The Magnate's Mail-Order Bride

by Joanne Rock

  “If you were my bride-to-be, I would spare no expense to show the world you were mine.” His blue eyes glowed with a warmth that had her remembering his kiss. Her breath caught in her chest and she wondered what it might be like for him to call her that for real.

  Mine.

  “I’m—” At a total loss for words. “That is—” She folded the diamond into her hand, squeezing it tightly so the stones pressed into her soft skin, distracting her from her hypnotic awareness of this man. “If you insist.”

  “It’s a matter of believability, Sofia.”

  “It’s only for one month.” She wasn’t sure if she said it to remind him or herself.

  “We’ll work out the details tomorrow.” He reached to smooth a strand of hair from her forehead, barely touching her and still sending shimmers of pleasure along her temple and all the way down the back of her neck. “Sleep well.”

  She didn’t even manage to get her voice working before he was out the door again, leaving her alone in a suddenly too empty apartment.

  Squeezing the ring tighter in her fist, she waited for the pinch of pain from the sharp edges of the stones. She needed to remember that this wasn’t real. Quinn McNeill had only agreed to this mad scheme to clean up his brother’s mess. Any hint of attraction she felt needed to be squashed immediately, especially since Quinn was cut from the same mold as her father—focused on business and the accumulation of wealth. Her world was about art, emotions and human connections.

  Her mother had taught her that people did not fall into both camps. In Sofia’s experience it was true. And since she wanted her own relationships to be meaningful bonds rooted in shared creativity and ideals, she was willing to wait until she had more time in her life to find the right partner. Romance could not be rushed.

  “It’s only for a month,” she said aloud again, forcing herself to set the engagement ring on the hallway table.

  Surely she could keep up her end of a fake engagement for the sake of appearances? She’d made countless sacrifices for her career, from dancing on broken toes to living away from her family on the other side of the globe to train with Russian ballet masters.

  Ignoring the sensual draw of Quinn McNeill couldn’t possibly be more difficult than those challenges.

  Yet, even as she marched herself off to bed, she feared she was lying to herself that she could keep her hands off the man anywhere near as easily as she’d set down the ring.

  Four

  Quinn pulled an all-nighter, working straight through until noon the next day. He rearranged his schedule to accommodate more time in the city over the upcoming month. He’d avoided the office and shut off his phone for all but critical notifications, not ready to address the questions about his relationship with Sofia until they’d worked out a game plan.

  Sofia.

  Shoving away from the overly bright screen on his laptop, Quinn leaned back into the deep leather cushioning of his office chair. His grandfather’s old chair, even after decades of use, seemed to retain class and grace, a steady touchstone in a career that constantly demanded invention and innovation to stay competitive. Eyes wandering to the corner of his walnut desk, he absently skimmed over the open newspaper. Even with news apps on his phone, Quinn still read the paper every morning, feeling a sense of connection to the ink and paper. And he couldn’t ignore what was printed in today’s society section—a photograph of the lithe ballerina.

  She hadn’t been far from his thoughts all morning and now was no different as he shut down his computer and headed out of the office building to his chauffeur-driven Escalade. And damn if Sofia didn’t continue to dance through his mind as he rode toward the site of McNeill Resorts’ latest renovation project in Brooklyn. Quinn powered down his laptop and stored it in the compartment beside the oversize captain’s chair. He tried to prep himself for the inevitable confrontation with Cameron, who was slated to be on site in their grandfather’s absence.

  Even though his brother had walked away from his would-be ballerina bride yesterday, Quinn guessed that Cameron would still have something to say about the turn of events after he’d left. And though Quinn hoped he’d quelled some of Sofia’s father’s anger, he knew the engagement would make waves with his brother. If anything, Quinn hoped that this would make Cameron come to his senses about tying the knot with a woman he’d never met.

  Running his hand through thick hair, Quinn let out a low sigh. He needed Cameron to be rational today.

  He pressed the switch for the intercom as the Escalade rolled to a stop.

  “I shouldn’t be long, Jeff,” Quinn told his driver before he stepped out of the vehicle in front of the converted bank on Montague Street in Brooklyn Heights. Coffee in hand, he headed onto the site, his well-worn leather shoes crunching against the gravel and construction dust.

  Glancing at the scaffolding on the building, he nodded at the progress as the smell of fresh-cut wood and the sounds of hammering filled the air.

  “Morning, Giacomo.” Quinn nodded to the site foreman before picking up a hard hat to enter the building.

  Giacomo—a sought-after project manager who specialized in historic conversions—gave a silent wave, his ear pressed to his cell phone while he juggled a coffee and a tablet full of project notes. The guy pointed to the roof of the building, answering Quinn’s unasked question about his brother’s whereabouts. Out of respect, the only time the McNeills showed up at each other’s job sites was to talk family business.

  Or, in this case, family brides.

  Mood darkening as he anticipated an argument, Quinn climbed the temporary stairs installed during the renovation stage to connect the floors that had been stripped down to the studs. A swirl of cement dust kicked up from some kind of demo work on the second floor, and he quickened his steps. He passed some workers perched on scaffolding outside the fourth floor, debating the merits of salvaging some of the crumbling granite façade. Quinn had practically grown up on job sites like this, frequently travelling around the country with his grandfather to learn the business.

  At least, that had been the family’s party line. The larger reason was that, during the six months of the year his father had custody of his sons, Liam McNeill was usually too busy thrill-seeking around the globe to bother with parental duties.

  Cliff-jumping in Santorini, Greece, or white-water rafting down a perilous South Korean river always seemed like more fun to Quinn’s father than child-rearing. So Malcolm McNeill had stepped in more times than not, teaching his grandsons about property development and the resort industry from the ground up.

  Reaching the rooftop, Quinn spied his brother looking out at the skyline from the structure’s best feature—a sunny oasis on the roof that would one day be a space for outdoor dining, drinks and special events. Even at noon the view was breathtaking. But at dusk, when the sun slipped behind the Manhattan skyline, there was no finer perspective on the city than right here.

  Cameron sat in a beat-up plastic patio chair that looked like a Dumpster salvage, the legs speckled with various-colored paints. He had dragged the seat close to the edge of the roof, his laptop balanced on his knees and his hard hat sitting on a section of exposed trusses at his feet. His dark jeans sported sawdust, his leg bouncing to some unheard rhythm.

  Quinn must have made a noise or cast a shadow because Cameron looked toward him.

  “I’m not sure I want to see you right now.” Cameron didn’t smile, his attention returning to his computer screen. “The headlines I’ve seen so far don’t exactly fill me with confidence about what went on last night after I left.”

  “The key point there being—you left.” Quinn had never connected as well with Cam as he did with Ian, and that made it tougher to see Cameron’s side now when his younger brother seemed so clearly in the wrong.

  “So you felt compelled to stick around and play white kn
ight?” Cameron flipped the screen of his laptop to face Quinn, showing a headline that read Two McNeill Magnates Propose to Former Sugarplum Fairy.

  The accompanying photo showed Sofia pirouetting across a stage in a tutu. Damn. So he hadn’t really imagined how hot she was. The levelheaded, practical side of Quinn reeled at the absurd headline and the media circus that would continue to send in the clowns until the official “engagement” story aired.

  But his rational side didn’t seem to be in full control. Sofia’s petite body, her lean and limber pose, made him recall their kiss and the heat of that impromptu moment.

  Cameron set his jaw, daggers dancing from his eyes. Accusatory and angry, sure. It was all Quinn needed to be drawn back to the problem at hand.

  Quinn crossed his arms, undaunted. Cam had to realize what was at stake.

  “You piss off her father, one of the wealthiest men in the world, who also happens to have enough Eastern European connections to run our deal for the new resorts into the ground, and call it none of my business?” Quinn shook his head and dragged a crate over to where Cameron was sitting. He planted a foot on it.

  Cameron’s mouth thinned, his voice a near growl. “You crossed a line into my personal affairs and you know it. You don’t just propose to your brother’s girl five minutes after they’re through.” Cameron tipped back in the plastic chair like it was a rocker. It teetered on two legs.

  The move put Quinn’s teeth on edge but not nearly as much as his words. Cam would think no more of walking across exposed truss beams at two stories than he would at twelve.

  “Sofia was never yours,” Quinn reminded him, more irritated than he ought to be at the idea, as a protective fire suddenly blazed in the pit of his chest. “And you lost any chance you had of salvaging something with her when you walked out of the airport yesterday.”

  For once, however, Quinn couldn’t be disappointed with in Cam’s impulsive ways. The thought of her sharing that kiss with anyone but Quinn was intolerable.

  “Think what you want of my motives, but I saw how you were looking at her.” Cameron drummed his fingers along the back of the laptop case.

  That stopped him. He couldn’t deny that he’d felt something as soon as he’d seen her in person.

  Cam shook his head. “And I still wouldn’t have walked out, except I saw her looking at you that same exact way. It’s one thing for me to turn my back on a bar fight or a heated investors meeting, but, contrary to popular belief, I wouldn’t leave the woman to fend off nosy journalists if I hadn’t seen the looks darting back and forth between you two.”

  “In that case...thank you.” Stunned by a depth of insight he’d never given his brother credit for, Quinn wasn’t sure how to handle the new information. Had Sofia been as drawn to him as he was to her? “After speaking to her father, I’m beginning to think her privacy was compromised by the matchmaker he hired. Bad enough Vitaly Koslov contracted the consultant without her knowledge. But I don’t think he would have ever sanctioned his daughter’s photo and contact information on the kind of pick-a-bride profile site you described to me.”

  “I thought the same thing after I left the airport yesterday.” Cameron turned his laptop screen so Quinn could see the web banner for a Manhattan matchmaker, Mallory West. “I called my own matchmaker and she reminded me that I knowingly chose a match off a third-party web site Mallory West’s clients can access, so I was informed ahead of time that Ms. West didn’t know those women personally. She simply facilitated the meet. She gave me a full refund and assured me she would speak to the person who vetted the women on the web site I viewed.”

  Quinn sank down onto the crate and looked out across the bay on the sprawl of Lower Manhattan anchored by the Freedom Tower. Now that he’d seen firsthand how much havoc Cameron’s bride hunt had caused for Sofia, he was thoroughly invested in the whole debacle.

  “How can a matchmaker match people she doesn’t actually know?” That sounded unethical. “I didn’t think that’s how they worked.”

  Cameron nodded as he signed into a private web page.

  “They don’t. But I was in a hurry and didn’t want to jump through a lot of hoops since I wasn’t really looking for true love everlasting.” Cameron shrugged. “And Mallory’s right—she was just a facilitator. I was paying special attention to the women listed on that third-party web site.”

  “Defeating the whole purpose of a matchmaker.” Quinn ground his teeth together. “You might as well have gone shopping for a bride online. Why the hell would you pay the rates for a private matchmaker only to meet a woman whose name you pulled out of a damn hat?”

  Cam seemed to take the question seriously. “I wanted to speed up the process and I hoped that the matchmaker’s résumé lent credibility to the women I met.”

  Quinn wished he’d paid better attention when Cameron had first told him about his visit to the matchmaker’s office, but at the time, he’d been focused on talking Cam out of jumping into a marriage.

  “So she’s taking no responsibility and she gave you your money back, which makes me wonder if she’s worried about that web site, too. Can you still access that page?”

  “No. Now that I’ve given up my membership with Mallory West, I can’t, but Ms. West said Sofia’s profile is no longer included on the page.”

  “And once you told her you were interested in meeting Sofia, she texted you the flight details?”

  “Correct.” Cameron closed the laptop.

  “I’ll pass that information along to Sofia’s father. I’m hoping to defuse some of his anger. After all, he was the one who released her photo in the first place. It’s not your fault he hired an incompetent matchmaker.” Quinn raised his voice as a jackhammer went to work somewhere in the building. The roof vibrated with the noise.

  “I find it ironic that I ran out to marry a woman because of Gramps’ will, and Sofia was my match based on her father’s equally manipulative tactics to see her wed.” Cameron picked up his hard hat and juggled it from one hand to another, his eyes never leaving some distant point to the northwest.

  “Right. But I don’t understand why Vitaly was surprised to see you in the airport if he shared the flight information with Sofia’s matchmaker, who shared it with yours.” Quinn’s teeth rattled as the vibrations under his feet picked up strength. “I don’t think his surprise was an act. Which means something doesn’t add up.”

  He’d already hired a guy in his company’s IT department to research any information about Sofia Koslov that had been posted online in the last month. Even if the third-party web site had deleted her profile, this guy could usually find reliable traces. For Quinn, it would help to show Vitaly where Cameron had found Sofia’s profile. How could Sofia’s father block the sale of the hotels the McNeills wanted if they were blameless in this matchmaking snafu?

  But hiring an investigator served a second purpose, too—protecting Sofia’s privacy.

  Rising to his feet in one fluid motion, Cameron picked up his hard hat and shoved it onto his head.

  “It makes sense to figure out what happened with Sofia’s personal information before you move forward with your engagement.” Cam checked his phone and put it in his pocket. “Or your wedding.”

  “Whoa.” Quinn clapped a hand on his brother’s back. Hard. “We’re not getting married, as you damn well know.”

  The thought of spending a night with her revved him up fast, though. He didn’t need that image in his head when he was on his way to meet her and talk through a plan for their fake engagement.

  Then again, it wasn’t as if he’d promised to keep his hands off her or anything. And she wanted the engagement to be believable. Already he was giving himself permission to get closer to her.

  Much, much closer.

  “You keep on telling yourself there’s nothing going on.” Cam shook off his hand and s
talked toward the stairwell. “But no matter how much you play it off like Gramps’ will doesn’t matter to you, I know it’s got to be in the back of your mind that you need to get married.” Cameron rested a hand on the brick half wall that housed the stairs and faced Quinn. “Soon.”

  A dark expression clouded Cameron’s features as he turned away, his steps echoing in the sudden silence as the jackhammer stopped. Quinn watched his brother walk away before he could argue. He was not getting married for the sake of McNeill Resorts, damn it. He was just running some damage control for the family business after his brother had made such a damn mess of things.

  But maybe Cameron had a point. Quinn was attracted to her. He had to pretend to be her fiancé. There was no reason in the world he couldn’t use this time to get closer to Sofia.

  To enjoy Sofia.

  To find out if that kiss had been a fluke or if the heat between them was every bit as scorching as he imagined.

  Five

  Sofia braided her wet hair in the large, shared dressing room after her shower, unwilling to attend her meeting with Quinn while drenched in sweat from her second class of the day. The writer Anton Chekov had once famously said that he knew nothing about the ballet but that the ballerinas “stink like horses” during the intervals, and the man had a point.

  Digging in her bag for a hair tie, she scuttled past some of the junior dancers before she dropped into a chair near one of the makeup mirrors. The afternoon classes tended to have more of the sixteen-to eighteen-year-olds who could give her a run for her money physically, which had been just what she’d needed. After a day in the air yesterday, her body had felt off during her first class of the morning. So after her show rehearsals, she’d joined an afternoon session as well to will her body back into show shape. A day missed, and a dancer noticed. Besides, cramming every second of her day with hard work meant there were less opportunities for her older colleagues to quiz her about yesterday.