Rourke was vaguely aware of Gerald accompanying her in his wheelchair along the aisle toward him. Vaguely aware of the change in the organ music. Vaguely aware that he was still breathing.
She was beautiful.
Draped in some airy fabric that cinched her narrow waist in bits of lace, managing to look painfully innocent and wrenchingly sexy at the same time.
Her eyes didn’t meet his when she reached the end of the aisle. She kissed her father’s cheek and his motorized chair silently left her side.
Leaving Lisa to him.
He could see her pulse beating at the base of her slender neck. See a similar beat in the smooth flesh between the modest V of her neckline. And he could feel it beneath his fingers in her hands after she handed off her bouquet to her sister and placed them, cool and slightly shaking, in his.
Later, he knew they’d both repeated the vows. Knew he’d pushed his platinum band on her finger and had donned the wider version of it for himself. He knew that she’d lifted her lips for his brief kiss when the priest called for it, and knew that she’d tucked her hand through his arm as they’d walked back down the chapel aisle.
He knew it, because the license was duly signed afterward, they blinked against the flash of a dozen cameras as they left the cathedral behind, and then they were inside his limousine, which was bearing them, right on schedule, back to his Park Avenue apartment. The rest of the wedding party and guests were following in a raft of identical stretches.
“So that’s it,” she said, as they left the cathedral behind. She was looking at her hands that were splayed flat on her lap, surrounded by the cloud of her long gown.
Probably looking at the wedding rings.
“That was just the start.”
He watched her fingers curl into the airy gown until neither her fingers nor the rings were visible. She looked straight ahead at the smoked privacy window separating them from the driver, then turned her head to look out the window. Her veil was pulled to one side, exposing her pale nape and the small, lone freckle that graced the tender skin.
He would kiss that freckle soon enough. And every inch of creamy flesh that stretched down her spine. He wondered how long it would take to undo the dozens of tiny diamondlike buttons that stretched down the back of her gown. Wondered, too, what she would be wearing beneath it.
She looked at him suddenly, her eyes narrowed, as if she’d been reading his mind. But she quickly disabused him of that notion. “There’s not going to be any photographers at your apartment, are there?”
“At the reception?” He shook his head. “No. Outside the building, though? Likely.” There had been a few camped out there for the past several days, clearly documenting the somewhat surprising fact that Rourke Devlin’s fiancée wasn’t yet in residence. “Don’t worry. You’re the picture of a princess bride. Just look up at me adoringly as we go inside and everyone’ll be happy.”
She grimaced and looked back out the window again. “Everyone but us,” she muttered. “Even my best friend doesn’t know what a lie this all is. I hope you’re planning on going to confession someday or that farce of a wedding ceremony will haunt us to hell.”
He touched his finger to her arm, feeling her start, before he dragged it slowly down to her wrist. “That’s how you saw it?”
She shifted, crossing her arms. “How could I not? It was a pretense. Love, honor and cherish?” She shook her head, the corner of her lips turned downward.
“You’ll be my wife with all the respect that deserves. I’ll honor you.” And he’d cherish her body the second he had the chance. No question.
The line of her jaw was like a finely chiseled masterpiece. “You won’t love me.”
Love had never gotten him anywhere. “And you won’t love me.”
She slid him an icy look. “That’s right. The sooner we get what we want out of this deal, the happier I’ll be.”
“Then we’re in agreement.” He held her gaze with his, even after the limo sighed to a stop in front of his building. “Now, are you ready to get on with this?” His driver opened the door next to him.
Lisa’s gaze slipped away. She picked up her bouquet that had been lying on the seat between them and nodded.
He stepped out of the car, and turned to help her out. She stuck out one slender foot, shod in delicate straps, and then the dress seemed to follow as she slid out of the vehicle.
It was like watching flower petals unfurl and he knew the photographers that—as predicted—were still camped out nearby would be snapping away.
The moment Lisa was standing beside him, he slid his arm around her waist and pulled her close. His mouth covered hers.
Her lips parted; he could taste her quick word of protest, but he ignored it. And then he could taste the faint hint of champagne on her tongue and then deeper, the taste of her as she was kissing him back.
“Time enough for that later.” Ted’s laughing voice barely penetrated the fog that was gathering in Rourke’s head. The hand his friend clamped on his shoulder was more intrusive.
Rourke slowly pulled away.
Lisa’s eyes were wide. Her cheeks were flushed.
Sara Beth danced around next to Lisa, sliding a short little capelike thing around her shoulders that matched Lisa’s dress before scurrying her toward the building, chattering a mile a minute about God only knew what. Crushed orchids rained down from Lisa’s bouquet onto the sidewalk as they went.
He forced a smile for Ted and the others who were rapidly disgorging from the stream of limousines but the only thing he really saw was the panicked glance Lisa tossed back at him the moment before she disappeared into the building.
Yeah, he’d given the photographers their money shot, but just then he wasn’t certain who was paying the price.
Lisa leaned back against the elevator wall and stared at her hands. She hadn’t even had time to get used to the weight of the engagement ring during the past week, and now there was another band there to add to the unsettling unfamiliarity.
“Some kiss.”
She glanced up at Sara Beth, who was not doing even a credible job of sounding, or looking, casual.
Lisa pressed her lips together for a moment. She could still taste him. “Yes.” She kept her voice low. The elevator doors were still open. There was no point in pushing the button for Rourke’s floor, because that particular one required a key.
Sara Beth’s voice was just as low. “Considering the steam radiating off the two of you, I would’ve expected you to look a little more…glowing.” She plucked Lisa’s somewhat smashed bouquet out of her hands and gently stroked her hand over the blooms. “Rourke’s obviously crazy about you. But are you really okay with this marriage thing? It’s awfully sudden.”
“I told you back at the hotel that I was.”
“Yes, and you were two glasses into a bottle of champagne before you managed to say that.” Sara Beth lifted her chin and smiled a little stiffly when Emily and Ramona stepped onto the elevator followed soon by Gerald, whose chair was being pushed by Paul.
“I still don’t know why Derek wasn’t at the ceremony,” Emily was complaining. “I’ve left him a half-dozen messages but he hasn’t called me back.”
“Maybe he had something else he couldn’t get out of,” Paul said, his voice even.
“Not even for his sister’s wedding?” Emily shook her head, looking upset.
“It was short notice for everyone, Mother,” Lisa reminded, hoping that would be the end of it.
She had made it a point not to invite Derek and, considering the number of phone messages he’d been leaving for her, had been half afraid he’d show up anyway. Unless he was living under a rock, he couldn’t fail to have read or heard that she was marrying the handsome billionaire.
Then Ted arrived, holding up a key that he used to unlock the button for the penthouse floor. “Rourke’s talking to security. They were supposed to have the elevators unlocked by the time we got here.”
“No detail left unturned,” Lisa muttered.
Her mother leaned over to pinch Lisa’s cheeks and she jerked back. “Hey.”
“You need some color in your cheeks,” Emily defended. “You’re almost as white as your dress.”
“I think she looks perfect,” Ramona inserted, giving Lisa a quick wink when Emily turned to fuss over Gerald.
The elevator let them off in a spacious, marble-floored hallway that possessed two grand doors at opposite ends. The door belonging to Rourke was obvious; it was opened and a sedately uniformed beauty stood beside it, bearing a silver tray of crystal champagne flutes.
It took only a moment for Lisa to recognize the girl as the hostess from Raoul’s restaurant. “For the new Mrs. Devlin,” she greeted her, holding out her tray.
Mrs. Devlin.
Lisa’s hand shook as she took one of the exquisitely cut stems. “Thank you.”
“For heaven’s sake, Lisa, we’re not going to stand out here.” Emily glided past, taking a glass of champagne for herself and Gerald, and entered the apartment with none of the reluctance that Lisa was trying to hide.
The second elevator arrived with a soft chime and, half afraid it would be bearing Rourke, she gathered her dress and went inside.
Even though she had been prepped by Sara Beth, who had seen the place when Ted had brought her here for a romantic getaway, Lisa still wasn’t prepared for her first sight of Rourke’s city home.
In its way it was as grand as his Greenwich estate. But where that mansion looked to have been steeped in tradition, his penthouse dripped modernism from its bank of unadorned windows to the gleaming dark wood floor, and minimalist ivory-colored furnishings.
The only color of note came exclusively from the chest-high glass vases flanking every window that were filled with immense bouquets of purple irises that seemed to reach for the high, coffered ceiling. The flowers were repeated in squat glass bowls all around the spacious living area.
She didn’t know what surprised her more. The sleek, urban decor, or the profusion of flowers that he’d clearly arranged just for the purpose of their so-called reception.
“I told you it was beautiful,” Sara Beth whispered beside her. She tucked her arm through Lisa’s and drew her through the living area that was long enough to encompass Lisa’s entire town house, toward the terrace beyond the windows where the flowers were even more resplendent.
Stunned, Lisa slowly stepped outside. There were several tables set there arranged end to end and looking as if they’d come straight out of a photo shoot from a high-end wedding. Situated in the corner, there was even a harpist whose dulcet sounds trickled in the air. “Amazing,” she murmured.
“Thanks.” Rourke’s sister Tricia crossed to the nearest table and needlessly adjusted the position of a gleaming silver dessert fork against the pristine white linen cloth covering the table. “I’m afraid my brother didn’t give me much time to pull things together.”