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Overview
Trapped in a cabin with the man who makes her want what she shouldn’t have . . .
Wedding photographer Briana Harper never expected to run into her ex at an engagement shoot! And when a blizzard strands them . . . alone . . . in a remote mountain cabin, she knows she’s in trouble. She’s never forgotten Ian Lawson, but none of the reasons they broke up have changed. He’s still a workaholic. And now he’s an engaged workaholic!
But Ian is also still a man who knows what he wants. And what he wants is Briana. Untangling the lies of his current engagement leaves him free to . . . indulge. Yet proving he’s changed may be this music mogul’s toughest negotiation yet . . .
“A thrilling romance about two individuals who come together against all odds . . . Highly recommended for everyone who loves forbidden romance made possible in the most spectacular way.” —Harlequin Junkie (4 stars)
“Briana and Ian’s situation is less than ideal, but the events are plotted out perfectly.” —Romantic Times (4.5 stars)
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781460344644 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Harlequin |
| Publication date: | 05/26/2022 |
| Series: | Brides and Belles Series , #1 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 188 |
| Sales rank: | 315,183 |
| File size: | 491 KB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
"This is not good."
As though the universe had heard Ian's words, the tires on his Cadillac Escalade skidded on a patch of ice. He corrected the truck's erratic movement and steered it back into the lane and away from the deep ditch on the side of the road. Gripping the leather steering wheel with white-knuckled tension, he cursed and silently thanked his assistant for making sure he left first thing this morning. Any later and he might not have made it.
The snowflakes were growing increasingly difficult to see through and were collecting along the side of the road. On the freeway from Nashville toward Gatlin-burg, the weather had changed from rain to sleet to an icy slush. Now, in the heart of the Smoky Mountains, it was one hundred percent snow.
And a lot of it.
At the bottom of the hill that led to his mountainside community, he backed up slightly, put his SUV into a lower gear and started accelerating up the incline. Slow and steady, he made it up and around the long, winding curve to his driveway at the very top, then pulled into the garage.
Ian grabbed his bag from the passenger's seat and stepped out. He walked to the door to his cabin, pushed a button and watched the snow continue to fall until the garage door closed and blocked out the inclement weather he hadn't planned for.
He should've known this would happen. It was just one more thing in a string of screwups that had plagued his life the past few months. He knew that he should think of them as happy accidents, but he couldn't help but feel trapped by his circumstances. This weather was no exception.
Ian never came to the mountains in January or February. The weather was always too unpredictable this time of year. Living at the top of a mountain was luxurious and the view was incredible, but you could only benefit from it if you could get up there. He wouldn't be here now except that his fiancée, Missy, had insisted they take their engagement photos at the mountain house. Against his better judgment, he'd agreed.
Ian set his bag on the granite countertop and glanced out the bay window to the valley below him. It was a sea of white out there. At this rate, the few inches on the ground would easily reach half a foot or more. "No accumulation of note." He snorted after mimicking what the man on the news had said last night. Missy had left from Atlanta, so maybe the weather was better from the south, but likely it wasn't. He was pretty sure Missy wouldn't be able to make it up the mountain in her little Jaguar.
And the photographer… Who knew what kind of car he or she would be driving. If this storm had surprised him, it had probably surprised everyone.
Thank goodness he'd had the cabin stocked with supplies. Ian walked around the kitchen, opening the cabinets and the refrigerator to inspect the contents. There was enough to feed them for several days, as requested. His caretakers were a married couple who lived down the hill. They kept the grounds tidy and the cabin clean and well maintained. Before he made a trip to the house, he would give Rick and Patty a list of food and supplies and they would see to it that everything was there.
Sometimes Patty would even do a little extra to welcome Ian home. Today there was a bottle of champagne chilling in the refrigerator door and a pair of flutes sitting on the counter by a vase of fresh flowers. Neither had been on his list, so that was Patty's way of congratulating him and his new fiancée on their engagement.
She must have somehow missed the announcement that Missy was eight weeks pregnant. Missy had gushed about their newly forming family to anyone who would listen—from her two million Facebook fans to the journalist at some tabloid magazine. Ian didn't think there was a person left in the United States who didn't know about his personal business.
They would wed in March at a venue in Nashville that Missy had chosen. Ian had not been involved with the details. He had told himself, and Missy, that he was busy with work so she could plan whatever she liked. It was her big day, after all. The truth was that he was still coming to terms with all the new developments in his life. But he was hoping to turn that around.
He wanted this baby to be welcomed into a happy, loving family and he was willing to make the effort to turn that into a reality in the next seven months. It would take work on both their parts. Missy wasn't the easiest woman to be with. She was demanding, spoiled and used to people constantly telling her how wonderful she was.
They weren't a love match by any stretch of the imagination, but Ian was beginning to think love and the trappings that went with it were just a myth, anyway. Any marriage took work. Their situation might not be ideal, but she was going to have his baby and they were getting married.
He should make the most of a complicated situation. A romantic weekend together was just what they needed to stoke the fires. After all, plenty of men would love to marry Missy Kline. Her sultry voice and hard body had been a staple in Top 40 radio for the past few years. She was the star of Ian's record label.
At least she had been. Her most recent record hadn't done that well, but Missy wasn't worried. She had the wedding and baby to keep her relevant. Her manager had arranged to sell the exclusive story and pictures from their wedding to some magazine. They were working on making their upcoming ceremony into some television special. It was going to be invasive, and Ian hated the idea of the whole thing, but Missy was pretty business savvy. They couldn't pay for this kind of publicity. The day their engagement was announced and photos of her ring hit the gossip blogs, her latest song hit the top ten on iTunes. As her label, he couldn't complain. As her fiancé, he wasn't as thrilled.
This weekend they would take their engagement portraits and project the image of the happy power couple to the world. Then they would spend the next few days together trying to make it into a reality. A crackling fire, a stunning view, hot cocoa on the deck while snuggled under a blanket together… It would be a romantic music video come to life. He hoped.
Right now, he couldn't guarantee that any of it was going to happen. Missy had said the snow would be romantic. He had no doubt she'd changed her mind by now.
Frowning, Ian walked to the front door, opened it and stepped out onto the front porch. The snow was sticking in earnest now, piling on the grass and creating a solid blanket across the road. You couldn't even see the pavement. Or the layer of ice likely forming beneath it. In the South, it was rarely snow that was the problem. It was the ice that sent you skidding into ditches and sliding backward down hills.
As he watched the snow fall, a little white SUV rounded the corner and headed in his direction. His house was the last on the winding path, so once the car passed his closest neighbor he knew it had to be the photographer. If the photographer could make it from Nashville despite the weather, maybe Missy would make it in from Atlanta. At the very least, he knew the roads hadn't closed yet.
The SUV pulled up by the steps to the front porch. Ian pasted on his smile, readying himself for a day of Academy Award-winning acting. He took careful steps down the stacked stone stairs to greet the photographer and help bring in any equipment.
A woman in a tight pair of jeans and a fitted tur-tleneck with a fleece jacket over it got out. She was dressed for a January day in Nashville, not the mountains. The snow had obviously been a surprise for her, too. She had no heavy coat, no gloves and no scarf, and her red Converse sneakers would offer about as much traction on ice as baby oil.
At least she had a hat. Her long blond hair peeked out beneath the knitted cap pulled down over her head. She was wearing wide, dark sunglasses, so he could see very little of her face, but for some reason, she seemed familiar to him.
The woman slammed her car door shut and slipped off her sunglasses. "Hi, Ian."
In an instant, the face, the voice and the memories slammed together and socked him in the gut. It was Bree. Briana Harper. His freshman romance. The one who distracted him from his classes with her young, firm body and adventurous spirit. The one who dumped him at the lowest point in his life.
Ian swallowed the lump in his throat. "Bree? Wow. I had no idea you were, uh, that you would be…"
Bree winced and nodded. He could tell from the visible tension in her neck and shoulders that this was equally awkward for her. She was strung tight as a drum, and the familiarity of their past urged him to reach out and massage her neck the way he used to. But that was just nostalgia talking. He sincerely doubted touching Bree would help this situation.
"You didn't know I was coming?"
"No, I…left all the details to Missy. She didn't mention who the photographer would be."
"I knew that I should've said something," she began, "or given you some kind of warning in case you didn't know, but I'd hoped not to make a big deal of it. My business partners didn't know you and I were acquainted."
Acquainted. That was one word for it. Touched every inch of each other's bodies was another way to phrase it. Once the shock of her arrival faded, Ian let his curious gaze run over the rest of her once-familiar curves. There were more than he remembered, but they'd practically been kids then, still teenagers. Now she was a full-grown woman in a pair of jeans that looked painted-on.
"Is this going to be a problem for you?" she asked. "It's not for me. I intend to keep this very professional. Your fiancée doesn't even need to know we've met previously, if that's what you prefer."
"Yes, that's probably for the best." Although Missy claimed she had little competition, she was at the same time insanely jealous. She had made headlines for starting catfights in night clubs and industry parties. She'd snatched the extensions out of her supposed rival's hair for just talking to her ex-boyfriend at a promoted event in Las Vegas.
Ian hadn't given Missy any reason to be jealous, but he knew how easily that switch could flip in her. The last thing he needed was Missy throwing a fit about the photographer. They needed these pictures done and released to the magazine for the scheduled issue. They couldn't wait for someone else to come up here and replace Bree.
That is, if anyone else could even make it up the mountain. The snow was falling faster than ever now. "We'd better get your things inside," he suggested.
Bree nodded. When she turned to head toward the back of her car, her shoe skidded on the slick pavement. Her eyes widened and her arms shot out for something to steady her, but it was Ian's lightning-fast reflexes that saved her. He reached out, his arms encircling her waist and tugging her up and against his body.
Ian instantly knew he'd made a mistake. The whole length of her was pressed into him. The scent of her favorite lotion mingled with the baby shampoo she'd always used. The familiar combination rushed to his nose, bringing back flashes of hot nights in his dorm room and in the back of his car. His entire body tensed, the cold unable to dampen the sudden arousal that being near Bree had so easily caused.
Bree clung to him, her ivory cheeks flushed pink from the cold and a hint of embarrassment. Her baby-blue eyes met his for a moment and the connection between them snapped like a current flowing freely through a copper wire. It had always been like this. Even minutes after he'd had her, he'd want her again. Back then, if she wasn't in his arms, she was all he could think about.
He tore his gaze from hers, letting his eyes settle on the pink pucker of her mouth. That wasn't much better. Her lips had been the softest, most welcoming lips he'd ever encountered, before college or since. Kissing Bree had been one of the divine pleasures of his life. Losing that had been almost as hard as losing his music.
That thought brought him back to reality. Ian steadied her on her feet and then disentangled himself from her before he did something stupid like kiss her. Bree reached a hand out for the side mirror of her car, taking a solid step back from him.
"Thank you," she said, her cheeks now crimson. "That was really embarrassing."
"That was nothing," he said, more to himself than to her, but he followed it up. "Embarrassing would've been bruising your hind end on the driveway and getting your pants soaking wet and muddy."
"True," she said, looking around, apparently unwilling to meet his gaze again.
"Are your things in the trunk?" he asked.
"Yes." Bree perked up, seemingly happy to focus on her work again. With one hand on her car she stepped cautiously to the back and opened the hatch on her Honda. She slung a green backpack over her shoulder and then pulled out a few black bags and a tripod.
Ian took as much as he could from her and escorted her up the stairs into the cabin. He let her focus on setting up her equipment and turned to his phone as a distraction. Hopefully reading a couple emails would help dull the raging arousal that still pumped through his veins and clouded his mind.
He hadn't had a reaction to a woman like that since… He thought back and frowned. Since the last time he'd held Bree in his arms. Not even the belly-baring diva of his record label could match the need Bree built in him right now. He didn't want that to be the case—life would be so much easier if things were reversed—but there was no denying it.
Missy would have a glass-breaking fit if she knew.
Bree focused on setting up her equipment even though she knew it was a pointless exercise. An hour had gone by without any sign of his fiancée. If she didn't show up in the next half hour, the odds were that she wasn't coming. One glance out the window made it perfectly obvious that the drive in would be next to impossible.
She had barely made it up the mountainside herself. Her tires had spun a time or two, lodging her heart in her throat. But that was nothing, nothing compared to the collision she'd just had with Ian.
It had been nine years since they'd been together. She should be over him by now. Long over him. Yet, when she was pressed against the hard wall of his chest and staring up into the dark green eyes she'd once lost herself in, the years apart seemed to vanish in an instant. All the reasons she walked away, all the heartache and the doubts, gone.
She thought he felt it, too. For a moment, she sensed a connection between them. An instant of attraction and longing had flickered in his eyes, a soft smile curling his lips. And then he'd looked away. A hard glint had shone in his eyes as he gently pushed her out of his arms.
And just as quickly, she'd realized she was a fool.
