Chapter 1

Alex Bennett hated losing—or wasting time—but he had just lost one, and a big one. He had to pay for it, and the price was… marriage.

His only consolation was that he had lost his freedom in his own way. Despite everything, he allowed his parents to pin him down, forcing him and making him marry some stuck-up debutante, or the daughter of one of his rich friends.

He slips a tape into the VCR in his office on the fifth floor of the Bennett building.

He turns it on with the remote and reclines on the sofa to watch the screen.

An overly made-up woman smiles at the camera and introduces herself in an irritating, high-pitched voice.

Alex lets out a groan. The job of finding a woman is hard, stressful, and probably a waste of time.

It drives him mad to lose precious minutes that turn into hours.

Hours he desperately needed to invest in the family business. Why didn’t his father understand that? Hell, he could have gone to New York on the trip they had talked about and closed another multimillion-dollar deal by now.

With a few exceptions, Alex rarely took a break from the work he enjoyed.

A short, intense workout at the Springs Health Club.

Dinner with a beautiful woman at the lovely restaurant Bon Appetit, followed by a night in company, because, after all, he was a healthy, virile man.

From time to time, his college buddy Dave Johnson convinced him to join him for adventure sports: hiking in the Grand Canyon, rafting the Montana rapids, cycling in Colorado.

Extreme sports reproduce the thrill and risk of swinging on a steel beam thirty meters above the unforgiving ground, or of closing a deal after a tough negotiation.

Alex’s life was business. That’s how he liked it. And—damn it!—if it were up to him, that’s how it would continue.

But his parents’ persistent attempts to marry him off had intensified in recent months.

And Grandma Kate had arrived from Minneapolis, the equivalent of heavy artillery. Whatever Jasmine and Devlin Bennett were plotting to get him married turned out to be an old trick and an old story.

Something ridiculous if it hadn’t been serious and aimed at him. Earlier, his father had given him an ultimatum.

He would marry and start a family before he turned thirty, or he would not inherit his share of the company. It’s for your own good, Alex.

And for the good of this family, he remembered his father’s words.

He tensed again at the thought of the complications a wife and a family would bring to his orderly bachelor life and angrily pressed the eject button on the VCR.

He inserted another tape and sat back down, resting his shoes—at the ends of his long legs—against the edge of the document-strewn table.

He tried to focus on the screen to defend his position as heir to the vice presidency of Bennett Construction.

Alex fixed his gray eyes on the woman being interviewed. There was a sparkle of enthusiasm in her eyes.

She had full red lips, and a wave of platinum hair fell seductively over one eye. Okay, this one was pretty. With a bit of effort, even beautiful.

She was young, energetic, quick in her answers, and willing to have children “in a while.”

An alarm went off in his subconscious. “In a while” meant “I don’t want to ruin my figure until I’m old enough not to care.”

He let out a choked laugh.

Dear Grandma Kate would have a serious problem with that. His lively octogenarian grandmother didn’t try to hide that she wanted great-grandchildren galore. He smiled, shook his head, and pulled the tape out of the VCR again.

“The last video left. This one had better be the one,” Alex mutters as he slides in the final tape and hits play.

“I sincerely hope it’s not what I think it is,” says a deep voice in the hallway. “I don’t waste my time on this kind of thing. The flesh-and-blood ones are much more satisfying.”

Alex turns with a grin toward his brother Jason, who is leaning against the doorjamb with an amused smile. Just as tall, lean, and muscular as his younger brother, Jason’s hair was slightly redder and his eyes amber instead of gray.

However, both shared their father’s proud heritage and were authentically attractive.

The features of both brothers bore the stamp of their Native ancestry: high, angular cheekbones, powerful aquiline noses, jaws that could have been carved to perfection.

Jason watches the image on the screen with mocking solemnity.

“I heard about Dad giving you a wedding ultimatum. How’s that going?”

“Not so well,” Alex replied, turning to find a pale oval face on the TV screen—He stared, surprised. This one was… different.

The young woman spoke softly, as if she were afraid someone would hear her.

She wasn’t trying to sell herself or flirt with the camera like the previous ones.

She didn’t seem to be wearing makeup or any kind of jewelry. If there were a word to describe her, it would be “homely,” very plain.

And yet there was something about this woman that caught Alex’s attention in a way the others didn’t.

“Is this a new technique for interviewing receptionists?”

“Future wives.”

His brother’s sudden laughter echoed in the room.

“Yeah, sure,” he said, making an effort to compose himself as he rubbed his eyes. “Future wives.”

“I’m serious. If I’m going to get married in less than a year, may lightning strike me if I let them pick a wife for me.”

“Do you really think Dad was serious?”

“He made it clear today at lunch. Luckily, I had a plan in motion.”

“That’s not a plan,” Jason said, shaking his head, “that’s a disaster. You can’t find a woman like that!”

“Why not?” Alex asked stubbornly. He hated being told how to live his life, and that didn’t exclude his brother or his cousins, who worked in the family business. Who sets the rules for choosing a wife?

Hell, they wanted you to marry Cara when you got her pregnant—when you were only twenty! I don’t want to end up like…

He cut himself off too late. The last word, “you,” hung in silence between them. He wished he’d kept quiet. He hadn’t meant to be so critical or remind Jason of the failure of his first marriage.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…”

Jason made a dismissive gesture with his hand.

“Look, I’ve tried to tell Dad I’m not husband material, but he doesn’t listen. And I don’t have time to do anything else.”

There were many things Alex considered he could do well. He knew how to lift a half-ton beam ten stories up, lay foundations that wouldn’t crack even in Arizona’s relentless heat, set rivets with his crew, and kiss a woman until she went crazy. But marriage? That just wasn’t for him.

Jason seemed less interested in his brother’s explanations than in the small, nervous creature appearing on the TV’s wide screen.

“Look at her. She looks like she thinks the interviewer is a lion about to devour her,” Jason commented.

“She looks scared to death,” Alex admitted. She had huge eyes and blinked, blinked, blinked like a wild animal caught in headlights. She moistened her lips several times with the tip of her tongue. For once, the gesture didn’t look intentional—so much shyness unsettled him.

Even so, Alex found it attractive—tempting in its innocence.

“I don’t know why people lend themselves to this kind of trade,” Jason sighed, “as if they were a steak for sale.

“It’s as bad as going to singles’ bars.”

“Who knows. Loneliness? The desire to be part of something? A couple… a family.”

But Alex already had a family. And he didn’t want anything more. His brother, his niece, his parents, his grandmother, and his cousins were a boisterous, hardworking family—a proud, competitive clan.

He loved them all passionately. He wasn’t interested in bringing an intruder into the fold, and he didn’t understand why his parents insisted so much that he should.

Surprisingly, he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the timid woman’s face.

“Bella,” he heard the interviewer say, “why did you sign up with the Cupid’s Arrows agency?”

She straightened her spine, threw back her narrow shoulders, and lifted her chin to look directly at the camera for the first time.

Alex realized the effort it must have taken to perform those simple movements.

“I want a baby,” she said.

“Good Lord, she just dug her own grave with that,” Jason murmured.

Alex shook his head slowly.

Someone would have to tell her that honesty wouldn’t get her a boyfriend. She gave the impression of being desperate.

And desperation wouldn’t win men’s interest.

“What you mean,” the interviewer suggested, trying to steer her toward a more appealing answer, “is that you want to find your soulmate, someone to share your interests with, like haute cuisine or a love of children…”

“No,” Bella said slowly, emphasizing each word, as if each contained a unique message. “The only thing I want is a child. Several children, actually. Three, four… more, if my husband wants them. I love children.”

Alex wondered if there was a hidden message. That children were great, but she didn’t much like men?

“I understand,” the interviewer murmured. The sound of pages turning could be heard. She had been completely thrown off.

“Bella… What was her last name?” Alex looked at the letter that came with the videotapes.

“Parker.”

“Yes, Bella Parker was too sincere for that sophisticated matchmaking agency with offices all over the country.”

Alex felt embarrassed. He pressed the button to eject the cassette, which slid smoothly out of the VCR.

“Good girl,” Jason commented. “She has no idea, does she?”

“Eh? Oh, no…” Alex said, still thinking about Bella Parker’s eyes. He didn’t remember their amber color, perhaps.

A soft color for eyes that didn’t draw much attention.

But they had a hazy quality he’d love to explore in person. And that little pink tip of tongue that appeared from time to time and then…

God, the effect it had in his groin.