Third Time's the Charm

Sarah Jane Rappaport returns from an unsuccessful antiques scouting trip to find her boss waiting for her. He offers to forget the cost of her unfruitful trip, one of many, in exchange for a physical relationship. She turns him down flat, and leaves behind her worldly possessions in a work sponsored living space. She takes refuge with a friend who is engaged to the brother of her boss's arch-nemesis, Christian Pernoud.

Christian Pernoud is the third of the infamous Pernoud brothers, some of the richest men on the planet. He is a structural engineer specializing in retrofitting vintage buildings. Known as the family smart aleck and using Beethoven sonatas to sooth his wounded heart, Christian's head was turned by Sarah Jane years earlier. She didn't believe him, and turned him down flat. That didn't change anything for Christian, and when he discovers what his old high school enemy does to his Sarah Jane, basically to get revenge on him, he decides to rescue his damsel in distress.

Because of the nature of Sarah Jane's employment, she needs expensive lawyers to help her get out of the mess. Christian finances her legal bills, and foots the bill for expenses, all of which Sarah Jane can pay back once she can get the liens taken off of her bank accounts. The nasty insinuations from her former boss that she ran to Christian after his proposition force Christian and Sarah Jane to marry. They believe their marriage is in name only. No one else does.

On a trip to deal with business overseas, both Christian and Sarah Jane come to the conclusion that they want to marriage to be real, but have to come to grips with throwing out an agreement made in the heat of the emergency. They find out the third time getting married is the charm when his family forces the issue of a church wedding rather than a simple legal agreement.