Million Dollar Marriage Page 9

  Dangerous, this game he was playing. How was he ever going to get through a year without touching her?

  She popped out of the water some distance from the dock, and looked back at him. “Aren’t you coming in?” she called.

  He almost said no. It was too much to ask for him to get into the water with her, to be that close to her. But who was he kidding? He couldn’t say no to her. So he got to his feet in his cutoff denim shorts, and walked to the edge of the dock. “How cold is it?” he asked, sticking one foot into the water.

  “Freezing! Deliciously freezing.”

  He made a face. Then he dove into the water, which was even colder than he’d expected. He shivered as he swam, and then emerged right beside her. The droplets that clung to her skin shimmered in the sun, and her hair was slicked back and shiny, making her black eyes seem even larger and darker than before. She slid backward in the water, floating on her back and looking up at the sky. The cold water made her nipples stiff underneath the suit, and he could only stare at them for a long moment.

  “Holden?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Are you going to stand there shivering, or are you going to swim?” She rolled over, and shot off through the water like an errant mermaid, kicking water into his face as she left. Playful. He’d never seen her like this.

  Holden shot off after her, catching her easily, and then they turned and swam back toward the dock together. Holden climbed out, then turned and offered her a hand up. She took it, let him pull her out of the water, then stood beside him with her arms wrapped around her shoulders. He quickly snatched up one of the towels he’d brought down, and draped it over her. His hand slid over her shoulder, lingering there for just a moment before he made himself take it away.

  With a sigh, he snatched the other towel and began rubbing himself down with it. And he didn’t fail to notice the way she stole glances at him as he did. She seemed to approve of his chest, his abs, which made him glad, and then made him crazy.

  Maybe bringing her up here wasn’t such a great idea.

  “Coming here was a wonderful idea, Holden,” she said, and it was so much as if she’d read his mind that he looked up fast. “It’s just what we both needed, I think. There’s so much tension at home.”

  He nodded. “How’s it going with the baby?”

  She blinked, looked up at him. “The…the baby?”

  “The preemie?” As he spoke, he turned her and led her back onto the grassy bank. Halfway to the house, a wide wooden bench sat where it had been for the last twenty-odd years, and he took her to it, sat down beside her there.

  “Oh, right. It’s still touch and go, but she’s improving. The mother is home already, but the baby’s going to be in the hospital for at least a couple of weeks.”

  “That’s going to be a hell of a bill for someone with no insurance.”

  Lucy sighed, nodding. “And if they’d had proper prenatal care, they could have saved themselves all of this.” She looked up at Holden. “How about Claudia and Matt? How are they holding up?”

  “As well as can be expected, I suppose. Still no sign of Bryan, and not a word from the kidnappers.”

  “God, your family must be going crazy with worry.”

  Holden nodded. “That’s part of the reason I wanted us to come out here. I didn’t want us starting our year together with all that baggage weighing us down.”

  She looked away. “That was really thoughtful of you.”

  “Hey, I’m a thoughtful guy.”

  “Who’d have guessed?”

  Holden felt his brows go up. “Was that an insult or a compliment?”

  “It was…surprise.”

  “Hell, I’m full of those. Then again, so’s the rest of the family.”

  “You didn’t tell them what we were planning to do today. I’m worried about that.”

  He eyed her, facing him now, searching him with her dark, probing eyes. “No. I asked Logan to keep it under wraps for now because I’d prefer to tell them myself.”

  She sighed.

  “What?” he asked, instantly worried.

  “Nothing. I just…think it might have been better to tell them. It would have given them time to get used to the idea before we get back there.”

  Holden smiled slowly. “Are you afraid of my family, Lucinda in the Sky?”

  Her head came up quickly, eyes going wide. “My God.”

  “What?”

  “You haven’t called me that since…” But she didn’t finish. She slammed her eyes shut, shook her head.

  “I always called you that, Lucy. Just not out loud.”

  Sighing, she slowly met his eyes again. “Why?”

  Holden reached up to gently push a wet tendril of hair off her cheek and tuck it behind her ear. “Because you always seemed…out of reach.”

  Her brows lifted in surprise. “That’s almost funny. If you knew how easily you…that is, how easily you could have…” She closed her eyes and gave her head a shake.

  “I knew. But I also knew you deserved better. I’d have only hurt you, Lucy, and I knew myself well enough to know it. I didn’t want to do that, so I left you alone.”

  She blinked slowly. “You mean…you did like me? Want me…back then?”

  He stared at her for a long moment, seeing a reflection of that adoration that he used to always see in her eyes. “Maybe this isn’t such a good subject for us just now.” He got to his feet.

  To his surprise, Lucy did, as well, gripping his forearm and tugging him around to face her again. “Well, that’s too bad, then, because I want to know. My God, Holden, do you know how much your indifference hurt me back then?”

  “Indifference?” He closed his eyes, shook his head slowly. “Jeez, Lucy, I was eating my heart out. But it was for your own good.”

  Mouth agape, she made a sound of disbelief. “It’s just like you to think you know what’s best for me.”

  “Oh, come on, Lucy, all of this was over fifteen years ago for crying out loud.”

  “You admitted you were attracted to me but… Do you still want me, Holden?”

  He went utterly still. Searching her face, seeing nothing revealed that she didn’t want to reveal, he just stood there, shocked. “What happened to that shy little wallflower I thought I was marrying?”

  “She grew up,” she said. “Don’t tell me you expected me to stay the same lovesick little girl after all this time.”

  “I…don’t know what I expected.”

  “But not this.”

  “Lucy, I’m not even sure what this is. What do you want from me?”

  She shrugged, lowered her head, shaking it. “Nothing.”

  “Good. Because I don’t have anything to give you. Look, Lucy, don’t even let yourself begin to think about making more out of what’s between us than there is, because I won’t. I can’t. I thought we were both clear on that.”

  She narrowed her eyes on him, and the look sent a chill right to his bones. “For my own good?” she asked.

  He lied. He lied through his teeth. Because she scared the hell out of him all of the sudden. “Because I’m already itching to get back to my old life-style, Lucy. A different woman every month, sometimes every week. I like it that way.”

  The blow hit. He saw her flinch, and that meant it hurt her a little bit. And if it hurt her, that meant she already felt more than she should. Jeez, he hadn’t planned on this. He hadn’t expected this.

  He needed to keep his distance…now more than ever.

  Well, he’d certainly made his feelings clear. He might want her…in fact, she was increasingly certain he did. She’d seen his eyes when she’d walked down the stairs in her bathing suit. And when she’d been in the water. And when she got out. He wanted her.

  Just like he wanted every halfway-decent-looking female under the age of seventy. He was a womanizer, she reminded herself. Through and through. Always had been. She didn’t know why the hell she let herself think for even a moment that he might hav
e changed. Then again, it ought to work in her favor, right?

  She put on dry clothes in the bedroom she’d chosen. Jeans and a snug-fitting T-shirt. She was in no mood for seduction tonight. Not after the way he’d slapped her down. Still, time was of the essence here.

  But there was something else niggling at her, and she couldn’t stop turning it over in her mind, poking at it like a sore tooth. If he wanted her the way he wanted every other woman he met, then why wasn’t he trying to have her? Why wasn’t he flirting or touching or teasing her? Why?

  She didn’t understand it, and it was frustrating to think she’d have to work harder than she’d expected to get him to cooperate with her plan. She was not an experienced seductress. She was not an expert lover. She’d never initiated a sexual interlude in her life. She wasn’t even certain she could drum up the brass to do it now, when so much depended on it.

  Especially with a man who, for some reason only he could know, was unwilling! She’d expected him to go back on his word and start trying to get her into bed the minute they were pronounced man and wife.

  Damn him.

  She brushed her hair, and then as an afterthought, her teeth, reapplied her deodorant, and finally, she was ready to face him again. She probably wouldn’t have the gall to try to initiate anything tonight. Not after he’d made it pretty clear he didn’t want her to. But if the opportunity—and the nerve—presented itself, she wanted to be ready. Taking a breath, straightening her spine, she went back downstairs to find her new husband.

  Holden had expected this to be easy. She’d seemed like the perfect solution. A woman he respected, liked, even. A woman with no expectations of him, willing to be his wife in name only for a year in exchange for a sizable chunk of change.

  Well, thinking it would be that simple had, he supposed, been his first mistake. Nothing was ever easy. But she sure had taken him by surprise. Hell, he still wasn’t sure what had happened, but there was a tension brewing between them now, one that hadn’t been there before.

  He stood at the counter in the kitchen, tossing a salad while a pair of steaks cooked to perfection on the built-in grill. The cabin’s pantry was always well stocked, and he’d had the forethought to send someone ahead with fresh produce and perishables, and to turn on the gas-powered fridge to keep it all fresh. After all, it wasn’t the first time he’d swept a woman away for a weekend retreat. He had it down to a science.

  Not that this time was anything like any of the times before. He’d never been nervous or unsure of himself, never been more confused about what a woman wanted…. Hell, he’d never been married before.

  And he’d never been more attentive, every cell in his body attuned and alert, ready to go taut again at the slightest sound from his little wife.

  So why was it the sound of her clearing her throat behind him came without any warning whatsoever and made him whirl, dropping salad tongs and a few scraps of lettuce onto the floor?

  “Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you.”

  She was laughing at him behind that innocent expression. He could tell. “Uh, I didn’t hear you come in, is all.” Glancing down at the mess on the floor, he noted that she was in her sock feet. No wonder she’d sneaked up on him so silently. Then as he hunkered down to gather up the salad tongs, his gaze moved up her legs, over faded blue jeans that hugged her hips and crawled between her thighs the way he wanted to do.

  Oh, hell. Above that was a snug white T-shirt. Not a loose-fitting one like he might wear himself, but a tiny one that hugged her so close he could see a strip of tanned midriff between it and her jeans. And he could also see that she was braless underneath it. Her gleaming black hair brushed the shoulders of that white shirt in stark contrast, and the white she wore made her dark eyes even darker.

  She was one incredible hunk of woman.

  “Holden?”

  “Hmm?” He lifted his head, to look up into her eyes.

  “You, um, waiting to be knighted or something?”

  He was practically kneeling at her feet. And knight-hood was the last thing on his mind. Knights were honorable and noble and all of that. Hell, he’d have been drummed right out of his armor for the sultry thoughts in his head. He got to his feet, avoiding her eyes so she wouldn’t see the raw hunger in his, and turned to the sink to wash the tongs.

  “Steak smells good,” she said, moving toward the grill and picking up a fork to poke the thick cuts of meat as they sizzled.

  “Hope you’re hungry,” he rasped. He was back at his salad bowl, adding chopped tomatoes and tossing it again.

  “Starved,” she said. “And I think my steak is done enough. I like ’em rare.” She reached for one of the plates he had sitting out at the same time he did, and they collided, chest to chest. Holden looked down at her. She let his eyes probe hers, and left her body right where it was, pressed up tight. Her breasts mashed against his chest, her face only a couple of inches away.

  She was supposed to pull back. She was supposed to be embarrassed. Okay, maybe she was embarrassed, if the color staining her cheeks was anything to go by. But she was not pulling away.

  Holden finally managed to do that himself. “Um…sorry.”

  “Don’t be silly, Holden. You didn’t hurt me. And we are married.”

  “Yeah, but…”

  She sent him a sidelong glance, even while stabbing her steak and dropping it onto her plate. “But what?”

  “Nothing.”

  Shrugging, she set her plate aside. “Want me to get yours off?” she asked, reaching for the second plate, a question in her eyes.

  “Uh, no. I like mine cooked.” He glanced at her steak. “At least enough so they don’t moo when I stick the fork in them.”

  “You’ll cook all the flavor out.”

  “I just don’t happen to like biting down on things that wiggle.”

  She lifted her brows. “That’s not the way I heard it.”

  Holden almost gaped. But he managed to hide his surprise and return his attention to the salad. His throat was dry, though, and the skin on the back of his neck tingling. His belly was tight, his temperature, he thought, heading upward.

  If he ever got through this night it would be a miracle.

  “So, um, what kind of dressing do you want on your salad?” he asked. Safe subject. Salad dressing.

  Her reply was to turn to the refrigerator and open it, scanning the bottles inside. “Oh, hey. This looks good.”

  He turned, expecting to see her holding a bottle of Italian or Ranch. Instead, she was lifting a bottle of wine. Her hand curled around its slender neck while the fingers of the other one slid down over the label. He’d told the local grocer he always ordered from to stock the place with the usual things. Forgetting that the usual things included wine. Because any self-respecting womanizer would always have some on hand to help things along. Only in this case, he didn’t want to help things along.

  But she was already rummaging in a cupboard for wineglasses, setting a pair of them on the counter, pulling open a drawer in search of a corkscrew. Holden took the bottle from her. “Here, I’ll get it.”

  She found the corkscrew and put it into his hand. Holden opened the wine, and had to move closer to her to pour it. When he stopped with the glass half full, she put her hand over his on the bottle, and pressed downward until he filled it the rest of the way. She did the same when he filled the second glass. He met her eyes. “Trying to get me drunk, Lucy?”

  She looked away. “I think it would take more than that to get you drunk, Holden. You forget, I’ve seen you drink before.”

  “As I recall, you didn’t like it much.”

  She lifted her brows, and her glass, taking a deep sip while his gaze riveted itself to her lips. “Now, what makes you say that?”

  “You pretty much ignored me after that night at the Valentine’s Day dance,” he said. Then he shook his head. “I’ve always assumed I must have acted like an idiot when you drove me home that night.”

  “No,�
� she said. “Actually, that was the next day.”

  “What was?”

  “Nothing. Never mind. Get your steak, Holden, before it burns.”

  He set the bottle down, rescued the steak, and dropped it onto the remaining plate. And before he turned back around, Lucy was heading out of the kitchen, through those bat-wing doors and into the dining area with her plate, her glass, and the rest of the bottle tucked under one arm. Holden sighed, watching her go. The view from behind made him take a deep drink of wine from his glass and square his shoulders, before he gathered up his own plate and went in there to join her.

  Seven

  She’d never been more nervous in her life. So she drank a bit too much wine with dinner, and by the time they finished eating, she no longer had any idea how much of the wine Holden had ingested, and how much she had. She only knew the bottle was empty, and her lips were tingly. She’d intended to keep track of how much he drank. Maybe it would mellow him out a little.

  Hell, it had worked last time.

  Holden got up and started gathering up the empty dishes. She got up too, and covered his hand with hers. “Let me get those.”

  He shook his head. “Why? ’Cause you’re the female?”

  “No. Because I would rather you be doing something else just now.” She saw the wariness come into his eyes.

  “What?” His voice was slightly hoarse.

  “Building a fire.”

  He glanced in toward the fireplace, then back at her. “It’s June, Lucy.”

  “Yes, but it’s not too hot here. And I really would like a fire.”

  Sighing, he lifted his hands in surrender. “Okay. I’ll build a fire.”

  He headed into the front room. Lucinda quickly cleared their plates from the table, carried them into the kitchen, and washed them up. It took all of five minutes. While she was out there, she located another bottle of wine. But she was already feeling pretty unsteady on her feet; she wasn’t used to drinking much. Maybe she’d better not have any more. She needed to keep her head tonight. She’d hate like hell to wake up in the morning and not remember whether he’d capitulated or not. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to get a bit more down him.