A Wife for One Year Read online

  The first thing she noticed, with no small amount of relief, were the two queen-size beds that Alex informed her were custom luxury mattresses triple-sheeted with five-hundred-thread-count linens. The tablet on the bedside table controlled the lighting, the forty-inch flat-screen LCD TV, the iHome music system, programmable coffeemaker and draperies.

  “Draperies?” Kenna echoed, not sure she’d heard him correctly.

  In response to which he picked up the tablet and tapped the screen a few times, which caused the thick brocade curtains to slide across the floor-to-ceiling windows.

  “Wow.”

  He smiled kindly. “Is this your first trip to Las Vegas, ma’am?”

  “Yes,” she admitted.

  “Then we hope it’s the first of many,” he said. “And if there’s anything at all we can do to make your stay more enjoyable, please don’t hesitate to let us know.”

  “Thank you,” she said.

  Alex opened the drapes again, and she moved closer to the window, taking in the view of the Strip. Even this early in the day, the streets were bustling with activity. She couldn’t wait to see it at night, lit up as it always was in the movies.

  “The directory on the tablet has all the information you will require about the hotel—our three restaurants, spa services, shops and, of course, the casino.”

  He opened another door to reveal an Italian marble bath with deep soaker tub, separate glass-enclosed shower, double sinks, exclusive designer toiletries and thick Egyptian cotton towels on heated bars.

  Daniel pressed a folded bill into his hand.

  “Thank you very much, sir,” Alex said, making his exit.

  Kenna turned in a slow circle in the middle of the room, still trying to take it all in. “How long are we staying?”

  Daniel chuckled at her obvious pleasure. “I only booked one night, but we can extend that, if you want.”

  “I want.” She dropped onto the closest bed and let herself sink back into the mountain of pillows. Then she sighed. “Unfortunately, I have to work on Monday—and so do you.”

  He shrugged. “I could finagle a few extra days...if it was for a honeymoon.”

  She shook her head regretfully. “I can’t.”

  He stretched out beside her, linked their fingers together. It was an easy, companionable gesture that nevertheless stirred something inside her. “You can’t take a few extra days...or you can’t marry me?”

  “I can’t take even one extra day.” She squeezed his hand. “But I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t planning to go through with the wedding.”

  She could almost see the tension leak out of his body. She knew his eagerness to tie the knot had nothing to do with love or happily-ever-after but was an indication of how much he wanted to accept Josh Slater’s business proposition. For a five-million-dollar investment, he could be his friend’s partner in the ownership of a professional stock car racing team under the banner of Garrett/Slater Racing.

  “Are you sure?” he asked, giving her one last out.

  She nodded. “Let’s do it.”

  His brows lifted. “Do it?”

  Belatedly she remembered that they were lying side by side on a queen-size bed, and she felt heat rise in her cheeks.

  “Get married,” she clarified, ignoring the awareness that hummed through her veins.

  “Now?”

  “Isn’t that why we’re here?”

  “Sure,” he agreed. “But we only got off the plane half an hour ago. I thought you might want to relax a little, maybe indulge in some of the hotel spa services.”

  “I don’t think I’m going to be able to relax until this is done,” she admitted.

  “The wedding or the year?”

  She managed a smile. “The wedding,” she said, though she suspected the truth was both. The wedding was just a ceremony—a legal formality. Being married, presenting herself to their friends and families as Daniel Garrett’s wife for the next twelve months, was going to be the true test.

  “Did you want to at least go shopping first?”

  “Shopping?” She looked at him blankly.

  “The bellman mentioned there were shops downstairs, and since we’re getting married, I thought you might want to wear something a little more weddinglike.”

  She glanced down at her white capris and sleeveless blue top with the ruffled placket, but shook her head.

  His brows lifted. “No dreams of walking down the aisle in a white dress?”

  She didn’t let herself regret that she wasn’t going to have the wedding she’d dreamed about since she was a little girl, because this wasn’t a real wedding. “I don’t want to pretend this marriage is something it’s not.”

  “That’s exactly what we’re going to have to do,” he reminded her gently.

  “For everyone else,” she acknowledged. “But not between us.”

  He shrugged. “Okay, then. Let’s find a chapel.”

  He released her hand to pick up the tablet and found a link to a list of wedding venues—the number of which was astounding. And then there were countless ceremony options: traditional or themed, including disco, rock ’n’ roll, country and western, pirates, vampires and even zombies.

  “Kenna?” he prompted.

  “I’d have to say it’s a definite no with respect to pirates, vampires and zombies.”

  “How about walking down the aisle with Elvis?”

  She shook her head. “Is there anything a little more...normal?”

  He scrolled through a few more pages. “How about ‘Traditional Elegance’?” He read from the description: “‘This package offers a ceremony in our traditional chapel, with wedding music, bride’s six-rose bouquet, groom’s matching boutonniere, ten ceremony photos on CD, complimentary limousine service for the bride and groom to the marriage license bureau, and a witness, if required.’”

  “That sounds good.”

  “Except that we were supposed to call at least forty-eight hours in advance to inquire about availability.”

  “Call,” she suggested. “Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

  He sent her a slow, heated look that had no doubt caused numerous women to tumble into his bed. Thankfully, a decade of watching him in action had immunized her to his charm and techniques. Mostly, anyway.

  She smacked him in the arm. “Stop turning everything I say into a sexual innuendo.”

  “Stop saying things that sound like sex,” he countered.

  “You’re a guy—everything sounds like sex to you.”

  “Probably true,” he acknowledged unapologetically.

  She looked at him now, her expression serious. “I know you want to get married, but are you sure you want to marry me?”

  “I don’t really want to get married,” he reminded her. “But since that’s what I have to do, I couldn’t imagine marrying anyone else.”

  “A year is a long time to go without sex,” she pointed out. “Especially for a man with a hedonistic reputation.”

  “My reputation is somewhat exaggerated.”

  “Somewhat?”

  “Maybe the real issue isn’t my reputation but that you don’t think you can hold out that long. Because if you’re suggesting an amendment to the terms of—”

  “No,” she said quickly, deliberately ignoring the leap of her pulse in response to his provocative statement.

  He just grinned.

  “I’m suggesting an amendment to the time frame,” she clarified. “Six months should be long enough to convince people we tried to make our marriage work but realized we were better off as friends.”

  “Maybe most people,” he acknowledged.

  She knew he was excluding his parents from that list, and she knew he was right. After refusing his request for access t
o his trust fund only a couple of months earlier, David and Jane Garrett would definitely have suspicions about their son’s sudden nuptials. And while she appreciated that Daniel didn’t like deceiving his parents, she didn’t understand how dragging the deception out over twelve months rather than six made it more palatable to him.

  “Call about the chapel,” she decided. “Let’s make sure today is day one of my three hundred and sixty-five as Mrs. Daniel Garrett.”

  * * *

  Daniel made the call.

  Fifteen minutes later they were picked up by a limo that took them to the marriage license bureau, then returned them to the hotel for the ceremony.

  When Kenna stepped inside the chapel, her breath actually caught in her throat.

  Her groom halted beside her. “Is something wrong?”

  “It’s...beautiful.”

  “Why do you sound so surprised?”

  “I guess I just thought... I mean, this is an impromptu wedding in Vegas. I expected Elvis in a polyester suit and—”

  “You nixed the Elvis idea,” he reminded her. “You wanted something more traditional.”

  She nodded, because it was true. But she hadn’t expected something that would look and feel so much like a real church, with classic cathedral ceilings and antique stained glass, floral arrangements on marble columns and flickering candles everywhere.

  The officiant started toward them. As he drew nearer, she noticed that he was wearing a clerical collar. Not an officiant, she realized, but a real minister, and his presence forced her to acknowledge the realness of the vows she was about to make.

  He welcomed them, introduced himself as Gerald Laughton and inspected their marriage license. He’d just started to give them a brief rundown of the ceremony when a trim woman with neatly coiffed white hair and wearing an elegant rose-colored suit bustled in.

  “Sorry, sorry, sorry,” she breathlessly apologized. “I should have been here to greet you, but I got tied up waiting for a delivery from the florist.”

  “We weren’t going to start without you,” the minister assured her. Then to Daniel and Kenna he said, “This is Vera Laughton, the chapel administrator, your witness and my wife of thirty-four years.”

  After the introductions were completed, Vera took Kenna’s arm and steered her away from the men, toward the back of the chapel.

  “We’ve got a schedule to keep,” she reminded them. “So let’s get this started.”

  Vera handed Kenna a bouquet of flowers and signaled to a younger man with a camera around his neck. He punched a few buttons on the front panel of an intricate sound system and music began to fill the room.

  Not Mendelssohn’s “Wedding March” but Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major, Kenna realized. She’d always thought it was a much more elegant and beautiful song, as she’d remarked to Daniel when they’d attended his cousin Braden’s wedding several years earlier. Of course, Daniel wouldn’t have remembered that. And even if he had, she would guess that the music had been chosen by the hotel’s wedding coordinator or Vera—or maybe even the last bride who had walked down the aisle in this chapel.

  But when Kenna drew in a deep breath and looked down at the hand-tied flowers in her hands, questions swirled in her mind. The website had indicated that the bride could choose between white or red roses, but she was holding a bouquet of soft pink gerberas—her favorite flowers.

  In that moment, she knew that Daniel had done this. For her. He’d taken care of the little details to give her, if not the wedding of her dreams, at least one that she would remember fondly. And when she glanced up at the front of the chapel, where he was waiting more anxiously than patiently, she felt her heart swell.

  When she’d first met him, back in high school, he’d been breathtakingly good-looking. At sixteen, he’d already been more than six feet tall and broad in the shoulders, but he’d added both muscle and maturity since then, and he was even more attractive now.

  He rarely asked anything of her, and she knew he’d never wanted anything as much as he wanted Garrett/Slater Racing to become a reality. When she’d agreed to marry him, she’d thought she was doing it for Becca, but she realized now that she would have done it for him anyway. Because he wasn’t just her best friend, he was a good man, and even if she wasn’t in love with him, she did love him.

  She started down the aisle toward him, and as her gaze met his, his lips curved. When she reached the front of the chapel, he took her hand and squeezed her icy fingers reassuringly. Or maybe he was holding on to her to make sure she didn’t bolt.

  She didn’t look at him when he recited his vows, and she kept her gaze focused on his chin as she spoke her own. Because she wouldn’t—couldn’t—look him in the eye and say words that they both knew were a lie. Instead of “so long as we both shall live,” the minister should have asked them to promise “until the monies of the trust fund have been released.” It wouldn’t have sounded nearly as romantic, but at least it would have been honest.

  Thankfully, the ceremony was concluded fairly quickly. Then came the words that made both of them freeze.

  “You may kiss your bride.”

  Her eyes lifted, and Kenna saw the knee-jerk panic she was feeling reflected in his. Obviously they’d both forgotten that after the exchange of promises and rings, there was supposed to be a ceremonial kiss.

  He lifted one shoulder in a half shrug, then dipped his head and touched his mouth to hers.

  The contact was so light and so quick, she might have doubted it had even happened except for the fact that her lips actually tingled.

  The slight furrow between his brows made her wonder if he’d experienced the same unexpected reaction to the fleeting kiss. Then he touched his mouth to hers again, lingering just a little bit longer this time, just long enough to start her heart racing.

  When he drew back, she slowly exhaled the breath she’d been holding and forced a smile as the photographer circled around them, snapping photos.

  “All part of the package,” he reminded them.

  Kenna’s lips remained curved, presenting the image of a blissful bride as she posed with her now-rich husband.

  But nerves danced and tangled in her belly, warning that she wasn’t quite as immune to her groom as she wanted to be.

  Chapter Two

  Daniel had made reservations for dinner after the ceremony at Prime—a signature Courtland Hotel restaurant that specialized in steak and seafood. The decor was simple but elegant: leather armchair seating around square tables set with pristine white cloths, gleaming silver and crystal stemware all subtly illuminated by candlestick lamps.

  Before they’d even opened their menus, the hostess returned to their table with a slim glass vase to keep Kenna’s bouquet fresh. She was followed by the sommelier bearing a half bottle of champagne “compliments of the management” for the happy couple.

  “To day one,” Daniel toasted.

  Kenna lifted her glass to tap against his. “Only three hundred and sixty-four more to go.”

  Maybe he should have been insulted that she was already so eager to end their marriage, except that he understood the circumstances of their union weren’t what either of them would have chosen. All things considered, however, he knew he was a lucky man to have married the woman who wasn’t just his best friend but one of the most beautiful women he’d ever known.

  He looked at her now—at the pale blond hair that fell in gentle waves to her shoulders with a fringe of bangs above deep blue eyes. At the delicate shape of her face, the flawless complexion, and lips that were temptingly shaped and softer than he could have imagined. If he’d let himself imagine, which he definitely and absolutely had not until the minister had told him to kiss her. She was at least eight inches shorter than his six feet four inches, with a slender but undeniably feminine physique. And although she look
ed slight, he knew that she was strong and stubborn, genuine and loyal.

  If he could choose to fall in love with anyone, he would choose Kenna. Instead, they’d chosen to follow the path of friendship, and falling in love now would force a detour from that path and ruin everything.

  When the waiter came to their table, Daniel ordered the peppercorn steak with shrimp skewers, truffle mashed potatoes and steamed asparagus. Kenna selected the pan-fried sole with crispy fingerling potatoes and roasted cauliflower.

  They chatted about inconsequential topics while they waited for their food, and while Kenna responded appropriately, she seemed more than a little distracted, and he couldn’t help wondering if she already regretted her decision.

  “If you’re disappointed that Elvis didn’t perform the ceremony, we can probably catch him on stage somewhere,” he told her.

  She smiled. “I’m not disappointed, and I thought the ceremony was lovely.”

  “Just not what you’d envisioned for your wedding day?” he guessed.

  “Truthfully, I’d given up thinking that I’d ever get married.”

  “Why?” he asked, as the waiter approached with their meals.

  “Too many frogs, not enough princes,” she said, after the server had gone again.

  “What about that guy you were dating from school? The gym teacher? You never did tell me why you broke up with him.”

  “While this marriage is a first for me, I’m pretty sure most husbands don’t bring up the topic of their wives’ ex-boyfriends on their wedding night.”