Читать книгу Inconveniently Wed - Yvonne Lindsay - Страница 10

One

“It’s going to be okay, Mom.” Imogene hastened to reassure her mother for the thousandth time.

She had no doubt her mom remembered all too well the broken woman Imogene had been when she’d returned from volunteering in Africa with her first marriage and all her hopes and dreams in tatters. But as she’d told her mom several times, things were going to be completely different this time around. This marriage would be based on mutual compatibility after an intense clinical assessment by a team of relationship counselors and psychologists—absolutely nothing impractical about that. She’d done the passionate love thing. Experienced the soaring highs of love at first sight and barely made it through the devastating lows of discovering it had all been a lie. This way, at least, nothing would go wrong.

“Ready?” the wedding planner asked in her perfectly calming and well-modulated voice.

Imogene smoothed a hand down her gown, the silk-and-organza creation a far cry from the borrowed cocktail dress she’d worn to her last wedding, and nodded. “Absolutely.”

The wedding planner gave her a wide smile, then indicated to the pianist to change his music for the bride’s entrance. Imogene hesitated at the door. Then, taking her mother’s hand, she began to walk slowly and confidently toward the man she was going to build a future and create a much-longed-for family with. A serene smile wreathed her face as she briefly made eye contact with her friends and the sprinkling of extended family who’d made the trip to the West Coast from New York. The formality of signing the license application could be done separately here in Washington, which kept to the Match Made in Marriage rules of meeting at the altar. This was the right thing for an old-fashioned girl with old-fashioned values to do, she assured herself. This time she wasn’t leaving anything to chance. This time, she was getting it right.

The last time Imogene had married, she’d been filled with excitement together with a crazy-mad dose of lust. And look how that turned out, the little voice inside her head reminded her. She grimaced slightly. Today was different. There was no bubbling excitement, beyond a quiet curiosity as to exactly what her groom would be like, and there was certainly no lust. At least not yet.

No, this time she was not a victim of the dizzying heights of passion—a passion that had blurred her sensibilities, not to mention her common sense. This time she had a specific goal in mind. A family of her own. Yes, she knew she could take steps to be a parent by herself, but she didn’t want to do it alone. She truly wanted a like-minded companion. Someone she could grow to love over time. Someone with whom she could be sure that love would have longevity, if only because of the time it took to grow. And if love didn’t come? Could she live without it? Of course she could. She’d done the impulsive marriage before, and it had left her shattered when it all fell apart. This time she’d taken every precaution to ensure there would be none of that. With care and mutual respect, anything was possible.

But was marrying at first sight taking things a step too far? Her parents obviously thought so. Her father hadn’t even come to Port Ludlow, here in Washington, for the ceremony, citing an important human rights case he was working on. But his distaste for her entering into an agreement with the exclusive matchmaking agency, which discreetly boasted a 100 percent success rate, had been clear. To him the very prospect of meeting your husband or wife at the altar was a recipe for disaster, but the dictates of Match Made in Marriage were clear. There was no chance to meet your intended prior to the ceremony and both participants had to put their trust completely in the matchmaking process. Imogene took a quick look at her mom, who had agreed to accompany her only daughter down the aisle to marry a stranger. Caroline O’Connor looked back, her gaze meeting and melding with her daughter’s—concern for what Imogene was doing clearly reflected there.

Her eyes were glued to her groom waiting at the altar with his back turned, a man whose posture showed he was the kind of person used to being in command. A frisson of awareness tickled at the back of her neck. As they neared the front row, her mom hesitated and bestowed a swift kiss on Imogene’s cheek before taking her seat. Imogene took a deep breath and focused anew on the stranger standing there. Waiting for her. There was something about the set of his shoulders and the shape of his head that prodded at her memory. Something that wasn’t right.

As he turned around, disbelief flooded every cell in her body and she stopped a few feet from the altar.

Recognition dawned.

“No,” she breathed out in shock. “Not you.”

Imogene barely heard the groan of “Not again” that came from the groom’s side of the room. Instead, her gaze was fixed on the man who’d finally turned to face her.

Valentin Horvath.

The man she’d divorced seven years ago.

There should have been some satisfaction that his expression was equally as stunned as her own must be, but there was none. In fact, satisfaction took a back seat while anger and confusion vied for supremacy. Imogene stood rooted to the spot, staring at the man she’d shared more intimacies with than any other human being in existence. The man who had not only broken her heart, but crushed it so completely that it had taken her all this time to even contemplate marriage again.

And yet, beneath the anger, beneath the implacable certainty that there was no way this marriage could go ahead, was that all-too-familiar flicker of sexual recognition that had led to their first hasty, fiery and oh-so-short union. Imogene did her best to quell the sensations that bloomed to life inside her traitorous body, to ignore the sudden flush of heat that simmered from deep inside and radiated outward. To pay no heed to the way her nipples had grown tight and hypersensitive in the French lace bustier she wore beneath her strapless gown. It was merely a physiological response to a healthy male, she told herself. It meant nothing.

He meant nothing.

Valentin reached a hand toward her.

“No,” she repeated. “This is not happening.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” said her ex-husband very firmly. “Let’s get out of here.”

He took her by the elbow and she reluctantly allowed him to lead her toward a side room—all the while fighting to disregard the realization that they might have been apart all these years but the fire that always burned so fiercely between them had reignited just like that. Her skin warmed where his hand lightly cupped her elbow, her senses keenly attuned to the size of him, to the heat that emanated from his large form, to the scent he still wore. A scent that she’d tried her hardest to forget but that seemed to be indelibly imprinted on her limbic system.

An older woman with a cloud of silver hair and alert blue eyes rose from her seat in the front row of the groom’s side of the room.

“Valentin?”

“Nagy,” he said in acknowledgment. “I think you need to come with us. You have some explaining to do.”

Some explaining to do? Imogene’s brow creased in ever-growing confusion. She recognized the diminutive of the Hungarian word for grandmother from back when Valentin used to talk about his family. But how could his grandmother have anything to do with this?

“Yes, I believe I do,” replied the old woman in a firm voice. She turned to appease the assembled guests with a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry, everyone, we’ll be back shortly.”

Back shortly? Imogene doubted that very much, but she allowed Valentin to guide her along in his grandmother’s wake as she walked purposefully ahead of them.

“Explain yourself,” Valentin demanded, rounding on his grandmother the moment she closed the door behind them.

“I did exactly what you asked me to do. I found you a wife.”

“I don’t understand,” Imogene interjected.

Valentin didn’t understand, either. The brief he’d given Alice had been pretty straightforward. He wanted a wife and he wanted a family. After his first failed attempt seven years ago, when he’d thrown his usual logic to the four corners of the world and leaped before looking, he’d decided to take a more rational approach. He did not—in any way, shape or form—expect to see his ex-wife approach him here today. No matter how much more beautiful she’d grown in the years since he’d last seen her.

He took a moment to fill his gaze with the vision of loveliness that was his ex. She hadn’t changed that much. Not her dark auburn hair that so richly adorned her head or her green-gray eyes that snapped angrily at him now or her smooth alabaster skin that had always shown every mark from his five o’clock shadow—making it necessary for him to shave twice a day when they were together. He’d have done anything for her, once—shaving twice a day was the least of it. But all that was in the past, and would remain there.

He transferred his attention to his grandmother, who composed herself with her usual grace and instinctive air of command before speaking.

“Imogene, let me explain a little. But first, please, take a seat. And, Valentin, that means you, too. You know I can’t tolerate your pacing. You always did have ants in your pants, even as a child.”

Valentin bit back the retort that in this case, he had every right to pace. Instead, he gestured to Imogene to take a chair in the small side office and took another for himself. They were close enough that he could smell her fragrance. It was something different from what she used to wear but no less potent when it came to his senses. He used his customarily rigid control to ignore the way the scent teased at him, inviting him to lean a little nearer, to inhale more deeply, and instead focused on watching his grandmother.

Alice settled herself behind the desk and rested her age-spotted hands on the blotter in front of her. She took her time to speak, obviously choosing her words carefully.

“I would like to remind you both that you have signed a contract to marry today.”

“Not him!”

“Not her!”

Their responses were simultaneous and equally emphatic.

“I don’t recall either of you stating any exclusions when you approached Match Made in Marriage. Do you?” She arched one silver brow and gave them each a pointed look. “No, of course not. Because when you signed the contracts with Match Made in Marriage, you gave us an undertaking to find you your ideal life partner. Which I—” she hesitated and corrected herself “—we did.”

“What?” Imogene gasped and turned her gaze on Valentin. “Your grandmother is a part of all this?”

He nodded. “She is. And she’s usually very good at it, but in our case, she’s clearly made a mistake.”

Alice sighed and rolled her eyes. “I do not make mistakes, Valentin. Never, and especially not in this case.”

“You can’t seriously begin to expect me to believe that,” he responded, his voice rising in frustration. “We ended our marriage seven years ago due to irreconcilable differences.”

“Infidelity,” Imogene injected into the conversation. “Yours.”

Valentin held on to his temper by a thread. “As I said, irreconcilable differences. As far as I am aware nothing else has changed between us, so I fail to see how Imogene became my perfect match. Your instincts have failed you this time.”

“Instincts?” Imogene’s voice ran cold. “I was of the understanding matches are made using specialists, not mumbo jumbo. Doesn’t that put you in breach of contract, Mrs. Horvath?”

Valentin watched his grandmother level a considering look at his ex-wife.

“You will find that the ‘mumbo jumbo’ as you so dismissively call it is well-defined under clause 24.2.9 subparagraph a. I believe the term has been set out as ‘subjective assessment by Match Made in Marriage.’”

“That’s ridiculous,” Imogene protested.

“May I remind you that no one forced you to sign the contract,” Alice said in a voice that dripped icicles.

“Either way,” Valentin interrupted before Imogene could let fly a volley of words that he imagined were hovering on the edge of her tongue, “what you have done is gross manipulation of us both. This doesn’t need to become uncivil. Contracts can be broken. I think I speak for both Imogene and myself when I say this marriage will go not ahead.”

“And I speak for Match Made in Marriage when I say it definitely will. You are right for each other.”

“Impossible!” Imogene snorted inelegantly. “I specifically said that infidelity was a deal breaker. If my prospective partner could not promise to remain faithful to me, I could not contemplate marriage with him. What about that was not clear?”

“I was not unfaithful,” Valentin protested in frustration.

They’d gone over this already seven years ago. But Imogene’s refusal to accept his word, and his promise to her, had seen her walk out on him without so much as a backward glance. In fact, for her, at least, it had been all too easy to call an end to their life together. To the dreams they’d shared, let alone the passion. Still, he’d reminded himself often in those early days, it was better he’d found out her lack of staying power then, rather than later when there may have been children to consider, as well.

“Stop behaving like a pair of squabbling children!” Alice admonished them both. “Your pairing was ascertained after rigorous testing. There is no one else more perfect for each of you than each other. Now, Valentin, do you trust me?”

“I’m not so sure about that anymore, to be completely honest with you, Nagy.” He rubbed a hand over his jaw.

“Well, that’s regrettable,” Alice said on a sniff of disapproval. “But perhaps you will realize the error of your ways. You can have a successful marriage despite how unfortunately your last attempt at being a couple ended.”

“A-attempt?” Imogene spluttered. “You say that as if I made the decision to leave Valentin lightly, when I can assure you I did not.”

Alice waved a slender hand in the air as if Imogene’s words were of no consequence. “The facts here today remain that you each requested a life partner when you contracted Match Made in Marriage. All the data gleaned during your screening process supports my—our—decision to match you. I’m aware you two have issues—”

“I-issues?” It was Valentin’s turn to splutter now.

“Hear me out, please,” Alice commanded with a quelling glare at him. “Can you both honestly say that seeing each other again leaves you totally cold?”

Valentin shifted a little in his chair, all too aware that his physical reaction to Imogene when he’d seen her today had been as fierce and as instant as it had ever been. He still remembered the first time he’d met her, when she’d brought a child from her primary school into the ER where he was a trauma specialist. Even as he’d switched into his clinician’s role seamlessly, he hadn’t remained unmoved by her presence. Now, with her seated beside him, studiously avoiding his gaze when he turned to look at her again, he observed the proud posture of her slender body and the surprisingly determined line of her jaw. A jaw he’d traced with kisses. His body clenched on a surge of desire—his instinctive need for her as overwhelming as it had ever been—and he turned his stare back to his grandmother.

“No, I cannot,” he said with great reluctance.

“And, Imogene? When you realized it was Valentin waiting at the altar for you today? How did you feel when you saw him?”

“Confused,” she said bluntly.

“And?” Alice prompted.

“Fine, I was attracted to him. But attraction isn’t the only thing necessary to make a marriage work. We proved that already.”

“Yes, you did,” Alice conceded. “But since that attraction still burns between you, don’t you think you owe it to yourselves to find out if, under different circumstances from those in which you originally met, you can make an honest attempt at a good marriage?”

“I believed I was making more than an attempt at the time,” Imogene protested. “I loved Valentin with all my heart. A heart he subsequently broke.”

Alice sighed and leaned back in her chair, settling her hands in a loose clasp in her lap. “I see,” she acknowledged. “And it still hurts, doesn’t it?”

Imogene gave Alice a stiff nod.

“Then you still have unresolved feelings for my grandson, don’t you?”

Valentin made a sound of protest. “Nagy, that’s not fair. She made her decision a long time ago. You can’t make us do this. It’s cruel and unnecessary.”

“It’s never easy facing your failures,” Alice said, slowly and stiffly rising from her seat. “I will leave you two for a few minutes to discuss this further. I strongly urge you to give your marriage one more chance. Your circumstances have changed dramatically since then. Neither of you is as young or as volatile as you were and, I might point out, neither of you has found a more suitable mate since. Please, discuss this as rational adults. Be certain that you won’t spend the rest of your lives wondering if you should have given each other another chance. I will wait outside for your decision. Don’t make me wait too long.”