How to Tame a Modern Rogue

by Diana Holquist

  “Both eyes?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Ally, come with me to the bedroom,” he said firmly. She threw up her hands in disbelief. “For the love of Pete, Sam! Sex isn’t the answer to everything!”

  “Well, that’s not true. But it’s beside the point. C’mon. I want to show you something.” He made his way toward the back of the house, threading through the graffiti-covered kitchen and onto the back porch. At least the porches were okay. She didn’t want to know what was in the huge black garbage bags pushed into the corners. It touched her that he had filled all those bags himself. Through her panic, a thought caught her attention like a small blinking light of hope in the distance: Sam stayed, and he helped.

  A flight of wooden stairs led from the lower deck to the upper deck. He took the lead, and she reluctantly followed him, as if on autopilot. She hoped that Mateo and her grandmother were still on the porch. She didn’t want Granny Donny to have to see the house.

  They reached the top deck, and Sam slid open the glass door to the bedroom. He pulled her inside.

  “Sam, I am so not in the mood for nonsense.”

  “Oh, I think you’ll be in the mood for this.”

  At first, all she could see was darkness through her sun-bleached eyes. But she could smell the rich, cloying odor of lilacs.

  She blinked away her blindness. As her eyes became adjusted to the dimness, she saw—a canopy bed? She touched the fabric.

  “My plan was to bring your grandmother around the back of the house and straight up here. We’d try to keep her from the rest of the house until everything is cleaned up. Now, of course, I guess it doesn’t matter. But at least she’ll have a place to sleep. And you, too. I did the next room also. Your bedroom.”

  Ally could see colors now. The room was done in pinks and greens. The canopy bed was opulent, luxurious, with layers of pillows of all shapes and sizes covered in beautiful fabric and lace. “How did you do this?” Confused emotions zigzagging through her made it hard to form the thought: Sam had done this.For her and Granny Donny.

  “I raced back to Manhattan for supplies after Eloisa left. I only wish I could have found someone to come out to put it all together. I did the best I could on such short notice.”

  He did this. For us. “It looks exactly like a nineteenth-century bedroom.”

  “Correction. It looks exactly like the grand dowager’s bedroom in The Dulcet Duke. I tried to match the book as best I could. Lancet never went in much for describing window treatments and bed linens, so I had to wing the details.”

  “Did you—?” She could barely get the word out, it was so incongruous with Sam. “Sew?”

  “You got a problem with a man who can sew?”

  “No.”

  “Good. That would have been very disappointing. But, sadly, no. I can’t thread a needle. Bought it all.”

  If someone had asked Ally the color of the grandmother’s bedroom in The Dulcet Duke, she would have been stumped. But now that she was in it, she remembered reading about lilacs and four-poster beds. Sam had remembered every detail.

  His gray eyes were serious. His hair was still a raucous mess, but it seemed like it was trying to control itself. The pair of faded blue jeans he had worn in his apartment on the day he had kissed her—she never would forget those jeans—were now covered with paint and grease stains.

  A wave of gratitude overtook her, but she tried to temper it with reality. “Oh, Sam. You shouldn’t have. I can never repay you.”

  “You can repay me by stopping crying.” He stared at her with an intensity that made her skin tingle. “You’re not stopping.”

  She snuffled. “I am.” I could repay you in other ways…

  He watched her. “Complete stop. Or the canopy goes. I built it with all the wrong tools and much too fast, so it won’t be hard to dismantle.”

  “Working on it.” She wiped her cheek. Snuffled some more. “There.”

  He wiped her other cheek with his thumb. “And there. Okay. Now we’re good. Right?”

  Heat lingered where he had touched her. “I’m not feeling so good.” She could hear her own voice as if it belonged to someone else.

  He took her into his arms and she melted into him. Stay, Sam. This is the nicest thing a man’s ever done for me. He kissed her cheek. Then again. Then he took her face in his hands and kissed her lips. Softly. She let her eyes flutter closed. It wasn’t bad being cared for.

  “How are you feeling now?”

  “Better. A little.”

  He kissed her again, fully, the warmth of his lips spreading through her. “Now?”

  “Almost…” It was hard to reconcile the Sam part of him and the duke part of him, but at this moment, they came together. “This room is amazing, Sam. Imagine if we had shown up without you here first. You saved us.”

  “I redecorated. It wasn’t very heroic.”

  “It was. You’re a man who can do what needs to be done. Even if it involves toil.”

  He didn’t take his eyes off her.

  “What are we doing, Sam?”

  “Getting ready for makeup sex, I hope.”

  Sam had wanted to bolt the moment he laid eyes on this sorry house. He was mad at Ally for being, well, Ally.

  But when he and Eloisa had pulled into the sandy driveway to find the Blue Fish on the front porch, smoking dope and downing whiskey shots at eleven a.m., he knew his plan of making Ally jealous had to take a backseat to making sure she didn’t catch a nasty communicable disease from the scum squatting in her grandmother’s house.

  Eloisa had accepted a joint at first offer and settled onto the porch with the Fish, which made Sam realize that the kind of woman who’d flirt with her employer’s lover was maybe the kind of woman he needed to start avoiding if he wanted Ally to take him seriously.

  After her joint, Eloisa took one look at all the work that had to be done, and then she was on her cell phone and soon gone.

  So Sam had thrown himself full force into the bedroom remodel. He had to drive to Manhattan to find suitable bedspreads, curtains, and supplies, calling in favors from some of his most reliable sources. He had worked all night. But it was worth it to see Ally’s face.

  And now, her hand resting on his as she took in her bedroom, she seemed warm and impossibly vulnerable.

  Had he convinced her to trust him?

  She very carefully let his hand go, leaving behind a million tiny pinpricks of desire that floated from his hand through his body directly to his crotch.

  “I don’t know how you did this so fast,” she said.

  “Money, honey. Money and a lot of elbow grease. Do you like it?”

  “I love it, Sam. Let’s get Granny Donny up here before she goes in through the front door and has a heart attack that sends her right back to 1812,” Ally said.

  Let’s throw your granny in the closet and make love. He shook off his lust and tried to concentrate. This was him, proving that he could be more than a sex machine to her. He had one more surprise. “First, dinner. It’s almost ready.”

  Her eyes opened wide.

  “I threw a little something together. After all, what’s more manly after redecorating than cooking?” It felt like Christmas to see her regard for him rise another notch. So talk to me, he thought. Let me in. Was she finally coming around?

  She was clearly shocked. “You fixed up the house and made us dinner? Who are you?”

  He shrugged. “Well, I sort of ordered dinner in. But if I could cook, I would have.” His face grew serious. “I want us to try to be together.”

  “I want us to try, too,” Ally said.

  “You’re not just saying that? ‘Cause, Ally, I haven’t done this in a long time. If we’re going to try this, you have to trust me. Have faith in me. You have to let me in. Tell me what you’re thinking, feeling. It can’t just be a game anymore. Can’t just be the duke and the princess.”

  “I’ll sort of miss them,” Ally admitted.

  “They d
id get us together.” He kissed her lightly. “Ally, I’m serious.”

  “Sam, you have to let me in, too. Not just be Mr. Tough Guy.”

  “Hey, I cooked and sewed.”

  “Sort of.”

  “Well, it’s a start.”

  The princess had deceived him. The duke, having never played the role of the hoodwinked innocent before, was stripped of all his bluster, and what was left was laid bare and exposed.

  —From The Dulcet Duke

  Chapter 27

  Sam served Mateo, Ally, and Granny Donny dinner on the beach while Paula stood by, watching and sniffing at the sea air. They ate and ate as if they hadn’t eaten in days. Aside from their odd little party, the beach was almost deserted.

  Ally watched the flames of the bonfire that illuminated their circle in the fading light. For the first time in a long time, she felt hope. They had made it. It wasn’t what she expected, but at least they were here, safe, eating, her grandmother back to her senses, although still wearing her long dress, proclaiming it “slimming.” The clams, potatoes, and corn Sam had ordered from the local seafood shack had been excellent, especially when washed down with white wine that slid down Ally’s throat so easily, she knew it must be something unpronounceable and expensive imported from Manhattan along with the bedroom decor.

  She looked out over the blackness that was the ocean, then at her grandmother’s beautiful face, flickering in and out of shadows of the flames. Sam and Mateo had started another game of soccer, kicking the ball around on the edge of the circle of light. Sam intercepted a ball with his chest. It fell to his feet like a dead bird, and he juggled it with his feet before putting the moves on Mateo. Mateo snuffed him like he was a pesky insect, stole the ball, and scored. Ally felt kind of sorry for Sam.

  They stopped for a while, having a conversation Ally couldn’t hear. She leaned back and closed her eyes.

  Granny Donny, next to her, patted her hand. “It’s lovely here, dear. Thank you for bringing me.”

  “Thank you for bringing me,” Ally said. “It’s been an adventure. I think I needed it more than you did. Do you think it was the scent of the sea air that brought you back to reality?”

  Granny Donny said, “Or maybe the scent of the marijuana.”

  Granny Donny was totally back, in all her glory. “Proust’s madeleines, but in reverse,” Ally said.

  Granny Donny shrugged. She was never much for literature. “So they thought I had a stroke, huh?”

  “They didn’t know. They never found physical evidence of it. Just the symptoms. They said it could have been that or it could have been something else, something that could be fixed with the drugs you were taking. Well, supposed to be taking.” She told Granny Donny about finding the pills in the hotel.

  Granny Donny shrugged. “I never was a very good patient. How long has this been going on? When did it start?”

  Ally thought back. “Sometime between when I last saw you and June twenty-fourth. In those two weeks. I’m sorry that I didn’t visit for so long. I was busy getting ready for San Francisco. And before then, I was probably too distracted even when I did visit.”

  Her grandmother stared into space. “June thirteenth,” she said. “It happened June thirteenth. I remember not being able to get out of bed. Deciding to just order in and read. Oh, I am getting old if I slip so easily into madness! Never get old, Ally.”

  Ally watched her grandmother struggle with an emotion that seemed alarmingly close to grief.

  Granny Donny turned to Ally with tears in her eyes. “Oh, I’m so sorry, dear. I should have told you right away. I shouldn’t have kept it from you. I’ll tell you now!” Tears began to stream down Granny Donny’s face.

  Ally was paralyzed with fear. She took her grandmother’s hands. “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s time I told you, dear. If something happens to me, then, well, oh dear. Now is the time. Yes. Too late, really. If I slip again, you’ll never know.”

  Ally was afraid her grandmother was slipping again now.

  But Granny Donny shook her head as if to clear her mind and went on. “A year after your parents left, June thirteenth. They, they—” She cleared her throat. “They died in a car crash, Ally. I just couldn’t bring myself to tell you. Then, after a while, it seemed too late to tell you. I am so sorry, dear. You just clung so hard to the idea they’d come back. I couldn’t bear to take that away from you. It was all you had. Then the years passed, and it seemed better to leave it as it was. But every year on June thirteenth, I’d have fits of indecision. What to do, what to say. Maybe, somehow, I knew this was the time you had to know and I couldn’t tell you and that’s why I slipped into the past. Maybe it had nothing to do with strokes or drugs. Just the tired mind of an old lady.”

  Ally stared at the dark sea, unable to think or speak or even feel. Dead? All these years, her parents were—

  She couldn’t even think the word.

  Granny Donny wiped the tears from her eyes and pulled herself together. “Yes. I don’t think I had a stroke, Ally. Or whatever you called it with the pills. I think I had a breakdown. Every year, I’d want so badly to tell you. It ripped me apart. I’d imagine telling you. I wonder if somehow, all that holding back caught up with me.”

  Ally didn’t know what to say, so she said nothing.

  She didn’t know what to feel, so she felt nothing.

  And she thought only one thing: Sam.

  “So, you scared off the housekeeper, eh, hombre?” Mateo asked Sam. He juggled the ball easily from foot to foot.

  “Would you stick around if you had to clean this dump?” Sam asked. He was pretending not to watch Mateo’s style closely. If he could pick up a weakness in his technique, maybe he could score on the show-off. But then, Mateo wasn’t exactly showing off. Didn’t have that Brazilian flair at all. More of a stealth player. Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen—the man juggled the ball with his feet, his knees, his chest, his head. No one could do that unless—

  Unless…

  “Who are you, really?” Sam asked, hoping to catch Mateo off guard.

  Mateo missed the ball. It hit the ground with a thud. “The coachman. Or at least I was. Now that Lady Giordano is back in the present, maybe I’ll be the chauffeur.” He picked the ball back up with his right foot. He began juggling it again. “I don’t blame Eloisa for running out on you. I wouldn’t stick around if I had to deal with you,” Mateo said. He winked at Sam. The ball was still going, and there wasn’t a single weakness Sam could pick out. He could barely tell if the guy was right- or left-footed, he was so agile.

  “You played professionally, didn’t you?” Sam asked.

  “A little.” He juggled the ball easily. Right foot. Left. Head. Shoulder. Chest. Knee.

  “For Brazil?” Sam held his breath. What a brilliant stroke that would be. He’d seen this wanker somewhere. If not Central Park, then on the telly. His mind flicked through the Brazilian players, but none matched Mateo.

  Mateo only smiled slyly. “Your princess had better find a replacement for Eloisa quick. ‘Cause I like the old mejore just fine, but I can’t care for two old ladies, sane or not. Paula is enough for me.”

  Sam would go along with the change in subject until he figured Mateo out. The guy would drop a clue eventually. “Ally will get things in hand.”

  “Yup. Now that Lady Giordano is back, she’ll hire new help and Ally will be able to leave.”

  “Leave? Back to Manhattan?”

  “No. Didn’t you know? She’s moving to San Francisco to live just as soon as she can. She’s got a job and an apartment and everything. She’s just biding her time here until Lady Donatella is settled.”

  Sam felt like he had been sucker punched in the gut. He tried not to let his surprise show. “Why didn’t she tell me?”

  “Didn’t you know, man? And here I thought you were sleeping with her.” He still hadn’t let the ball touch the ground.

  Sam was glad for the dark, hoping it hid his hurt. Why ha
dn’t she told him? If he meant anything at all to her, she’d have confided in him at least before her coachman. She had said that she’d try to be with him, but she hadn’t meant it. Or, maybe she meant it in the bedroom. Was she still just using him, only this time it wasn’t for sex, it was for interior decorating and sex? An ugly green hulking hand seemed to grab him around the chest and begin to squeeze the breath out of him.

  I love her, and she’s treating me like I’m below the hired help. Not worthy of her confidence.

  He tried to breathe evenly.

  I love her.

  She’s still not letting me in. After everything.

  Why, after all these years of not loving anyone, had he fallen for the one woman who wasn’t capable of fully loving him back? That was the kind of love he had lived and never wanted to experience again, the incomplete, conditional love of his family. Who was he to think he could get more?

  The hand tightened its grip.

  He made a lame move on Mateo, but the other man evaded him easily and kept on dribbling and kept on talking. Sam watched Mateo’s feet, but the fun was long gone. I am an asshole. He had thought she was starting to take him seriously, but she had no intention of including him in her real life. She hadn’t even told him about her real life. He was pure fantasy to her still, after everything he’d done for her. She was incapable of believing he could change.

  I don’t need her. I don’t need anyone.

  The hand released him and he almost collapsed with relief. “Don’t ever try to be a hero, Mateo,” he said. He sat down in the sand, catching his breath. I don’t need her. I don’t need anyone.

  The ball plunked down beside him, followed by the Brazilian coachman. Mateo put his arms on his knees and stared out at the sea. “You don’t have to tell me that.”

  “ ‘Cause who’d want to be a hero, anyway? It’s damn hard work and for what? You just get dissed.”

  “Despised,” Mateo corrected.

  “Exactly. It’s not like she owed it to me to tell me she was moving across the country. But to treat me—” Sam stopped. “Wait. What are we talking about?” He looked at the other man, squinting in the dark at the shadow beside him.