The Antonides Marriage Deal

by Anne McAllister

  “Where the hell is she?” he demanded furiously.

  “I believe,” Tallie said with a faint smile, “that on Fridays in the summer everyone has the afternoon off.”

  “Damn it!” Elias raked a hand through his hair, then stalked across the room to loom above her.

  He wasn’t actually that much taller than she was—four inches, maybe five—but he could loom with the best of them. She wondered if he’d taken looming lessons. Did they give looming lessons? Where?

  Oh, God, she was losing her mind. She needed to get off her feet and get some drugs!

  “I’ll go get your pills. You sit down,” Elias commanded.

  “I’d love to,” Tallie looked longingly at the armchair and sofa across the room.

  Her apartment was bright and airy—and not a lot bigger than a postage stamp. Ordinarily. Now the sofa looked as far away as the moon. The armchair was in another galaxy. Harvey, after one curious glance in their direction, was in it, fast asleep.

  Elias’s gaze followed hers, then came back to zero in on her. “Give me the crutches.”

  “Why? So I can fall over?”

  “No. I’ll carry you. Give me the crutches.”

  “Don’t be so bossy.”

  “Then fall over, damn it.” He looked as if he’d rather strangle her than carry her. “I’ll help you to the sofa, Prez, but not if you’ve got weapons.”

  “Oh.” The penny dropped. And Tallie noticed suddenly that, even though he seemed to be looming, Elias was keeping out of her crutches’ reach. “Once bitten, twice shy?” she ventured with a faint grin.

  “Let’s just say you’re not getting another chance.” There was a flicker of remembered pain in his eyes that made her momentarily remorseful. And she really did need to sit down.

  “Here.” She thrust them at him. He caught them and tossed them aside, then scooped her into his arms.

  And for the second time she was in Elias Antonides’s arms. Worse, she was glad to be there, grateful for the muscular hard strength of them cradling her, for the solid expanse of chest against which she leaned, for the strong firm jaw that—

  Whoa! Hold on a minute, girl! The strong, firm jaw had nothing to do with him getting her to the sofa.

  Of course, she knew that. She was just delirious with pain. Or…or something.

  Still she was aware of feeling his heart beating as he carried her to the sofa. She watched his Adam’s apple move when he swallowed as he lowered her onto the cushions. And she noticed that he had cut himself shaving. There was a tiny nick on the edge of his jaw. There was also a longer older scar on the underside of his chin.

  Instinctively she touched it.

  Elias jerked. His brows drew down.

  “Sorry,” Tallie said quickly. “I saw the scar. I just wondered… what happened?”

  “When I was ten I stopped a hockey puck with my face.”

  “Ouch.” The very thought made her wince.

  “Yeah, that about covered it. No big deal,” he said, echoing her earlier words.

  He lowered her carefully to the sofa. His face was less than a foot from her own. And, scar and all, he was, without a doubt, the most handsome man she’d ever seen. Even her pain-fogged brain could register that. So did her body. All unbidden, it seemed to lean toward him.

  Their eyes met. And something arced between them. Oh, help!

  But before she could bend her mind around it, Elias straightened quickly and stepped back. If she’d been a hot potato, he couldn’t have backed off faster.

  “I’ll get you some pillows.” He made a production of gathering up her assortment of gaily covered throw pillows from around the room and piled them at the foot of the sofa. When he had built a small mountain, he stepped back and waited for her to lift her ankle up onto it. It might as well have been Everest.

  And Elias seemed to realize that at the same moment she did. Gently he grasped her ankle and carefully—hot potato carefully—lifted her casted ankle to rest on them.

  “Thank you.” Tallie breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Okay. I’ll go back to the office and get your pills. Don’t go anywhere.”

  Tallie just looked at him. “As if.”

  He should send them back via messenger. Call a car and have the driver take them over and bring them up. It was smarter than going back himself.

  It was bad enough to lust after Tallie Savas when she was across the room from him at a meeting—even though it was wholly inappropriate. But it was something else entirely, now that he knew just how soft and warm she really was.

  The feel of her body against his chest as he had carried her to the taxi was imprinted on his memory. And the short journey from the door of the apartment to the sofa—which he’d been determined to do to prove to himself how unaffected by her charms he actually was—proved the complete opposite instead.

  When he’d lowered her to the sofa, it was all he could do not to kiss her and lie right down beside her. Muscle memory, he assured himself. In the past whenever he’d lowered a woman to a sofa or bed, it had always been a prelude to joining her, to making love with her.

  And there was a direction his thoughts definitely needed to stay away from. Make love with Tallie Savas? Ye gods.

  Talk about complicating his life!

  He’d get her pain pills—and her damned briefcase—and wish her the joy of them. Then he’d go home and ring up what was her name—Denise? Patrice?

  Oh, yeah. Clarice. The woman he’d met at the gym.

  Right. He’d take Clarice out. And then go back to her place. And he wouldn’t answer his phone this time! They would have an uninterrupted evening, and he would forget all about Tallie Savas’s soft curves. It seemed like such a good idea he rang her from the office while he was picking up Tallie’s pills.

  “It’s Elias,” he said. “How about meeting me at Casey’s? We could have a drink or two. Go out for dinner?”

  “Sounds lovely,” Clarice purred. “I will look forward to it.”

  So would he. And it didn’t matter where it went after dinner, he told himself as he walked the six blocks back to Tallie’s flat, as long as it blotted Tallie Savas’s big brown eyes and kissable lips and soft breasts right out of his brain.

  Tallie was still lying on the sofa with the cat—Harvey, she had called him—sprawled next to her. She had her ankle up on the pillow, but she was barefoot now—and she’d unpinned her hair. It cascaded in all its luxuriant tangled glory against the buttery tan leather as she held the phone to her ear.

  All thoughts of Clarice went right out of Elias’s head. Hell.

  Tallie waggled her fingers at him, applauded the sight of the briefcase, then motioned frantically for the pill bottle and a glass of water. At the same time she continued talking on the phone.

  “Yes, Mom,” she was saying. “No, Mom.”

  Three bags full, Mom, her expression seemed to say.

  Elias understood. Was it just Greek parents, he wondered, who were ready to step in at a moment’s notice to run your life for you? He gave her a wry, knowing smile.

  Tallie sighed and winced as she moved her leg. “I’m fine, Mom. Really. It’s not a bad break. Of course I can manage. No, I don’t need to come home. I am home!”

  Elias went to the kitchen to get the glass of water. There was some baklava on a cake plate under glass. He remembered the baklava all too well. It was the one thing she’d brought in this week he’d been powerless to resist. Even now his stomach growled. Determinedly he ignored it and fetched the water, then opened Tallie’s briefcase, took out the bottle of pills, shook one into his palm and carried them back to the living room.

  Tallie was still on the phone. “No, Mom. You do not need to come and take care of me. I have help. Don’t worry. There will be someone here.”

  She took the glass when Elias held it out, popped the pill and mouthed her thanks. “Look, Mom. I really have to go. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. I love you, too, and Daddy. Be sure to tell Daddy everything is
fine, too. Tell him I’m fine, and I’m taking care of business. Tell him he is not to meddle!” She hung up as if the receiver was on fire. “They think I’m seven,” she grumbled.

  “Parents do.”

  “I guess. It just gets old. Thank you for bringing my briefcase and my pills.”

  “Not a problem.” Elias carried the glass back to the kitchen and put the bottle of pain medication on the counter. “You should do what she said, though,” he counseled when he returned. “Rest. Take it easy. Don’t overdo. It’s a good thing you’ve got some help coming in. You’ll need it.”

  “Yes, Daddy.”

  “Don’t push your luck,” Elias warned her. He didn’t feel in the least fatherly, and he wished she’d stop stretching her arms over her head that way. It lifted her breasts, made them all too noticeable, made him remember their softness. “It’s true,” he insisted.

  Tallie shifted on the sofa, tipped her head back against the cushions giving him a view of a long, elegant neck. She shut her eyes. “Mmm. Yeah.”

  What? No argument?

  Then she opened them again and smiled at him. The painkillers must have kicked in. She sure hadn’t smiled at him like that earlier. Earlier she’d tried to kill him. Or maim him at least. He winced now, remembering.

  That had been bad. This—this staring at her, having her smile at him—was worse. This was temptation. God, her hair was gorgeous.

  Elias wiped his palms down the sides of his khakis. “So,” he said briskly, “is there anything I can get you before I take off.”

  “A pizza.”

  He stared. “A what?”

  “A pizza.” Tallie looked hopefully at him, then smiled. “I’m starving. I ate half a grapefruit for breakfast. I thought I’d eat one of the cinnamon rolls at the office. But, well, we all know how that turned out.” She grimaced. “And then you wouldn’t let me have lunch with Martin.”

  Yeah, but still… “A pizza?”

  “There’s a pizza place right downstairs. If you don’t mind?” she added hesitantly. It was the most hesitancy he’d heard from her since he’d met her. That little hint of vulnerability. Was she doing it on purpose?

  Whatever she was doing, it was working.

  Elias rubbed a hand against the back of his neck. “Oh, hell. All right.”

  He could bring her up a pizza and still get over to Casey’s to meet Clarice when she got off work.

  “Great! What do you like on your pizza?”

  “What would I—?”

  “You haven’t had lunch, either,” she reminded him, then squinted at him assessingly. “Are you the goat cheese and pineapple type?”

  “I am the pepperoni type. With double cheese,” he said flatly. “None of that sissy stuff.”

  Tallie laughed. “Whatever you want, then. Tell them to put it on my account.”

  The last thing he was going to do was let Tallie Savas pay for the pizza. He supposed he could eat a piece or two while he waited until whoever was coming to stay with her turned up.

  “The number is on the refrigerator magnet.” She waved a hand toward the kitchen. “Sal’s All You Ever Wanted In A Pizza. You can call it in.”

  “I’ll go down.” If he was going to stay here, he needed a little space, a little breathing room. A little less Tallie. “Stay put.”

  She smiled and gave him a lady-of-the-manor wave of her hand. “I believe I will.”

  When he got back with the pizza half an hour later she was asleep. She looked younger and surprisingly defenseless but just as mindblowingly beautiful. He kept his distance. It was better that way. But then she opened her eyes and smiled vaguely at him. Her face was flushed. Her hair was everywhere.

  “You,” she told him, smiling muzzily when she saw the pizza box, “are a regular prince.”

  “And you’re drunk on painkillers,” Elias said. He could see it in her eyes, in the loopy smile she was giving him. He got plates from the kitchen and carried them and the pizza box over to the coffee table in front of the sofa and set them down. Then he opened the box.

  Tallie leaned forward, sniffing appreciatively. “I looooove pepperoni. Martin thinks it’s plebeian.”

  “Martin would. So… you and the Bore had pizza at the opera?”

  “De Boer,” Tallie corrected primly. Then after a moment, “Duh Bore.” She giggled. It was a very girlish infectious giggle. Elias wasn’t used to thinking of Tallie Savas as girlish any more than he was used to thinking of her as defenseless. He watched her warily.

  “We had pizza for lunch one day. Martin likes Gorgon-Gorgonzola,” Tallie stumbled over the word. Her eyes looked glassy. “And smoked oysters. He says they’re an aphro—” she looked around the room for inspiration, found none and shrugged vaguely “—whatever.”

  “Aphrodisiac?” Elias didn’t like the sound of that.

  Tallie giggled again. “Silly, isn’t it? Do you s’pose he needs aphro-whatevers?” Her voice was getting a little slurred.

  If she didn’t know, that was good.

  “I wouldn’t be surprised,” Elias said.

  Tallie nodded sagely. Big exaggerated nods, her chin bumping her chest. “Me, neither.” She reflected on that while she chewed her pizza. “Do you need ’em?”

  “What?” Elias dropped the pizza in his lap. “Damn it.” He jumped up, swiping ineffectually at the grease and tomato sauce with a paper towel.

  Tallie watched his every move. Then she said, as if she’d been considering it, “No, you prob’ly don’t.” She looked straight at him. “You’re pretty sexy as is.”

  Of course it was the painkiller talking, and she was going to regret like hell having said that in the morning—if she even remembered in the morning.

  Elias rubbed a hand against the back of his neck. “Um, thanks. I think.”

  The loopy smile returned. “You’re welcome.” She looked at him expectantly.

  He wished he knew what she was expecting. Then immediately he thought it was probably better that he didn’t.

  “Eat your pizza,” he ordered gruffly.

  Tallie smiled at him—one of those smiles that made all his hormones go on alert.

  Deliberately he focused on his pizza. He finished it quickly, then wiped his hands on the paper towel and glanced at his watch. It was close to four and he had to go back to his place, grab a shower and change his clothes for something without tomato sauce before meeting Clarice.

  Getting to his feet he said, “Look, I really should be heading out. When’s your help coming?”

  Tallie who had been dozing, opened her eyes and frowned. “My help?”

  “You told your mother you were having help.”

  “I did. You. You brought pizza.”

  “Me? I’m not— Listen, Prez, you need someone with you.”

  “You’re with me.”

  “I’m not staying.”

  “Oh.” The light went out of her eyes.

  Elias felt as if he’d taken candy from a child. He raked a hand through his hair. “I can’t!”

  “Of course.” She waved a vague hand toward the door. “Well, goodbye, then,” And she dismissed him as if he didn’t matter and went back to eating her pizza.

  If anything proved that she shouldn’t be left on her own, it was that. She didn’t even know she needed to have someone there.

  “Oh, hell.” Elias stalked into the kitchen, grabbed his phone and punched in Clarice’s number. When she answered, he said, “I can’t make it. Something’s come up. Business.” This was business, damn it. Tallie was president of the company.

  Clarice made a tsking sound. “Ah, mon cher, you work too hard. But,” she reminded him, “at least this time it is not your mother.”

  No, God help him, it wasn’t.

  But this might well be worse.

  CHAPTER SIX

  TALLIE was having the oddest dream.

  She was dreaming she was swimming. But not swimming easily the way she always had. No, this time she was dragging an anchor, barely
able to move. And though there was water, she was thirsty, parched, desperate for a drink.

  She thrashed, trying to reach land, to reach the oasis, the cool shade of the beach and rest. And water. Dear God, she wanted water.

  And then Elias Antonides, of all people, handed her a glass.

  She took it, drank it quickly, took pills he offered her, let him wipe her forehead, let him straighten her pillows, let him shift the purple anchor and make the ache go away.

  It was amazing how quickly it vanished.

  Because Elias was there.

  “Do you do magic?” she asked him.

  “What?” He looked rumpled and worried. His shirt was hanging loose, and his tie was gone. There was a shadow of stubble on his jaw. He was even handsomer in her dreams than he was in real life. Figured.

  He was nicer than he was in real life, too. She smiled muzzily at him. “You must do magic,” she said. “You make the pain go away.”

  A corner of his mouth quirked. “Me and the little white pills.”

  She tried to focus on the pills. But she didn’t see them clearly. It was because she was dreaming.

  It was the first time she’d dreamed of Elias in her bedroom. Usually she had dreams about the two of them at work. Sometimes they were, um, interesting dreams. But they’d never gone as far as she’d have been interested in taking them. In her dreams, of course!

  “Nice pills,” she murmured.

  “Apparently,” Elias’s tone was dry. But he was smiling at her. He almost never smiled at her. He had a lovely smile. “You might want to eat something with them,” he suggested. “Are you hungry?”

  “Don’t want,” she said, then frowned. What was it she remembered about pizza? Had she and Elias had pizza? No. She and Martin had had pizza. But she remembered something about Elias bringing her pizza.

  Or maybe that was another dream. She tried to remember, but she was too tired. She shut her eyes. But she was hungry. His having mentioned food made her think about it.