A Wedding at Ruby Lake

Jennifer Hayward

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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Contents

Cover

Title Page

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Endpages

Copyright

Chapter One

The wedding of the decade was to take place in Ruby Lake in seven days.

Ariana Westwood, eldest daughter of the rugged cottage haven’s oldest and most influential family was slated to marry prominent investment banker, Jackson O’Connell, in a lakeside ceremony guaranteed to be both lavish and tasteful. A perfect union among a sea of wealth that spent its summers unwinding, socializing and indulging in activities far better left to the whispers that slipped across the lake than the boundaries beyond.

A coup it surely should have been for Claire Westwood, the matriarch o f the Westwood clan, who stood at the railing of her palatial cottage estate looking down at the water, a glass of ice-cold Riesling in her hand. Jackson was everything she’d ever wanted for her daughter—wealthy, kind, smart and possessed of enough backbone to handle the willful and spirited Ariana. The perfect match.

But harmony would not be the word of the day. Instead she was about to blow the illusion of perfection off this idyllic community set deep in the heart of northern Ontario. To shake up Ruby Lake like the lightning storms that ripped across the mile-wide body of water, lighting up the night like fireworks and touching every soul in its path. And hope that somewhere therein lay the path to redemption.

A solitary figure among the hundreds of family, friends and wedding party members who’d gathered to celebrate the upcoming nuptials, Claire lifted her glass to her mouth and sipped the chilled wine. The sun was setting, casting its trademark ruby glow across the water. The urge to take her secret to the grave with her as she’d always intended came back, overwhelmingly strong. She would have done just that had she not seen her life go in that very direction just weeks ago in a small plane crash on her way to Ruby Lake. It had reminded her how short, how precious, life was. How, despite her selfish ways, she loved her family more than she loved life itself.

How she could no longer continue to play God with her children’s lives.

Her choice made, she turned back to the guests and located her tall, slim, vivacious daughter, Ariana, standing at her fiancé’s side. She was smiling up at him, a bright light as always, but there were shadows in her blue eyes. Claire’s fingers tightened around her glass. It was time to set the ball in motion. To make things right.

She started across the deck toward her daughter, skirting Ariana’s ultra-efficient wedding planner, Tyra Brown, and Jackson’s best man, Nick Taylor, quaffing down a cocktail while he flirted with a pretty dark-haired member of the catering staff. Her progress was halted mid-stride by the arrival of her former husband, Bradley Westwood, a perfectly-put-together blonde at his side. Her mouth tightened. Always a flirt, her husband had spent their marriage making a profession of it until she couldn’t take it anymore. Until she’d done the unthinkable….

Her gaze met his cool, guarded one. So winning her husband back was going to be a challenge? Her chin lifted. Fortunately she’d never met a game she couldn’t win and that’s what this was all about. Restoring the natural order of things.

***

The whir of helicopter blades filled the night air. Felicity Kane, Ariana’s maid of honour, stopped in mid-sentence. She frowned and lifted her eyes skyward, waiting until the chopper had touched down to speak.

“I thought everyone was here.”

Ariana’s heart dropped to her toes. If she could have forgotten for even ten seconds who the last remaining guest to arrive was, it would have been a major victory. Instead she’d spent the past hour searching the sky for the big black bird he piloted.

“It’s Hunter,” she muttered weakly, flicking an imaginary speck of dirt off her dress. “He’s the last.”

“Oh, no.” Felicity waved a finger at her. “You do not say his name like that. You say it in a I-want-to-kick-your-butt kind of way. Like, ‘You walked out on me and left me broken-hearted and I feel nothing for you.’”

Ariana smiled her first real smile of the evening. The fact that she had seriously cold feet on the eleventh hour of her wedding couldn’t have anything to do with Hunter… Could it? He’d walked away from her and Ruby Lake after his rogue trader father, Michael, had skipped town with half the lake’s money and built himself into a billionaire real-estate developer with a freshly minted reputation. And installed Ariana’s old rival as his fiancée and glamorous dinner party host.

She wrung her clammy hands together, Jackson’s massive diamond sparkling in the lights. It wasn’t possible she could still care. Was it? How much more could she hurt?

Ariana’s sister, Georgia, ran to the railing and peered over at the helipad. Her young and very impressionable jaw dropped.

“What?” Ariana was pretty sure she couldn’t take any more right about now.

“It’s Hunter, all right. Minus his plus one. I wonder if the rumour is true.”

“What rumour?” Felicity demanded.

Georgia turned around, put her fingers to her mouth and cocked a hip for dramatic effect. “Brenda Ellis at the deli told me Hunter and Rachel Banks are finished. As in unengaged.”

Ariana’s knees went weak.

“Sweetheart, I need you for a second.”Ariana’s mother pounced like a cat on a hot tin roof.

Ariana held up a hand. “Not now mother.”

“Now.” Her mother took her arm, shoved a drink in her hand and led her through the guests to the back patio off the kitchen.

Ariana dug her heels in and pulled to a halt. “What’s going on?”

Her mother swept a hand over her perfect chignon, her delicate chin lifting. “The night that Hunter left town, he came to see you.”

Ariana stared at her mother as though she was speaking Spanish.

“He wanted you to come to New York with him. I knew it. I told him he wasn’t good enough for you. To go and not come back.”

The wooden deck swayed around Ariana like the rolling ship she’d use to love at the amusement park. “You’re joking.” She must be joking.

Her mother’s mouth firmed. “I was having an affair with Michael Joseph. I didn’t want you anywhere near Hunter because I knew the truth would come out.”

“And therein lays the issue with this evening’s festivities.”

Ariana whirled around at the sound of Hunter’s deep, rich baritone, finding herself face-to-face with the deep blue eyes and six-foot-two gorgeous inches of the ex she hadn’t seen in seven years. It was all too much. Her head swam. The glass slipped from her fingers.

She was vaguely aware of Hunter cursing, plucking her from amid the glass shards and ordering her mother to get water.

Her gaze lifted to his. “What’s going on, Hunter?”

He smiled that devil-may-care smile she remembered so well. “Why, I’ve come back to take what’s mine. You’ve always been the only woman for me, Ari. Surely you know that?”

It was on the tip of her tongue to say no, surely she didn’t. That he’d left her. But then Hunter was setting her down on a bench and disappearing inside to find a broom.

Her head spun even faster. It took about five seconds for Ariana to do what any semi-hysterical, vaguely sensible woman would do.

She picked up her skirt and ran.

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