“Uh...”
“Stop doing this to me, Jules.”
“It’s twins.”
His world stopped again. “Say what?”
“Twins. Not one baby. It’s two.”
His grin grew a mile wide. “Twice the reason for you to marry me. Right away. As soon as we can arrange it.”
“Okay,” she said.
“We have a deal? No negotiation? No caveat?”
“We have a deal,” she said.
He kissed her then. Finally, it was the kiss he’d been waiting for. The complete and utterly honest kiss that told him she’d be in his life forever.
* * *
Jules gazed around the Crab Shack three weeks later, loving every single thing she saw.
Noah had added a crew of three to help him finish, and he was getting ready to move to the Neo site and start work there. The decorators had also finished their work, and new dishes, tablecloths and accessories were being delivered every day.
She leaned into Caleb who was standing next to her.
“It’s perfect,” she said.
“You’re perfect,” he responded, his hand coming to rest on her stomach. “Have you decided?”
“On names?” They didn’t even know if they were boys or girls.
Caleb gave a low chuckle. “On a wedding date. I don’t want to wait any longer.”
“I know.” She didn’t want to wait any longer either. She wanted to be married to Caleb.
“We need to tell him.”
Jules knew that Caleb’s offer to partner on the Whiskey Bay Neo location and the Crab Shack had gone a long way toward mollifying her father. But becoming business partners with Caleb was a whole lot different than having him as a son-in-law. Not to mention the idea of Caleb as the father of his grandchildren.
“Could we do it here?” she asked.
“Tell your dad about us?”
“No. I mean the wedding. I know the court house makes sense. But it would be nice to do it here before we open.”
His hold on her tightened. “That’s a great idea. We can fly to Portland and tell Roland in person.”
“Okay,” she said with a nod. “I’m ready to tell him.”
Caleb gave her a tender kiss, and she turned into his arms.
Roland unexpectedly spoke from the doorway. “I thought that’s what had to be going on.”
Jules sprang guiltily back from Caleb.
Roland kept talking. “No guy makes a deal that bad without a woman involved.”
“Dad,” Jules said, her heart racing. “We were going to tell you.”
“I imagine you’d have to at some point,” Roland said strolling inside.
“I’m in love with your daughter,” Caleb said.
Jules elbowed him. Could they not take this one step at a time?
“What?” Caleb asked. “It’s better that he knows that, instead of thinking that I’m randomly kissing you.”
To her surprise, her father smiled. “I guessed that when you came to Portland.”
“You’re not upset?” she asked.
“Do you love him?” Roland asked.
“I do.”
He seemed to take Caleb’s measure. “He showed me what he was made of when he came to see me.” He spoke directly to Caleb. “You’re not like your father.”
“I’m not.”
“There’s some irony in this,” Roland said. “I suppose some kind of justice, too. What with the Watfords sharing their wealth with the Parkers. Your grandfather would roll over in his grave.”
“I’ve proposed to her,” Caleb said. “She said yes. We’re getting married.”
“That’s even better.”
Jules was astonished by the conversation. “You’re truly not upset?” she asked her father.
“I want you to be happy,” he told her. “I thought Whiskey Bay would make you miserable, like it made me. I thought Caleb would hurt you, probably cheat you. I thought he was cut from the same cloth as his father and grandfather. I’m happy to be proven wrong.”
Jules found herself moving to her father.
She gave him a hug.
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d hugged him. It felt slightly stiff and awkward, but it still felt good. “I’m pregnant,” she told him.
The words seemed to take him completely by surprise.
“You’re going to be a grandfather.” She couldn’t hold back the smile.
Melissa spoke from the doorway. “Hello? You told him?” She looked worried.
“A Parker-Watford baby?” Roland seemed to test the idea inside his head.
Jules tensed, waiting for his reaction.
“Dad?” Melissa asked, concern in her tone.
“That’s astonishing news.” Then Roland smiled again. “Congratulations. To both of you.”
“You don’t mind?” Melissa asked, moving into the restaurant, followed by Noah.
“They are getting married,” Roland said.
Caleb moved to put an arm around Jules. “We are definitely getting married. We thought we’d do it here,” he told the group. “Before the grand opening.”
“Grandpa would like that,” Melissa said.
“Caleb’s grandfather would have hated it,” Roland put in, though he laughed as he spoke. “But that’s justice. And I think we can declare an end to the feud.”
“I would love that,” Jules said.
“We’ll start a whole new era,” Melissa said.
“We’ll start a whole new family,” Caleb whispered in Jules’s ear.
* * * * *
If you loved this story, pick up these other sexy and emotional reads from New York Times bestselling author Barbara Dunlop!
ONE BABY, TWO SECRETS
THE MISSING HEIR
SEX, LIES AND THE CEO
SEDUCED BY THE CEO
A BARGAIN WITH THE BOSS
Available now from Harlequin Desire!
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The Tycoon’s F
iancée Deal
by Katherine Garbera
One
Derek Caruthers was a badass. He knew it and so did everyone else he passed in the halls of Cole’s Hill Regional Medical Center. He was one of the youngest surgeons in the country to have his stellar record and, aside from a few bumps along the way, he deserved his reputation as the best. Today he felt especially pleased with himself as he had been invited to meet with the overall hospital board. He was pretty sure he was going to be named the chief of cardiology as the hospital prepared to open its new cardiac surgery wing.
Mentally high-fiving himself, he entered the boardroom. Most of the members were already there but the new board member wasn’t. The first item of business in today’s meeting was to reveal who had been chosen to oversee the new cardiac wing. Derek had no idea who it would be, but given that Cole’s Hill was a small town, and he’d heard that the new board member had a local connection to Cole’s Hill, Derek was confident it would be someone he knew.
“Derek, good to see you,” Dr. Adam Brickell said, coming over to shake his hand. Dr. Brickell had been Derek’s mentor when he first started and the two men still enjoyed a close bond. The older doctor had retired two years ago and now sat on the board at the medical center. He had been the one to put Derek’s name forward for chief.
“Dr. Brickell, always a pleasure,” Derek said. “I’m really looking forward to this meeting. Something I usually don’t say.”
“Keep that enthusiasm, but there might be a wrinkle. What if the new board member has her own ideas about the cardiology department?” Dr. Brickell said.
“Her? I’ve yet to meet a woman I couldn’t bring around to my way of thinking,” Derek said. He didn’t want Dr. Brickell to see any signs of nerves or doubt in Derek. Whoever this new board member was, Derek would win them over.
Dr. Brickell laughed and clapped him on the back. “Glad to hear it.”
Derek’s phone rang and Dr. Brickell stepped away to allow him to check his call. Given that he was a surgeon he never ignored his calls.
He noticed that it was from his friend Bianca. She and he had been besties for most of their lives. It had gotten a bit awkward on his side when he’d developed the hots for her in high school but all of that had ended when she’d moved to Paris to model, fallen in love with a champion racecar driver and married him.
But for Bianca, the fairy-tale romance and marriage had been short-lived; after only three years together, her husband had been killed in a plane crash, leaving her to raise a two-year-old son alone.
Well, because of that, Derek had once again made being Bianca’s friend a top priority.
She’d been sort of fragile since she’d moved back to Cole’s Hill. He knew it was the pressure her mom was putting on her to find a husband so that Bianca and her son wouldn’t be “on their own.”
He glanced around the room and caught Dr. Brickell’s eye, gesturing that he needed to take the call. Dr. Brickell nodded and Derek stepped out into the hallway for privacy.
“Bi, what’s up?”
“I’m so glad you’re here. Did I catch you before the hospital meeting?” she asked.
“Yes. What’s up?” he asked again.
“Mom has another man lined up for me to go out with tonight. Is there the slightest possibility you’re free?” she asked.
No, and even if he were, he wasn’t going to go there. They were friends by her design and probably for his sanity, he wasn’t about to rock the boat by dating her. He would cancel for her but this was Wednesday and everyone in the Five Families area where they both lived knew that the Caruthers brothers had dinner at the club and then played pool on Wednesday nights. “It’s pool night with my brothers and your mom will know that.”
“Damn. Okay, it was worth a shot.”
“It definitely was. I’m sorry. Who is it tonight?”
“A coworker from the network. He’s a producer or something,” Bianca said.
Bianca’s mom was a morning news anchor for their local TV station. She’d been busily setting Bianca up on dates since she’d moved back to Cole’s Hill.
“Sounds...interesting,” Derek said.
“As if. Mom has no idea what I want in a man,” Bianca said.
And that was a can of worms Derek had no intention of opening right now. “I’ve got to go. The board is almost all here.”
“No problem. Good luck today. They’d be foolish not to pick you.”
“They would be,” Derek agreed. “Later, Bi.”
“Later.”
He disconnected the call and put his phone back in his pocket. He adjusted his tie as he looked down the hall for a mirror to check it and heard the staccato sound of high heels. He glanced over his shoulder, a smile ready, and his jaw dropped.
The woman walking toward him was Marnie Masters. Damn. She gave him a very calculated look from under her perfect eyebrows. Her blond hair was artfully styled around her somewhat angular face and teased to just the right height. She moved the way he imagined a lioness would when she sighted her prey and he didn’t kid himself that he was anything other than the prey.
“Marnie, always a pleasure to see you,” he said, though he’d been dodging her calls, texts and party invitations for the last eighteen months. So calling it a pleasure was a bit of a stretch.
“I would believe that if I didn’t have to resort to taking this role on the board and leaving my practice in Houston in order to ‘run into’ you,” she retorted.
“You’re back in Cole’s Hill?” he said, shaken. He knew he needed to get his groove back and put on the charm.
“Well, it’s the new me. Daddy donated the money for this new cardiac surgery wing—at my suggestion—and the board agreed to his suggestion that I be hired to oversee the new wing. I just finished doing something similar in Houston and Daddy really wanted me to come home... So it seems as if you and I will be working together for the foreseeable future,” Marnie said.
“I’m glad to hear the board has hired someone with your qualifications,” he said.
“I imagine we will get to know each other much better now that I’m working here. It will give us a chance to spend more time together and get caught up.”
Derek knew he couldn’t just say hell no. But there was no way he was getting involved with her again. “I’m afraid that’s out of the question.”
“Why? There are no rules against it,” she said, with a wink. “I checked.”
“Of course there aren’t any rules. It’s just that I’m engaged,” Derek said. “I wouldn’t want my fiancée to get the wrong idea.”
* * *
“Engaged?” Ethan Caruthers asked as he and Derek ordered another round of drinks at the Five Families Country Club later that night. “Why would you say something like that?”
“You know Marnie. She wasn’t going to accept a no. So I panicked and...”
“Said something over-the-top. Derek, that’s crazy. I think when it becomes clear you don’t have a fiancée, this could backfire,” his brother said.
Ethan had a point. Already, his lie had added a wrinkle to his prospects for becoming chief of cardiology. Marnie hadn’t been happy to hear about the engagement and had told the board that she was considering a few other applicants. Dr. Brickell had firmly been in Derek’s corner, saying that the decision needed to be made sooner rather than later, but Marnie had stood firm. She’d insisted it would be two months before the final decision would be made and had enough support from other members to win the argument and temporarily table the decision.
The board had adjourned and Derek had gone back to work, doing two surgeries that had wiped the fiancée problem from his mind until he’d shown up here. Ethan was the only one of his brothers waiting when Derek had arrived.
“Tell me about it,” Derek said. “I
f I could just find a woman...someone who needed a guy for a few months.”
“Would Marnie believe one of your casual friends was your fiancée?” Ethan asked.
“No. I told her it was someone special and that’s why it was under wraps.”
Ethan took another swallow of his scotch and shook his head. “Damn, boy, you always did have a gift for telling whoppers.”
“I know. What am I going to do?”
“About what?” Hunter asked, joining their group. Hunter had recently moved back to Cole’s Hill after spending the better part of ten years playing in the NFL and traveling the country promoting fitness while dodging the scandal of being accused of killing his college girlfriend. Recently the real murderer had been arrested and charged with the crime, which had enabled Hunter to finally break free of the dark cloud of suspicion. He was now engaged and planning the wedding of the century according to their mother and Ferrin, Hunter’s fiancée. Everyone was in wedding fever in Cole’s Hill.
“He needs a fiancée,” Ethan said with a bit of a smirk.
Derek reached over and punched his brother. Of course Ethan would think it was funny. With only eleven months separating the two of them they were “almost twins,” and as Ethan was the older of the two, he had always been a little smug.
“Do I want to know why?” Hunter asked, signaling the waitress for a drink as he sprawled back in his chair.
“Marnie Masters.”
Hunter threw his head back and started laughing. “I thought you broke up with her years ago.”
“It’s been eighteen months,” he said. He had broken up with her two years ago but had given in one night six months later when he’d been in Houston and slept with her again. It had just renewed Marnie’s belief that he wasn’t over her and that they should get back together. He’d been avoiding her ever since.
“So why do you need a fiancée?” Hunter asked.
“Marnie’s the new board member brought in to oversee development of the surgical wing at the hospital. I panicked when I saw her and announced that I was engaged when she suggested we’d have a chance to spend time together.”
From Temptation to Twins Page 19