The Billionaire’s Bidding

happen in any meaningful way. Not now, not ever.

The woman with Ryan giggled, and Alex heaved a frustrated sigh.

“Buck up,” Ryan advised.

“Right.” Alex stabbed the end button and tossed the phone on the bench seat beside him. It was going to be a very long marriage.

Emma had had a very long Monday morning.

The following morning, she wiped away the sweat that had gathered near her hairline, tuning out the chatter of two women in a whirlpool tub near the spa’s fern garden.

She should have known better than to get mixed up with Alex. When a deal was too good to be true, it meant it was too good to be true. Yeah, the man was bailing them out financially, but the personal price was much too high.

She hated the spotlight. And if this morning’s flurry of activity was anything to go by, the spotlight was exactly where she’d be stuck for the next few months. Out of desperation, she’d left her office, skulked down the back staircase and dragged a lounger behind the curve of the marble wall here in the hotel spa in a bid for peace and privacy.

“Emma?” came Katie’s voice from around a spreading palm.

“Back here,” Emma reluctantly confirmed.

Katie appeared in high heels, a straight white skirt and a matching blazer. “What are you doing?”

Emma paused for a significant second. “What do you think I’m doing?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, I’m hiding.”

“From what?”

“Not from what, from who.”

Katie stripped off her blazer. “Then who?”

“Philippe.”

“Why? And aren’t you going to ruin your laptop?”

“Because he’s a caterer. And because he’s an insane stalker. And yes, probably.”

The two women in a nearby whirlpool laughed, and Katie took a couple of steps closer, lowering her voice. “You’re being stalked by an insane caterer? Is there such thing as an insane caterer?”

“I think they’re all insane,” said Emma. “I’m being stalked by at least a dozen. Philippe is just the most persistent of the crowd.”

“Can’t security take care of them?”

Emma pressed the save button on her laptop and turned her complete attention to Katie. “Oh, sure. Then all the reporters can have a field day on McKinley security staff roughing up skinny men in berets.”

Katie glanced behind her. “We have reporters, too?”

Emma sighed and pushed back her damp hair. “Yes. We have reporters. In the lobby, out front, on the mezzanine floor.”

“Nobody bothered me.”

“That’s because Alex Garrison didn’t make a spectacle of you last night.”

Katie took a seat on the far end of the lounger, curling one leg beneath her as her face lit up with the memory. “You have to admit, if that had been real, it would have been incredibly romantic.”

Emma didn’t have to admit any such thing. It was grandiose and tacky. She’d never, not in a million years, marry a man who thought proposing in public was romantic.

She snapped the laptop closed. “It wasn’t real.”

Katie sighed. “I know that.”

“So quit getting all starry-eyed on me. Alex was acting.” A small difference, maybe. But a rather important one.

Katie toyed with a lock of her hair. “He’s a good actor.”

“He probably had his marketing staff coach him.”

Katie laughed at that.

“Mademoiselle McKinley?” came a nasal male voice.

A sudden shift in Emma’s blood pressure left her feeling light-headed. She stared at Katie. “You were followed?”

“I’m not exactly double-o-seven,” Katie protested.

“Aarrgghh.”

“Mademoiselle McKinley?” Philippe Gagnon repeated. Then he appeared around the corner of the marble wall. “Ah, there you are.”

Katie nearly choked on a laugh as the brisk, wiry sixty-something man stepped in front of them and clasped his palms together over his chest.

“There is so much we must do,” he began.

He sure had that right. And on the top of Emma’s list was a clandestine trip to the Bahamas. She’d find a small secluded beachfront hut with no phone, no radio, and no caterers.

Katie, on the other hand, seemed completely unperturbed by Philippe’s interruption. She stood and held out her hand to him. “I’m Katie McKinley, sister of the bride.”

“Enchante, mademoiselle.” He gallantly raised her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles. “I am Philippe Gagnon. Sous chef, trained at the Sorbonne and apprenticed under John-Pierre Laconte. I have cooked for princes and presidents.”

Katie turned to Emma, her grin growing wide. “Did you hear that, Emma? He’s cooked for princes and presidents.”

“Shoot me now,” Emma muttered as a trickle of sweat made its way between her breasts.

Philippe shook an admonishing finger. “No, no. None of that from the bride. I am here now, and I will take care of everything.”

Emma sat up straight. “Oh, no you-”

“Emma.” Katie shot her eyes a look of warning.

But Emma wasn’t getting dragged into this circus. “I am not-”

“This is a most stressful time for you, mademoiselle.” Philippe fluttered a hand toward the exit. “Those bohemian food hacks in the lobby. I will have them gone. Poof.”

Then he held up his palms. “No, no. No need to thank me. After that, I will talk to the reporters. Give them a tidbit or two, non? Satisfy them for a short while.”

Emma stared into the man’s pale blue eyes, seeing an unexpected shrewdness in their depths. It took her less than a minute to revise her opinion of him. “You can get all those people out of my lobby?”

“But, of course,” he said. “You must stay calm. I must keep you calm.”

If by keeping her calm, Philippe meant protecting her privacy? He was hired.

Mrs. Nash punctuated her presence on the pool deck by clacking a pitcher of orange juice down on the table next to Alex’s lounger.

He glanced up from the executive summary of the McKinley strategic plan.

He didn’t know what he’d done to annoy Mrs. Nash, but it was obvious by the set of her lips that something was up. He tried to gauge her expression, but the sun was bright, and his eyes were grainy from lack of sleep.

He decided to go for the direct approach. “Something wrong?”

“What could be wrong?” Then her lips returned to the prune position. “Though I see you’re getting married.”

“I am,” he confirmed, wondering if that was really the problem. Surely she wasn’t offended because he hadn’t told her personally. Sunday was her day off.

She peered at him over the half glasses that were secured around her neck by a sparkling gold chain.

He was clearly supposed to be catching onto something here. But he really didn’t have time for games. Another ten minutes of cramming for the showdown with old man Murdoch from DreamLodge, and he was diving into the pool to wake himself up. He would barely get in thirty lengths and a shower if he wanted to be at the DreamLodge offices before eight.

And he definitely wanted to be there before the start of business. He wasn’t taking any chances that Murdoch