“It’s going to be okay, Mom.” Imogene hastened to reassure her mother for the thousandth time.
She had no doubt her mom remembered all too well the broken woman Imogene had been when she’d returned from volunteering in Africa with her first marriage and all her hopes and dreams in tatters. But as she’d told her mom several times, things were going to be completely different this time around. This marriage would be based on mutual compatibility after an intense clinical assessment by a team of relationship counselors and psychologists—absolutely nothing impractical about that. She’d done the passionate love thing. Experienced the soaring highs of love at first sight and barely made it through the devastating lows of discovering it had all been a lie. This way, at least, nothing would go wrong.
“Ready?” the wedding planner asked in her perfectly calming and well-modulated voice.
Imogene smoothed a hand down her gown, the silk-and-organza creation a far cry from the borrowed cocktail dress she’d worn to her last wedding, and nodded. “Absolutely.”
The wedding planner gave her a wide smile, then indicated to the pianist to change his music for the bride’s entrance. Imogene hesitated at the door. Then, taking her mother’s hand, she began to walk slowly and confidently toward the man she was going to build a future and create a much-longed-for family with. A serene smile wreathed her face as she briefly made eye contact with her friends and the sprinkling of extended family who’d made the trip to the West Coast from New York. The formality of signing the license application could be done separately here in Washington, which kept to the Match Made in Marriage rules of meeting at the altar. This was the right thing for an old-fashioned girl with old-fashioned values to do, she assured herself. This time she wasn’t leaving anything to chance. This time, she was getting it right.
The last time Imogene had married, she’d been filled with excitement together with a crazy-mad dose of lust. And look how that turned out, the little voice inside her head reminded her. She grimaced slightly. Today was different. There was no bubbling excitement, beyond a quiet curiosity as to exactly what her groom would be like, and there was certainly no lust. At least not yet.
No, this time she was not a victim of the dizzying heights of passion—a passion that had blurred her sensibilities, not to mention her common sense. This time she had a specific goal in mind. A family of her own. Yes, she knew she could take steps to be a parent by herself, but she didn’t want to do it alone. She truly wanted a like-minded companion. Someone she could grow to love over time. Someone with whom she could be sure that love would have longevity, if only because of the time it took to grow. And if love didn’t come? Could she live without it? Of course she could. She’d done the impulsive marriage before, and it had left her shattered when it all fell apart. This time she’d taken every precaution to ensure there would be none of that. With care and mutual respect, anything was possible.
But was marrying at first sight taking things a step too far? Her parents obviously thought so. Her father hadn’t even come to Port Ludlow, here in Washington, for the ceremony, citing an important human rights case he was working on. But his distaste for her entering into an agreement with the exclusive matchmaking agency, which discreetly boasted a 100 percent success rate, had been clear. To him the very prospect of meeting your husband or wife at the altar was a recipe for disaster, but the dictates of Match Made in Marriage were clear. There was no chance to meet your intended prior to the ceremony and both participants had to put their trust completely in the matchmaking process. Imogene took a quick look at her mom, who had agreed to accompany her only daughter down the aisle to marry a stranger. Caroline O’Connor looked back, her gaze meeting and melding with her daughter’s—concern for what Imogene was doing clearly reflected there.
Her eyes were glued to her groom waiting at the altar with his back turned, a man whose posture showed he was the kind of person used to being in command. A frisson of awareness tickled at the back of her neck. As they neared the front row, her mom hesitated and bestowed a swift kiss on Imogene’s cheek before taking her seat. Imogene took a deep breath and focused anew on the stranger standing there. Waiting for her. There was something about the set of his shoulders and the shape of his head that prodded at her memory. Something that wasn’t right.
As he turned around, disbelief flooded every cell in her body and she stopped a few feet from the altar.
Recognition dawned.
“No,” she breathed out in shock. “Not you.”
Imogene barely heard the groan of “Not again” that came from the groom’s side of the room. Instead, her gaze was fixed on the man who’d finally turned to face her.
Valentin Horvath.
The man she’d divorced seven years ago.
There should have been some satisfaction that his expression was equally as stunned as her own must be, but there was none. In fact, satisfaction took a back seat while anger and confusion vied for supremacy. Imogene stood rooted to the spot, staring at the man she’d shared more intimacies with than any other human being in existence. The man who had not only broken her heart, but crushed it so completely that it had taken her all this time to even contemplate marriage again.
And yet, beneath the anger, beneath the implacable certainty that there was no way this marriage could go ahead, was that all-too-familiar flicker of sexual recognition that had led to their first hasty, fiery and oh-so-short union. Imogene did her best to quell the sensations that bloomed to life inside her traitorous body, to ignore the sudden flush of heat that simmered from deep inside and radiated outward. To pay no heed to the way her nipples had grown tight and hypersensitive in the French lace bustier she wore beneath her strapless gown. It was merely a physiological response to a healthy male, she told herself. It meant nothing.
He meant nothing.
Valentin reached a hand toward her.
“No,” she repeated. “This is not happening.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” said her ex-husband very firmly. “Let’s get out of here.”
He took her by the elbow and she reluctantly allowed him to lead her toward a side room—all the while fighting to disregard the realization that they might have been apart all these years but the fire that always burned so fiercely between them had reignited just like that. Her skin warmed where his hand lightly cupped her elbow, her senses keenly attuned to the size of him, to the heat that emanated from his large form, to the scent he still wore. A scent that she’d tried her hardest to forget but that seemed to be indelibly imprinted on her limbic system.
An older woman with a cloud of silver hair and alert blue eyes rose from her seat in the front row of the groom’s side of the room.
“Valentin?”
“Nagy,” he said in acknowledgment. “I think you need to come with us. You have some explaining to do.”
Some explaining to do? Imogene’s brow creased in ever-growing confusion. She recognized the diminutive of the Hungarian word for grandmother from back when Valentin used to talk about his
