Malone's Vow

by Sandra Marton

  Read this classic romance by bestselling author Sandra Marton, now available for the first time in e-book!

  His runaway bride…

  When Jessie runs away from her wedding, it’s because she’s fallen for the best man, Liam Malone! But Jessie doesn’t know he’s the corporate raider who’s taken over the company she works for. Or that finding the errant bride has become Malone’s vow….

  Originally published in 2000

  Malone’s Vow

  Sandra Marton

  CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Epilogue

  CHAPTER ONE

  SHE WAS A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN, but not the kind a man should even consider marrying.

  Not a man like Bill Thornton.

  Liam Malone knew it the minute he saw her.

  Bill wasn’t her type. He was too good, too gentle, too trusting. He didn’t stand a chance at being able to handle a woman like Jessica Warren. She was all quicksilver heat, while Bill was a glowing ember.

  Hell, Liam thought as he stared out the window of Bill’s study, past the rolling green lawn to Lake Washington glittering in the distance. He wasn’t much given to thinking in metaphors, but that was what he’d thought of last night, at the rehearsal dinner. One look at his oldest friend’s fiancée and he’d known Bill was making a big mistake.

  Bill, of course, was clueless. He’d never been able to read women worth a damn. Liam always could. Jet-lagged as he’d been after the flight from Singapore to Seattle, one glance at his old friend’s bride-to-be had told him everything he really didn’t want to know.

  “Wait until you meet Jessica,” Bill had written in the letter that had followed Liam halfway around the world. “This is like a fairy tale, Liam, with me as the frog the beautiful princess turns into a prince. I still can’t believe Jessica is going to be my wife.”

  Liam could. He’d spent enough years on the fringes of what most people called polite society to know that men and women married for lots of reasons, and hardly any had much connection to anything as banal as love.

  More than one woman had called him a cynic, but Liam didn’t agree. He was simply a realist. He understood that “love” was a catchall word people used instead of less poetic terms, especially in the rarefied strata of the very rich. Successful men married beautiful women as a balm to their egos. Beautiful women married successful men for the security of their wealth. He’d never sat in judgment on such arrangements. The trade-off was fair enough. It could work, assuming both parties to the deal were still willing to settle for those things a year or two into the marriage.

  The men usually were. Arm candy was arm candy, after all. But the women often became restless. They wanted both jewels on their fingers and pleasure in their beds, and they went looking for it. One glance at Jessica Warren and Liam had known that Bill wouldn’t satisfy her for very long. She’d need more than his kindness and money to keep her happy.

  It would take more than that to keep her at all.

  But the poor bastard didn’t know it. He was marrying for love, and in his case, “love” really did mean a bucketful of syrupy clichés. One man, one woman. Forever after. Until death do us part. Bill was ready to swallow all of it, hook, line and sinker.

  And that was the problem.

  Give it a couple of years and Bill would still be crazy about his wife but she’d be bored to tears and looking for greener pastures. For all Liam knew, she was bored already. The flash in her eyes last night, when she’d caught him watching her, had said it all. She’d managed a nice girlish blush and a quick downward sweep of her lashes, but that hadn’t changed anything. She’d been interested. His best friend’s bride-to-be, interested in another man, the night before her wedding.

  Interested in him.

  Liam’s mouth thinned.

  It wasn’t the first time a woman with a rich man in her life had given him that kind of look. Not all that long ago, he’d been the guy with the looks that turned women on and the empty pockets that turned them off. He’d lived by a combination of luck and his wits, but even so, he’d refused those invitations. He wasn’t into playing games with women who belonged to other men. At best, he’d found that kind of come-on amusing.

  Not this time. A single glance from Bill’s fiancée, and he’d felt himself respond.

  “Damn,” Liam muttered. He swung away from the window, tucked his hands into his pockets and paced the length of Bill’s study.

  Of course, he’d responded. What man wouldn’t? The message in those eyes had been clear, a promise of satin sheets and silken skin, of heated whispers and sizzling caresses. In one swift instant, his brain had stripped away the expensive suit, undone the classically styled hair…

  Well, why not? He wasn’t a saint. He was a healthy, heterosexual, thirty-four-year-old male. Yes, she was Bill’s fiancée but a man’s hormones had a way of ignoring the niceties. He knew that just as surely as he knew that a woman who was signing on for a happy ending with one man shouldn’t look at another the way Jessica Warren had looked at him.

  The trouble was, he had no idea what to do about it. He couldn’t collar Bill and say, “You can’t go through with the wedding this morning. The marriage won’t work.”

  Bill would laugh in his face. As far as he was concerned, Jessica was the only woman in the world. As soon as she’d gone to the powder room, he’d leaned in close and confided that he’d never been this happy in his life. Jessica was all the things he’d ever wanted. She was beautiful and good-natured; she was bright and charming. And when Liam had cautiously hinted that she was getting a good deal, too, that marrying a guy with an old family name and money wasn’t exactly a bad thing for a woman, Bill had happily agreed.

  “Everything Jessica has, Liam—her education, her career—she got on her own.” His smile had turned soft and loving. “It’s going to be a joy to spoil her—if she lets me.”

  She’d let him, Liam knew. She was, already. The rock on her finger, the expensive watch on her wrist…oh, yes, Jessica Warren would let her husband spoil her. The sad part, or maybe the good part, depending on your point of view, was that Bill’s gifts would make both of them happy, he to give them and she to receive them. The question was, would the jewels, the furs, the cars, be enough to keep the lady faithful?

  Liam doubted it. He knew how this particular fairy tale would end, and he was helpless to do anything about it without telling Bill the way Jessica had looked at him…and the way he’d looked at her.

  A muscle ticked in Liam’s jaw. He picked up a decanter of brandy and poured some into a crystal snifter.

  There had to be some way to protect his oldest friend. They’d met at Princeton, where they’d made a strange pair. Bill had probably been enrolled the day he was born. Old-line money and a family that had come over on the Mayflower tended to do that for a man. Liam, on the other hand, was at Princeton courtesy of a glib tongue and money from the U.S. Army. His great-great-who-knew-how-many-times-great-grandfather had come to America either to escape the Irish potato famine or the long arm of the law, depending on who was telling the tale. Money and status weren’t exactly part of the Malone family history.

  Liam smiled.

  Still, he and Bill had clicked. They’d fallen easily into an older brother, younger brother relationship, especially after Bill lost his parents in a plane crash in his sophomore year. Bill had financial consultants but it was Liam, the man of the world, who’d counseled him about Life. Bill, for his part, had saved Liam’s tail more than once. Liam had been plagued with something an endless succession of advisors had called “an attitude probl
em.” Put simply, it meant he’d have been kicked out of college half a dozen times, if it hadn’t been for Bill and his connections.

  It was time to return the favor.

  “It’s good to see I can still read your mind at a hundred paces, Liam, my man.”

  Liam swung toward the door. Bill, resplendent in his morning coat and striped trousers, grinned at him.

  “Can you?” Liam said, and managed a smile.

  “Sure.” Bill walked to where Liam stood, reached past him for the decanter and poured himself some brandy. “’What’s Malone doing now?’ I asked myself a minute ago.” Smiling, Bill lifted his glass to Liam’s. “’He’s stalking around my study,’ myself replied, ‘fortifying himself with brandy while he works up to telling me I’m on the verge of making the biggest mistake of my life.’” Bill laughed at the look on Liam’s face. “I’m right, aren’t I?”

  “Absolutely, as long as you’ve asked.”

  “I knew it. What else would a confirmed bachelor like you think on my wedding day?” Bill downed half his drink and grimaced. “I needed that. My stomach’s been going up and down like an elevator all morning.”

  “Bill.” Liam put down his snifter. “Look, I know you think you’re in love with this girl…”

  “Woman,” Bill said, and grinned. “Jessica has very definite opinions on the male-female thing.”

  “Yes,” Liam said coolly, “I’m sure she does.”

  “Wouldn’t go out with me at all, even though we’d been working together almost a year. Said it wasn’t right for a woman to date her boss.”

  “But you managed to change her mind.”

  Bill didn’t seem to hear the sarcasm in Liam’s tone. “I did,” he said, and gave a lopsided grin. “Bet you didn’t think I could talk a woman who looks like that into dating a guy like me, huh?”

  Liam’s brows lifted. “This isn’t your first brandy today, is it?”

  “It’s my first in this room,” Bill said, and chuckled. “Hey, you’d be edgy, too, if you were about to take a wife.”

  “You don’t know what you’re doing,” Liam said bluntly, and felt better for finally having spoken the truth.

  Bill sighed, sank into his favorite leather armchair and sipped his brandy. “I wondered how long it would take you to get around to that.”

  “Well, dammit, what choice do I have? You’re about to make the biggest mistake of your life—”

  “See? I even got the wording right.”

  “Bill, I’m serious.”

  “So am I, Liam. I love Jessica and she loves me.”

  “You know nothing about her.”

  “I know everything about her. I told you, she’s had to make her own way in life. Her father never managed to hold on to a dime. He died when Jess was eighteen and she lost her mother only a year later. She’s never been married, she has a degree in business studies—”

  “You know nothing about her,” Liam insisted. “You’ve only been dating her for, what, four months?”

  “Only because she wouldn’t go out with me sooner.”

  “Are you sleeping with her?” Liam said brusquely.

  Bill blushed. “Direct, as always, Malone. Why do you want to know?”

  A good question, Liam thought, and came up with what wasn’t quite an answer. “It’s normal for a man and woman who love each other to share a bed.”

  “So?”

  “So, if you haven’t slept with her, maybe you should consider why.”

  “Liam, I know you’ve been with a lot of women but Jessica is—”

  “Different. Yes, I figured you’d say that. Look, you have to know that there are women who use sex to snare a man.”

  “Well, Jessica hasn’t. Not that it’s any of your business, but she hasn’t slept with me yet. I haven’t asked her to. She’s not that kind.”

  Liam snorted.

  “She isn’t, dammit!”

  “There are all kinds of ways to use sex, Bill. Withholding it is only one of them.”

  “Oh, for…” Bill shot to his feet. “Listen to me, Liam. Jessica is about to become my wife. Keep that in mind when you talk about her.”

  “Dammit, Thornton, haven’t you grown up at all? You’re as naive as you were when you needed me to save your skinny tail from the weird babe with the purple hair. You were certain she was the love of your life, too, remember?”

  “Oh, give me a break! I was eighteen, not thirty.”

  “And not much smarter, from what I can see.”

  Bill’s mouth thinned. “Back off, okay? I love Jessica, and she loves me.”

  “What if it’s your money she loves? Your name? The step up you’ll give her by marrying her?”

  “It isn’t.” Bill walked to Liam’s side, smiled and clapped a hand lightly on his back. “She loves me for myself, hard as that may be for you to believe, considering that it’s you, with your black Irish good looks, the ladies always drool over.”

  “Dammit, hear me out.”

  “No.” Bill threw an arm around Liam’s shoulders. “No, for once, Malone, you hear me out. This is love. The real thing, and don’t judge it by your need to bed every good-looking female in sight, or by figuring a man with a bank account is always a hostage to his money.”

  Liam looked at his old friend. He thought of telling him he’d changed that attitude when he’d finally decided there were better ways to indulge a love of risk than on the fall of the cards, but then he’d have to explain more than that, and this wasn’t the time to do it. Not on Bill’s wedding day, and it looked as if this really was going to be his wedding day.

  Hell. Maybe Bill was right. Maybe the marriage would work. The bottom line was that there was nothing more he could do, except hope he was around to help pick up the pieces if, and when, the time came.

  “Liam?”

  Liam looked up.

  “You could, at least, try and look happy for me.”

  “Sure.” Liam sighed. “I hope it works out. You know that.”

  “It will,” Bill said solemnly. “Jess is the best thing that ever happened to me. Once you get to know her, you’ll think so, too. Come on, get that sour look off your face and admit the truth. You’re just jealous ‘cause I’ve found the perfect woman.”

  Bill smiled. Liam tried to, and wondered if he’d succeeded. “I hope you’re right.”

  “I know I am. Now, drink up, wish me luck and then get out there and do your duty. I fielded half a dozen phone calls after the rehearsal dinner last night, every last one from a lady aching to know more about my best man.”

  Liam grinned. “Only half a dozen?”

  “All right, a dozen.” Bill grinned, too, and touched his glass to Liam’s. The men finished their brandy, put down the snifters and walked to the door together. “You know how come you’re such a cynic, my man? It’s because the ladies let you get away with murder.”

  “The Malone charm,” Liam said lazily. “Love ’em and leave ’em, that’s me.”

  “Yeah, well, sooner or later, you’ll meet a woman like my Jessica and you’ll change your tune.”

  “Sure,” Liam answered, because an intelligent man always knew when it was time to admit defeat. “Maybe in the next century.”

  Bill laughed. “Go on out and charm the ladies.”

  Liam strolled through the house to the music room, where the ceremony would take place. Pink and white roses filled the air with their perfume, and strains of Vivaldi drifted from the library. A pair of bridesmaids, ethereally lovely in gowns of palest pink, flashed him welcoming smiles.

  Welcoming smiles to what he knew was going to end in disaster.

  Liam turned on his heel and made his way through the house and out a side door to a garden with narrow, hedge-lined paths winding through it. He’d done what he could to convince Bill he was making a mistake. He was his friend’s best man, not his conscience.

  From this moment on, everything was up to fate.

  * * *

  UPSTAIRS, in one of th
e guest suites of her fiancé’s home—the home that would soon be hers—Jessica paced restlessly from one wall to the other.

  She’d longed for a perfect wedding day, and she had one. Blue skies, bright sun, not a single cloud to obscure the silhouette of Mount Rainier on the horizon…rare things in Seattle, but then, this was a special day. She was marrying the man she loved.

  “Fate has really smiled on you, Jess,” her maid of honor had said just a little while ago.

  It was true. Jessie had never put much stock in fate, but how else could she explain all the wonderful things that had happened in the past few months? She and William had gotten to know each other. Their mutual respect had become friendship, and friendship had become love.

  Jessica looked at her reflection in the mirror and smiled. How could the day be anything less than perfect? Not just the weather but everything. The music she and William had selected. The menu they’d planned. The vows they’d written together.

  I, Jessica, do solemnly vow that I will love you, William, for the rest of my life, that I will always be at your side…

  Her stomach did a slow, dangerous roll.

  She was nervous, that was all. And that was normal. Everybody said so, from the seamstress who’d put a couple of quick darts into her ivory satin gown to the stylist who’d plaited tiny pink tea roses into her hair. Even Carrie, her maid of honor, had said the same thing when she saw Jessie’s hands trembling.

  “Butterflies,” Carrie had assured her. “All brides have them.”

  Where was Carrie, anyway? How long could it take to look for a bridal bouquet? Jessica glanced at the platinum-and-diamond watch William had given to her last night at the rehearsal dinner. “Something new,” he’d said softly. The “something old” was the emerald-and-diamond engagement ring on her finger, which had belonged to his mother and grandmother.

  The watch had caught her completely by surprise.

  “Oh, it’s too much,” she’d blurted when she opened the long blue box and saw the wink of diamonds. William had laughed, kissed her gently and said that nothing was too much where she was concerned.