Kings of California: Bargaining for King's Baby. Maureen Child

to treat her daughter. Best to head that off at the pass. Teresa Torino was already a little snippy about Gina marrying a man she didn’t think loved her.

      The string quartet suddenly began playing the solemn strains of the Wedding March. Gina’s stomach lurched, but she fought down the last bits of hesitation she felt and started down the aisle on her father’s arm.

      Not a very long walk, really, but with every step, she moved further away from the life she knew and closer to the life she’d always wanted.

      Adam’s dark chocolate eyes were narrowed on her. His features were stiff and the smile she’d hoped to see didn’t appear. But then, this wasn’t a love match, was it? His gaze was steady, but blank, giving away no hint at all of what he was feeling, thinking. And Gina could only hope he wasn’t able to read her emotions any better than she could his.

      At the head of the aisle, Sal laid Gina’s hand in Adam’s and stepped back to join his wife.

      Adam gave her a brief smile that didn’t do a thing to ease the cool indifference on his features.

      When the minister started talking, she found it hard to hear him over the thundering of her own heartbeat. She was only able to catch every other word, but they were the important ones. The ones that would change her life. At least for now.

      “I will,” Adam said and Gina swayed a little at the impact of two small words. And her heartbeat seemed to pound out, if only.

      Then it was her turn. She felt Adam’s big hand enveloping hers and focused on the minister. Here it was. Her last chance to back out. Or, she thought, the beginning of the biggest gamble she would ever make.

      There was a long pause when the minister stopped speaking and the silence in the chapel was nearly deafening. She felt Adam watching her, waiting for her answer.

      “I will,” she said finally and it was as if the room took a relieved breath and let it out again.

      Adam slipped a ring on her finger and as the short, round minister finished up the brief ceremony, Gina looked down at her hand. A wide, thick gold band glittered up at her. There were no stones set into the precious metal. No delicate carvings or etchings that proclaimed a deeply felt connection between two people.

      It was plain.

      Impersonal.

      Much like her marriage.

      Then Adam held her shoulders, pulled her in close and gave her a quick, hard kiss, sealing the bargain Gina really hoped wouldn’t come back to haunt them both.

      For the first time in far too long, Adam felt as though he’d somehow lost control of a situation. And he didn’t like the sensation.

      Yet somehow, he’d ended up here, in the Presidential Suite of Dreams, the newest, most opulent hotel yet to be built in Las Vegas, waiting for his bride to join him.

      “Bride.” He shook his head and poured himself a glass of the champagne chilling in a sterling silver ice bucket atop the table set up for them on the suite’s private balcony. If ever a man needed a drink, it was now.

      Taking a sip, he looked out over the view sprawling for miles. In the distance, he saw the purple smudge of mountains, crowned by the first stars blinking into life in the night sky. The setting sun still provided an orange glow on the horizon and in the streets far below him, other lights in dizzying colors and patterns glittered and shone like jewels in a treasure chest.

      From thirty stories up, Las Vegas was beautiful. Up close and personal, Adam knew that the tattered edges of the city were much easier to spot. Much like his marriage, he thought wryly, taking a long sip of the cold, bubbly wine. From a distance, people would assume that he and Gina had been swept away by passion. Only they would ever know the cold, hard truth.

      Which was what, exactly?

      “That you’re a hard ass,” he muttered. “Willing to use a woman to get what you want. Ready to create a child and walk away from it without a second thought.”

      Surprisingly enough, that little jolt of reality bothered Adam more than he’d thought it would. He scrubbed one hand across his jaw, stared off into the night and reminded himself that this had been Gina’s idea. She wasn’t a victim in this but a willing conspirator.

      When his cell phone rang, though, Adam grabbed it, grateful to have something besides his own thoughts to concentrate on. A glance at the screen had him sighing. Flipping the phone open, he asked, “What is it, Travis?”

      “What is it?” his brother echoed. “You’re not serious. I just talked to Esperanza and she told me you were in Las Vegas getting married.”

      Adam sighed. His housekeeper had a big mouth. “That’s right.”

      “To Gina.”

      “That’s right.”

      “So my invitation got lost in the mail?” Travis demanded.

      Setting his champagne glass down on the stone balcony railing, Adam shoved his free hand into his pants pocket and tightened his grip on the phone. “It was a small ceremony.”

      “Yeah? I hear her parents were there.”

      “And now they’re gone. The jet took them home this afternoon.”

      “Uh-huh. Any reason why you didn’t want your family there?”

      “It’s not what you think.”

      “Really? Because what I think is you just married a kid we’ve known all our lives without bothering to tell your brothers.”

      “She’s not a kid,” Adam said tightly, his fingers clenching down hard on his phone. “Hasn’t been one for a long time. And since when do I report to you and Jackson?”

      “You don’t,” Travis countered. “But there’s something fishy going on here, Adam. This ‘marriage’ of yours wouldn’t have anything to do with getting that damned land, would it?”

      There was a long, silent moment as Adam got a tight rein on the temper screaming inside, then Travis muttered, “You really are a son of a bitch, aren’t you?”

      “She knew what she was doing.” Hadn’t he told himself that over and over again since agreeing to the bargain Gina had offered him?

      “I doubt it.”

      Shoving his free hand through his hair, Adam shot a look behind him to assure himself that Gina hadn’t come out of the bathroom yet. Then he argued, “You know, Travis, you’re not exactly the poster child for the better treatment of women.”

      “That’s not the point,” his brother snapped.

      “It’s exactly the point. I don’t tell you to stop squiring bimbos around—or to avoid the damn paparazzi that follow you everywhere. So butt the hell out of my life, little brother.”

      “You screw with Gina and her father will make your life a living hell,” Travis warned.

      “Because my life now is just rainbows and kittens, right?”

      “Damn, Adam,” his brother said on a sigh. “When the hell did you get so cold?”

      “When wasn’t I?” Adam asked and snapped the phone closed before Travis could get started again. Then he turned the phone off before Jackson could call and have his say. He didn’t need to hear his brothers’ opinions. He knew going into this what they’d think. And it didn’t matter a damn.

      He and Gina were two consenting adults. Their marriage—such as it was—was nobody else’s business.

      “Well,” Gina said from behind him. “You look like you want to take a bite out of somebody.”

      He turned, schooling his features into the calm, unreadable mask he used with everyone but his brothers. But even as he fought for distance, the sight of her had a hot ball of lust pooling in his belly.

      In