CHAPTER ONE
SNOW IN AFRICA.
Karl Sinclair had thought he’d seen it all. Skydiving nuptials, twelve-foot cakes suspended in midair and a holographic groomsman who couldn’t make it to his brother’s wedding on time. Nothing extravagant fazed him now.
And yet he froze at the crunch of snow beneath his patent leather sneakers.
The venue was as it should be. A luxury chalet constructed in two months and on schedule. Only instead of the cold climes being outdoors, the wintry theme had been brought inside. Just as he’d envisioned it when his clients approached him with ideas for their big day. Like all his previous events, the venue had come to life the way he knew it would. He never doubted his ability to reproduce the elaborate, memorable occasions his clients expected of his event-management company, Heartbeat Events. Karl hadn’t thought he would travel from Canada to Nairobi, Kenya, to see it in person, though. With it being the middle of September, and nearer to the busy holiday season, he’d had one of his top event coordinators, Nadine, take over the project. At least, he had planned for it to be like that. Usually, his plans were foolproof once set on their course.
Only, he hadn’t expected Nadine would come down with the flu at the very last moment.
Sending someone else in his place felt wrong. His clients expected a personal touch. His touch. And with the sky-high price tag on his service, the least he could do was carry the torch to the finish line. A line that would be crossed tomorrow once the bride and groom exchanged their vows and celebrated their reception with four hundred of their family and closest friends in this lavish venue.
The snow flooded the corridor like fluffy white clouds that had fallen from above. Karl turned his head up to admire the force of the air-conditioning. He stored a mental note to ensure that the building’s management team monitored the HVAC system. The last thing anyone needed was costly damage to one of the compressors or refrigerants. Snow inside a Swiss chalet was romantic. Melted snow was another thing. His bride and groom hadn’t signed up for an underwater reception. It was his job to coordinate everything and see that the snow remained in its solid state.
He popped up the collar of his overcoat, glad he’d remembered to dress appropriately for his tour.
The snow followed him from the chalet’s entrance up a winding flight of stairs to the mezzanine overlooking the main hall. Spanning five thousand square feet, the hall’s jet-black floors were covered with sixty-three tables seating eight each, according to the notes from Nadine’s detailed report. Security would see to it that no extra plus-ones slipped into the private event. No one crashed his parties. Exclusivity was part of his brand. High-profile clients paid for their privacy as much as the glamour, glitz and romance.
Buttoning his coat, Karl tensed his muscles against the shiver skittering up and down his spine. Once again, he was relieved to have chosen attire that withstood the frigid blast of the building’s top-notch air-conditioning.
It was also how he knew that the woman striding up the striking white aisle runner down below wasn’t where she ought to be.
Her endlessly long dark brown legs were what caught his attention first. Easy to admire that part of her when she wore a miniskirt. The striped skirt suited her long-sleeved wrap crop top, as did her red-soled Louboutin pumps. She hadn’t noticed him watching from above. She walked purposefully down the aisle created for the central moment when the newlyweds joined their guests at the reception and climbed the short set of steps to the wedding-party table. The table was set with florid centerpieces. Gold candelabra with pearl-encrusted handles, exquisite Wedgwood tableware and gold-wire vases he could only describe as unique in design. They were empty now, but tomorrow they would be brimming with frost-resistant floral arrangements: camellias, winterberries, evergreen sprigs and a few other hardy perennials he couldn’t recall from Nadine’s report. And he wasn’t making a real effort to remember.
The woman down
below had his full attention.
She carried a vase that she set down on the table. Then plucking up an identical one, she eyed it shrewdly, turning it this way and that, her chin-length sleek black bob swinging briskly with her movements. Seemingly having made a decision, she traded the one vase for the other.
What’s she up to?
He narrowed his eyes and gripped the railing, his jaw full of unyielding steel and his curiosity overriding the goal to survey the venue for any minute missing details. Keyed up, he stalked toward the stairs. Taking them two at a time, he reached the ground floor and headed to intercept the mystery woman.
She gasped when he was halfway to her, her body going rigid, hands stilling on the vase that she’d swapped out.
“W-where did you come from?” she said.
Karl stopped below the dais with the wedding table and looked up at her. “I could ask you the same question.” Because whoever she was, she clearly didn’t belong here. She had come in from the dry heat outdoors, unsuspecting of what the wedding venue held in store. Snow. Lots of it. If she were a wedding crasher, she was twenty-four hours too early to the party. And he frowned when he thought of the alternative. A thief under his nose.
A very alluring thief...
But a thief, nevertheless, he thought firmly, scowling.
“This is private property,” he said. “I’m not sure how you passed building security, but your adventure ends here.”
“My adventure?” she sputtered, somehow managing to sound indignant. As though she had the right to be offended.
Despite his best effort to be unaffected, a smile twitched at his lips. It was hard to clamp down on the sudden humor she provoked in him. But it would be harder for him to remain stern if he laughed now.
“Trespassing has to be a crime in Kenya too.”
“I’m not trespassing!” She gripped the vase tighter. “I have a reason to be here.”
He hadn’t noticed her African accent, but it was more pronounced now. Possibly because a thread of wariness had crept into her voice. Studying her carefully, he realized he liked the way she looked. Even more than he had when he’d been observing from above, unnoticed. She had a lovely face. Soft in some areas, sharper and more defined in others. It wasn’t long before he cataloged her wide-set eyes, a darker shade of brown that deceptively looked soul-piercingly black. Then there was her wide-tipped nose, low cheekbones, round lips and short, smooth chin, each part of her forever slotted in his memory. Normally he wouldn’t be a stickler for those kinds of details. People didn’t interest him the way event management did. Unlike coordinating events of any scale, people were...unpredictable. Untrustworthy.
Disruptive.
If he had a greater understanding of people, he’d have a better relationship with those he should’ve cared most about and who should care about him: his family.
But that was neither
here nor there. Snapping his attention up to her eyes again, Karl stoically confronted her glare.
“What could that reason be?” he asked, unfazed by her withering look.
She opened her mouth but snapped it shut when voices sounded from farther behind them.
Karl guessed the noise was coming from the building’s entrance. Her widening eyes and startled expression told him that it could be security hunting for their intruder. With nowhere to run and hide, they’d find her soon enough. Unless he stepped aside and aided her escape. Something which he wouldn’t do. No matter how panicked she appeared to be.
He scoffed. “I thought you had a reason to be here.”
“I do,” she said breathily. “I-I can explain. Really. But not now. Not here.”
The voices were closing in, getting louder and more distinct. He could almost make out what they were saying.
“Please, let me go,” she begged, a frantic air to her words.
Her plea wrenched sharply at his heart, surprising a grunt from him. It wasn’t the words, exactly. Rather the emotion behind them. The way her brows pinched together, and her eyes grew round and unblinking with panic. It was a look he recognized subconsciously from his past. Without needing to ask her for clarification, he knew that she felt cornered and helpless.
Not helpless, he amended. She’d asked for his help. And he hadn’t decided whether he was up to aiding and abetting her escape when he had been the one that had caught her.
Karl clenched his teeth, mulling over her request and his sudden indecision. He’d been certain that he wouldn’t cave.
Yet that was what he was going to do.
“Hide.” He spat the one word out before he regretted it.
Heeding his command, she scurried around the bridal party table, still carrying the vase, and ducked between the white opera chairs, out of sight.
Just in time too. They weren’t alone anymore.
Turning to their new arrivals, Karl headed them off. The farther they were away from the head table, the better. He didn’t even know her name or what her motive was, and here he was, covering for her.
I can explain, she’d said.
Her words felt honest. He chose to rely on them, and he never backtracked on a decision. He hadn’t for a long time. Pushing away the memories of his unhappy childhood, he focused on the present.
On the people who had chased his mystery woman into hiding.
When did she become your woman?
Banishing that thought someplace dark and unvisited, he greeted the newcomers.
Istarlin cowered on the other side of the table, one hand securing the vase while the other clawed into the long silken gold tablecloth. She strained to hear the conversation happening only a few feet away. To think
she’d been saved and spared by the gorgeous stranger even after he’d rudely accused her of being an intruder!
She wasn’t breaking any law. Not when the vase belonged to her. Her intent hadn’t been to steal anything at all. The vase wasn’t perfect, and it had bugged her to know that it could be. Replacing it had been her sole goal. A quick in-and-out mission, but she hadn’t anticipated being caught and questioned—and now cornered.
Though, to be fair, the stranger didn’t know better. And she would have set him straight, but then she had heard her grandfather, and nothing else mattered except the urge to retreat.
Now her grandfather’s booming voice spoke.
“You’re the wedding planner?”
“No, I’m not, but the event coordinator sent me in her place.”
That voice she knew instantly too. How could she not, when he’d practically interrogated and scolded her like a child caught with her hand in a cookie jar? It was her handsome stranger.
Her stomach swooped at the thought of him, her face warming pleasantly and a dopey smile pulling her lips wide. After his rude insinuation and the haughty manner in which he had summarily chalked her up as a thief, she hadn’t expected him to play chivalrous knight. Not that she’d been swooning. Nor had she been in any real danger. She had just not wanted to confront her grandfather, and she had the oddest sensation that the handsome stranger had known and commiserated with her reasoning. ...
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