Eve Met Her Match

Eve Met Her Match

Anna Cleary

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright © 2013 by Anna Cleary. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

Entangled Publishing, LLC

2614 South Timberline Road

Suite 109

Fort Collins, CO 80525

Visit our website at www.entangledpublishing.com.

Edited by Shannon Godwin

Cover design by Heidi Stryker

Ebook ISBN 978-1-62266-489-4

Manufactured in the United States of America

First Edition May 2013

Second Edition February 2014

The author acknowledges the copyrighted or trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction: Sophisticated Lady, InterContinental Hotel, Sister Maria, The Sound of Music, Baron von Trapp, Ashley Wilkes, Christian Louboutin, Oscar, Blue Bayou, Blanche DuBois, Tennessee Williams, Sin, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

Table of Contents

Eve Met Her Match

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

About the Author

Indulge in More

To Ally, Kelly and Kim--with thanks for the most gorgeous fun in an age!

Chapter One

It was the cruelest pre-wedding dinner a woman could ever have been expected to attend. As Eve Fortescue waded through the purple twilight to the Bellefleur Country Club with her Aunt Minna, every step she took was like walking on knives.

She was nearly able to breathe in her crimson sheath. Honey Moreau may have nailed Brent Delacroix, so far, though Eve’s guardian angel was whispering that they weren’t married yet. Brent’s blue eyes would surely be glued to his bride, but the angel had decreed Eve should sashay into the party looking as sexy as sin.

Eve was trying her best. But looking pretty wasn’t bringing her any great joy. While crimson satin may well be kind to her dark eyes, and light up the rich chestnut in her hair and the roses in her cheeks, underneath all her New York finery, including the lacy black underwear caressing her skin as softly as a lover’s whisper, Eve’s heart was aching. The only comfort holding her together was the reflection that at least no one else knew her sad little secret.

Imagine if it got out. Eve Fortescue, belle of the Bellefleur Theater, notorious breaker of hearts and stealer of beaus, was hopelessly in love with the groom.

Just remember you’re a Fortescue, Minna said. Our folks may have fallen on hard times as a result of a certain family’s greed, but that don’t mean we aren’t as good as those Delacroixes.

"Auntie, Eve murmured, catching sight of Brent’s mother and several of their neighbors only a bare few feet away up on the veranda. She placed a restraining hand on her aunt’s sleeve. Shh. Someone’ll hear."

At the same time a prickling sensation on the back of Eve’s neck warned her that someone was coming up behind them.

Turning, she met the cool gray eyes of Brent’s cousin, Rainer Delacroix, just as Minna added in a penetrating whisper, "And I hope you aren’t intending on drooping like a broken lily every time you lay eyes on the groom. A Delacroix is not your type and never could be your type."

Rainer’s intelligent gray eyes sharpened. A gleam shot into them. Eve blushed all the way to her roots. Whatever Minna knew, or thought she knew, this was not the place.

Why did some men seem to soak up all the surrounding air? Homing in on her embarrassment, Rainer, a Delacroix cousin she’d barely even met, plastered a pitying expression on his lean, rather harshly handsome face. Ah, Miss Fortescue, and…Eve, isn’t it?

Hi, Eve mumbled, ignoring the humiliating sympathy in his tone when he said her name.

No eye contact was the only way to go here. Let him keep his speculations to himself.

Minna, on the other hand, had no such reservations. Show her a big, strong man with raven hair, a chiseled mouth and a sexy little cleft in his manly chin, and she forgot her feud with the Delacroix clan and cast off twenty well-lived years.

Well, now…, She patted her titian hair, green eyes asparkle. Rainer, isn’t it? Last I heard you were solving the world’s problems in some godforsaken desert. Was that you I saw on CNN smoothing over some diplomatic brouhaha with pirates?

That would have been Clooney, ma’am, Rainer said gravely. I only ever work behind the scenes. His amused gray eyes, all the more startling for their contrast with his black lashes and thick black brows, made a lazy switch to Eve, who suspected her cheeks were still the color of a Mississippi sunset. You know, I don’t think I ever saw that shade of red look more appealing on a woman.

Eve didn’t delude herself that he was referring to her dress, although the glance he flickered from her mouth to her throat to her cleavage left singe marks.

She smiled coolly, quite a feat for a person in spiritual agony. You’re very kind, I’m sure. Quickly she gripped Minna’s elbow and gave her a tug. I think our hostess is waiting, Auntie.

Somehow Eve hauled Minna away