by Amy Olle
Vanessa didn’t blush, but she did burst out with a boisterous laugh. “You’re adorable.”
His smile turned genuine. “I don’t think anyone’s ever called me adorable.”
“That I can believe,” she said. “I love your accent. Where are you from?”
“Ireland, originally. Our family moved to the States when Leo was a wee one, which is why he suffers the misfortune of talking like a Yank.”
“But you’ve stayed? Did you ever think about going back to Ireland?”
“I met my wife here when I was sixteen years old.” A fierce edge crept into his voice and rode just below his words. “Nothing could drag me away after that.”
Feeling her gaze on him, Shea sought and found stormy gray eyes.
“How long have you two been married?”
“Eighteen years,” they said together.
Vanessa missed the look that passed between them as she studied Isobel’s dresses, her head tipped to one side.
“Isobel Nolan.” With a shrug, she held up her hands. “I’m sorry but I’ve never heard of you.”
Isobel’s soft chuckle arrowed straight through his heart. “No one’s heard of me. I’m… new.”
“How new?”
“I’ve been sewing dresses for years, but I’ve only recently started to sell them here at the store.”
She’d been making wedding dresses for years? He had so many questions. How many dresses had she made? How many had she sold? Why didn’t he know that she liked to look at old pictures of her mom? There was so much he wanted to know. So much she’d never told him.
So damn much he’d never asked her.
Vanessa pivoted abruptly. “I have a proposition for you. What do you think about being the subject of a feature in Stylish Bride?”
Isobel’s mouth fell slack.
“We do a monthly feature on an industry up-and-comer.”
“I’ve read it,” Isobel said dazedly.
“I want to feature you. A fresh new designer, living an idyllic life on an idyllic little island with her photogenic husband and two adorable children. Your story is exactly what our readers love.”
Isobel’s pretty mouth snapped shut, and Shea could practically hear the gears of her mind working. Vanessa thought they had an idyllic life. An idyllic marriage. She didn’t know about the divorce summons floating in the belly of his boat or the cranky teenager at home. She didn’t know that their idyllic little island would transform into a dark, frozen tundra in only a few short months.
Crushing disappointment settled heavily on her shoulders.
With a jolt, he realized that she wanted this. Badly. By her devastated expression, she needed it. Her happiness depended on it.
In the silence, Vanessa pushed to close the deal. “Look, we’ve had a story fall apart at the last minute, and I need to fill the spot fast. We’ll do an interview, take some pictures, get you some national exposure, and then leave you to it. What do you say?”
Isobel tried to hide her sorrow behind a smile. “Unfortunately—”
“We’d love to.” He slipped an arm around his wife’s waist and hauled her to his side.
When she gasped, he covered her mouth with his, swallowing the sound of her tell with his kiss.
“Fantastic.” Vanessa plucked a cell phone from her purse. “Whew, you scared me for a second there. I thought you were going to turn me down.”
Slowly, reluctantly, he lifted his head. Isobel blinked up at him with soft eyes, glassy with shock.
“Why in the world would we do that?” Shea said. “It’s the opportunity of a lifetime.”
“That it is. Let me get your number.” Vanessa punched the digits Shea relayed into her cell phone. “So, from your vantage point, the whole thing will only take a day or two. We’ll do an interview—don’t panic. We’re just going to ask you some questions about yourself, your background, your creative process, etcetera, etcetera. Then our photographer will snap some pictures of you here at your store, at home, and anywhere else you’d like. Maybe grab a few shots of you two on the beach or something, I don’t know. And you should select some of your more popular dresses for the photoshoot.”
“My what?”
“No panicking, you promised,” Vanessa said, though Isobel had done no such thing. “Maybe choose ten dresses? Enough to showcase your style but not too many.”
“Ten dresses?” Isobel swallowed with an audible gulp.
“Give or take.” Vanessa pressed her cell phone to her ear. “I’m sorry we don’t have room to display them all, but I suspect you’ll have plenty of opportunities to show off your creations after the feature runs.” She stuck up her index finger. “Jen, hi, it’s me. I found someone for the feature. You’re going to love her. I know. It must be fate or something. So what’s your schedule like? Okay. Okay. Call me back.”
Vanessa disconnected the call and her face split with her wide grin. “Everything’s falling into place. I’m so excited. Are you excited? ’Cause you look a little queasy.”
“She’s overwhelmed.” Shea pressed a kiss to Isobel’s temple. “It’s a dream come true.”
“It is.” Vanessa winked at him and then started toward the door. “I’ll be in touch with a day and time for the interview and photoshoot. I’d love to get Jen and Marcus out here tomorrow, but realistically it’ll probably take a week or two to set everything up.”
“Two weeks?” Isobel squeaked.
“Hopefully sooner. We need to wrap it up by the end of the month to make deadline.” Her hand on the handle, she glanced back at them over her shoulder. “It was so nice meeting you both. I don’t fly out until next Sunday, so hopefully we bump into each other again, but if not, I’ll see you at Leo’s wedding, won’t I?”
Relishing the feel of his wife’s body against his, Shea tightened his hold on Isobel’s waist. “Definitely.”
“Fantastic.” Her grin wide, Vanessa shoved her eyeglasses onto her face. “Bye for now.”
The bell jingled when she exited the store and they watched her pass by the front window. The moment she disappeared from sight, Isobel shot from his arms.
She whirled on him. “Why did you do that?”
He shrugged. “Because you were going to say no.”
With a soft smack, she flattened her hand against her forehead. “She thinks we’re married.”
“We are married.”
Her hand dropped heavily to her side. “She thinks we’re happily married.”
“You can’t pretend to be happily married to me for a couple of weeks? Through one little interview and a couple of pictures?”
“No.”
He shook his head. “I was wrong.”
“Wrong about what?
“I thought you wanted this.”
A dazed—no, dreamy—light flickered in her eyes, but then she fixed him with a dark look of mistrust. “So what if I do?”
Her distrust left a gash on his heart. “If you’re as talented as Vanessa seems to think you are, then you have to take a shot. You deserve it.”
The dreamy light flared, and for a moment he could only stare, rapt.
“But what if they find out it’s all a lie?”
“Did you make these dresses?”
Color rushed into her cheeks, and she nodded.
“Then there’s nothing that should stop you from seizing this opportunity.”
She pulled her puffy bottom lip between her teeth and tortured it.
A punch of lust struck him in the gut. “If you want this, then I say, let’s go get it for you.”
Her smile tried to form before she ruthlessly bit it back. “Why do I get the feeling there’s a catch?”
He clucked his tongue. “Have you always been this suspicious?”
One of her dark eyebrows inched upward in challenge. “You’d pretend to be happily married to me?”
“Of course I would.” A smile curled through him. “On one condition.”
“I knew it,” she said, but
no anger infected her tone. “What condition?”
“I’ll pretend to be happily married to you, as long as I get to kiss you whenever I want.”
Chapter Ten
“You cannot be serious.”
Shea’s puffy lips curved with his wicked smile. “Oh, but I am. Deadly.”
A bark of incredulous laughter escaped her. “You’re crazy.”
“Nope. I’m finally seeing things clearly.” His gaze held hers, startling in its intensity. “Before I sign any papers, we’re going to make one last go at fixing this marriage. What better place to start than with a kiss? Or better yet, lots of kisses.”
Her pulse echoed in her ears. “Kisses… on the mouth?”
“I’m not inflexible. If you want to open negotiations—”
“No, no.” Heat swamped her face and chest. “The mouth is fine. I was just clarifying.”
“So we have a deal?”
She shook her head to clear it. “The last time we kissed, we got ourselves into trouble.”
“Believe me, it was no trouble.” His voice rumbled with a gravelly smoothness that sent the heat in her face spiraling downward.
“Kissing won’t fix us.”
“Worked great the other night.”
Her heart gave a painful wrench. “Sex will only complicate things.”
“I’m willing to risk it.”
An anguishing tangle of emotions crashed through her. Wild exhilaration at connecting with him physically, the way they used to, and the thrill of feeling him inside her again after so long were crushed by the dread of certain heartbreak. How long before their first fight? How long before he shut her out again?
A low, heavy sigh tumbled from her. “Well, I’m not.”
The line of his mouth thinned with his grimace. He studied her with somber eyes a moment and then turned his head in the direction of her dresses. Slowly, he reached out and touched the blush ballgown.
Her heart stuttered, tripping into a frantic rhythm as his large, masculine hand fingered the delicate fabric.
Watching him, her breath snagged in her throat. What did he see when he looked at her dresses? Did he see the creative outpouring that went into each design? Or the long hours spent drawing out the patterns, fashioning toiles, hunting for the perfect fabric, saving what little she had left over from her paychecks and scavenging for sale prices so that she could purchase the finest quality material? Did he see the fear, the work, the love that went into every stitch? Could he possibly understand the terror that, after all the parts of herself she’d poured into a dress, in the end, no one would want it?
More likely, he saw nothing but a silly exercise in losing money.
Bright blue eyes fastened on her face. “Vanessa really loved these.”
A beat of pride kicked in her chest and she dropped her chin to hide her sudden smile. “She’s from New York City. I’ll bet she makes a big deal out of everything.”
“She didn’t strike me as an excitable sort, or a clueless one.” His expression softened with his voice. “You have real talent, Iz.”
Talent? Her? Pleasure bloomed, marching through her veins with the sweet blossom. Had she finally found something she was good at? Something she could point to and say, “Look at this amazing thing I’ve done. See? I am not just my dad’s throwaway. I am worth something to someone.”
“How long have you been making wedding dresses?”
At the vulnerable hitch in his voice, a bubble of surprise enfolded her. “I’ve been doing alterations for years. I made a few dresses before we separated.” She tucked a loose strand of hair behind one ear and shrugged. “I think I’ve made eight others since then.”
“Nine wedding dresses?” His features twisted. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
The stab of sorrow in his tone punctured the bubble. “Probably the same reason you didn’t tell me you quit your job at the firm.”
He reared back. His anger flashed, swift and white-hot.
She plunged ahead before he hurled hurtful words at her. “I know. You forgot. At least I had our good friend Amber Jessop to tell me. At the summer carnival. In front of half of the island.”
“Amber Jessop. Jesus—” He gulped down the rest of the curse.
She braced for his counterstrike, but it didn’t come.
His anger fizzled out, to be replaced with something soft and wounded. “Were you going to tell me?”
Uncertainty swamped her. “I don’t know. Maybe. Eventually.” Pain clouded his features and filled her with regret. She struggled to put words to her reasons. “I guess I thought you’d think it was silly.”
“Why would I think that?” he asked softly.
Her mind chased the memories. After they married, she’d watched him breeze through college on a full-ride scholarship, tackle law school with relative ease, and then when he got bored with that, he started his own business, turning the pub into the premier establishment on the island. He’d done it all on his own, with hard work and stubborn determination, and without any help from anyone.
He was a success two or three times over and she… was a retail clerk who’d dishonored her family. Once, they’d been equals, but their paths had diverged even before that first dinner party at the senior partner’s extravagant home.
She’d tried to play along. For years, she worked hard to become the woman he deserved. The perfect wife and mother with a perfect home, perfect children, perfect hair and clothing. The perfect woman. But every day she failed, and eventually she grew exhausted and defeated with the trying. Somewhere along the way, she’d taken her dreams and sheltered them away inside the secret chamber of her heart.
With a pang, she realized how unfair that had been to him.
“I don’t know.” His familiar face suddenly appeared strange to her. “Maybe... I was wrong.”
His Adam’s apple dipped when he swallowed. “I’m sorry.”
The words carried the weight of a thousand sorrows and their heft slammed into her.
“I’m sorry if I made you feel like you couldn’t talk to me,” he said, his raspy voice rough with emotion. “That you couldn’t, or shouldn’t, pursue this.”
A current passed between them. Not sexual, or even sensual, but intimate nonetheless. Then his gaze touched over her dresses again.
When he glanced back at her, an eager light winked in his vivid blue eyes. “Can I see the other dresses?”
She blinked away the cobwebs of confusion spun by his apology and hurtled back to reality.
“There are no other dresses.” Her hand met her forehead with a soft smack. “This is it.”
His brows pulled together. “What happened to the other five?”
“I sold them.”
“You’ve sold five dresses?” A low whistle leaked out of him. “But didn’t Vanessa say something about ten dresses?”
A sliver of panic shivered through her. “Give or take.”
“And you only have four dresses?”
“I only have four dresses.” Her voice pitched.
“How long will it take you to make the others?”
“Each dress can take weeks. Months even.”
His face fell. “You don’t have months.”
Panic veered toward hysteria. “I have two weeks. To make six dresses.”
“That’s not a lot of time.”
With shaking hands, she pressed her palms against her cheeks and gaped at him. “There isn’t enough time. Or money.”
Suddenly, his expression cleared. “You were trying to get a loan.” A smug smile tipped up one side of his mouth. “That’s why you went out to dinner with Cooper.”
She dropped her arms. “I already told you that.”
“You said it was a business meeting. You didn’t tell me the topic was your business.”
“Cooper and I never got around to discussing business.” She pinned him with a look. “Somebody ruined everything first.”
The corners of his eyes creased when he winced. “Y
ou didn’t get the loan?”
She shrugged to hide her disappointment. “I haven’t heard from him, so I’m guessing not.”
“It’s only been a few weeks. It’ll come through soon.”
Her hand moved through the air with a dismissive wave. “I don’t think it’s going to happen. I mean, I’m a high school dropout who’s never earned more than minimum wage. Not exactly the résumé of a successful business owner.”
“Stop that,” he snapped. “You’re as smart as anyone I know, and a thousand times more talented. You’ve sold five wedding dresses totaling how much? Several thousand dollars? Don’t you dare talk that down.”
His words soothed the mark left by his biting tone. “Thank you. I think.”
He thrust a hand through his hair. “Okay, we need a plan.”
“What plan?”
“Let’s start with inventory. Is there any way you can borrow back the dresses you sold?”
She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t know. A wedding dress is sentimental to a woman. I don’t think they’d give them back.”
“We aren’t going to keep them, we’re only borrowing them. Every dress will be professionally cleaned before we return it. Tell them that.” He dropped his chin and bright blue eyes pierced her. “And this is business now. No sentimental girly stuff. Got it?”
She touched her forehead in mock salute. “Mina and Emily each bought one of my dresses. Maybe we could ask them?”
His smile sent her pulse racing. “Can you make four dresses in two weeks?”
Pulling her bottom lip between her teeth, she gnawed on it, considering. “With my work schedule, I’ll only have a couple of hours in the evening.”
“Can any of your coworkers pick up some of your hours?”
“Sarah might want the extra time.”
“Does she happen to sew?”
“No. But Ginny does.”
“Is she good enough to help you make these dresses?”
Isobel worried her bottom lip. “She is, but I don’t know… her parents are elderly and—”
He silenced her with a look. “Get her. It’s only for two weeks. If she’s worth it, offer to pay her double her salary.”
“I definitely don’t have enough money to double her salary.”