blemish on the resume of her life, she’d told herself. But no one needed to know about her appalling mistake.
Belinda dropped the sweater into her suitcase and swallowed against the sudden panicky feeling in the pit of her stomach. She cupped her forehead, as if she could will her proverbial headache away.
But she knew there was no hope of making a six-foot-plus wealthy marquess disappear from her life with a poof!
Even before that fateful night in Vegas, she’d run into Colin at social functions occasionally over the years and had found him, well, compelling. But she was too aware of the history between their two families to ever talk directly to him. On top of it all, he was too masculine, too sternly good-looking, too everything. She, who prided herself on her propriety and self-control, couldn’t risk spending time with someone who made her feel so…unsettled.
But then she’d been sent on assignment to Las Vegas to appraise the private art collection of a multimillionaire real-estate developer. When she’d run into Colin at the developer’s cocktail party, she’d felt compelled for business’ sake to socialize with him. She hadn’t planned on discovering, much to her chagrin, how charming he was and how much she was attracted to him.
He was like a breath of home in a new place—pleasantly familiar—and yet he stirred a response in her like no one ever had. In the process of idle cocktail party chitchat and banter, she discovered they’d both been standout swimmers in school, they were both partial to operatic performances at New York’s Lincoln Center and London’s Royal Opera House and they were both active in the same charities to help the unemployed—though Colin sat on the board, while she was more of a foot soldier volunteering her time.
Belinda had thought their similarities were almost disconcerting.
Toward the end of her stay in Vegas, she’d run into Colin again in the lobby of the Bellagio. She’d been momentarily uncertain what to do, but he’d made the decision for her. The ice had already been broken at the recent cocktail party, and what’s more, it turned out they were both staying at the Bellagio.
Frankly, she’d been in a partying mood—or at least one for a celebratory drink or two. She’d landed a deal with Colin’s real-estate developer friend for a big auction sale of artwork at Lansing’s. She knew she had Colin partially to thank. His smooth mediation of her conversations with the developer at the party had certainly been helpful.
Buoyed by a surge in magnanimity, she’d agreed to have a drink with Colin. Their drinks had naturally progressed to dinner and then time at the gaming tables, where she’d been impressed by Colin’s winnings.
At the end of the evening, it had seemed like the most natural thing in the world to continue up in the elevator with him to his luxury suite.
She’d teasingly suggested that she couldn’t sleep with him unless they were married. She’d gambled on her pronouncement being the end of the matter. After all, she’d recently broken up with a boyfriend of more than a year with nothing to show for it.
Colin, however, had shocked her by upping the ante and daring her to go to the Las Vegas Marriage License Bureau with him. They’d turned around and headed back downstairs.
She’d been by turns amused and horrified by their escapade, especially when they’d started hunting for a chapel. She’d never been in an iconic Las Vegas wedding chapel. One had been too easy to find that night.
Later, of course, she’d blame her uncharacteristic actions on having had a drink or two and on the crazy Vegas environment. She’d point the finger at just having turned thirty and losing another boyfriend. She’d place fault on the increasing pressure from her family to marry well and soon, and on the fact that most of her wellborn classmates from Marlborough College were already engaged or married. She’d even blame her surge of goodwill toward Colin, who’d helped her land business at the cocktail party. Basically, she’d found everyone and everything at fault—most of all herself.
In the morning, her cell phone had rung, and she’d blearily identified the call as being from her mother. It had been as if someone had doused her with icy water while she’d still been half-asleep. She’d come back to reality with a shock, and had been truly horrified by what she’d done the night before. She’d insisted on a quick and quiet annulment without anyone being the wiser.
At first, Colin had been amused by her alarm. But soon, when it had become clear that her distress wasn’t temporary, he’d become closed and aloof, thinly masking his anger.
Belinda dropped her hand from her forehead, and in the next moment, she was startled by the ring of her cell phone.
She sighed. She supposed it was a good thing to be jostled out of unhappy memories.
Locating the phone on top of her dresser, she confirmed what the ring tone was telling her—it was Pia calling.
She put a Bluetooth device in her ear for hands-free listening so she could continue packing while she talked.
“Aren’t you supposed to be in Atlanta for a wedding?” Belinda asked without preamble once she had her earpiece in place.
“I am,” Pia responded, “but I have until the end of the week before the pace picks up for Saturday’s main event.”
She and Pia and their mutual friend, Tamara, had gotten to know each other through charitable work for the Junior League. All three of them had settled in New York in their twenties, soon after university. Though they’d chosen to live in different Manhattan neighborhoods, and were busy pursuing different careers—Tamara’s being in jewelry design while wedding planning had always been Pia’s dream—they had become fast friends.
Though Tamara was the daughter of a British viscount, Belinda had not met her as part of the aristocratic set in England because Tamara had grown up mostly in the United States, after her American-born mother had divorced her titled husband. Too bad—her free-thinking bohemian friend would have been a breath of fresh air in Belinda’s stilted, structured adolescence. Tamara had never met a trend that she didn’t want to buck—a trait that Belinda couldn’t help but admire. Pia was more like herself, though her friend came from a middle-class background in rural Pennsylvania.
“Don’t worry,” Belinda joked, guessing the reason for Pia’s call, “I’m still alive and kicking. I intend to be granted my freedom from the marquess if it’s the last thing that I do.”
“Oh, B-Belinda, I-I-I wish there was something I could do,” Pia said, her stutter making a rare appearance.
“Colin and I made this mess, and we’ll have to be the ones to clean it up.”
Belinda regretted the repercussions for Pia’s wedding-planning business from the nuptial disaster on Saturday. She’d thought only of helping her friend’s career when she’d asked Pia to be her wedding planner instead of her bridesmaid—despite knowing Pia was a dyed-in-the-wool romantic. Unfortunately, none of her plans for Saturday had worked out well.
Damn, Colin.
Since she’d had a three-way phone conversation with Pia and Tamara only yesterday, and Pia had just arrived in Atlanta for business today, Belinda sensed there might be more reason for her friend’s call than an opportunity to chat.
Because she was not one to skirt an issue, unless it involved her husband—not to be confused with her groom—she went straight to the point. “I know you wouldn’t
