The Groom's Stand-In. GINA WILKINS

Chloe’s posture was still unnaturally rigid. Her hands were still laced tightly together, her short pink nails digging into skin.

      “Are you okay?” he couldn’t resist asking. “My driving isn’t making you nervous or anything, is it?”

      His question brought her head around. “Of course not. You seem to be an excellent driver. I’m not nervous about anything at all.”

      Definitely a lie, he decided, glancing again at her telltale hands. “You just seemed a little tense.”

      “I’m fine.” She looked straight ahead again as she spoke. “What is it you do in Bryan’s organization, exactly?”

      He shrugged. “Whatever he needs me to do.”

      “Such as escorting me today?”

      Since the answer to that seemed obvious, he allowed it to pass.

      “You’ve been out of the country for the past few months,” she tried again. “In…Italy?”

      “Venice. I was there for almost three months.”

      “That must have been very nice.”

      “It was business.”

      She twisted in her seat, tugging at the seat belt to allow her to look at him more closely. “Surely you took some time off for sightseeing.”

      “Not much,” he admitted. “I was only supposed to be over there a couple of weeks. Problems kept cropping up to detain me. I was just trying to get everything settled so I could get back to the States.”

      “You must have missed your family.”

      “I don’t have family. I had a lot of work piling up here that I needed to attend to.”

      “I see.” She settled back into her seat again.

      Because he knew Bryan wanted him to keep Chloe entertained, Donovan tried to think of something interesting to say about his weeks in Venice. “The food was good.”

      “I’m sure it was.”

      “And the sunrises were nice,” he added. “I had a balcony, and I would sit out there and have coffee early in the mornings while I read through paperwork.”

      The enthusiasm of her response to that made him glad he’d gone to the extra conversational effort. “That must have been spectacular!” She lifted her clasped hands to her chest as she apparently tried to visualize the scene he’d described so sparingly. “I’ve always wanted to travel. To see some of the places I’ve only read about until now.”

      “When you marry Bryan, you’ll be able to travel as much as you want.” As he was sure she was aware.

      She lowered her hands slowly to her lap. “If I marry Bryan,” she corrected him, her voice a bit cool again.

      “The gossip columnists seem to think it’s all been decided.” And he imagined the rumors were correct. Despite her affront at implications that she would marry Bryan for his money, why wouldn’t she want to marry a multimillionaire who could take her to all those places she’d always wanted to visit?

      She wrinkled her nose. “That’s something I’m still having trouble getting used to—being in the gossip columns, I mean.”

      He shrugged again. “You’d better get used to it. For some reason, people seem to be fascinated with Bryan. Everything he does makes the papers.”

      Money, he thought, had a way of drawing attention. Combine a lot of money with Bryan’s good looks, impressive family background, unerringly shrewd business decisions, personal charisma and single status, and the result was that he was included on every Most Eligible Bachelor list published in North America.

      Just the hint that Bryan’s name might soon be removed from those lists had the gossips all abuzz with curiosity, despite Bryan’s efforts to keep his personal life private. Someone had apparently tipped off the tabloids about his interest in Chloe, much to Bryan’s displeasure.

      That was another reason Bryan had asked Donovan to play escort on this trip. He’d been concerned that Chloe might find herself annoyed by reporters. Donovan rarely had that problem. For some reason, they took one look at him and quietly put away their notebooks.

      “One of the so-called reporters called me Zoe,” Chloe muttered, “and another said it was Grace that Bryan’s been seeing.”

      Donovan wondered if her disgruntled tone was because she’d been in the papers at all—or because they hadn’t gotten her name right. “The way your sister was talking earlier, I doubt that she appreciated seeing her name linked with Bryan’s,” was all he said.

      Chloe winced. “No, she didn’t.”

      “What does she have against Bryan, anyway?” Maybe Grace was jealous that she wasn’t the one poised to marry a multimillionaire.

      “It isn’t Bryan, exactly. She’s just worried that I’m making a mistake. Grace has a little trouble trusting people—especially wealthy, powerful men. She’s convinced herself I’m going to end up bitter and humiliated. Unlike some people,” she added pointedly, “my sister knows I want more from a marriage than financial security, and she doesn’t believe I can find those things with Bryan.”

      “And why is that?”

      “She suspects that Bryan is playing me for a fool, and that he has no intention of settling down and raising a family.”

      “Bryan does what he says he’ll do.”

      “You’re very loyal to him.”

      Because she could never understand how much he owed Bryan—and because it wasn’t any of her concern, anyway—he let the comment pass without remark.

      They fell quiet again then. Donovan had run out of things to say, and Chloe seemed to have relaxed, if only marginally. Or perhaps even riding in uneasy silence seemed preferable to making stilted conversation with him.

      He supposed he couldn’t blame her for that.

      Chapter Two

      They’d been on the road for almost two hours when Donovan nodded toward a small convenience store ahead. “We’re just past the halfway point of our trip. I could use a cold drink. How about you?”

      “A cold drink sounds good.”

      He flipped on his turn signal, automatically glancing in the rearview mirror as he did so. A big, extended-cab pickup was right on his back bumper, followed by a blue, soccer-mom minivan. The van had its signal on, too—no surprise, since there wasn’t another convenient place to stop for several miles ahead.

      Because his gas tank was still more than half full, he drove into a parking space on one side of the small store. The only open space available, it lay in deep shadow. Though it wasn’t a particularly cold day, Donovan felt a chill go through him when he turned off the motor. He’d learned to trust feelings like that; he looked around before opening his door. Everything looked fine—a couple of older-model vehicles, several work-weary pickup trucks, and the soccer-mom van, which was parked at one of the three gas pumps.

      Chloe eyed him quizzically. “Are you supposed to be my bodyguard?”

      That whipped his head around, his eyes narrowing as he stared at her. “What makes you ask that?”

      “Something about the way you checked out the place just now—all tense and alert, like a Hollywood version of a secret service agent.”

      His reply was more curt than he had intended. “I’m no bodyguard. Do you want to go in with me or wait out here?”

      She reached for her door handle. “I’ll go in.”

      He followed close on her heels as they stepped out of the shadows and around to the front of the store. She glanced over her shoulder at him when they entered. “If