And he was letting her know it with his gloating smile and his taunting comments.
She hadn’t given up yet, however. She’d seen the perfect move she could make as soon as he’d put down catastrophes, but she’d had to wait to get a U so she could use it.
Finally she had a U in her row of tiles, so if she could get back around to her turn, she could win the whole game.
Attempting not to look too tense or excited so Lance wouldn’t suspect she was waiting for a winning move, she rolled her eyes at him with a half-hearted lip curl while he stalled in deciding what tiles he could play.
“Any day now,” she muttered after a few minutes. “If you’ve got nothing to play, staring at the letters isn’t going to make a move appear by magic.”
“You need to work on patience.”
“And you need to work on not being obnoxious every moment of the day.”
Savannah’s parents both chuckled at that. They’d been spending more time with Lance over the past several months, so they knew how Savannah interacted with him. They were usually amused rather than concerned by the verbal sparring.
Lance slanted her a naughty look as he finally picked up one of his tiles. He added a T to the front of the word its that her mother had put down earlier when she’d had no decent plays. It wasn’t a great move, but it hit a double-word score, so it earned more points than it deserved.
Her dad said, “Nice” under his breath.
Savannah sneered. “Very classy, Carlyle.”
“Hey. Needs must.” He turned to look at her mother, his expression changing to something nicer. “I hope it doesn’t offend you, ma’am.”
“Not at all.”
“Of course he doesn’t care at all about offending his own wife with such crudeness.”
“Oh, I know perfectly well you’d play that word yourself if you could. Let’s see you do any better.”
They were almost out of letter tiles, but she just needed to get around to her turn again and she could beat Lance for good.
It was her dad’s turn now. She held her breath as she waited, hoping he wouldn’t block her unintentionally.
He didn’t. He put a harmless word down on the opposite side of the board.
Savannah was already starting to smile.
“Uh-oh,” Lance muttered. He knew what was coming.
Savannah picked up her E and U and set them down in the free squares in front of catastrophes. The E hit a second triple-word score block.
Everyone else stared at the word silently for a moment.
Then her dad murmured, “Good move, hon.”
Her mother clapped her hands and said, “Brilliant.”
Lance narrowed his eyes. “That’s not a legit word.”
“Oh yes it is.”
“It’s just an idiosyncratic Tolkien thing.”
“It’s a word. A legitimate word. Look it up!”
Lance rolled his eyes, leaned back in his chair, and tipped over his remaining tiles.
Savannah jumped out of her chair and did a silly little victory jig, mostly to annoy Lance.
Her mother laughed, and her father was busy counting up the points, although it was obvious to all of them that she’d won the game by a significant margin.
Savannah danced her way around the table to Lance so she could ruffle his hair. He’d pushed his chair back from the table, she thought so he could get up. But instead he grabbed her around the waist and pulled her into his lap.
She settled there quite happily, ruffling his hair again and giving him a kiss on the jaw. “I’m the winner. Admit it.”
“I admit it. You’re the winner.” A glint of warmth was visible in his expression. “This time.”
“Most of the time.”
Lance pressed a little kiss against the side of her throat. “My wife, ladies and gentlemen, is not a particularly nice winner.”
“Hey, if you wanted nice, you never would have married me.”
“Very true.” He settled her more comfortably on his lap, his arms wrapped around her snugly in a way that proved he didn’t want her to move.
Which was good, because she wasn’t inclined to move anytime soon. She twined one arm around his neck and grinned down at him. “It was pretty brilliant, wasn’t it?”
He kissed her mouth lightly. “It was truly brilliant. But you couldn’t have done it without my giving you catastrophes first.”
“I couldn’t do a lot of things without you.”
That came out as a little more earnest than she’d intended. Lance’s expression softened, and her mother laughed.
Savannah wasn’t in the habit of being sentimental—even with Lance—if there was any sort of audience. But her chest ached at the expression on Lance’s face, and she decided she didn’t regret it this time.
SHE AND LANCE WERE leaving her parents’ house twenty minutes later, carrying a plastic container of leftover spaghetti forced on them by her mother.
“That was fun,” Lance said as they got into his SUV.
“Yeah. I thought so too.” She leaned her head against the headrest and smiled at him. “I think my folks had fun too.”
“It seemed like they did. You think they like me okay, don’t you?”
She was surprised that his question was genuine, slightly concerned. “Of course they do! They love you.”
“Okay. Good. I hope so. Your dad pounds me on the back every time I leave, which I think is an expression of affection for him.”
“Definitely.”
“But your mom has never once given me a hug or anything.”
Savannah laughed. “She’s just that way. She’s not physically affectionate. The most I ever get is that half-hug, back-pat thing.”
Lance’s eyebrows lifted. “Oh yeah. I guess that’s true. She gives that to me too.”
She reached over to squeeze his arm. “Then you’re totally in. That’s a sign of deep affection for her. They love you. Even if they didn’t like you for yourself—which they do—they’d still love you for how happy you’ve made me.”
He’d been just about to pull out of the driveway, but he stopped at that and met her eyes. “Yeah?”
“Yes. I promise. They love you. And you’ve made me happier than I’ve ever been in my life.”
He leaned over to brush a gentle kiss against her lips. “Same here.”
It was a rather sappy way to end an evening that had been fun and teasing, but it felt exactly right.
WHEN THEY GOT HOME, Savannah went into the bedroom that used to be hers. In a way, it still was. She’d kept all her clothes in the closet and dressers and all her toiletries in the attached bath. It was just easier for them to have their own space to get dressed in the mornings, even though they always slept together in the master bedroom now.
She grabbed a small wrapped package out of her underwear drawer. She’d had it there for more than a week now, waiting for the right time to give it to Lance.
Tonight was the right time.
Lance was in the shower. He usually showered before coming to bed, which Savannah had no complaints about. She loved how fresh and clean he always smelled when he climbed under the covers.
With that in mind, she decided to take a quick shower herself, something she didn’t always do. The day had been hot, and she felt a bit sticky. She soaped up quickly and rinsed off, keeping her hair out of the spray, and she put on a pretty smoky-blue chemise in a soft knit material. Then she rubbed on some ginger-scented lotion that Lance liked.
Pleased with her preparations, she took the package into the master bedroom and heard Lance’s shower turning off. She laid the wrapped box on his pillow, then looked at it there and was suddenly self-conscious, so she went to the kitchen to get two bottles of water.
When she returned, Lance was standing next to the bed in his dark gray sleep pants, staring down at his pillow.
“What’s this?” he asked as she approached to put one of the waters on his nightstand.
She shrugged, n
ot sure why she felt so embarrassed. “It’s a present for you.”
“Why?”
“Just because.”
He frowned and reached down for it. “I didn’t forget some sort of anniversary or something, did I?”
“No. Of course not.” She got into bed and propped up on her pillows.
“Are you sure? It’s not our wedding anniversary or the first time we had sex. And the first time we kissed was the same night we had sex, so—”
“Lance, stop! It’s not an important date in our history. I promise. It’s really just because.”
“Okay.” He got into bed but stayed sitting up as he slowly unwrapped the little box. He dropped the paper onto his nightstand before he lifted the lid.
Inside was a pair of cuff links. Very expensive platinum cuff links sculpted into tiny Aston Martins with beautiful, intricate detail work.
He gazed down at them for a long moment, his mouth parted slightly.
She swallowed. “Are they... Do you... like them?” She’d put more time, effort, and money into this gift for Lance than she’d ever done for anyone else in her life.
He made a choking sound. “Like them? Baby, they’re... they’re perfect. Where the hell did you ever find them?”
“I didn’t find them. I commissioned them from a jeweler in Charlotte. I think he did a really good job.” She was feeling better now. There was no way Lance could be faking his reaction.
Lance delicately lifted one out of the box and held it closer to his eyes. “It’s better than good. They’re amazing. I can’t believe you did this for me.” His hand was shaking slightly. He put the cuff link back in the box and the box on the nightstand.
Savannah was hit with a sudden wave of emotion, but she tried to hide it in her typical fashion. “Well, it was just a random thought, but then I couldn’t get it out of my mind. So I finally broke down and called around until I found someone who would do it.”
Lance was still sitting up. His face was strangely tense. “They must have cost you a fortune.”
She shrugged and dropped her eyes. “I’m not going to tell you how much, but it was a lot.”
“Savannah, baby.” He reached over and cupped her cheek, lifting her head so she was looking at him again. “I know how hard it is still for you to spend a lot of money. You didn’t have to do that for me.”
Her throat was aching. It was ridiculous how emotional she was feeling. “I wanted to. I earned all that money at my studio and from those three weddings I’ve done this spring. I worked for it. I’m allowed to spend it how I want. I’m trying to work through my issues just like you are, and I wanted to spend that money on you.” She had to swallow before she finished. “I wanted you to have those. So you’d have something good to replace what you’ve given up.”
“Oh my God,” he murmured hoarsely, pulling her into a hard hug. “Oh my God, baby, I have so much more now than I ever had before. I don’t need a car. I have you. And this is the nicest present anyone has ever given me.”
She was crying. Literally crying. She shook against his chest until his arms finally loosened. When she drew back, she wiped her eyes with the back of her hands. “Okay. I’m not falling apart or anything. I’m just glad you like your present.”
He laughed and pulled her toward him again, this time easing her down on her back so he was on top of her. He grinned down at her. “You don’t think you’re going to get away with that being the end of it, are you?”
“The end of what?” She held on to his shoulders, smiling uninhibitedly.
“The end of your thank-you for those cuff links. It’s going to take me all night to thank you for them, and I might not be done even then.”
Her body gave a little clench of excitement. “Well then, it’s a good thing tomorrow is Sunday. We’ll need it to recover afterward.”
He brushed her lips with a slow, teasing kiss. “Oh, I’ll still be thanking you tomorrow. You’re gonna be thanked so long and so good that you might just pass out at the end of it.”
“Typical Lance Carlyle. Always talking big and never—”
He cut off her words with a kiss. By the end of the following day, Savannah had to admit that the extent of his thank-you hadn’t been exaggerated at all.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: The Convenient Marriages series includes loosely connected books that share the marriage-of-convenience trope and a similar tone. The previous books are A Negotiated Marriage and Married By Contract. The next book in this series is Wrong Wedding, which is also set in Green Valley and will include some familiar faces (including Carter Wilson). You can find an excerpt on the following pages.
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Excerpt from Wrong Wedding
SUMMER WAS PASSING the library a few doors down when motion in the room caught her attention, so she paused to look in.
Her heart gave a weird little jump as she saw the person in the room was Lincoln Wilson, Carter’s older brother.
Lincoln was three years older than her and Carter, so she’d never spent much time with him. She’d known him mostly from Carter’s complaints about him and from a lot of sarcastic, mocking comments he’d aimed at her whenever she was in his presence. He’d had a huge blow-up with his family when he was in college—unsurprising given the way Arthur Wilson had treated them—and after that Lincoln had broken ties completely. He didn’t work for Wilson Hotels the way Carter did. He didn’t attend family functions or make an effort to stay close to his younger brother. And he didn’t even have the good sense to move away and start up life in a new city where he could have been anonymous.
Instead, he was a bartender at the one of the two high-end bars in Green Valley, serving expensive drinks and making smart-ass comments to his former friends and classmates. Summer saw him there occasionally and tried very hard to ignore the obnoxious smirk he always aimed at her.
At the moment, Lincoln was standing by himself in front of an oil portrait of his father. His back was to the door. His black T-shirt was made of a thick, soft material and lay perfectly against his broad shoulders and straight back, and his dark trousers were well tailored, but the outfit was completely inappropriate for the occasion. Every other man present was wearing a suit.
She hadn’t had a conversation longer than two minutes with Lincoln for years. He knew her favorite drinks at his bar and would often predict her order before she made it. He’d occasionally say something taunting about whichever man happened to be her date, and he’d comment laughingly whenever she had on a new outfit or did something different with her hair. Last year, she’d been on a first date with a real asshole. Lincoln must have overheard, and he’d come around the bar, grabbed the man by the back of his shirt, and propelled him out of the building without a single word, leaving Summer torn between relief that she hadn’t had to end the date herself (since she hated confrontation) and annoyance at Lincoln’s presumptuous intrusion in her business.
Since they weren’t friends or even polite acquaintances, she was about to duck out of the library unseen when he said without turning around, “Are you going to say hi to your best friend’s big brother, or are you just going to stand there fluttering like a nervous butterfly?”
She gulped. He hadn’t even turned his head. She had no idea how he’d known she was here. “You didn’t look like you wanted a greeting.” Her voice was much cooler than she used with anyone else. He’d been infuriating her since she was eight years old and he’d given her a long, unwanted lecture on how she was kicking a soccer ball wrong. “And I wasn’t doing anything remotely resembling fluttering.”
He turned his head in her direction with a flash of a smile. His typical dry, arrogant
smile. Not a real one. “I could feel your fluttering from all the way across the room.”
Summer was a friendly, even-tempered person. Most people liked her. No one got into arguments or fights with her. She was quiet and tended toward shyness, but she genuinely cared about other people, and she liked for other people to like her back. The only bad feeling she ever provoked in others was the occasional resentment or envy of the family fortune she’d inherited, which was a completely understandable reaction as far as she was concerned. She didn’t deserve to be given so much money—not when everyone else had to work for everything they got. She’d spent her life trying to make up for what felt like an injustice by being intentionally generous and empathetic.
She almost never felt so angry she wanted to snap her teeth at someone else, but she did right now. And she didn’t have the mental energy to control it the way she normally would. “Maybe what you’ve inaccurately identified as fluttering is normal human feelings of sympathy and concern. How would you know, since human feeling is utterly foreign to you?”
“So you’re saying you were lurking in the doorway of the room because you felt sorry for me?” Lincoln had the same handsome features as Carter, but his hair was a darker brown, his eyebrows thicker, and his eyes a startling shade of green. While Carter’s handsomeness came across as safe and solid and steady, Lincoln’s came across as dangerous.
Sexy, but dangerous.
Summer didn’t want to see either one in his man, and the fact that she did—that her skin had flushed and her heartbeat had accelerated with an involuntary surge of the attraction she always felt around him—made her angrier than ever. She stepped farther into the room, closer to him. “No, I don’t feel sorry for you. The sympathy and concern I’m feeling are not aimed at you.”
He’d turned all the way around now, and he gave a soft huff of ironic amusement. “Oh, I know. They’re all reserved for my brother. Poor put-upon saint that he is.”
“You have no reason to talk about him that way. He’s never done anything to you. If you’re mad at your father, then fine. He definitely deserved it. But Carter doesn’t. He’s having a hard time, and a brother with any sort of heart would try to be there for him instead of skulking in corners and making rude comments to people who are trying to help.”
A Wedded Arrangement (Convenient Marriages, #3) Page 20
