him to love her, not now, not ever. And that made her imminently suitable to marry a man who had no ability to love, and didn’t want to be bothered with a wife who’d disrupt his life with dreams of romance. “I got a dress in L.A. For the wedding,” she said, in an effort to fill the emptiness between them.
Gabriel wasn’t buying Jess’s apparent calm. “Not the least bit hesitant?”
“You gave me a year. I’m ready now.”
I need to find out who I am before I become Mrs. Dumont for the rest of my life…I never learned to stand up for myself and I know I’ll have that with you. If I don’t, you’ll destroy me without meaning to.
Her desperate plea the night they’d made the decision to marry slammed into his mind. The sheltered only daughter of late-in-life parents, she’d still been floundering three months after the loss of her single remaining parent—her father. Yet she’d had the courage to say to Gabe’s face what many never would—that he was quite capable of destroying a softer, less powerful personality with the unforgiving pragmatism of his own.
The woman beside him sounded nothing like the broken girl of twelve months ago…except for that underlying thread of courage. “Good,” he said, not certain he liked that quiet hint of steel. He’d chosen Jess because he’d known she’d ask less than nothing from him. All she cared about was keeping the former Randall Station in her family.
“You,” she said, stopped, then restarted. “You didn’t find another woman?”
“I want you to be my wife, Jess. I want you to live on Angel Station, take my name and bear my children.” He made sure she heard the determination in his voice—he’d made his choice and he’d stick with it.
The fact she felt nothing for him didn’t faze him in the least. He’d decided long ago that love would play no part in any marriage of his. “Unlike Damon, I’ve kept it in my pants since we got engaged.”
“Are you going to throw his name into every conversation we have?”
He glanced over at the unexpected rebuke to catch her with her eyes narrowed and her arms folded. It amused him. She might have grown up a little but Jess was still a featherweight in comparison to him. “Who do you want to invite to the wedding?”
She gave a frustrated sigh and thrust a hand through her hair, sending red curls every which way. He found his eyes lingering on the fiery strands. That was one thing about Jess that hadn’t changed—that wild, silky mass of hair so incongruous with her quiet, undemanding personality.
“I’d like to keep it small and if we invite some people from Kowhai,” she named the nearest town, “and not others, it’ll cause hard feelings. How about we limit it to the station folk?”
“Nobody else?”
“No,” Jess said, wondering if she was imagining the renewed edge in his tone. “Do people…?”
“Some have been guessing since they heard you were coming back and going straight to Angel.” He reached to flip a switch and she was transfixed by the pure strength under the golden-brown of his skin. “After the wedding is early enough to confirm the rumors.”
Jess nodded, unable to stop thinking that soon Gabe’s hands would be touching far more intimate things than the controls of a plane. The thought threatened to reawaken her earlier panic but she forced it down. The day she let that panic show was the day she lost any hope of making this marriage work. Gabriel would never respect a weak woman. “That’ll make it easier.”
“Four p.m. tomorrow all right for you?”
Her throat was so dry she had to cough lightly to clear it. “Okay.” There was no reason to wait—they’d made their bargain on a rainy night a year ago.
Now it was time for her to pay up.
Two
“I’ve put your things in the guest bedroom for tonight.” Gabe braced his hands on the verandah railing on either side of her, the masculine heat of his chest searing her back.
Her stomach twisted though she knew full well he would never force her. Gabe might be ruthless, but if she said no, he’d back off. And all talk of marriage would end. She’d be escorted off the station with no invitation to ever return.
“Only tonight?” she asked, focusing on the distant grandeur of the Alps. Located in the basin beneath those magnificent behemoths, the Mackenzie stunned even in the final grip of winter. But the aching beauty of her homeland couldn’t calm her at this moment. “You can’t mean us to…so soon?”
“We’re going to be married, Jess.”
“I know. But we can’t—”
“I was upfront with you about wanting children.”
It took every ounce of her courage to continue in the face of his intractable will. “I’m just saying we need time to get used to each other that way.”
“What way?” The words were spoken against the sensitive skin of her neck, his breath a hot caress.
Desire flashed through her bloodstream, a shock that threatened to turn her world upside down. “You know what I’m trying to say.”
“I’ve been celibate for a year.” A flat declaration. “If you want more time, find another man.”
“I can’t believe you said that.” She tried to turn but he refused to allow it. “You’re telling me you’ll call off the wedding if I don’t agree to have sex with you straight away?”
His body was an inescapable trap around hers. “Think about it, Jess. Why are we marrying? You want to keep the Randall land in your family and I’m thirty-five, at a stage in my life where I want children to ensure Angel Station’s future.
“Essentially, we’re marrying to provide heirs for both of us. If you’re not willing to do what it takes to create them, what’s the point? Either we start as we mean to go on or we don’t start at all.”
It was a brutally practical depiction of their bargain, heartbreaking in its truth. And it made her furious. Why couldn’t he have even tried to soften things this one time, when she most needed it? “I’m a virgin, Gabe. So if I make a few mistakes tomorrow, you’ll have to excuse me.”
He went completely, utterly motionless behind her. “What did you say?”
She was at once proud for having caught him off-guard, and more than a touch nervous about her admission. “You heard me.”
“Are you telling me Damon never tried anything?”
If he’d had been any other man, she’d have thought the question a deliberate attempt to rub salt into still-open wounds. But sly maliciousness wasn’t Gabe’s style—he attacked head on. “No.”
“And you didn’t find another lover?” He answered his own query before she could say anything. “Of course not. You were waiting for Damon to fall in love with you.”
His cruel guess cut far too close to the mark. “We both know that didn’t happen, so I’m rather less
