Page 7 of The Rancher's Amnesia Bride

"He wants it in writing, Cha-Cha."

"I'll sign whatever he wants, it's fine. Things always work out best for me when I just follow my heart and let God take over—-"

Charlotte groaned. "Please stop making it sound like your crazy plans are God's plans."

"I'll stop," Charlee-Mae bargained, "if you promise to stop worrying."

"I can't help it," Charlotte grumbled, "since you're not worrying enough."

"It's going to be fine, Char. Really."

Charlotte was badly tempted to give the other woman a hard shake at this point. "I know I can't stop you from getting yourself a mail-order groom at this point, but are you at least absolutely sure it has to be him?"

"With all my heart."

"He'll want to know why you agreed to this type of arrangement," Charlotte warned.

"Then..." Inspiration struck, and Charlee-Mae's eyes sparkled with excitement. "You can tell him that in my line of work, being married to a man like him will be tremendously helpful. That should keep him from suspecting me of any ulterior motives," Charlee-Mae said impishly. "By the time he realizes I'm up to something, it will be too late, and I'd have stolen his heart for good."

Although Charlotte made a few more attempts to change her mind, Charlee-Mae was not to be dissuaded, and instead badgered the other woman to expedite the paperwork. In just five days, the final draft of her mail-order-marriage contract was approved, and another week after that, Charlee-Mae, with a lovely diamond ring on her finger, went on to board a plane as a newly-married woman.

The plan was for Charlee-Mae to meet her bridegroom at a luxurious resort-style theme park, but as soon as a limousine picked her up from Jackson Hole's airport, what Charlee-Mae met instead was a near-fatal accident.

Chapter Two

All of the nurses at Stanhope Medical Center's surgical department started nudging each other behind the counter as soon as the elevator doors opened, and out came a tall, dazzlingly handsome man with dark blond hair and jade-green eyes.

He had 'billionaire' written all over him, but at the same time, there was also something intensely sexual about the newcomer's presence. It was almost primitive even, and when the nurses thought about how such a man was now married to their beloved Cha-Cha...

Philippe masked his puzzlement as the nurses at the station followed his every move with unusual interest. While he was no stranger to attention, neither was he some world-famous athlete or celebrity. His name was only familiar to those who followed society gossip and business news, and since he strongly doubted the nurses here fell in either category, Philippe could only surmise that all of these stares had to do with one Charlee-Mae Carmichaels.

Who knew a former beauty queen with a YouTube channel could be this popular?

The nurses nearly swooned when the man finally came up to their counter in order to ask for the room number of his wife, and it was then they found out that Cha-Cha's impossibly gorgeous husband also happened to possess the sexiest French accent.

"Ms. Carmichaels—-I mean, Mrs. DeRose—-" Head Nurse Jennifer, who was usually teased for being schoolmarmish, was flustered to find herself stumbling over her words. "Your, um, wife, sir, is in Room 1408, the last door on the left."

"Thank you." As soon as Philippe turned away, he was disconcerted to hear some of the nurses actually squeal, but in the next moment he had dismissed the incident from his mind, having never been interested in gaining fame.

Right now, there were a lot more pressing concerns that deserved his attention, foremost of which was the woman Philippe had come to visit...and whom he still had trouble thinking of as his "wife".

Although both of them moved in the same social circles, their paths had never crossed before this, and her name hadn't rung a bell when he saw it on their wedding documents.

He could have looked her up at any point in time after that, but he never had. As far as Philippe was concerned, theirs was a business arrangement, and as long as his thirty-something bride from Texas wasn't entirely hideous to look at, her appearance was inconsequential.

All he had asked of Charlotte was that his temporary bride be the kind of woman his mother was most likely to approve of, and now that he was finally seeing his new "wife" in person—-

What the hell had he gotten himself into?

The woman in bed looked like someone who had jumped out of a fifties pinup, and try as he might, he could not see why the supposedly intuitive CEO of Heart's Match, whom Fleur de Konigh had sung praises of, would think that a woman with such overt sensuality could be an ideal daughter-in-law for his ultra-conservative mother.

Charlee-Mae started to stir as he crossed the room, and by the time Philippe came to stand next to her bed, his "wife" was already wide awake and watching him with amber-colored eyes filled with undisguised curiosity.

She pushed herself up gingerly, and he automatically reached down to help her even as he expected her to shrink from his touch.

But she didn't.

And it was how Philippe's disconcertment deepened into acute discomfort, with the way Charlee-Mae proved completely unresisting to his assistance. The way her amber eyes gobbled him up made him feel strangely restless, and as he adjusted the mountain of pillows behind her back, his fingers accidentally brushed over the back of her neck—-

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