Honour-Bound Groom / Cinderella & the CEO. Maureen Child
Simpson Station feeling as though her entire world had been ripped apart. With that kind of beginning, it was hardly surprising that she’d learned to accept her place at the station, but she’d never learned to love it.
And as for her work here and her responsibilities? Well, it would only be Naomi who missed her, and then only for as long as it took to browbeat some other assistant into docile submission. No. Loren had nothing to hold her here. She and Naomi had never enjoyed the kind of mother-daughter relationship that Loren knew others had and she had learned very early that it was easier to accede to her mother’s wishes than fight for her own. On Isla Sagrado, Loren had been almost solely her father’s child, and Loren had always believed her mother had taken her from the island more as a punishment for Francois Dubois than out of any kind of maternal instinct.
She’d missed Isla Sagrado every day of the past ten years. Of course that pain of loss, the wrench of being repatriated, had dimmed a little over time, but it was still as real now as the man seated alongside her.
Seeing him again was as if he’d brought with him the heat and splendor and lush extravagance of Isla Sagrado. Not to mention the promise of the revival of a passion for living that had lain dormant within her since she’d left the country of her birth.
Yes, her initial reaction to Alex’s arrival here had been shock and disbelief. But it was clear he meant what he said. Why else would he have traveled half the world to come and see her?
Thoughts spun through her mind with lightning-fast speed. Her earlier objections, as weak as they were, had come reflexively—a direct result of surprise at the manifestation of the man who’d been a part of her dreams her entire life. She’d wanted—no, she’d needed—to hear him refute her doubts to her face. To tell her they belonged together as she’d always imagined, as she’d pretty much lost hope of imagining.
Now she knew what it was like to be in his arms, to feel truly alive for the first time she could remember, there was no way she was going to turn her back on her destiny with the only man she’d ever loved.
“Why would I consider marrying Alex? I would have thought that was quite straightforward,” Loren responded with as much aplomb as she could muster under her mother’s piercing gaze. “Inasmuch as Alex wishes to honor his father, so do I mine. I’ve always understood that this would be my future, Mother.” She turned her face to look at Alex. “And it’s what I’ve always wanted. I would be honored to be Alex’s wife.”
“How on earth could you know what you want?” Naomi demanded, pushing up out of her chair and pacing back and forth between them. “You’ve barely been off the station since we’ve lived here. You haven’t experienced the world, other men, anything!”
“Is that what it really takes to make a person happy? Are you truly happy?” Loren held her mother’s gaze as her questions unerringly hit their mark. Naomi gaped for a moment, clearly surprised to hear Loren fight back. But even Naomi couldn’t deny the truth of what Loren had said.
Naomi’s affairs were legend in New Zealand—her power and beauty made for a magnetically lethal combination—and yet, even though many had tried, no man had captured her heart. Loren knew she didn’t want that life for herself.
“We’re not talking about me. We’re talking about you—your future, your life. Don’t throw it away on a pledge made before you can even remember. You are worth so much more than that, Loren.”
Loren felt the walls, her mother’s walls, closing in around her and she pushed them back just as hard.
“Exactly, Mother.” Loren sat up straighter, confidence coming from Alex’s warmth against her side—confidence to speak her mind at last and say the words she’d locked down deep inside for too long. “I stayed here because I had nothing else to do. Growing up on Isla Sagrado, I believed I had a purpose, a direction. When you and Papa split up I lost that. You took me away from the only future I ever wanted.”
“You were just a child—”
“Maybe then, yes. But I’m not a child any longer. We both know I’ve been marking time these past few years. You know my heart isn’t in the station like yours is. You always felt displaced on Isla Sagrado. That’s how I feel here. I want to go back.
“As you so correctly pointed out, we are talking about my future and my life—and I want that to be on Isla Sagrado, with Alex.”
He could hardly believe it had been so easy. Alex savored the exhilaration that surged within him as Loren’s words hung on the air between mother and daughter.
His body continued to throb in reaction to the slightly built woman at his side, remembering how it felt to be pressed against her far more intimately. Yes, kissing her had been a risk, but he’d built his formidable business reputation on taking big risks and reaping even bigger rewards. This had definitely been a risk worth taking.
Just one look at her had been enough to prove the information he’d been given about her sheltered lifestyle. She appeared as untouched and protected as she’d been the day she left Isla Sagrado. But beneath that inexperienced exterior beat a sensual heart. Wakening that side of her would be a delight and would make the whole process of providing Abuelo with a great-grandchild, as proof the curse did not exist and laying it to rest once and for all, an absolute pleasure.
Alex tilted his head slightly to watch Loren as her mother began a tirade of reasons why she should not return to Isla Sagrado. He wasn’t worried about Naomi’s arguments. If there was one thing he remembered most clearly about Loren as a child it was that despite her quiet attitude, there was no matching her tenacity once she had made up her mind. The vast number of his girlfriends she’d scared off being a case in point.
Instead of following the argument, he took the time to fully take in the woman who would be his wife. Her long black hair, scraped back in a utilitarian ponytail, showcased the delicate structure of her face. And what a face—the child’s features he remembered had matured into those of a beautiful young woman’s. Her brows were still strong and delicately arched but the eyes beneath them, dark brown like his own, glowed with an inner fire, and her lips were full and lush. Fuller, perhaps, because of their recent kiss, and certainly something he wanted to taste and savor again.
Where had that gawky kid who’d followed him around incessantly disappeared to? In place of the slightly older version of her that he’d expected, he’d discovered a woman who, while she had every appearance of fragility and a vulnerable air about her that aroused his protective instincts, somehow had managed to develop a backbone of pure steel.
He was reminded of Audrey Hepburn as he looked at her now. The gamine features, matured into beauty—the delicate bone structure, intensely feminine. Something else roared to life from deep inside of him. Something ancient, almost feral. She was his—betrothed to him as a matter of honor between friends, but his nonetheless. And she’d stay that way. Nothing Naomi could say would ever change that.
Two
Despite the luxurious trappings of first class, Loren had been unable to sleep during the long journey from New Zealand. After a day and a half of travel and changeovers she felt weary and more than a little disoriented as she made her way through Sagradan customs and immigration. Nothing about the airport was familiar to her anymore. Still, she supposed as she hefted her cases from the luggage carousel and onto a trolley, it was only natural that change had come to Isla Sagrado in the ten years she’d been gone.
Even so, a pang for the old place she’d left behind lodged behind her heart. Loren shook her head. She was being fanciful if she expected to be able to walk back into her old life as if she’d never left. So much had changed. Her father was gone, her mother was now half a world away and here she was—engaged and preparing to reunite with her fiancé of only a few weeks.
It didn’t seem real, Loren admitted to herself—and not for the first time. Everything had moved so fast from the moment she’d told her mother she was returning to the home of her birth. Well, at least once Naomi had recognized that she could not sway her only