Harlequin Desire June 2020 - Box Set 1 of 2

by Maureen Child

  It had been both sweet and hot, familiar and strange, tender and steamy. It was everything great sex should be. And great sex like that didn’t happen to strangers; it happened between two people who had a connection, who knew each other well.

  Beah knew she could not afford to deepen her connection to Finn Murphy. Thank God she lived in London; if she lived in New York or anywhere on the East Coast she’d have to see Finn more often, upping the chance of her falling back into bed with him.

  Maybe back in love with him, which would be an untenable situation.

  “I’m weak and Finn is hot, Keely, and I don’t want to start feeling something for him again.”

  “And you think you will if you help him organize this wedding? How would that happen?”

  “Via emails and phone calls, I suppose. He’s going back to Boston and I am staying here.”

  “Sadly,” Keely quipped. “So, with you in London and him here, in Boston, if you offered to help him help Ben and Piper, you’d exchange a few emails, maybe a couple of calls?”

  “Yes, brief calls, even briefer emails, I’d keep it completely professional.”

  “So where’s the problem and how would it be different from what you’ve been doing for the past nine years?”

  Not a hell of a lot.

  “You’re clutching at straws, Jenkinson. Are you going to help Ben and Piper or not?” Keely demanded in her forthright manner.

  “I don’t think I could live with myself if I didn’t.”

  “Attagirl,” Keely said. “My work here is done. Love you, bye.”

  Beah shook her head at Keely’s abrupt goodbye and placed her phone on the coffee table. She rested her forearms on her knees and admitted that she wanted Piper to have the wedding Beah didn’t have, the memory of a perfect, glorious day, saturated with love.

  And really, Finn would need help choosing menus and flowers and deciding on the order of ceremony. He was, after all, the guy who’d thought it was a great idea to get married by Elvis in a tacky chapel in Sin City.

  Beah swallowed down her resentment, reminding herself that she’d said yes; she’d gone along with his impulsive suggestion. She’d been damn happy to be getting married, so scared that Finn would change his mind that she’d eagerly agreed to anything he wanted, as long as he put that ring on her finger.

  But secretly, she’d really wanted to walk down an aisle in a fantastic dress, holding lilies and roses, saying their vows in front of family and friends and a priest who took the ceremony seriously.

  But she’d missed her chance at a fairy-tale day. She didn’t want Piper to miss her chance, too. There wasn’t much Beah could do from London, but she could find out exactly what Piper wanted and pass her requests on to Finn, who could put them into action in Boston. With detailed instructions, he couldn’t go too wrong. She hoped…

  Beah pulled her laptop toward her and punched Ben’s name into her social media accounts. Through friends of friends, she found out where he worked and within another few minutes had Piper’s contact details on her screen.

  Social media was awesome.

  An hour later, she ended her call to an ecstatic Piper, who thanked her, over and over, for agreeing to help. Like Beah, she’d doubted Finn and Ben’s ability to pull off a romantic wedding. They were good guys, she’d said, but men who didn’t understand the importance of throw cushions and fresh flowers shouldn’t be in charge of weddings.

  Two minutes after Beah ended her call to Piper, her phone dinged with a text message from Ronan.

  As we kick into high gear preparing for the Mounton-Matthews sale, Carrick and I think it’s best if you relocate to Boston for the next eight weeks. You’re needed here. ASAP.

  Crap.

  Beah stared down at her phone, panic tightening her throat. It was true—no good deed went unpunished.

  * * *

  Finn exited the taxi outside Paris Cummings’s house and glared at the handsome, obviously old house—Georgian, maybe? Paris Cummings had a hell of an address. As he’d told them last night at dinner, he had views of St. Paul’s Cathedral, an underground swimming pool, and Hyde Park was practically on his doorstep. Finn pushed his hands into his hair and watched the ubiquitous black London taxicab roll away. He rolled his shoulders to dispel his tension and pushed back the cuff of his coat and sweater to look at his vintage Rolex. It had been his grandfather’s and it still, sixty years on, kept perfect time.

  It told him he was ten minutes early for his appointment. Thinking he’d take the time to connect with Ben again—their earlier conversation had been cut short because Ben needed to attend a meeting—he dialed his friend’s number, leaning against the cast iron railing separating the property from the sidewalk.

  His phone rang and Ben’s face appeared on his screen, looking ten years older than Finn remembered. Finn, not great at conversation at the best of times, didn’t know what to say, what comfort to offer, but Ben just smiled and waved his halting words away.

  “She’s going to beat this, dammit,” Ben told him, trying to sound upbeat. “I refuse to accept that she’s just come back into my life to be taken from me so quickly.”

  Finn nodded. Thanks to consulting Dr. Internet earlier, he now knew that the chances of Piper beating pancreatic cancer were slim. Practically nonexistent.

  “Piper wanted me to thank you for agreeing to organize the wedding. She’ll be finished with her chemo and radiation treatments by then and hopefully will be able to enjoy the day without pain and the side effects,” Ben said. “We’ll be flying in earlier that week.”

  Ben picked up a pen and tapped his desk with the end. “Thanks for doing this, Finn. Piper doesn’t have any family, and as you know, I can’t trust mine to do it right.”

  Finn nodded, remembering that Ben’s home life had been hopelessly chaotic, with his parents either flush with cash or practically destitute. Thanks to their seesaw financial situation, Ben spent a great deal of time at Finn’s house in Beacon Hill.

  “Can you send me a list of what Piper wants?” Finn asked, thinking back to Carrick’s wedding to Satan’s bride, Tamlyn, and Ronan’s marriage to Thandi, Finn’s much-adored but now deceased sister-in-law. They’d both been grand affairs, with hundreds of guests, a forest of flowers, an open bar and many hot, single bridesmaids.

  “Do you know if she has any ideas about flowers or food? Music? Do you want a band?”

  Ben hesitated. “Maybe, with Piper being fragile, we should keep it simple. And because she tires easily, on the short side?”

  This would be much easier if Beah had agreed to help him. As Finn recalled, she’d done a brilliant job organizing Nell’s wedding, and Nell and her fiancé hadn’t had lots of money. She’d thrown herself into the role of wedding planner and sometimes acted like she was planning her own wedding.

  Was that because they’d married in Vegas, with him blithely telling her that they didn’t need the hoopla of a formal affair?

  He hadn’t been interested in the church and party deal. Had Beah agreed or had she wanted a fairy-tale wedding? Funny how he could remember Nell’s details but not Beah’s reaction to their own choices. Selective memory, Murphy?

  And why was it worrying him now? They’d had a fun wedding, with Piper and Ben there to witness it, and a helluva weekend in Vegas. And their marriage, as she’d coolly reminded him earlier, was over.

  “I’m thinking about hiring a wedding planner to help me organize everything,” Finn told Ben, rubbing his forehead.

  Ben grimaced. “I tried to do that, thinking it would be the most logical solution. But everyone I called is booked solid. Apparently spring is their busiest season and nobody has the time, or the inclination, to organize a hastily planned wedding. Being in Hong Kong for so long, I don’t have any contacts in Boston anymore and have no strings to pull.”

  As a Murphy, part of the most famous f
amily in the city, Finn always had a string, or ten, to pull. But Finn also knew that Sadie, Carrick’s fiancée, had decided to postpone her and his oldest brother’s wedding because everyone and their mother got married in May and June.

  “I know it’s a big ask, bud, but my hands are tied. We can’t leave Hong Kong right now. Piper needs to finish some treatments and I need to be with her.” Ben’s stress blazed from his haunted eyes and Finn could see that he was clenching and unclenching his fist.

  Finn would make this work; he would. He would not let Ben and Piper down. A wedding planner was a long shot but Beah wasn’t.

  Ben and Piper needed her to help him and he wasn’t afraid to push that button. They were adults; they could learn to deal with the past and their red-hot chemistry.

  “Send me any ideas you have,” Finn told Ben. “And Ben… I am sorry. This is, God, sucktacular.”

  It was a word from their childhood, something so dramatic and impressive that it surpassed all imagined levels of suckiness.

  Ben managed a small, sad smile. “It really, really is, bud.”

  Finn disconnected and pushed through the wrought iron gate and walked up the steps to the white front door to Paris’s house, wondering if Beah was inside. Damn, this process would be much easier if she’d just said yes initially. The Beah he remembered, the one he’d been married to, would’ve jumped to help him, would’ve been eager to please him. Back then, when he said jump, Beah jumped.

  Finn cursed. God, he’d been a helluva jerk.

  These days, she was very much her own person, a little fierce and a lot independent. And because she was now both, even more intriguing.

  Finn didn’t have time to be intrigued, wasn’t interested in the concept. Especially when the one being intriguing was his ex-wife.

  FOUR

  Dare Seymour frowned at the email on his computer, thinking his client had rocks in his head. It was far too late in the day—hell, it was past eight—to deal with this particular client’s attempts to circumvent the law. His patience had run out hours ago.

  Dear Sir,

  You are being a dick. Actions like this will land you in an orange suit, shacked up with an inmate named…

  Dare sighed, cursed and hit the backspace on his keyboard to delete the correspondence and closed his email program. He’d deal with his idiot client in the morning when, hopefully, he’d have more tact. When he felt this pissed off, this frustrated, it was time to leave the office. Food, a workout or exceptional sex normally went a long way to restoring his equanimity.

  Food and a workout he could organize—probably sex, too, if he headed to a bar and put out some feelers. The problem was, he didn’t want stranger-sex; he wanted Keely.

  Annoying, infuriating, stubborn woman that she was.

  Dare glared at his phone lying on the desk, willing it to ring. He hadn’t heard from her for days, and he was very tempted to call her. In ten minutes, he could be in his car on his way to see her; in forty minutes he’d be naked and so would she.

  Dare rubbed the back of his neck. And after a few bouts of amazing sex, they’d be back to where they’d been before, having amazing sex. Which wasn’t, on the surface, a problem—he loved sex and he was good at it—but he wanted more, dammit. For the first time in his life, he wanted something deeper than a physical connection, something more tangible. He wanted Keely’s mind as well as her body…

  But the brown-eyed blonde was more stubborn than a pack of mules.

  Well, he could be stubborn, too, and he wasn’t going to give in. This standoff was damned frustrating but Keely had to realize he was the one person in her life who wouldn’t buckle under the force of her personality, who wasn’t intimidated by her bossy, managing streak, who was strong enough to deal with her. She was smart, determined and willful but, dammit, so was he.

  He wanted more from her, from them—what more consisted of he wasn’t quite sure, but it definitely included some sort of emotional commitment, some sort of mental connection—and he was going to get it.

  Just watch him.

  Dare pushed his chair back so hard it hit the credenza behind him and rose to his feet, stretching. He pushed down the lid of his laptop, slid it into its cover and idly wondered if one of his many brothers—and partners within the law firm—were still around and interested in joining him in the ring for a sparring session and then dinner. He really didn’t feel like being on his own tonight.

  Dare reached for his phone to put a message on the family group chat and stopped when he heard a gentle rap on his office door. He looked over his shoulder and Keely stood in the doorway, long blond hair tumbling over her shoulders, a wicked look on her face.

  Well, well, well…and to what did he owe this pleasure?

  Dare saw it in her eyes as she approached him, the burning desire, the flush on her cheeks. Oh, yeah, she wanted him as much as he wanted her. Good to know.

  Dare—his can’t-rock-me expression on his face—perched on the edge of his desk, legs spread apart, gripping the sleek wooden edge with white fingers. He had to hold on or else he’d grab her and the desk would see a great deal of non-law-based action.

  “Keely, this is a surprise.”

  Keely walked up to him, stood between his legs and grabbed his loose tie, pulling him down. Dare allowed the space between them to close, needing to taste her.

  “Hi, lover.”

  Dare smiled against her lips, amused by Keely’s attempt to seduce him. Then her lips met his and her small tongue traced the seam of his lips, silently encouraging him to open up. If he did, if they started to kiss, to really kiss, he didn’t know whether they would stop. And he needed to stop. He had to keep the upper hand.

  He kept his lips closed.

  Keely pulled back and he saw the annoyance in her eyes, followed by a flash of determination. “Stop playing hard to get, Wilfred.”

  Funny how he loved hearing his old-fashioned birth name on her lips. Nobody called him Wilfred. He’d been Dare from a young age, and on her lips, his name sounded like an endearment. Sometimes she also made it sound like a curse, but he was ignoring those times.

  “I am hard to get, Killer,” Dare murmured back. “You know the stipulations…”

  “Shut up.” Keely placed her hand on his chest and renewed her assault against his lips. He wasn’t going to touch her, lift his hands off the desk. But his resolve was tested when Keely’s hand skimmed down his chest, over his stomach and came to rest on the bulge in his pants.

  She stroked him and Dare gritted his teeth. Then she slid down the zipper and pulled down the band of his underwear to rest her hot, warm, greedy fingers on his erection. Man, best feeling ever.

  “Don’t you want this, Dare? Don’t you want me?” Keely asked, her words punctuated by little kisses to the corner of his mouth, along his jaw.

  Of course he did. He was a man, not a machine.

  Keely growled her frustration and pulled her hand out of his shorts to attack the clip holding his suit pants together. When the flaps to his pants opened, she delved back in, both her hands enveloping him.

  She was killing him.

  Keely swiped her thumb across his tip and sweat broke out on his forehead. “I checked the offices as I walked down the hall. You’re the last one here.”

  That was not unusual. He was frequently the last person to leave.

  “And that means we can have hot office sex, preferably on your desk, with no one to disturb us.” Keely’s smile turned wicked again. “I like the thought of you working here and remembering what you did to me as you are talking to a client.”

  And if that happened, his efficiency and IQ would drop fifteen points.

  Keely stepped back and Dare nearly cried when her hands left him. She shrugged off her coat and then, smiling, started to slowly unbutton her blouse. Dare watched as one button, then two popped open on her
black silk shirt to reveal the edges of an emerald green bra. Sexy, lacy and transparent.

  God, she wasn’t playing fair. Then again, he’d never expected her to.

  But if he didn’t stop this, right now, he was toast. And Keely would’ve won their battle of wills.

  Keely picked up his hand and placed it on her breast, and Dare couldn’t help testing her weight, rubbing his thumb across her very responsive nipple. Man, she had the best breasts, full and high and exquisitely tender. He knew he could make her come just by touching her breasts…

  Get with the program, Seymour, and shut this down. Now, while you can.

  Dare pulled his hand back, pushed it through his hair before standing up and jamming both hands into the pockets of his pants. When her action pushed his pants down his hips, he cursed and quickly pulled up the zipper, wincing as the material closed over his straining erection.

  Wow, uncomfortable.

  Keely frowned. “And now?”

  Be strong, Seymour. You’re a grown man; you can refuse sex.

  “And now you take me to dinner, we have wine, and we chat. After that, and depending on how the evening goes, we might, or might not, have sex.”

  It took a minute, maybe more, for his words to sink in. And had Dare not been fighting his body’s urge to strip her and do her on the wall, floor or table, he might’ve laughed. He’d never seen Keely discombobulated, utterly lost for words, and he was sly enough to enjoy what he knew would be a rare occurrence.

  “I… You…”

  And Keely never spluttered. This was only getting better. Dare moved farther away from her—being a man not a machine—and risked sending her a small smile. “It’s not like you to mumble, Killer. Normally you have better language skills.”

  He saw a tide of fury, red and bright, skim up her throat, into her cheeks. “Are you seriously still playing hard to get?” she demanded, slapping her hands on her gently rounded, gorgeously feminine hips.

  You could be holding those hips, sliding into her…