His Vienna Christmas Bride Read online

  Jasmine looked down at her hands. “This is going to be a rather fraught visit. It’s almost certainly Father’s last Christmas. I…” She exhaled, feeling childish. Get it over with, she urged herself. Who knows? Adam may find the whole thing a lark.

  But it wasn’t. She had been a disappointment to her father all her life. She just wanted to please him, once, and have the memory that she’d done so. “I’m afraid I told an untruth a couple of months ago. I told him I was already engaged.”

  “And that’s where I come in.” He suddenly leaned forward quickly, fixing her with an intense look. “Why me, by the way?”

  Because you are unaware of my past, she thought. Because I felt guilty about the way I treated you. Because I wanted to see you again…“I don’t know very many men,” she said truthfully. At least, not many that didn’t pity her or think she was a laughingstock.

  “And when your father asks about the wedding…where we’re going to live…the pitter-patter of tiny feet?”

  “We’ll be suitably vague,” she answered with confidence. “My father and I don’t see eye to eye about some things.” Most things, she thought. “Our relationship is quite distant. I am close to my stepmother, Gill. She may ask questions but probably not in front of him, and she’s very discreet.”

  Adam’s eyes never left her face. Jasmine mentally crossed her fingers and toes, knowing it was a lot to ask at such short notice. He was bound to have plans. She had thought about calling but hoped a surprise attack might have better results.

  Still unsmiling, his eyes assessed her. If only she could turn the clock back and play that last morning again, or the phone calls afterward. Adam used to look at her with such regard.

  He hadn’t lost the habit, however, of maneuvering himself too close to her. Jasmine wished he’d sit at his desk rather than on it because he was too close for comfort. He always had been.

  As if he read her mind, he suddenly sat up a little straighter. “And will your uncle be present at this family Christmas?”

  She had expected him to ask. And in the scheme of things, this was the most important point of all. She kept her reply crisp. “No. He and my father have had a small falling out and it would be best not to mention him.” Illness or not, the whole of Lincolnshire would hear Sir Nigel’s roars if anyone mentioned his nemesis’s name.

  She softened her voice, plumping for sympathy. “Since this may well be his last Christmas, I’d hate to upset him.”

  Adam’s sharp eyes searched her face. She held his gaze steadily, waiting for his reply.

  “For a favor of this magnitude,” he said slowly, “and considering I have plans for Christmas…”

  “Do you?”

  “I always have plans, Jasmine.” Adam smiled but there was little warmth in it. “Is there any good reason I should put myself out for you when you virtually ran me out of your house a few weeks ago?”

  Friends were not a commodity Jasmine was flush with, but she had enjoyed every minute of their dates, of doing things she hadn’t done before, the parry and thrust of his attempts to charm her into bed. “I thought we were friends.”

  She reminded herself that friends don’t, as a rule, have hot, sweaty, plentiful sex in nearly every room in her house. Incredibly though, the experience had left her with such good—no, great—memories, it wouldn’t worry her if Adam Thorne was her last lover ever. Who else could possibly measure up?

  A shiver went through her and judging by the sudden flare of attention in his eyes, he’d noticed. She swallowed quickly. He couldn’t know what steamy recollections had just filled her mind. Or how, all of a sudden, she could identify mint and orange blossom in his cologne. Or was so attuned to his breathing, her own emulated it. Nor how bloody attractive she found the way his fierce brows feathered a little on either side of the bridge of his nose.

  “Friends help each other out,” he murmured.

  She closed her eyes and began to despair. Adam used the same voice as he had the night he finally persuaded her that she wanted him as much as he did her. Why deny each other, he’d said, when sex was such a natural and pleasurable way to show appreciation? That voice was her downfall; sultry, suggestive and warm, it coated the senses like honey on ham. Erotic images of their night together, his whispers inciting her to do things she’d never dreamed she could do, had her toes curling in latent pleasure.

  For the first time—unless in her overheated state, she was imagining it—his eyes warmed a little—a lot. Adam Thorne knew exactly what she was thinking.

  “Oh, I’m not discounting that, lovely Jasmine,” he confirmed a second later, his deep, soft voice raising the hairs on the back of her neck. “Believe me, I remember every spectacular, soft, passionate inch of you.”

  She sucked in a breath to try to contain a pulse gone mad. Heat bloomed on her cheeks and all the way down her body. How did he do it, send her senses wild without even a touch? He used to toy with her at work, sitting on her desk, talking of nothing very much in that velvety voice of his, watching her with eyes that would tempt a saint. She’d thought it was about needling his brother or shattering her good-girl reputation. His effect on her was powerful and he knew it.

  “That’s not on the agenda this trip,” she said, not as firmly as she would have liked. Which of them was she trying to convince?

  She had to shoot him down. There were more important priorities than her own selfish desires. “I slept with you in a moment of weakness, not expecting to see you again. I wasn’t looking for anything more.”

  Adam chuckled. “Well, I’m certainly not in the market for a relationship. But back to your ‘agenda—’” he held up his index finger to indicate quote marks “—there doesn’t seem to be an equitable balance of mutual reward between friends here.”

  Jasmine’s desire seeped away. She knew what he wanted, but if he discovered the full extent of the hatred between her father and uncle, she would cease to be of use to him. She had to gloss over the family feud, at least until he was there at the estate, accepting their hospitality. Hopefully his good manners and charm would do the rest.

  “All I want,” Adam prompted, “is the introduction. The rest is up to me.”

  Seeing the determination on his face, Jasmine realized glossing over it wouldn’t be enough. This man preferred something a little more concrete.

  With six months to a year left to live, her father’s happiness was her first priority. With no idea how she would go about it, Jasmine summoned up a self-assurance she didn’t feel. “If you do this for me, I give you my word I will set it up—” She hesitated and then said firmly, “—after Christmas.”

  “Good.” Adam got up and went back to his side of the desk. “Now that’s settled, there is one more thing…”

  Jasmine was already half way to her feet, preparing to depart.

  “It’s the annual company Christmas bash tonight. I’ve been too busy to find a date. Come with me.”

  Even as she reluctantly agreed, Jasmine had a sinking feeling about this. The more time she spent in Adam Thorne’s company, the more she wanted to spend. Hopefully her good intentions wouldn’t get her into trouble.

  Then again, she’d had few enough opportunities to feel like a woman over the last few years.

  Adam Thorne made her feel all woman.

  Two

  A dam picked her up in a silver Mercedes cabriolet that smelled brand-new, and took her to a trendy club only a short drive from her hotel.

  “What name are we going by tonight?” he asked as they waited to be checked off the guest list.

  “Just Jasmine,” she said firmly, and it suddenly occurred to her she may be recognized. This was the kind of place some of her friends from five years ago might have frequented. She looked around warily, hoping that her long dark hair was different enough from the shaggy, lighter style she went with back then.

  They made their way to a mezzanine, where about a hundred VIP guests of Croft, Croft and Bayley milled about. Almost immediately, w
ell-wishers swamped them and she learned that tonight doubled as the annual corporate Christmas function, as well as Adam’s farewell from the company. She looked around in amazement at the incredible interior. Every wall depicted what appeared to be a blue waterfall of vertical lines of numbers.

  “Very high-tech, isn’t it?” Adam smiled at her open-mouthed wonder. “Corporate clients can digitally design their own colors and atmosphere—or their brand, if they want to be boring—onto computers and have that imagery projected onto the walls for their event.” He explained that Croft, Croft and Bayley had gone for a stock-exchange depiction tonight, but he’d been here when heaving blue seas seemed to crash against the walls. He’d seen panoramic landscapes of canyons that almost echoed, and meadows filled with nodding wildflowers in a gentle breeze. “You could come here every night of the week and feel you’re somewhere different.” He shook his head. “I liked the idea so much, I bought into it.”

  “You own this club?”

  Adam shook his head. “Just a percentage of the multimedia company that came up with the concept.”

  Jasmine knew that innovative and daring ideas intrigued Adam. That was the catalyst for his start-up business, to give talented people with big ideas the means and expertise to go global.

  She accepted a glass of champagne from a Santa-hatted waitress and was introduced to too many people to count. While Adam chatted, one of the senior partners extolled her escort’s virtues. “I first saw him on the floor of the exchange four years ago, making money hand over fist as a day trader. A successful trader should be passionate about markets, rather than trading. While everyone else ran around in a panic, Adam just sat there, watching, sticking to his plan. I knew we had to have him.”

  As the night progressed, she heard much more of Adam’s ambition, how hard he’d worked to attain his high level of success.

  “The youngest-ever partner in this company,” another partner confided. Croft, Croft and Bayley wasn’t the biggest stockbrokerage in the city, but it was one of the oldest and most venerated. “We’ll miss him but we’re too small to contain his ambition.” Another of his colleagues told her that the new business was risky but if anyone could pull it off, Adam could.

  All this left Jasmine a little confused and a lot impressed. Until today, her preconception of Adam Thorne, based on their half-dozen outings in New Zealand, had been of a fun-loving, sexy and rich young man, an opinion reinforced by his brother’s declaration that he wasn’t to be taken seriously. Nick loved his brother, she knew that, but looking around at the army of admirers, the breathtaking backdrop of moving numbers, the copious bottles of French champagne and decadent hors d’oeuvres, she couldn’t help feeling Nick hadn’t given enough credit to Adam’s work ethic.

  The formalities of the evening commenced as the partners wished their staff a happy Christmas and then made a special presentation to bid Adam farewell and wish him good luck for what was sure to be a stellar future. Jasmine watched the proceedings from well back in the crowd, feeling sorry for every other man in the place. It was unfair that one man should be so overendowed, not only with good looks and vitality, but success, too. Not so long ago, she’d thought Nick Thorne the most handsome man she knew. He was bigger than Adam but similar enough in coloring, athleticism and those hypnotic eyes, so she’d been as surprised as anyone when it came out recently that Nick was adopted.

  But they were as different as night and day. Nick was straight-A all the way, a brilliant but conservative businessman in his expensive suits and neatly cropped hair. Jasmine tried and failed to imagine him tossing an old rugby ball around his office, or even with his feet up on the desk. Never in a million years.

  Adam Thorne probably didn’t even know how to knot a tie. Certainly she’d never seen him in one, not even the night last month he’d escorted her to the Royal New Zealand Ballet. Style oozed devilishly from every pore. His fierce brows and the stubble shadowing his jawline and full sexy lips lent him a bad-boy demeanor, even though his smile was a lot more ready than Nick’s.

  While she’d been busy daydreaming, another half hour had passed and the formalities wound up. Adam returned from the front of the room and drew her into his side.

  “Very nice,” he said in that low, sultry voice, leaning so close his lips almost touched her earlobe.

  Jasmine shivered, knowing that he felt it since he’d placed one hand lightly on the small of her back. If that hadn’t alerted her, his self-satisfied smile when he drew back did.

  “What?” she asked casually. Adam Thorne was too discerning for his own good.

  “Being the object of your avid attention.”

  So she’d been staring. “I believe it’s polite, when listening to a speech, to pay attention to the speaker.”

  Adam’s grin only widened. “You can be very English sometimes, Ms. Cooper.”

  He was playing with her. He knew the effect he had on her and was using her gratitude to his full advantage. But Jasmine had her pride and after all, he wanted something from her, too.

  Aside from sex…she resisted the urge to fan her hot face and thought it best to change the tone of the conversation. “I think Nick would have been very proud of you tonight.”

  His surprise at her comment showed in the slight arch of one dark brow. Jasmine wasn’t sure if it was the subject matter or just the change of direction but when he pursed his lips a second later, she saw that he was pleased. And that, funnily enough, pleased her.

  “You’ll never guess!” A young colleague of Adam’s joined their small group, brimming with a sly kind of excitement that Jasmine recognized as typical of a gossip. “Which esteemed royal is in the gents’, popping party pills right this minute?”

  “Vincent de Burgh,” someone said quickly.

  “Not again!” Another member of their party rolled his eyes.

  Jasmine’s heart plummeted and she almost swayed on her feet. Vincent de Burgh, notorious playboy, tenth in line to the British throne, and the man whose betrayal five years ago sent her packing to the other side of the world.

  Careful not to turn her head, she looked for the bathrooms, which she located on the first level. She then scrutinized the messenger’s face, wondering if he was telling her in a roundabout way that he knew she had once been engaged to the very same royal louse fittingly off his face in a toilet.

  The young executives compared recent stories about the troublesome royal, not giving her any particular interest. Satisfied it was just idle celebrity gossip, Jasmine relaxed slightly. Nonetheless, she couldn’t afford to stay here and risk being recognized.

  That Vincent was still behaving badly didn’t surprise her. She’d heard he recently divorced the woman he ditched her for—her ex-best friend—and no doubt was drowning his sorrows and searching for some other rich, deluded female. The unfathomable thing was that he always succeeded, as her father had repeatedly warned her.

  She turned to Adam, her mind racing. If he found out about her high-profile engagement, it would take just one Google hit to find out the rest. All she needed was tomorrow, one day, to play happy couples at the estate. Then Adam could leave “on business” and she could continue her holiday and spend some quality time with her father before she had to get back to work. She didn’t expect to have to keep the pretense up for too long. Her father was getting weaker and more forgetful by the day, according to Gill. In two or three months, he might not comprehend anything, and if he did, then she would tell him that sadly, she and Adam hadn’t worked out.

  But if Adam discovered before tomorrow how acrimonious the relations were between her father and Stewart, she could kiss her Christmas Day goodwill mission goodbye.

  Adam’s eyes were on her face and she realized she’d been staring again. He had his back to the conveniences on the ground floor and she flicked a glance to the door of the men’s toilets, just in time to see an older, but by the look of him, most un-wiser, Vincent lurch out.

  Jasmine froze. He seemed to be looking directly u
p at her but it was hard to tell with the lighting in here. After a moment, he turned toward the bar, stripping off his jacket as he did. While breathing out relief, she relished the rather nasty thought that her ex had not weathered the passing of years well. Too much good living showed in his paunch and the way his thick neck battled to be reined in by his tie. It may have been the lighting but his previously thick, sandy hair looked wispy from her vantage point on the mezzanine.

  She watched as he joined a small group of men at the bar. The private function on the mezzanine had waiter service so he was obviously not part of the Croft, Croft and Bayley group. Jasmine began to breathe again.

  Adam touched her arm and she brought her eyes back to his face.

  “I’d like you to meet someone.”

  She shook hands with John Hadlow, Adam’s new business partner, and his wife, Sherrilyn.

  “I see why you’ve stood us up for Christmas, old boy,” John said jovially.

  Jasmine bit back a smile and glanced at Adam’s face. Had he deliberately given her the impression his plans were more romantic than Christmas dinner with this pleasant couple? She apologized for upsetting everyone’s schedule.

  Half an hour later, she had almost forgotten about Vincent when a break in the music exposed an altercation by the stairs. She glanced over to see her ex-fiancé arguing loudly with a security man, who blocked his entrance into the private function. She spun around quickly, looking for Adam and hearing Vincent’s voice clearly over the myriad conversations surrounding her. “Do you know who I am?”

  Adam was a couple of feet away, talking to an attractive blonde. What to do? She could hole up in the ladies’, or just pray the security guard remained aloof about Vincent’s lineage. There were two stairways on either side of the mezzanine leading down. Jasmine contemplated making a dash for it down the left-hand side while Vincent was engaged with the bouncer on the right.