Claire stretched and yawned, slowly coming awake the next morning. It felt so good, she stretched again. For the first time since moving to Dallas, she awoke refreshed, rested and ready for the day.

This was a brand new day. The first day of her brand new life—okay, brand new phase of her life— and she planned to enjoy it.

Not wanting to get up and break the spell of contentment that cloaked her, she rolled onto her side, her legs brushing against something…fuzzy. Or maybe it was hairy. Without opening her eyes, she stretched out her foot and with tentative strokes felt this foreign object. Though she couldn’t remember ever actually running her toes down the muscle bound calf of a man, that was exactly what this particular object felt like—a man’s leg. And where there was a man’s leg, there was a man—

Her eyes snapped open even as she yelped, scrambling to the far side of the bed and taking the sheet with her. She held the thin piece of chambray cotton in front of her as if it had the protective powers of a force field. Panting, she stared wide-eyed at the figure now standing casually on the other side of the bed.

Tristan McFarland!

He rubbed his eyes as if he had just awakened from a deep slumber. But Claire had no remorse for disturbing her husband. Not after he disturbed the bejeezus out of her.

“What are you doing here?” Claire pulled the sheet a little higher.

“I live here.”

She shook her head. “What are you doing in my room?”

“Sorry, sweetheart, this is my room.”

Claire could only stare, captured in the surreal moment. She had slept with Tristan. Not in a carnal sense, mind you, but slept with him just the same. He had, in all his tanned-skin-and-navy blue-silk-boxer-shorts glory, invaded her safe haven, her sanctuary. Or what she had thought had been hers.

Heart still pounding from her earlier shock, she pushed her bangs from her face and lifted her chin. “Ian said our relationship would be…platonic.” Claire watched the mesmerizing play of muscle as her husband cocked his hands on his slim hips.

“I believe it still is.”

She opened her mouth to protest, but shut it again. She had nothing to say.

“He also said that we had to keep our marriage out of the papers.”

“What does this have to do with the media?” If she hadn’t been so intent on keeping the sheet pulled up as high as possible across her, she might have made a grand sweeping gesture with her arm.

Tristan crossed his arms over his chest, the muscles in his biceps bunching and flexing with the movement. “I pay my staff well, but not enough to compete with a determined tabloid reporter with a hefty purse.”

“But…” she sputtered. You can’t sleep here was on the tip of her tongue, but she bit it back. “What should we do? I mean…I can’t…you—” Claire stopped, feeling she was only making the situation worse. She was acting like a ninny, but she hadn’t expected this—to say the least.

“What we do is share this room.”

“For the entire year?”

He shook his head. “How about we talk about this over breakfast?”

She dipped her chin in as much of a positive response as she could muster.

He growled out a curse, his voice sounding as if he were at the end of his patience. “Stop standing there like a Victorian virgin and get dressed.”

Claire merely nodded. Then gathering up a few clothes from the closet, she regally swept into the bathroom to do as Tristan had demanded.

Less than an hour later, Claire descended the sweeping staircase back into the opulent foyer. She looked around her, unsure of where to go next. Holmes had told her that breakfast was to be on the east verandah, but…well, she wished she had a compass. Otherwise, she might just starve to death right there in the entry hall.

Slowly Claire spun around, looking at the room from all angles. It was a large room. Large enough that P.T. Barnum could have set up a circus tent if he was so inclined. Claire figured that even if he had been, the snobbish butler would have put his regal foot down concerning elephants in the mansion.

The thought cheered her up a bit. A little more at ease, she took a hesitant step—to where, she didn’t know. The single footfall echoed around her. If the rest of the house was anything like this…

“Ma’am?”

Claire looked up just as a small woman in the plain gray uniform of the McFarland staff approached. Sarah. Claire was proud that she remembered the woman’s name from the marathon introduction yesterday. The young maid’s light brown hair was pulled into a short ponytail and a friendly smile lit her face. A black toy poodle padded along behind her.

“Isn’t he just the cutest thing.” Claire knelt down to pet the tiny dog. He seemed shy at first, sniffing her hand to gauge her intentions. Then he licked her fingers with a wet pink tongue, making Claire smile for the first time in days. “What’s your name, sweet baby?”

“Bruno,” Sarah answered.

Claire sat back on her heels. At least someone in the household had a sense of humor. “Is he yours?”

The woman shook her head. “He’s Mr. McFarland’s.”

Claire swallowed back her surprise. She had never thought of Tristan as anything more than a handsome businessman/playboy. She certainly would have never pegged him an affectionate dog owner. And if she were asked to pick Tristan’s dog out of a line-up, she certainly wouldn’t have chosen a frou-frou, mini poodle. She would have thought of him with a German Shepherd or a Labrador Retriever. A man’s dog—

“I mean, now he belongs to Mr. McFarland,” the maid continued. “Before he belonged to his aunt.” The maid looked around to see if anyone was listening. She dropped her voice several decibels before continuing. “It’s even rumored that the dog was part of his inheritance.”

“Tristan’s?” Claire asked surprised. Sure it was unusual, but a lot of caring pet owners included their animals in their wills.

She scooped the tiny animal into her arms and cradled him protectively to her. She never realized that she could have so much in common with a minuscule black canine. But they were both orphans, both abandoned by life at Tristan McFarland’s doorstep.

The maid mutely nodded as Claire scratched Bruno behind his ears. “I guess I should get back to work now.” She reached out as if to take Bruno from Claire’s embrace.

The tiny pooch growled low in his throat, but made no move to bite her. Still the maid looked shocked.

“I think he likes you.” She pointed toward his wagging pom-pom of a tail. “He hasn’t done that since the missus died.”

“The feeling’s mutual.” Claire smiled and fluffed the dog’s beribboned ears. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to take care of him today.”

“No, ma’am. Go right ahead. He’s cute and all, but I’m a maid not a zoo keeper. I only care for him because he won’t let anyone else near.” She hesitated for a moment more, then turned toward one of the many hallways.

“Sarah?”

“Yes, ma’am?”

“Can you show me where the east verandah is?”

Sarah smiled once again. “It’d be my pleasure, ma’am.”

With Bruno still clutched in her arms, Claire followed the uniformed maid down one of the many corridors. After what seemed like a quarter of a mile of Persian runners, antique side tables, and priceless artwork, the hallway finally ended in a charming sun-filled porch complete with a wrought iron and glass breakfast table.

Her husband was already seated there, a steaming cup of coffee in front of him, his face hidden by today’s edition of the Wall Street Journal.

Claire nodded her thanks to Sarah and took the seat opposite Tristan. It seemed he was full of surprises today. The bed, the dog, and now an actual paper newspaper.

She arranged Bruno on her lap and poured herself a glass of orange juice.

“We’re on our own for breakfast,” Tristan said from behind his paper, turning the page, but never once even glancing at her.

“Great,” Claire said, not knowing what he meant. She filled her plate with fresh fruit and homemade muffins and settled down to breakfast. In between her own bites, she fed the dog, certain that she had a friend for life.

But halfway through her first muffin, she could take the silence no longer. “Tristan,” she started, addressing the front page of the Journal. “About the room…”

A heavy sigh erupted from behind the black and white shield. He snapped the paper and meticulously folded it back to rights before eyeing her with that Are-you-still-here? look. Then his gaze fell on the dog.

Claire was certain that he was about to say something concerning animals at the breakfast table when Bruno growled. Claire hugged him protectively to her chest.

“Surely we can survive until Monday.”

“What happens Monday?” She was almost afraid to ask.

“Paris.” He looked as if he were about to say more when his cellphone rang. “McFarland.”

“Paris?” Claire repeated, excitement racing through her. “We’re going to Paris? Like a honeymoon?” He was on the phone, but she couldn’t help herself. Paris!

While she raved, Tristan finished his call and stood. “We’ll discuss it at length later.” He frowned as he checked his watch. “I’ve got to get to the office.”

She was barely aware of him leaving. She was going to get to travel after all. Paris. She would have a stamp on her passport, and a good one. She was going to see firsthand some of the many places she had studied. How wonderful. How incredibly wonderful.

But she was so excited, she had forgotten to ask Tristan what she was supposed to do with the rest of her day.

“McFarland,” Tristan snapped into the receiver, wondering just what it could be now, how long this day could last, and what else could happen.

“Just wanted to call and find out how married life is treating you.”

“Very funny, Ian.”

“That good, huh?” His friend chuckled. “Then you’re really going to love this. Your wedding made the Morning News.”

“What?” Surely Tristan had heard him wrong. It sounded like Ian had said that Tristan and Claire had made the Dallas paper Thursday edition.

“It’s just the standard legal announcement in Classifieds, but it’s there nonetheless.”

Tristan bit back the blasphemous curse that rose to his lips. Why hadn’t he thought about this earlier? How could he have let such a disastrous detail slip through his fingertips unaddressed? Of course, notification of his marriage would be in the papers, all of the county’s legal transactions were printed there.

And if Ian had seen the announcement, and there was no press beating down Tristan’s office doors, then…

He had to get home. Now.

“I’ll call you later,” he said, slamming down the phone and rising from the desk in one smooth movement.

He snatched his suit coat from the back of his leather chair and hustled to the door. Straightening his tie on the way through his outer-office, he barked for his secretary to get him a cab downstairs as he whizzed past on his way to the elevators. He didn’t have time to phone Marcus at the mansion and have the driver pick him up. He needed to be there now. Twenty minutes ago. With any luck, he would beat the press to his house before they got their talons in Claire.

Forty-five minutes later, the yellow cab pulled into the winding drive of the mansion. Nothing like Dallas traffic.

He tipped the poor cabbie and rushed into the house, calling for his wife.

“Claire,” he yelled, creating enough commotion to raise the dead. “Claire!” His summons echoed around him. He knew the servants could hear him, but no one dared speak up. His tone alone was enough to send them scurrying for cover.

“Claire,” he called again. “Where are you?”

“She-she’s out by the pool.”

Tristan whirled around to face Sarah, the maid. She was a timid sort of girl who very much reminded him of the woman he’d married. “Alone?”

It was only logical that the press would come here. They knew better than to mess with him and that left Claire an easy target. Any time they came around, he had a staunch, “No comment” rule that they couldn’t break, but his wife was a different story.

“Is she alone?” he asked again, his voice loud enough to make the maid wince.

“She has Bruno.”

“The wonder dog,” Tristan muttered, as relief washed over him. Perhaps he had saved her from the press after all. Saved them both.

The maid started to tremble. “Is that all, sir?”

“No one else is at the pool?”

Sara took a couple of uneasy steps backward. “Just the media, sir.”

“What?” Tristan flew past the maid and down the hallway that led to pool side. Claire was indeed there dressed in a sleeveless pink button down and a pair of khaki colored shorts. She held herself with a posture worthy of a queen, that blessed dog tucked securely under one arm.

Dozens of media personnel surrounded her, and Tristan recognized them all, vultures that they were, feeding off the misfortune of others.

“Our sources tell us that Mr. McFarland was forced to marry in order to receive his inheritance. Is this true?” Joe Sanders from the World asked.

Tristan stopped dead in his tracks as Claire’s lips curved upward into a mega-watt smile. A strange feeling started in the pit of his stomach and worked its way to the ends of his fingers.

“Are you so unromantic as to discount love at first sight?” she asked.

“Well, no,” Joe faltered. “But…”

Tristan didn’t know she had it in her. Despite himself and his feelings for his wife, he was impressed. She had actually made Joe Sanders stutter.

“Patricia McFarland’s will provided for the care and comfort of her heirs. Isn’t that what a will is supposed to do? Next question.”

If Tristan didn’t know better, he’d think that Claire was enjoying herself. But it couldn’t be. Regardless of any enjoyment, he had to stop this. Despite the fact that she was handling the vultures with class and candid double speak didn’t matter, he had to stop this.

Putting his feet back in motion, he tried to act casual as he made his way through the throng of reporters and camera men.

“Mrs. McFarland,” Julie Fraser from the Inquisitor started. “Can we see the wedding ring Mr. McFarland gave you?”

Claire flashed the sleazy reporter a smile, then flashed them all a look at her plain gold wedding band. They were sunk. Why hadn’t he thought to buy her a ten carat diamond worthy of a billionaire’s wife?

“It seems sort of…”

Tristan cringed as Julie stumbled in her word choice. The question wasn’t exactly tactful, but then again Julie had never been known for her tact.

“Ordinary?” Claire supplied, that same smile pasted across her lips. “A wedding ring is only the symbol of the relationship. It doesn’t necessarily predict the outcome or express the true feelings of those involved.”

A low murmur rose from the crowd. Tristan saw several nods. He wanted to walk faster, perhaps even run to his wife’s side to put an end to this interrogation, but he didn’t want for anyone to think that something was amiss.

“It’s solid, true and pure. Just like Tristan.”

He faltered a step. She was good. But she still had to be stopped before she said something neither of them could take back.

“I think you all should know, that Tristan and I have a honeymoon planned. We’ll be leaving for Paris on Monday.”

Tristan almost tripped over his own feet. She thought he was going too? No wonder she had taken the news so well. She thought it was a honeymoon when in fact it was an exile.

“Is it true that you and Mr. McFarland met one another only a few days ago?”

Tristan reached Claire’s side just in time. He threw a pseudo-loving arm around her waist, pulled her close to him, and smiled at the reporters. “No comment. And if you’ll excuse us, I do believe it’s time to end this impromptu press conference. Thank you.”

Amid the groans and mumbles from the throng of reporters, Tristan steered Claire through the crowd. Without releasing her, he led her onto the east verandah and finally into the reporter-free seclusion of the mansion.

With any luck, Frank the groundskeeper and Darrin the head of security would have the bloodsuckers off the property in no less than fifteen minutes. Then Tristan would find out exactly how they had gotten in, though he had suspicions that began and ended with the woman before him.

Tristan dropped his arm from around her and turned to face his blushing bride. “Just what were you doing out there?”

“I was answering their questions.”

All right. He couldn’t argue with that. And she’d answered them beautifully, but still he had a knot of tension in his neck the size of Texas. “Why did you tell them about Paris?”

She shrugged one shoulder. “It sounded good at the time. Besides, I didn’t want to lie to them, and we are going to Paris on Monday.”

Tristan frowned.

“Aren’t we?”

He opened his mouth to say something, but he wasn’t sure exactly what. Thankfully his cellphone rang. He answered it without replying. He was taking the coward’s way out, but for some insane reason, he couldn’t look into those incredible dark-lashed eyes and tell her that she was going to Paris alone.

How much worse could one day get? Tristan executed a perfect racing turn and started back toward the other side of the pool.

Normally, the cool water of the outdoor swimming pool revived his senses, cleared his head and got his day off on the right foot. Then again, normally he swam in the mornings, just after the sun came up but before the servants started bustling about their daily activities. But not today. Today was the kind of day when he’d wished he’d stayed in bed—sans the wife, of course.

He just had to hang on until Monday.

Monday, Monday, Monday, he inwardly chanted with each crawling stroke he took toward the crystal blue poolside. He hadn’t known that having a wife could be such a nuisance. But Monday morning bright and early he would hustle her to the airport and pack her off to France. Then—and maybe only then—could his upside down life return to normal.

Unless of course, his brother decided to abide by the will. Tristan wasn’t sure what he would do then. He only knew that Devin had less than thirty hours to be married or Tristan gained all of the inheritance without any competition.

The thought brought a half-smile to his lips. Not a whole smile, for Devin was still out there somewhere, single or hitched, and Tristan really couldn’t breathe easily until he was found—one way or the other.

Tristan ducked under the water to turn again when a movement caught his eye. Unaccustomed to having his exercise interrupted, he surfaced and grabbed the edge of the pool to glare at his butler.

Holmes nodded in apology, his mouth the usual thin line of elegant disdain. “I’m terribly sorry to bother you, Master Tristan. But you have a…visitor.”

Tristan wiped the chlorinated water from his face and circled his head, feeling some of the tension he’d just worked out returning to his neck.

“A visitor?” he repeated, not liking the sound of the word at all.

“Yes, sir,” Holmes continued. “Master Devin is waiting for you in the library.”

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.    

A MILLION TO ONE

Copyright 2023 by Amy Lillard 

All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.    

They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work.  

Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

previously published as All You Need Is Love copyright 2013 by Amy Lillard

significant changes have been made to the original manuscript resulting in new copyright status