For Richer or Poorer

by JoAnn Ross

  For Richer or Poorer

  JoAnn Ross

  Dear Reader,

  When I was first invited to write for Temptation’s Bachelor Arms miniseries, I thought it might be a good idea if my editor and I visited Los Angeles to research the project. As it turned out, my timing left a bit to be desired. But how could I have known L.A. was due for a major earthquake?

  Actually, the trip provided quite an adventure as we went our merry way, taking aftershocks and constant traffic jams in stride. Intrepid researchers, we also browsed the Rodeo Drive stores and ate at the marvelous restaurants frequented by my characters. (The sacrifices we writers make!)

  I do hope you enjoy Lily and Mac’s romance. Stay tuned for the final episode, Three Grooms and a Wedding, where destiny bring Blythe together with the love of a lifetime and the murder of Alexandra Romanov is finally solved.

  Happy Reading!

  JoAnn Ross

  Come live and love in L.A. with the tenants of Bachelor Arms

  Bachelor Arms is a trendy apartment building with some very colorful tenants. Meet three confirmed bachelors who are determined to stay single until three very special women turn their lives upside down; college friends who reunite to plan a wedding; a cynical and sexy lawyer; a director who’s renowned for his hedonistic life-style, and many more…including one very mysterious and legendary tenant. And while everyone tries to ignore the legend, every once in a while something strange happens….

  Each of these fascinating people has a tale of success or failure, love or heartbreak. But their stories don’t say a secret for long in the hallways of Bachelor Arms.

  Bachelor Arms is a captivating place, home to an eclectic group of neighbors. All of them have one thing in common, though—the feeling of community that is very much a part of living at Bachelor Arms.

  THE TENANTS OF BACHELOR ARMS

  Ken Amberson: The odd superintendent who knows more than he admits about the legend of Bachelor Arms.

  Connor Mackay: The building’s temporary handyman isn’t telling the truth about who he really is.

  Caitlin Carrigan: For this cop, her career is her only priority.

  Eddie Cassidy: Local bartender at Flynn’s next door. He’s looking for his big break as a screenwriter.

  Jill Foyle: This sexy, recently divorced interior designer moved to L.A. to begin a new life.

  Lily Van Cortlandt: This vulnerable, loving woman can forgive anything other than betrayal.

  Natasha Kuryan: This elderly Russian-born femme fatale was a makeup artist to the starts of yesterday.

  Gage Remington: Cait Garrigan’s former partner is investigating a decades-old murder that involves the residents of Bachelor Arms.

  Brenda Muir: Young, enthusiastic would-be actress who supports herself as a waitress.

  Bobbie-Sue O’Hara: Brenda’s best friend. She works as an actress and waitress but knows that real power lies on the other side of the camera.

  Bob Robinson: This barfly seems to live at Flynn’s and has an opinion about everyone and everything.

  Theodore “Teddy” Smith: The resident Lothario—any new female in the building puts a sparkle in his eye.

  Contents

  Prologue

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  Prologue

  Hollywood 1933

  THE INSTANT SHE SAW HIM, across the crowded room, Alexandra Romanov knew she’d found her soulmate.

  Their eyes—hers a gypsy dark jet, his a riveting sky blue—met, then locked. Everything and everyone in the gilded ballroom of the famed Biltmore Hotel seemed to blur, save for one man, looking so handsome, so splendorous, in white tie.

  She caught her breath at his blatant masculinity. The congenial party conversation surrounding her became a distant buzz in her ears. Feeling as if her feet had been nailed to the dance floor, Alexandra could only stand there, like some primitive sacrificial virgin awaiting ravishment by a virile all-powerful god.

  She knew who he was, of course. Everyone in Hollywood had been talking about Patrick Reardon, the tough-talking, hard-drinking, poker-playing writer Walter Stern had brought to Hollywood to pen the screenplay of his latest bestselling novel for Xanadu Studios.

  Without taking his eyes from her face, Patrick began walking toward her. The crowd between them parted before him like the waters of the Red Sea. Obviously she was not the only person present capable of recognizing such masculine superiority.

  He stopped so close to her that the toes of her gold brocade high heels were touching the pointed toes of his boots. The fact that he’d dare to wear cowboy boots with a dinner jacket told Alexandra that this was not a man who bowed to any of society’s restrictive conventions.

  He took her hand, engulfing it in one a great deal larger and darker. She could feel the row of calluses on his palm.

  “I’d tell you that you’re the most beautiful woman here tonight,” he said, on a low, husky voice. “But you undoubtedly know that.”

  Alexandra couldn’t answer. Her mouth had gone as dry as the desert set where she’d just finished her latest film, a melodramatic epic about a woman taken captive by a sexy sultan.

  “I could also tell you that I want you.” He ran a finger up the inside of her arm, leaving an enervating, yet exciting trail of sparks on her bare skin. “But you undoubtedly know that, as well.”

  This time, she managed a nod.

  Either oblivious or uncaring of the others, who were watching with undisguised fascination, he brushed the back of his free hand up the chiseled line of her cheekbone. It was all she could do not to turn her head and press her lips against that tantalizing, wicked hand.

  “So,” he said, “what are we going to do about this?”

  The unmistakable desire in that rumbling voice made her knees weak. The scent emanating from his dark skin was not any expensive male cologne, but pine soap that reminded her of the forests back home in her native Russia.

  Alexandra knew that if she was to leave with Patrick she would infuriate her escort, Walter Stern, owner of Xanadu Studios. A possessive man, Walter treated her like the rest of his expensive playthings.

  Despite her continuing refusal to sleep with him, in all other ways, Alexandra had allowed Stern to become her absolute lord. He supervised her scripts, approved every morsel of food that passed between her ruby lips; he chose her clothing, her hairstyles, her cars, her house and her friends.

  A cruel man with the inborn instincts of a tyrant, Walter Stern patronized her, taunted her and sometimes humiliated her. But he’d also taken a nobody and, with the mysterious, infinite gifts of a creator, had breathed life into her nothingness, fulfilling his promise to make her a star.

  Unreasonably tempted by this dark and dangerous cowboy who had so intrigued this single-industry town since his arrival, Alexandra understood the dangers of such impulsive behavior.

  But generations of passionate, hot-blooded cossacks and earthy, tempestuous peasant women ran deeply in her veins. She knew, with every fiber of her being, that she could not have resisted this man if she’d wanted to.

  Which she didn’t.

  She smiled up at him. A slow, sensual smile familiar to Alexandra Romanov’s legion of fans all over the world. A smile that turned her eyes to gleaming ebony, made a man think of voluptuous gypsies dancing around smoky campfires, and promised infinite erotic delights.

  “I’d say,” she said, her Russian accent thickened by rising passion, “that it’s a lovely night for a moonlight drive.”

  They left the ballroom hand in hand, followed by an excite
d buzz. Just outside the double doors, gossip mavens Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons practically came to blows at the single pay telephone.

  Patrick led her to the Rolls-Royce convertible the studio had given him when he’d first arrived in Hollywood. The white car gleamed like alabaster in the slating silver moonlight. He dismissed the uniformed chauffeur, taking the keys himself.

  As he helped her into the wide leather seat, Alexandra knew that there would be a price to pay for her impetuous behavior. But, like the memorable character Vivien Leigh had recently portrayed for MGM, Alexandra decided she would think about that later. Tomorrow.

  Fortunately, as they drove out of the parking lot, headed down Sunset Boulevard toward the moon-spangled Pacific Ocean—and their brief, tempestuous, ultimately fatal future together—tomorrow looked very far away.

  1

  THE DAY BEFORE the wedding—the wedding of Blythe Fielding to Dr. Alan Sturgess—dawned as bright and sunny as a Los Angeles travel poster. The sky overhead was a clear robin’s egg blue, with not a cloud in sight; birds were chirping as they played musical branches amidst the orange trees surrounding the house and a soft sea breeze drifting in from the nearby Pacific carried a faint aroma of salt water.

  Later, looking back on what happened, Lily Van Cortlandt would realize that there had not been even the faintest hint of the disaster waiting to strike.

  She’d come to California to take part in her best friend Blythe Fielding’s wedding. Plagued by nightmares, she’d risen early on that day, showered in the bathroom adjoining the guest bedroom of Blythe’s Beverly Hills home, then dressed in a pair of white shorts and a red-and-white striped maternity top.

  Perhaps it was due to her lack of sleep, or all the stress she’d been under lately, but for whatever reason, Lily was feeling decidedly edgy.

  Thinking a sunrise might be calming, she tried sitting on the balcony outside the French doors of the bedroom. But nerves had her unable to sit still for very long.

  Deciding that what she needed was a change of scenery, she crept downstairs, being careful to avoid waking anyone, and called a taxi. After leaving Blythe a note so she wouldn’t worry, Lily met the cab out by the driveway gate and had it drop her off at the Malibu pier, where she spent the next hour sitting on a rock, watching the breakers roll in.

  Their unceasing, undulating ebb and flow proved wonderfully soothing. The glassy, sun-brightened waters of the Pacific were so vast that somehow they made her own problems seem somewhat smaller by comparison.

  Having grown up in Iowa, with a stop in Rhode Island for four years at Brown University before moving to Connecticut as a bride, Lily had almost forgotten how she’d fallen in love with the sea during her visits to Blythe’s home during their college days.

  Lily loved the sight of the ocean—the vast blue expanse of water topped by white ruffles, the way it sparkled diamond bright beneath a benevolent sun, or turned dark and deep and dangerous whenever a storm would blow in from beyond the horizon.

  She loved the smell of it—of fish and salt and myriad, mysterious scents drifting in from faraway exotic lands. She loved the sound of it—sometimes a low, wonderfully rumbling roar, other times, a soft whisper that reminded her of two lovers sharing secrets in the dark.

  She loved everything about the Pacific ocean. But most of all, she loved its paradoxes. The magical way it could be both soothing and exciting at the same time.

  Drawn to the frothy wide surf, she kicked off her sneakers and waded out into the water. For the first time in weeks, Lily began, ever so slightly, to relax.

  She could almost—but never quite—forget the terror she’d felt when served those hateful papers from her in-laws. Although she’d had difficulty wading through the long paragraphs of legalese, Lily had gotten their meaning, loud and clear. Now that their only son had died, James and Madeline Van Cortlandt intended to fill the hole in their family with Lily’s unborn child.

  The wet sand, hard packed at the water’s edge, oozed between her toes as she waded out farther into the surf. Sea foam swirled around her ankles. The early morning breeze fanned her hair, cooled the back of her neck and left her feeling marvelously liberated.

  The ebbing tide left a swath of silvery, shell-strewn sand. Entranced, Lily followed the sea as it slipped back toward the horizon. Immersed in her solitary morning pleasure, she was unaware of the man standing on the edge of the cliff, a man who had been drawn by the sight of the young woman wading through the white sea foam.

  She reminded Connor Mackay of a sea sprite. From her retreating figure he could see that although she was not tall, her legs looked long and lean in a pair of crisp white shorts. Her long blond hair, touched by the glow of early morning sunshine, streamed out behind her, like a platinum flag.

  Even if he hadn’t had his own personal reason to be celebrating this morning, the sight of her would have made him smile. Almost believing in mermaids for the first time in his life, Connor headed down the stone steps to the beach.

  Admiration gradually turned to mild concern, then alarm as he noticed she’d wandered into an area marked by riptide warning signs. She was also too far out. The water was now swirling to her knees. And higher.

  “Is she blind?” he asked the empty beach. Surely she’d seen the bright orange warning signs. “Or just an idiot? Doesn’t she realize the danger?”

  As she continued to wade farther out, in the direction of a rock jetty, another, horrifying thought occurred to Connor. Perhaps she knew the perils of this particular stretch of beach. Perhaps her flirtation with danger was not carelessness.

  “Aw hell,” he ground out, as he looked past her at the enormous breakers swelling on the horizon. If the lady was suicidal, she’d picked a damn good spot to end it all.

  He began running toward the water.

  Humming along with the music playing in her head, Lily paused as a departing wave left a treasure trove of sparkling white shells in front of her. Engrossed in admiring nature’s artwork, she failed to see the huge dark wall of water growling its way toward her.

  Without warning, it knocked her to her feet, burying her beneath what felt like tons of churning water and gritty sand.

  Disoriented, she began to be tossed about like a frail shell, thrown head over heels over head again in a series of somersaults that left her not knowing which way was up. Or down. She only knew that there was a roaring in her ears and her lungs felt as if they were going to burst.

  She struggled to stand up, but as she did so, a riptide, coming off the jetty, began pulling her with a deadly force out to sea.

  Goddammit! Connor cursed viciously as he watched her disappear beneath the foaming, roiling water. One of two things were going to happen to her. The idiot was either going to be pulled out to sea and drowned, or she was going to be thrown against the stone jetty, breaking every bone in her body.

  Diving headfirst into the surf, he began swimming toward the spot he’d seen her last.

  Lily absolutely refused to drown. She’d survived too much these past months to give up now.

  She thrashed her arms and legs in a modified crawl stroke, fighting against the deadly riptide. Just when she was certain her lungs were going to burst, she felt a pair of strong arms wrap around her with the strength of tentacles. The next thing she knew she was being dragged through the churning surf, back toward the safety of the beach.

  Swearing creatively, Connor half carried, half dragged her up onto the packed sand.

  “Dammit, what the hell did you think you were doing?” he roared, loud enough to be heard over the surf.

  Feeling as if she’d swallowed half the sea, Lily was coughing too hard to answer.

  He curled his hands around her upper arms and dragged her to her feet. “You are not only an idiot, lady,” he ground out between his teeth on a whiplash voice that made her wince. “You’re dangerous. Do you realize your stupid stunt could have gotten us both killed?”

  Although he had come to her rescue, the man certa
inly wasn’t Lily’s idea of a white knight. Having made the decision never to allow any man—even one who’d just saved her life—to mistreat her ever again, she shook off his touch, stood up straight and met his blistering glare straight on.

  “I don’t recall asking you to dive into that surf,” she reminded him with a toss of her head. “And although I may be a little vague about current California etiquette, I don’t believe that playing lifeguard entitles you to yell at me.”

  Adrenaline was pumping fiercely through his veins, Connor gave her credit for holding her ground. The way she stuck her chin out demonstrated a strong will and as difficult as it was to maintain a sense of dignity while dripping wet, somehow, the lady was managing to pull it off.

  He swept his gaze over her and belatedly realized that she was not nearly as lissome as she’d appeared from behind. Her wet cotton top clung to her bulging stomach, revealing her to be very, very pregnant.

  “Damn.” He shut his eyes. Terrific move, Mackay, cussing out a suicidally depressed, expectant mother. “I’m sorry.”

  He looked so shocked, Lily almost smiled. Even as she admitted that it was very small of her to enjoy his obvious discomfort, she thought he looked rather appealing when he was embarrassed.

  “That’s all right,” she offered magnanimously. “After all, you did save my life.”

  Connor wondered if she was angry with him about that, then wondered why he was worried she might be. “Still, I had no business shouting at you.”

  Lily had never been the type of woman who enjoyed making a man crawl. She was on the verge of assuring her rescuer that she certainly wasn’t going to blame him for a very human response—after all, he could have drowned in that deadly riptide as well—when delayed shock set in and she began to tremble.

  When she pressed her palm against her belly, Connor, who paid attention to such things, noted she wasn’t wearing a wedding band. “Would you mind...” Before she could finish asking him if they could continue this conversation sitting down, Lily’s rubbery legs began to slowly fold. Only Connor’s quick reflexes kept her from falling down.