Chapter One
“For the plot.”Cam Saunders winked and laughed.His golden blond hair glinted in the early afternoon light shafting through the wall of windows of the Denver high-rise corporate condo and office suite he’d insisted on purchasing a few years ago for the company that didn’t need it.Cam did much of his work socially and on the go.The company could be run on a laptop anywhere and was.
The three words had been Cam’s catchphrase since he’d won a scholarship to University of Texas at Austin and left Oklahoma in the dust he swore it deserved.Cam was always doing something because he thought it would make a great story to tell.
“But a bride?”Telford Crow, as dark as his business partner and mentor was light, made the last word of his question sound foreign.
Cam laughed, clapped Telford on the shoulder.“You should think about it too.Double wedding.It’s a reputable agency.The woman they matched me with—wow.”He kissed his fingertips and made an exploding sound.“Delicious.”He made the female shape with his hands.“And an accountant so useful too.”
Cam was winding Telford up.He always did.The sunny, funny, play-the-room tycoon to Telford’s silent circling-in-the-shadows shark.
“Yeah, I’ll get a mail-order bride on my calendar.”
“You should,” Cam said.
For a moment, Cam’s sparkling inner light—that had dazzled Telford from the moment they’d met when he’d been matched with Cam as his Big Brother in a Lone Star nonprofit agency for troubled boys—blinded him.He almost wanted to agree with Cam, just to please him, though he was an adult now and an equal in their business partnership.
Telford still didn’t understand why a finance and business major, and an admitted “gunner” who’d only signed up for the program to finesse a letter of recommendation from a professor—on the nonprofit’s board—to a prestigious MBA program had stuck with a ten-year-old pissed-off kid with no man or caring adult in his life.
“It’s time to marry and procreate.”
Telford, researching a company he had in his sights, stared at Cam.He played the field—weekly sometimes nightly.Why was he lipping off about settling down now?
“Legacy, brother,” Cam said as if he’d read Telford’s mind.“We can’t take all this with us.”He swept his arm wide indicating the businesses they’d started and sold, others they’d bought, streamlined and improved, and sold.Physically—brick and mortar—they didn’t own a lot.But on paper—heavy bottom line.The company had cleared over a billion this year.Maybe that was what had encouraged Cam’s future-oriented introspection.
Change.
Telford hated it, though it was a necessary evil.He’d follow Cam anywhere and had, but this… a wife, kids… everything in Telford revolted.His DNA—on his father’s side—was sketch at best.And Cam with a wife would change everything.And when kids arrived, their relationship would be unrecognizable.
The selfish thought shamed him.Cam had entered Telford’s life like a comet, and he had grabbed on and ridden the white-hot, dazzling light further than he’d ever imagined going.
“But why a woman you don’t even know?”Telford demanded.
Cam chatted women up as easily as Telford breathed.
“I know her.We’ve been texting.You know all about that.”Cam laughed as if having Telford sometimes handle the texting with a woman Telford had thought of only as a potential hookup for Cam, not a potential wife, was hilarious.
If the woman found out, she might not be pleased, he thought sourly—Cam getting him in potential hot water once again.Telford felt dirty.Some of the exchanges had gone in an unexpected and not unpleasant direction—sort of whimsical at times, not at all how he thought an accountant looking to marry for money and security before love would respond.Or initiate.He felt guilty though Cam had handed him the company cell at times and told him tohave at it.And it’s not like he’d deleted any of the exchanges, though at times he’d been tempted to—after taking a screenshot.It had been an uncomfortable realization that he’d had some of the most emotionally intimate conversations with a woman he’d not met but who would possibly become Cam’s wife.
And they’d have a secret between them.
What was one more to keep?
“Besides,” Cam said interrupting Telford’s brood, “bride is first on the list.”
Telford wasn’t sure he was ready to hear what was second.He had work to do—deals to make.
“Dumb thing to have on the list,” Telford grumbled.This was the first he’d heard of a list.
“Is it?”Cam seemed unconcerned with Telford’s judgment.He jammed his hands in the pocket of his Zegna Trofeo Milano charcoal suit trousers.
“Definitely.”
Cam was winding him up.He had to be.No way did the man who sometimes went to events with a woman on each of his arms want to settle down with one.Forever.
“You date often.”Telford’s frustration bubbled through.“Why not pick a… known quantity?”
“The spice of life has its place,” Cam shot back easily.“But the women who meet the standards of this agency are thoroughly vetted and interviewed.They are educated, accomplished, health-screened, and want families.Also”—Cam grinned like a kid—“for the plot?”
