Texas society as a fun-loving party girl who enjoyed her family’s oil money. Her sister, Camille, worked hard for charity, but from all indications, Caroline did nothing worthwhile but appear front and center at every social event Texas had to offer.
Anna had expected a frivolous snob. But Caroline seemed to be more of a frivolous nice person. Eager to indulge herself, she was nonetheless pleasant and courteous, seemingly unaware that there was a world outside the rarefied one she occupied.
“I’m not afraid of butterflies,” Anna said patiently. “But I could never do anything that would result in one being put in a box.”
“But they’re not hurt. They fly away.”
“Would you like someone to put you in a box, just so that when you stepped out of it, you’d look pretty for that person?”
Caroline considered a moment and did not appear to find the idea disagreeable. “I suppose it would depend upon who was opening the box.” She smiled thoughtfully then shook her head. “Guests could toss rice or birdseed instead, but that’s so mundane—not to mention messy.”
“What about flower petals. They’d be in keeping with your theme, I think.”
That pleased her. Then she asked gravely, “Do you think we’ll have to go to London for the armor and the costumes?”
Anna struggled with her expression again. She’d indulged many extravagances in the years that she’d been in business, but she’d never traveled out of the country to outfit the wedding party.
“I…think we can find everything we need here,” she said. “I know Mr. Cahill has given you a considerable budget for the wedding, but think of the fun you’ll have shopping on your honeymoon if you conserve a little here and there.”
Caroline batted that notion away with a pen she’d picked up off Anna’s desk. “Oh, there’ll be no real honeymoon. Austin and I aren’t a love match. Everyone knows that. We’re going straight to his place on Kauai after the wedding to make a baby.”
Anna stared at her. “Really,” she said.
“Really.” Caroline waggled the pen between her thumb and forefinger as she explained. “He’s one of the richest men in Texas, you know, and I don’t know what brought it on, but he just got to thinking one day that he had no one to leave everything to. He has a mother, but that’s it.”
“He’s never been married?”
“Never. He can’t take his mind off business long enough. Anyway, we’ve been friends since we met at a Junior League dinner three years ago. We both have a lot of money, and neither one of us believes in love. Austin was jilted by his fiancée a couple of years ago when she used her position in his company to help a rival firm take him over.” Her grim expression suggested Cahill’s reaction. “They failed, but since then, he’s had it with women.”
“But what about you? Don’t you want love in your marriage?”
Caroline smiled wryly and shook her head. “I had parents who took vacations without me and regularly forgot my birthday. But that meant I could do whatever I wanted, and I rather like that now. I’d hate to have to change for someone. So our arrangement will be perfect. No one interferes with our lives.”
“Marriage,” Anna suggested mildly, “will interfere with your life.” It had almost ruined hers, but she kept that to herself. “A baby will play havoc with it.”
“All I have to do is produce the baby.” Caroline shrugged gracefully and looked around the office, as though happy with her lot in life. “Then I can stay or not, depending on how I feel. The baby’s for him.”
Anna continued to stare at her in disbelief. “You probably don’t understand this now,” she said, “before it’s actually happened to you. But you won’t be able to carry a baby for nine months, deliver it, then just go your merry way.”
Caroline nodded with a gravity Anna found both distressing and sad. “I will,” she insisted. “I don’t stick to anything. Not school, not work, not friends. Austin’s the longest relationship of any kind I’ve ever had. I don’t know how to do them, so it’s easier not to try.”
Anna felt desperate to reach her. She’d had a loveless marriage herself when she’d been Caroline’s age, and it had shaken something deep down, some belief in the world’s underlying goodness, in the nobility of man.
She’d been able to go on, even to be happy again, because she was part of a large and wonderful family. But she’d been changed forever.
And she’d carried and delivered a baby. She knew walking away would not be as easy as Caroline imagined, despite her claims of never having known love.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” she asked, putting a hand to Caroline’s knee. “For a man to marry a woman solely for the purpose of creating an heir to a fortune is medieval!”
Caroline laughed musically and pinched Anna’s fingers, the serious moment erased. “That’s what gave me the idea for the theme!”
“Ms. Maitland?” The office door opened, and Eden Ross, Anna’s part-time secretary and occasional baby-sitter, peered around it, her dark eyes wide and her cheeks flushed. “Mr., um, Austin… No, no,” she corrected herself, her usual high-school-senior sophistication wobbling precariously. “That’s his first, um…Mr….”
“Cahill,” a helpful male voice offered quietly from the other side of the door.
Eden closed her eyes in mortification, but she regained her professional demeanor. She drew a breath and squared her shoulders. “Mr. Cahill is here for Ms. Lamont.”
“Show him in, please.” Anna smiled to let Eden know the occasional slipup was never fatal. The girl was smart, responsible and determined, but she took herself too seriously.
When Eden pushed the door open, Anna immediately understood her confusion.
A tall, well-built man walked in and unconsciously took control of the room. The quiet, feminine office with its striped silk wallpaper, lavender carpet and Hepplewhite desk took on a decidedly masculine mood.
In a finely tailored gray suit that covered broad shoulders and long legs, he walked to Caroline’s side. He had dark brown hair cut very short, blue eyes the color of dusk, a strong, straight nose and a jaw that probably won him arguments before he ever said anything.
Anna felt as though she should stand—not out of courtesy, but because the room suddenly hummed with energy and sitting down seemed unacceptable.
Besides, he was worth a bundle, and his fiancée was apparently determined to spend a significant portion of it on a Wonderful Wedding. Anna rose as Caroline began introductions.
“Austin, I’d like you to meet our wedding planner, Anna Maitland,” Caroline said as she stepped comfortably into his arm. “Anna, this is my fiancé, Austin Cahill.”
“I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Cahill.” Anna extended her hand, feeling small. It wasn’t just his size, she decided as he told her with a brief smile that the pleasure was his. It was his stature, a sort of presence that said, I can do anything, and I’m different from other men because of that.
She
