Rough Around the Edges by Marie Ferrarella

Author:Marie Ferrarella [Ferrarella, Marie]
Format: mobi
Tags: Romance
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2001-06-22T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

Kitt pushed the tiny bouquet of baby carnations strapped to Shawna’s wrist back, away from her face. In protest, Shawna squirmed against her chest, mewling a protest.

Probably because her heart was hammering so loud, it was frightening the baby, Kitt thought. One arm around her daughter, she was holding her own bouquet of carnations with the other. Both had been a gift from O’Rourke. He’d taken care of everything, right down to purchasing the wedding outfit for her and, incredibly enough, a similar one for Shawna. He’d claimed not to know what he was doing, but for a man supposedly without a clue, he was doing brilliantly well.

Kitt’s heart pounded harder as, listening to the priest, she heard him coming to the home stretch. The all-important words that, business arrangement or not, would bind her to this tall, dark, handsome stranger at her side.

She hadn’t thought she’d be nervous. After all, this was just supposed to be a business arrangement, nothing more. Something circumstances had forced her into for the sake of her own self-respect.

Yes, she was an aerospace reliability engineer, and yes, she would be working again and soon, but the fact of it was that she was still a female aerospace reliability engineer and a new mother to boot. Because of government rules and regulations, employers pretended that all things were equal, but in reality, on an unspoken level, they weren’t. People were still people, and in the eyes of those who counted, because of her age, sex and circumstances, she could very well be a liability at the present time. That made getting a job in her field not impossible, but not as easy as falling off a log, either.

And she needed to fall off that log, quickly, because she only had the money that had been in her purse—Jeffrey hadn’t left her any. Not a single, worn-out thin dime.

So here she was, standing at the altar of a perfectly lovely church in Bedford, with a cherubic-looking man in clerical robes reading words aloud she had dearly hoped to hear in earnest, rather than because it was all part of a complex charade.

As they came to the part where they exchanged their vows and their rings, Kitt glanced at the man standing beside her. Despite her butterflies, or maybe because of them, she couldn’t help thinking that O’Rourke cleaned up nicely. He was wearing a black tuxedo and looked, for all the world, just like a beautiful bridegroom.

Her bridegroom.

Kitt almost laughed then, just as O’Rourke was saying that he took her for his lawful wedded wife. Too bad this was all make-believe. Too bad the words weren’t real.

“And do you, Katherine Ann Dawson, take this man…”

Don’t go there, don’t even think it, she warned herself. She couldn’t think of this as anything but what it was, an unorthodox sort of employment. She was going to have absolutely no feelings for this man, other than for a sense of loyalty. And gratitude, she added, because he had given her a way to save face.

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