This marriage, farce though it was, had more going for it than her last one had.

Finally Damon said, "It'll do the way it is. Don't worry." He cut off the connection, punched out another number, and began another conversation, this one about a crystal shipment that hadn't arrived from Venice before he left New York.

Kate sighed and sank lower in her seat.

"Mr Alexakis? Miss McKee?" An elderly lady appeared in the doorway to thechapel and looked expectantly at the waiting couples."It's not going to spoil if it sits there overnight. It's gla.s.s, not eggs,"

Damon said into the phone, not paying the least attention to the summons.

Kate wished she hadn't been either. She wished she could blot the whole

thing out, go home, and wake up in the morning to find out it was all a bad dream: "Alexakis," the woman said more loudly, consulting her list.

"McKee?

Are you still here? "

"Here," Kate said wearily, getting to her feet and looking at Damon.

The woman's gaze followed her own, then she shook her head sadly.

"I told you that yesterday, Spiros," Damon said impatiently.

"I have to go. Talk to you later." He rang off, bounded to his feet, tucked

the phone into the pocket of his suit coat and grabbed Kate's hand.

"Let's get this over with."

Kate thought that if there was a prize given to the woman who married most

un promisingly she would have won both times, hands down.

At her first wedding Bryce had been glancing over

his shoulder at every second, as if he expected her father to come striding into the Justice of the Peace's office with a shotgun and blow him away. At her second Damon stood like a mannequin, unmoving and unblinking, as if only the sh.e.l.l of the man was present, but the real Damon Alexakis wasn't there at all.

Probably, Kate thought grimly, he wasn't.

He was probably deep in mental machinations about some business deal that he was in the middle of. Why else would he pause so long when the minister asked him if he took her for his wife, for pity's sake?

Was he thinking they should have signed that prenuptial agreement, limiting her access to the Alexakis millions? Was he thinking about the meaning of the vow he was about to make? Was he considering the implications, even at the last moment, of what it meant to take someone for richer and poorer, in sickness and health, promising to love and honour her all the days of his life?

Was he coming to his senses at last?

Kate shot him a quick look.

The minister persisted in his long one, finally clearing his throat.

"I do," Damon said suddenly. His voice was clipped, his tone brisk.

There was no faltering, no hesitancy. It had all been a product of her overactive imagination, Kate told herself.

The minister turned to her.

"Do you, Katherine, take Damon- ?"

She could say no. She had a choice. She could put an end to the foolishness here and now. She could act like the adult she considered herself most of the time.

And she could find herself with a bankrupt company, a chortling father, and asmug Jeffrey Hardesty just waiting for her to say yes.

A choice?

Who did she think she was kidding?

She felt Damon's fingers tighten on hers and was suddenly aware that the

minister had stopped speaking, that he and Damon were both looking directly at her. Kate swallowed.

"I do," she said.

"I hope you weren't expecting a honeymoon," Damon said, pouring her a gla.s.s

of celebratory champagne as the jet left the runway on its return trip to New

York.

Kate took the gla.s.s when he handed it to her. "Hardly. I wasn't expecting to get married."

Damon lifted his gla.s.s in toast.

"Life is full of surprises."

Kate gave him a narrow look.

"I bet you aren't as philosophical when they happen to you."

"I try to antic.i.p.ate," Damon agreed.

"To us." He clinked his gla.s.s against hers. Kate lifted her gla.s.s to her

lips and sipped in silence. It seemed a farce, a toast to foolishness. Shehad done it, but she couldn't celebrate it."Now what?" she said to Damon.

He glanced at his watch."We should be back in the city by dawn. I'll drop you off at Sophia's beforeI go to the office. I'll call a mover and have your things brought to myplace in the afternoon. Then I'll be back to pick you up when I get done atthe office."

Kate stared.

"Wait a minute. What do you mean, call the mover? I never agreed to that!I have my own apartment!""And you can move back there. After the divorce. For lord's sake, Kate, you can't believe anyone's going to think this is a real marriage if you stay at Sophia's, and keep your things at your apartment."

"Who cares what they think as long as you don't have to marry Marina?"

Damon's jaw tightened.

"My mother, for one. I need her to think this is a real marriage. She'llraise holy h.e.l.l if she thinks I've done it to thwart her.""And you're afraid of your mother?""I'm not afraid of anyone. I respect her, though. And I don't want to hurt her?"

"You don't think marrying someone other than her choice is going to hurt her?"

He rubbed a hand through his hair.

"Maybe it will. h.e.l.l, I don't know. But there's a line a man has to draw

between letting people run his life and making them happy."

"And you, of course, never run anyone else's life."

He ignored her sarcasm.

"I didn't ask you to marry me in order to hurt you." The look on his face

was earnest and intent, surprising Kate in its sincerity.

"I know," she muttered.

"It's just--I'm just--not used to it yet, I guess." She gave him a weak

smile and a little shrug."Sorry. I'm not as good at these machinations as you are."He grimaced."It's too bad we had to stoop to them. If it wasn't for your father and my mother-' " And Stephanos. And Jeffrey. And Marina. "Damon's mouth twisted."Right. Well, it won't last forever. A year and it will be a bad memory.""How comforting.""I wasn't trying to be comforting," Damon said flatly. "I was being realistic.""So you were." Kate leaned back in the seat and shut her eyes, suddenlyweary. The adrenalin that had kept her going strong throughout the earlier flight, their thirty-minute taxi ride, twenty-minute wedding and subsequent return to the plane slipped away.

She didn't want to trade remarks with Damon Alexakis any longer. She didn't

want to even think

about the man who was--heaven help her--her husband. He seemed to feel the same way.

"I'll let you rest," he told her, getting to his feet. "I've got some contracts to read over."

Kate didn't think she'd sleep. But she must have, for the first thing she noticed upon opening her eyes was that the city lay sprawled below them, a blanket of twinkling lights, and far out to the east the first rays of sun were beginning to turn the sky a faint pink.

She shifted and stretched, turned her head and noticed that Damon had returned and was sitting next to her again.

He must have brought back the papers he intended to work on, but they lay untouched in his lap and he, too, had fallen asleep. His face was turned towards hers, his eyes shut, his lips slightly parted.

Kate allowed herself the luxury of studying him closely for the first time.

According to the forms they'd filled out, he was thirty-four.

Her initial impression was that they'd been hard years. For the first time now she actually found herself thinking he looked younger than his age. His mouth looked gentler, his lips fuller. The silky half-moon lashes thattouched his cheeks gave him an innocence totally absent when his cool browneyes were a.s.sessing the world at large. He had shed his suit jacket andloosened the knot of his tie.

His collar b.u.t.ton was undone, affording her the glimpse of a strong throat.As she watched, his eyelids fluttered and he swallowed.

Kate looked away quickly, not wanting to be caught staring if he opened his eyes. But he only shifted his position as the plane banked. His head now rested against her shoulder. She didn't move away.

"Sell it," he muttered. His jaw tightened. He scowled in his sleep.

Kate smiled a bit wryly, wondering if he ever got away from Alexakis Enterprises. It didn't look like it.She certainly didn't know much about this man she'd wed. She wasn't sure shewanted to. He wasn't her type at all. He reminded her altogether too muchof her father.

She wondered how much luck they would have convincing his family that he'd fallen madly in love with her and she with him. Perhaps they were more gullible than her father had been.