The Runaway Bride And The Billionaire. Kate Hardy

persuade her to let him install a satellite phone for emergencies, she had agreed to let him rig up a bell she could ring if she needed help.

      And he’d rescued Immi’s spider-hating twin from having to stick her head in a cupboard full of cobwebs.

      Matt Stark was one of the good guys, and it was fine for her to like him instantly.

      It was also fine for her to appreciate that he was good-looking—tall, with brown eyes and dark hair brushed back from his forehead, and a tiny little quirk at the corners of his mouth that told her he smiled often.

      What wasn’t fine was for her to tingle where he touched her. Particularly because she didn’t feel like that when her husband-to-be touched her.

      She needed to get a grip. Make an excuse that she needed to go and fiddle with the flowers on the table, or something. But for the life of her she couldn’t pull herself out of Matt’s arms. It felt as if she was under some weird kind of spell. All the social graces she used every single day in business had simply deserted her. She had no idea what to say to him.

      Worse still, she found herself looking at his mouth again. Wondering. Supposing it was just the two of them and the night and the music? Dancing under the stars, in the garden that overlooked the sea, with the air full of the scent of roses...

      And he was looking at her mouth as if he was thinking exactly the same thing. Wondering what it would be like if they kissed. Wondering how she tasted.

      She couldn’t breathe.

      This was all wrong. She shouldn’t even be thinking about kissing another man. She was getting married in eight weeks’ time. She was meant to be in love with her fiancé, not thinking about kissing Matt Stark in front of her entire family at her twin sister’s wedding.

      And yet she could feel her lips parting. Feel him drawing her that tiny bit closer, enough that she could feel the heat of his body against hers. Feel herself tipping her head back...

      * * *

      Insta-lust, that was what his sisters called this feeling, Matt remembered. Instant crazy attraction.

      It had nothing to do with the glamorous dress or the high heels, and everything to do with the woman in his arms. She felt soft and sweet and the perfect fit. And he was pretty sure she felt it, too: because her hazel eyes had turned almost golden, her pupils were huge and that perfect rosebud mouth was parted ever so slightly.

      All he had to do was dip his head...

      And he was just about to do it when he noticed something.

      Something that made him feel as if several buckets of ice-cold water had been dropped on him.

      How the hell had he missed that rock on her left hand? That huge hands-off-she’s-mine signal?

      It might be traditional for the best man to dance with the bridesmaid, but that was as far as this could go. Much as Matt wanted to kiss Imogen Marlowe, he couldn’t. He didn’t remember seeing her with anyone at the actual wedding, but that massive diamond practically screamed that she was engaged.

      He forced himself to ask, ‘Is your fiancé here this evening?’

      And then he saw all the colour drain out of her face and horror fill her eyes. As if she were completely shocked by what had almost just happened.

      ‘I—er, no. He couldn’t make it. Business,’ she said swiftly.

      Business was more important than the wedding of his fiancée’s twin sister?

      If Immi had been his sister and her fiancé hadn’t shown up to the wedding of any of the other sisters, Matt would’ve been asking some very serious questions. Starting with whether said fiancé was the right man for her, if he couldn’t put her first in his life.

      But this was none of his business.

      And he wasn’t going to get involved with someone who wasn’t free.

      ‘Pity,’ Matt said, keeping his voice as expressionless as possible. And as soon as the dance was over, he gave her his politest smile. ‘I guess I need to dance with the other bridesmaids now.’

      ‘Best man duties. Of course,’ she said, looking relieved.

      ‘See you later.’ And he’d make very sure that there was distance between them for the rest of the evening. No more up close and personal. Because Imogen Marlowe was completely off limits.

       CHAPTER ONE

      A month later

      ‘HONEY, I’M HO—’ Immi stopped mid-word in the entrance hall of her flat.

      There were shoes lying in the middle of the floor, clearly kicked off and abandoned without a thought—women’s shoes that weren’t hers.

      A little further on was a skirt. Also not hers.

      A top. Also not hers.

      A black lacy push-up bra, just outside the door to her bedroom.

      She dragged in a breath. There had to be good reason for a trail of another woman’s clothes leading to her bedroom. Stephen knew she wasn’t due back from her business trip until tomorrow. Maybe he’d lent the key to the flat to one of his friends.

      Because the logical explanation made her sick to her stomach.

      Her fiancé wouldn’t be cheating on her, in her own bed, a month before their wedding...would he?

      But there were noises coming from the bedroom. Familiar noises. And the hope that she was making a fuss over nothing died as she heard a woman screaming, ‘Oh, Stephen!’

      Oh, God...oh, God...oh, God...

      This was eight years ago, all over again. When she hadn’t been feeling well at a party and had gone to get her coat from the bedroom, only to discover her boyfriend having sex under the pile of coats with another girl.

      Except this time was so much worse. Because it wasn’t the teenage boy she’d given her virginity to, the boy who’d sneered from under the pile of coats that he’d only slept with her for a bet because nobody would have really wanted to sleep with Immi the Elephant.

      This was the man she was meant to be marrying.

      Cold seeped all the way through her. There had to be some mistake.

      ‘Oh, Stephen, yes!’

      No mistake, then.

      She dragged in a deep breath. She could back away, close the front door quietly, pretend she hadn’t seen anything and then go to a coffee shop. Then she could call Stephen to say that she’d managed to conclude her meeting early and would be home in an hour. It would give him enough time to get his girlfriend out of her flat and clean up all traces of the woman’s presence. Immi could simply forget what she’d seen and pretend that nothing had happened.

      But did she really want to spend the rest of her life living a lie? Marry a man who clearly didn’t love her, despite his protestations—because why else would he be seeing another woman behind her back?

      Immi the Elephant.

      She shook herself. She wasn’t an insecure, unhappy teenager any more. And she wasn’t going to do what she’d done back then and try to starve herself into what she’d thought was an acceptable shape. She’d worked hard to become who she was now: Imogen Marlowe, a strong, successful businesswoman.

      And she was going to deal with this exactly as a strong, successful businesswoman would.

      Lifting her chin, she marched over to the bedroom door. She banged on it twice—judging that it would give Stephen’s girlfriend just about enough time to cover herself with bedding, because Immi definitely didn’t need to be faced with the total naked truth—and opened the door.

      ‘What the—?’