The Wedding Pact (The O'Malleys #2)(24)

It sounded more like a threat than a promise.





Chapter Seven


Carrigan stared at the list her father had provided, not sure if she should be grateful or insulted. There were six names and phone numbers and…nothing else. No information. No pictures. Nothing. She resisted the urge to crumple the paper and throw it across the room. Barely. “Nothing an Internet search can’t fix.”

She grabbed her rarely used laptop and brought up the Internet browser. The first name…“Chauncy Chauncer. Wow, your parents must either have been mad at you when you were born or presumptuous beyond measure.” With a name like that, there couldn’t be that many out there in the world. Thankfully—both for her and any potential Chauncy Chauncers—the one that popped up in half a dozen articles on the first page seemed to be the one on her father’s list. She pulled up a picture of him and sighed. He was exactly what his name had led her to expect—middle-aged with a comb-over to do Donald Trump proud.

Gross. She might be staring thirty in the face, but that didn’t mean she was willing to spend even a second of thinking about what sex with him would be like. It was bad enough that she’d have to go on one date with him. Carrigan shuddered and moved onto the next name.

Adam Marrow.

This one had a wider field of range. She paged through site after site of different Adams, eventually narrowing it down to two. One was old enough to be her grandfather. The other was in his early forties and, if the news articles were anything to be believed, had apparently been under suspicion for killing his wife a little over a year ago. They hinted at his criminal background and listed his rap sheet. She pinched the bridge of her nose, fighting off a headache. That had to be the one.

So far they were batting a thousand.

Next up, Charles Pope.

Her phone rang and she was so pathetically grateful for the distraction, she answered without checking the ID. “Hello?”

“Were you waiting by the phone for me to call?”

James.

She huffed out a breath, though something in her chest gave a warm lurch. “You again?”

“Don’t act like you don’t want to hear from me.” He laughed, low and intimate. “Unless you don’t, in which case I can go…”

“No!” The word was out before she had a chance to take it back. “Even talking to you is better than what I was just doing.” Husband shopping. Her stomach twisted in on itself. This was what her life had come to.

“How can I refuse a woman in need?”

“You can’t.” Except the one time she’d actually needed rescuing, he’d been the one to put her in that position. Desperate to think about something else—anything else—she said, “What are you wearing?”

A pause, as if she’d shocked him. “You’re hitting on me.”

“Are you complaining?” She twisted around in her chair and stared into the mirror on the wall across from her. When he didn’t immediately respond, she kept going. The only alternative was to back down, and Carrigan was so goddamn tired of backing down. The only reason she kept taking James’s calls was because of the distraction he offered her. If he wasn’t going to play, there was no reason for her to stay on the phone.

She really wanted him to stay on the phone. “Shy? That’s okay, I’ll go first. I’m wearing a thin white tank top and a pair of black panties.” She was a liar, but it would take all of five seconds to make it the truth.

“Lovely, you’re testing me.” His voice gained an edge.

Good. At least someone was feeling as out of control as she was. “I suppose you’d like photographic proof.” She stood and shimmied out of her long skirt, and then pinned the phone between her ear and shoulder while she unhooked her bra and took it off. “Hold, please.”

Ignoring his cursing, she adjusted her angle so he would have to be blind to miss the faint outline of her nipples against the fabric of her tank top, and snapped a picture. She knew she was playing with fire. Good lord, of course she knew. But she wasn’t about to stop. She grinned as she sent the picture.

Carrigan put the phone back to her ear in time to hear his sharp inhale. “Your turn.” She held her breath, waiting to see if he’d actually do it. Receiving pictures was one thing. Putting them out in the world was entirely another. Really, she shouldn’t have taken the risk in the first place. There was no telling what he would do with them—they might show up on the Internet. Then who would want to marry her?

Funny, but the idea of countless men checking out her rack didn’t bother her nearly as much if it meant she dodged the marriage bullet. The shame on her family might be enough that her father would send her away permanently. She’d like to spend some time in New York or LA or even New Orleans. Maybe Rome or Paris or Tokyo. The world was so damn big and she’d only seen a little slice of it.