Marriage of Inconvenience (Knitting in the City Book 7)

by Penny Reid

  “You’re saying this Dr. Branson moved to a poor country so he could do research on poor people without having to worry about the FDA stopping him?”

  Quinn sighed. “That’s what it sounds like.”

  “This is some Dr. Frankenstein shit. So, where did Dr. Branson get the money? I mean, he’d need a lot of money, right?”

  “Matt doesn’t know. Yet.”

  “Matt can ask though, right? Is he close with Dr. Frankenstein?” I didn’t know how I wanted Quinn to answer this question. On the one hand, if Matt was close with Dr. Frankenstein, I would need to rethink my approval of his relationship with Marie. Marie was good people. She was the best people. She deserved the best kind of person. Exploiting poor people to circumvent the law wasn’t cool.

  On the other hand, if Matt wasn’t close with the guy, then we might not get any answers out of him.

  “Matt said he’d ask, but that he and Dr. Branson never got along. He said the guy was always doing everything for the wrong reasons.”

  “Wrong reasons?”

  “Money. Fame. Power.”

  I grunted. “Sounds like Caleb.”

  “So, that’s it. We have people on Caleb Tyson, watching his movements since you asked for the tail last Thursday, but so far nothing out of the ordinary.”

  “What’s out of the ordinary for a guy like that? Drinking O negative virgin blood instead of B positive?”

  Quinn made a small sound, like a laugh. “So far he’s gone home, to work, to a few nice restaurants, to the marina in Duxbury. That’s it. Alex is running communications surveillance. So far, nothing interesting.”

  By “communications surveillance,” Quinn meant Alex had tapped his phone, hacked his computers and email.

  The sound of the penthouse door opening had me halting the treadmill and stepping off. “Oh shit, my mom’s back. I gotta go.” I strained to listen for her footsteps and whispered, “Message me if Caleb does anything I need to know about or if Seamus resurfaces.”

  Not waiting for his response, I hung up, walking as quietly as I could to the big chair by the window.

  And yes, I know I’m a thirty-something guy who is afraid of his mom’s wrath. In my humble opinion, I believe that means she raised me right. Even as an adult, and speaking in general terms, if you’re not just a little bit afraid of letting down one or both of your parents, then you must’ve had shitty parents.

  I’m not talking about paralyzing fear—paralyzing fear also means shitty parents—I’m talking about a sliver of worry, a shard of concern. Take my parents, for example. I couldn’t care less what my pop thought. He was a shitty parent.

  But my ma? That woman had my respect.

  Picking up the book I’d left on the side table, What If? by Randall Munroe, I snuck a glance out the window at the park before I pretended that I’d been reading the whole time she’d been gone. The guy I’d been watching earlier wasn’t there, but clearly my obsessive paranoia was still alive and kicking.

  I needed to get it under control, and I would. This wasn’t my first concussion, I knew what to expect. I’d be agitated, moody, and paranoid for a few days. Then I’d be much better at the end of a week. By one month, I’d be completely back to normal.

  A soft knock sounded and the door slowly swung open. I braced myself for my ma, for her fussing and kissing and cod liver oil, which she believed cured everything but really just gave me the burps. Like I said, she felt guilty.

  When I looked up, Kat stood in the doorway.

  “Kit-Kat.”

  “Dan the Security Man.” She leaned against the doorframe, her hands behind her back, looking ten kinds of beautiful and, as always, impeccably put together.

  Except this time, her clothes looked different. Expensive. Really expensive. Gone were her khaki pants with iron creases down the front, brown loafers, white dress shirts, and cardigans in different colors. Instead, she wore a dark blue dress buttoned up the front with pearl buttons, from her neck to her knees, matching blue shoes, and more pearls at her ears and wrist.

  Also, as always, I found myself daydreaming about how it would be to disorder the order. Unbutton her dress, kiss off her lipstick, unhook her bra, and fill my hands and mouth with her body and taste.

  Kat was twenty-five. Looking the way she did now, meticulously sophisticated, I wouldn’t have been able to place her age if I didn’t already know. My neck itched, but not because I was feeling guilty. It was the gang tattoos that I wanted to scratch; they felt like dirt on my skin.

  I ignored the impulse.

  “You’re back early,” I said. The clock by the bed told me it was only 3:30 PM. God, it was good to see her.

  “I thought I’d work from here for a while. How are you?”

  I didn’t say, Bored. Missing you. Horny. Missing you. Paranoid. Missing you. In pain. Missing you.

  Instead, opting for, “Well-rested.”

  Her gaze narrowed, like she didn’t believe me.

  I listened for a minute. “Ma with you?”

  My mother had been gone for almost a half hour after receiving a call from the hotel about something or other, which was why I’d called Quinn and jumped on the treadmill.

  “She’s getting a massage.”

  I lifted an eyebrow at that. “A massage?” My whole life, I’d never known my mom to get a massage.

  Kat nodded. “And then a facial, pedicure, manicure, body glow scrub, haircut, and blowout.”

  “Blowout?” Now I lifted both my eyebrows.

  She took seven steps into the room. “It’s where they use a blow dryer to dry and style your hair.”

  “Huh.” How about that. Definitely not what I was thinking.

  “What did you think a blowout was?” Kat sat on the edge of the mattress, facing me, and slipped off her shoes.

  “Never mind.” I stared at her bare feet, my eyes sliding to her calves, knees, and stopping at the hem of her dress. I probably shouldn’t admit what I thought a blowout was; plus, we had more important things to discuss. “How long will all that take?”

  I watched as she neatly tucked her dark blue heels under the bed, toes in; a small smile on her lips. “A few hours.”

  A few hours?

  A few hours!

  Thank you, whoever the patron saint of getting lucky is, assuming there was a patron saint of getting lucky. Maybe it was Saint Jude. That guy was the patron saint of lost causes, which was sometimes the same thing.

  I knew we wouldn’t be going all the way. We were still on orgasm lockdown, and that was perfectly fine. But I missed the feel of her, her skin, the heat of her body, the way she moved when she was mindless and relaxed with arousal. All I needed was some of that and I’d be happy.

  And some listening to her speak. And some making her laugh. And some making her sigh.

  Yep. That’s what I needed. Just all those things.

  So I returned my book to the side table and stood. “Oh. Really?”

  “Yes. Really.” She also stood, her hands clasped behind her back.

  The smile was gone, and in its place was a wide-eyed stare that looked suddenly nervous. I didn’t cross to her, figuring she’d be less anxious if she came to me.

  “Whatever shall we do?” I tapped my chin with my index finger, keeping my voice light.

  She cracked a small grin at that, releasing a nervous laugh and shrugged. “I guess we’ll think of something.”

  Now she was staring again. And not moving.

  Okay.

  I took a small step forward, testing the waters. She took a small step forward. I took a larger step forward, and she did as well. She swallowed like swallowing wasn’t easy, and I noticed her hands were now at her sides, balled into fists.

  Hmm.

  “How was your day?” I asked, watching her carefully. Today had been her second day going into the office. Caleb had been there both days, but when she got home yesterday she’d said that she hadn’t seen him. That was good. I hoped it was a sign he’d planned to b
ack off, but I didn’t believe for one minute he was going to.

  Which was why our guys, Stan and Nicolas, had flown out from Chicago last Friday, taking turns as her shadow. Anywhere Kat went outside of the penthouse, she had a full complement of security, but either Stan or Nicolas never left her side. They were the two guys I trusted the most and they’d be with her until I staffed a permanent team and vetted everyone to my satisfaction.

  “My day was fine.” Her attention dropped to the T-shirt I was wearing and she took a deep breath. “How was your day?”

  “Boring.” Impatient, I closed the space between us in four steps and bent to kiss her neck.

  Kat tilted her head to the side, giving me more access. Fuck, she smelled good, felt amazing, and tasted even better.

  “How do you feel?” she asked.

  “With my hands.” I slid them down her back to her ass, rubbing her backside over the silky fabric of her midnight-colored dress, lifting the skirt slowly.

  She huffed a laugh and I felt her smile against my cheek. “I mean, how is your head? And your ribs? Are you still sore?”

  “A little.” I lifted my fingers to her dress’s buttons and unfastened the first, then the second, then the third, watching my progress and seeing she was wearing another bra that clasped in the front.

  Fuck, I love this woman.

  Automatically, I tensed at the thought and quickly rejected it.

  I mean, I did love her. Just like I loved my fellow man and woman. I cared about her a lot. But I didn’t love her. It was too soon, way too soon, for any of those kinds of thoughts. Maybe next year, or the year after, when things between us had settled to a predictable routine, then we could look at each other, set some time aside, and have the discussion.

  But not now. Things were too good to muddy the waters with that kind of pressure.

  Meanwhile, her hands lifted like she was going to wrap her arms around my neck, but flinched them away at the last minute. Then they lifted like she was going to place her fingers on my chest, but—again—stopped. Her hands fell back to her sides.

  I bent to kiss the swell of her breast, wrapping an arm around her waist and groaning as I pulled down the cup of a lacy bra, exposing her sweet nipple.

  I sucked on it.

  Tongued it.

  Licked it.

  But then, I stopped.

  Because her body was tense. She was tense. And when I glanced at her hands, they were once more balled into fists at her sides.

  Fuck a duck.

  I sighed, louder than I’d intended, and shook my head. She was not turned on and she was not relaxed. Straightening slowly, I righted her bra and brought together the edges of her dress. The wind had left my sails. Because I was an asshole.

  I wasn’t in the mood to take things slow and be careful with her. I didn’t want to do the work necessary to seduce her, keep her preoccupied so she wouldn’t tense up or freak out. My brain hurt. Thinking hurt. I didn’t want to—I couldn’t—think that hard, stay one step ahead, make sure with every touch she was enjoying herself.

  I wanted her to relax, but, in summary, I didn’t want this to be work.

  Leaning away, I let my hands drop and gave her a tight smile. “So . . . Want to play Monopoly?”

  She blinked up at me, bewildered. “What?”

  “Or checkers?”

  Kat, looking absolutely gorgeous, stared at me, giving me the sense she couldn’t figure out if I was joking or not. “Right now?”

  “Look,” I shook my head, suddenly feeling like maybe the doctors were right, maybe I did need a rest. “You know how I feel about you, how badly I want you, right?”

  She didn’t nod, or speak, or give me any outward sign of her thoughts. She just continued staring at me like I was confusing her, or she was having trouble making sense of my words.

  So I kept talking. “You’re tense. Really, really tense. I want you, obviously, so much I can’t think straight. Which means I need to help you relax and enjoy yourself. I want to make your pleasure my priority. Believe me, it’s super high on my priority list. But right now, I’m irritable. Everything irritates me. The color of this carpet irritates me. So, maybe . . .” I can’t fucking believe I’m saying this, “Maybe we should hold off on doing anything until I’m more myself.”

  She stared at me for a long moment, then her gaze fell away to the irritatingly colored carpet as she took a step back. Then she breathed out, squeezing her eyes shut.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, shaking her head, her eyes still closed. Rubbing her forehead, she took another step back. “You’re right, I’m tense. I—I couldn’t stop thinking about your concussion, and your bruised ribs. I was worried I would hurt you.”

  “Oh.” I frowned at that and felt like a royal dickwad. Sir Dan, his majestic highness of dickery.

  Here I was thinking about myself, and here she was worried about me. Maybe I did need to send a prayer to Saint Jude, that I get my head out of my ass.

  “Oh. Well—”

  She cut me off, “But you’re right. I’m being selfish.”

  “No, no—”

  “You’re recovering from a brain injury.”

  “Well, yeah. I mean, technically that’s true. But—”

  “And I can’t—I’m incapable of relaxing like a normal person, even in the best of circumstances. I have to be coaxed into enjoying myself.”

  My eyes narrowed on her, because I didn’t find that statement to be entirely accurate. “I don’t think that’s true.”

  I’d never coaxed her, and I would never coax her. Ever.

  Seduction, making an effort, wasn’t the same thing as coaxing.

  Coaxing was trying to convince a person to do something they didn’t want to do. If I thought Kat didn’t want me, if I thought she wasn’t as invested or—and just keeping it real here—hungry to the point of starving to be with me as I was with her, I would never try to convince her otherwise.

  Now before you think this is me being unselfish and self-sacrificing, it’s not. It’s definitely, definitely not. This is me being consistently selfish and self-centered.

  I’d seen firsthand how wanting a person who didn’t want you, or only wants you for the wrong reasons, leads to devastation and heartbreak. More than anything in my life, I never wanted that for myself. So if I thought for one second the intensity of her desire for me was less than my desire for her, there’d be no coaxing.

  I’d be out.

  Things between us would be over.

  Bam.

  Just like that.

  I’d promised myself the moment my dad walked out the door, I would never be the one left behind with a broken heart. Never going to happen.

  Kat exhaled another frustrated breath and continued like she hadn’t heard me, “And that’s not fair to you. You’re healing, and now is not the time for me to thrust my issues upon you.”

  “Hey, I’m not opposed to thrusting.”

  Kat laughed lightly, but her eyes told me she was frustrated with herself. “I’m sorry.”

  “Stop apologizing. Don’t let this bring you down. I’m out of it, cranky, paranoid. There’s nothing for you to be sorry for.”

  She pressed her lips together, as though to physically stop herself from apologizing again, and she turned like she was going to leave. I caught her by the wrist.

  “Wait a minute, wait.” I gently pulled on her arm until she faced me. “Right now, I need time to get better. That’s true. But, I guarantee you,” bringing her closer, I tucked her hair behind her ear, allowing my fingers to trail along the soft skin of her jaw and neck, “in a few days, when I’m better, it’ll be seduction city.”

  Kat was shaking her head again. “You shouldn’t have to seduce me. You deserve—”

  “Hey.” I tugged her forward, kissing her, licking her lips and then deepening the kiss because I wanted to, because I could, and because I knew she liked it.

  I felt her relax slowly as the kiss turned from seconds to minutes,
her hands came to my shoulders with a light touch, and she kissed me back with all the intensity I’d been craving.

  When I was finished, and not a moment before, I leaned back again. This time keeping her close, and lowering my voice to a rumble. “Don’t tell me what to do.”

  “You don’t want me to be bossy?” she asked. I was pleased to see the worry behind her eyes was gone, replaced with lightness and teasing. I was also pleased to see her lipstick was smudged and her dress was still open, disheveled.

  I tilted my head back and forth as though considering. “Okay. Feel free to tell me what to do.” I kissed her nose, and then whispered against her lips, “But never tell me what I deserve, unless it’s you.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Patent: “A set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for detailed public disclosure of an invention.”

  —Wex Legal Dictionary

  Drug patents generally last about 20 years from the date of application. Prescription drug patents usually have an exclusivity period that can last 180 days to 7 years.

  —FDA.gov

  **Kat**

  Janie texted me late Friday afternoon.

  Janie: I figured out how Caravel is making record profits. Do you want to talk now? Or have this discussion in person?

  Janie and I had spoken earlier in the week in vague terms about her ideas, but she seemed reluctant to commit to any one theory. She wanted time to thoroughly research both the reports I’d sent and news articles over the last three years specifically relating to acquisitions made by Caravel.

  Presently, I was in a meeting with no end in sight, but I was acutely interested in the topic being discussed. Therefore, I returned her text rather than excusing myself from the conference room.