by Linda Cajio
Patrick, Angelica thought dryly, had done it again. She kissed his forehead and admitted he was worth it. He’d better be, because she and Dan were committed now. She began to strip off his clothes to get him ready for bed.
“We better call our parents tonight,” she said, then groaned. “Your mother will be jumping for joy.”
Dan laughed. “Leave my mother to me.”
She started to laugh too. “We spent all that time on the island working out all the details of the marriage, and we forgot about telling anybody.”
“Probably we both figured telling Martha was enough,” he said, as he began putting away all their paraphernalia. “We’ll have a small dinner after the ceremony. Just our families, maybe a few of my executives—”
“No!” she exclaimed, turning around while keeping one hand on the baby. “Dan, this isn’t a normal marriage.”
“Angelica, everyone will expect it, and it would certainly put an end to any speculation about us. Besides, how many times does a person—barring Elizabeth Taylor—get married?”
She turned back around without answering. She couldn’t do a wedding reception, she thought furiously. She had a business to move up here and she had to get ready for new negotiations with Mark IV. Possibly, even some house hunting, too. The marriage would be more than enough. No way, nohow, nowhere would she deal with a wedding, too.
Angelica pushed Patrick’s stroller through the heavy doors of the bridal boutique.
“Okay,” she muttered. “So I’m not Elizabeth Taylor.”
“Hellew,” drawled an elegantly dressed older woman. “How may I help you?”
“I need a dress for a wedding,” Angelica said, watching Patrick drop his teething ring onto the rug. Absently, she bent down and picked it up, wiped it off, and handed it back to him.
“Ah, something for the matron of honor,” the woman said. “Gown or street-length?”
Angelica frowned. What matron of …
“No,” she said quickly. “I’m the one getting married.”
“Congratulations!” the woman exclaimed, smiling broadly. “Now I have some lovely street-length dresses that are very appropriate for second marriages.”
“This is a first marriage.”
The woman blinked, glanced at Patrick, and smiled politely. “I see. Well, let me show you what I have.”
Angelica began to follow her to the back of the shop, when she felt the stroller suddenly swing toward the right. Glancing down, she discovered to her horror that Patrick had grabbed a handful of delicate French lace on the skirt of an obviously expensive tea-length wedding gown. He had it in his mouth, and was sucking on the material.
“Oh, no, Patrick!” Angelica cried in dismay.
“Omigod!” the woman exclaimed, turning back to see what was keeping her customer. “That’s a Priscilla Original.”
Angelica cursed under her breath as she knelt down and attempted to disentangle the baby from the gown.
“It’s ruined! It’s ruined!” the woman screeched, dancing around the stroller in her agitation.
Angelica sighed and uttered the words that soothed salespeople everywhere. “I’ll pay for it.”
It couldn’t get any worse, she staunchly told herself as she glared at a happily grinning Patrick.
Three hours later, Angelica pushed the stroller into Starlight Software’s downtown offices. Everyone turned and stared as she strode with single-minded determination toward the executive offices. When she reached the one marked President, she gritted her teeth in towering anger and satisfaction and shoved open the door.
“Can I help you, Ms. Windsor?” Dan’s secretary asked, looking up from her keyboard.
“Not likely,” she muttered, forcefully wheeling the stroller toward the inner office door.
“He’s having a meeting!” the secretary called out, rising from her desk.
Ignoring the woman, Angelica pushed the door open and the stroller through. She had a vague impression of a couch and chairs lined with people, then all her attention was focused on the man behind the large desk.
“Angelica!” Dan exclaimed, standing abruptly.
“You take him!” she said, maneuvering the stroller around the desk. “You want a wedding with all the trimmings, then you can look after this—this miniature Dennis the Menace so that the bride can at least get a dress!”
“Calm down, Angelica,” Dan began.
“I will not calm down! How am I supposed to manage this when he eats two-thousand-dollar originals, screams at the top of his lungs because he’s hungry, and then refuses to take his bottle?”
“I’m sorry you’re having a bad time with him,” Dan said, glaring at her. “But—”
“Don’t,” she said in the sweetest of voices. “Just don’t.”
She glanced down at her tormentor, who in turn smiled angelically at her. She growled, whipped around, and marched out of the office, muttering, “I ought to divorce the both of them before the wedding begins.”
“Angelica! Angelica!”
“Forget it, Dan. You’ve got him for the rest of the day!”
Having given her final statement, she smiled grimly and walked out the door.
The wedding was perfect. The groom was handsome and quietly determined. The bride was beautiful and unexpectedly shy. The mothers cried on cue. And the best man sucked loudly on his bottle throughout the entire ceremony.
Well, it was almost perfect, Dan thought, grinning as he pulled up Patrick’s pants after changing the baby’s diaper in his bedroom.
Adam Roberts looked over his younger brother’s shoulder and said, “That didn’t look so bad.”
“I could tell you tales, big brother,” Dan said, laughing at Adam’s reaction to a barely dirty diaper. “And I’m not about to.”
Adam chuckled. “I don’t think I want to know. I have a feeling Diana and I would be too scared to have kids if we did know. I’ve got to admit he’s a real charmer.”
Dan smiled at Patrick. “Uncle Adam should have been around the other day, when you almost lost me a bride.”
“What?”
“Never mind.”
There was no sense explaining Angelica’s prewedding explosion, Dan thought. His brother probably wouldn’t understand it. Adam’s wife, Diana, had a much more calm nature than Angelica. Very calm, in fact. She and Angelica were such opposites, it was hard to believe they were cousins.
Still, he was relieved the wedding had come off at all—especially after the onset of Angelica’s bridal nerves. It had been a horrible shock when she’d stormed into his office with Patrick and stormed back out again without him. He’d arrived home from the office and nearly panicked to find the suite empty. Then he’d realized all her things were still there, so he waited as patiently as possible for her to return. She had, subdued and slightly embarrassed … and without a dress for the wedding. She had avoided looking him in the eye and said, “Patrick’s dress was the best.” They both burst into laughter.
She hadn’t apologized for her blowup in his office, and he admitted she hadn’t needed to. After all, she’d been under a tremendous strain, and was entitled to it. That there had been only one was a miracle really. He had considered it a wise move not to tell her belatedly that the hotel offered baby-sitter services. She probably wouldn’t have appreciated it then.
“Are you sure about all this?” Adam asked, breaking into his thoughts.
“Yes.”
He felt as if he had fought a major battle to earn the right to say that firmly and without hesitation. He wasn’t a reluctant groom. Things had happened so fast that maybe he hadn’t had time to have second thoughts, but he doubted that. Lately, he’d had a growing sense of rightness that had culminated in the legal commitment today.
Adam stared at him for a long moment. “Okay. It’s just that this is an … unusual marriage. By the way, Dad thinks Angelica has great legs.”
Dan grinned. “I know.”
Adam grinned back. “Diana and
I support you two. We think you’re crazy, but we’re with you. In fact, Diana is out in the sitting room right now being crazy on your behalf—”
“Dan?”
He turned at the sound of Angelica’s voice. She stood in the doorway of his bedroom. Her satin wedding gown was the palest of cream and almost the epitome of modesty with its long sleeves and full skirt gathered into a dropped waist. Almost, Dan thought, as he found his gaze focusing helplessly on the deep cleavage revealed by the sheer lace that comprised the upper portion of the bodice. The dress was also subtly sexy in the way it enhanced the curves of her body, molding to her breasts and waist before flaring out over her hips.
Her left hand was touching the doorjamb, and her square-cut emerald engagement ring and gold wedding band glinted richly in the late afternoon light.
He was a lot of things, Dan admitted, but crazy wasn’t one of them. As he gazed at the ring, he suppressed yet again the thought that a wedding was always followed by a wedding night. Whether this one would or not was a question that had burned in him since she’d agreed to marry him.
“Are you done with Patrick?” she asked. “Martha wants more pictures before she leaves.”
“I suppose we owe her,” he said, holding the baby out to his new wife.
“You like her, Danny, and you know it,” she said sternly.
He saw his brother’s eyebrows shoot up at the nickname and hid a smile.
The smile immediately subsided when he noticed a tightness around Angelica’s mouth that hadn’t been there before. “Is something wrong?”
Her gaze slid to Adam, then back to him. “No. I’m just tired, I suppose.”
After Angelica and Patrick left the room, Adam said, “Interesting.”
“What?” Dan asked, gazing after his new family.
“Seeing Angelica with a baby. By the way, I’ve heard that babies refuse to allow adults a sex life.”
Dan stared at his brother in horror. It couldn’t be true, he thought wildly.
Adam shrugged. “It’s probably one of those ‘wive’s tales’.”
Dan gulped in air. “I expect so.”
“You better hope so,” Adam said, laughing. “You look like a starving man with the feast in sight.”
He was, Dan acknowledged. Under other circumstances, his starvation should come to an end tonight. He forced the thought away.
As they left the room, Dan made a mental note to question Angelica further and find out what was bothering her, but he didn’t have the chance until after everyone had left and they had put Patrick to bed.
“I will never do that again,” Angelica said. Her voice was low with fury as she walked into her kitchenette, the skirt of her wedding gown swirling about her ankles.
“What?” Dan asked in astonishment, following after her. “What’s wrong?”
“Having a wedding dinner for twenty people and the families back here afterward,” she answered angrily as she started fixing the morning coffee. She literally threw the ingredients together, and he was vaguely surprised that her gown came through it undamaged. The counter was covered with spilled coffee grounds and water. She turned around and leaned on the counter.
“Did something happen?” he asked suspiciously. “Did anyone say anything to you? My mother?”
“Nothing happened,” she snapped. “Unless you count my feeling like a hypocrite. People were congratulating me and wishing me the best. Even my own mother said how wonderful the ceremony was. For goodness’ sake, she knows we got married only for Patrick!”
Dan knew her mother had probably been putting on her best for the occasion. They had been forced to confess the true situation to their immediate families. That none of them was too pleased was an understatement. Not that he cared a damn what the families thought. “Angelica, did you ever think that maybe it was a nice ceremony?”
“We shouldn’t have had anyone to the wedding,” she said. “The two of us before the judge would have been just fine.”
“We only had the people closest to us here.”
“And Martha!” she exclaimed, slicing the air with her hand. “Who brought the press.”
“You knew she was doing that.” He could feel his own temper rise. “You, if I remember correctly, were positively beaming as you answered their questions during that short interview!”
She ignored him. “All that other stuff was unnecessary. The champagne at dinner, the little wedding cakes, the hors d’oeuvres and wine here at the suite. It was too much fuss under the circumstances.”
He sensed that she was deliberately provoking a fight, and he had no idea why. This was not the kind of wedding night he’d envisioned. It certainly wasn’t the one he’d hoped for.
“Angelica,” he said, his voice low in warning, “the damn hotel did that, and you know it. I think you had better end this ‘discussion’ right now.”
To his irritation, she ignored him again. “If it had been a normal wedding and we had chosen not to have any guests, nobody would have thought twice about it. But we’re not a normal couple who got married for all the normal reasons, and we shouldn’t have acted like we were.”
“I don’t understand you,” he said, his temper beginning to fray. “We did what was expected—”
“And that’s what I’m upset about,” she broke in.
“Because now we’re going to be expected to do a lot more normal married things. But it isn’t ever going to be normal.”
The word “normal” screeched across his nerves and gouged into him. It defied him like the bullfighter’s red cape defying the bull.
“You want normal,” he said, reaching out blindly and grasping her upper arms. “I promise you, Angelica Roberts, you will have a normal marriage. Now.”
Nine
Angelica stiffened in momentary astonishment as Dan’s mouth came down on hers in a devastating kiss. She knew she should protest, but she couldn’t seem to move her muscles. The little voice that was usually so insistent on the side of caution and common sense was barely audible and fading fast. Part of her was shocked that he would kiss her like this. Part of her leaped with joy that he did.
His lips moved across her fiercely, and he pulled her tightly against his hard body. Her mouth adjusted itself to his in automatic response, and she sagged against him. Her body was already pushing against his in instinctive feminine reaction. She could feel every inch of him—the iron wall of his chest, the pressure of his belly, the long line of his thighs. The tautly strung tension of weeks of awareness was releasing and rewinding into a tight coil of sensuality.
The ache that began in her breasts spread through her ribs, past her belly and settled in her thighs. Her arms crept around his shoulders, her fingers digging into his skin. She parted her lips to the kiss, and their tongues swirled together, igniting the fire of emotions inside her. His arms were steel bands about her back, enclosing her in a lure of promise and heartbreak.
When he raised his head a long time later, she slowly opened her eyes. He was gazing down at her in male triumph. She knew he was pleased with her revealing response to him, and his words about his easily being able to control his attraction came rushing back. So did the hurt.
“You want this,” he said in a low, raspy voice.
“Damn you, Daniel Roberts,” she whispered, furious with him for proving his point so easily. “You turn me inside out.”
“And you make me crazy.”
Anger and desire warred within her for an instant longer, and the desire won out. She plowed her fingers through his hair and pulled his mouth back down to hers. This morning she had truly realized that she would be facing a wedding night. The thought had frightened her, and she had tried to provoke a fight with him to prevent it.
Instead, she’d provoked this, and she was glad. She wanted him. She didn’t even care that she shouldn’t. She remembered the way they had laughed together over the wedding dress fiasco, and knew she had grown closer to him since then. The emerald ring was heavy on her thir
d finger, making her aware of a number of things at once. She had entered into one kind of union with Daniel Roberts today. Maybe she was entitled to another, much more primitive kind. But he had to want her just as much, she thought dimly. Not just as a marriage partner for Patrick’s sake, but her for herself. She was entitled to that, too.
She let the last of her control go and instinct took over. Her body flowed into his, her hands seeking out the hidden strength of his shoulders. Her mouth teased and turned, then offered as much as it took.
Dan shuddered violently. She found an intense satisfaction at his impatient touch. And then she was lost when his fingers curved around her breast. They explored and measured, paid special attention to the puckering nipple.
She moaned as a savage need shot through her. She had never expected to feel this kind of passion for any man. It frightened her at the same time it left her breathless for more.
She moaned again as Dan strung kisses down her neck and across the valley of her breasts. His mouth grazed hotly across her skin, covered only by lace. He teased at the curving plumpness of her breasts, revealed by the deep V of her bodice. Her hands guided him, and the intensity of the pressure building inside her was shocking. It throbbed hotly throughout her in a wave of unstoppable force. She was spinning into mindless confusion. The sensations were close to insanity, and yet she didn’t want them to end.
Dan let out an unsteady breath. He couldn’t believe the incredible softness of her flesh, the sweet taste that was Angelica. All thoughts of a slow wooing were forgotten. He could only remember that she was his. He had a claim to her now that no other man could have. She needed to know that, he thought dimly. But even as his hands traveled slowly over her buttocks, he was aware that a kitchenette was not the place to make love.
Reluctantly he raised his head and straightened. A hard fist seemed to slam into his body when he saw the delicate flush on her beautiful face, the languid heat in her eyes, the soft bruising of her lips from the kiss. He wanted her so badly that the thought of the few yards to one of the bedrooms was almost dampening. He didn’t think he could wait that long.
