The Duke Takes a Bride (Entitled Book 2)

by Suzette de Borja

  By the time he entered the penthouse suite, he was ready to collapse. He deposited his bag with his laptop on the console table by the foyer and found Imogen seated in the living room, shoulders stiff, waiting for him for quite awhile by the looks of it.

  She stood up abruptly the minute she saw him.

  With a flash of intuition he knew why she had been waiting for him. His leg knocked against something in his haste to reach her and he landed on his arse on the floor.

  “Julian!” he heard her gasp, and then her face was above his, concern furrowing her brow. “Are you alright?”

  “I’m fine.” He twisted and lifted his head to see what caused his mishap. His head sank back on the carpeted floor. “You’re leaving?”

  She bit a corner of her lower lip, glancing at the overnight bag that gave him grief. “Yes. I’m going to Kansas. To my aunt.” Then she turned back to him and frowned. “Julian, you don’t look good.”

  “I’m fine,” he repeated, getting to his feet unsteadily. She couldn’t leave. He hadn’t started his campaign yet. “You can stay here as long as you like.” He deposited himself on one of the couches.

  “I’m not going to overstay my welcome.”

  “You’re not going to overstay your welcome. Most of the time I’m not even here.” He gestured to the coffee table where the fish tank had center stage prominence. “What about Clark?” She looked guilty. “You can’t just abandon him!”

  “I can’t take him with me on the Greyhound to Kansas. Mrs. Nero can take care of him, right?”

  Not.“Mrs. Nero doesn’t come in every day when I’m not in L.A.” He didn’t give her time to find a way out of her predicament. “I might have to fly out to Hong Kong next week...”

  As expected, she appeared torn. She gnawed on her lip. This was like taking candy from a child, Julian almost felt guilty. Almost.

  “I’ll reimburse your ticket,” he said, his eyes drawn to her mouth. And then he knew what would make her stay. “Look, can we have this discussion some other time? I’m feeling a bit tired.” He rose from the couch sluggishly. He thought about acting, but he was surprised when indeed he felt lethargic.

  In a heartbeat, Imogen was at his side. “Let me help you to your room.”

  “I’m perfectly fine−” he protested automatically, but the words died in his throat as she touched his neck with the back of her hand. He flinched at the unexpected contact.

  “You’re hot!”

  “Thank you. I’m glad you think so.” Her clean shampoo smell wafted to his nostrils and he wanted to take another sniff. Hell, but his throat felt scratchy.

  She rolled her eyes. “This is so not the time to get a sense of humor!”

  She shepherded him to his room where he sat on the edge of his bed. She just stood staring at him, her hands on her waist, as if she didn’t know what to do with him.

  “What am I going to do with you?” she said.

  They were already reading each other’s thoughts and Julian hadn’t even started the first step of his campaign, which was to let her know how well they would get on.

  “I caught this bug from you.” Lay on the guilt. He shrugged off his coat. He noted with satisfaction that she took a few steps back.

  The second part of his campaign was to push her physical awareness of him out in the open once more. He thought he’d have more time—but since she’d wanted to leave ASAP—he’d exploit his very timely illness to his advantage.

  “You can’t prove it.”

  “No shirking your duties.” He speared her with a level gaze.

  “My duties?”

  “Time to play nurse, Imogen,” he said, putting on the pressure.

  Imogen’s mouth opened, but it was after several attempts before a word came out. “No!” she burst out. “I can’t-I mean-I don’t know how to–” she threw her hands in the air in frustration. She couldn’t risk being around Julian longer than she had to. “Mrs. Nero will take care of you.” And then she worried her bottom lip. Julian’s gaze fixed on it, so she stopped.

  The missing Mrs. Nero since she didn’t come in today.

  “I forgot to tell you. She called in sick,” a triumphant-sounding Julian announced. “You’re a regular typhoid Mary. I wonder how many you’ve infected.”

  “Oh, bugger off.” She knew she sounded surly. Looking after Julian wasn’t the problem. Her problem was how much secret pleasure the chance to stay a few more days with him brought her.

  He started shucking off his shoes carelessly and then stripped off his socks. Imogen was rooted to the spot, watching in fascination as he then started to undo his tie. His fingers quickly worked on the buttons of his white shirt. Her breathing grew shallow as glimpses of a taut, tanned chest grew more expansive.

  “Where is your m-medicine kit?” she stammered. She had to get away and stop ogling him like he was doing a strip show.

  He paused and looked up. He was down to the last button. “In the bathroom.”

  Imogen shied away from her reflection as she opened the mirrored hanging cabinet to look for some acetaminophen. She didn’t want to confirm she was as red as a beet. She filled a glass of water from the tap and went back inside just as Julian was climbing underneath the sheets. She caught a side view of his lean, fit torso and long, muscled leg. He had kept his underwear on. Thank goodness!

  “Here,” she handed him the glass and tablet gingerly, careful not to touch him. “I need Dr. Martin’s number.”

  He swallowed it without complaint. “No need. This is just your garden-variety flu,” he self-diagnosed in his typical assured fashion. The blanket loosely covered him from the waist down.

  “It will ease my mind if he took a look at you.” She wanted to yank the covers up. His chest was distracting her. “Can I get you anything? Orange juice? Some soup?” A shirt?

  “I just need to sleep it off. I’ll be fine by tomorrow.”

  But he wasn’t.

  He tossed and turned and kicked off the sheets when his fever went up but shivered when his temperature came down again. He eyed her balefully when she gave him his pill and refused to eat some of the frozen soup she had reheated that Mrs. Nero had stocked in the freezer, telling her it tasted like sock washings. He gave her a bloodshot glare when she countered where he had tasted sock washings before. He grumbled that he didn’t need medication and ordered her to leave him in peace to sleep. He was a horrible patient. Imogen wanted to bop him on the head to add to his throbbing headache.

  By late evening, despite the acetaminophen, his fever refused to go down so she was forced to go through his mobile contact list to get Dr. Martin’s number.

  The young, good-looking doctor frowned when she opened the door to the penthouse suite. He looked as if he was trying to place her.

  “Thank you for coming,” she greeted.

  “Imogen!” His eyes crinkled in pleasure behind his spectacles. He was wearing a sports coat and jeans. The ear tips of a stethoscope peeked out of one of the coat pockets. “Sorry, I didn’t recognize you immediately.”

  “I’m sure I looked like a fright when I was sick. I wouldn’t have recognized myself either,” she said self-deprecatingly.

  “No. I just wasn’t expecting you. And I was just running some figures in my head…” he trailed off. “I thought it was Mrs. Nero who had sent the SMS.”

  Imogen remembered she hadn’t identified herself when she had texted the doctor. She had been interrupted by a loud thump from Julian’s bedroom and had gone to investigate, firing off the message in haste. Julian had accidentally knocked the books on his night table to the carpeted floor.

  “Mrs. Nero’s sick, too.”

  His brows lifted.

  “I know. I know. I’m a regular typhoid Mary. That’s what Julian said.”

  “He can’t prove you’re the one who infected him unless you both get a blood exam and a polymerase chain reaction done to specify the virus strain.” He turned sheepish, as if realizing how geeky he sounded.

/>   “That’s exactly what I told Julian!” Imogen said brightly.

  Lukas Martin appeared stunned. “You said that?”

  “Er, it was a joke.”

  There was awkward silence.

  Lukas cleared his throat. “How’s the patient?”

  “Stubborn, arrogant, and grumpy.”

  “Oh, that’s his chronic condition.” He grinned. “I meant his fever.”

  Imogen smiled back. “He’s still hot.”

  “That’s weird,” Lukas Martin muttered. “He does absolutely nothing for me.”

  Imogen burst out laughing. The doctor had a sense of humor, after all.

  * * *

  “What are you doing here?” Julian grunted. Lukas’s examination had woken him up.

  “Just inhale and exhale, Your Grace,” Lukas winked at Imogen as he moved his stethoscope over Julian’s broad, bare chest. He still refused to wear a shirt, much to Imogen’s distress. She had to clench her hands into fists every time she entered his room to stop herself from running them all over his smooth torso.

  “How did the meeting with NeoCortex go?” Julian demanded, refusing to do as the doctor told him to.

  Lukas ignored him and went about with his examination, unperturbed. He peered down Julian’s throat despite his protestations. Imogen had to admire Lukas Martin’s bedside manners.

  “The good news is his throat and lungs are clear, so it’s just the flu.” Julian shot her a smug but irritated I-told-you-so glare. “You can just give him round-the-clock acetaminophen and plenty of fluids.”

  “The bad news is,” Lukas paused, his countenance turning grim so that Imogen’s chest tightened, “he’s still surly and bad-tempered. I’m afraid that’s incurable.”

  Imogen stifled her giggles while Lukas grinned at his own cleverness. Julian gave them both the evil eye, red-rimmed, though.

  “But Dr. Martin, what do I do if his fever’s still up and his next dose of acetaminophen is not yet due?”

  “Call me Lukas.”

  Julian rolled his eyes.

  “You can cool him down with a sponge bath.”

  Imogen gulped. She glanced at Julian.

  Her patient was wearing an evil grin.

  Chapter 10

  It was a big mistake.

  Extracting his revenge for being such a busybody and flirting with that young pup, Julian had ordered Imogen to give him a sponge bath when his fever spiked again. She paled. Julian wanted to call it off, but she left the room before he could. She came marching in minutes later carrying a tray with a basin and towels. Her chin jutted like the prow of a ship slicing through rough seas.

  Julian had sudden misgivings.

  He saw her glance about, looking for a place to deposit her burden. His night table was a mess of books and papers. She knelt beside the bed and decided the floor was as good a place as any. She rose, placed a knee on the bed, and leaned down. The mattress dipped and the covers were flung off him unceremoniously, baring him from the waist up.

  He opened his mouth to protest at her very poor bedside manners but changed his mind when he saw the determined set of her jaw. He jerked at the first touch of the wet cloth against his forehead. It was quickly followed by a dry one, wiping off the cool moisture. She then proceeded to his neck. Wet cloth, then the dry cloth, and so on and so forth. It was supposed to be very soothing, but Julian caught her familiar, clean shampoo scent, and all his muscles tightened.

  “Where did you learn to do this?” he gritted out when her fingers brushed his skin accidentally.

  Her movements were sure and economical, her touch impersonal. There was a flash of pain that shadowed her eyes. “My father.”

  Hell. He’d hurt her inadvertently with this stupid game. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be there for the funeral.” Julian was unsure how his presence would be received, so he had stayed away.

  She paused and looked at him in the eye. “It’s alright. It was expected.”

  “But it hurt nonetheless. John was a good man and father.” Emotionally available even if somewhat distracted. He always had a story or two for Julian when he came to visit.

  “Je ne regriette rien.”

  I regret nothing, Julian translated mentally.

  “That’s what Dad always liked to say.” Her countenance was wistful. “When he went into remission, we went on road trips and did things he had always wanted to do. He died with a smile on his lips. Said he couldn’t wait to be with Mum again.”

  Julian felt something in his chest tighten at the love Imogen felt for her father.

  As if regretting the intimacy, her manner became brisk. “Arms above your head, Your Grace.”

  “What...?”

  She took his wrist, extended an arm up, then flattened it against an ear. “Do you want to feel better?” He grunted in grudging assent. “The other arm please.”

  “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” he needled, to distract him from how her bossy manner was turning him on.

  She merely lifted an eyebrow and Julian complied, both hands now touching the headboard. “We have to target the parts of the body that has the most superficial blood vessels to rapidly cool you down.”

  Spread eagled, Julian was completely at her mercy. And his body was burning for an altogether different reason. This close, he could look down the V-neck of her ratty shirt and glimpse the white mounds of her breasts, which seemed to be fuller than when she had first arrived. She bent deeper and closer, and Julian had to clench his hands to stop himself from cupping them, feeling their hefty weight, plumping them and taking her nipples into his mouth−

  “Aarggh!” The feel of the wet cloth on his armpit doused his lustful thoughts.

  “Please be still,” she warned sternly, but Julian spied her biting her lip as she turned away to dip the cloth again in the basin.

  She was enjoying this! Enjoying making him feel uncomfortable. She turned towards him again, stood up, and bent across his chest to access his other armpit, dangling her breasts precariously close to his bare pectorals. Julian’s breathing seized. If he inhaled deeply, his chest would be grazing her breasts. To his horror, he felt his cock stirring. He was getting warmer and feared he would combust in flames. He exhaled as she resumed her position on the side of his bed, but it was too soon. Imogen grabbed the edge of the blanket that was covering his nether regions and before she could flip it, Julian had grasped her wrist.

  “Enough,” he said roughly.

  Her eyes locked with his. “I have to sponge your groin.”

  His groin. Fuck. “No.” He ground out desperately.

  “But your temperature won’t go down if I don’t.”

  Christ! Did he have to spell it out for her?

  “There’s another thing that’s gone up, Imogen, and it’s not my temperature.”

  “What−” Her eyes flicked to follow his meaning. “Oh. Oh!” Blushing, she jerked up, gathered her things, and beat a quick exit. “If you need anything,” she said, not meeting his eye, “just call my mobile.”

  She awkwardly opened the door with one hand, the other holding the tray, and scampered out of the room.

  Julian doubted that Imogen would be willing to address his need, which was standing at rapt attention at this point.

  Her heart was still pounding like a kettle drum when Imogen went to the kitchen to unload her burden. She drank a glass of water with an unsteady hand. Julian’s bodily response was purely involuntary and had nothing to do with her in particular. Men were easily aroused, weren’t they?

  With his hands high above his head and the blanket riding low on his hips, Julian looked like a Rodin sculpture. She wanted to be Alice and be lost in his body’s wonderland.

  She went to the living room to change Clark’s water. She wondered whether dumping the water in the fish tank on her head could cool her off and return her to her senses. She doubted Clark would approve.

  The next day, Julian’s temperature had gone down but it still wasn’t back to
normal. Lukas stopped by to visit. He brought burgers from a fast food take-out joint. Imogen didn’t accompany the doctor to Julian’s room, but he heard the rumble of deep male voices as Lukas had left the door to the bedroom open.

  After about fifteen minutes, Lukas joined her in the kitchen where she had spread the high-salt, high-fat bounty on the informal table. She deserved it after putting up with an irritable patient.

  Imogen bit into the juicy meat and groaned, “So good.”

  Lukas grinned. “His Grace turned it down when I offered him some. Not up to his usual gourmand tastes.”

  Imogen shrugged.“His loss. Our gain.”

  But she knew Julian refusing the fast food take-out was due to his loss of appetite rather than any food snobbishness on his part. He had also refused the food from the fine dining restaurant below, opting to drink only the clear soup broths at her insistence.

  She had also denied him access to his laptop and confiscated his mobile phone, relenting to allow him a few minutes when an SMS came in. However, the messages came in so often that Imogen had to schedule his phone access every 8 hours only or he would never get any sleep. As a result, he was surly and uncommunicative.

  Imogen and Lukas ate their meal in friendly banter. Imogen found out that Lukas was the youngest member of the board and General Partner in Creatus Ventures, a capital investment firm Julian had established several years ago after resurfacing from his “lost years.” They also had offices in Hong Kong and London. With his background in banking and finance, Julian was the liaison between the investors and the start-up companies looking for seed money. As a result, he often had to travel a lot.

  “Julian has the Midas touch,” Lukas explained after taking a sip of his soda. “They call it the Walkden Touch. Everything he invests in turns in huge profits. It’s unfair, really. Not only does he have all the women running after him, now every budding entrepreneur is also after him, too.” Then Lukas gave her an odd look. “You and Julian…” he didn’t finish, but Imogen knew the direction his thoughts had taken.