The Wedding Night Before Christmas Read online

  Given what I know of the Wyndhams, though, it’s hard to believe that he can sell it. “The family didn’t contest Eleanor’s will?”

  “They did. They are.” Caleb Moore snaps the briefcase closed and sets it aside. “Which is why I’ve come to you with that.”

  He indicates the presentation folder—which is surprisingly neat, the included papers perfectly aligned. Given how quickly he threw together his own appearance, I expected something messy. But this is an incredibly pleasing package.

  Yet Caleb Moore is far more interesting, so I return my focus to him. “What do you propose?”

  In that rough voice, he tells me, “I don’t have a hope in hell of fighting the Wyndham lawyers alone.”

  “I imagine not,” I reply, and see where he’s going with this. “So you want me to take on the cost of the legal battle to secure your inheritance…after which you would sell the property to me, minus the legal fees I incur?”

  “What I’m proposing is more complicated.”

  The quirk of his lips is fascinating, as is the interplay of that tiny smile with the unyielding hardness of his brown eyes.

  Snap. “How complicated?”

  “I’ve outlined it there.”

  He gestures to the folder again. Reluctantly, I drag my gaze from his face and read the title page through the translucent cover.

  A PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE

  TO SECURE THE WYNDHAM ESTATE FOR

  AUDREY CLARKE AND CALEB MOORE

  In a gruff voice, he says, “I want to marry you.”

  2

  Caleb

  Snap.

  Snap.

  Snap.

  If the woman facing me wasn’t repeatedly plucking that damn rubber band around her wrist, I’d have thought shock had frozen her solid. Or that she’d stroked out. But she isn’t looking through me now, as she did when I was shown into her ridiculous office. Her attitude then was dismissive and vague, and she obviously hoped to get rid of me as quickly as possible. And her smug little “Ah” after I told her my occupation was followed by a clear reluctance to even glance at the proposal I spent two goddamn weeks typing up and poring over, as if nothing I do could possibly be worth a minute of her precious time.

  But I’ve got her attention now.

  I have no clue what’s going through her gorgeous head, though. Her narrowed gaze is locked onto my face but she might as well be a sculpture made of ice, because she doesn’t give a damn thing away. I expected laughter, maybe. Or outrage. She’s pure class, and I’m a grease monkey who just aimed way above my station.

  I’m not the first Moore to do so, though. And the Wyndhams ground my mother into the dirt for it. So I’ll do anything—any goddamn thing—to take everything from them. Even marry a woman who looks straight through me.

  Though I know it won’t come to that. In a second, she’ll be laughing. Or she’ll put me in my place. Hell, maybe that’s what this silence is—the way that classy, elegant people tell someone to get the fuck out. Maybe I’m supposed to be collecting my proposal and slinking away.

  Snap.

  Fuck. The ball is in her court now. So why isn’t she lobbing it back?

  If she’s still playing at all. If so, I know what offer she’ll send my way. She already said it—her lawyers fight the Wyndhams’ lawyers, and she’ll buy the property from me at a reduced price. She would be assuming some risk, though. If the Wyndhams won, she’d be out a fortune in legal fees.

  I have a pretty damn good idea of what those fees will amount to. Because I’ve already tried to go that route. But the law firm I approached wouldn’t even take me on as a client, claiming the chances of beating the Wyndhams weren’t solid enough—and if I didn’t win, they’d never recoup their costs from me. So my next stop was at a bank, hoping to secure a loan for a legal retainer. But they basically told me the same damn thing: no one would bet against the Wyndhams. The bank manager gave me something on my way out the door, though.

  “My advice?” he called after me. “Find yourself a rich wife!”

  I don’t want a wife. But the idea ate at me. Not finding a wife, but a business partner. Because there had to be someone out there who would bet against the Wyndhams.

  That someone might be Audrey Clarke. But I didn’t even know who she was until a few weeks ago, drunk as fuck and hanging out at my friend Patrick’s house after Thanksgiving dinner. That was when Patrick’s younger brother, Mike—who is currently studying for his MBA—told me that Audrey Clarke had once tried to buy the Wyndham property, and then slurred his way through all the reasons why the CEO of Clarke, Incorporated would be the ideal candidate.

  Not for marriage. If she only offers to pay legal fees in exchange for the property, I’d be fucking thrilled. The proposal is simply about making sure she really stops to look at me. That was Mike’s advice, too.

  “Dozens of people ask Audrey Clarke for money every damn day. So you’ve got to stand out, make her notice you. Then you’ve got to ask for a whole damn pie. Because although you only want a single slice of that pie, if you only ask for a slice, most companies like Clarke’s only give a tiny bite. But if you ask for the whole thing…well, maybe you’ll get the slice you want.”

  Like I asked for a slice from the law firm and the bank. But they didn’t even give a bite. Maybe Audrey Clarke won’t, either. But I won’t lose a thing by trying.

  So the day after Thanksgiving, I looked her up. And found damn little. There’s almost nothing about her on the company website or in the press, except that she’s always listed near the top in articles like “The Wealthiest Women in the World”—and is at the top when the lists don’t include women who inherited their money. But I still don’t even know what Clarke, Incorporated does. Spends money to make more money, it seems like. The tagline on her website only reads, “Investing today in a better tomorrow.” Which sounds like some bullshit.

  More helpful were the online forums where entrepreneurs talk about their interactions with her. There I discovered that anyone who comes into a meeting with Audrey Clarke without a solid business plan might as well not even set up an appointment. And a single factual error or typo in a proposal can be a kiss of death. So I put my proposal together as carefully as possible.

  Yet she’s barely looked at it. She just stares at me. And now I’m thinking some of the other comments I read on those forums aren’t so far off. There was a whole lot of ice queens, rich bitches, and conceited cunts tossed in there. Most of that, I dismissed as the disgruntled bullshit some men sling around after they’ve been rejected by a woman, even if it’s just a business rejection. But the ice? The snobbery? Yeah. I can see that.

  And Christ, this place. The Clarke building is a pretentious lakeside palace made up of steel and glass. And she doesn’t mingle with the rabble of her own company, as far as I can see. She’s up here in an executive suite all by herself—a suite that takes up at least four levels. I could fit two of my apartments in her office alone. No, six of my apartments, because I’d have to stack them up just to fill the space up to the ceiling. Yet the only shit she even has in here is a desk and a chair. She sits in front of thirty-foot-tall windows like a queen laying claim to everything around her.

  But even though her manner is as cold and as empty as this office, she’s as gorgeous as everything outside that window. Goddamn fucking beautiful. Her pale blonde hair is scraped back in a ponytail that falls halfway down her back. Her face is like some kind of fairy princess’s, with finely arched eyebrows, a delicate nose, and lush pink lips.

  But her eyes. Her goddamn eyes. They are glittering chips of ice, pale blue and freezing cold. The kind of eyes that can flay a man alive.

  Snap.

  Teeth gritting, I glance at the rubber band. Just a cheap yellow one. She’s snapped that damn thing so many times, the skin of her inner wrist is bright pink.

  I clench my fists, barely stifling my impulse to reach out and stop her from snapping it again. What she does to herself is none of my busi
ness.

  But I can’t stand the idea of her doing it again. And although I was waiting for her to respond, impatience grips me now.

  With frustration roughening my voice, I tell her, “I’m not talking permanently, of course. I know marriage isn’t a conventional business arrangement, but—”

  “It’s perfectly conventional,” she cuts in smoothly, as if she didn’t just spend the past three minutes staring at me in complete fucking silence, like a woman stunned by my oh-so-conventional proposal. “Though perhaps not as commonplace as it once was, securing property through marriage is a tradition as old as the vows themselves. So, go ahead. Let me hear your pitch.”

  My pitch. She wants to hear my pitch? Isn’t that why I wrote that damn business plan? But she hasn’t even looked past the cover page.

  Shit. Okay. I’ve read that business plan a billion fucking times in the past few weeks. So I dredge up what I can recall from the “Executive Summary” section.

  “I propose a marriage contract that would lock me into selling the Wyndham mansion and surrounding estate to you for thirty million dollars, in exchange for Clarke, Incorporated handling all legal fees incurred while fighting the Wyndhams—and those fees would be reimbursed from the monetary inheritance I’ll receive if we win. The marriage itself would be dissolved after all challenges to Eleanor Wyndham’s will are settled and probate is granted. I believe this arrangement would be mutually beneficial to all parties involved.”

  Christ. That last bit looked great on paper, but sounds really fucking stupid said aloud. But she doesn’t look amused. Instead she nods once…as if considering it.

  “Thirty million for the property?” she asks after a moment. “Including all of the mansion’s furnishings and artwork?”

  “Yeah.”

  Her eyes narrow again. “It’s worth five times that amount. Even if we have to fight the Wyndhams for ten years, the legal fees still won’t make up the hundred-and-twenty million dollars’ difference. Why sell so cheap?”

  “Because I want to get rid of it.”

  “And the Wyndham fortune?”

  “I’ll get rid of most of that, too.” I’ll look for a charity that helps women like my mother. “Except maybe hold enough back to start up a recycling company and name it Wyndham Trash.”

  Her lips twitch and she leans back in her chair, her icy gaze still on my face. “Why propose marriage when simply asking me to take over the legal battle would suffice?”

  I prepared a bullshit answer for this, too. “Because if something happens to me, chances are the estate would go to them anyway, even if I leave a will. They’d probably contest that, too. But if I’m married—and if that woman has your resources—it won’t matter. It will all go to you, instead.”

  She seemed still before, but now her stillness seems preternatural. “Do you expect something to happen to you, Mr. Moore?”

  I shrug. “Not especially. But we’re talking about a whole lot of money. Fuck knows what’ll happen if the Wyndhams get desperate. I wouldn’t put anything past them.”

  Not after what they did to my mother. And I shouldn’t have said ‘fuck’ in this elegant office. But Audrey Clarke doesn’t react in any way, except to subject me to another of those scrutinizing looks.

  “So you inherit a fortune, but your only plan is to sell the property and start a trash company to besmirch the family name. Do you intend to do nothing for yourself with that money?”

  “Not really. I don’t give a shit about the money.”

  “Why pursue it, then?”

  Because I’ll settle for a slice of pie, if I have to. But what I really want is the whole goddamn thing.

  Or rather, I don’t want the Wyndhams to get any of it. Not even a bite.

  “Revenge,” I say bluntly. For all the good it will do. My mother is dead. She’ll never see any of the Wyndham money, never know the comfort it could have brought, never know the satisfaction of seeing justice done. “Or just out of spite.”

  Her brows arch. “Spite?”

  “Yeah.” And some rage, a little more hatred. “Spite.”

  “Spite,” she echoes softly, then laughs—a sound so full and rich and amused, so damn unexpected, it almost knocks me out of my chair. “Oh, I like that.”

  That reply is unexpected, too. And I can’t stop my own grin in response.

  Her gaze drops to my mouth. A hard snap! follows, then she elegantly rises from her seat, arms folded beneath her breasts. Half turning away from me, she moves to the window and looks out over that million-dollar view.

  My view is worth a hell of a lot more. Audrey Clarke is a statuesque column of ivory and gold from head to toe. Her cream-colored sweater clings to every curve and looks soft and touchable. Just like her pants. When I first saw her, I thought she was wearing a long skirt until I watched her walk away and realized they were wide-legged trousers. High-waisted, too, cinching around her middle in a wide band. But all that ivory material doesn’t conceal the round shape of her ass or the long lengths of those legs, as if her pants were tailored specifically for her. Hell, I bet they were. I bet her entire outfit costs more than my monthly rent. Yet she doesn’t wear any jewelry with it. No rings, no necklace—though by rights, she should be dripping with rocks and ice. But no. Just soft, flowing clothing—and that rubber band.

  Snap. “How do you propose to handle sleeping”—snap—“and living arrangements?”

  “It’s all laid out in the business plan.” Which she apparently still has no intention of reading, because she simply looks over her shoulder at me until I continue, “Nothing would change. I’d stay in my apartment, you’d stay in your place. I’d keep my head down for the duration of our marriage, keeping to myself and focusing on work. I wouldn’t do anything to embarrass you or your company.”

  She tilts her head slightly. “Do you think I’m easily embarrassed, Mr. Moore?”

  I have no fucking idea what she is. I can’t make any sense of her. “I suppose you’d have to care about what others think of you, first.”

  She smiles again. “Yes. I would. And what about consummation?”

  “Consummation?”

  “Intercourse, Mr. Moore. Sex traditionally seals a marriage contract.”

  Christ. Instantly I picture her beneath me, staring up with those icy eyes and lying absolutely still and silent except for the jiggle of her tits and the soft gasp escaping those plush lips every time I slam my cock into her. Giving it to her hard and rough. Trying to crack that ice, to make her pussy melt around me. She’d probably be so goddamn tight—

  “Mr. Moore?”

  “Yeah. Sorry.” I shift in the seat, pulling at the edge of my jacket to cover the brainless, aching bulge of my cock. Goddamn it. These new pants were already a bit too small and now they are really too fucking small. “Some stupid shit popped into my head. I got off track.”

  “Ah.” She watches me with a faint smile. “My head does that, too.”

  “Okay. Great.” I spear a hand through my hair, trying to reel in my wayward thoughts. “Uh, I wouldn’t… I wouldn’t require physical intimacy as part of the contract.”

  Her brows arch again. “No?”

  “No.” Just as I stated in my business plan. And it took a long damn time to find a phrase as benign as physical intimacy. Not that it matters when the next thing out of my mouth is, “There’s no reason why we’d need to talk to each other much, let alone fuck.”

  “Hmmm,” is her only response and she looks out the window again. While I sit in this little chair with a hot iron pipe wedged behind my zipper. Hmmm. Then she turns back to me with a “I don’t believe that would be satisfactory.”

  Big surprise there. “What part?”

  “Failing to consummate the marriage.” Taking her seat again, she faces me across the wide desk. “Or at least, failing to appear to consummate it. If the purpose of a marriage agreement is to prevent the Wyndhams from acquiring the estate in the unlikely event of your demise, we should not give them re
ason to argue that our marriage was an illegitimate one. Failure to consummate a marriage is a common reason for annulment.”

  Is she just yanking my chain now? We both know there isn’t going to be any goddamn marriage. If people like her married people like me, I wouldn’t even be here.

  I never meant for her to take my proposal seriously. Yet it isn’t a joke, either. None of this is. Not from the moment thirty years ago when Robert Wyndham told a young maid working in his family mansion that he loved her and wanted to marry her before knocking her up. Not from the moment he wrecked his yacht, drowning himself and the rich fiancée he proposed to after getting what he wanted from my mother. Not from the moment the Wyndhams closed ranks and told my pregnant mother that she’d never work in a respectable house again.

  And this shit about consummation? There isn’t a chance in hell Audrey Clarke would ever let someone like me touch her. So she’s either amusing herself—or this is payback. Wasting my time just like she probably believes I wasted hers.

  Now she continues as if she’s still considering this. “It wouldn’t be difficult to create the appearance of a legitimate marriage, however. A honeymoon, followed by sharing the same home. Preferably my house, as I’d be more comfortable there.”

  As opposed to living in the shithole that she assumes my apartment is? “Why not lie? If it ever became an issue, just say that I fucked your pussy raw every single night.”

  Her hand jerks. With a soft fwap, the rubber band breaks and shoots across the desk, landing between my feet. Audrey blinks once, twice. Then says, “I’m a terrible liar.”

  “Yeah, right.” A powerful businesswoman who can’t lie? “What if someone asks a question you don’t want to answer?”

  “I don’t say anything at all. And sometimes I look at them like this.”

  Holy fuck. I thought she looked at me with ice in her eyes before? That was a tropical heatwave compared to the withering, glacial stare she levels at me now. If I wasn’t so fascinated by the change that comes over her, my dick would have shriveled up and I’d have been tempted to slowly back away.