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One

"I ' to marry him"

The wrong man

No, the right man, Eva corrected herself, irritated for even ative perspective

True, there was no gut feeling of rightness, of destiny, but then she told herself to stop being illogical

How s see without a hitch? She'd also seen what should have been perfect events erupt into fla disasters

No, there was no predicting the future, she decided, even as she aze

Marcus Tremont stood and slapped a hand on the massive oak desk before him "Damn it, Eva! Are you out of your et a penny from me!"

Her lips tightened, but she refused to sho her father's words hurt She'd come from work today—Mondays were her slow days—to meet her father in his wood-paneled library at the fairded herself for this battle

"Fortunately," she responded, "we don't need a penny fro very well"

Her reputation in the Bay Area as a party planner had grown in the past several years She was regularly called on by h-profile society hostesses, as well as by well-known philanthropic organizations

Her father raked his hand through his shock of gray hair "What you see in Carter Newell, I'll never understand"

They'd been over this ground before, each tiement was a reality, she'd hoped today would be different

Unlike her father and his kind, asn't Carter's mistress Instead he made her a priority

"Carter loves me," she said simply

Her father's brows snapped together "Or your bank account"

She ground her teeth Her father had always been wary, suspicious even, whenher boyfriends She supposed it was because she was an heiress and an only child But with Carter, the initial wariness had never eased Of course, she'd never gotten close to the altar with any of her prior boyfriends…

"Does Carter even have a job?" her father continued "Refresh ain?"

Her father knew very hat Carter did for a living, but Eva decided to play along with his game "Carter is an independent financial consultant"

She'd thought, the first tio, that Carter's profession at least would etting a return on his dollar

Instead her father's response had been lukewar Carter, her father's reaction had taken a sudden nosedive

"Baloney," her father pronounced, echoing his skepticism on previous occasions "A tru for his real occupation as an heiress hunter"

"Carter comes fro previous argu on

"He came fro other people's money since he doesn't have any of his own"

That did it "You're impossible! Just because the Newells aren't as wealthy as they once were, you think Carter is a fortune hunter!"

Even as she spoke, she regretted that she so frequently fell back into sounding like an adolescent when dealing with her father