Contract Bride Read online

  That was a question better left unanswered. And now he was thinking about Tilda all over again.

  His phone dinged and greedily he snatched it up, hoping for a text from Tilda that her flight had been canceled or the airport had been destroyed in a tornado. Australia had fallen off the map. Anything that meant she wouldn’t be getting on a plane and going to the other side of the globe.

  Jonas: Roz and Viv are doing a girl’s thing tonight. They want to pick up Tilda. Okay?

  He groaned. Excellent timing. Now what was he supposed to do, tell them everything?

  Warren: Tilda is.

  What? Sick? Busy. Tilda is busy. But, instead, the word gone appeared on the screen and he hit Send in the millisecond before he realized his Freudian mistake. He groaned. No point in recalling it now.

  Jones: We’ll be there in fifteen minutes.

  They made it in ten. When Warren swung the door open after waving off the housekeeper, Jonas and Hendrix both stood on his doorstep.

  Jonas held up a six-pack of longnecks. “Figured we’d come fortified. The girls went somewhere that I have absolutely no desire to hear about later, so you’re stuck with us until maybe Monday.”

  Rolling his eyes, Hendrix barged into the house without being asked. “Such a liar. They went to a spa that shows romantic movies while they’re doing nails and some such. Viv will talk about Hugh Grant when she gets home and you’ll listen to every word.”

  “That’s frighteningly true,” Jonas agreed with a nod and followed Hendrix, pulling out a beer to hand to Warren, who was still standing at the door with his hand on the knob.

  “Please. Come in,” Warren told both interlopers sarcastically. “I insist.”

  “The Tilda story is a doozy,” Hendrix said to Jonas in a loud whisper that deaf people in Timbuktu heard. “I told you to get two six-packs.”

  “I have my own alcohol.” Warren shut the door because the smart-ass duo was already in the house. “Is there any chance you’re going to shut up and let me sulk in peace?”

  “None,” Jonas and Hendrix chorused. “We can do this in the foyer or you can let us spread out in the game room. The Devils are playing.”

  Basketball sounded like as good a distraction as anything. Warren took the lone leather chair that reclined, leaving Yin and Yang to lounge on his couch as they jabbered about their fantasy basketball brackets.

  Beer flowed, and in the middle of his second one, Warren started to relax. The name Tilda hadn’t come up yet and he appreciated his friends’ glaring omission of it more than he could possibly say.

  They’d come right over, no questions asked, to keep him company without fully understanding why he’d needed it. Which was a trick and a half considering that he hadn’t even known he needed them.

  They were his friends through thick and thin. Even when the thickness was his own skull.

  “Tilda’s green card was denied,” Warren muttered.

  Jonas and Hendrix both glanced away from the second-half tip-off in progress on the screen, their attention firmly on him instead of the game.

  “That’s rough, man,” Hendrix said sympathetically. “Did they say why?”

  Warren nodded and threw out the legalese from the letter. “She left this morning. She’ll work remotely until the project is done, and in the meantime, I don’t know. Maybe I can fly down there occasionally to attend some in-person meetings. Not really sure there’s a point in that, though.”

  His friends glanced at each other, their expressions laden with meaningful eyebrow gymnastics.

  Jonas held up his beer in a pseudo toast. “You’re a rock. A total inspiration. You escaped that marriage without falling in love and I have to say, I’m impressed. I’m fifty bucks poorer, but eh. Easy come, easy go.”

  “You bet on me?” Warren tried to get up enough energy to be mad, but pretending he wasn’t thinking about Tilda was exhausting.

  “Of course,” Hendrix threw in. “We had a pool. Roz won. She said you’d never unbend long enough to see that Tilda is as perfect for you as if we’d ordered her from a catalog. Me, I was, like, no way it could fall apart. If she’s perfect for you, she’d figure out how to pull that CEO stick out of your butt long enough for you to get there.”

  The circular logic made his head hurt. Especially given that he’d always thought the same thing. Tilda was a female version of himself, save one aspect—she deserved happiness. He didn’t. “Get there? Where is ‘there’?”

  “If we have to tell you, you’re hopeless.” Hendrix sipped his beer and high-fived Jonas as the Devils scored a three-pointer.

  They let Warren stew in his own juices for an agonizing five minutes until he muttered, “I don’t have a CEO stick in my butt.”

  “Figure of speech,” Jonas answered pleasantly, without looking at him. “And we were wrong to bet on Tilda, obviously. Sorry about the lack of faith in your ability to stick to the pact.”

  Was it going to feel like a hot iron poker had stabbed him in the gut every time someone mentioned her name? How was he going to manage working with her for the long term? “We can stop talking about this any time now.”

  “You brought it up,” Hendrix reminded him. Also without looking at him, because the game was apparently tight enough to keep their attention riveted on the screen.

  Geez. His friends were something else. They were supposed to notice that he was quietly coming apart and, like, care or something. “Because I figured you wanted to know, or you wouldn’t be here. Your sympathetic ear leaves a lot to be desired.”

  As if he’d flipped a switch, Jonas swiveled on the couch, completely turning away from the TV, and Hendrix went so far as to turn it off. They both gazed at him expectantly.

  That was way too much attention. His chest started to hurt.

  “We were waiting for you to admit there was sympathy needed,” Jonas allowed, his dark eyes warm with compassion. “You do too have a stick. You’re way too proud of yourself for sticking to that ridiculous pact. I’m guessing that’s why Tilda is on a plane and you’re not on it with her.”

  “The pact is not ridiculous,” Warren countered and couldn’t even celebrate the fact that his temper had started simmering. It just meant that he wasn’t numb, after all, and frankly, he’d prefer to continue not feeling. “Just because the two of you broke it and figured out how to justify your faithlessness to yourselves doesn’t make—”

  “Hey,” Jonas cut in quietly. “I get that you’re upset Tilda’s gone. But we were not faithless to the pact. Maybe the letter of it, but not the spirit. You’re missing the point. We’re still here, still friends after a terrible tragedy.”

  “I’m not upset.” They didn’t even have the grace to accept that lie.

  “We haven’t forgotten Marcus,” Hendrix added, setting his beer down on the coffee table and leaning back into the couch cushions with a contemplative expression. “I like to think that what I have with Roz is a fitting tribute to his memory. I never would have married her if I’d thought there was a chance I’d fall in love, and yet, it grew between us, anyway. Without the pact, I would still be alone and I’d have missed out on the best thing that ever happened to me.”

  “The key is that you have to understand when to admit defeat.” Jonas jerked his head toward the door. “After the woman you’ve fallen in love with gets on a plane to go to the other side of the world is too late.”

  “I’m not in—”

  Too late. It was too late. He couldn’t even finish that sentence because the falsehood wouldn’t form. Warren’s head started to spin in time with his heart.

  The pact was irrevocably broken.

  He had fallen in love with Tilda. That’s why all of this hurt so much.

  “It’s okay,” Jonas said with every bit of the sympathy Warren had railed at him for not providing. “Give it a minute. You put up a good fight.” />
  “The problem isn’t that I can’t admit I broke the pact.” Wearily, Warren let his head fall back against the chair. Not a problem. But not easy, either. “It’s that I kept the pact for a reason.”

  “We all did.” This from Hendrix. “I didn’t want to lose our friendship. It’s important to me. So I used it as an excuse to avoid what I was feeling. Jonas had his reasons, too. You’re sticking to it because you can’t imagine loving something more than work, I imagine.”

  At that, Warren’s head came off the back of the chair and he glared at Hendrix. “Really? You think that’s the reason? Because Flying Squirrel is more important to me than Tilda?”

  Hendrix shrugged. “Seems like as good an explanation as any.”

  “Except it’s not true. I kept the pact because it’s my fault Marcus died.” Something broke inside as he verbalized the thought that he’d kept quiet for a decade. He’d never uttered those words out loud.

  Sitting up straight, Jonas rubbed at his temples. “Warren, Marcus committed suicide. Unless you put him up to it, it’s not your fault.”

  “I...” Yes. It was his fault. What could he say to explain this decade-old crime? “I don’t mean I killed him. I mean, I thought he was going to snap out of it. I believed that firmly. So I started talking to him. Looking up bits in psychology books I found in the Duke library. At one point, I read that you should pay attention to the depressed person’s cues and counter the messages they’re giving themselves.”

  You were supposed to do it nonverbally. Like the way Tilda startled easily. No big mystery how to handle that—you moved slowly and always showed your hands so she got the message that you weren’t a threat. It had worked more often than it hadn’t. It was only when he’d let his temper get the best of him that he screwed up.

  Like he had with Marcus.

  So, frustrated with the lack of progress, he’d blurted out “Get over it,” totally convinced that Marcus could have moved on from his broken heart if he’d just tried. Instead, his roommate had swallowed a bunch of pills while Warren had been at a party. Stumbling over his roommate’s lifeless body just inside the door of their condo had sobered him up quickly.

  Jonas heaved off the couch and sat on the arm of Warren’s chair, breaching the invisible shield that had always been in place, even between friends. It should have been weird. Warren had always maintained that distance. When they went to a bar with bench seats at the table, Jonas and Hendrix shared and Warren sat by himself. As he should. Marcus had been his roommate and the empty seat next to him served as a constant reminder.

  But it was nice, to have his remaining friends here at a time when difficult memories were his constant companions.

  “Will it surprise you to learn that I talked to him, too?” Jonas asked. “I called his mom twice. There were a lot of people concerned about him, and all of us did what we thought was best. But in the end, the blame has to lie with Marcus. He made that decision, not you.”

  Intellectually, Warren knew that. But his gut was where things didn’t feel right. “How can I go on and be happy when Marcus doesn’t get that opportunity? It’s not fair.”

  Hendrix sat forward on the edge of the couch. “What, like you have to punish yourself for the rest of your life for someone else’s choices? Trust me when I say you’ll end up miserable if you do that. You deserve to have whatever relationships you’re willing to work for in life. It’s that simple. This is about you, not Marcus.”

  Warren shook his head. “I’m not good with people. I screwed up with Tilda. She left because I can’t be what she needs.”

  “I thought she left because of her immigration status,” Hendrix said blithely. “Do tell.”

  Walked into that one. “I fell for her, okay? Happy now? Is that what you wanted to hear?”

  Jonas made a noise in his throat. “Yeah, but only because you needed to hear it, too. You let her walk away because you’re scared to be happy, not because you’re not good with people. That’s an excuse that won’t fly here. You don’t have to be good with people. Just Tilda. Are you good with her?”

  So good.

  And he’d let her go.

  It was killing him slowly and would only get worse. “Doesn’t matter. She only cares about the project. That was the last thing she said to me. Send me the divorce papers and don’t worry about your market share.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure you jumped right on that and told her that market share meant nothing to you,” Hendrix said sarcastically. “What a complete and utter shock that any woman who’s spent more than five minutes in your company could possibly be confused about your feelings for her versus Flying Squirrel.”

  “You don’t have to be an ass about it,” Warren muttered.

  The point wasn’t lost on him. Tilda’s parting words had been a far more painful variation of Why don’t you marry your company? Every woman in his life had butted up against his workaholic tendencies. Tilda didn’t have any special shield against it just because she was as enthusiastic about work as he was.

  “Seems like that’s the only way to get through your thick skull,” Hendrix said. “And while we’re on the subject, here’s what you’re going to do. Get on a plane, go to Australia and tell Tilda you’re in love with her. If she says it back, then you can spend the rest of your life figuring out how to feel like you deserve it. If you don’t get on a plane, you’ll spend the rest of your life regretting that you didn’t. It’s really not that hard.”

  “I can’t do that.” Oh, he wanted to. His heart rate tripled as he envisioned doing exactly that. But he couldn’t. What if he forgot about her triggers and grabbed her again? He might destroy her the same way he had...Marcus.

  No. That wasn’t his fault. Greedily, he clung to that absolution from his friends.

  Except it wasn’t sticking. He’d messed up with Tilda, too. Clearly, he wasn’t good at this kind of thing.

  Groaning, he put his head into his hands. Either he believed the things his friends were telling him or he didn’t. Getting past this was as much his decision as it had been Marcus’s to take his own life, and all at once, Warren didn’t want to take on the responsibility for other peoples’ choices. Just his own.

  And he was choosing happiness.

  No, he hadn’t bothered to try with Tilda. He’d just sent her back to Australia to protect himself from further screwups. But what if they could work through her triggers? If she even wanted that. How would he know her mind unless he talked to her? It didn’t have to be hard. Like Hendrix had said.

  He’d made a mistake in letting her go. The biggest one of his life. And that was a turning point, as well, considering that, for the longest time, he’d have said failing Marcus was his biggest mistake. No longer. He could fix this mistake.

  “You guys need to leave,” he said to them both as he stood, nearly toppling Jonas from his perch on the armrest. “I have a very long flight ahead of me.”

  * * *

  Melbourne welcomed Tilda in much the same manner as it had seen her off—with little fanfare. Of course, she’d sneaked away to the US without telling anyone but her mum and had landed at Tullamarine upon her return as quietly as possible.

  No point in stirring the pot. She had enough on her plate, what with nursing a bruised heart and a job that she still had to do alongside a man she was trying to forget. Adding Bryan McDermott into the mix would not make things any better. But if he stayed true to form, he’d find out she was home soon enough.

  Oddly, she was too numb to remember what it felt like to be so fearful of him. As the taxi drove down her mum’s quiet street, the only thing she could focus on was how much she did not want to be in Melbourne, but for far different reasons than the ones she’d expected.

  She missed Warren. She’d fallen in love with his house, his smile, the way he held her hand as they slept because he’d somehow figured out she didn’t like w
aking up with his arm across her chest. But she liked being connected to him and he’d known that, as well. Somehow.

  Too bad his sixth sense hadn’t extended beyond that. He obviously had no clue she’d fallen for him, and how she’d hidden it, she had no idea. But she’d pulled that off brilliantly, hadn’t she? He didn’t have to contend with a mess of a wife much longer.

  Mum was waiting for her at the door, blubbering about how thin Tilda was, the pastiness of her complexion and a multitude of other sins that needed to be fixed right away, apparently.

  “I’m fine, Mum.” Tilda dropped her bag in the entryway of the small clapboard house at the end of a neat row of similar houses. “I’m tired. I need to sleep.”

  She had no idea what time it was or when she next had to be on the phone with Warren. Or how in the world she’d handle that when the time came. Melbourne wasn’t nearly far enough away to dull the ache that just thinking about him caused.

  Falling into the bed located in the small guest bedroom, Tilda let her eyes drift shut, craving the oblivion. When she came to, it was midafternoon and Mum was nowhere to be found. The note on the dining room table said she’d gone to the market and would be back soon.

  A knock came at the front door. For a half second, she hesitated—Warren’s staff opened the door, not the lady of the house. But she wasn’t the lady of any house anymore, and Warren was thousands of miles away. Blearily, Tilda crossed the small living room to answer it.

  “Forget your key, Mum?” Tilda asked with a small smile as she swung open the door.

  All the blood drained from her head. Bryan. Standing on her mother’s doorstep as if he had all the right in the world to be there. Struggling to breathe, she gulped air and tried to get her legs to move. Her arms. Something. Slam the door, her brain screamed. Shut it. Right now.

  “Nice to see you, Tilda,” he said in that menacing voice she heard in her nightmares.

  No! He couldn’t be here. Not so soon. How had he learned she was back so quickly? This was ten times worse than she’d ever imagined. He must have people at the airport. Or listening devices on her mother’s phone.