Bride By Design. Leigh Michaels
it had been in the beginning. But the agony of grief and loss could flare up—as it had today—at the slightest reminder, without warning and without giving her any chance to brace herself against it.
Still, it was a little easier to bear now. With time, Eve told herself, perhaps it would recede even more, until someday it might be nothing more than a low-level but ever-present heartache. And it was a little comfort—though very little—to know that she had done the right thing. As much as the decision had hurt, she couldn’t have lived with herself had she done anything else.
A woman sitting nearby tossed a magazine toward the wastebasket—but missed—as she went to greet a passenger. Eve watched them walk toward the door, then picked up the discarded magazine and began to flip through the pages, hardly seeing the articles. Every few minutes a new gush of passengers came down the concourse, and she glanced up not at them but at the monitor overhead, where the flight from Atlanta was still listed as expected to arrive on time.
There was no question in her mind that she had made the right choice—the only choice—where Travis was concerned. But that didn’t mean she could ever put it all behind her.
A woman couldn’t stop loving someone simply because he was out of her reach. Caring wasn’t like a faucet, to be turned on and off at will. It was more like an artesian spring bubbling up when and where it willed, unstopping and unstoppable.
Of course, the fact that she had given her heart so completely to Travis meant there was no chance of another love in her life. Eve had accepted that, but it wasn’t something she cared to explain. Even Henry didn’t know the entire story, and she wasn’t about to tell every man who invited her out for dinner that she could never be interested in him because she was permanently and forever in love with someone else.
As a matter of fact, in the months since she had made her decision about Travis, it had been even more difficult than usual for her to remain aloof from other men. The male of the species seemed to find the world-weary and obviously uninterested Eve more attractive—or perhaps just more of a challenge—than ever before.
I have my reasons, she had told David, for wanting the protection of a wedding ring. Once married, she would no longer have to be on guard every instant for fear that some man would think she was flirting, leading him on, indicating an interest she was far from feeling.
The possibility that she was interested in him would never occur to David, of course, because he knew better. That was why he would make such an ideal husband. The bargain they had struck certainly wasn’t doing him any harm—the benefits he was getting from the marriage were immense. And since neither of them was under any illusion that their marriage would ever be anything verging on romance, there would be no need to pretend or to be on guard against a slip of the tongue or an action that might be misinterpreted.
Not even Henry was unrealistic enough to hope that they had fallen in love at first sight. Or that they’d do so any other time along the way, either. And though he’d no doubt be saddened when he realized, somewhere down the road, that the heir he hoped for wasn’t going to materialize—well, even the most intimate of marriages didn’t always produce offspring. Being childless didn’t prove anything.
The arrangement was perfect, Eve told herself. And the case of nerves that she was suffering was nothing more than any woman felt on taking such an irrevocable action. It didn’t indicate doubt.
In fact, she wished that she’d been able to convince Henry to hold the wedding tonight and have it over with. What was the sense of waiting any longer?
Another stream of passengers strode by, but Eve was paying no attention. She was watching a man in a dark blue uniform who had just taken up his stance at the edge of the waiting area, holding a sign that said Elliot. The limo driver, right on time.
It would be pretty funny, Eve thought, if David spotted the driver but walked right past her. For a moment, she toyed with the idea of staying where she was, her magazine hiding her face, and waiting until they’d gone. She could always tell Henry that she’d missed David in all the airport traffic….
A passenger stopped abruptly beside her, momentarily blocking the man behind him and making him dodge and swear, but Eve didn’t notice him at all until he spoke softly. “Eve?”
She jerked around to face him. That voice, she thought. It can’t be— “Travis?”
“Eve,” he said, and there was a tremor in his usually smooth voice. “My darling Eve. How did you know…from my secretary, of course. That’s how you found out I’d be coming in today. I didn’t know you were keeping in touch with her.”
She shook her head. But she couldn’t keep herself from looking at him, drinking in the sight of him. He looked more elegant than ever, she thought, his tailoring perfect and every white-blond hair in place, with a trench coat slung casually over his arm and a slim alligator-skin sample case in one hand.
“I didn’t dare to hope,” he said, and his voice cracked. “I’ve longed for you so, my darling. I’ve tried to do as you asked. I’ve tried so hard, but it simply hasn’t worked. I can’t stop thinking of you, dreaming of you, wanting you. And you obviously can’t forget me either, or you wouldn’t be here to meet me.” He sounded triumphant. “Let me hear you say it, Eve. Tell me you’re here because you’ve changed your mind.”
If only I could change my mind, she thought, but I can’t—because nothing is different. She summoned every ounce of courage and self-control she possessed. “I’m not here to meet you, Travis.”
He seemed to falter for an instant before regaining his conviction. “But of course you are. Why else would you be sitting here?” He put out an arm as if to draw her against him. “It’s not exactly the hot spot of the city.”
The agony and the uncertainty and the self-questioning that had haunted Eve in the days while she was making her decision swept over her again in waves. It was all starting over again, she thought in despair. She felt herself wavering, moved by the way his voice had trembled with earnestness. Perhaps she’d been wrong after all to turn her back on what they’d shared, to deny them the chance at a life together….
No, she told herself firmly. Her decision, made with such grief and pain and logic, could not have been wrong. This momentary vacillation was the madness.
But how was she going to convince Travis of that, when she was having trouble persuading herself?
Something beyond Travis caught her eye, and she looked over his shoulder at a passenger who was coming down the concourse. A tall, broad-shouldered, ever-so-slightly rumpled passenger—but then David wasn’t in the habit, as Travis was, of spending hours every day on airliners.
David, she thought, and relief surged through her.
She tossed aside the magazine she’d been holding, ducked past Travis, and ran to meet David. She saw his eyebrows go up slightly just as she flung herself against him with her face lifted to his. “Kiss me,” she said in an urgent undertone.
He dropped his briefcase, his arms closed around her, and his mouth came down, hard and demanding, on hers.
This is a good man to have around in an emergency, Eve thought. No questions, no hesitation, just prompt and effective action.
His first kiss was long and deep and hot, the assured embrace of a lover who hadn’t the slightest doubt that his caress would be welcomed and encouraged. Very effective action, in fact. Eve was feeling a little shaky herself, and she couldn’t begin to imagine what this must look like to a casual observer.
David ended the kiss, held her a fraction of an inch away from him for a moment, and then, as if she had stirred a hunger that wouldn’t allow him to let her go, pulled her even closer, wrapping her more tightly in his arms, and kissed her as if the first caress had been only a casual greeting.
By the time he finally raised his head, Eve’s brain was as full of static as a badly tuned radio. She could hear bits of conversation from people in the concourse, but she was having trouble making sense of the words. “Lucky guy,”