Society Bride. Elizabeth Bevarly

that morning, she held it up before her and swallowed hard against the nausea that rolled through her stomach. Her wedding was barely a week away, and Renee still couldn’t quite remember how she’d agreed to the arrangement. Especially since it had been barely three months since Lyle—at least she had managed to finally stop calling him Mr. Norton—had approached her father about the merger.

      Union, she corrected herself. What she and Lyle were undertaking was a union, not a merger. And her wedding was upcoming, not impending. Goodness, she was going to have to work on her semantics if she had any hope of making this farce—or rather, endeavor—succeed.

      Her groom, naturally, was experiencing none of her misgivings. Of course, he’d been so busy with work lately that he’d scarcely been around for any of the wedding preparations. Nevertheless, he was delighted at the prospect of his and Renee’s impending—upcoming, she reminded herself again—nuptials.

      She expelled another heavy sigh as she folded the dress in half, held it away and gazed at her reflection without the garment. She looked pale with fatigue. She looked worried. She looked scared. Doubtless because she was all of those things.

      So much for her father’s suggestion that she and Lyle make it a long engagement so she could get to know her prospective husband better. Somehow—Renee was still at a loss as to quite how—Lyle had talked her into scheduling the wedding for the second weekend in April. It was, he’d told her, the best time for him, businesswise, because the rest of his year was booked solid with professional obligations. But Renee had hardly seen him during those three all-too-brief months, because that time had been booked solid with professional obligations, too.

      And even on those few occasions when they had managed to find time together, Lyle was frequently called away early to attend to—what else?—professional obligations. As a result, she’d found herself feeling about as familiar and as comfortable with her husband-to-be as she would feel explaining the particulars of quantum physics.

      She was also having serious second thoughts about this whole fiasco—or rather, marriage. Yes, she and Lyle did get along fine, even if they had yet to share much more than a few less-than-explosive kisses. And yes, her father was delighted at the prospect of hanging on to Riley Communications, Inc. And yes, Renee’s future did look bright and promising to any casual observer, even if, to her, it was a tad lacking in, oh…life.

      She should be happy, she told herself. She was engaged to a handsome, successful man who seemed to care for her, even if he wasn’t exactly the passionate, cherish-is-the-word sort of mate that most women—other women, women who weren’t Renee Riley—dreamed about.

      She and Lyle were compatible, she reminded herself. They’d agreed on nearly everything they’d discussed—though they had yet to discuss much at any great depth. Still, they were able to carry on conversations that, if not exactly impassioned and important, were lively and interesting. Well, sort of lively, anyway. Sort of interesting.

      And who needed romance, huh? Not her. No way. Why spend the rest of her life searching for something that probably didn’t exist anyway, and even if it did exist, probably didn’t live up to what everybody made it out to be.

      If she passed up this chance with Lyle, she might never find another man who suited her. She might wind up utterly and totally alone. She might die a virgin—not that she really wanted to think too much about sex where Lyle was concerned, not until she had to. And as if all that weren’t enough, she would end up a shriveled, bad-tempered old maid, and she still would have caused her father to lose Riley Communications in the process. Who needed to take a chance like that? Not Renee. Uh-uh. No, sir.

      Really, she thought, she wasn’t likely to do better for herself than Lyle. She was the envy of several—well, at least two—of her friends. Hey, she was probably—no, certainly—the envy of the majority of young women in Minneapolis. She was lucky to have Lyle. He was a wonderful man. Her life with him was bound to be really, truly very…good.

      Gee, keeping saying it over and over like that, and maybe eventually you’ll start to believe it.

      Garrett Fortune’s words haunted Renee, just as they’d haunted her repeatedly over the past three months. Just as Garrett himself had haunted her. She still couldn’t imagine what had come over her on New Year’s Eve to let herself be kissed by the man. To kiss him in return. She’d just been so surprised when he did it. One minute, he’d been telling her how doomed Kelly and Mac were, and the next, he’d been kissing her as if she were the answer to every prayer he’d sent skyward.

      And what a kiss. Kisses, she corrected herself. Plural. There had been nearly a half dozen of them. She knew that, because, as insensate as she’d been at the time, she’d counted each and every one of them. And even if they had been chaste and soft and undemanding—well, sort of chaste, sort of soft but in no way undemanding—the touch of Garrett’s mouth on hers had shaken Renee right down to the furthest reaches of her soul. In those few times their lips had touched, she’d experienced a shudder of arousal unlike anything she’d ever known.

      Fireworks. Mystery. Magic. All of those things had been present in that one embrace. And all she’d been able to do was open her hand over his chest in a silent request for more.

      But just as Garrett had lowered his head to hers to give her more, something had halted Renee—she still wasn’t sure what. A sense of self-preservation, perhaps. Some vague, ill-defined knowledge that if she kissed him again, there would be no turning back. It made no sense for her to have such a reaction to a veritable stranger, but there it was nonetheless. Something in Garrett had spoken to something in her. Something dark, something raw, something needy. Something she knew she’d be much better off not exploring.

      Not with a man who hadn’t even bothered to call her to see where those few little kisses might lead. And certainly not with a man who’d said flat out that he thought marriage was a complete waste of time and a total farce.

      Unfortunately, as unwilling as Renee was to explore the feelings he’d roused in her, she still hadn’t been able to forget about them. Or about Garrett. He’d crept into her thoughts when she least expected and had wandered into her dreams at night. And worse, when he did so, he had the very troubling tendency to be at least partially naked.

      And although three months had passed since their brief interlude, she could still feel the soft brush of his mouth over hers, could still taste the faint flavor of champagne on his lips, could still inhale the dusky male scent of him that had surrounded her. Those three months might as well have been three minutes, so vivid was her memory of that night.

      And it was that memory, she was sure, that kept making her question the wisdom of her impending—upcoming—wedding. Because less than an evening in Garrett’s presence superseded months in Lyle’s. When Renee thought about happily ever afters these days, Lyle was nowhere to be found. Instead, a whiskey-eyed man with pale brown hair—a man who had absolutely no interest in marriage—was the one who appeared in Renee’s plans for a future.

      And that simply would not do.

      She told herself she was totally distorting her memory of Garrett Fortune, that no one could possibly be as wonderful as she was remembering him. He was little more than a stranger. The two of them had spoken for less than an hour. The kisses they had shared had been no more than a celebratory welcome to the New Year.

      It had not been the earth-shattering, mind-scrambling, libido-twisting experience she kept recalling. It hadn’t. And that single incident certainly wasn’t something that should influence her decision to marry Lyle.

      She reminded herself again that she and her fiancé—she ignored the roll of nausea that swept through her as the word formed in her head—were a good…well, a good enough…match. By mutual agreement—at least, Renee was pretty sure the agreement had been mutual… She’d certainly been all for it herself—they’d agreed to wait until their wedding night to make love. But even though there were no fireworks in their relationship—yet, she told herself—even though there was no mystery, no magic—yet—Renee could live her life quite…quite adequately with Lyle. She didn’t need romance. She didn’t need