An Outrageous Proposal (10 page)

Once she had loved him. Or at least thought she had. She’d
married him assuming they would be together forever, and yet here she was now, a
few years after a divorce she hadn’t seen coming and she felt…nothing.

Was that how it would be with Sean one day? Would her feelings
for him simply dry up and blow away like autumn leaves in a cold wind?

“You look amazing,” Mike said, tightening his arm around her
waist.

She did and she knew it. Georgia had gone shopping for the
occasion. Her dark red dress had long sleeves, a deep V neckline, and it flared
out from the waist into a knee-length skirt that swirled when she moved.

“Thanks,” she said, and glanced toward Sean, sitting alone at a
table on the far side of the room. Then, willing to be generous, she added,
“Misty makes a pretty bride.”

“Yeah.” But Mike wasn’t looking at his new wife. Instead, he
was staring at Georgia as if he’d never seen her before.

He executed a fast turn and Georgia had to grab hold of his
shoulder to keep from stumbling. He pulled her in even closer in response. When
she tried to put a little space between them, she couldn’t quite manage it.

“You’re engaged, huh?”

“Yes,” she said, thumbing the band on her engagement ring. Sean
had made quite the impression. Just as she’d hoped, he’d been charming,
attentive and, in short, the perfect fiancé. “When we leave here, we’re flying
home to Ireland.”

“Can’t believe you’re gonna be living in a foreign country,”
Mike said with a shake of his head. “I don’t remember you being the adventurous
type at all.”

“Adventurous?”

“You know what I mean,” he continued, apparently not noticing
that Georgia’s eyes were narrowed on him thoughtfully. “You were all about
fixing up the house. Making dinner. Working in the yard. Just so—” he shrugged
“—boring.”

“Excuse me?”

“Come on, Georgia, admit it. You never wanted to try anything
new or exciting. All you ever wanted to do was talk about having kids and—” He
broke off and sighed. “You’re way more interesting now.”

Was steam actually erupting from the top of her head? she
wondered. Because it really felt like it. Georgia’s blood pressure was mounting
with every passing second. She had been
boring?
Talking about having kids with your husband was
boring?

“So, because I was so uninteresting, that’s why you slipped out
with Misty?” she asked, her voice spiking a little higher than she’d planned.
“Are you actually trying to tell me it’s
my
fault
you cheated on me?”

“Jeez, you always were too defensive,” Mike said, and slid his
hand down to her behind where he gave her a good squeeze.

Georgia’s eyes went wild.

* * *

They made a good team.

Sean had been thinking about little else for the past several
days. All through the mess of closing up her home and arranging for its sale.
Through the packing and the donations to charity and ending the life she’d once
lived, they’d worked together.

He was struck by how easy it was, being with her.

Her clever mind kept him on his toes and her luscious body kept
him on his knees. A perfect situation, Sean told himself as he sat at the
wedding, drinking a beer, considering ways to keep Georgia in his life.

Ever since she’d laid out her ideas to improve the look of his
company jets, Sean had been intrigued by possibilities. They got along well.
They were a good match. A team, as he’d thought only moments before.

“And damned if I want to lose what we’ve found,” he
muttered.

The simplest way, he knew, was to make their engagement
reality. To convince her to marry him—not for love, of course, because that was
a nebulous thing after all. But because they fit so well. And the more he
thought about it, the better it sounded.

Hadn’t his cousin Ronan offered very nearly the same deal to
his Laura? A marriage based on mutual need and respect. That had worked out,
hadn’t it? Nodding to himself, he thought it a good plan. The challenge would be
in convincing Georgia to agree with him.

But he had time for that, didn’t he?

Watching her here, at the wedding of her ex-husband, he was
struck again by her courage. Her boldness in facing down those who had hurt her
with style and enough attitude to let everyone in the room know that she’d moved
on. Happily.

The bride hadn’t expected Georgia to show up for the wedding.
That had been clear enough when he and Georgia arrived. The stunned shock on the
bride’s face mingled with the interest from the groom had been proof of
that.

Sean frowned to himself and had a sip of the beer sitting in
front of him. He didn’t much care for the way Georgia’s ex-husband took every
chance he had to leer at her. But he couldn’t blame the man for regretting
letting Georgia go in favor of the empty-headed woman he’d now saddled himself
with.

Georgia was as a bottle of fine wine while the bride seemed
more of a can of flat soda in comparison.

The reception was being held at the clubhouse of a golf course.
Late fall in Ohio was cold, and so the hall was closed up against the night,
making the room damn near stifling.

Crepe paper streamers sagged from the corners of the wall where
the tape holding them in place was beginning to give. Balloons, as their helium
drained away, began to dip and bob aimlessly, as if looking for a way out, and
even the flowers in glass vases on every table were beginning to droop.

People who weren’t dancing huddled together at tables or
crowded what was left of the buffet. Sean was seated near the dance floor,
watching Georgia slow dance in the arms of her ex, fighting the urge to go out
there and snatch her away from the buffoon. He didn’t like the man’s hands on
her. Didn’t like the way Mike bent his head to Georgia and whispered in her
ear.

Sean frowned as the music spilled from the speakers overhead
and the groom pulled Georgia a bit too tightly against him. Something spiked
inside Sean’s head and he tightened his grip on the beer bottle so that it
wouldn’t have surprised him in the least to feel it shatter. Deliberately, he
released his hold on the bottle, setting it down carefully on the table.

Then Sean breathed slow and deep, and rubbed the heel of his
hand against the center of his chest, unconsciously trying to rub away the hard,
cold knot that seemed to have settled there. He gritted his teeth and narrowed
his eyes when the groom’s hand slipped down to cup Georgia’s behind.

Fury swamped his vision and dropped a red haze of anger over
his mind. When Georgia struggled to pull free without success, something inside
Sean simply snapped. The instinct to protect her roared into life and he went
with it.
His
woman, mauled on a dance floor? He
bloody well didn’t think so.

Sean was halfway out of his chair when Georgia brought the
sharp point of one of her high heels down onto the toe of the groom’s shoe.
While Mike hopped about, whinging about being in pain, Misty ran to her
beloved’s rescue, and Sean met Georgia halfway between the dance floor and the
table.

Her eyes were glinting with outrage, color was high in her
cheeks and she’d never been more vividly beautiful to him. She’d saved herself,
leaving him nothing to do with the barely repressed anger churning inside
him.

His woman, he thought again, and felt the truth of it right
down to his bones. And even knowing that, he pulled away mentally from what that
might mean. He wouldn’t look at it. Not now. Instead, he focused a hard look at
the groom and his new bride, then shifted his gaze back to Georgia.

“So then,” Sean asked, “ready to leave?”

“Way past ready,” Georgia admitted and stalked by him to their
table to pick up her wrap and her purse.

He let her go, but was damned if he’d leave this place without
making a few things clear to the man he’d like nothing better than to punch into
the next week. Misty was clinging to Mike when Sean approached them, but he
didn’t even glance at the new bride. Instead, his gaze was for the groom, still
hobbling unsteadily on one injured foot.

Voice low, eyes hard, Sean said, “I’ll not beat a man on his
wedding day, so you’re safe from me.”

Insulted, Mike sputtered, “What the—”

“But,” Sean continued, letting the protective instincts rising
inside him take over, “you even so much as
think
of
Georgia again, I’ll know of it. And you and I will have a word.”

Misty’s mouth flapped open and shut like a baby bird’s. Mike
flushed dark red, but his eyes showed him for the true coward he was, even
before he nodded. Sean left them both standing there, thinking the two of them
deserved each other.

When he draped Georgia’s wrap about her shoulders, then slid
one arm around her waist to escort her from the building, she looked up at
him.

“What did you say to him?”

He glanced at her and gave her a quick smile to disguise the
fury still pulsing within. “I thanked him for a lovely party and wished him a
broken foot.”

“I do like your style, Sean,” she said, leaning her head
against his shoulder.

He kissed the top of her head and took the opportunity to take
a long breath of her scent. Then he quipped, “I believe the American thing to
say would be, ‘back atcha.’”

With the sound of her laughter in his ears, Sean steered her
outside to the waiting limousine, and ushered her inside.

With a word to the driver, they were off for the airport so
Sean could take his woman home to Ireland.

Ten

A
few days later, Sean was standing in
Ronan’s office in Galway, looking for a little encouragement. Apparently,
though, he’d come to the wrong place.

“You’re out of your mind,” Ronan said.

“Well, don’t hold back, cousin,” Sean countered, pacing the
confines of the office. It was big and plush but at the moment, it felt as if it
were the size of a box. There was too much frustrated energy pumping through
Sean’s brain to let him stand still, and walking in circles was getting him
nowhere.

He stopped at the wide window that offered a view of Galway
city and the bay beyond. Out over the ocean, layers of dark clouds huddled at
the horizon, no doubt bunched up over England but planning their immediate
assault on Ireland. Winter was coming in like a mean bitch.

Sean had come into Galway to see Ronan because his cousin’s
office was the one place Sean could think of where they could have a
conversation without interruptions from the seeming
multitude
of women in their lives. Ronan was, naturally, wrapped up
in Laura and baby Fiona. For Sean, there was his mother, nearly recovered now,
and there was Georgia. Beautiful Georgia who haunted his sleep and infiltrated
his every waking thought.

His woman,
he’d thought that night
in Ohio, and that notion had stayed with him. There was something there between
them. He knew it. Felt it. And he’d finally found a plan to solve his troubles,
so he’d needed this time with Ronan to talk it all out. But for all the help he
was finding, he might have stayed home.

“How is it crazy to go after what I want?” he argued now. “You
did it.”

Ronan sat back in the chair behind his uncluttered desk.
Tapping the fingers of one hand against that glossy surface, he stared at Sean
with a disbelieving gleam in his eyes.

“Aye, I did it, just as you’re thinking to, so I’m the man to
tell you that you’re wrong. You can’t ask Georgia to marry you as a sort of
business arrangement.”

“Why not?” Sean countered, glancing over his shoulder at his
cousin before turning his gaze back to the window and the outside world beyond.
“For all your calm reason now, you did the same with Laura and look how well
that turned out for you.”

Ronan scraped one hand across his face. “You idiot. I almost
lost Laura through my own foolishness. She wouldn’t have me, do you not remember
that? How I was forced to chase her down to the airport as she was leaving
me?”

Sean waved that off. The point was, it
had
worked out. A bump or two in the road, he was expecting. Nothing
worthwhile came easy, after all, but in the end, Georgia would agree with him.
He’d done a lot of thinking about this, and he knew he was right. Georgia was
much more sensible, more reasonable than her sister and he was sure she’d see
the common sense in their getting married.

He’d worked it out in his mind so neatly, she had to see it. A
businesslike offer of marriage was eminently sensible. With his mother on the
mend, the time for ending their faux engagement was fast approaching. And Sean
had discovered he didn’t want his time with Georgia to be over. He wanted her
even more now than he had when this had all begun.

He turned around, leaned one hip against the window jamb and
looked at his cousin.

“Georgia’s buying a house here,” Sean pointed out. “She’s
opening her business. She won’t be running off to California to escape me.”

“Doesn’t mean she’ll greet you with open arms, either,” Ronan
snapped, then huffed out a breath filled with frustration. “She’s already been
married to a man who didn’t treasure her. Why would she choose another who
offers her the same?”

Sean came away from the window in a fast lunge and stood
glaring down at Ronan. Damned if he’d be put in the same boat as the miserable
bastard who’d caused Georgia nothing but pain. “Don’t be comparing me to that
appalling excuse of a man who hurt her. I’d not cheat on my wife.”

“No, but you won’t love her, either,” Ronan said, jumping up
from his chair to match his cousin glare for glare. “And as she’s my sister now,
I’ll stand for her and tell you myself she
deserves
to be loved, and if you’re not the man to do it then bloody well step aside and
let her find the one who will.”

Those words slapped at Sean’s mind and heart, and he didn’t
much care for it.
Love
wasn’t a word Sean was
entirely comfortable with. He’d tried to be in love with Noreen and he’d failed.
What if he tried with Georgia and failed there, as well? No, he wouldn’t risk
it. What they had now was good. Strong. Warmth beneath the heat. Caring to go
with the passion. Affection that wasn’t muddled by trying to label it. Wasn’t
that enough? Wasn’t that more than a lot of people built a life around?

And he’d be damned before he stepped aside for some other man
to snatch Georgia in front of his eyes. Which was one of the reasons he’d come
up with this plan in the first place. If they ended their engagement—and since
Ailish was recovering nicely, that time was coming fast—then he’d be forced to
let Georgia go. Watch her find a new man. He’d have to imagine that lucky
bastard touching her, kissing her, claiming her in the dark of night—and damned
if he’d do
that,
either.

He alone would be the man touching Georgia Page, Sean assured
himself, because he could accept no other option. If he did, he’d be over the
edge and into insanity in no time at all.

“She had a man who promised her love, as you’ve just said
yourself,” Sean argued, jamming both hands into his pockets to hide the fists
they’d curled into. Thinking about that man, Georgia’s ex, made him want to
punch something. That a man such as he had had Georgia and let her go was
something Sean would never understand.

“What good did the promise of love do her then?” he asked, more
quietly now. “I’m not talking of love but of building a life together.”

“Without the first, the second’s not much good,” Ronan told him
with a slow shake of his head.

“Without the first, the second is far less complicated,” Sean
argued. He knew Ronan loved his Laura, and good for him. But love wasn’t the
only answer. Love was too damn ephemeral. Hard to pin down. If he offered her
love, why would she believe him? Why would she trust it when that bastard who
had offered the same had crushed her spirit with the word?

No. He could offer Georgia what she wanted. A home. Family. A
man to stand at her side and never hurt her as she’d been hurt before. Wasn’t
that worth something?

“You’re a jackass if you really believe that bilge you’re
shoveling.”

“Thanks very much,” Sean muttered, then said, “You’re missing
the point of this, Ronan. If there’s no love between us, there’s no way for her
to be hurt. She’ll be safe. I’ll see to it.”

Ronan skewered him with a look. “You’re set on this, aren’t
you?”

“I am. I’ve thought this through.” In fact, he’d thought of
little else since going on that trip to the States with Georgia. He wanted this
and so, Sean knew, he could make it happen. He’d never before lost when
something mattered as this did. Now wouldn’t be the first time. “I know I’m
right about this, Ronan.”

“Ah, well then.” Clapping one hand to Sean’s shoulder, Ronan
said, “I wish you luck with it, because you’re going to need it. And when
Georgia coshes you over the head with something heavy, don’t be coming to me
looking for sympathy.”

A tiny speck of doubt floated through the river of Sean’s
surety, but he paid it no attention at all. Instead, he focused only on his
plan, and how to present it to Georgia.

* * *

It stormed for a week.

Heavy, black clouds rolled in from the sea, riding an icy wind
that battered the village like a bad-tempered child. The weather kept everyone
closed up in their own houses, and Georgia was no different. She’d spent her
time hanging pictures and paintings, and putting out the other small things
she’d brought with her from California until the cottage was cozy and felt more
hers every day.

She missed Sean, though. She hadn’t seen him in days. Had
spoken to him only briefly on the phone. Laura had told her that Sean and Ronan
had spent days and nights all over the countryside, helping the villagers and
farmers who were having a hard time through the storm. They’d done everything
from mending leaking roofs to ferrying a sick child to the hospital just in time
for an emergency appendectomy.

Georgia admired their connection to the village and their
determination to see everyone safely through the first big storm of the season.
But, God, she’d missed him. And though it pained her, she had finally convinced
herself that not seeing him, not having him with her, was probably for the best.
Soon, she’d have to get accustomed to his absence, so she might as well start
getting used to it.

But it was so much harder than she’d thought it would be. She
hadn’t planned on that, damn it. She’d wanted the affair with the gorgeous
Irishman, and who wouldn’t have?

But she hadn’t wanted the risk of loving him, and the fact that
she did was entirely
his
fault. If he hadn’t been so
blasted charming and sweet and sexy. If he hadn’t been such an amazing lover and
so much fun to be around, she never would have fallen. So really, Georgia told
herself, none of this was her fault at all.

She’d been hit over the head by the Irish fates and the only
way out was pain and suffering. He’d become such a part of her life that cutting
him out of it was going to be like losing a limb. Which just irritated her
immensely. That she could fall in love when she knew she shouldn’t, because of
the misery that was now headed her way, was both frustrating and
infuriating.

The worst of it now was there was nothing she could do about
it. The love was there and she was just going to have to hope that, eventually,
it would fade away. In hindsight, she probably shouldn’t have accepted Sean’s
bargain in the first place. But if she hadn’t…she would have missed so much.

So she couldn’t bring herself to wish away what she’d found
with him, even though ending it was going to kill her.

When the sun finally came out, people streamed from their homes
and businesses as if they were prisoners suddenly set loose from jail. And
Georgia was one of them. She was so eager to get out of her own thoughts, and
away from her own company, she raced into town to open her shop and start living
the life she was ready to build.

The sidewalks were crowded with mothers who had spent a week
trapped with bored children. The tea shop did a booming business as friends and
neighbors gathered to tell war stories of storm survival. Shop owners were
manning brooms, cleaning up the wreckage left behind and talking to friends as
they worked.

Georgia was one of them now. Outside her new design shop, she
wielded a broom with the rest of them, and once her place was set to rights, she
walked back inside to brew some coffee. She might be in Ireland, but she hadn’t
yet switched her allegiance from coffee to tea.

The bell over the front door rang in a cheery rattle, and she
hurried into the main room only to stop dead when she saw Sean. Everything in
her kindled into life. Heat, excitement, want and tenderness tangled together
making her nearly breathless. It felt like years since she’d seen him though it
had only been a few days. Yes. Irritating.

He looked ragged, tired, and a curl of worry opened up in the
center of her chest. The shadow of whiskers on his jaws and the way his hair
jutted up, no doubt from him stabbing his fingers through it repeatedly, told
her just what a hard few days he’d had. He wore faded jeans, a dark, thickly
knit sweater and heavy work boots. And, she thought, he’d never looked more
gorgeous.

“How are you?” she asked.

He rubbed one hand across his face, blinked a couple of times,
then a half smile curved one corner of his mouth. “Tired. But otherwise, I’ll
do.”

“Laura told me what you and Ronan have been up to. Was it
bad?”

“The first big storm of the year is always bad,” he said. “But
we’ve got most of the problems in the area taken care of.”

“I’m glad. It was scary around here for a day or two,” she
said, remembering how the wind had howled like the shrieks of the dying. At one
point the rain had come down so fiercely, it had spattered into the fire in her
hearth.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t able to be with you during your first real
storm in Dunley,” he said, as sunlight outlined him in gold against the
window.

“I was fine, Sean. Though I am thinking about getting a dog,”
she added with a smile. “For the company. Besides, it sounds like you and Ronan
had your hands full.”

“We did at that.” He blew out a breath and tucked his hands
into the back pockets of his jeans.

How could a man look
that
sexy in
old jeans and beat-up work boots?

“Maeve Carrol’s roof finally gave up the ghost and caved in on
her.”

Georgia started. “Oh, my God. Is she okay?”

“She’s well,” Sean said, walking farther into the shop, letting
his gaze move over the room and all the changes she’d made to it. “Madder than
the devil with a drop of holy water in his whiskey, but fine.”

She smiled at the image and imagined just how furious Maeve
was. The older woman was spectacularly self-sufficient. “So, I’m guessing you
and Ronan finally talked her into letting you replace her roof.”

“The woman finally had no choice as she’s a hole in her roof
and lots of water damage.” He shook his head. “She nearly floated away on a tide
of her own stubbornness. She’ll be staying with Ronan and Laura until her
cottage is livable again.”

Georgia folded her arms across her chest to help her fight the
urge to go and wrap her arms around him. “I’m guessing she’s not happy about
leaving her home.”