Читать книгу The Tycoon Meets His Match - Barbara Benedict, Barbara Benedict - Страница 5

It was a dark and stormy night…

Technically, it was a dark and stormy night, but if Teresa Andrelini hoped ever to be a published writer, she couldn’t settle for such a cliché. Trae’s professors, even her classmates, would insist she could come up with a better description.

The word hokey popped into her mind.

The “let’s-make-a-vow” ceremony was Quinn’s idea. Trae wouldn’t put it past her drama-queen friend to have brokered a deal with the powers-that-be for the gale now howling outside their living-room window. Talk about atmosphere. Here they stood in this solemn circle, Trae and her three housemates, their faces shadowed behind flickering candles, trying not to flinch with each crash of thunder.

It was hard not to be impressed by everyone’s grim determination. Well, by Quinn and Alana’s determination, anyway. The way Lucie kept avoiding their gazes, Trae figured her poor roomie must be having trouble taking Quinn’s oath.

Heiress Lucinda Beckwith believed in fairy-tale endings. If Lucie were the budding author, she’d write a romance and probably make oodles of money. Trae, though, had found that the guys who seemed to be the real-life charmers had a tendency to turn out to be jerks—the proverbial snake in Prince’s clothing. Jo Kerrin’s husband was a perfect example.

At the thought of their missing friend, Trae felt an uncomfortable pang. Jo would have loved the melodramatic hoopla of Quinn’s ceremony, but she was now on her way to St. Louis to escape her so-called Prince Charming. Poor Jo had bought into the fairy-tale ending, and look what had happened to her.

“Earth to Trae.”

Quinn’s strained voice betrayed her impatience, but then they were all stretched tight after putting Jo on the bus that morning. Looking up to find Quinn frowning, Trae realized she’d been lost in her thoughts again, a habit that drove her roommate crazy.

“I said,” Quinn tried again, “do you so swear?”

“Yes,” Trae said in her loudest, clearest voice. “I won’t get married until I’ve achieved my goal to be successfully published.”

In actual truth, she’d already made the oath to herself years ago. Coming from an Italian father and five older brothers, she’d felt, early on, the need to establish her independence. Trae would not end up like her Cuban mama, an unpaid servant to the males in her life. If and when she hooked up with a man, she’d be the one in charge of her future. No male distraction was going to get in her way.

Satisfied with her answer, Quinn turned to Alana. “Do you, Alana Simms, swear not to wed until you’ve attained your goal of a successful career?”

Alana straightened her spine. “I swear,” she said clearly, despite the soft purr of her Southern drawl. “No man will stop me from establishing my own modeling agency.”

Trae didn’t doubt her. With her black hair and classic beauty, Alana need only walk into a room to stop all male conversation, but she rarely dated. With her understated grace and her slender, gorgeous body, she could snag any modeling job she wanted, yet she was forever turning down lucrative offers to make modeling a full-time career. She only modeled the little bit that she did to pay the bills and learn the industry. She had every intention of putting the knowledge to use. Pity the fool who thought he could seduce Alana away from earning her business degree. Her features might have the delicate perfection of a Dresden figurine, but underneath that beautiful exterior was a core of pure steel.

“Okay, Lucie,” Quinn announced, “that leaves you.”

Seeing her friend’s nervous expression, Trae offered an encouraging smile. Tiny, blond and seeming far younger than her twenty-two years, Lucie often relied on others to make up her mind. She’d become like the little sister Trae never had, and Trae often felt the need to protect her.

What Quinn didn’t know—and what Trae had sworn not to reveal—was that Lucie was all but hitched to her parents’ wealthy neighbor, Rhys Allen Paxton III, a man who, in Trae’s opinion, acted more like Lucie’s older brother than a lover. A strict, disapproving brother at that.

Talk about conflicted. Part of Trae felt a need to shield Lucie from Quinn’s bullying, but a larger part, the one that knew Lucie’s marrying Rhys Paxton would be a disastrous mistake, believed that if the oath should be mandatory for anyone, Lucie Beckwith was the gal.

“I swear,” Lucie started hesitantly, letting the words trail off as she looked away.

“Swear what, Lucie?” Driven by her own ambitions, Quinn had little patience or understanding for anyone else’s hesitation.

“I, uh, won’t get married.”

“Until?” Quinn prompted, tapping her foot. “What do you hope to accomplish?”

Good question. Lucie might have the funds and connections to achieve anything she wanted, yet here she was, nearing graduation, and she still had no idea what to do with the rest of her life.

Which made her doubly vulnerable to her Rhys Paxton arrangement.

“Well, I always wanted to be an actress,” Lucie offered haltingly. “Remember, I got that A in drama class? How about I don’t get married until I get my first movie role?”

Trae tried not to groan. Talk about reaching for the stars. As if Mitsy Beckwith would let her only child get anywhere near Hollywood. It was a miracle Lucie had even convinced her to let her go to college at Tulane—far away from their home in Connecticut.

Quinn didn’t bat a lash. Either she accepted the answer as vintage Lucie, or she was too preoccupied with her own agenda to actually listen. “That leaves me,” she said quickly. “And I won’t marry until I’ve made partner in a law firm.”

A loud clap of thunder rattled the walls, as if in answer to Quinn’s pronouncement. Trae, Lucie and Alana shuddered, but Quinn faced them all squarely. “All those in agreement,” she droned like a high priestess at some sacrificial offering, “shall now place their right hand in the circle.”

With a solemn expression, Alana put her hand over Quinn’s. Lucie gulped, then extended hers, forcing Trae, who still felt ridiculous chanting mumbo-jumbo in the dark, to stand alone outside the circle.

Reluctantly, she placed her hand on top of the others’.

As if they’d been struck by one of those accompanying lightning bolts, Trae could feel a current flowing between the women, filling her with warmth and a sense of belonging. Edifying her with a sense of commitment.

Never mind the melodramatic hoopla. This was what mattered. Them, here and now, joined in resolution, their grasp solid, their unity unbroken. Even with all the Beckwith money, you just couldn’t buy a moment like this.

“When it comes to marriage,” she chanted in unison with her friends, “just say no!”