The Tycoon’s Convenient Bride (European Tycoon Book 3) Read online

“You noticed?”

  “It’s the first thing one tends to look for when you get to be our age.” Not to mention, marriage had been on Tony’s mind for quite a while, despite his best efforts to run to Fiji and escape it.

  “When one gets to be your age, maybe.” Those eyes were positively capering now.

  “If you’re so concerned about your elders, you might invite me to sit down.”

  Diana snorted. She gestured, and Tony pulled the opposite chair out to join her.

  “I can’t be that much older than you,” he continued. “What are you? Twenty-two? Twenty-three?”

  “I’m twenty-five,” she said with haughty dignity.

  “Excellent. We have comparable life experience—something I already suspected. I’m thirty-two years young, by the way. Not that you asked, and not that I look it.” His age was yet another item he couldn’t forget. Despite giving it out freely, Tony knew better than anyone what the big 3-3 would mean for him. Marriage. An heir to inherit the company by the time I’m thirty-five. It was part of the deal he had struck with the family years ago. Let me carouse around the globe and live as irresponsibly as I want, and I’ll commit to leaving it all behind me when the time comes. Or something to that effect. Hell, they were the ones who had it in writing—he shouldn’t be relied upon to remember.

  And he tried not to think about it most days, hence his willingness to lose himself in a pair of sea-green eyes now.

  “If you are who Google says you are, I highly doubt we’ve had comparable life experiences.” Diana looked down and stabbed at her salad with her fork, refusing to look at him. She was certainly doing her best to telegraph how much of a date they didn’t find themselves on.

  “We’re in Fiji, aren’t we?” Unfazed, Tony leaned back and signaled a passing waiter. “Or maybe you weren’t aware—you order as if you’re at an Olive Garden. Waiter, two of the Kokoda, please.”

  “Oh, please, you don’t have to—“

  “If we share this meal, that’s one more comparable life experience we’ll have together, right?”

  “I suppose so.” She looked up, met his eyes, and smiled.

  Tony mirrored her smile and offered nothing else. He could wait all night, if he had to. He watched Diana squirm and then set her fork aside. She was clearly willing to wait for the more appetizing meal he had just ordered.

  She was the first to break the silence. “So, Vanua Levu tomorrow for you?”

  He was surprised she had remembered; he had mentioned his plans to her earlier in the day, back when she still thought he was a day-drinking marketing stooge. “Yes. Then some parasailing in the afternoon.”

  Diana sighed, a wistful look in her eye. “That sounds amazing. I hadn’t even thought to plan anything like that on my days off. I’ve been so occupied with my work at the relief program...”

  “When are your days off?”

  “Tomorrow.” She hadn’t hesitated to tell him, but then her eyebrows knitted in apparent worry. He chose to hold off on extending the invitation to join him as she continued, “And if you’ve got all that planned for yourself, you must be calling it an early night.”

  “I am.” Although he could too easily envision how his night might get much, much longer when he looked across the table at her. “But I thought I would enjoy a drink while the sun sets. Maybe run into an old friend.”

  “I thought we had established you were the old type.”

  Tony chuckled and pretended not to notice the way her eyes lingered on his chest as he shifted and his cotton shirt fell open to expose the glistening abs all his afternoon parasailing had only served to enhance. He knew he looked good, and he was pretty certain she might agree. “Can I establish that we are friends, at least?”

  “Of course. Countrymen, even,” she joked. She crossed her legs beneath the table, which translated as an even bigger tease than her words. It was hardly Diana’s fault he found her every move and gesture mesmerizing.

  “Where did you grow up, love?” Always a good distraction.

  “York.”

  “Thought so,” he replied. “I could tell by your accent. I wasn’t born there, but I live there now.”

  “Do you really? Whereabouts?” She craned forward, eager in her interest.

  Tony opened his mouth to answer, and the waiter chose that moment to arrive with their dinner... and a chilled bottle of wine he had called down for earlier. Good man, Tony thought, and nodded his approval that the man had brought two glasses instead of the one he usually required.

  Tony thought a long moment about her earlier comment on “comparable experiences” and elected not to tell her his home was a castle. “Near Bayberry Cove,” was his diplomatic reply.

  Diana nodded. “I used to hike up that hill every day as a little girl and look out at the ocean. Taught myself to swim there, too, though it was hellish cold. Hard to remember it now with the South Pacific at my doorstep.”

  “I’m right in your neighborhood, then.” Starlight Castle was located on that very hill. He could easily imagine the intrepid woman sitting across from him as the tomboy she must have once been, climbing to the doorstep of the castle that presided like a lonely monarch over York. It had sat empty for years, and it probably sat empty now.

  It was on the tip of his tongue to press her about any visits to the castle, but he declined at the last moment, choosing instead to lift his glass. “To Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth?” he suggested.

  Diana raised her own toast. “God save her.”

  “God save her.”

  They drank, although Tony found he had a difficult time of it; he couldn’t seem to stop smiling. Hell, he couldn’t stop staring at the beauty sitting across from him. He was positive she had noticed his lack of discretion.

  Maybe it was time to embrace that lack.

  “So what have you planned for yourself this week?” Diana asked him.

  Tony turned her question over in his head. She seemed genuinely interested; unless he was mistaken, he thought he could perceive a gleam of envy in those gorgeous green eyes of hers. “Oh, you know. A little exploration. A spot of adventure.”

  Her answer was another sigh.

  He smiled mysteriously. “Would you like to spend the week with me?”

  Diana’s heart did a somersault in her chest.

  “I beg your pardon?” Though of course she was pretty sure she had heard him correctly.

  She watched Tony set his wineglass down and started in on his Kokoda. The dish itself was served in the bowl of a coconut: glistening cubes of fresh Mahi-mahi swam among diced vegetables bright as jewels. It was definitely a step up from the dinner she had resigned herself to earlier, but her stomach was too full of butterflies to make room for it at the moment.

  “I’m only here for one more week,” Tony said. “And this may be my last excursion out into the wider world for a long, long time. My soul was sold to my family’s company years ago. Contracted away the day I was born, really, back before I even had a signature of my own.” If she thought there was reluctance in his voice, or any trace of resignation in his expression, it was there and gone again as fleeting as a shadow cast by the flickering torches around them. “I’d like to make the most of this trip,” he concluded. “And the more time I spend with you, the more I’ve come to realize I can’t fully enjoy my vacation without you.”

  “I can’t spend the week with you,” she spluttered. “I have my volunteer work, I—“

  “Do you volunteer your nights as well?”

  Diana flushed and looked down at her lap. She was not a woman who was easily flustered, especially not by a man. Especially not by this man, whose every easy mannerism told her he was no stranger to seducing women.

  She hated that she had to remind herself of that fact. She swallowed, hard, and said, “No. I don’t volunteer my nights.”

  “Then why not spend them with me?” Tony suggested. He punctuated the question with one of those dazzling, innocent smiles of his. Suspiciously innocent.
“Not just your nights. Your days off. We’ll visit rainforests, waterfalls. We’ll go snorkeling in the reefs. All on me.”

  “I can pay for my own—“

  “You’re a volunteer,” Tony reminded her. “I have money to spare.” That’s the understatement of the year, she thought with an internal snort. He’s a billionaire. Or so Google had informed her when she’d checked to see if he had any sort of criminal record. “Of course I’ll be paying for it all. And don’t think of it as transactional in the slightest. I want to spoil you, Diana. I’ve wanted to ever since I first laid eyes on you.”

  Even though his words reduced her insides to mush, Diana fixed him with a look of scrutiny. “Is that all you wanted?”

  “Is that all you wanted?” He easily turned her question back on her. “A hello and goodbye? Two British ships passing in the night?”

  Of course it wasn’t. She had imagined scaling that gorgeously muscled frame of his from the first moment she’d clapped eyes on him; her fantasies of finding herself between his sheets had been so vivid, they startled her. She was not a woman who prioritized sex, but she had never met a man whose mere presence could overwhelm her the way his did. What would getting to know him better be like...?

  “It doesn’t matter what I want,” she found herself countering lamely. She was fast running out of excuses, or reasons to even reach for an excuse.

  “Of course it does.” Tony leaned across the table and topped off her wine. “It matters to you, and it matters to me. And those are the only two people I’m concerned with right now.”

  “That’s shortsighted,” she argued.

  “Tell you what,” he said easily. “You focus on saving the world, and I’ll direct my energy toward ensuring we both have an amazing time in your off-hours.” He grinned impishly. “And I may as well mention now that I have an inexhaustible amount of energy. Do we understand each other?”

  Diana’s face caught fire, and she shook her head vigorously. “No. It’s important to me that you understand that if we enter into this... arrangement, that you know exactly where I’m coming from.”

  “I’d like to know where you’re coming from,” Tony agreed in a husky whisper. “Believe me when I say I’d like to know it more than anything.”

  Perhaps she had already forgotten how to eat, but now she forgot how to breathe. All natural functions seemed to cease as she caught and held his sensual gaze. All natural functions save one. “It would just be a fling,” she said.

  “Just a fling,” he agreed.

  “One week.”

  He winked. “We’ll make it a hell of a week.”

  “I very much value my freedom, Tony.” She hated this. She wanted to celebrate with him, but caution told her she had to get this out. Tony was the kind of man she could fall in love with—if she was susceptible to that sort of thing. “Most men in my past haven’t understood that. I don’t do relationships, and I don’t do love. My mother tried and failed on that account.”

  She didn’t know why she’d confided that last bit. She barely knew this man, and it was none of his business... but then again, shouldn’t they enjoy some intimacy that was more than just physical while they were together?

  Hang on—when had she officially given her agreement to this arrangement in the first place?

  Tony studied her from across the table, and she was sure all her misgivings were playing out across her face. As if reaching some conclusion, he nodded and said, “Come here.”

  Diana rose and went to him. He spread his hands, inviting her to take a seat on his lap... and she alighted. Being in his embrace felt good. She snaked an arm around the hard line of his broad shoulders as his hands settled on the curve of her waist.

  This was natural. Too natural. Yet it was all new enough to redouble the drumbeat of her heart.

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” Tony whispered. “I want you to know that I’m hearing everything you’re saying, Diana, and I’m listening. I want the same things.”

  “Do you?” She was still uncertain. Men always said that, but...

  “I want to be near you.” The hand on her waist tightened possessively. “I want to be with you. But I’m willing to take what the universe gives me.” He stroked a strand of hair back behind her ear with a tenderness that surprised her. “It sounds like neither of us is in a position to want anything beyond this week,” he concluded.

  “Right.” She caught his hand before it could move from her face, holding his gaze. “A fling, then.”

  “A fling,” he promised.

  She smiled, then. “I’m going to need a key to your room.”

  Tony ducked his head, and his lips moved against hers before he sealed their contract with a kiss:

  “My place it is.”

  3

  The party was set to take place at Gavin Burrows’ castle, about a twenty-minute drive from his own. Tony was running late.

  “Not a good look, Mr. Harrington,” Tony informed himself as he adjusted his tie in his bedroom’s full-length mirror. “To be late to your own engagement party...”

  A mostly drained glass of Scotch was imprinting a careless and lasting ring on the bureau beside him, but he did nothing to intervene. The universe wasn’t about to intervene on his behalf, so why should he do anything but go with the flow? His mother—and his soon-to-be wife, Cecily—were sure to be more than annoyed, but this was what they had to work with.

  It had been two months since Fiji, but he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her. Diana Tinsley. Her fiery auburn hair, her ecstatic green eyes. That fantasy week had become the week he returned to again and again in his fantasies. Any man would call him a fool for letting her go, but there had been no other choice—they both had lives and careers, and they both had agreed to the arrangement at the outset... though what they’d shared had far surpassed Tony’s own definition of a fling. There had been real potential for something more there, and they would have both been idiots to think otherwise.

  But thinking, and dreaming, got men—like Tony’s father—in trouble. Best not to dwell on a future that was impossible. And though he dwelled on Diana more often than he might have expected, he consoled himself that his longing for her was only nostalgia.

  And nostalgia could be kept a secret.

  He finished straightening his suit front, then turned to sweep his cell and keys off the table. “Shite.” He realized he was missing the one thing his evening required: the engagement ring. He hadn’t had a chance to propose to Cecily in person, so they had both agreed (via email) that tonight would be an appropriate time to present her with the actual ring.

  If he could find an actual ring to present her with.

  “Shite, shite, shite.” It became his mantra as he dropped to his knees to scour beneath the bed. He hadn’t the faintest idea where he had put it, and he was already running late. Sighing, Tony rose back up to his knees, then shook his head in defeat. What does it matter, anyway? a treacherous voice in the back of his head wondered. He had gotten used to ignoring it these past months, but today it was louder than usual. Cecily might be annoyed, but do either of you really care personally, outside of putting on a show for those around you?

  “Sir?” His driver, Callum, a man he hardly ever called for, stood in the doorway. If Callum was concerned or, alternatively, amused at finding his employer on the floor, his carefully blank expression didn’t falter one iota. “There’s a young lady in the driveway asking about you.”

  “Excellent. Just what I need,” Tony muttered as he rose. It had to be Cecily, come all this way to see what the holdup was. He hadn’t expected his future wife to be so active when it came to confrontation; perhaps there might be a spot of hope then, after all, for things to be kept interesting...

  Tony descended the stairs after Callum. “You didn’t invite her in?” He couldn’t hide his obvious amusement. “Did she look like a housebreaker, Callum?”

  “I’m not sure who the young lady is,” his driver explained, turning
to address Tony seriously, leaving the front door firmly closed. He dropped his voice further as if concerned it might carry through the heavy wood. “I’ve never seen her before.”

  Tony snorted. “Right. The two of you are going to be off to a winning start. Cecily, I’m coming, darling.” He pulled the front door open himself, and—

  Froze. Because it wasn’t Cecily on his castle doorstep.

  It was Diana.

  “Nurse Tinsley!” Tony exclaimed. It had become his fond nickname for her, and he reverted to it now to keep the situation light... because on the inside, his head was spinning. He didn’t even want to look too closely at his heart’s response to seeing her.

  “Tony?” Diana turned from her admiration of the landscape and met his eyes. “I... wow, I didn’t expect to find you at home. Your valet seemed uncertain.”

  “Callum was just looking out for me.” And probably knew he was late to his own engagement party, to boot. “It’s... good to see you.”

  An awkward moment passed between them; then, Tony opened his arms to invite her in for a hug.

  Diana stepped up to his level, seeming about to accept the invitation without thinking, but at the last second, she hesitated and pulled away. She shook her head. “Can we talk?” Her voice was pleading, a helpless tone he had never heard from her before.

  Something in him rose to the occasion, something base and leonine, a ferocious protective instinct that promised, without complete understanding of the situation, to bring grave harm to whatever might threaten her.

  “Sir?” Callum queried behind him. Then, evidently taking in his employer’s expression, he offered tonelessly: “Shall I make your excuses?”

  “Make any excuse you like,” Tony replied. He descended the steps, and as Diana moved to follow him, he offered her his hand. She hesitated again, but this time, she wound up accepting. He led her across the grounds and around the corner of the castle’s front façade until they reached a private alcove complete with bench, dusted off some of the leaf debris, and invited her to sit. “Tell me what’s troubling you,” he said.