The Ashtons - Cole, Abigail & Megan

her, he said, “Actually, Megan, I’d like to ask you a different sort of favor.”
    Puzzled, she glanced from him to Dave and back again.
    Sensing her unease, Simon turned to his best friend and said, “Dave, give us a few minutes, will you?”
    “Sure.” The other man strode across the room, opened the doors, slipped through and then closed them again.
    “What kind of favor did you have in mind?” Megan asked.
    “It’s one only you can help me with,” Simon said, watching her eyes to more accurately gauge her response. “I’d like you to marry me.”

Chapter Two
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    A t twenty-five, Megan had been in charge of event planning at her family’s estate for three years. And in that time, she’d thought she’d seen it all. She’d held garden parties, Victorian teas, a baby shower for a senator’s daughter, even a celebration for the oldest member of the local DAR chapter.
    But this was the first time she’d been proposed to by a jilted groom.
    Megan blinked, shook her head, then thunked the heel of her hand against her skull right above her left ear, as if trying to clear up a sudden case of deafness. “Are you crazy?”
    “Not usually.”
    “Somehow, that’s not really comforting.”
    He smiled, and she told herself to pay absolutely no attention to the sudden shift inside her. Weird reaction, and totally not the point. But she would dare any woman standing within three feet of the man to not feel the almost magnetic attraction he put out there.
    Well over six feet, he had thick, wavy black hair that was stylishly cut to look as if it hadn’t been styled. His eyes were the color of summer fog and his features looked as if they’d been carved from old oak by a loving sculptor. The man was a walking hormone-call to women.
    “I’d like you to marry me,” he said again as he checked his watch, then shifted his smoke gray eyes to her. “As quickly as possible.”
    She laughed shortly. Marriage? “You’ve got to be kidding.”
    That smoky gaze darkened as he fixed it on her and she felt the power of it right down to her bones.
    “I never joke.”
    “Too bad,” Megan muttered, thinking this had to be some sort of prank. “You’d be good at it.”
    This just wasn’t happening, she thought, suddenly wishing his assistant would come back into the room. Because if Simon Pearce was actually serious, then he was a nut job.
    “Look, Mr. Pearce—”
    “Call me Simon.”
    “I don’t think so. Mr. Pearce—”
    “Megan,” he interrupted her quickly. “I need a wife. I need to be married this afternoon.”
    “Why?”
    “Why what?”
    “Why the big rush to be married?”
    “That’s not really important.”
    “It is if you’re asking me to be the bride.”
    He sighed, checked his watch again, then buttoned up his suit jacket. “Very well. Let’s just say that a married man looks more ‘settled’ to some of the people I do business with.”
    “Are they Neanderthals?”
    One corner of his mouth lifted and Megan caught herself hoping he’d smile again. Not a good sign. In the last month, she’d seen him impatient, harried and bored, but until a few minutes ago, she’d never seen him smile. Maybe he saved the most potent weapons for desperate situations.
    “They’re… conservative,” he explained.
    “That’s unfortunate—and weird, but I guess you know that and—”
    “Megan,” he interrupted again.
    She had to bite down on a rush of temper. Seriously, did people let him get away with this all the time? “It’s rude to interrupt.”
    “So it is,” he acknowledged with a nod. “But I am in a hurry and I’d like you to hear my proposition before refusing out of hand.”
    Wouldn’t hurt to let him talk, she told herself. Besides, he was taking this whole the bride has left the building news way better than she’d thought he would. “Okay, go ahead.”
    “Good. I need a wife,” he said, “and you seem to fit the bill.”
    “By being female?”
    “Certainly a step in the right direction.”
    She saw a flash in his eyes and felt the reaction hit her low and hard. “This is ridiculous,” she pointed out.
    From beyond the closed oak doors came the silky sounds of the string quartet hired to play for the guests. Outside, sunshine poured down on the Ashton family estate and slanted through the wide windows to lay in golden shadows on the tiled floor. And here in this room, a crazy man was making his pitch.
    “Not really,” he argued. “Arranged marriages have been