It was after ten o’clock when Jayne arrived home. Although Erik had offered her a ride in his outrageously expensive, low-slung, foreign sports car, something had made her decline. Citing the need to be alone for a little while, to allow the repercussions of their discussion to settle in, she had told him she wanted to walk home alone. It was a beautiful evening, as if in apology for the nasty weather during the day, and walking, she knew—she hoped—would clear her mind.
By the time she arrived back at 20 Amber Court, however, Jayne felt more confused and distressed than ever. She hesitated before going in, surveying her apartment building as if seeing it for the first time. Soon Erik would be moving in with her, and this would be their first home as husband and wife. All in all, she decided, they could do much worse.
The four-level apartment building was rather romantic, really. It had started off as a large mansion a century ago, but Rose had told Jayne that it had been converted into one-and two-bedroom apartments in the early seventies. It still claimed the original—and very beautiful—marble foyer, with a spectacular marble staircase that led to the second floor. Many of the apartments still claimed the original woodwork and fixtures and features of a bygone era, right down to the hardwood floors and old-fashioned lighting and arched doorways.
Jayne had been thoroughly happy living here alone for the last month. And she couldn’t help wondering now if that happiness would continue while she was sharing her apartment with Erik.
He had told her he would have his attorney draw up the papers for the prenup the following day, and he would bring them by her apartment at seven o’clock the following evening, so that she could look them over. He’d assumed she would want to have her own attorney present for that, and Jayne had had to bite back a nervous laugh at how he thought everyone must have an attorney at their disposal the way he evidently did.
They really did come from two totally different worlds, she couldn’t help thinking. Though she would certainly have someone look the document over before she signed it.
As she made her way across the foyer toward her apartment, Jayne heard the sound of feminine laughter coming from her landlady’s apartment next door. She paused a moment to listen, and recognized the voices of her co-workers—Lila, Sylvie and Meredith—along with Rose Carson’s. It sounded like they were playing poker. Over tea and biscuits. Again.
Jayne smiled, and just naturally gravitated in that direction. Since moving to Amber Court and starting work at Colette, she had been enthusiastically invited into the small trio of friends that had previous only comprised Lila, Sylvie and Meredith. Now they were a quartet. The Colette Quartet, she thought with a smile. And where the other three women had made it a practice somewhere along the line to have dinner with Rose once a month, they had immediately invited Jayne to partake of the evening, too. But September’s dinner was still weeks away, Jayne knew. So tonight must just be one of those spontaneous girls-night-outs that came up every now and then, when the opportunity presented itself.
And Jayne discovered then, not much to her surprise, that out with the girls was very much where she wanted to be at the moment. So, without hesitation, she lifted her hand toward Rose’s front door and knocked three times in quick succession.
Within seconds the door opened, and Rose smiled upon seeing the fourth member of the group. She was dressed in her typical hanging-out-with-the girls clothes—loose-fitting beige trousers and a lightweight, pale-blue cotton blouse. “Why, Jayne,” she said, “you’re home early.”
This was news to Jayne. After all, how long could it possibly take to sell oneself out for a large sum of money? “Am I?” she asked.
Rose considered her thoughtfully for a moment. “Well, the girls did tell me you had a hot date tonight. We didn’t expect to hear you come in anytime soon.”
Jayne gazed over Rose’s shoulder, down a long entranceway that opened up into her landlady’s living room, and saw her three friends, all seated around the coffee table on Rose’s couch and overstuffed chairs. And they had all turned toward the front door with identical—and very expectant—expressions etched on their faces.
Honestly, Jayne thought, they looked almost comical, making no attempt whatsoever to hide their outright curiosity. She would have laughed out loud if it weren’t for the fact that she felt so strange inside.
“Is that Jayne?” Sylvie said sweetly. “So early?”
“Guess it wasn’t such a hot date after all, hmm?” Meredith asked.
“How did the dress go over?” Lila wanted to know. Then she glanced meaningfully down at her watch and back up at Jayne. “Or should I ask?”
“Very funny, everybody,” Jayne said as she strode past Rose, who had moved aside in a silent invitation for her to enter. She strode down the corridor to the living room, and, as always, was vaguely surprised by the modernity of her landlady’s apartment. In so many ways, Rose seemed like an old-fashioned girl. But her apartment was bright white, decorated with numerous, and very colorful, art sculptures and paintings. Jayne sighed heavily as she came to a halt near the coffee table, then said to her friends, “Actually, if you must know…”
“Oh, we must, we must,” Lila said.
“My date went very well,” Jayne told them. There. That was suitably nebulous, wasn’t it? Let them make of it whatever they wanted to.
“Sit,” Sylvie instructed as Jayne drew nearer to the table. “We want to hear all the gory details. You’re the first one of us who’s had a date in a long time. We want to live vicariously through you.”
“Speak for yourself,” Meredith said. “I’m perfectly content not to date.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Lila muttered. “Just wait till the right man comes along. You’ll change your tune. Pronto.”
Meredith opened her mouth to respond to Lila’s assurance—probably in contradiction, Jayne couldn’t help but think—but Rose interceded.
“Now, girls,” she said, “maybe Jayne doesn’t want to share all the, as you called them, gory details. From what I gather, this is a new man in her life. She may want to keep him to herself for a while.”
Something about the way Rose offered her observation made Jayne think the other woman sympathized with her situation. There was someone special in Rose’s past, Jayne realized then. She could tell by the way her landlady spoke. As far as Jayne knew, however, Rose had always been single. The idea that there might be one great love in the other woman’s past piqued her curiosity more than a little. She would have loved to hear the story of Rose’s love life, but she didn’t want to pry.
Without thinking, Jayne lifted her hand to the amber brooch affixed to her sweater, the one Rose had loaned her that morning. She remembered her landlady telling her the pin had an interesting history. And for some reason, Jayne couldn’t help thinking it was somehow related to the special man in the other woman’s life. She had no idea why such a thought should occur to her, but there it was all the same. Someday, Jayne thought, she was going to ask Rose to tell her all about the amber brooch.
That day wouldn’t be today, however, as was made quite evident when Lila suddenly—and very loudly—squealed, then leaped up from her chair with enough velocity to send it skidding backward.
“What?” Jayne asked in alarm. She took an involuntary step backward in response to the other woman’s…exuberance. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” Lila said. But she was pointing at the hand Jayne had lifted to the brooch and shaking her finger quite vigorously.
Jayne realized then, too late, that it was her left hand she had lifted to touch the brooch. Hastily she shoved her hand behind her back, even though she knew the gesture would be futile.
“That ring,” her neighbor continued before Jayne had a chance to respond one way or another. “That humongous chunk of ice you’re wearing. You weren’t wearing that when you came up to borrow my dress earlier this evening,” Lila added. “I would have noticed it. You had to have gotten that tonight. What’s the deal, Jayne? If you ask me, that looks like an engagement ring.”
Oh, dear, Jayne thought. She really hadn’t intended to tell her friends about her impending marriage just yet. She’d hoped to have a day or two to get used to the idea herself. Not that she could have put off announcing it for very long, seeing as how Erik had to be married within two weeks’ time. In fact, it really wasn’t until this very moment that Jayne even fully considered the fact that she was going to have to tell everyone—including Chloe and Charlie—that she would soon be a married woman. And, seeing as how she hadn’t even been dating anyone, explaining a sudden engagement was going to be just a tad difficult for her to do.
“Uuummm,” she began eloquently.
“It is an engagement ring,” Meredith said, grinning. “From the Colette collection, no less. I’d recognize that setting anywhere. I did, after all, design it.”
“And a lovely design it is, too,” Jayne said quickly, hoping to change the subject.
No such luck.
“Jayne, is there something you’ve been meaning to tell us?” Sylvie asked, also smiling. “Like, oh, I don’t know… Maybe that you’ve been keeping some hunka hunka burnin’ love under wraps somewhere? Is he a high school sweetheart you just never mentioned to us? Or is he a more recent acquisition? In which case, darling, we want to know all about this whirlwind romance.”
“Hey, we want to hear about it even if he’s someone you’ve known since preschool,” Lila said. “Tell us all, Jayne.”
Meredith nodded her agreement quite fervently as she said, “Pretty sneaky keeping him to yourself all this time.”
Oh, boy, Jayne thought. How was she going to explain her way out of this one? She really should have thought a little further ahead before accepting Erik Randolph’s proposal. Like, for instance, how doing so was going to throw her entire life into total upheaval.
Gee, hindsight really was twenty-twenty.
“Uuummm,” she tried again. But again, no explanation was forthcoming. Probably because there really wasn’t any way one might explain what she had done, Jayne thought. Not in any kind of coherent, socially and morally acceptable fashion, at any rate.
“Jayne?” Now it was Rose who was smiling, whose interest was quite piqued. “Did you get engaged tonight?”
“Um, sort of,” Jayne said with much understatement.
“Sort of?” Lila echoed dubiously. “Look, with a ring like that, either you’re engaged or you’re not. This isn’t one of those cute little engaged-to-be-engaged diamond chip sweetheart rings. This is one nice piece of jewelry.”
“Yeah, this guy must be crazy about you, to drop that kind of money on a ring,” Sylvie added.
“So what’s up?” Meredith asked.
A barrage of questions followed that one, questions too numerous and too fast-coming for Jayne to even begin to answer them all, or to even identify who was saying what, for that matter.
“Who is he?”
“What’s his name?”
“What’s he like?”
“Where does he live?”
“What does he do?”
“Where’d you meet him?”
“How long have you known him?”
“How come we haven’t heard about him before now?”
“Have you set a date?”
“Are you pregnant?”
“Stop!” Jayne finally cried.
And, surprisingly, everyone did.
“Of course I’m not pregnant,” she said indignantly. “Erik and I just decided we want to get married, that’s all.” Then, reluctantly, because she knew it was only going to reinforce the pregnancy suspicion, she added, “We want to get married right away, as a matter of fact.”
“Erik?” Lila asked, grinning. To the other women present, she added, “Girls, I do believe we have a name for Jayne’s mystery man.”
“How about a few other vitals, too?” Sylvie asked.
Jayne did some quick thinking. “I met him over the summer. At…at…at J.J.’s Deli,” she finally said, the location of their meeting still fresh in her brain. “And we’ve met frequently over lunch.” There. That would explain why she was home virtually every night—alone. “He, ah…he doesn’t get out much at night.”
“Well, then I guess we can all rest assured that he’s not a vampire, right?” Lila asked playfully. “So then what does he do?”
Jayne realized then that she had no idea how to answer that. She didn’t know what Erik did for a living. Only that he was wealthy. “He’s, um, self-employed,” she finally told them.
“As what?”
“As a, uh…as an entrepreneur.” Yeah, that’s the ticket, she added to herself. That was nice and vague.
“So you guys met and fell in love immediately, is that it?” Meredith asked.
Jayne nodded. “Yes. That’s it exactly. There was just something between us right away, and the last month has been especially wonderful, and we both just decided tonight that we knew we wanted to be together.” She swallowed with some difficulty. “Forever. So we’re going to get married right away.”
Lila made a soft tsking noise. “You virgins are always in such a hurry.”
In response to Lila’s remark, Sylvie chuckled, and Meredith blushed, and Jayne had no idea what to say.
“So tell us more about him, about Erik,” Meredith said, presumably to change the subject, for which Jayne was grateful to her friend.
“I promise I’ll give you all the details,” she told them. To herself, she added, Just as soon as I figure out what they are. “Tomorrow,” she added pointedly.
“Tomorrow?”
“Aw, come on…”
“But, Jayne—”
“Tomorrow,” Jayne reiterated firmly. Then, truthfully, she added, “I’m really too tired to go into it all tonight. It was very unexpected. He surprised me with the ring.” Oh, boy, was that the truth. “Everything happened so quickly. I’m still kind of dazed. Still getting used to the idea myself.”
“Leave Jayne alone,” Rose said mildly when the other women began to voice their objections again. “She said she’ll tell you tomorrow, and so she will.” To Jayne, she said softly, “I understand completely, dear. It can be rather dizzying when it happens quickly, can’t it?” Her smile turned wistful as she added, “But there’s nothing more wonderful than finding that special someone. Congratulations.” And then she surprised Jayne by leaning forward and brushing a soft kiss on her cheek.
For some reason the gesture brought tears to Jayne’s eyes. In such a short time Rose had become like a second mother to her, and in that moment all Jayne could do was wish that her own mother was here to share the news. Not that the news was anything special, she tried to tell herself. In spite of what her friends were thinking about a whirlwind romance, there was no romance, no love involved. This marriage was going to be a sham from the start. There was no reason to feel like it was something special. No reason to feel as if it were something to share.
But Jayne was surprised to discover that she did want to share. For some reason, her engagement to Erik did feel special. She wanted to share the moment, her feelings, her fears, her hopes. But in that moment she realized that there was no one in her life with whom she felt comfortable sharing those things. As much as she cared for Rose and her friends, she just wasn’t comfortable opening up to them completely. And although she had family in Charlie and Chloe, there were some things she didn’t feel comfortable sharing with them, either.
As her friends and neighbors clamored around her to ooh and aah over her ring, Jayne realized she’d never felt more alone in her entire life. And all she could do then was wonder what it was going to be like, living under one roof with Erik Randolph for a whole year, and feeling so utterly alone.
They married the following Friday, with more than a week to spare before Erik’s thirtieth birthday. Due to the circumstances, it was a small, informal ceremony held at Youngsville City Hall, presided over by a judge who had been a friend of the Randolphs for years. True to Jayne’s request, Erik had told his family that he’d fallen in love with the young woman he planned to marry. And although the Randolphs had been somewhat surprised by their son’s and brother’s sudden change of mind where it came to romantic love—not to mention a little suspicious of the timing—they had been absolutely delighted by the announcement after meeting Jayne.
Strangely, they had also stopped being surprised and suspicious after meeting Jayne. Erik’s father had even taken him aside at one point in the evening and congratulated him on making such a fine choice for a wife, concluding with, “Frankly, Erik, I didn’t think you had such good taste.”
Erik simply explained away his family’s total and immediate acceptance of Jayne as being the result of their relief that they would be keeping Grandfather Randolph’s oodles of money in the family. And he told himself that the reason Jayne hadn’t informed her own family of their sudden engagement was a simple case of nerves and not because she was ashamed of him or herself.
Because she hadn’t told her brother and sister of their engagement, Erik knew. He knew that, because she had told him that Charlie and Chloe wouldn’t be at the wedding today. And had the younger Pembrokes known that their sister was getting married, they most certainly would have been present for the ceremony. Of this Erik was certain.
He and Jayne had spent as much time together this week as they could, getting to know each other and planning their meager wedding. And if there was one thing Erik had learned about her during this time, it was that family always came first. Even after such a brief exposure to the Pembroke clan—and his exposure to the twins had been secondhand—Erik could see clearly that they were a tightly knit trio. Considering the loss of their parents at such early and tender ages, he supposed that wasn’t surprising. But Chloe and Charlie would definitely have come to Youngsville for their older sister’s wedding—had they known about it.
He told himself he understood Jayne’s reluctance to announce her engagement to her brother and sister. The circumstances were, after all, highly unusual. Probably, she was having trouble coming up with a suitable explanation for the rush and spontaneity. And he told himself it was her decision to make.
Still, something about her hesitation didn’t sit well with him for some reason. Even with the highly unusual circumstances, Erik was a good catch, and his family was an honorable one. It wasn’t as if he was someone to be ashamed of. On the contrary, any number of women would have jumped at the chance to be Mrs. Erik Randolph. He tried to forget about the fact that three in a row had declined the offer before Jayne, and that her consent had only come about in a moment of financial desperation.
That was beside the point.
The point was that Jayne, for whatever reason, was reluctant to tell her family that she was getting married to Erik Randolph. And, strangely enough that left him feeling a little hurt.
Ah, well, he thought now, as he glanced down at his watch and scanned the judge’s chambers again and wondered where his blushing bride had got herself to. At least Jayne had told her friends about their nuptials. Because three of them had arrived en masse and were seated side by side in a row of chairs against one wall, along with Jayne’s landlady, whom Erik had met earlier in the week when he’d gone to Jayne’s apartment to move in some of his things. So, clearly, Jayne wasn’t that ashamed of him, if she’d introduced him to her friends and invited them to share in the celebration today.
Of course, seeing as how Erik would be living with Jayne at 20 Amber Court, and all of these women likewise lived at 20 Amber Court, she really hadn’t had any choice but to tell them all she was getting married, and introduce them to her intended. That was beside the point, too. In fact, the point was—
The point was that here it was two minutes until post time, Erik thought frantically, and his bride was nowhere to be found.
Only when he couldn’t put off facing that realization any longer did Erik begin to panic. Jayne would be here, he told himself. She would. She had promised. And she had signed an agreement, as had he.
More important, though, Erik knew Jayne was trustworthy. He wasn’t quite sure how he knew that, only that he did. But she would keep her word. She would be here. He knew she would.
And no sooner had the reassurances formed in his brain than Jayne Pembroke entered the judge’s chambers for her wedding, thereby ensuring that she was indeed going to keep her word. And not just about marrying him today, either, as evidenced by her appearance. But also about making the union look convincing—as evidenced by her appearance. Because she had dressed for her wedding as if…well, as if it were a special occasion.
Her suit was ivory and deceptively simple, with a slim skirt that fell to midcalf, slit on one side to just above the knee. The long jacket was cut to enhance her very curvy figure, with satin piping edging the lapels and two satin buttons closing the garment over a lacy camisole. Her pale red hair was knotted at her nape, and instead of a veil, she wore an old-fashioned pillbox hat with ivory netting that cascaded over half of her face.
And what a face. Her lavender eyes sparkled behind the netting, her cheeks were tinted with pink, and her mouth was kissed by a shade of berry he wasn’t entirely certain was the result of cosmetics. Heightened awareness, he was sure, was as much responsible for her dazzling glow as was anything purchased at a department store.
All in all, Erik found her ensemble charming. Almost as charming as the woman who was wearing it. And out of nowhere, he experienced a sudden—and astonishingly intense—desire to help her take it off.
Well, well, well. It was going to be an interesting wedding day. And an even more interesting wedding night.
She crossed the length of the room to where Erik stood by himself, enjoying a final moment of solitude before joining his life—however temporarily—to another.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” she said a little breathlessly. “I don’t know where the morning went. Time just got away from me somehow.”
“Well, you’re here now, and that’s all that matters,” he told her. Then he smiled. “I have something for you.”
She smiled back, her surprise—and her curious pleasure—obvious. “Something for me? What?”
He turned to the square white box he had placed on a chair behind him when he’d arrived, opened it and withdrew a bouquet of perfect white roses and sweetheart ivy. Then he turned and extended it toward Jayne.
“Oh, Erik,” she said, her smile softening, her features turning even more lovely. “It’s beautiful. I didn’t even think about flowers.”
He watched as she fingered the delicate blossoms with much care, then lifted the bouquet to her nose to savor the luscious, intoxicating aroma. The beauty of the flowers paled in comparison to her own, he thought. She really was quite sweet. He hoped he wasn’t doing her a great injustice, marrying her this way.
Very softly he said, “I’m beginning to realize that there’s quite a lot we didn’t think about.”
She glanced up from the bouquet, her eyes wide and startled. “Are you having second thoughts?” she asked.
He eyed her curiously. “Why do you sound so hopeful when you say that?”
She shook her head. “No, it’s not that. Just… If you are having second thoughts about this, I certainly understand. And I certainly won’t hold you to our agreement.”
“I’m not having second thoughts,” Erik assured her immediately, unequivocally.
Her expression changed not at all when he said it, giving him no indication of how she truly felt.
“Not about the wedding, at any rate,” he added.
She said nothing in response to that, only nodded almost imperceptibly. So, with one final adjustment to the white rose he’d affixed to his own lapel—he’d opted for a dove gray suit himself, one that complemented Jayne’s attire nicely—he crooked his arm in a silent bid for her to loop her own through it.
And before either of them had a chance to say another word, the judge began to hustle everyone into place. And then, before he even realized it was happening, Erik found himself slipping a different ring on the fourth finger of Jayne’s left hand—a wedding ring. And then he heard himself saying “I do,” and then he found himself waiting with barely contained anticipation to hear Jayne echo the sentiment herself.
She gazed intently into his eyes and smiled nervously as she slid a plain gold band over the ring finger of his left hand, then repeated the words to him. Only then did Erik realize how very worried he’d been that she would still back out of their agreement. And only then did he realize how very much he had wanted her to go through with it. And not just because it would net him sixty million dollars, either.
Then, as he and Jayne gazed into each other’s eyes, wondering just what the hell they were supposed to do now, the judge was announcing them husband and wife and telling him he could kiss his bride.
In hindsight, Erik supposed it would have been a good idea to rehearse this kiss at least once at some point earlier in the week. Truly, though, he hadn’t really thought about what it would mean to kiss Jayne in front of an audience this way. His head had been too full of so many other things, and he just hadn’t given the wedding kiss much thought. So, with great care, and with both hands, he slipped the netting back over her hat to reveal her face. Then, clasping both of her hands in his own, he began to dip his head toward hers.
When he saw the look of panic that clouded her eyes, however, he promised himself that for this first time, he would make the kiss simple, swift and sweet. There would be time later for more, he told himself, if either of them decided more was what was wanted. And in that moment Erik knew that, speaking for himself at least, there would indeed be a want for more. For now, though, he only brushed his lips over hers once, twice, three times, before pulling reluctantly back.
And then a ripple of laughter and good cheer went up around the newlyweds, and they were engulfed in a sea of well-wishers.
Somehow Erik got separated from Jayne, and he was surprised at how perturbed he was by that separation. When he finally caught sight of her, though, it was to find that she was searching frantically for him, as well, and that made him feel better.
It was odd, really. Although he had initially gone into his wife hunt fully intending to marry someone, he hadn’t for a moment planned for the arrangement to be anything more than a business transaction. He had been certain that he and his wife, although housemates, would both lead separate lives. He had known even then that he wouldn’t stray or be unfaithful to his vows. He’d simply resigned himself to a year’s…sabbatical, sexually speaking. Turning his gaze to Jayne again, however…
Well, suffice it to say his resignation wasn’t quite as strong at the moment as it had been when he’d first proposed their marriage of convenience.
Jayne was a very attractive woman. To put it mildly. And, all modesty aside, he knew he was an attractive man. They were both unattached—or, at least had been, until a few moments ago. And now they were attached in the most traditional way a man and a woman could be joined. There was nothing—absolutely nothing—to prevent them from acting on whatever…impulses…might overcome them during the course of the next year.
Or the next week. Erik wasn’t particular.
Because, speaking for himself, at least, he was already experiencing one or two of those impulses. And, speaking for himself, they were damned nice impulses to experience. It was going to be an interesting year.
Or an interesting week. Erik wasn’t particular.
Jayne grinned at him, then her attention was diverted by one of her friends, and she shifted her gaze to the ring he had slipped on her finger. She turned it first one way, then the other, and smiled at the way the baguettes refracted and exploded and shone back in a brilliant array of color. It was a lovely ring, Erik thought. But not nearly as lovely as the woman who would be wearing it for the next year.
Oh, yes, he thought again. It was going to be a very interesting year indeed.
And an interesting week, too. He really wasn’t particular.