Girl Least Likely To Marry

PROLOGUE

Ten years ago, Hillbrook University campus,

upstate New York…

Cassiopeia Barclay tapped the rim of her wine glass to the other three. ‘Of course it’s not the end,’ she said, looking around at her fellow flatmates. ‘Of course it’s just the beginning. Tonight may be our last night together but not for long. We’ve got the road trip coming up soon, remember?’

The women all nodded in agreement although trust fund princess Reese looked quickly away, throwing back a hefty slug of her champagne. Gina, the Brit, followed suit, knocking her drink back with practised gusto. Southern Belle Marnie sipped regally, her good manners always on display.

Denying her Australian roots, Cassie also sipped her drink. Not because of good manners, or in deference to the expensive Dom Perignon that Reese and her Park Avenue pay cheque gave them access to—Cassie couldn’t care less if she was drinking Dom or Dr Pepper—but because everything she did was calm and measured and logical.

Why down champagne, posh or otherwise, when it only led to a hangover?

Her first ever hangover had been here in this house, with these three women, and she had no desire to repeat the experience. That was the ultimate definition of stupidity.

And Cassiopeia Barclay was far from stupid.

In fact with an IQ of one hundred and sixty-three she was officially a genius.

Their attention was returned to the nearby athletic field, in plain view of their deckchairs. The sky was starting its slow slide into evening but Hillbrook’s male track team could still easily be made out as they went through a training drill. It was a regular ritual for the ‘Awesome Foursome’, as they’d been dubbed, and Cassie joined in because these three women had been her family, accepting her social inadequacies without question, and they enjoyed it.

But, try as she might, she didn’t get the fascination with either sport or the men who played it. Most of them were no doubt here on some trumped-up scholarship and Cassie found that pretty annoying. Why was it that there was no money to support scientific research but somehow there was always cash for another track field?

Gina sighed as a particularly buff guy leaned over, touching his toes, exposing the backs of his legs, his shorts riding up to reveal a peek at one taut buttock. ‘Now, that is a well put together arse,’ she murmured, her British accent even more pronounced in this very American setting.

Marnie rolled her eyes. The blonde from the Deep South was as different from the Englishwoman as was possible. She was petite and perky, with an innocence about her that stuck out like a sore thumb next to Gina’s brash sexuality. But Cassie had seen Marnie come out of her shell over the course of the year, much like her, and a lot of that was owed to Gina and Reese’s differing but vibrant influences.

Reese smiled at Gina indulgently. She’d been doing that a lot this last week, Cassie realised belatedly. Smiling. Gina’s assertion earlier that it had something to do with a certain Marine had been confirmed by Reese’s startling confession that said Marine was the one.

Imagine that! After a week!

Sometimes Cassie felt like an alien in their midst, and it was nothing to do with her Australian accent. Even at nineteen they all seemed sophisticated women of the world next to her, introverted geek girl—Marnie included.

Reese had just dropped the bombshell that she’d fallen in love at first sight, Gina was slowly working her way through the entire eligible—and not so eligible—male population of the United States, and Marnie was sighing over her friend’s big white virginal wedding.

It was utterly perplexing, but also interesting—from a behavioural science perspective. How much more could her friends achieve if they locked up their hormones and concentrated on their chosen careers like she had? Still, these three women had opened her up to a whole world that she hadn’t been aware of before, and all new experiences were beneficial.

Back home in Australia she’d led a largely solitary existence. Either at home with her parents, shut in her room and absorbed in some research or other, or at university doing the same thing.

There’d been no girlfriends. No boyfriends. No late-night drinking or ogling track teams.

But here at Hillbrook her ‘gal pals’—yes, according to Gina they were gal pals—hadn’t taken her social awkwardness, lack of fashion sense or inept dancing as an excuse. They’d dragged her to nightclubs and frat parties, and to bars where they served cocktails by the jug and Karaoke was King. They’d loaned her dresses and shoes, done her make-up and styled her hair and, most importantly, they hadn’t taken no for an answer.

She had a lot to thank them for. She would look back on her year in the US as a social experiment, with her as the subject, from which she had collected some very useful data.

‘One day, Gina,’ Reese said, interrupting Cassie’s train of thought, ‘you are going to fall hard and fast for some guy, and I hope I’m going to be there to tell you I told you so!’

Marnie raised her glass. ‘Cheers to that,’ she said.

Gina scoffed in her very English way with a toss of her glossy dark hair. ‘To hell with that.’

The others laughed as they returned to their regularly scheduled programming—the track team. Cassie followed suit, smiling at Gina’s running commentary but perplexed by it at the same time. She was deeply thankful that jocks did nothing for her and that she was far too rational to be swayed by hormones.

Sure, as a scientist she understood that human beings were under the influence of their biological imperative to mate, but she also believed in head over heart. Certainly Gina wouldn’t be in the quandary she was now if she’d been thinking with her brain instead of her ovaries.

Sleeping with Marnie’s brother Carter last week had really rattled Gina. Cassie was generally fairly oblivious to nuances, but she’d have had to be deaf, dumb and blind to miss Gina’s edginess. Quite why Gina was edgy Cassie had no idea. What was done was done. And it wasn’t Gina who was engaged to be married, was it?

Which was exactly what she’d told Gina when she’d confessed the transgression to her last week and Gina had sworn her to secrecy.

It was at times like this that Cassie was glad she’d vowed never to fall victim to love. How could she when she simply didn’t believe in it? And, even if she did, she didn’t have time for the messy, illogical minefield of it all. Not while there was a big universe to study which was infinitely more fascinating than any man.

A shout of triumph from the track brought Cassie back into the conversation flowing around her.

‘Mmm, that’s right, my lovely blond Adonis.’ Gina’s commentary continued. ‘Give your mate a hug, then.’ The men complied, as if Gina had yanked their strings. ‘Ding-dong,’ she cooed on a happy sigh, and Marnie and Reese laughed.

Cassie watched the display of male camaraderie, rolling her eyes as they high-fived and man-hugged. They reminded her of gorillas. Next they’d be beating their chests and picking nits off each other. One thing was for sure: should she ever drop a hundred IQ points and end up with some man he would never be of the jock variety.

‘Tell us about the stars, Cassie.’

Cassie glanced over at Marnie, whose head was dropped over the back of her chair as she pointed to the first star just visible in the sky. ‘That’s Venus, right…evening star?’

Cassie smiled. Marnie was forever talking about the night skies over Savannah and had loved having her own personal astronomer at her beck and call. ‘Yep,’ she confirmed, looking at the pinprick of light in the velvet sky.

‘Will we be able to see Cassiopeia tonight?’ she asked.

Cassie shook her head. ‘It’s too light here. When we’re on our road trip we’ll stop at the Barringer Crater in Arizona. We’ll sleep under the stars and I’ll show you then.’

It was the main reason Cassie was going on the trip. Time with her gal pals would be great, but she’d always wanted to see the crater site formed when a meteorite had ploughed into the earth fifty thousand years ago, and that was her priority.

‘You speak for yourself,’ Gina butted in. ‘The only stars the Park Avenue Princess and I are sleeping under are of the five-star variety. Isn’t that right, Reese?’

Reese nodded. ‘Er…yes,’ she said, looking quickly away and taking another decent slug of her champers.

‘Carter proposed to Missy under the stars at the Grand Canyon. Isn’t that romantic?’ she said, her voice dreamy. ‘Our families were on holiday together. Missy and I stayed up all night talking about how wonderful it was.’

‘Bless their hearts,’ Gina said, mimicking Marnie’s Southern drawl.

It had taken Cassie a few months of Gina teasing Marnie over the quaint Southern phrase to realise it could be used to mock as well as to sweeten. Glancing at Gina’s tense profile, she guessed this was one of the mocking times.

‘Missy wants a star theme running through the reception,’ Marnie continued ignoring Gina’s sarcasm. ‘She’s spending a small fortune on this gorgeous black drapery that billows from the ceiling and twinkles with thousands of tiny lights…’

Cassie didn’t really understand why you’d spend good money on creating the illusion of a starry sky when the real thing was up there for free. It certainly didn’t seem to be very effective budgeting. But weddings were as much a mystery to her as the notion of love, so she gave up trying to figure it out.

She was just going to lounge here with her friends and watch the stars come out.

One last time.

ONE

A decade on…

Cassiopeia watched Tuck… whatever his last name was…of quarterback fame swagger in the general direction of their table with his long, loose-limbed gait. Somehow his big, blond athleticism seemed to dominate the vast expanse of the open tent, with its delicate swathes of royal blue draped across the ceilings and trailing gently to the deck. But then she had a feeling he’d probably dominate any setting.

He made slow progress. Men stopped him to slap him on the back and shake his hand. Women stopped him to bat their eyelashes and put their hands on him. He took both in his stride, shrugging off their adoration with a wide, easy Shucks, I ain’t nuthin’ grin. The man was so laid-back Cassie was surprised he managed to stay vertical.

Very different from the man she’d watched only yesterday playing a very physical game of one-on-one basketball with Reese’s ex-Marine ex-husband Mason.

Reese had left the party that had originally been intended to be her wedding to Dylan to go after Mason, but her instructions to the remaining members of the Awesome Foursome had been clear—make sure no one gets into a fight.

Reese had deliberately sat Tuck, the jilted groom’s best man, next to her—away from Gina—to prevent such a calamity.

With Tuck firmly on Team Dylan and Gina, whose favourite pastime was baiting people, on Team Reese, Cassie could already tell it was going to be a long night.

‘He sure is pretty,’ Gina murmured with relish as she tracked his progress.

A very long night.

Cassie didn’t really see the attraction. But then she’d never been a slave to her hormones. She just wasn’t programmed that way.

Sure, Tuck Whats-his-name had all the features that the female of the species looked for in a mate. He was tall, broad-shouldered, narrow-hipped. She couldn’t see the delineation of the muscles in his chest tonight, although they were obviously there beneath his charcoal suit. She knew from his shirtless one-on-one yesterday that they were plentiful and very well developed.

And, in the animal world, muscles equalled strength.

Another biological tick in his favour.

There was also the symmetry of his face. Square jaw, prominent cheekbones, nose, chin and forehead all proportional. Eyes evenly spaced. Lips perfectly aligned. Facial symmetry was one of the big markers of physical attraction and worthiness for mating, and Tuck had it in spades.

But Cassie still didn’t get it.

‘I have to go to the bathroom,’ she said, turning to Gina. ‘Try not to get into a fight with him while I’m gone. Remember, Reese is counting on us.’

‘I’ll be on my best behaviour,’ Gina assured her.

If Cassie had been better at picking up sarcasm she wouldn’t have been assured one iota, but she nodded, satisfied.

‘Here—reapply,’ Gina said, reaching into her clutch purse and pulling out the deep mulberry lipstick she’d slathered on Cassie’s mouth earlier.

Cassie frowned. ‘Why?’

‘Because.’ Gina sighed. ‘That’s the price of wearing lippy.’ She waggled the item at her friend, who was looking at it as if it were a foreign object she’d never seen before. ‘Beauty is pain.’

Cassie smiled at the old catchphrase. Beauty is pain. She’d learned many things about being a woman under Gina’s tutelage. Gina could wear a pair of killer stilettos out clubbing all night without a single wince. Cassie had pretty much forgotten everything in the intervening decade, but she’d never forgotten how Gina had taken her under her wing—as if she were an Antipodean Eliza Doolittle.

Of course Cassie had failed ‘Female 101’ resoundingly, but Gina had been sweet and patient and there was just something about her vibrant personality that drew people. Cassie and Gina had stayed in contact despite the wedge that had been driven between the Awesome Foursome after Gina had thrown her one-night stand with Carter in Marnie’s face that fateful last night together ten years ago.

And now, a decade down the track, Gina was still looking out for her in the fashion stakes. Gina had taken one look at the shapeless maxi-dress Cassie had been going to wear and declared it an unnatural disaster. Before Cassie had known it she was swathed in soft grape fabric with no sleeves, a plunging crossover neckline, a ruched form-fitting waist and an A-line skirt, the hem of which fluttered just below her knees.

Her straight brown hair had been freed from its regulation floral scrunchie and loosely curled. Sparkly, strappy kitten heels had been supplied. A subtle hand had seen to eyeshadow and mascara. Lipstick had been brandished with gusto.

‘Reapply,’ Gina repeated.

Bowing to a greater knowledge, Cassie took the lipstick as instructed and departed.

Tuck pulled up at the table he’d been allocated a minute later. His knee ached but he ignored it in deference to the sultry sex goddess with raven hair. She was dressed in something red and clingy, sitting there looking up at him with a smile on her full mouth. A connoisseur of women from way back, he liked what he saw.

He shot her one of his killer smiles. He knew they were killer because an article about him in Cosmo had spent an entire paragraph talking about the sheer wickedness of his smile.

‘Well this here may just be my lucky night,’ he drawled, deliberately dragging out his vowels, plying her with all his Southern charm. His accent had been blunted over the years, with travel and living far from his Texan roots, but he could still pull it out when required.

According to the magazines, women just loved all that Southern country-boy charisma.

Gina quirked an elegantly arched eyebrow. ‘Oh, yes? Do tell,’ she murmured.

‘Ah, you’re the Brit.’ He grinned. ‘Gina, right?’

She nodded. ‘And you’re the quarterback.’

Tuck checked the closest handwritten place card on the table, disappointed to see that he was sitting directly opposite this sexy Englishwoman. He held it up and looked at her. ‘What say we switch this one for whoever’s supposed to be sitting next to you?’

‘Hmm…’ Gina placed her elbows on the table, propping her chin on one palm, pretending to think. ‘I think Reese meant to keep you and I apart.’

Tuck shot her his best wounded look. ‘And why would she want to do that?’

‘I think she was afraid you and I might come to blows.’

He continued his faux outrage. ‘Over what?’

‘Over her recent…shall we say…split from the groom. Your best friend?’

‘Ah. Well, now, if Dylan’s unconcerned then there’s no good in me holding a grudge, is there? Besides,’ Tuck said, pulling out his chair and sitting, his knee protesting at the movement, ‘I can flirt just as well from this side.’

Gina laughed. She couldn’t help herself. The big blond quarterback had an ego the size of North America. ‘You’re that good, huh?’

‘Darlin’, I am the best.’

Gina spied Cassie in the distance, making her way back to the table. She flicked her gaze to Tuck. It would be good to see him brought down a notch or two. ‘Works every time, huh?’

Tuck grinned at the sudden sparkle of light he could see in her eyes. ‘Every time.’

‘No one’s immune to your charm?’

Tuck shook his head. ‘Women