New York Times bestselling author SHIRLEY JUMP didn’t have the will-power to diet, nor the talent to master under-eye concealer, so she bowed out of a career in television and opted instead for a career where she could be paid to eat at her desk—writing. At first, seeking revenge on her children for their grocery store tantrums, she sold embarrassing essays about them to anthologies. However, it wasn’t enough to feed her growing addiction to writing funny. So she turned to the world of romance novels, where messes are (usually) cleaned up before The End. In the worlds Shirley gets to create and control, the children listen to their parents, the husbands always remember holidays and the housework is magically done by elves. Though she’s thrilled to see her books in stores around the world, Shirley mostly writes because it gives her an excuse to avoid cleaning the toilets and helps feed her shoe habit.

To learn more, visit her website at www.shirleyjump.com.

The McKennas: Finn, Riley & Brody

One Day to Find a Husband

How the Playboy Got Serious

Return of the Last McKenna

Shirley Jump

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Table of Contents

Cover

About the Author

Title Page

One Day to Find a Husband

Dedication

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

How the Playboy Got Serious

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Return of the Last McKenna

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Copyright

One Day to Find a Husband

Shirley Jump

To my husband, who truly is my hero every day of my life. Thank you for blessing me with your love, and with our amazing children.

CHAPTER ONE

FINN MCKENNA wanted one thing.

And she was standing fifteen feet away, completely unaware of what he was about to do and definitely not expecting the question he wanted to ask her. He watched the woman—tall, blonde, leggy, the kind any man in his right mind could imagine taking to dinner, twirling around a dance floor, holding close at the end of the night—and hoped like hell his plan worked.

If he was his grandfather, he’d have been toting the McKenna four-leaf clover in his pocket, knocking three times on the banister and whispering a prayer to the Lord above. Finn McKenna’s ancestors were nothing if not superstitious. Finn, on the other hand, believed in the kind of luck fostered by good research and hard work. Not the kind brought about by leprechauns and rainbows.

He’d put enough time into this project, that was for sure. Turned the idea left, right and upside down in his head. Done his research, twice over. In short, reassured himself as much as one man could that the lady he was going to talk to would say …

Yes.

“You’re insane.”

Finn turned and shrugged at his little brother. Riley McKenna had the same dark brown hair and sky-blue eyes as the rest of the McKenna boys, but something about Riley, maybe his grin or his devil-may-care attitude, gave those same features a little spin of dashing. Finn had inherited the serious, hard lines of his workaholic father, where Riley had more of their free-spirited mother’s twinkle. “I’m not crazy, Riley. It’s business. Risks are part of the job.”

“Here.” Riley handed him a glass. “I talked the bartender into pouring you and me some good quality Irish ale.”

“Thanks.” Finn sipped at the dark brew. It slid down his throat with smooth, almost spicy notes. The beer was dry, yet robust, the kind that promised a memorable drink in a single pint. A thick head of foam on top indicated the quality of the ale. Good choice on Riley’s part, but Finn wasn’t surprised. His little brother knew his brews.

All around him, people mingled and networked over several-hundred-dollar-a-bottle wines and martinis with names so fancy they needed their own dictionary. In this crowd, a beer stuck out like a dandelion in a field of manicured roses, but Finn McKenna had never been one to worry much about breaking the rules or caring what other people thought about him. It was what had fueled his success.

And had also been a part of his recent failure.

A temporary state, he reminded himself. Tonight, he was going to change all of that. He was going to rebuild his business and he was going to use Ellie Winston, interim CEO of WW Architectural Design, to help him do it.

She just didn’t know it yet.

Eleanor Winston, known by those close to her as “Ellie,” the new boss of WW, her father’s company. Henry Winston Sr., one of the two Ws in the company name, had retired suddenly a couple weeks ago. Rumor was he’d had a major heart attack and would probably not return to the chair. The other W, his brother, had walked out in a family dispute eleven years prior, but his name remained on the masthead.

Finn ticked off what he knew about Eleanor Winston in his head. Twenty-nine, with a master’s in design from a reputable college, three years working at a firm in Atlanta before moving to Boston shortly after her father’s illness. Her design work was primarily in residential housing—the McMansions much maligned by the architectural world—and Finn had heard she was none too pleased to be spending her days designing hospitals and office supertowers. All the more reason for her to accept his offer with gratitude. He’d scoped out his competition for several weeks before deciding WW Architects was the best choice. A fledgling president, overseeing a sprawling company with multiple projects going at any given time—surely she wanted a … helping hand. Yes, that’s what he’d call it. A helping hand. A win-win for her and him.

“So this is your grand plan? Talking to Ellie Winston? Here? Now?” Riley asked. “With you dressed like that?”

Finn glanced down at his dark gray pinstripe suit, crisp white shirt and navy blue tie. “What’s wrong with the way I’m dressed?”

“Hey, nothing, if you’re heading to a funeral.” Riley patted his own shirt, as usual unbuttoned at the neck and devoid of a tie. “Make a statement, Finn. Get your sexy on.”

Finn shook off that advice. Riley was the more colorful McKenna brother, the one who always stood out in a crowd. Finn preferred his appearance neat, trim and professional—the same way he conducted business. Nothing too flashy, nothing too exciting.

“This is the perfect environment,” Finn said, nodding toward the woman. “She’s relaxed, maybe had a couple glasses of wine, and best of all—” he turned to his brother “—not expecting the offer I’m about to make.”

Riley chuckled. “Oh, I think that’s guaranteed.”

Finn’s gaze centered on Ellie Winston again. She laughed at something the guy beside her said. A full-throated laugh, her head thrown back, her deep green eyes dancing with merriment. Every time he’d seen her, she’d been like that—so open, so exuberant. Something dark and deep stirred in Finn’s gut, and for a split second he envied the man at her side. Wondered what it would be like to be caught in that spell. To be the one making her laugh and smile like that.

Damn, she was beautiful. Intriguing.

And a distraction, he told himself. One he couldn’t afford. Hadn’t he already learned that lesson from one painful mistake after another?

“A woman like that …” Riley shook his head. “I don’t think hardball is the right way to play it, Hawk.”

“I hate when you call me that.”

“Hey, if the nickname fits.” Riley grinned. “You, big brother, spy the weak, pluck them up and use them to feather your nest.” He put a hand on Finn’s shoulder. “But in the nicest way possible. Of course.”

“Oh, yeah, of course.” A magazine had dubbed Finn “the Hawk” a few years ago when he’d done a surprise buyout of his closest competitor. Then six months later, his next closest competitor. He’d absorbed the other businesses into his own, becoming one of the largest architectural firms in New England. At least for a while. Until his ex-girlfriend’s betrayal had reduced his company to half its size, taking his reputation down at the same time.

Now he’d slipped in the rankings, not even powerful enough to make any lists anymore. Or to merit any other nickname other than “Failure.”

But not for long.

A waitress came by with a tray of crudités and offered some to Finn and Riley. Finn waved off the food, but Riley picked up a smoked salmon–topped cucumber slice and shot the waitress a grin. “Are these as delicious as you are beautiful?”

A flush filled her face and she smiled. “You’ll have to try one to see.”

He popped it in his mouth, chewed and swallowed. Then shot her an even bigger grin. “The appetizer is definitely a winner.”

The waitress cocked her hip and gave him another, sassier smile. “Perhaps you should try the other, too.” Then she turned on her heel and headed for the next group.

“Perhaps I will,” Riley said, watching her sashay through the crowd.

Finn rolled his eyes. Keeping Riley focused on the subject at hand sometimes required superhuman abilities. “Do you ever think about anything other than women?”

“Do you ever think about anything other than business?” Riley countered.

“I’m the owner, Riley. I don’t have a choice but to keep my eye on the ball and my focus on the company.” He’d had a time where he’d focused on a relationship—and that had cost him dearly. Never again.

“There’s always a choice, Finn.” Riley grinned. “I prefer the ones that end with a woman like that in my bed, and a smile on my face.” He arched a brow in the direction of the waitress, who shot him a flirtatious smile back. “A woman like that one.”

“You’re a dog.”

Riley shrugged off the teasing. His playboy tendencies had been well documented by the Boston media. As the youngest McKenna, getting away with murder had been his middle name almost since birth. Funny how stereotypical the three boys had turned out. Finn, the eldest, the responsible one, working since he was thirteen. Brody, the middle brother, the peacemaker, who worked a respectable, steady job as a family physician. And then Riley, the youngest, and thus overindulged by their mother, and later, by their grandmother, who still doted on the “baby” of the family. Riley had turned being a wild child into a sport … and managed to live a life almost entirely devoid of responsibility.

Finn sometimes felt like he’d been responsible from the day he took his first steps. He’d started out as a one-man shop right out of college, and built McKenna Designs into a multioffice corporation designing projects all over the world. His rapid growth, coupled with a recession that fell like an axe on the building industry, and one mistake he wished he could go back in time and undo, had damaged his bottom line. Nearly taken him to bankruptcy.

“Carpe diem, Finn,” Riley said. “You should try it sometime. Get out of the office and live a little.”

“I do.”

Riley laughed. Out loud. “Right.”

“Running a company is a demanding job,” Finn said. Across the room, the woman he wanted to talk to was still making small talk with the other partygoers. To Finn, the room seemed like an endless sea of blue and black, neckties and polished loafers. Only two people stood out in the dark ocean before him—

Riley, who had bucked the trend by wearing a collar less white shirt under a sportscoat trimmed to fit his physique.

And Eleanor Winston, who’d opted for a deep cranberry dress that wrapped around her slender frame, emphasizing her small waist, and hourglass shape. She was the only woman in a colorful dress, the only one who looked like she was truly at a cocktail party, not a funeral, as Riley would say. She had on high heels in a light neutral color, making her legs seem impossibly long. They curved in tight calf muscles, leading up to creamy thighs and—

Concentrate.

He had a job to do and getting distracted would only cost him in the end.

“You seem to make it harder than most, though. For Pete’s sake, you have a sofa bed in your office.” Riley chuckled and shook his head. “If that doesn’t scream lonely bachelor with no life, I don’t know what does. Unless Miss Marstein is keeping you warm at night.”

Finn choked on the sip of beer in his mouth. His assistant was an efficient, persnickety woman in her early sixties who ran his office and schedule with an iron fist. “Miss Marstein is old enough to be my grandmother.”

“And you’re celibate enough to be a monk. Get away from the blueprints, Hawk, and live a little.”

Finn let out a sigh. Riley didn’t get it. He’d always been the younger, irresponsible one, content to live off the inheritance from their parents’ death, rather than carry the worries of a job. Riley didn’t understand the precarious position McKenna Designs was in right now. How one mistake could cost him all the ground he’d regained, one painful step at a time. People were depending on Finn to succeed. His employees had families, mortgages, car payments. He couldn’t let them down. It was about far greater things than Finn’s reputation or bottom line.

Finn bristled. “I work long days and yes, sometimes nights. It’s more efficient to have a sofa bed—”

“Efficient? Try depressing.” Riley tipped his beer toward the woman across from them. “If you were smart, you’d think about getting wild with her on that sofa bed. Sleep’s overrated. While sex, on the other hand …” He grinned. “Can’t rate it highly enough.”

“I do not have time for something like that. The company has been damaged by this roller-coaster economy and …” He shook his head. Regret weighed down his shoulders. “I never should have trusted her.”

Riley placed a hand on Finn’s shoulder. “Stop beating yourself up. Everyone makes mistakes.”

“Still, I never should have trusted her,” he said again. How many times had he said that to himself? A hundred times? Two hundred? He could say it a thousand and it wouldn’t undo the mistake.

“You were in love. All men act like idiots when they’re in love.” Riley grinned. “Take it from the expert.”

“You’ve been in love? Real, honest-to-goodness love?”

Riley shrugged. “It felt real at the time.”

“Well, I won’t make that mistake again.” Finn took a deep gulp of beer.

“You’re hopeless. One bad relationship is no reason to become a hermit.”

One bad relationship? Finn had fallen for a woman who had stolen his top clients, smeared his reputation and broken his heart. That wasn’t a bad relationship, it was the sinking of the Titanic. He’d watched his parents struggle through a terrible marriage, both of them unhappily mismatched, and didn’t want to make the same mistake.

“I’m not having this conversation right now.” Finn’s gaze went to Ellie Winston again. She had moved on to another group of colleagues. She greeted nearly everyone she saw, with a smile, a few words, a light touch. And they responded in kind. She had socializing down to an art. The North Carolina transplant had made friends quickly. Only a few weeks in the city and she was winning over the crowd of their peers with one hand tied behind her back. Yes, she’d be an asset to his company and his plan. A good one. “I’m focused on work.”

“Seems to me you’re focused on her.” Riley grinned.

“She’s a means to an end, nothing more.”

“Yeah, well, the only ending I see for you, Finn, is one where you’re old and gray, surrounded by paperwork and sleeping alone in that sofa bed.”

“You’re wrong.”

For a while, Finn had thought he could have both the life and the job. He’d even bought the ring, put a downpayment on a house in the suburbs. He’d lost his head for a while, a naive young man who believed love could conquer everything. Until that love had stabbed him in the back.

Apparently true love was a fairy tale reserved for others. Like kissing the Blarney Stone for good luck.

Finn now preferred to have his relationships as dry as his wine. No surprises, no twists and turns. Just a dependable, predictable sameness. Leaving the roller coaster for the corporate world.

He suspected, though, that Eleanor Winston and her standout maroon dress was far from the dry, dependable type. She had a glint in her eye, a devilish twinkle in her smile, a spontaneous air about her that said getting involved with her would leave a man …

Breathless.

Exactly the opposite of what he wanted. He would have to keep a clear head around her.

Ellie drifted away from her companions, heading toward the door. Weaving through the crowd slowed her progress, but it wouldn’t be long before she’d finished her goodbyes and left. “She’s leaving. Catch up with you later,” he said to Riley.

“Take a page from my book, brother, and simply ask her out for a drink,” Riley said, then as Finn walked away, added one more bit of advice. “And for God’s sake, Finn, don’t talk business. At least not until … after.” He grinned. “And if you get stumped, think to yourself, ‘What would Riley say?’ That’ll work, I promise.”

Finn waved off Riley’s advice. Riley’s attention had already strayed back to the waitress, who was making her way through the room with another tray—and straight for Riley’s charming grin. His brother’s eyes were always focused on the next beautiful woman he could take home to his Back Bay townhouse. Finn had much bigger, and more important goals.

Like saving his company. He’d made millions already in architecture, and hopefully would again, if he could make his business profitable again. If not, he could always accept his grandmother’s offer and take up the helm at McKenna Media. The family business, started a generation ago by his grandfather, who used to go door-to-door selling radio ad space to local businesses. Finn’s father had joined the company after high school and taken it into television, before his death when Finn was eleven. Ever since his grandfather had died three years ago, Finn’s grandmother had sat in the top chair, but she’d been making noise lately about wanting to retire and have Finn take over, and keep the company in McKenna hands. Finn’s heart, though, lay in architecture. Tonight was all about keeping that heartbeat going.

Finn laid his still-full glass of beer on the tray of a passing waiter, then straightened his tie and worked a smile to his face. Riley, who never tired of telling Finn he was too uptight, too stiff, would say it was more of a grimace. Finn didn’t care. He wasn’t looking to be a cover model or to make friends.

Then he glanced over at his brother—no longer chatting up the waitress but now flirting with a brunette. For a second, Finn envied Riley’s easy way with women. Everything about his little brother screamed relaxed, at home. His stance, his smile, the slight rumple in his shirt.

Finn forced himself to relax, to look somewhat approachable. Then he increased his pace to close the gap between himself and Ellie. He reached her just before she stepped through the glass doors of the lobby.

“Miss Winston.”

She stopped, her hand on the metal bar, ready to exit. Then she turned back and faced him. Her long blond hair swung with the movement, settling like a silk curtain around her shoulders. The short-sleeved crimson dress she wore hugged her curves, and dropped into a tantalizing yet modest V at her chest. For a second, her green eyes were blank, then she registered his face and the green went from cold emerald to warm forest. “My goodness. Mr. McKenna,” she said. “I recognize you from the article in Architecture Today.”

“Please, call me Finn.” She’d seen the piece about his award for innovative building design? And remembered it? “That was more than a year ago. I’m impressed with your memory.”

“Well, like most people in our industry, I have an absolutely ridiculous attention for detail.” She smiled then, the kind of smile that no one would ever confuse with a grimace. The kind of smile that hit a man in the gut and made him forget everything around him. The kind of smile that added an extra sparkle to her green eyes, and lit her delicate features with an inner glow.

Intoxicating.

Get a grip, McKenna. This was business, nothing more. Since when did he think of anything other than a bottle of single malt as intoxicating? Business, and business only. “If you have a minute, I wanted to talk to you.”

“Actually I’m heading out.” She gestured toward the door. A continual Morse code of headlights went by on the busy street outside, tires making a constant whoosh-whoosh of music on the dark pavement, even though it was nearing midnight on a Tuesday night. Boston, like most cities, never slept. And neither, most nights, did Finn McKenna.

“Perhaps you could call my assistant,” she said, “and set up a meeting for—”

“If you have time tonight, I would appreciate it.” He remembered Riley’s advice and decided to sweeten the pot a little. Show her he wasn’t the cold business-only gargoyle that people rumored him to be. Hawk indeed. Finn could be suave. Debonair even.

His younger brother could charm a free coffee from a barista; talk a traffic cop into forgetting his ticket. Maybe if Finn applied a bit of that, it might loosen her up, and make her more amenable to what he was about to propose. So he worked up another smile-grimace to his face—and tried another tack.

“Why don’t we, uh, grab a couple drinks somewhere?” he said, then groaned inwardly. Casual conversation was clearly not his forte. Put him in a board room, and he was fine, but attempting small talk … a disaster.

Damn Riley’s advice anyway.

“Thank you, but I don’t drink. If you ask me, too many bad decisions have been made with a bottle of wine.” Another smile. “I’m sure if you call in the morning—”

“Your schedule is certainly as busy as mine. Why don’t we avoid yet another meeting?”

“In other words, get this out of the way and then I can get rid of you?”

He laughed. “Something like that.”

“It’s really late …”

He could see her hesitation. In a second, she’d say no again, and he’d be forced to delay his plan one more day. He didn’t have the luxury of time. He needed to get a meeting with Ellie Winston—a private one—now. In business, he knew when to press, and when to step back. Now was a time to press. A little. “I promise, I don’t bite.”

“Or pick over the remains of your competitors?”

“That’s a rumor. Nothing more. I’ve only done that … once.” He paused a second. “Okay, maybe twice.”

She threw back her head and laughed. “Oh my, Mr. McKenna. You are not what I expected.”

What had she expected? That he would be the stern predator portrayed in that article? Or that he wouldn’t have a sense of humor? “I hope that’s a good thing.”

“We shall see,” she said. Then she reached out and laid a hand on his arm, a quick touch, nothing more, but it was enough to stir a fire inside him. A fire that he knew better than to stoke.

What the hell had been in that beer? Finn McKenna wasn’t a man given to spontaneous emotional or physical reactions. Except for one brief window, he’d lived his life as ordered as the buildings he designed. No room for fluff or silliness. And particularly no room for the foolishness of a tumble in the hay. Yet his mind considered that very thing when Eleanor Winston touched him.

“I’m sorry, you’re absolutely right, it is late and you must want to get home,” he said, taking a step back, feeling … flustered, which was not at all like him. “I’ll call your assistant in the morning.”

Riley had said to say what he would say. And Finn knew damned well Riley wouldn’t have said that.

“No, I’m the one who’s sorry, Mr. McKenna. I’ve had a long, long day and I …” She glanced back in the direction of the closed double doors, but Finn got the sense she wasn’t looking at the black-tie crowd filling the Park Plaza’s ballroom, but at something else, something he couldn’t see. Then she glanced at her watch. “Midnight. Well, the day is over, isn’t it?”

“If you want it to be, Cinderella. Or you could continue the ball for a little while longer.” The quip came out without hesitation. A true Riley-ism. He’d been spending too much time with his brother.

Or maybe not, he thought, when she laughed. He liked her laugh. It was light, airy, almost musical.

“Cinderella, huh?” she said. “Okay, you convinced me. It would be nice to end my day with some one-on-one conversation instead of an endless stream of small talk.” She wagged a finger at him and a tease lit her face, made her smile quirk higher on one side than the other. “But I’ll have tea, not tequila, while I hear you out on whatever it is you want to tell me.”

“Excellent.” He could only hope she was as amenable to his proposal. Surely such an auspicious beginning boded well for the rest. He pushed on the door and waved Ellie through with one long sweep of his arm. “After you … Cinderella.”

“My goodness, Finn McKenna. You certainly do know how to make a girl swoon.” She flashed him yet another smile and then whooshed past him and out into the night, leaving the faint scent of jasmine and vanilla in her wake.

Get back to the plan, he reminded himself. Focus on getting her to agree. Nothing more. He could do it, he knew he could. Finn wasn’t a distracted, spontaneous man. He refused to tangle personal with business ever again. He would get Ellie to agree, and before he could blink, his company would be back on top.

But as he followed one of his biggest competitors into the twinkling, magical world of Boston at night, he had to wonder if he was making the best business decision of his life—or the worst.

CHAPTER TWO

SHE had to be crazy.

What else had made Ellie agree to midnight drinks with Finn McKenna—one of her competitors and a man she barely knew? She’d been ready to go home, get to bed and get some much-needed sleep when Finn had approached her.

There’d been something about his smile, though, something about him charmed her. He wasn’t a smooth talker, more a man who had an easy, approachable way about him, one that she suspected rarely showed in his business life. The “Hawk” moniker that magazine—and most of the people in the architecture world—had given him didn’t fit the man who had teasingly called her Cinderella. A man with vivid sky-blue eyes and dark chocolate hair.

And that intrigued her. A lot.

So Ellie settled into the red vinyl covered seat across from Finn McKenna, a steaming mug of tea warming her palms. So far they’d done little more than exchange small talk about the weather and the party they’d just left.

She’d never met the fabled architect, the kind of man talked about in hushed tones by others in the industry. She’d read about him, even studied a few of his projects when she was in college, but they’d never crossed paths. If she hadn’t been at the helm of WW Architectural Design, she wouldn’t even have been at the event tonight, one of those networking things designed to bring together competitors, as if they’d share trade secrets over a few glasses of wine. In reality, everyone was there to try to extract as much information as they could, while revealing none of their own.

“Was that your brother you were talking to in the ballroom?” she asked. Telling herself she wasn’t being curious about the contradictory Finn, just conversational.

Finn nodded. “Riley. He’s the youngest.”

“He looks a lot like you.”

Finn chuckled. “Poor guy.”

“Is he in the industry, too?”

“Definitely not. He tagged along for the free drinks.”

She laughed. “I can appreciate that. Either way, I’m glad that cocktail party is over.” She rubbed her neck, loosening some of the tension of the day. “Sometimes it seems those things are never going to end.”

“You seemed to fit right in.”

“I can talk, believe me.” She laughed, then leaned in closer and lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “But in reality, I hate those kinds of events.”

“You and me both. Everyone trying to pretend to be nice, when really they just want to find out what you’re up to and how they can steal that business away from you,” Finn said. “I think of them as a necessary evil.”

She laughed again. “We definitely have that in common.” She’d never expected to have anything in common with Finn McKenna, whose reputation had painted him as a ruthless competitor, exactly her opposite. Or to find him attractive. But she did.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m much happier behind my desk, sketching out a design. Anything is better than trading the same chatter with the same people in an endless social circle.”

“You and I could be twins. I feel exactly the same way. But …” She let out a sigh and spun her teacup gently left and right.

“But what?”

“But I stepped into my father’s shoes, and that means doing things as he did.” People expected the head of WW to be involved, interactive and most of all, friendly, so Ellie had gone to the event and handled it, she hoped, as her father would have. She had thought taking over her father’s position would be a temporary move, but after the news the doctor gave her yesterday …

Ellie bit back a sigh. There were many, many dinners like that in her future. Henry Winston’s heart attack had been a bad one, leaving him with greatly diminished cardiac capacity. The doctor had warned her that too much stress and worry could be fatal. A return to work was a distant possibility right now. If ever. It all depended on his recovery. Either way, Ellie was determined to keep WW running, and not worry her father with any of the details. He came first.

“Have you ever met my father?” she asked Finn.

He nodded. “I have. Nice guy. Straight shooter.”

“And a talker. I inherited that from him.” Ellie smiled, thinking of the father she’d spent so many hours with in the last few years, chatting about design and business and life. Her father had worked constantly when Ellie was young and been gone too much for them to build any kind of relationship. But ever since Ellie went to college, Henry had made a more concerted effort to connect with his daughter. Although she loved her mother dearly, Ellie wasn’t as close to Marguerite, who had moved to California shortly after divorcing Henry when Ellie was eighteen. “My father likes to say that he never knows where his next opportunity might come from, so he greets the cashier at a fast food place as heartily as he does the owner of a bank.”

“People like that about him. Your father is well respected.”

“Thank you.” The compliment warmed Ellie. “I hope I can live up to his example.”

“I’m sure you will.”

The conversation stalled between them. Finn turned his attention to his coffee, but didn’t drink, just held the mug. Ellie nursed her tea, then added more sugar to the slightly bitter brew.

She watched Finn, wondering why he had invited her out. If he wanted to talk business, he was taking his time getting to it. What other reason could he have? For all the joking between them earlier, she had a feeling he wasn’t here for a date.

Finn McKenna was younger than she’d expected. Surely a man with his reputation had to be ten feet tall, and ten years older than the early thirties she guessed him to be? Heck, he seemed hardly older than her, but his resume stretched a mile longer. What surprised her most was that he had sought her out—her—out of all the other people in that room. Why?

He had opted for coffee, black, but didn’t drink from the cup. He crossed his hands on the table before him, in precise, measured moments. He held himself straight—uptight, she would have called it—and kept his features as unreadable as a blank sheet of paper. He wasn’t cold, exactly, more …

Impassive. Like the concrete used to construct his buildings. The teasing man she’d met in the lobby had been replaced by someone far more serious. Had that Finn been a fluke? Which was the real Finn McKenna?

And more, why did she care so much?

“I heard WW got the contract on the Piedmont hospital project,” he said.

“We haven’t even announced that hospital deal yet,” she replied, halting her tea halfway to her lips. “How did you know about it?”

“It’s my business to know.” He smiled. “Congratulations.”

“Thank you.” She wanted to tell him the thought of such a big project daunted her, particularly without her father’s valuable advice. She wanted to tell Finn that she worried the hospital design would be too big, too detailed for her to oversee successfully, and most of all, she wanted to ask him how he had done it for so long single-handedly, but she didn’t.

She already knew the answer. She’d read it in the interview in Architect magazine. Finn McKenna wasted little time. He had no hobbies, he told the reporter, and organized his workdays in the most efficient way possible, in order to cram twenty hours of work into twelve.

And, she knew better than to trust him. He hadn’t earned the nickname Hawk by being nice to his competitors. No matter how they sliced this, she was one of his competitors and needed to be on her guard. For all she knew, Finn was working right this second—and working an angle with her that would benefit his business.

At that moment, as if making her thoughts a reality, Finn’s cell phone rang. He let out a sigh, then shot her an apologetic smile. “Sorry. I have to take this. It’s a client who’s in California right now, while we build his new offices here. I think he forgot about the time change. This should only take a second.”

“No problem. I understand.” She watched him deal with the call and realized that Finn McKenna had made himself a success by sacrificing a life. That wasn’t what Ellie had wanted when she had gone into architectural design, but the more time she spent behind her father’s desk, the more it became clear that was where she was heading.

That was the one thing her father didn’t want to see. She thought back to the conversation they’d had this morning. Don’t end up like me, Ellie Girl. Get married. Settle down. Have a life instead of just a business, and don’t neglect your family to protect the bottom line. Do it before …

He hadn’t had to finish the sentence. She knew the unspoken words—before he was gone. The heart attack had set off a ticking clock inside Henry and nearly every visit he encouraged Ellie to stop putting her life on hold.

The trouble was, she had quickly found that running WW Architectural Design and having a life were mutually exclusive. Now things were more complicated, her time more precious. And having it all seemed to be an impossible idea.

She thought of the picture in her purse, the dozens more on her phone, and the paperwork waiting on her desk. Waiting not for her signature, but for a miracle. One that would keep the promise she had made in China last year.

Nearly three years ago, Ellie had been on the fast track at an architectural firm in North Carolina. Then she’d gone to a conference in China, gotten lost on the way to the hotel and ended up meeting a woman who changed her life.

Ellie never made it to the hotel or the conference. She spent five days helping Sun Yuchin dig a well and repair a neighbor’s house in a tiny, cramped town, and fallen in love with the simple village, and bonded with the woman who lived there. Every few months since, Ellie had returned. She’d been there to meet Sun’s daughter, Jiao, after she was born, even helped feed the baby, and the following year, helped build an extra room for the child. In the process, Ellie had formed a deep friendship with Sun, a hardworking, single mother who had suffered more tragedies than any person should in a lifetime—her parents dead, then her husband two years later, and near the end of one of Ellie’s trips to Sun’s town, the woman finally confided the worst news of all.

Sun had cancer. Stage four. After she told Ellie, she asked her an incredible question.

Will you raise Jiao after I’m gone? Take her to America, and be her mother?

Finn ended the call, then put his cell back into his pocket. “The Piedmont hospital will be quite an undertaking for WW,” he said, drawing her attention back to the topic.

Was he curious, or jealous? His firm had been one of the few invited to submit a bid. She remembered her father being so sure that McKenna Designs, clearly the leader in experience, would land the job. But in the end, either her father’s schmoozing on the golf course or his more competitive bid had won out and McKenna Designs had been left in the dust.

Was this true congratulations or sour grapes?

Ellie gave Finn a nod, then crossed her hands on the table. “I’m sure we’re up to the challenge.” Did her voice betray the doubts she felt?

“I know a project of that size can seem intimidating,” he added, as if he’d read her mind. “Even for someone with your experience.”

The dig didn’t go unnoticed. She was sure a methodical man like Finn McKenna would already know she’d built her career in residential, not commercial properties. He was expressing his doubts in her ability without coming right out and saying it.

He wasn’t the only one with concerns. She’d gone into architecture because she loved the field, and chosen residential work because she loved creating that happy home for her clients, and had been rewarded well for that job. She’d never wanted to be a part of the more impersonal, commercial industry.

But now she was. And that meant she had to deal with everything that came her way, no matter what. And handle it, one way or another, because her father’s company needed her to. She couldn’t go to her father and risk raising his blood pressure. She’d muddle through this project on her own. No matter what, Ellie would hold on to what Henry had built.

“We have a strong, dedicated team,” she said.

“Had.”

“Excuse me?”

“You had a strong, dedicated team. As I hear it, Farnsworth quit last week.”

Damn. Finn really did have his finger on the pulse of WW Architectural Design. Few people knew George Farnsworth, one of the oldest and most experienced architects at the firm, had quit. He’d butted heads with Ellie almost from the day she walked in the door, and eventually said he’d work for her father—or no one at all. Which wasn’t quite true, because it turned out Farnsworth had had a lucrative job offer at a competitor waiting in the wings the whole time.

She’d been scrambling ever since to find a worthy replacement. And coming up empty.

“You seem to know quite a bit about my business, Mr. McKenna—”

“Finn, please.”

“Finn, then.” She pushed the cup of tea to the side and leaned forward. “What I want to know is why.”

He gave her a half-nod. “What they say about you is true.”

“And what, pray tell, do they say about me?”

“That you’re smart and capable. And able to talk your way out of or into just about anything.”

She laughed. “The talking part is probably true. My father always said I could talk my way out of a concrete box.”

“Refill?” The waitress hovered over their table, coffee pot halfway to Finn’s cup. Then she noticed the two still-full cups. “Okay, guess not.”

Finn paused long enough for the waitress to leave, then his sky-blue gaze zeroed in on hers. “You asked why I have such an interest in your business, and in you.”

She nodded.

“I’ve done my research on your career, Miss Winston, and on WW Architectural Design because—” he paused a beat “—I have a proposition for you.”

“A proposition?” Ellie arched a brow, then flipped on the charm. Two could dance in this conversation. Finn McKenna had yet to tell her anything of substance, and she refused to give away her surprise or her curiosity. He had likely underestimated her as a businesswoman, and after tonight, she doubted he’d do it again. “Why, Finn, that sounds positively scandalous.”

He let out a short, dry laugh. “I assure you, Miss Winston—”

“Ellie.” She gave him a nod and a slight smile. She had found that a little warmth and charm, accented by the slight Southern accent that she’d picked up in her years in North Carolina, often served her well in business dealings, and she used that tool to her advantage now. No giving Finn McKenna the upperhand. No, she wanted to know what he was after, and more importantly, why. “That’s the least you can do, considering I’m calling you by your first name.”

“Ellie, then.” Her name rolled off his tongue, smooth as caramel. “I … I can assure you—” he paused a second again, seemed to gather his thoughts “—that my proposition is business only.”

She waited for him to continue, while her tea cooled in front of her. This was the reason he’d asked her here—not for a date, but for business. A flicker of disappointment ran through her, but she told herself it was for the best. Despite what her father had asked of her, she didn’t see how she could possibly fit dating, much less marriage, into her already busy life.

She had her father to worry about and care for, a company to run, and most of all, a home to prepare for the changes coming her way very soon. Getting involved with Finn McKenna didn’t even make it on to that list. Heck, it wasn’t even in the same galaxy as her other priorities.

“I know that without Farnsworth, you’re in a difficult position,” Finn continued. “He’s the most senior architect on your staff, and you’re about to undertake a major hospital project. The kind of thing WW has built its reputation on, and the kind of job that will bring millions into the company coffers.”

She nodded. The Piedmont hospital was a huge boon for WW. Her father had worked long and hard to land that project. He was proud as punch to add it on to the company resume, and she was determined not to let her father down. This job would also firmly establish WW’s place as a leader in medical facility design—a smart move in an era of increased demand from aging baby boomers.

“As the new CEO,” Finn went on in the same precise, no-nonsense manner as before, “you’re already at a vulnerable juncture, and losing this project, or screwing it up, could cause WW irreparable damage.” He’d clearly studied her, and the company, and was offering an honest, if not a bit too true, perspective. He squared his spoon beside his cup, seeming to gather his thoughts, but she got the feeling he was inserting a measured, calculated pause.

She waited him out. A part of her was glad he’d gotten right to the point, avoiding the male-female flirting dance. She’d met far too many businessmen who thought they could finesse their way through a deal with a few compliments and smiles. Men who saw a woman in charge and took her to be an idiot, or someone they could manipulate over dinner. Finn McKenna, she suspected, was a what-you-see-is-what-you-get man, who saw no need for frills or extra words. Straightforward, to the point, no games. That brief moment in the lobby had been a fluke, she decided. This was the real Finn, aka the Hawk. He wanted something from her and clearly intended to stay until he had it.

“I have two senior architects on my staff who are more than capable of handling the hospital project for you,” Finn said. “If you agree to this business proposition, then they would oversee it, sort of as architects on loan. You, Miss Winston—” he paused again, corrected himself “—Ellie, would remain in complete control. And myself and my staff at McKenna Designs would be there as a resource for you, as you navigate the complicated arena of medical facility design, and the troubled waters of the CEO world.”

Troubled waters? Did he think she was totally incompetent? She tamped down the rush of anger and feigned flattery.

“That’s a mighty nice offer, Finn. Why, a girl would be all aflutter from your generosity …” Then she dropped the Southern Belle accent from her voice, and the smile from her face. He’d made it all sound so smooth, as if the benefit was all to her, not to him. “If she hadn’t been raised by a father who told her that no one does anything without a payoff. So, I ask you—” she leaned in, her gaze locking on his “—what’s in this for you?”

He gave her a short nod, a brief smile, a look that said touché. And something that looked a lot like respect. “My business has struggled as of late. Partly the economy, partly—” the next words seemed to leave his mouth with a sour taste “—because of a project that had some unfortunate results. Although we have a few medical buildings on our resume, our work has primarily been in the retail and corporate world. McKenna Designs would like to move into the medical building field because it’s a growing industry that dovetails well with our other corporate work. You would like to strengthen your position as the new head at WW by designing a hospital that puts a really big star in the company constellation, as they say.” He spread his hands. “A partnership benefits us both.”

“From what I’ve heard, McKenna Designs took a serious blow in credibility and finances over this past year and you’ve been reeling ever since.” They worked in a small industry and people talked. The people who worked for Ellie had been more than happy to fill her in on the local competition when she arrived in Boston. Finn McKenna’s name had come up several times.

“We’ve had our … challenges.”

“As have we,” she acknowledged.

“Precisely the reason I came to you.” Now he leaned back and sipped at his coffee, even though it had surely gone cold long ago. He was waiting for her to make the next move.

As she looked at him, she realized two things. He didn’t think she was capable of running the firm without his help and two, he was offering a deal that benefited him far more than her. She could hire another architect—maybe even, with the right incentives, steal Finn’s best and brightest right from under his nose—and be just fine. He was just like all the other men she had met, and all the “concerned” colleagues of her father, who saw the little Winston girl as nothing more than a figurehead.

The Hawk was merely swooping in to try to scoop up an opportunity. This meeting had been a waste of time. The one luxury Ellie Winston didn’t have.

She rose, grabbing her purse as she did. “I appreciate the offer, I really do, but we’re just fine at WW, and we’ll be just fine without an alliance with you. So thank you again—” she fished in her purse for a few dollars, and tossed them on the table “—but I must decline. Good evening, Mr. McKenna.”

Then she left, hoping that was the last she saw of Finn McKenna.

CHAPTER THREE

ELLIE had vowed not to think about Finn’s surprise offer. He was only out for number one, she had decided last night during the cab ride home, and she’d be a fool to even consider it. But as the morning’s staff meeting progressed, she found her mind wandering back to that diner conversation.

You’re at a vulnerable juncture.

Losing this project could mean irreparable damage.

A partnership benefits us both.

Had he meant what he said? Could it be a genuine offer? And if she accepted, would the benefits outweigh the drawbacks? Or was he trying to get in—and then take over her company? She’d heard how many times he’d done that to other firms.

She had floated Finn’s name with a few of her colleagues this morning, trying to get more of a read on the man everyone dubbed “the Hawk.” To a person, they’d urged caution, reminding her Finn “preferred to eat the competition for lunch rather than lunch with them.”

That meant any sort of alliance with him required serious consideration. Was his proposal all a way for him to take over her father’s company? Or would his proposal be a true two-way benefit?

She thought of what lay ahead for her life, about the child about to become a part of her life, and wondered how she could possibly juggle it all. Was a partnership a good idea?

“I’m worried, Ellie.” Larry, the most senior of her remaining architects let out a long breath. “We really need a strong leader on this project. Even though we have a lot of great architects here, without either your dad or Farnsworth to head this, well …”

“We don’t have anyone with enough experience and that means we’ll be in over our head from day one,” Ellie finished for him. She’d known that going in, but had hoped that when she called the staff meeting someone would step up to the plate and produce a resume rife with medical design experience. Hadn’t happened. “We have a great team here, I agree. But no one who has direct experience with medical institutions.”

Larry nodded. “If we were building a bank, a resort, a hotel, we’d be fine. We could do those in our sleep. And I’m sure we could handle this project, too, but we’d be a whole lot better off with a good senior architect to oversee all those details. As it is, we’re stretched thin with the new mall out on Route 1 and the condo project in the Back Bay.”

Ellie knew Larry made sense. Between the integrated technology, clean environment requirements and strict government guidelines, a hospital build was so much more complex than an ordinary office building. Farnsworth’s specialty had been in that arena, and without him, the team would be on a constant scramble to check regs, meet with contractors and double check every element. “I’ll find someone.”

“By the end of the week?” Panic raised the pitch in Larry’s voice. “Because the initial drawings are due by the fifteenth.”

Just a few short days away. “Did Farnsworth get anything done on them?”

Larry shook his head. Ellie’s gut clenched. Farnsworth had lied and told her he’d done the initial work, but clearly his disgruntled attitude had been affecting his work for a while. Her father had designed several hospitals and medical buildings over the years, but Ellie certainly couldn’t go to him for help, and no one on the current staff at WW had the kind of experience her father and Farnsworth had. She’d just have to hire someone.

But by the end of this week? Someone who could step right in and take the project’s reins without a single misstep? And then produce a plan that would meet the critical eye of the hospital owners? She needed someone with years of experience. Someone smart. Someone capable, organized. And ready to become the team leader at a moment’s notice.

“I’ll find someone,” she repeated again. “By the end of the day. I promise.”

Ellie gave her team a smile, and waited until everyone had left the room before she let the stress and worry consume her. She doodled across the pad in front of her. It was a good thirty seconds before she realized she hadn’t sketched a flower or a box or a stick figure. She’d written a name.

And maybe … an answer. The only problem was right now, this was more of a win for Finn, who would reap the benefits of a partnership, the prestige of the project and a cut of the profits, than for Ellie, who risked looking like a company that couldn’t do the job and had to call in outsiders.

She tapped her pencil on the pad. There had to be something Finn could give her that would make a partnership worth the risk of an alliance with the predatory Hawk. It would have to be something big, she mused.

Very big.

Finn sat at his massive mahogany desk, the same one he had bought ten years ago at a garage sale, refinished by hand then installed on his first day at McKenna Designs. Back then, he’d had an office not much bigger than the desk, but as he’d moved up, the desk had moved with him. Now it sat in the center of his office, his headquarters for watching the world go by eleven stories below him. Friday morning had dawned bright and beautiful, with a spring sun determined to coax the flowers from their leaf cocoons. It was the kind of spring day that tempted people to call in sick and spend the day by the Charles River, picnicking and boating and jogging on the Esplanade. The kind of day that drew everyone out of their winter huddles, spilling into the parks and onto the sidewalks, like newly released prisoners.

But not Finn. He had called an early meeting this morning, and had been snowed under with work every second since then. Sometimes he felt like he was just plugging holes in a leaky water bucket. They’d lost another client today, a corporation that said they’d “lost confidence” in McKenna Designs after hearing of the defection of two other major clients. Apparently Lucy’s betrayal was still hitting his bottom line, even more than a year later. He sighed.

He’d turn this company around, one way or another. He’d hoped that Ellie Winston would hear his offer and jump at the opportunity for some help. She was out of her league on the Piedmont project, and definitely didn’t have anyone on her staff who could handle something of that magnitude. When he’d considered his offer, he’d seen it only as a win-win for her. Yet still she’d said no.

It was a rare defeat to a man who had won nearly everything he put his mind to. The refusal had left him surprised, but not for long. He would regroup, and find another way to convince Ellie that his proposal was in her best interests.

Could she be thinking of hiring someone else? He hadn’t heard rumors of anyone considering a job at WW, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t a prospective candidate. Finn had always prided himself on having an ear to the ground in Boston’s busy and competitive architecture world, but that didn’t mean he knew everything.

“Knock, knock. Time for lunch.”

Finn glanced up and saw his brother standing in the doorway, grinning like a fool. Every time he saw Riley, his brother looked as happy as a loon. Probably because he didn’t have a care in the world. Or maybe because things had gone better for Riley with women last night than they had for Finn. “Sorry. Maybe another time. I have a ton of work to do.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Riley waved that off. “And last I checked you were human …”

Finn dropped his gaze to his hands, his feet, then back up to Riley. “It appears so.”

“And that means you need to eat on a regular basis. So come on.” Riley waved at him. “Hey, I’ll even treat.”

Finn chuckled. “Considering that’s almost a miracle in the making—”

“Hey.” Riley grinned. “I resemble that remark.”

“You’re the poster child for it.” Finn shook his head. Then his stomach rumbled and overruled his work resolve. “All right. You win. But let’s make it a quick lunch.”

“You know me. I’m always ready to get my nose back to the grindstone. Or rather, ready to get your nose back to your grindstone, and mine back to lazy living.” Riley laughed at his joke, then walked with Finn down the hall to the elevator. “You know it wouldn’t hurt you to take a day off once in a while. Maybe even enough time off to have a date or ten.”

The doors opened with a soft ding sound and Finn stepped inside, followed by Riley. “We’ve had this argument before. Last night if I remember right.”

“Yep. And we’re going to keep having it until you admit I’m right and you’re lonely.”

“I’m fine.” Finn punched the button for the lobby.

“You tell yourself that enough and you might even start to believe it someday, big brother.”

Finn ignored the jab. “So how’s the waitress?”

“I don’t know.” Riley shrugged. “I ended up leaving with the brunette.”

Finn rolled his eyes.

Riley grinned. “What can I say? The world is filled with beautiful women. Like the one you were supposed to talk to last night. How’d that go?”

“It didn’t go quite the way I expected.” Had he come on too strong? Too weak? He found himself wondering what she was doing right now. Was Ellie having lunch at her desk? With a friend? Or alone in a restaurant?

She’d been on his mind almost every minute since she’d walked out of the diner. That alone was a clear sign he needed to work more and think less. He wasn’t interested in Ellie Winston on a personal basis, even if his hormones were mounting a vocal disagreement.

“What, you struck out? Didn’t get her phone number?” Riley asked.

“Her office number is in the yellow pages. I didn’t need to ask for that.”

Riley shook his head. “And the Hawk strikes again. Always business with you.”

The elevator doors shimmied open. Finn and Riley crossed the lobby and exited onto Beacon Street. In the distance, rowers skimmed their sculls down the rippling blue river.

The Hawk strikes again.

Maybe it was the too sunny weather or maybe it was the rejection last night, but Finn found himself bothered by that phrase. He’d never much liked the moniker, but he’d always thought that he, of all people, combined humanity with business. He had never seen himself as quite the cold fish the media depicted.

His brother didn’t understand what drove Finn. What kept him at that desk every day. What monumental weights sat on his shoulder, even as he tried to shed them. The one time he’d tried to live a “normal” life, he’d been burned. Badly. More than enough reason not to make that mistake again.

A slight breeze danced across the Charles River, tempering the heat of the day with a touch of cool. They walked for a while, navigating the rush of lunchgoers, heading for the same place they always went, in unspoken agreement. That was one good thing about lunch with Riley—the kind of common mind that came from being siblings. Even though he and Riley were as different as apples and oranges, Finn had always had a closer relationship with him than with Brody. Maybe because Riley was easy to talk to, easy to listen to, and the one who—though he kidded often—understood Finn the best. Even if their minds often moved on opposite tracks.

They reached the shadowed entrance to McGill’s. Finn paused before tugging on the door. “Do you ever wonder …”

Riley glanced at his brother. “Wonder what?”

“Nothing.” Finn opened the door and stepped into the air-conditioned interior. The last person he needed to ask for personal—and definitely business—advice was his brother. Riley’s standard answer—get a girl, get a room and get busy.

He wanted to ask Riley how his little brother could give his heart so freely. And whether doing so was worth the cost at the end when his heart was broken. He’d seen how much it hurt when the one you were supposed to love no longer felt the same. He had watched that pain erode the happiness in his mother’s face day by day. As the youngest, Riley had missed those subtle cues.

Finn shrugged off the thoughts. It had to be the spring weather—and the overabundance of lovey-dovey couples out enjoying the sunshine—that had him feeling so maudlin. He liked his life just the way it was. He didn’t need anything more than that.

It took a second for his eyes to adjust to the dim room, and to take in the space. McGill’s had a warm interior—dark, rough-hewn plank walls, sturdy, practical tables and chairs and a worn oak floor that had been distressed by thousands of customers’ shoes. The food was hearty and good—thick sandwiches, handcut fries, stout beer. Finn and Riley came here often, and were waved over to the table area by Steve McGill himself, who was working the bar this afternoon.

Finn waved off the waiter’s offer of beer, opting for water instead. “The usual, Marty.”

Marty MacDonald had been there for as long as Finn could remember. He had to be nearing seventy, but he moved twice as fast, and had twice the memory of the younger waiters at McGill’s. Marty nodded, then turned to Riley. “For you?”

“I’ll have my beer, and his. No sense in wasting it.” Riley grinned. “And a corned beef sandwich on rye.”

Marty chuckled. “In other words, the usual?”

“You know me well, Marty.” Riley waited until their server had left, then turned back to Finn. “So what do you think went wrong with the grand plan last night?”

Finn’s phone rang. He signaled to Riley to wait a second, then answered the call. “Finn McKenna.”

“I wanted to update you on the Langham project,” Noel, one of Finn’s architects, said. “I heard that Park came in twenty percent lower than us. The client said they’re going to go with him instead. Sorry we lost the job, Finn.”

Joe Park, a newcomer to Boston’s crowded architectural playing field, and someone who often underbid just to get the work. Finn suspected it was the cost savings, and some residual damage to McKenna’s reputation that had spurred the client’s defection. Finn refused to let another client go.

“No, they won’t,” he said. “Let me give Langham a call. In five minutes he’ll see the wisdom of sticking with us.” Finn hung up with Noel, then called the client. In a matter of minutes, he had convinced the penny pinching CEO that working with the established McKenna Designs was a far smarter choice than a rookie newbie. He soothed the worried waters with Langham, and assured him that McKenna Designs would be on top of the project from start to finish. He didn’t say anything outright bad about his competitor, but the implication was clear—work with the unproven Park, and the work would be substandard.

After Finn finished the call and put away the phone, Riley shot him a grin. “I’m glad I’m not one of your competitors.”

“It’s business, Riley.”

“That’s not business, that’s guerilla warfare.” Riley shook his head. “Tell me you didn’t treat that gorgeous lady the same way?”

“No, in fact quite the opposite. I think I might have been too nice.”

Riley snorted.

“She turned me down. But I’m going to regroup, find another way.” Finn reached into the breast pocket of his suit. “I’ve got a list of pros and cons I’m going to present to her—”

Riley pushed Finn’s hand away. “For a smart guy, you can be a complete idiot sometimes.”

“This is logical, sound reasoning. Any smart businessperson would—”

“I’m sure you’re right. And if you have a month or three to go back and forth on pros and cons and heretofores and whatevers, I’d agree with you.” Riley leaned in closer. “But you don’t have that kind of time.”

Apparently Riley had been listening to Finn’s worries over the past year. Finn was impressed with his little brother’s intuitiveness. Maybe he didn’t give Riley enough credit. “True.”

“So that means you need to change your tactics.”

Finn had an argument ready, but he bit it back. Riley had a point. Negotiations took time, and that was pretty much what his list was. He was an expert when it came to the art of the business deal, but this was different—and he’d struck out with Ellie Winston in a big way. He needed a new idea, and right now, he’d take ideas from about anyone and anywhere. “Okay. How?”

Riley grinned and sat back. “Easy. Do what I do.”

“I am not sleeping with her just to get what I want.” Finn scowled. “You have a one-track mind.”

Riley pressed a hand to his heart. “Finn, you wound me. I would never suggest that. Well, I might, but not in your case.” Riley paused. “Especially not in your case.”

“Hey.”

“You are way too uptight and practical to do such a thing.”

“For good reason.” Nearly every move in his life was well planned, thought out and executed with precision. Even his relationship with his ex had been like that. He’d chosen a partner who was a peer, someone with common interests, in the right age range and with the kind of quiet understated personality that seemed to best suit his own.

It had seemed to be the wisest choice all around. The kind that wouldn’t leave him—or her—unhappy in the end. He’d been stunned when she’d broken up with him and worse, maligned his business and revealed she’d only gone out with him to get information.

But had that been real love? If he could so easily be over the relationship, at least emotionally? Was real love methodical, planned?

Or a wild, heady rush?

The image of Ellie in that figure-hugging maroon dress, her head thrown back in laughter, her eyes dancing with merriment, sent a blast of heat through him. He suspected she was the kind of woman who could get a man to forget a lot more than just his business agenda. For just a second, that empty feeling in his chest lifted. Damn, he really needed to eat more or sleep more or something. He was nearly a blubbering emotional idiot today.

Wild heady rushes didn’t mix with business. Wild heady rushes led to heartache down the road. Wild heady rushes were the exact opposite of Finn McKenna.

“The secret to getting what you want, especially from a woman, is very simple,” Riley said.

“Flowers and wine?”

Riley laughed. “That always helps, but no, that’s not what I meant.”

Marty dropped off their drinks, so quietly they barely noticed his presence. Marty knew them well, and knew when he could interrupt and when to just slip in and out like a cat in the night.

“You find out what the other party wants most in the world,” Riley said, “then give it to them.”

“That’s what my list—”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake, Finn. Women aren’t into lists and pros and cons. Hell, who is?” Then he paused. “Okay, maybe you. But not the rest of the world. Most people are driven by three needs.” He flipped out his fingers and ticked them off as he spoke. “Money, love and sex.”

Finn chuckled and shook his head. Riley’s advice made sense, in a twisted way. Hadn’t Finn done the same thing in business a hundred times? Find out what the other party wants and offer it, albeit with conditions that benefited both sides. “Let me guess. You’re driven by number three.”

“Maybe.” Riley grinned. “One of the three is what drives that pretty little blonde you met with last night. Figure out what it is she wants and give it to her.”

“Simple as that?”

Riley sat back and took a sip from his beer. “Simple as that.”

The room closed in on her, suddenly too hot, too close. Ellie stared at the woman across from her, letting the words echo in her mind. For a long time, they didn’t make sense. It was all a muddled hum of sounds, rattling around in her brain. Then the sounds coalesced one syllable at a time, into a painful reality.

“Are you sure?” Ellie asked. She had walked into this office on a bright Monday morning and now it seemed in the space of seconds, the day had gone dark.

Linda Simpson nodded. “I’m so sorry, Ellie.”

She’d know Linda for months, and in that time, Linda had become Ellie’s biggest supporter as well as a friend. All these weeks, the news had been positive.

Operative words—had been.

Ellie pressed a hand to her belly, and thought of all she had given up to be a woman in a male-dominated field. Relationships … children. Children that now she knew would never happen naturally. Adoption, the obstetrical specialist had told her, was the only option.

Maybe it was her father’s illness, or the approach of her thirtieth birthday, but lately, she’d been thinking more and more about the … quiet of her life. For years, she’d been happy living alone, making her own hours, traveling where she wanted. But in the last year or two, there’d been no louder, sadder sound than the echo of her footsteps on tile. She had no one but her father, and if the doctors were right, soon she wouldn’t even have him.

And what would she have to show for it? A few dozen houses she’d designed? Houses where other people lived and laughed and raised children and shooed dogs out of the kitchen. Houses containing the very dreams Ellie had pushed to the side.

But no more. Jiao was waiting for her, now stuck in a limbo of red tape at an orphanage in China. Jiao, an energetic two-year-old little girl with wide eyes and dark hair, and a toothy smile. Everything Ellie had dreamed of was right there, within her grasp.

Or had been, until now.

Had Ellie heard wrong? But one look at Linda Simpson’s face, lined with sympathy and regret, told Ellie this was no joke. The adoption coordinator sat behind her desk, her dark brown hair piled into a messy bun, her eyes brimming with sorrow.

“I need …” Ellie swallowed, tried again. “A husband?”

“That’s what they told me this morning. Countries all over the world are tightening their adoption policies. The orphanage is sticking to the government’s bottom line. I’m sorry.”

A spouse.

Ellie bit back a sigh. Maybe it was time to pursue another adoption, in a more lenient country. But then she thought of Jiao’s round, cherubic face, the laughter that had seemed to fill the room whenever Ellie had played with her, and knew there was nothing she wanted more than to bring that little girl home. She had promised Sun, and Jiao.

But how was she going to do that and run her father’s company? And who on earth could she possibly marry on such short notice? There had to be a way out of this. A workaround of some sort.

“But they told me, you told me, I was fine. That because Jiao’s mother asked me specifically to raise her daughter and endorsed the adoption before she died, that I wouldn’t have to worry about the other requirements.”

“The government is the ultimate authority.” Linda spread her hands in a helpless gesture. “And they just feel better about a child being placed in a home with two parents.”

Ellie tamped down her frustration. Being mad at Linda didn’t help. The coordinator had worked tirelessly to facilitate this adoption, working with both the U.S. and Chinese governments, as well as the orphanage where Jiao was currently living. Ellie had contacted the agency where Linda worked shortly after returning from that fateful China trip. She’d explained the situation to the woman, who had immediately helped set everything up for a later adoption, easing Sun’s worries during the last days of her life.

Ellie had expected some delays, particularly dealing with a foreign government, but already three months had passed since Sun had died and Jiao was still in China.

A husband. Where was she going to get one of those? It wasn’t like she could just buy one on the drugstore shelf. Getting married took time, forethought. A relationship with someone.

“What happens now?” Ellie asked. “What happens to Jiao?”

“Well, it would be handy if you had a boyfriend who was looking to commit in the very near future. But if not …” Linda put out her hands again. “I’m sorry. Maybe this one isn’t meant to be.” Linda didn’t have to say anything more. Ellie knew, without hearing the words, that her child would go back into the orphanage system and maybe languish there for years.

Ellie couldn’t believe that this wasn’t meant to be. Not for a second. The entire serendipitous way she had met Sun, the way the two of them had become instant friends, despite the cultural and language barriers.

And Jiao …

She already loved the little girl. Ellie had held Jiao. Laughed with her. Bonded. During her trips to China, Ellie had become a part of Jiao’s little family. A second mother, in a way, to Jiao, who had curled into Ellie and clung to her when they had buried Sun. It had broken Ellie’s heart to have to go back to the United States without the little girl. She’d only done it because she’d been assured the next few steps of the adoption were merely a formality.

And now Jiao was all alone in the world, living in a crowded, understaffed orphanage, probably scared and lonely and wondering why she had no family anymore. Ellie thought of Jiao’s pixie face, her inquisitive eyes and her contagious smile. Desperation clawed at Ellie. Oh, God, Jiao. What am I going to do?

Ellie took a deep breath. Another. She needed to be calm. To think.

Damn it. Ellie had made a promise. Jiao deserved to be raised with security and love, and Ellie would find some way to make that happen. “Let me think about this,” she said. “Can I call you later?”

Linda nodded, her warm brown eyes pooling with sympathy. “Sure. I have a day or two to get back to the orphanage.”

The unspoken message, though, was that after that, Jiao would slip out of Ellie’s grasp like wind through the trees. Off to another family or worse, stuck in the system. Ellie needed a miracle.

And she needed it now.

CHAPTER FOUR

FINN MCKENNA was not a man easily surprised. He’d heard and seen a great deal in the past ten years of running his own company. But this … offer, if that was what he could call it, from Ellie Winston was a total shock.

“Marriage? As in a church and a minister?” he said. The words choked past his throat.

“Well, I was thinking more like city hall and a judge, but if you insist …” She grinned.

“But … w-we don’t even know each other.” The words sputtered out of him. He, a man who never sputtered.

Ever since she’d walked into his office five minutes ago and announced she had a counteroffer to his, that was what he had done—sputtered. And stammered. And parroted her words back at her. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Shocked wasn’t an adequate adjective.

Marriage?

He had expected her to ask for more autonomy with the project or a larger cut of the fee. Something … practical.

Instead she’d said she would allow him to be an equal partner in the Piedmont hospital project, if he married her.

Marriage.

“I think I need a little more time to … think about this.” Or find a counteroffer that could possibly overrule her insane request. “Perhaps we could table this—”

“I’d rather not.” She was perched on the edge of one of the visitor’s chairs in his office. The late morning sun danced gold in her hair. She had on another dress, this one in a pale yellow that made him think of daffodils.

For Pete’s sake. Every time he got close to Ellie Winston he turned into a damned greeting card.

“If you’re free for a little while,” she added, “how about we go someplace and talk?”

He considered saying no, but then realized this was his best opportunity to get what he needed from Ellie Winston. In the long run, that would serve him better than staying at his desk. It wasn’t the fact that he wanted to see more of her. Not at all. He glanced out his window. “We could do lunch, and be stuck in some restaurant or … the weather is gorgeous. How about a stroll on the Esplanade?”

“Sure. I can’t remember the last time I walked along the river.” She reached into her purse and pulled out a small bag. “I even have flats with me.”

“Practical woman.”

She laughed. “Sometimes, not so much, but today, yes.” She slipped off her heels, tucked them in her bag, then slid on the other shoes.

Finn told Miss Marstein that he was leaving, then shut down his computer and grabbed his phone. A few minutes later, they were out the door and heading down a side street toward the Esplanade. Finn drew in a deep breath of sweet salty air. “I definitely don’t get outside enough.”

Ellie sighed. “Me, either. When I was younger, I used to be a real outdoorsy girl. Hiking, canoeing, bike riding. I tried to keep up with that after college, but the job takes up way too much time.”

He arched a brow at her dress and the spiky heels poking out of her purse. “You hiked?”

Ellie put a fist on her hip. “Do I look too girly for that?”

His gaze raked over her curves, and his thoughts strayed from business to something far more personal. Damn. “Uh, no. Not at all.”

“What about you?” she asked. “Do you hike or bike or anything like that?”

“I used to. I ran track in high school, was on the swim team, you name it. And during college, I biked everywhere. Now I think my bike’s tires are flat and there are spiders making webs in the frame.”

She laughed. “All the more reason to get it out of storage.”

They crossed to the Esplanade, joining the hundreds of other people outside. A few on bikes whizzed past them, as if adding an exclamation point to the conversation. “Maybe someday I will,” Finn said, watching a man on a carbon fiber racing bike zip past him. “I do miss it.”

“Someday might never come,” Ellie said quietly. “It’s too easy to let the To Do list get in the way. And then before you know it, another year has passed, and another, and you’re still sitting behind the desk instead of doing what you love.”

He heard something more in her voice. Some kind of longing. Just for more outdoor time? Or to fill another hole in her life? He wanted to ask, wanted to tell her he knew all about using work to plug those empty spots.

But he didn’t.

The bike rider disappeared among a sea of power walkers. Finn returned his attention to Ellie. She looked radiant in the sunshine. Tempting. Too tempting. He cleared his throat. “It’s hard to keep up with the personal To Do list when the business one is so much longer.”

“Isn’t part of your business taking care of you? After all, if the CEO ain’t happy …” She let the words trail off and shot him a grin.

For a second, Finn wanted to fall into that engaging smile of Ellie Winston’s. Every one of her smiles seemed to hit him deep in the gut. They were the kind of smiles that Finn suspected—no, knew—would linger in his mind long after they were done. And her voice … her years of living in the South gave her just enough of a Southern tinge to coat her words with a sweet but sassy spin. It was … intoxicating.

Hell, everything about her was intoxicating. It wasn’t just the dress or the smile or the curves. It was everything put together, in one unique, intriguing package.

She had him thinking about what it would be like to take a hike through Blue Hills with her, to crest the mountain and watch the busy world go by far beneath them. He imagined them picnicking on a rock outcropping, while the sun warmed their backs and the breeze danced along their skin.

Damn. What was it about her that kept getting him distracted? He needed to focus on business, and more importantly, on why she had proposed marriage a few minutes ago. No wild, heady anything with her.

Finn cleared his throat. “About your … proposal earlier. No pun intended. Were you serious?”

Her features went from teasing to flat, and he almost regretted steering the conversation back. “Yes. Very.” She let out a long breath, and for a while, watched the people sitting on the grass across from them. It was a family of four, with a small dog nipping at the heels of the children as they ran a circle around their parents. “I need something from you and you need something from me. Marriage is the best solution all around.”

“We could always do a legal agreement for the businesses. This is just one project, you know.”

“For me, it’s much more.” Her gaze returned to his. “I have to have a husband. Now.”

“Why?”

“First, let me lay out the advantages to you.” She slowed her pace. “For one, our lack of familiarity with each other is what makes it a perfect idea and a perfect partnership, if you will.”

“Partnership, perhaps. Not a marriage.”

“I may not know you very well, Mr. McKenna,” she went on, “but I know your life. You work sunup to sundown, travel half the year and have all the social life of a barnacle.”

She could have opened up his skull and peeked inside his brain. Damn. Was he that transparent? And put that way, well, hell, his life sounded downright pitiful. Riley would have put up two enthusiastic thumbs in agreement.

Perhaps she was joking. He glanced at her face. Saw only serious intent in her features.

“But don’t you think it’s wiser to work out a business arrangement instead? More money, more prestige, a reciprocal arrangement with my next project?” Something he could quantify, put into those neat little debits and credits columns. Not something like marriage, for Pete’s sake.

“Perhaps to you it would be. But a business arrangement isn’t the number one thing I need right now.” She gestured toward a small grassy hill that led to the river, away from the crowds out walking, and the energetic in-line skaters rushing past them. He followed her down to the water’s edge. In the distance, a rowing team called out a cadence as they skimmed across the glassy blue surface.

Her green eyes met his, and a thrill ran through him. Damn, she had beautiful eyes.

“Not to mention, you’re probably as tired of the dating game as am I,” she said. “And maybe you’ve looked ahead to the future, and wondered how on earth you’re going to fit the American Dream into your schedule.”

He gave her a droll smile. “Actually I had that down for next year, on Tuesday, March 30, at two in the afternoon.”

She burst out laughing, which also surprised him and stirred that warmth again in his gut. Those who knew Finn would never have described him as a man with a sense of humor. But apparently Ellie Winston found him funny. That pleased him, and had him wondering what else Ellie thought of him.

Damn. He kept getting off track. It had to be her proposal which had knocked the normally unflappable Finn off balance.

“I was hoping to fit it into my planner a little sooner than that,” she said. “Actually a lot sooner.”

“Why? Why now? And … why me? I mean, you are a beautiful woman. Smart, charming, sexy. You could have your pick of any man on the planet.”

“I … well, thank you.” Now it was her turn to sputter. A soft pink blush spread over her cheeks. Then she paused, seeming to weigh her answer for several moments before responding. He got the distinct impression she was holding something back, but what, he didn’t know. He thought again about what he knew about her. Nothing pointed to “desperate to get married,” no matter how he looked at the details he knew about her. Yet, there was an ulterior motive to her proposal—he’d bet a year’s salary on it.

“There’s a child in China who needs a mother. I promised her that I would adopt her, and everything was in place for me to do so. Until this morning.” She bit her lip and turned to him. “The agency told me I need a husband to complete the adoption.”

“Whoa, whoa.” He put up his hands. “I’m not interested in becoming an instant father.”

“I’m not asking that of you. At all.”

“Then what are you asking?”

“A marriage based on commonality, not passion or lust or infatuation. We’ll stay married for a short time, long enough for me to get the adoption finalized, then get a quiet divorce. Painless and fast.”

In other words, no real strings attached and he’d be out of this nearly as fast as he was in it. He should be glad. For some reason, he wasn’t. “Sounds so … clinical.”

“Mr. McKenna … Finn. We’re both detail oriented—clinical in a way—people. I’m not interested in losing my head in a relationship, or wasting a lot of time dating Mr. Wrong, not when I’m concentrating on running my father’s company. I need a spouse, in name only, and you need a business partner.”

He looked in Ellie Winston’s eyes, and saw only sincerity, and a quiet desperation to help a child halfway around the world. He knew she wouldn’t have come to him, with this insane offer, if she didn’t have to.

Find out what she wants most in the world, Riley had said, and give it to her.

But this?

“I don’t know if I agree with this,” Finn said. “The child will undoubtedly be hurt when her father disappears after a few weeks.”

“You don’t have to be a part of Jiao’s life at all. Just be there for the home visit and the adoption proceedings. And in return, we can work together on the Piedmont project. That will keep my father’s business growing and help yours. It’s a win all around.”

Pigeons picked at the grass before them, looking for leftover crumbs. In the distance, there was the sound of children’s laughter. The swish-swish of rolling cycle tires on the paved walkway. The continual hum of traffic, punctuated by the occasional horn. The world went on as it always did, swimming along beneath a sunny sky.

“It would be a platonic marriage,” she said. “Nothing more.”

“A purely impersonal alliance?” he asked, still not believing she had suggested this. When he’d made his list of possible ways to convince Ellie a strategic partnership was a good idea, marriage hadn’t even come close to being in the mix. “A marriage based solely on like minds and like goals?”

Though when he put the marriage idea like that, it sounded cold. Almost … sad.

He shook off the thoughts. He was a practical man. One whose focus was solely on building his business back to where it had been. He wasn’t going to get wrapped up in the foolishness of some romantic ideal—and that wasn’t what Ellie was asking for. It was, in fact, the exact kind of relationship he had vowed to pursue. Then why did he feel as empty as a deflated balloon?

She nodded. “Yes.”

“And in exchange, our companies partner as well?”

“Yes.” She put up a finger. “However, we each retain ownership and leadership of our respective companies, in case … things don’t work out.” She dug in her purse and pulled out a piece of paper. “I took the liberty of having my attorney draw up a contract.”

A contract. For marriage.

Finn skimmed the document and saw that it indeed promised everything she had talked about. The business arrangement, the annulment agreement. All he had to do was sign on the dotted line and he’d be a temporary husband, father in name only.

The businessman in him said it was an opportunity not to be missed. The partnership his business needed, and at the same time, the bonus of companionship. Not sex, clearly, but someone to talk to at the end of the day.

He thought of the nights he’d spent on the rooftop deck of his townhouse. Watching the city lights twinkle in the distance, while he drank a beer, and gathered his thoughts, wondered if he’d made the right choices. Lately those nights hadn’t brought the peace they used to. More, a restlessness, a question of “is this all there is?” Except for the times he was with his brothers, his life was staid. Almost dull.

Riley was right. He was lonely, and tired as hell of feeling that way.

At the same time, he didn’t want to pursue the empty one-night stands his brother did. He wanted more, something with meaning and depth. Something that was … sensible. Reliable. Practical. Something that wasn’t foolish or wild or crazy—not the kind of whirlwind romance his parents had had, that had gone so horribly wrong after the children started coming and they realized that a quick courtship couldn’t build a lifetime, not between such badly mismatched people.

Love—or any approximation of it—was a dangerous thing that left a man vulnerable. Not a position Finn McKenna relished or welcomed. A marriage of convenience would be void of all those things.

Still, the cynic in him wondered if Ellie was proposing this as a way to knock him off guard, or maybe even an alliance that would allow her to gather facts about him and his business, facts she could use to take over his company later or eliminate him as a competitor. Hadn’t Lucy done exactly the same thing?

But the man in him, the one standing beside a very beautiful, very intriguing woman with a smile that stayed with him, hoped like hell it was something more than that.

Was he truly considering this … this marriage of convenience? What choice did he have? He needed to be a part of that hospital project. Making it a joint venture with a company like WW would reestablish his company’s reputation, and distract attention from that fiasco last year. And, as calculated as it sounded, a marriage to a charming woman like Ellie would also distract attention from the mess his company had been in lately, give the gossips something else to talk about. He’d be back on top before he knew it, and then he and Eleanor Winston could quietly dissolve the union, as she’d said. She’d have the child, and he’d have his business back. He could feel the old familiar surge of adrenaline that always hit him when he landed a big job, one that he knew could change the future of McKenna Designs.

“This contract looks pretty good,” he said.

“I wanted to make it clear this was business only.” Her gaze flicked to the water, and she let out a small sigh. Almost like she was disappointed. Which was crazy, because she was the one floating the idea in the first place. “But we don’t have a lot of time to waste. Jiao is stuck in that orphanage, farther away from me with every passing day. And you, I suspect, would like to be on board from day one with the hospital project. The initial drawings are due the fifteenth so we have very little time to get everyone up to speed.”

“The fifteenth? That does put a crunch on our time. By all rights, we should start right away.”

“I agree. In the end, Finn, we’re both decisive people, aren’t we?” She smiled at him. “I’m not looking for a courtship with flowers and dancing and dinners out. What we are doing is more of a …”

“Partnership. Two like minds coming together.”

“Exactly.”

A part of him felt a whisper of … loss? Finn wasn’t sure that was the right word to describe the yawning emptiness in his gut. Surely a deal like this—one that would benefit his company and at the same time, fill those quiet, lonely nights with good conversation, was a win-win all around.

Except …

No, he didn’t need any more than that. As Ellie had said, a romantic relationship came with complications, emotional drama—all things he didn’t have time for, nor wanted in his life. And clearly, not something she wanted, either. She saw him as a means to an end, and he saw her the same way.

Hadn’t he learned his lesson with Lucy? A heady relationship would do nothing but draw his attention away from the business. In the coming months, the company would need more of his attention than ever, so the kind of relationship Ellie was proposing was perfect. With the addition of the legal contract, the risk to McKenna Designs would be minimal. He saw no downside to this.

Except the fact that it wouldn’t be a real marriage. That it would be as faux as the wood paneling that still flanked his grandmother’s fireplace, forty years after the house had been built, the same house she lived in because it was the one she’d bought with her late husband, even though she could now afford ten times the house.

A hummingbird flitted by, heading for a bright swath of flowers. Finn watched it for a while, as the world hustled by behind him.

“There’s this bird in Africa,” Finn said, watching the tiny hummingbird dart from bloom to bloom, “called a honey guide. Its whole job is to find beehives and lead the honey badger to them. When he does, the badger gets in there and gets the honey, clearing the way for the honey guide to eat the bee larvae.” He turned to Ellie. “I guess that’s sort of what this will be. Us working together to serve a mutually beneficial purpose.”

“Not exactly the same as swans mating for life, but yes.”

“Definitely not a partnership for life,” Finn said. But even as he clarified, he felt a twinge of something like regret. He shrugged it off. Be smart, he reminded himself, like the badger and the bird. In the end, everyone wins.

“I don’t want to rush you,” she said. “But we need to make a decision. If you don’t want to do this … I need to think of something else.”

“Fine,” he said, turning to her. “Let’s go.”

She blinked. “What … now?”

“Why wait?” he said, parroting her words back. “I have a friend at the courthouse. He’ll take care of it. You can be my wife by the end of the day, Miss Winston.”

“Today? Right now?”

“Yes, of course.” He watched her closely, and wondered if, despite the contract she’d given him, she was as committed to this partnership as she had sounded. Only one way to find out, he decided. “You weren’t expecting me to get down on one knee with some flowers or a ring, were you?”

“No, no, of course not.” She swallowed. “Business only.”

“My favorite kind of relationship.” He gave her a smile, then turned to go back across the grass. He paused, turned back, waiting for her to join him. He had called Ellie Winston’s bluff. The only problem …

He wasn’t so sure she’d been bluffing.

“Are you ready?”

Was she ready? Ellie had no idea if she was or wasn’t. The events of the last hours seemed surreal, as if it was some other Ellie Winston who had proposed to Finn McKenna, then hopped in his Town Car and headed to Rhode Island in the middle of the day.

Had she really just proposed to him? And had he really accepted?

She’d gone to his office right after leaving the adoption agency and then her lawyer’s office, her mind filled with only one thing. She needed a husband and she needed one now. She’d do whatever it took to get that. She’d seen Jiao’s trusting, hopeful face in her mind and thought of nothing else. Jiao needed a mother. Needed Ellie.

Linda had made it clear—marriage was the only sure route to bringing Jiao home. There was no one else that Ellie knew—not well enough in her short time living here in Boston—who would marry her on such short notice. No one who would go along with such a crazy plan, and not expect a real marriage out of the deal. So she’d gone to Finn, the only man she knew who needed her as much as she needed him.

A part of her had never expected him to say yes. But say yes, he had, and now they were on their way to get married.

Married.

To Finn McKenna.

A man she knew about as well as she knew her dry cleaner.

This was insane. Think of Jiao, she told herself. Just think of Jiao. And as the miles ticked by, that became her mantra.

Massachusetts had a three-day waiting period for a marriage license, Finn had told her, as he got on I-95S and made the hour-long journey to Providence, Rhode Island, where there was no waiting period. The car’s smooth, nearly silent ride and comfortable interior made the whole drive seem almost … romantic, even though it was broad daylight and the highway was filled with other cars. It was something about the cozy, dark leather of the car that wrapped around her, insulated them, drew them into a world of just the two of them, like lovers making an afternoon getaway. Which was crazy, because what they were doing was far from romantic. And they were definitely not lovers.

“How did you know there was a three-day waiting period in Massachusetts?” she asked.

“My brother.” A grin slid across Finn’s face. “Riley is a little … impetuous. We’ve had to talk him out of more than one crazy decision.”

“We?”

“My younger brother Brody and me. We’re the ones who received all the common-sense genes.”

“Inherited from generations of common-sense McKenna men?”

He chuckled. “Exactly. Though my grandmother might quibble with how much common sense is in our DNA.”

“So there are three of you altogether?” Ellie asked.

“Yep. All boys. Made for a busy life. Hell, it still does.”

She tried to picture that environment, with three rambunctious, noisy siblings, and couldn’t. The camaraderie. The joking. The warmth. “I’m an only child. I can’t even imagine what it would be like to grow up with two sisters, or a bunch of brothers.”

“It’s loud. And sometimes things get broken.” Finn put up a hand and pressed three fingers together. “Scouts’ Honor, I had nothing to do with that antique vase or the missing coffee table.”

Ellie heard the laughter buried in Finn’s voice and craved those same kinds of memories for Jiao. She bit back a sigh. Adopting just one child as a single mother was proving to be difficult enough. Adopting multiple children seemed impossible. But maybe someday—

She’d have the warm, crazy, boisterous family Finn was describing.

Except that would mean taking a risk and falling in love. Ellie didn’t need to complicate her life with a relationship that could end up hurting her—and in the process her daughter—down the road. This marriage, based on a legal contract and nothing else, was the best choice.

“Remind me to tell you the tree story sometime,” Finn said. “And every year at Thanksgiving, we revisit the Ferris wheel one. That one was all Riley’s fault. There’s always an interesting story where Riley is concerned, and Brody and I try to exploit that at every opportunity.”

Her gaze went to the city passing by outside the window, streaks of color in the bright sunshine. Thanksgivings and Christmases with a whole brood of McKenna men sounded like heaven, Ellie thought. Her childhood had been so quiet, so empty, with her mother gone all the time and her father working sunup to sundown. She envied Finn and for a moment, wondered if they would be married long enough for her to sit around the Thanksgiving dinner table with a trio of McKennas, sharing raucous stories and building memories over the turkey.

She pictured that very thing for a moment, then pulled away from the images. They were a bird and a badger, as he’d pointed out, not two swans in love. Besides, she knew better than to pin her hopes on some romantic notion of love. That happened for other people, not her.

“My parents weren’t around much when I was a kid. Now my mother lives in California, so it’s really just my dad and me.” She shifted in her seat to look at him. “I guess you could say my life has always been pretty … quiet and predictable.” Now that she said it, she wondered if that was such a good thing. For one, she wanted to add the chaos of a child. Would she be ready for it? She, who had never so much as babysat a neighbor’s kid? Save for a few vacations spent in China with Jiao and Sun, she had no experience with children … what made her think she could do this? Heck, Finn, with all those younger brothers, was probably better suited to parenting than she was.

All Ellie had was a deep rooted conviction that she would love her child and be there for her. She wouldn’t leave Jiao with an endless stream of babysitters or miss her third-grade recital or pay a tutor to help her with her homework so Ellie could work a few more hours. She would be there.

Somehow, she’d find a way to run WW Designs and be the mother that Jiao needed, the kind of parent Ellie had never had. Even though she knew it would be easier to do that if she had a real husband, one who was a plugged-in father, she vowed to make this work on her own. One attentive, loving parent was better than two inattentive, unavailable parents. And she had no intentions of forcing this marriage to limp along after the adoption was final. The worst thing for Jiao would be to have a distant parent, one who left her wondering if she was truly loved.

Finn turned on his blinker, then exited the highway. “Your life might have been quiet and predictable up until now, but I’d say getting married on the spur of the moment is pretty far from either of those adjectives.”

She laughed. “You’re right. No one would ever think I’d elope.”

“That goes double for me.” Finn paused at the end of the off-ramp. He turned to face her, his blue eyes hidden by dark sunglasses. “Still sure you want to do this?”

She thought of what he had just told her. About his brothers and his noisy childhood. Then thought of the quiet, empty life she led. She had her father, yes, but other than that, all she had was work.

“Yes, I’m sure,” she said.

“Okay.” Then he made the turn, following the signs that led to the downtown area. “Me, too.”

He said it so softly, she wondered if there was more behind the words than a simple agreement. Was he missing something in his life, too? Was he looking to fill the empty spaces, add life to those quiet rooms? Or was this solely a business merger for him?

He said nothing more, just drove, and she let the silence fill the space between them in the cavernous Town Car. A little while later, they pulled in front of the courthouse, a massive brick building with dozens of tall windows and a spire reaching toward the clouds. The stately building resembled a church as much as it did a place for justice.

They parked in one of the many parking garages nearby, then walked the short distance to the court. Ellie noticed that Finn opened her car door, opened the garage’s door, lightly took her elbow when they crossed a street. Such small gestures, but ones that Ellie appreciated. After all, this was a business deal. He didn’t have to play the chivalrous man.

They went up the few stone steps to the entrance, with Finn stepping in front of her to open and hold the heavy courthouse door for her, too. “Thank you.”

“It’s the least I can do for my future wife.”

She faltered at the word. She’d heard it twice already today, and still couldn’t believe it was happening. “Are you planning on carrying me over the threshold, too?”

He paused. “We hadn’t talked about that detail.”

“Which one?”

“Where we’re going to live after this.”

The mirth left her. Oh, yeah.

She hadn’t thought that far ahead. In fact, she’d just gone with this insane plan, clearly not thinking it through. The adoption agency would undoubtedly do its due diligence before signing off on Ellie’s adoption. At the very least, they’d want a report from Linda on the living conditions.

It wouldn’t take a genius to realize her marriage was a sham if she and new “husband” were living in separate homes. Ellie had never been much of an impetuous woman. Until today and now, she could lose it all by not thinking this through.

“We should live together,” she said, all the while watching for his reaction, “or no one will believe it’s real. We’ll need people to believe we’re together for more than just a business deal.”

“We’ll have to make it seem … real,” he said.

“Yeah. We will.”

Finn turned to her in the bright, expansive lobby. People rushed around them, hurrying to courtrooms and offices, their shoes echoing on the marble floors, their voices carrying in the vast space.

But Ellie barely noticed. She stood in a world of only two, herself and the man who had agreed to marry her and in the process, change her life. And Jiao’s, too.

“Maybe if people find out I eloped, it’ll change their image of me as the Hawk.”

She laughed. “And what, turn you into the Dove?”

“I don’t think so.” He chuckled. “I could get married at a drive-thru chapel in Vegas with Elvis as my best man and that still wouldn’t be enough to do that.”

“You never know. Marriage changes people. Relationships change them.” Her voice was soft, her mind on one person a world away.

“Yes, I think it does. And not always for the better.”

She wanted to ask him what he meant by that. Did he mean the ex-fiancée who had ruined his reputation? Or was he talking about something, someone else?

He cleared his throat. “You’re right. Our marriage is going to need a measure of verisimilitude, and being in the same residence will do that. In addition, we can work on the hospital project after hours.”

Even though Finn’s voice was detached, almost clinical, the words after hours conjured up thoughts of very different nocturnal activities. Since the first time she’d spotted Finn in the ballroom of the Park Plaza, she’d been intrigued. She’d liked how he bucked convention by having a beer instead of wine, how he’d been so intent yet also charming. From a distance, she’d thought he was handsome. Up close, he was devastating. Her heart skipped a beat every time he smiled. Her traitorous mind flashed to images of Finn touching her, kissing her, making love to her—

Whoa. That was not part of the deal. At all. Keeping this platonic was the only—and best—way to ensure that she could walk away at the end. She didn’t want to chance her heart on love, or risk her future with a relationship that could dissolve as easily as sugar in hot tea. Falling for him would only complicate everything.

And marrying him on the spur of the moment wasn’t complicated? All of a sudden, a flutter of nerves threatened to choke her. Ellie opened her mouth to tell Finn this was crazy, she couldn’t do this, when the door to the courthouse opened behind them and a slim, tall man hurried inside.

“Sorry I’m late. My day has been crazy.” He chuckled. “As usual. Story of my life. And yours, too, huh, Finn?”

Finn patted the other man on the back and gave him a grin. “Charlie, how are you?”

“Just fine. Not as good as you, though. Running off to get married. You surprise me, old friend.” He grinned, then put out a hand toward Ellie. “Judge Charlie Robinson, at your service.”

Ellie gaped. “You said you had a friend in the courthouse. Not a judge.”

“Charlie and I have been friends since we were kids. We roomed together at Harvard,” Finn said, then shot Charlie a smirk. “To me, he’s not a judge. He’s the guy who sprayed whipped cream all over my room.”

“Hey, I’m still pleading innocent to that one.” Charlie raised his hands in a who-me gesture, but there was a twinkle in his eye.

Again, Ellie saw another side of Finn. A side that intrigued her, even as she pushed those thoughts away. She refused to fall for Finn. Now or later. She was here for a practical reason and no other.

Finn chuckled. “Well, we should get to it. I know you have a hectic day.”

“No problem. I can always make time for a good friend, especially one who’s getting married. So …” Charlie clapped his hands together. “You two kids ready to make this all legal and binding?”

Legal. Binding.

Now.

Ellie glanced at Finn. She could do this. She had to. There was no other way. Besides, it was a temporary marriage, nothing more than a piece of paper. But a union that would bring Jiao home and give Ellie the family she had always craved. She could do that, without getting her heart tangled in the process. “Yes,” she said.

“Great.” Charlie grinned again. “Okay, lovebirds, let’s head up to my office and get you two hitched.”

Finn turned to Ellie and put out his arm. “Are you ready to become Mrs. McKenna?”

Was she?

She lifted her gaze to Finn’s blue eyes. She barely knew this man, but what she knew she liked. Respected. Trusted. Would that be enough?

She thought of Jiao again, and realized it would have to be. In the end, running WW would be fulfilling, but not nearly as fulfilling as coming home to Jiao’s contagious smile and wide dark eyes.

“Why, Mr. McKenna, I can’t think of another thing I’d rather do in the middle of the day.” Then she linked her arm in Finn’s and headed toward the judge’s chambers.

CHAPTER FIVE

THE whole thing took only a few minutes—including Charlie’s beginning jokes and closing quips. They called in his assistant and a court clerk to serve as witnesses, the two of them looking like they’d seen more than one impromptu wedding. Charlie thought they were getting married out of love, and in typical Charlie fashion, strove to make the event fun and memorable. Finn stumbled when Charlie asked him about rings, which Charlie racked up as bridegroom nerves. “I can’t believe you, of all people, forgot a major detail like the rings,” Charlie said. “No worries, but be sure you make it up to her later with a lot of diamonds,” he said with a wink, then in the next breath pronounced them man and wife.

Man and wife. The words echoed in Finn’s mind, bouncing around like a rubber ball. He’d done it. And no one was more surprised than Finn himself. He, the man who hadn’t operated without a plan since he was writing his first research paper in fourth grade, had run off in the middle of the day and—

Eloped.

Holy cow. He’d really done it.

“And now for the best part,” Charlie said, closing the book in his hands and laying it on his desk. “You may kiss your bride.”

Finn stared at Charlie for a long second. Kiss the bride? He’d forgotten all about that part. He’d simply assumed a quick civil union in a courthouse would be devoid of all the flowers and romance part of a church wedding. “Uh, I don’t know if we have to—”

Charlie laughed. “What, are you shy now? Go on, kiss her.”

Finn considered refusing, but then thought better of it. Charlie would undoubtedly question a marriage where the groom didn’t want to get close with his bride. And if they were going to pull off this fiction in front of their friends and colleagues, they needed to at least look the part. Finn turned to Ellie. Her green eyes were wide, her lips parted slightly. In shock? Anticipation?

She looked beautiful and delicious all at the same time in that simple daffodil-colored dress. In that instant, his reservations disappeared, replaced by a fast, hot surge of want. No, it was more than desire, it was a … craving for whatever inner happiness was lighting Ellie’s features.

She stood there, looking as hesitant as he felt. A faint blush colored her cheeks, disappeared beneath her long blond hair. She looked like a bride—pretty, breathless, yet at the same time she possessed a simmering sensuality. He wanted her, even as he reminded himself this was a purely platonic union.

There would be no kisses. No lovemaking. Nothing but this moment. And right now, Finn didn’t want to let this moment pass.

Her gaze met his and a curious tease filled the emerald depths. “Well, Mr. McKenna, are you going to do as the nice judge says?”

“I would never disobey a judge,” Finn said, his voice low, hoarse. Just between them. Charlie, the witnesses, hell, the entire world ceased to exist.

He closed the gap between them, reached a hand to cup her jaw. Electricity crackled in the air, in the touch. A breath extended between them, another. Ellie’s chest rose, fell. Her dark pink lips parted, her deep green eyes widened, and her light floral perfume teased at his senses, luring him closer, closer.

Damn, he wanted her. He’d wanted her from the minute he’d met her.

With one kiss he’d seal this marriage. But was that all this kiss was about? This moment?

No. He knew, deep in his gut, that there was something else happening here, something he wasn’t sure he wanted or needed in his life. He could have been standing at the edge of a cliff, ready to plunge—

Into the cushion of water, or the danger of rocks? He didn’t know.

All he could feel was this insistent want. For her. For just one taste. He lowered his mouth to hers, and at the instant that his lips met hers, he knew.

Knew that kissing Ellie was going to change everything.

Her lips were sweet and soft beneath his, her hair a silky tickle against his fingers. She leaned into him for one long, blissful second, and he inhaled, drawing in the scent of her, memorizing it, capturing the moment in Technicolor in his mind.

Ellie.

Then she drew back and the kiss was over, nearly as quickly as it began. The flush in her cheeks had deepened to a light crimson. Her gaze met his for one hot, electric second, then she looked away, and turned back to Charlie.

Platonic. Business relationship. The heady rush gone. He told himself he was glad. That it was exactly what he wanted.

“There. It’s official now.” Charlie grinned, then he reached out and shook hands with both of them. The witnesses murmured their congratulations before slipping out the door. “Congratulations,” Charlie said. “May you have an abundance of happiness and children.”

Children. Or, rather, a single child. Half the reason they’d embarked on this fake union. Finn glanced over at Ellie, but her gaze was on the window, not on him, hiding whatever she might have thought about Charlie’s words.

A few minutes later, they left the courthouse, a newly minted marriage license in hand. The paper weighed nothing, but felt heavier than a concrete block.

Married. To a near stranger.

A stranger whose kiss had awakened a roaring desire inside Finn. He had thought he was doing this just for business reasons, but that kiss was as far from business as the earth was from the moon. And he needed to remember his uppermost goal.

Don’t get involved. Don’t fall for her. Don’t lose track of the priority. Don’t get swept up in a tsunami that would leave him worse off in the end.

As they walked down the street toward the parking garage, Finn dug his car keys out of his pocket, then paused. They were married. And that meant the occasion, even if it was merely a professional alliance, deserved some kind of celebration. “How about we get some dinner before we head back to Boston?”

“I should probably get back to work. I left in the middle of my day and have a lot on my To Do list.” She stepped to the side to allow a quartet of lunch workers to power past them. “But thanks for the offer.”

His To Do list was probably just as long, but for the first time in a long time, Finn didn’t want to go back to his office, didn’t feel like sitting behind that mahogany desk, even as the sensible side of him mounted a vigorous objection. “It’s not every day you get married, you know. We should at least have a glass of wine to celebrate. Or iced tea for you. I’ll have the wine.”

“Don’t you have work to get to, too?”

“Always. But it’s waited this long. It can wait a little longer. Regardless of why we got married, this is a big moment for both of us.” He grinned. “Don’t you agree?”

It was Finn’s smile that swayed Ellie. There was something … disarming about the way Finn McKenna smiled. He had a crooked smile, curving up higher on one side of his face than the other. She liked that. Liked the way nothing about him was exactly what you would expect.

Neither was his kiss. She’d thought that he would just give her a perfunctory peck on the lips, a token gesture to seal the deal. But he’d done so much more. Kissed her in a way she hadn’t been kissed in forever.

Their kiss had been short, but tender. When he’d touched her jaw, he’d done it almost reverently, his fingers drifting over her cheek, tangling in her hair. He’d leaned in, captured her gaze and waited long enough for her heart to begin to race with anticipation before he’d kissed her. When had a man ever taken such time for something so simple?

It left her wondering what it would be like to really be Finn’s wife. Would he kiss her like that at the end of every day? Before he left for work in the morning? For just a moment, she wanted to hold on to that fantasy, to believe that this was real, and not just a means to an end.

Even if it was.

Finn was right—it wasn’t every day that she got married, and she wasn’t sure she was quite ready to go back to her ordinary world, and all the questions this was bound to raise. They still had to settle on their story, and deal with other practical issues, like where they were going to live afterward.

Whatever little thrill she might have felt faded in the light of reality. This wasn’t a date, it wasn’t a celebration. It was business, pure and simple.

And nothing more.

“You did what?” The shock in Riley’s voice boomed across the phone connection. “You got married?”

“Uh, yeah, but it’s not …” Finn was about to tell Riley it wasn’t a real marriage, then he glanced across the sidewalk at Ellie, standing in the shadowed circle beneath an oak tree. She was talking into her cell phone with someone at her office, her hand moving to punctuate her words. Little bits of sunshine dappled her blond hair, kissed her delicate features and gave her a slight glow.

He had seen hundreds of beautiful women in his lifetime, but none that had that whole package of incredible looks and incredible personality. The kind of woman any man in his right mind would be proud to call his wife.

Except, this was merely a way to resurrect his business. Besides, he didn’t need the complication of a relationship, the heady distraction of a romance. He liked his life as straight as a ruler. And he’d continue to keep it that way.

“It’s unexpected, is what it is,” Riley finished for him. “What were you thinking?”

“I wasn’t.” That was true. He’d thought he was challenging her offer, then once they were standing in front of Charlie, he’d stopped thinking about the pros and cons of what he was about to do and just … done it. Eloped. He, of all people. He hadn’t thought about the incongruity of that when he was in Charlie’s office. All he’d seen was Ellie’s smile.

“I thought you were all antimarriage. Especially after the Lucy thing.”

“I was. I am. This was …” Finn paused. “Different.”

“Well, congratulations, brother,” Riley said. “You’ll be all the talk at the next family reunion.”

Finn chuckled. “I’m sure I will be as soon as you get off the phone and call Brody. You spread gossip faster than a church picnic.”

Riley laughed with him. “So, where are you guys going on your honeymoon?”

The word honeymoon conjured up images of Ellie’s lithe, beautiful body beside his. He glanced at her across the way from him, and didn’t see the daffodil-yellow dress, but instead saw her on some beach somewhere. Her skin warmed from the sun, all peaches and cream and pressed against him. Taking things far beyond a simple kiss in the judge’s chambers.

Damn. That was not productive. At all. He shook his head, but the images stayed, chased by the memory of kissing her. The scent of her perfume. The feel of her in his arms.

Again, he forced them away and tore his gaze away from Ellie.

He’d come close to that kind of craziness when he’d dated Lucy. Granted, most of their relationship had been practical, staid … predictable. Then he’d had that moment of insanity when he’d rushed out to buy a ring, run over to her office to propose—

And found out she was stealing his clients behind his back.

No more of that. He’d gone off the rails for five minutes, and it nearly destroyed his business and his career. A smart man approached marriage like any other business deal—with clarity, sense and caution.

“Uh, we don’t really have time for that right now,” Finn said, reminding himself that there would be no honey moon. Not now, not later. “Work schedules, meetings, that kind of thing gets in the way of the best laid plans, you know?” He made light of it because for some reason, he couldn’t bring himself to tell Riley the whole thing was a temporary state. That most likely by the time their schedules opened up enough that they could plan a joint vacation, they would be filing for divorce.

“You are going to celebrate at least a little, aren’t you? I mean, if any occasion screams having a party, this is it.” Riley paused a second. “Hmm … I wonder if it’s too late to throw you a bachelor party?”

“I don’t need one of those, and yes, it is too late.” Finn shifted the phone in his grasp. “Actually that’s why I called you. I was thinking of taking her out for drinks and dinner. But …”

“You realized that idea sounds about as lame as a picnic in the park?”

“Hey!” Then Finn lowered his voice. “What’s lame about a picnic?”

Riley laughed. “Don’t tell me. That was your second idea.”

Finn didn’t want to admit that it had actually been his first idea, but then he’d thought about bugs and sunshine, and proposed a restaurant instead. Damn. He was a hell of a lot rustier at this dating game than he’d thought. Not that this was a date—at all—just his effort to make this business alliance a little more palatable. “It’s a nice day. We could grab some sandwiches—”

“Last I checked, you don’t get married every day. So don’t do an everyday thing to celebrate it. Here’s what I would do,” Riley said, then detailed a plan for Finn that far surpassed anything Finn had thought of. A few minutes later, Riley said goodbye and Finn ended the call. At the same time, Ellie tucked her phone away and crossed to Finn.

“Sorry about that,” she said. “Duty calls.”

Finn chuckled. “Believe me, I understand. It calls me all the time, day and night.” At the same moment, Finn’s phone began to ring. He fished it out of his pocket, about to answer, when Ellie laid a hand on top of his.

“Don’t.” Her fingers danced lightly across his, an easy, delicate touch, but one that sent a shock wave running down his arm. “Let’s put our phones away. I don’t want to deal with work for now.”

“Me, either.” He pressed the power button, turned the phone off, then slipped it into his jacket pocket. “Besides, I have plans for you, Mrs. McKenna.”

Her eyes widened at the use of her married name. “Plans? What kind of plans?”

“You’ll see,” he said, then said a little prayer that he could execute Riley’s plans as well as his brother would have. Because just for today, Finn wanted to woo the woman who was now his wife.

Tomorrow was soon enough to get back to business—and stay there. For as long as this practical, contracted arrangement lasted.

How he’d done it, Ellie didn’t know. She stared in wonder at the tableau laid out before her. Chubby terra cotta pots held thick, lush flowering shrubs, lit from above by soft torch lights on bronze poles. A pair of squat white wicker chairs with fluffy striped cushions flanked either side of a matching table, already set for dinner with floral plates and crystal wine goblets. Candles flickered in the soft breeze, dropping a blanket of golden light over everything.

The sun had started setting, casting Boston’s skyline in a soft purple glow. Lights twinkled in the distance, while the red and green bow lights of passing boats dotted the harbor.

She’d had no idea that Finn had been planning this while they were riding back from Providence. Or how. They had kept their phones off, as agreed, and spent the hour of travel talking about everything and nothing—from growing up in the city to the challenges of architectural design in a world going green.

She’d learned that Finn hated spinach but loved the Red Sox, that he had his one and only B in seventh grade Science and that his first job had been delivering newspapers. She’d told him that her favorite food was cake, and that she’d been the last on her block to learn to ride a bike. She told him about the time she’d gotten lost in the train station and the day she got her braces.

It was the most she’d shared with anyone in a long, long time, and it had felt nice. Then the car pulled up in front of Finn’s building and Finn had turned to her and said, “All those details should really help when we meet with the adoption people,” and Ellie had been reminded that her marriage was nothing more than a sham.

If that was so, why had Finn gone to all this trouble to set up such a romantic tableau?

“How … when …” She let out a breath. “This is incredible, Finn.”

He grinned. “Thank you.”

“How did you do it?”

“Remember that rest stop we went to on the way back from Rhode Island?”

She nodded.

“I made a few phone calls while you were … indisposed.”

“A few fast phone calls. And clearly productive.”

“I’m a man who likes to get things done.” He reached for her hand, and she let that happen, wondering when touching Finn had become so easy or if she was just telling herself it was to preserve the mood, and then they walked forward onto the private terrace of his building, temporarily transformed into an outdoor dining room.

Just as Finn pulled out her chair, music began, a soft jazz floating from an unseen sound system. A waiter emerged from a door at the side, bearing a tray with water glasses and a carafe filled with two bottles—one a chilled white wine, the other a sparkling grape juice. He placed the water glasses on the table with merely a nod toward Ellie, then uncorked the wine and juice, pouring Ellie’s nonalcoholic version first, then Finn’s wine, before disappearing back through the door again. Finn had remembered she didn’t drink, and had clearly put a lot of time and thought into the entire evening. Why?

He raised his glass and tilted it toward her. “To … partnership.”

“Partnership,” she echoed, and ignored the flutter of disappointment in her gut. In the end, they would go their separate ways, and for that, Ellie was glad. She didn’t need the complication of dating Finn, of a relationship. Just enough information and time with him to effectively pretend …

Pretend they were in love. “And to business,” she added, for herself as much as him. “Only.”

CHAPTER SIX

THE glint of gold caught Finn’s eye before he was fully awake. It took a second before he remembered why he had a ring on his left hand. And why he was waking up in a room he didn’t recognize.

Last night. Marrying Ellie Winston. The rooftop dinner. The rings he’d given them—purchased earlier that evening by his assistant and delivered to the terrace before they arrived—so the two of them had the outward evidence of a marriage.

Then, after a dinner that alternated between tense and friendly, bringing her to her townhouse, and by mutual agreement, he’d spent the night. In the guest room.

Of his wife’s home.

From outside the room, he heard the sound of music. Something upbeat … a current pop hit. He got out of bed, pulled on a pair of sweatpants from the bag he’d brought with him and padded out to the kitchen. Everything about Ellie’s townhome was like her—clean, neat, bright. Lots of whites and yellows with accents of blue. It was the complete opposite of his heavy oak, dark carpet apartment. Softer, more feminine. Nice.

Ellie was standing at the kitchen sink, her hips swaying in time to the music as she filled a carafe with water. She was already dressed for work in a pale blue skirt and a short-sleeved white sweater. Her hair was curled, the tendrils curving over her shoulders and down her back in tantalizing spirals. Her feet were bare, and for some reason, that made him feel like he was intruding. It was such an unguarded, at-home kind of thing.

And oh, so intimate.

In the light of day, the reality of moving in with Ellie presented a bit of a dilemma. Like how he was going to resist her when she was right there every day, in bare feet, humming along to the radio. How was he going to pretend he hadn’t felt anything with that kiss in the courthouse?

Because he did. He’d thought about it all last night, tossing and turning, a thousand percent aware she was also in bed, and mere feet down the hall. He’d made a concerted effort to keep their celebratory dinner more like a board meeting than a date, but still, a part of him had kept replaying that kiss. And had been craving another.

Hadn’t he learned his lesson already? Getting distracted by a relationship left him vulnerable. Made him make mistakes, like nearly marrying someone who wanted only to destroy him. He saw where that kind of foolishness got a person—and it wasn’t a path he wanted to travel.

So he forced his gaze away from her bare feet and her tantalizing curves, and cleared his throat. “Good morning.”

She spun around, and nearly dropped the carafe. “Finn. Oh, hi. I almost forgot …” A flush filled her face. “Good morning. Do you want some coffee?”

“Yes. Please.”

She busied herself with setting up the pot, then turning it on. When she was done, she pivoted back to him. “I’m sorry I don’t have much for breakfast. I’m usually running out the door with a muffin in my hand.”

“A muffin’s fine. Really. This whole … thing was unexpected.” His gaze kept straying back to the ring on her hand. He was now the husband of Ellie Winston. No … Ellie McKenna.

Just a few days ago he’d been thinking how he wanted a relationship without any drama. One based solely on common interests, none of that silly romantic stuff that clouded his brain and muddled his thinking. Now, he had that—

And for some reason, it disappointed him like hell.

What was he thinking? He didn’t need the crazy romantic notion of love. He needed something steady, dependable, as predictable as the columns in his general ledger. The problem was, there was a part of Ellie that Finn suspected, no, knew, was far from predictable. And that was dangerous.

The song shifted from pop to a ballad. The love song filled the room, stringing tension between them.

“I have, uh, blueberry and banana nut.” She waved toward the breadbox. “Muffins, I mean.”

He took a step farther into the kitchen. The walls were a butter-yellow, the cabinets a soft white. No clutter that he could see, merely a few things that added personality—a hand-painted ceramic bowl teeming with fruit, a deep green vase filled with fresh daisies, and a jade sculpture of a dragon, probably picked up in China. It seemed to suit her, this eclectic, homey mix.

Beside him, the coffeepot percolated with a steady drip-drip. The sun streamed in through the windows, showering those curls, those tantalizing curls, with gold. He wanted to reach up, capture one of those curls in his palm. “I’d love one.”

“Which?”

It took him a second to realize she meant which flavor, not which he wanted—her or the muffins. “Blueberry, please.”

“Sure.” She pivoted away, fast. The breadbox door raised with a rattle. Ellie tugged out the plastic container holding the muffins, then spun back. The package tumbled out of her grasp and dropped to the floor. Muffins tumbled end over end and spun away, spinning a trail of crumbs. Ellie cursed.

Finn bent down, at the same time Ellie did, to reach for the runaway muffins. They knocked shoulders and Finn drew back. When had he become so clumsy? This wasn’t his usual self. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay, it’s my fault.” She reached for the muffin closest to them, at the same time he did. Their hands brushed. She staggered to her feet, nearly toppling, and reached out a hand to steady herself. It connected with his bare chest, just a brief second, before she yanked her palm away.

A jolt of electricity ran through Finn. His gaze jerked to her face. Ellie’s eyes were wide, her lips parted. “Sorry,” he said again.

“No, I am.” She looked away from him, back at the floor. “I can make toast, if you prefer.”

Toast? Muffins? Had she been affected at all by that accidental touch? “I’m not hungry. I should get to work.”

Yes, get to work, get to the office and get on with his day. Rather than indulge in any more of this craziness. Get his head clear—and back on straight.

“I’ll clean this up,” she said, gesturing to the mess on the floor. “If you want to hop in the shower and get ready.”

“Sure, sure.” He dumped the crumbs in his hand into the trash, then turned to go.

“Finn?”

His name rolled off her tongue, soft, easy. For a second, he wondered what it would be like to hear her say his name every day. Every morning. Every night. He turned back to face her, taking in those wide green eyes, the sweet smile that curved across her face, and yes, those bare feet. “Yeah?”

She shot him a grin. “Coffee’s ready.”

Coffee’s ready.

A heavy blanket of disappointment hung over Finn while he got ready. Hell, what had he expected her to say? Stay? Kiss me? Take me back to the bedroom?

No, he didn’t want that. He wanted exactly what he had—a platonic relationship that let him focus on work and didn’t send his head, or his world, into a tailspin.

Except the image of Ellie in her kitchen, swaying to the music and doing something so mundane as making coffee, kept coming back to his mind. He had lived alone for too long, that was all. That was why the sight of her affected him so much.

He got ready, then headed out the door, leaving Ellie a note that he had to stop by his office and would meet her at WW later. He knew it was the coward’s way out, but he’d been thrown by waking up in her place. It was all moving so fast, and he told himself he just needed some time to adjust.

Later that morning, he was heading up to the tenth floor of the building housing WW Architects, flanked by Noel and Barry, two of his best architects, who’d met him in the lobby. The team Finn brought in had been part of the bidding process, and was already familiar with the Piedmont hospital project, so the trio exchanged small talk until they reached Ellie’s floor. A few minutes later, an assistant led them to a conference room where the WW staff had already assembled. Ellie stood at the head of the table. Her curly blond hair was now tucked into a tight bun, the bare feet were clad in sensible black pumps, and her curvy figure hidden beneath a jacket that turned the blue skirt into a suit.

She was all business now. Exactly what he wanted.

Then why did he feel a sense of loss?

“Thank you for coming today, gentlemen.” Ellie made the introductions between her team and Finn’s. Finn headed to the front of the room to stand beside Ellie. “Before we get started, we … I mean, Finn and I, have an announcement.”

She exchanged a look with Finn. He nodded. They had talked about this last night, and decided the best way to spread the news was fast and first. “We … Ellie and I … we got married.”

Jaws dropped. People stared.

“You got married?” Larry asked. “As in … married?”

“Last night.” Ellie nodded and smiled, the kind of smile that reached deep into her eyes, lit up her features. Just like the smile of a happy new bride. “It was an impromptu thing.”

“You married her?” Noel scowled at Finn. “Is that why we’re working together?”

Finn wasn’t about to tell their employees the real reason he had married Ellie. If he did, it would taint the project. No, let them all think it was some act of passion. Cover up the truth with a lie.

A lie that a part of Finn wished was true. The part that was still thinking about coffee with Ellie and seeing her in the kitchen. “Not at all. Working together is just a … fringe benefit,” Finn said. “Ellie and I agreed to merge our companies for this project. After that, we go back to being separate entities.”

Ellie leaned in and grabbed his arm. That same jolt of electricity rushed through his veins. “Separate business entities at least.” She grinned up at him and for a half a second, he could almost believe she loved him. Damn, she was good at this.

“You eloped last night?” Noel let out a little a laugh. “I don’t believe it. I’m sorry, Finn, but I just don’t see you as the eloping kind.”

Explaining that the practical, methodical Finn they all knew had done just that was suddenly much harder than he’d expected. “Well, I … I …”

“Blame it on me,” Ellie said, pressing her head to his arm. “I didn’t want the fanfare of a big event, and so I told Finn, let’s just run to the courthouse and get it done. Then we can all get back to work.” She peered up at him, her eyes soft and warm. “We’ll take that honeymoon a little later.”

“Uh … yeah,” he said, his thoughts running rampant down the path of what a honeymoon with Ellie would be like. When she was looking at him like that, he could almost believe this was real. That at the end of the day, they were heading back to a little house in the suburbs with a fence and a dog and a dinner on the stove. And more—much, much more—after the dishes were done and the lights were dimmed. “We’re, uh, planning on leaving as soon as this project is done.”

“Well, then congratulations are in order,” John said. He shook with Finn, then Ellie. “Best of luck to both of you.” The rest of the group echoed John’s sentiments. They congratulated, they shook and they beamed. And Ellie pulled the whole thing off with nary a blink.

“Okay, back to work. We have a major project ahead of us, and not a lot of time,” Ellie said. “So as much as we’d love to take time for a celebration, we need to dive in and work until we have the particulars hammered out.”

Larry, one of Ellie’s architects, grumbled under his breath, but didn’t voice any objections. The rest of the team seemed to be giving Finn’s people the benefit of the doubt. “I appreciate you bringing us in on this project, Ellie,” Finn said, rising to address the group. “I’m confident that by combining the experience of both McKenna Designs and WW Architectural Design, we can create a hospital that will outshine all others in the New England area.”

Ellie shot him a smile. “That’s our goal, too.” She opened the folder before her. “Okay, let’s get to work. Piedmont wants this design to be groundbreaking. One of the key elements that sold them on WW as the architects was our innovative approach. Rather than basing the design on existing models, WW talked about approaching the design process from the patient’s perspective, from admission through discharge. The challenge is to create an environment that creates a healing atmosphere, one that offers warmth with minimal noise, while also keeping patient safety as the top priority.”

“Excellent ideas,” Finn said, nodding to Ellie.

“Thank you. Although I have to admit that one of the challenges we are having is creating that warm, healing atmosphere. WW specializes in corporate buildings, which aren’t usually described as cozy.” Ellie gestured toward Finn and his team. “I think if we combine our expertise in the safety arena, with yours in environment, we’ll have a winner.”

“I agree.” Finn sketched out a drawing on the pad before him, then turned it toward Ellie and the others. “We’ll design standardized rooms, where every medical element is in the same place, no matter what floor or wing, yet also give each room its own flair. Install ambient lighting in addition to the harsher lighting needed for procedures, and soundproof the space so patients aren’t bothered by constant pages and hallway traffic. Studies have shown that a warmer, quieter space speeds patient healing.” Finn filled in another section of the drawing, sketching in fast movements, limited in details, focused on getting the bare bones on the page first. “We should also provide a small visiting area in each room for family members. Nothing huge, but something far superior in comfort and flexibility to the current models in today’s hospitals.”

“What about pricing? That kind of thing is going to raise the costs.” Larry scowled. “Piedmont will not be happy.”

“Easy,” Finn said. “We call the vendors and tell them that they’re going to be part of a groundbreaking new hospital. One that will have plenty of media coverage. They’ll be jumping at the opportunity to be a part of that, and be very amenable to lowering their pricing.”

“In other words, beat them up until they cave?” Larry said.

“I think it’s a good strategy,” Ellie said. “Thanks, Finn.” She clapped her hands together and faced the room. “Okay, what else?”

As if a wall had been dismantled, the room erupted with ideas, people from both teams exchanging and brainstorming, no longer separated into an “us” and “them,” but becoming one cohesive unit, brimming with creativity. Ellie got to her feet and jotted the ideas on the whiteboard behind her, quickly covering the wall-length space. Finn pulled out his computer to take notes, his fingers moving rapidly over the keys of his laptop. It occurred to him somewhere into the first hour that he and Ellie made a good team. Neither tried to outtalk the other or prove their idea the best. Their thoughts seemed to merge, with her suggesting one thought, and him finishing it. He was so used to being the one in charge, the one who had to pull the team together and take the lead, that suddenly sharing the job was … nice. When the group broke for lunch, Finn stayed behind in the room.

“We work well together,” he said, rising and crossing to Ellie. He picked up a second eraser and helped her clean off the whiteboard.

She smiled. “We do indeed.”

Out in the hall, the team was whispering and exchanging glances in the direction of the conference room. “Seems we’ve got people talking,” Finn said.

“It was bound to happen. Though I thought we’d have a little more time to …”

“Work out our story?”

“Yeah. We should have talked about it more last night. I really didn’t think that part through.”

“Me, either. I was too focused on work.”

She laughed. “I know what you mean. That’s how my days have been, too.” She moved away from him, then stretched, working out the kinks in her back. He was tempted to offer her a massage, but instead he kept his hands at his side. A massage was definitely not part of this … partnership.

“You pulled it off well,” Finn said. “Hell, even I believed …”

She cocked her head. “Believed what?”

“That you were wildly in love with me.”

She laughed, and that told him that there was no doubt she’d been acting earlier. Finn told himself he was glad. “Well, I’m glad it worked. Anyway, I guess I’ll see you back here in a little while.”

“Wait. Do you have lunch plans?” he asked, then wondered what he was doing. Was he asking her on a date—a date with his wife—or a simple lunch meeting to discuss the project? He told himself it was just because people would expect them to eat together. He was keeping up the facade, nothing more.

“I have one of those frozen dinners in the office refrigerator.” She gave him an apologetic smile. “I usually eat at my desk.”

“So do I.” Outside the sun shone bright and hazy, a warm day with the promising scent of spring in the air. Inside, all they had was climate controlled air and a sterile office environment. The same kind of place where he spent five, sometimes six, days a week. He thought of the calls waiting to be returned, the emails waiting to be answered, the projects waiting to be completed. Then he looked at Ellie, and wanted only a few minutes with her, just long enough to hear her laugh again, see her smile. Then he’d be ready to go back to the To Do lists and other people’s expectations. “Let’s go have lunch on the plaza. Get out of here for a while. I think both of us have spent far too many afternoons at our desks.”

“Two days in a row, taking time off? My, my, Finn, whatever will people say?”

Damn. He was really starting to like the way she said his name. “Oh, I think we’ve already given them plenty to talk about, don’t you?”

She looked up at him, and a smile burst across her face. It sent a rush through Finn, and he decided that if he did nothing else, he would make Ellie smile again. And again.

“Oh my, yes, I do believe we’ve done that in spades, Mr. McKenna.” Then her green eyes lit with a tease and she put her hand in his. “What’s a little more?”

As time ticked by and the afternoon sun made a slow march across the sky, Ellie was less and less able to concentrate on her sandwich or anything Finn was saying. On her way into work that morning, Ellie had called Linda and left her a message telling her that she had gotten married, and now the wait for Linda’s return call seemed agonizing. Thank God for the meeting, which had taken her mind off the wait, and for Finn, who had convinced her to leave the office and get some fresh air. Still, she had checked her cell at least a dozen times.

Finn had taken two calls, and she’d been impressed with the way he handled business. Efficiently, with barely a wasted word. He argued with a contractor who wanted to make a change that Finn felt would compromise the building’s structure, and negotiated a lower price on materials for another project.

“I can see where you got the nickname,” Ellie said when Finn hung up. “You’re relentless.”

“I just like to get the job done.”

“Yeah, but negotiating a discount, while at the same time moving up the deadline, I’d say you pulled off a miracle.”

“Just doing my job.” He seemed embarrassed by her attention.

“You do it well. Does that come from being the oldest?”

“I don’t know. I guess I never thought about that. Maybe it does.”

“Well, it seems to be working for you.” She felt her phone buzz and checked the screen, then tucked it away.

“Waiting on a call yourself?”

She nodded. “From the agency. I told my adoption coordinator that we got married. I’m just waiting to hear back.”

He unwrapped the sandwich they had bought from a street vendor, but didn’t take a bite. “How are you planning on doing this?”

“Doing what? The interview? It should be relatively straightforward.”

“No, not that. This whole—” he made a circle with the sandwich “—raising a child alone thing.”

“People do it every day.”

“Not people who also happen to be CEOs of busy, growing companies.”

“True.” She glanced at the park across the street. It bustled with activity. Children ran to and fro, filling the small park with the sound of laughter. Dogs chased Frisbees and couples picnicked on the grass. “I’m sure it’s going to be hard.” That was an understatement. She’d worried constantly that she wouldn’t be able to juggle it all. “But I’ll figure it out somehow.”

“Would it have been better if you had waited to marry someone who could … well, create a real family with you?” Finn asked.

Ellie watched a family of three pass by them, mother and father on either side of a toddler, who held both his parent’s hands and danced between them. “Maybe. But honestly, I never intended to get married.”

“Ever?”

“I guess I was always afraid to get married,” Ellie said softly.

“Afraid? Of what?”

“Of being a disappointment and of getting my children caught in an endless limbo of … dissatisfaction.” Ellie sighed. “I looked at my parents, and they were more roommates than spouses. They came and went on their own schedules, and we very rarely did anything as a family. I guess I never felt like I knew how to do it better.”

“I think a lot of people feel that way,” Finn said after a moment.

“Do you?”

He let out a short laugh. “When did this become about me?”

“I’m just curious. You seem the kind of man who would want to settle down. Complete that life list or whatever.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not.” He got to his feet and tossed the remains of his sandwich in the trash.

He had shut the door between them. She had opened herself to him, and he had refused to do the same. The distance stung.

Ellie glanced at the family across the park. They had stopped walking and were sitting on the grass, sharing a package of cookies. The mother teased the son with a cookie that she placed in his palm, then yanked back, making him giggle. Over and over again they played that game, and the little boy’s laughter rang like church bells.

A bone-deep ache ran through her. Deep down inside, yes, she did want that, did crave those moments, that togetherness. She’d always thought she didn’t, but she’d been lying to herself.

She watched Finn return to the bench and realized she wasn’t going to find that fairy tale with the Hawk. He was going about their marriage like he did any other business deal—with no emotion and no personal ties.

It was what she had wanted. But now that she had it, victory tasted stale.

Because a part of her had already started to get very, very used to him being her husband.

CHAPTER SEVEN

AN HOUR on the treadmill. A half hour with the weight machines. And a hell of a sweat.

But it wasn’t enough. No matter how much time Finn spent in the gym, tension still knotted his shoulders, frustration still held tight to his chest. He’d been unable to forget Ellie—or bring himself to go home to her.

Home. To his wife.

Already he was getting far too wrapped up in her, he’d realized. They’d had that conversation at lunch about marriage, and he had found himself wanting to tell her that he felt the same way. That he had never imagined himself getting married, either.

Then he had come to his senses before he laid his heart bare again, and made the same mistakes he’d made before. He’d watched his parents locked in an emotional roller coaster of love and hate, then repeated those mistakes at the end of his relationship with Lucy. No way was he going to risk that again with Ellie. She saw him as a means to an end—a father on paper for her child—and nothing more.

He pulled on the lat bar, leaning back slightly on the padded bench, hauling the weights down. His shoulders protested, his biceps screamed, but Finn did another rep. Another. Over and over, he tugged the heavy weight down.

It wasn’t just the distraction of getting close to Ellie that had him sweating it out in the gym. It was the growing reality of the child she was about to adopt.

No, that they were about to adopt. He’d promised Ellie that he would go along with her plan, but now he was wondering if that was the right thing to do.

How could he be a temporary husband, temporary dad, and then, at the end of the hospital project, just pack up his things and go? If anyone knew firsthand what losing a parent suddenly could do to a child, it was Finn. He’d gone through it himself, and watched the impact on his younger brothers. They’d been cast adrift, emotional wrecks who took years to heal, even with the loving arms of their grandparents. How could he knowingly do that to a child?

He gave the lat bar another pull, his muscles groaning in protest, then lowered the weight back to the base. He was finished with his workout, but no closer to any of the answers he needed.

He showered, got dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, then hailed a cab and headed across town toward Ellie’s townhouse. Night had begun to fall, draping purple light over the city of Boston. It was beautiful, the kind of clear, slightly warm night that would be perfect for a walk. Except Finn never took time to do that. He wondered for a moment what his life would be like if he was the kind of man who did.

If he was the kind of man who had a real marriage, and spent his life with someone who wanted to stroll down the city streets as dusk was falling and appreciate the twinkling magic. But he wasn’t. And he was foolish to believe in a fantasy life. His mother had been like that—full of romantic notions that burned out when she saw the reality of her unhappy marriage. Finn was going to be clearheaded about his relationships. No banking on superfluous things like starry skies and red roses.

He paid the cabbie, then headed up the stairs to Ellie’s building. He paused at the door and caught her name on the intercom box. Ellie Winston.

His wife.

Already, he knew they had a connection. It wasn’t friendship, but something more, something indefinable. A hundred times during the meeting today, he found his mind wandering, his gaze drifting to her. He wondered a hundred things about her—what her favorite color was, if she preferred spring or fall, if she slept on the left side of the bed or the right. Even as he told himself to pull back, to not get any deeper connected to this woman than he already was. This was a business arrangement.

Nothing more.

As he headed inside, he marveled again at the building she had chosen—the complete opposite to the modern glass high-rise that housed his apartment. Ellie lived in one of Boston’s many converted brownstones. Ellie’s building sported a neat brick facade and window boxes filled with pansies doing a tentative wave to spring adorned every window. The building’s lobby featured a white tile floor and thick, dark woodwork. The staircase was flanked by a curved banister on one side, a white plaster wall on the other. A bank of mailboxes were stationed against one wall, lit from above by a black wrought-iron light fixture that looked older than Finn’s grandmother, but had a certain Old World charm.

He liked this place. A lot. It had a … homey feeling. At the same time, he cautioned himself not to get too comfortable. They weren’t making this a permanent thing, and letting himself feel at home would be a mistake. He’d get used to it, and begin to believe this was something that it wasn’t. He’d fooled himself like that once before.

Never again.

He found Ellie in the kitchen again, rinsing some dishes and loading them into the dishwasher. “Hi.”

Kind of a lame opening but what did one say to a wife who wasn’t a real wife?

She turned around. “Hi yourself. I’m sorry, I ate without you. I wasn’t sure what your plan …” She put up her hands. “Well, you certainly don’t have to answer to me. It’s not like we’re really married or anything.”

There. The truth of it.

“I grabbed a bite to eat after the gym.” He dropped his gym bag on the floor, then hung his dry cleaning over the chair. “Did you find out when the interview would be?”

“In a couple days. Linda’s trying to coordinate all the schedules.”

“Okay. Good.” The sooner the interview was over, the sooner they could go their separate ways. And that was what he wanted, wasn’t it?

“After this morning, I think we should work on our story,” she said. “You know, in case they ask us a lot of questions. I don’t want it to seem like …”

“We barely know each other.”

She nodded. “Yes.” She gestured toward a door at the back. “We can sit on the balcony out back if you want. It’s not a rooftop terrace, but we’ll be able to enjoy the evening a little.”

They got drinks—red wine for him, iced tea for her—and Ellie assembled a little platter of cheese and crackers. Finn would have never thought of a snack, or if he had, it probably would have been something salty, served straight from the bag. But Ellie laid everything out on a long red platter, and even included napkins. The night air drifted over them, lazy and warm. “You thought of everything,”

She shrugged. “Nothing special. And it’s not quite the evening you planned.”

“No, it’s not.” He picked up a cracker and a piece of cheese, and devoured them in one bite. “It’s better.”

She laughed. “How is that? There’s no musicians, no twinkling lights, no five-course meal. It’s just crackers and cheese on the balcony.”

“Done by you. Not by others. I don’t have that homemaking touch. At all.”

“I’m not exactly Betty Crocker myself. But I can assemble a hell of a crudités platter.” She laughed again. “So I take it you can’t cook?”

“Not so much as a scrambled egg. But I can order takeout like a pro. My grandmother is the real chef in the family. She doesn’t cook much now, but when I was a kid, she did everything from scratch.”

Ellie picked up her glass and took a sip of tea. “Where are you parents? Do they live in Boston?”

The question was an easy one, the kind people asked each other all the time. But for some reason, this time, it hit Finn hard and he had to take a minute to compose the answer.

“No. They don’t. Not anymore.” Finn was quiet for a moment. “My parents … died in a car accident, when I was eleven. Brody was eight, Riley was just six.”

“Oh, Finn, I’m so sorry.” She reached for him, and laid a soft hand on top of his arm. It was a simple, comforting touch, but it seemed to warm Finn to his core. He wanted to lean into that touch, to let it warm the icy spots in his heart.

But he didn’t.

“We went and lived with my grandparents,” he continued. “I think us three boys drove my grandmother nuts with all our noise and fighting.”

“I bet you three were a handful.”

He chuckled. “She called us a basketful of trouble, but she loved us. My grandmother was a stern, strict parent, but one who would surprise us at the oddest times with a new toy or a bunch of cookies.”

Ellie smiled. “She sounds wonderful.”

“She is. I think every kid needs a grandmother like that. One time, Brody and I were arguing over a toy. I can’t remember what toy it was or why. So my grandmother made us rake two ends of the yard, working toward each other. By the time we met in the middle, we had this massive pile of leaves. So we jumped in them. And the fight was forgotten.”

Ellie laughed. “Sounds like you learned some of your art of compromise from her.”

“Yeah, I guess I did. She taught me a lot.” He hadn’t shared that much of his personal life with anyone in a long, long time. Even Lucy hadn’t known much about him. They’d mainly talked about work when they were together.

Was that because she didn’t care, or because it was easier? Or was it because Finn had always reserved a corner of himself from Lucy, with some instinctual self-preservation because he knew there was something amiss in their relationship?

Was Ellie’s interest real, or was she just gathering facts for the interview? And why did he care? On his way here from the gym, he had vowed to keep this impersonal, business only. Why did he keep treading into personal waters? He knew better, damn it.

“I think every person needs someone like your grandmother in their lives,” Ellie said softly.

“Yeah,” he said. “They do.”

Damn, it was getting warm out here. He glanced over at Ellie to find her watching him. She opened her mouth, as if she was going to ask another question, to get him to open up more, but he cut her off by reaching into his pocket for a sheet of paper. He handed it to her. “I, uh, thought you’d want to know some things about me for the interview. So I wrote them down.”

She read over the sheet. “Shoe size. Suit jacket size. Car model.” Then she looked up at him. “This doesn’t tell me anything about you, except maybe what to get you for Christmas.”

“That’s all the particulars you would need right there.”

She dropped the sheet of paper onto a nearby table, then drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs. She’d changed into sweatpants and a soft pink T-shirt after work, and she looked as comfortable as a pile of pillows. “What a wife should know about a husband isn’t on that list, Finn.”

“Well, of course it is. A wife would know my shoe size and my car—”

“No, no. A wife would know your heart. She’d know what made you who you are. What your dreams are, your fears, your pet peeves. She’d be able to answer any question about you because she knows you as well as she knows herself.”

He shifted in his chair. The cracker felt heavy in his stomach. “No one knows me like that.”

“Why?”

It was such a simple question, just one word, but that didn’t mean Finn had an answer. “I don’t know.”

“Well, surely the woman you were engaged to got to know you like that. Like the story about your grandmother. That’s what I want to hear more of. Or tell me about your fiancée. Why did you two not work out?”

“I don’t want to talk about Lucy.”

Ellie let out a gust. “Finn, you have to talk about something. We’re supposed to know each other inside and out.”

“That’s why I gave you the list—”

“The list doesn’t tell me anything more about you than I already knew from reading the magazine article.” She let out a gust and got to her feet. For a while she stood at the railing, looking out over the darkened homes. Then she turned back to face him. “Why won’t you get close to me?” Her voice was soft and hesitant. It was the kind of sound that Finn wished he could curl into. “You take two steps forward, then three back. Why?”

“I don’t do that.” He rose and turned to the other end of the balcony, watching a neighbor taking his trash to the curb. It was all so mundane, so much of what a home should be like. Between the crackers and the cheese and the sweatpants—

Damn, it was like a real marriage.

“What are we doing here, Finn?” Ellie asked, coming around to stand beside him.

When she did, he caught the scent of her perfume. The same dark jasmine, with vanilla tones dancing just beneath the floral fragrance. It was a scent he’d already memorized, and every time he caught a whiff of those tantalizing notes, he remembered the first time he’d been close enough to smell her perfume.

He’d been kissing her. Sealing their marriage vows in Charlie’s office. And right now, all he could think about was kissing her again. And more, much more.

Damn.

“We’re pretending to be married,” he said.

“Are we?” He didn’t respond. She lifted her gaze to his. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

She let a beat pass. Another. Still her emerald gaze held his. “Why did you agree to marry me?”

“Because you said that’s what it would take. To get on board with the hospital project.”

“You are ‘the Hawk,’ Finn McKenna,” she said, putting air quotes around his nickname. “You could negotiate your way out of an underground prison. But when I proposed this … marriage, you didn’t try to negotiate at all. You agreed. What I want to know is why.”

The night air seemed to still. Even the whoosh-whoosh of traffic seemed to stop. Nothing seemed to move or breathe in the space of time that Ellie waited for his answer. He inhaled, and that damned jasmine perfume teased at his senses, reawakened his desire.

Why had he married her? She was right—he could have offered something else in return for her cooperation on the hospital project. Or he could have just said no. “I guess I just really needed that project to help my business get back on track.”

She took a step closer, and lifted her chin. “I don’t believe you.”

“Truly, it was all about business for me.”

“And that was all?”

She was mere inches away from him. A half step, no more, and she’d be against him. Desire pulsed in his veins, thundered in his head. His gaze dropped from her eyes to her lips, to her curves. “No,” he said, with a ragged breath, cursing the truth that slipped through his lips. “It’s not.”

Then he closed that gap, and reached up to capture one of those tendrils of her hair. All day, he’d wanted to do this, to let one silky strand slip through his grasp. “Is it for you?” he asked.

She swallowed, then shook her head. “No. It’s not.” She bit her lip, let it go. “It’s becoming more for me. A lot more.”

Finn watched her lips form the words, felt the whisper of her breath against his mouth. And he stopped listening to his common sense.

He leaned in, and kissed Ellie. She seemed to melt into him, her body curving against his, fitting perfectly against his chest, in his arms. She was soft where he was hard, sweet where he was sour, and the opposite of him in every way. Finn kissed her slow at first, then harder, faster, letting the raging need sweep over him and guide his mouth, his hands. She pressed into him, and he groaned, in agony for more of her, of this.

His cell phone began to ring, its insistent trill ripping through the fog in Finn’s brain. He jerked away from Ellie, then stepped away. “I’m sorry.” He flipped out the phone, but the call had already gone to voice mail. The interruption had served its purpose.

Finn had regained his senses.

Ellie stepped toward him, a smile on her lips, and everything in Finn wanted to take her in his arms and pick up where they left off. But doing so would only do the one thing he was trying to avoid—

Plunge him headlong down that path of wild and crazy. The kind of roller-coaster romance that led to bad decisions, bad matches, and in the end, unhappiness and broken hearts.

“We can’t do this.” He put some distance between them and picked up his glass, just to have something to do with his hands—something other than touch Ellie again.

“Can’t do what?” A smile curved across her face. “Let this lead to something more than a contract?”

“Especially not that. We can’t treat this like … like a real marriage. It’s a business partnership. And that’s all.” He shook his head and put the glass back on the tray. The remains of their snack sat there, mocking him. Tempting him to go back to pretending this was something that it wasn’t.

But Ellie wasn’t so easily dissuaded. She stood before him, hands on her hips. “What are you so afraid of?”

“I’m not afraid of anything. I just think it’s best if we keep this business only.”

“So that’s what that kiss was, business only?”

“No, that was a mistake. One I won’t make again.”

“And the rooftop dinner? The kiss in the courthouse? Also mistakes?”

He sighed. This was why he hadn’t wanted to go down this path. He could already see hurt brimming in Ellie’s eyes. He’d done this—he’d made her believe their fake marriage might be leading to something more—and he’d been wrong.

Was any project worth hurting Ellie? Seeing her crying, just like he had seen his mother crying so many times?

He exhaled, then pushed the words out. The words he should have said long ago. “After the interview, I don’t think we should wait to annul this marriage.” There. He’d said it. Fast, like ripping off a bandage.

Didn’t stop it from hurting, though.

Her green eyes filled with disbelief. A ripple of shock filled her features. “What?”

“The business deal can be maintained if you want,” he said. He kept his voice neutral, his stance professional. If he treated this like business as usual, perhaps she would, too. But the notes of her perfume kept teasing at his senses while the tears in her green eyes begged him to reconsider. Finn struggled to stick to his resolve. This was the best thing, all around. “Uh, if you like, I’ll keep my team in place at WW, and help you through the project. It seems like they’re working well together. No reason to break that up.”

“That wasn’t the deal. You were supposed to help me adopt Jiao.”

“I’ll do my part. When the interview is set up, just let me know and I’ll be here for that.”

“Pretending to be my husband.”

“Wasn’t that the arrangement?”

She didn’t say anything for a while. Outside her building, a car honked, and a dog barked. Night birds twittered at each other, and the breeze whispered over them all.

“Was that all you were doing a minute ago? Sealing a business deal?”

She made him sound so cold, calculated. So like the Hawk nickname he hated. “You think that’s the only reason I kissed you?”

“Isn’t it? You wanted an alliance that would help your company. I wanted a child. We each get what we want out of this marriage. It’s as simple as that. That’s all this marriage is about. A simple business transaction.” She took a step closer, her gaze locked on his. “Isn’t it? Or did it start to become something more for you, too?”

She was asking him for the truth. Why had he married her if it wasn’t about the business?

He couldn’t tell her it was because he was tired of sleeping on that sofa bed. That he was tired of hearing nothing other than his own breath in his apartment. Tired of spending his days working and his nights wondering why he was working so hard. And that when he had met Ellie he had started to wonder what it would be like to have more.

But he didn’t.

Because doing that would open a window into his heart, and if he did that, he’d never be able to walk away from Ellie Winston. He’d get tangled up in the kind of heated love story that he had always done his best to avoid. No, better to keep this cold, impersonal. Let her think the worst of him.

He let out a gust. “This is anything but simple.”

“Why? What is so bad about getting involved with someone, Finn? What makes you so afraid of doing that?”

“I’m not afraid of getting involved. We got married, remember?”

“In name only. That’s not a relationship. It’s a contract. And I know that’s what I said I wanted when we started this thing, but …” She let out a long breath and shook her head. “You know, a few times, I’ve thought I’ve seen a different side of you, a side that is downright human. And that made me wonder what it would be like to take a chance with you. I’m not a woman who takes chances easily, especially with my heart. But in the end, you keep coming back to being the Hawk.”

He scowled. “That’s not true.”

“You’re a coward, Finn.” She turned away. “I don’t know why I thought … why I thought anything at all.”

Why couldn’t she understand that he was trying to be smart, to put reality ahead of a fantasy they would never have? Acting without thinking and living in a dream bubble got people hurt. Ellie needed to understand that.

“You think we can turn this fantasy into a real marriage?” he asked. “Tell me the truth, Ellie. Was a part of you hoping that maybe, just maybe, we’d work out and make a happy little family with two-point-five kids and a dog?”

“No.” She shook her head, and tears brimmed in her eyes. Above them, a light rain began to fall, but they both ignored it. “Not anymore.”

His gaze went to the glass balcony door. The reflection of the neighborhood lights shimmered on the glass like mischievous eyes. Droplets of rain slid slowly down the glass, and Finn thought how like tears the rain could appear. “I’m sorry,” he said. “But I have to be clear. I can’t give you any more than what the contract stipulated.”

Ellie didn’t see the ramifications that he could. He had been through this already, seen his parents suffer every day they lived together. Sure, he and Ellie could have some hot, fiery romance, but in the end, they’d crash and burn, and the child would be the one who suffered the most. She was already starting to head down that road, and if he didn’t detour them now, it would go nowhere good.

Tears began to slide down Ellie’s cheeks, and for a moment, Finn’s determination faltered. “That’s all I am? A contract?”

“That’s what you wanted, Ellie. And it’s what’s best for all of us.” Then he turned on his heel and headed out into the rain.

Before the tears in her eyes undid all his resolve.

CHAPTER EIGHT

HE WAS having a good day. The smile on Henry Winston’s face told Ellie that, along with the doctor’s tentatively positive report. They were on an upswing right now, and her father was gaining ground. For the first time, the doctor had used the words “when he goes home.”

Gratitude flooded Ellie, and she scooted the vinyl armchair closer to her father’s bedside. Happy sunlight streamed through the windows of his room at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Her father had more color in his face today. The tray of food beside him was nearly empty. All good signs. Very good.

After last night’s bitter disappointment with Finn, Ellie could use some good news. She’d tossed and turned all night, trying to think of a way to convince Finn to help her with Jiao. If he didn’t, how would she make this work? He hadn’t said for sure he’d get an annulment, but she hadn’t heard from him since the conversation on the balcony. She could pick up the phone and call him herself, but she didn’t. Because she didn’t want to hear him say he’d ended their marriage. And ended Ellie’s hopes for adopting Jiao.

Maybe Linda could try appealing to the Chinese again. Perhaps if they saw how committed Ellie was to adopting Jiao, they’d relent on the marriage rule.

Ellie bit back a sigh. From all Linda had told her, that was highly unlikely. Ellie was back at square one, with Jiao stuck in the same spot. Finn had let her down. He’d accused her of wanting this to be a real marriage.

Was he right? Did a part of her hope, after those kisses and that dinner, and all the jokes and smiles, that maybe this was turning into something more than just a platonic partnership?

She glanced out the window, at the city that held them both, and at the same time separated them, and realized yes, she had. She’d let herself believe in the fairy tale. She’d started to fall for him, to let down her guard, to do the one thing she’d vowed she wouldn’t do—entangle her heart.

Time to get real, she told herself, and stop seeing happy endings where there weren’t any.

For now, Ellie focused on her father instead. One thing at a time. “How are you doing, Dad?”

“Much better now that you’re here.” He gave her a smile, one that was weaker than Henry’s usual hearty grin. But beneath the thick white hair, the same green eyes as always lit with happiness at her presence. “They’ve got me on a new med. So far, it seems to be working pretty well.” He lifted an arm, did a weak flex. “I’ll be ready to run the Boston marathon before you know it.”

She laughed. “And the Ironman after that?”

“Of course.” He grinned, then flicked off his bedside television. His roommate had gone home yesterday, so the hospital room was quiet—or as quiet as a room in one of Boston’s busiest medical facilities could be. “How are you doing, Ellie girl?”

“I’m fine, Dad. You don’t need to worry about me.”

“Ah, but I do. There’s some things that don’t stop just because your kids grow up.”

She gave her father’s hand a tight squeeze. She wasn’t about to unload her problems on his shoulders. He had much more important things to worry about. “You just concentrate on getting better.”

“How are things going with the adoption? I’d sure love to meet my granddaughter.”

Ellie sighed. “I’ve run into a bit of a snag.” Then she forced a smile to her face. Worrying her father—about anything—was not what she wanted. Henry didn’t need to know about her marriage or her new husband’s refusal to help. Chances were, Finn had already filed the annulment and Ellie’s marriage was over before it began. For the hundredth time, she was glad she’d kept the elopement a secret from her father. “It’ll be fine. It’ll just take a little bit longer to bring Jiao home.”

“You sure? Do you want me to call someone? Hire a lawyer?” Her father started to reach for the bedside phone, but Ellie stopped him.

“It’ll be fine. I swear. Don’t worry about it at all.” She didn’t know any of that for sure, particularly after Finn had told her he wanted nothing to do with the adoption, but she wasn’t about to involve her poor sick father. “Just a tiny delay. Nothing more.”

“Well, good. I can’t wait to meet her. I’ve seen enough pictures and heard enough about her that I feel like I know her already.” Her father settled back against the pillows on his bed, his face wan and drawn. “Hand me that water, will you, honey?”

“Sure, sure, Dad.” She got her father’s water container, and spun the straw until it faced Henry. She helped him take it, and bring it to his mouth, then sat back. “You sure you’re up to a visit?”

He put down the water, then gave her a smile. “Seeing my little girl always makes me feel better. Now, talk to me about something besides doctors and medications. Tell me how things are at the company.”

“Good.” She hadn’t told her father about any of the problems she’d encountered with Farnsworth quitting and the rush to get the Piedmont project underway. She wasn’t about to start now. Maybe down the road when he was stronger and feeling better.

He tsk-tsked her. “You always tell me that things are good. I know you’re lying.” He covered her hand with his own. “I know you have the best of intentions, but really, you can talk to me. Use me as a sounding board.”

Oh, how she wished she could. But the doctor had been firm—no unnecessary stress or worries. Her father, who had worked all his adult life, had a lot of trouble distancing himself from the job, and right now, that was what he needed most to do. Whatever she wanted—or needed—could wait. “You need to concentrate on getting better, Dad, not on what is happening at work.”

“All I do is lie here and concentrate on getting better.” He let out a sigh. Frustration filled his green eyes, and knitted his brows. “This place is like prison. Complete with the crappy food. I need more to do. Something to challenge me.”

“I brought you a lot of books. And there are magazines on the counter. A TV right here. If you want something else to read—”

He waved all of that off. “Talk to me about work.”

“Dad—”

He leaned forward. The strong, determined Henry Winston she knew lit his features. “I love you, Ellie, and I love you for being so protective of me. But talking about work keeps me from worrying about work. I’m not worried about you being in charge—you’re capable and smart, and I know you want that business to succeed as much as I do—but I miss being plugged in, connected. That company is as much a part of me as my right arm.”

She sighed. She knew her father. He had the tenacity of a bulldog, and now that he was feeling better, she doubted she could put him off much longer about WW Architectural Design. Maybe she could set his mind at ease by sharing a small amount of information, and that would satisfy his workaholic tendencies. “Okay, but if your blood pressure so much as blips, we’re talking only about gardening the rest of the day.”

He grimaced at his least favorite topic, then crossed his heart. “I promise.”

“Okay.” She sat back and filled him in, starting with a brief recap of Farnsworth’s defection, followed by glossing over most of the setbacks on the Piedmont project, and finally, touting the positive aspects of her temporary alliance with Finn. She kept the news mostly upbeat, and left out all mentions of her elopement.

“You are working with Finn McKenna,” Henry said. It was a statement, not a question.

She nodded. “He has the experience we need. I could hire a new architect but we don’t have enough time to do another candidate search and then bring that person up to speed. The prelims are due the fifteenth.”

“Finn McKenna, though? That man is not one you should easily trust. He’s made an art form out of taking over small companies like ours. You know he’s our competition, right?”

“Yes, and we have worked out an amicable and fair arrangement. His business got into a little trouble—”

“Do you know what that trouble was? Did he tell you?”

“He didn’t give me specifics.” Dread sank in Ellie’s gut. She could hear the message in her father’s tone. There was something she had missed, something she had overlooked. Damn. She had been too distracted to probe Finn, to push him to tell her more.

She knew better. She’d rushed headlong into an alliance because her mind was on saving Jiao and nothing else.

“He got involved with the daughter of a competitor. In fact, I think he was engaged to her,” Henry said. “And when things went south in the relationship, several of his clients defected to the other firm, taking all their business with them. I heard Finn raised a ruckus over at his office, but it was too late. A lot of people said he only proposed to her so he could take over her company and when it ended badly, she stole his clients instead.”

Daughter of a competitor. Wasn’t that what she was, too? Had Finn married her for control of the company?

Oh, God, had she made a deal with the devil? Her gut told her no, that Finn was not the cutthroat businessman depicted by the media. But how well did she really know him? Every time she tried to get close to him, he shut the door.

Wasn’t this exactly why she had stayed away from marriage all these years? She’d seen how her parents had been virtual strangers, roommates sharing a roof. She didn’t want to end up the same way, married to someone she hardly knew because she mistook infatuation for something real.

Ironic how that had turned out. Well, either way, the marriage would be over soon. She told herself it was better that way for all of them.

“Just be cautious, honey,” Henry said. “I’ve heard Finn is ruthless. You know they call him—”

“The Hawk.” The nickname had seemed like a joke before, but now it struck a chord. Had she missed the point? Was this entire marriage a plan by Finn to get his company back—

By taking over WW Architectural Design?

Maybe his “help” was all about helping his own bottom line. “I’m sure Finn will be fine,” she said, more to allay her own fears than her father’s. Because all of a sudden she wasn’t so sure anything was going to be fine. “He’s really smart and has been a great asset on this project.”

“I’d just be very cautious about an alliance with him,” her father said. “He’s one of those guys who’s always out to win. No matter the cost.”

“He’s been very up-front with me, Dad. I don’t think he has a hidden agenda.” Though could she say that for a hundred percent? Just because she’d married Finn and kissed him didn’t mean she knew much more than she had two days ago. Every time she tried to get close to him, he pushed her away.

“Don’t trust him, that’s all I’m saying. He’s backed into a corner, and a dog that’s in a corner will do anything to get out.”

Anything. Like marry a total stranger.

And try to steal her father’s legacy right out from under her.

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