Page 10 of How to Undo the Proud Billionaire

Brin looked at him from under long, thick lashes. “Mmm, not much. I’m more of a buy-flowers-from-the-garage-and-shove-them-into-a-glass-vase type.”

Oh, God, he was so screwed.

Brin grinned, leaned forward and patted his knee. “Relax, I’m joking.”

His heart restarted with a lurch and a shudder. “Not funny,” he growled, surprised she had the cheek to tease him. Few people were that brave.

“I couldn’t resist,” Brin said, amusement dancing in her eyes. She reached into her bag, pulled out her phone and tapped the screen.

She held the device out to him and told him to swipe left to see her photos. He flipped through, saw wedding bouquets and huge tumbling arrangements, and tried to act like he knew what he was looking at. They looked fine, which was a relief.

“I’ve done a few weddings, some corporate functions and arrangements for parties. I’ve always loved flowers and gardening and making stuff grow.” Brin told him, and he heard a note of insecurity in her voice. “It used to be a hobby, but I’m good enough to turn it into a career. Or so my clients tell me.”

He wasn’t in the business of handing out reassurances or support, and he’d never been the cheerleading type—he most definitely wasn’t a hand-holder—but the urge to allay her insecurities was strong. Radd gripped the bridge of his nose and applied pressure to push these uncomfortable notions out of his head. Brin was not like anyone he’d ever met and she, for some reason, possessed the power to disarm him.

Why this woman and why now? He needed to stay detached, to be indifferent and emotionally uninvolved. He’d trained himself to be stoic and disengaged, but there was something about Brinley that made him want to step out of his carefully crafted cocoon.

He had to stop, retreat and pull himself together. If he had any sense, he’d pull out his laptop and ignore her for the rest of the flight.

He was paying her to do a job, he wasn’t required to entertain her.

Brin leaned forward and pointed to her phone. “So is my work okay?”

Radd handed her phone back and shrugged. “I guess. I don’t know anything about what you do.” There was no way he’d tell her he liked the unstructured arrangements the best, they looked wild and free and…lush.

Lush? Holy hell, who was this person who’d taken possession of his mind?

Brin looked momentarily disappointed at his reply but she recovered quickly, and he appreciated the fact she didn’t pout or sulk. “Can you give me some idea of what flowers I’ll have to work with?” Brinley asked, putting her phone back in her bag. “And what you want?”

Was this a trick question? “I think they are blue. And we need them in vases.”

Brinley gave him a look that was part amusement and complete frustration. “And that’s all you have for me?”

“Pretty much,” Radd admitted.

“Excellent,” Brinley murmured, sarcasm coating every syllable. Skye placed two glasses filled with ice in front of each of them and cracked open a bottle of water.

“Well, will your fiancée be at the lodge? Maybe she can spare some time to give me an idea of what she wants,” Brinley asked.

His…what?

Radd heard Skye’s snort and sent him a hot glare. Skye’s expression turned neutral and he quickly finished pouring their drinks. When he left the room, Radd looked at Brinley. “Why would you think I’m the one getting married?”

“You aren’t?”

Radd noticed her dismay and wondered why she looked so damn disappointed on hearing he wasn’t about to be hitched and stitched. To clarify, he told her he was very single. Then he wondered why he felt the need to do so, because explaining wasn’t something he ever did.

Radd watched as Brinley hunted for a reason for her confusion. “I just thought that, because you are so involved in all of this, you have a personal connection to the event. Men of your…um, men like you, high-flying businessmen, have people to organize stuff like this.”

Fair point. But those were men who didn’t have a multi-billion-dollar investment riding on this wedding and weren’t dealing with a spoiled bride and her doting father.

Radd drank half of the contents of his glass before putting it back on the table. “It’s crucial we keep the bride, and her father, happy, and trust me, they make it difficult.”

Brinley’s grasp on her glass loosened and the tension in her jaw eased. “Oh. Well, who is getting married and why do you need to keep them happy?”

He could tell her; it wasn’t common knowledge, but neither was it a secret. “We are in negotiations with Vincent Radebe, he is selling us something we want. A condition of the sale is we provide his daughter Naledi with the best wedding experience possible. And that means pre-wedding festivities at Kagiso Ranch and an out-of-this-world wedding at The Vane next Saturday.”

Radd had heard the expressioncolor drained from her facebefore, but he’d never seen it happen until this moment. Brinley’s eyes widened and, as her face paled, the freckles on her nose and cheeks stood out in stark relief.

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