by Nora Roberts
Margo opened her mouth, then set her teeth. "You might have mentioned it to me."
"I might have." He shot a look over his shoulder, his fingers never faltering. "I didn't. Laura knows what works best for Templeton clientele."
"Oh, and I wouldn't know anything about that."
"Here she goes," Kate murmured.
"I know as much as you do about Templeton clientele," Margo fumed, unfolding her legs to get to her feet. "Damn it, I've been Templeton clientele. And if you're interested in displaying merchandise from Pretenses, then you talk to me."
"Fine." He stopped playing to glance at his watch. "I've got a tennis match with Mom at seven. I've set up the board meeting for nine-thirty. Does that suit you?"
"Well enough." Thomas settled back with his brandy. "We'll meet at eight-forty-five, to discuss those other matters beforehand."
"Good." Josh flicked his eyes back to Margo. "Annie's got your bag packed by now. Why don't you go up and get it?"
"My bag?" She found herself teetering between unfinished temper and bafflement. "Why do I need a bag?"
"So you won't have to rush back to the shop to change every morning. It makes more sense to have your clothes where you sleep."
Her cheeks flushed, not from embarrassment but from fury. "I sleep here, or at the shop."
"Not anymore." He walked over, took her hand in a firm grip. "Margo's staying with me at the hotel, for the time being."
"Look, you jerk, just because I made the regrettable mistake of sleeping with you once—"
"Neither of us got any sleep," he reminded her. "But we'll have to tonight. I've got a full day coming up. Let's get going."
"Oh, I'll go all right." Her toes bumped into his. "I'll be delighted to go with you so I can have the time and the privacy to tell you exactly what I think of you."
Appreciating good timing, Kate waited until the door had closed behind them before she swiveled on the piano bench. "Okay, Uncle Tommy, which one is going to be found in the morning in a pool of their own blood, and which one will be holding the blunt instrument? My money's on Margo," she decided. "She's vicious when she's cornered."
He sighed, trying to compute the new development. "Have to go with my boy, Katie girl. Never known him to lose a fight unless he wanted to."
Chapter Fifteen
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She didn't speak on the drive to the hotel. She had a great deal to say, but she was saving it up. When he carried her garment bag into the bedroom and hung it in the closet, she pounced.
"If you're laboring under some egotistical delusion that I came here to have sex with you—"
"Not tonight, honey." He loosened his tie. "I'm beat." The only sound she could make was a strangled growl in her throat as she used both hands to shove him back. "Okay, okay, if you insist. But I won't be at my best."
"Don't you put your hands on me! Don't even think about it." Because her feet were tired, she pulled off her shoes. She kept one handy as a weapon, tapping it restlessly against her palm as she paced. "It wasn't bad enough that you told your family I'd been with you last night, you had the nerve to tell my mother to pack my clothes."
"I asked her," Josh corrected, hanging his jacket over the valet. "I asked if she would mind putting what she thought you'd need for a day or two in a bag. Until you had a chance to take care of the rest yourself."
"And that makes it all right? Because you said please and thank you? Which is certainly more than you said to me."
He flicked open the buttons of his shirt, worked out kinks in his shoulders. "I have no intention of sneaking around the way you did with your last choice of bedmates, duchess. If we're sleeping together, we do it, metaphorically speaking, in the open."
His shoes went next, then socks, while she fumbled through her mind for the right retort. "I haven't decided if I'm going to sleep with you again."
His gaze flicked up to her face, filled with both amusement and challenge. "Well, you should have said so."
It was her good luck that he was sitting on the edge of the bed. So much easier to look down her nose at him. "I didn't care for the way you behaved before I left here this morning."
"That makes us even." He rose, unhooked his trousers, and walked into the bath to turn on the water in the oversized whirlpool tub. "Now that we've settled that, let's stop playing the games you claimed we weren't going to play. We haven't finished with each other yet." Off went his briefs, on went the jets. "Now I want to work out some kinks before I go to bed. You're welcome to join me."
"You think I'm just going to pop into the tub with you? After you spent most of the evening ignoring me?" Men never ignored her, she fumed. Never. He was going to pay for that, if for nothing else. "And the way you were flirting with Kate?"
"Kate?" Genuinely surprised, he blinked at her. "Jesus, Margo, Kate's my sister."
"No more than I am."
Unsure whether he was amused or just plain tired, he stepped down into the tub, lowered himself, and let the hot bubbling water do its job. "You're right, she's not. Let's put it this way. I've always thought of Kate as my sister." His eyes rested on hers before he laid his head back and sank down. "I never thought of you that way. But, if you're jealous…" He trailed off with a shrug.
"I'm not jealous." The very idea was appalling to the pride. "I'd have to give two good damns to be jealous. I'm making a statement. Will you open your eyes and pay attention to me?"
"I'm paying attention. I'm too damn tired to open my eyes. Christ, for someone who couldn't wait to throw down warning flags about not getting too serious, not tangling each other up with strings, you're acting more like a nagging wife than a casual lover."
"I am not nagging." Then she closed her mouth, afraid she might have been close to doing so. "And I'm certainly not acting like a wife. From what I've observed about wives, any one of them worth her salt would have booted you out on your pointy head by now."
He merely smiled, dipped down a little lower. "It's my penthouse, baby. If anyone gets booted out on anything pointy, it'll be you."
Her hand clamped down on his head. From the advantage of surprise and leverage, she managed to hold him under the churning water for ten glorious seconds. It was even worth the water splashing out on her white linen suit when he surfaced, sputtering.
"I believe I'll get my bag and check into another room."
He caught her wrist, hard, threw her off balance enough that she had to stoop down to brace on the ledge of the tub. Their eyes met, locked.
"You wouldn't—" She stopped herself before uttering the D word, but already implied, it was too late. He yanked her into the tub and, as she hissed and spat like a cat, wrapped his arms around her and shoved her under.
He contemplated the ceiling for a few seconds as she kicked, hummed a few seconds more as she thrashed. Then pulled her up by the hair.
"You bastard. You goddamn—"
"Whoops, not done yet." He cheerfully dunked her again. The tub was big enough for four, which was handy because she was slippery and he needed room to maneuver. By the time she was gasping and trying to drag her sopping hair out of her eyes, he'd already dealt with her jacket. He was working on removing the clinging wet blouse.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?"
"I'm getting you naked." He flicked open the front hook of her bra. "I'm not feeling tired anymore."
Eyes narrowed, she shifted quickly so that her knee was pressed dangerously close to his crotch. "Do you have some sort of incredibly lame, essentially male idea that being manhandled arouses me?"
It was a tricky one, he thought. "Yeah—in a manner of speaking."
She increased the pressure. "Whose manner of speaking?"
"Ah…" He took a chance, reached out to rub his thumb gently over her nipple. It was pebble hard. "I might have resisted if you hadn't dared me." The pressure eased off slightly, and he figured it was safe to breathe again. "I want you to stay with me, Margo." His voice was soft now, barely
a murmur as he stroked a hand up her leg. "If you'd rather book another room until you've thought about it, that's fine. If you're not in the mood for sex, that's fine, too."
For a moment she simply studied him. All innocence, she mused, except for that wicked glint in his eye. All patient reason—except for the challenging quirk at the corner of his mouth.
"Who said I wasn't in the mood?" She pushed back her dripping hair, slanted him that killer look under her lashes. "Are you going to help me out of the rest of these wet clothes, or do I have to do it myself?"
"Oh, allow me."
It was an interesting experience, living with a man. She'd never done so before because she hadn't been willing to share her space or privacy with anyone for longer than a weekend trip to the mountains, a jaunt to the seaside, or perhaps an extended cruise.
But it worked well enough with Josh. Perhaps, she supposed, because they had lived under the same roof for years, and because the one that currently covered their heads was a hotel.
It made it all seem less structured, more like an arrangement than a commitment. They merely shared rooms, she thought, business rooms at that. The flowers were freshened, the furniture polished, the towels replaced by staff rarely seen. That kept it impersonal, almost like an extended holiday.
Fun and games, she decided, was exactly what she and Josh wanted, and expected from each other.
No one in the family questioned her new accommodations. After days stretched into a week, then two, she began to wonder why they didn't.
Her mother at least should have been outraged, or tight-lipped. But she seemed completely unconcerned. Neither of the Templetons so much as lifted an eyebrow. And though she caught Laura watching her with a worried frown now and then, Laura also said nothing.
It was Kate who made the single pithy comment. "Break his heart and I'll break your neck," she said. And it was such a ridiculous statement that Margo had chosen to ignore it rather than rise to the bait.
She had too much to do to worry about Kate's snippy temperament. Echoes of the nastiness that Candy was spreading bounced back to her—the merchandise at Pretenses was inelegant and overpriced, the service lax, rude, and inexperienced. Laura had overextended herself to bail out her reckless, undeserving friend, and they would be bankrupt within the month. The clothing was gray market knockoffs fashioned from inferior materials.
Brooding over Candy's vindictiveness and the inevitable fallout ate into Margo's time. The shop took up at least ten hours a day, six days a week. On the one day she closed it, she struggled with paperwork until she was cross-eyed from trying to learn the fine points of bookkeeping. Though she had resented every minute she'd been forced to sit in a classroom, she now considered signing up for a course on business management.
There she was on a balmy Sunday morning, a cigarette burning in the ashtray beside her, pecking at the keys of the computer—the desktop Kate had insisted they couldn't live without—and struggling to make sense out of a spreadsheet.
Why were there so many bills? she wondered. There were more eating away at her pockets than there had been when she was unemployed. How was anyone supposed to remember how and when and whom to pay and stay sane? Life had been so much simpler when she'd had a manager seeing to all the irritating financial details of life.
"And look where that got you, Margo," she muttered. "Concentrate. Take charge."
"I told you it was serious."
At the sound of the voice, Margo shrieked and jerked back in the chair. The computer manual on her lap went flying.
"I see what you mean," Kate agreed. "I only hope we're not too late."
"Why don't you just shoot me next time?" Margo crossed her hands over her breasts and pressed to keep her heart in place. "What the hell are you doing here?"
"Rescuing you." Laura darted over in time to catch the cigarette before it finished rolling to the floor and igniting the papers spread around Margo's chair. She tapped it out neatly. "Talking to yourself, drinking alone."
"It's coffee."
"Closed up in your little room counting your money like Silas Marner," Laura finished.
"I'm not counting my money—though I have been able to pay off another five thousand, despite Candy Litchfield's plot to see me dragged off in chains—I'm—"
"She'll start gibbering any minute," Kate put in. "Told you we should have brought the nets."
"Such wit." Margo grabbed her cigarettes, lighted a fresh one. "Since you're so bright and sharp, explain all this insurance to me again. How come we have to pay these—what are they?"
"Premiums," Kate said dryly. "They're called premiums, Margo."
"I think they should be called extortion. I mean, look at this. There's fire and theft, there's mortgage insurance, title insurance, earthquake insurance, comprehensive—whatever that means, because it's incomprehensible to me. And this umbrella. Is that some cute insurance-speak for flood protection?"
"Oh, yeah, that's it." Kate rolled her eyes. "Insurance companies are filled with jokers. Those boys are a laugh a minute. You'll see that for yourself the first time you file a claim."
"Look, smart-ass, if you'd just explain how it works again."
"No, no, I'm begging you." Laura grabbed Kate's shoulders. "Please, don't explain how it works again. And don't get into the thing again."
"The thing?" Kate repeated.
"You know the thing."
"Yeah, the thing." Shifting in her chair, Margo jabbed at the air with her cigarette. "I'd like to talk about the thing, actually."
"Oh, that thing." Kate sniffed at Margo's coffee, decided it was probably palatable, and picked up the cup. "Okay, here's the thing. Estimated tax payments are split into quarters—" She broke off, staring blandly at Laura. "That's a very good scream. I see where Kayla gets it." With a sigh, she leaned over and to Margo's distress and envy, batted a few keys and had the screen blinking off. "There, all gone. Feel better now?"
"Much." Laura shuddered. "But it was close."
"Well, the two of you are in a rare mood." Margo snatched her coffee back from Kate. "Now run along and play. Some of us have work to do."
"It's worse than I thought." Laura heaved a sigh. "Okay, Sullivan, come quietly, or we'll have to get tough. It's for your own good."
Margo wasn't sure whether to laugh or call for help when they flanked her and took her arms. "Hey, what's the idea?"
"Shock therapy," Kate said grimly.
An hour later, Margo was naked and sweating. Lying on her back, she let out a long, heartfelt moan. "Oh, God. God. God."
"Just roll with it." Sympathetically, Laura patted her hand. "It'll be better soon."
"Mum? Is that you?"
With a chuckle, Laura leaned back. Steam billowed in clouds and drained some of her own tension away. Maybe she'd come up with the idea of a day in the spa facilities of the resort for Margo's sake, but it wasn't doing her any harm either.
"How do you all just lie here like this?" From her perch on the second-level bench, Kate rolled over, stared down at Margo. "I mean, are we really having fun?"
"I could weep," Margo murmured. "I'd forgotten, actually forgotten what it was like." She reached out to pat Laura's naked knee. "My life for you. I'm getting a facial, and a fango, and a pedicure."
"You know, honey, you're staying right at the hotel. The facilities there aren't as extensive as here, but you could use the sauna, get a massage. And they give very good facials in the beauty salon."
"She's too busy boffing Josh."
Laura winced. "Do you mind? That's an image I'd just as soon not have in my head."
"I kinda like it." Kate peeked over the edge. "It's like something on the Discovery Channel. Two sleek golden animals mating." When Laura moaned, Kate's grin widened. "So is he good, or what? Like on a scale of one to ten."
"We're out of high school. I don't rate men," Margo said primly and rolled onto her stomach. "Twelve," she muttered. "Maybe fourteen."
"Really?" The idea perked Kate up
. "Good old Josh. Our Josh."
My Josh. Margo nearly said it before she caught herself. "Ignore the idiot in the balcony," she told Laura. "Does it really bother you? Josh and me?"
"Not bother." Uncomfortable, Laura shifted. "It's just weird. My brother and one of my closest friends and sex. It's just… weird. It's none of my business."
"She's worried you'll toss him out like an old Ferragamo pump when you're done with him."
"Shut up, Kate. And I don't throw my shoes out anymore. I sell them. Laura, Josh, and I understand each other. I promise you."
"I wonder if you do," Laura murmured, and whatever else might have been said was interrupted as the door to the steam room opened.
"Look who's here," Kate said brightly. "It's Candy Cane." Because her teeth threatened to grind together, she set them in a feral smile. "Won't this just be cozy?"
With her turbaned head erect, Candy sat down on the bench opposite Laura. "The three of you still travel in a pack, I see."
"Like rabid dogs," Kate agreed. "And since you're the one who's been trying to steal our bone, be careful we don't bite."
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Inferior, overpriced merchandise, my ass," Kate shot out. "You'd better watch your mouth, Candy, before you find yourself in the middle of a slander suit."
"Expressing an opinion isn't slander." She'd checked with her second husband, the lawyer, to be sure. "It's a matter of taste." Proud of the body her first husband, the plastic surgeon, had helped create, Candy spread her towel open. "One might have thought you had more, Laura. But apparently bloodlines and breeding aren't always enough to ensure taste in companions."
"You know, I was just thinking that." Margo sat up. "Both of your exes had such sterling pedigrees. Go figure."
With some dignity, Candy crossed her naked legs. "I wanted to speak to you, Laura, about the Garden Club. Under the circumstances, I think it would be best if you resigned as co-chair." When Laura only lifted a brow, Candy dabbed at her throat with the edge of her towel. "There's gossip brewing, about you and Peter, about your association with…" She skimmed her eyes over Margo. "Certain unsuitable elements."
