The Wedding Bargain by Yvonne Lindsay

Author:Yvonne Lindsay
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2014-02-03T17:00:00+00:00

—H.

Raif cracked a wry smile. It would have been worth it to see the expression on his cranky cleaner’s face when she came across that little surprise. He went to the spare room to see the dress in question.

It hung in all its subdued glittering splendor on the rail, the layers of froth at the bottom almost filling the generous space of the wardrobe. Off Shanal’s body it lacked the power and substance it had carried when she’d worn it into the church last Saturday. It was nothing more than a pretty dress with maybe a few too many sparkles attached. He wondered if she wanted it back, and the dainty shoes set beneath it on the shoe rack.

A swell of impotent rage filled him, making him want to drag the gown from its hangar and cast it back on the floor where Shanal had left it. He swallowed against the urge to roar in disgust at the whole situation. The relief would be only temporary and yelling would do nothing whatsoever toward solving the problem. Shanal had chosen to go with Burton. Sure, there had been disturbing undercurrents between her and her fiancé—it didn’t take an honors student to figure that out. What they hadn’t said in front of him was certainly more interesting than what they had.

But how to get to the bottom of it, that was the question. Burton had to have some kind of leverage over Shanal. He just had to. Or did he? Maybe it was just that Raif preferred to believe that, since otherwise he’d be forced to conclude that Shanal had used him simply to make a point with her fiancé. He shoved the idea ruthlessly from his mind before it could bloom into anything else.

She was not like that. At least, she’d never been like that in all the years he’d known her. Besides, Ethan was a great judge of character and he certainly wouldn’t call someone his best friend if she was the type of person to use another, to go so far as to sleep with him, simply to further her own agenda. And there’d been that sense of innocence about Shanal when they’d kissed and when they’d made love for the first time. That wasn’t something you could fake.

Raif slammed the door of the wardrobe and strode from the room. He’d get to the bottom of this somehow.

* * *

Shanal shoved a pen behind her ear and rubbed at her eyes. Working late at the laboratory, going over and over the test results from their latest genetic experiment to increase the yield of a particular strain of vinafera hybrid, had done nothing to calm her mind or relieve the ever tightening noose of strain that trapped her. She pushed her chair back from her desk and stared out the window of her office into the darkness that lay beyond. How symbolic it was of her life at the moment, at least of her future, she thought with a shiver of foreboding.

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