More than a Convenient Bride. Michelle Celmer

go have lunch.”

      She tried to duck past him, and he wrapped a very large but gentle hand around the upper part of her left arm.

      “Just hold on a minute,” he said in that firm but patient way of his. From anyone else it would have come off as condescending. “It is not ridiculous. Not at all. I’m laughing because I came here to suggest the exact same thing.”

      It was her turn to blink in surprise. Did he mean that, or was he just trying to make her feel less stupid. “Seriously?”

      “But it is a legally and morally gray area. I wasn’t sure if you would be willing to risk breaking the law.”

      Desperate times required desperate measures. “I’m willing if you are.”

      “We can’t risk anyone else knowing the truth.”

      “I won’t tell if you don’t.”

      “Drew knows. He’s the one who suggested it. But we can trust him. And I won’t lie to my mother.”

      Julie had never known Drew to be anything but a stand-up guy. If Luc trusted him, so would she. And she would never expect Luc to lie to Elizabeth, nor would she want him to.

      Julie had no one else to tell, except her sister, Jennifer, who probably wouldn’t care anyway. When she married her husband, an older, wealthy man she’d met on a trip to New York, he became the center of her life. She quit college and set her sights on being the perfect trophy wife. Between charity balls and country club brunches with the other trophy wives in her elite social circle, she had little time for her nomadic, unsophisticated sister.

      Though she had never actually met Jennifer’s husband—nor did she care to—her sister’s description of him gave Julie a bad feeling. He sounded very controlling, like their father. But now was not the time to dredge up those old memories. She had promised herself a long time ago that she would never look back in regret, but instead learn from her past and always move forward. Always strive to better herself. Marrying Luc, though completely unexpected, would be just another leg of her journey.

      “Having second thoughts already?” Luc asked, and she realized she was frowning.

      “No, of course not. Just wondering what happens next.”

      “Drew suggested we have the ceremony and reception at the club and we have to do it soon.”

      “How soon?”

      “How’s this Saturday afternoon looking for you?”

      This Saturday? That was only five days away. She knew absolutely zero about planning a wedding, but less than a week sounded ridiculously fast. “Is it even possible to put a wedding together that quickly? And what about immigration? Don’t we have to have an interview or something?”

      “My attorney is taking care of all of that. And as for the wedding, we’ll keep it simple. Close friends only. Very informal.”

      “I don’t even know where to start.”

      “All you need to do is find a dress. And a maid of honor. I’ll take care of the rest.”

      Of all her friends in Royal, Lark Taylor was the closest. They’d met during the first few weeks of the cleanup efforts and became fast friends. She was a nurse in the intensive care unit at the hospital. They often took coffee breaks together, and sometimes went out for drinks after work. She was planning her own wedding to Keaton Holt, a longtime Cattleman’s Club member, so perhaps she could give Julie a few pointers.

      “We’ll have to kiss,” she heard Luc say, and it took her brain a second to catch up with her ears.

      “Kiss?”

      “During the ceremony,” he said.

      “Oh...right.” She hadn’t considered that. She thought about kissing Luc and a peculiar little shiver cascaded down the length of her spine. Back when she first met him, she used to think about the two of them doing a lot more than just kissing, but he had been too hung up on Amelia and their recently broken engagement to even think about another woman. So hung up that he left his life in Royal behind and traveled halfway around the world with Doctors Without Borders.

      A recent dumpee herself, she’d been just as confused and vulnerable at the time, and she knew there was nothing worse for the ego than a rebound relationship. They were, and always would be, better off as friends. In her experience, it was usually one or the other. Mixing sex and friendship would only end in disaster.

      “Is that a problem?” Luc asked.

      She blinked. “Problem?”

      “Us kissing. You got an odd look on your face.”

      Had she? “It’s no problem at all,” she assured him, but if that was true, why did her stomach bottom out when she imagined his lips on hers. It had been a long time since she’d been kissed by anyone. Maybe too long.

      “We’ll have to start acting like a married couple,” he said.

      “In what way?”

      “You’ll have to move in with me.”

      She hadn’t really considered that, but of course a married couple would live together. Having separate residences would raise a very bright red flag. Since Julie left home, when she wasn’t volunteering abroad, she’d lived alone. She liked the freedom of answering to no one but herself, of doing what she wanted to do, when she wanted to do it. That would be hard to give up.

      As if Luc read her mind, he added, “Nothing in our relationship is going to change. We only have to make it look as if it has.”

      But by pretending that it changed, by making it look that way to everyone else, wasn’t that in itself a change?

      Ugh. She never realized how complicated this could be. She could already feel the walls closing in on her.

      “Look,” he said, and this time he was the one frowning. “If any of this makes you uncomfortable, we don’t have to do it. I want you to stay in the US, and I’ll do whatever I can to help make that happen, but if it’s going to cause a rift in our friendship, maybe it’s not worth it.”

      “I’m just used to living on my own. The idea of changing that is a little intimidating. But it is worth it. And I don’t want you to think that I’m not grateful. I am.”

      “I know you are.” He smiled and laid a hand on her forearm, and the feel of his skin against hers gave her that little shiver again. What the heck was going on? She never used to shiver like that when he touched her. She was sure it was due only to the stress of her situation.

      What else could it possibly be?

      * * *

      “It’s bad, isn’t it?” Julie looked up at Lark, her maid of honor, in the dressing room mirror at the Cattleman’s Club. Julie was on her third attempt of giving herself “smoky eyes.” But she looked more like a cheap street walker than a bride.

      “When it comes to eyeliner and shadow, especially for someone as naturally pretty as you, I think less is more,” Lark said, which was her kind way of telling Julie to give it up.

      “Oh my God, what a mess,” Julie said, swiping at her eyes with a damp cloth. It had looked pretty simple in the instructional video she’d found online, but her technique lacked a certain...finesse. Which is why she never wore the stuff.

      Her father had lived by very traditional values and as teens, Julie and her sister had been forbidden to use makeup of any kind. Or wear pants. Dresses and skirts were the only acceptable attire for a female in her father’s home, and Julie had played the role of obedient daughter very well. It was easier not to make waves. She concentrated on her studies and getting into a good college. She never did develop the desire to wear makeup, but after eighteen years of wearing only skirts and dresses, she swore she would never wear anything but pants. Yet here she was now in a newly purchased, off-white, silk shift dress, which