“Oh, come on,” Carrie wheedled. “Are you denying that the thought of spending spring break in Vegas as Alexander Kent’s bride doesn’t excite you just a teeny little bit?”
“Yes, I am,” Stephanie affirmed with an indignant sniff. “And I will deny it with my dying breath if I have to.”
“You go right on trying to convince yourself, girlfriend, but you’re wasting your breath on me.”
Ignoring the warning look Stephanie gave her beneath a cocked eyebrow, Carrie continued, “As much allure as the library and this lovely efficiency apartment obviously holds for you, I can’t believe you aren’t the least intrigued by the thought of venturing into the role of a lifetime with someone as ideal as Alexander Kent.”
Taking a sip of caramel-flavored coffee, Carrie paused to sigh. The hedonistic pleasure her sigh suggested made Stephanie wonder how Carrie thought someone as inexperienced as she could convincingly play the part of a woman in love. Especially with someone like Alexander Kent.
“How does your husband-to-be feel about you bestowing the title of Mr. Perfect upon another man?”
“I didn’t, the Texas Tattler did,” Carrie replied. She flipped the newspaper open to the society pages. “It says here that after breaking up with Gloria Vuu, Alexander Kent is back on the market, thereby regaining his standing as the most eligible bachelor in Texas.”
“I can hardly wait to see what they’ll have to say about this spur-of-the-moment marriage,” Stephanie mulled over aloud. She envisioned a headline reading Beauty and the Beast Wed! There was no doubt in her mind who the press would dub as the latter.
Even though Carrie assured Stephanie that she had blossomed into a beautiful woman, she still thought of herself in terms of the gangly class brain from her public-school days. Thick glasses had been replaced by soft contact lenses, but playground taunts of “beanpole” and “egghead” still had the power to make her doubt her very grown-up appeal with the opposite sex.
“They’ll say he’s lucky to have finally found someone wonderful enough to bring him to his senses—and the editors will be so jealous, their ink will undoubtedly turn green.”
Stephanie gave her friend a doubtful look. “People are bound to notice we’re not particularly—”
She paused to search for the right word.
“Well suited…”
“Opposites have been known to attract” was Carrie’s wry response. “In case you are unaware of it, the heat between the two of you fairly threatened to burn down the theater last night.”
“In case you didn’t recognize it, that was hostility,” Stephanie explained. She articulated the last word carefully, as if she were speaking to the village idiot.
“Uh-huh.”
Carrie’s obstinacy was nearly as infuriating as Alexander’s attitude.
“Oh, all right!” Stephanie exclaimed, realizing that it was useless to deny the obvious. “I won’t bother arguing that the man is drop-dead gorgeous and richer than Croesus.”
Carrie’s triumphant smile was short-lived.
“He’s also arrogant, conceited and shallow.”
Her friend looked so surprised at the vehemence of such a proclamation that Stephanie felt compelled to elaborate.
“And he’s no more thrilled about having me pretend to be his wife than I am about it. In fact, if the truth were known, I’d wager a month’s salary that Alexander Kent’s massive ego was hurt something awful at his fellow Cattlemen’s suggestion that he drape someone as ordinary and plain as me over his arm for this little charade.”
“You are one of the most extraordinary people I know!” Carrie objected with a forcefulness equal to Stephanie’s.
“Don’t you mean extraordinarily plain?”
The hurt in her big brown eyes would have been enough to make less of a friend shrink from the truth. Carrie used it as an opportunity to advance an issue that she had been harping on for ages.
“No, I don’t. But I don’t understand why you go to such lengths to hide your looks either. You know it wouldn’t hurt you to wear something with a belt once in a while or maybe consider updating your hairstyle. You’ve worn it that way since high school.”
Instinctively, Stephanie’s hand reached out to touch her demure coif. “What’s wrong with my hair?”
“Nothing that my stylist wouldn’t love to—”
A knock on the door interrupted her midthought. Powered by caffeine and a need to escape Carrie’s self-improvement spiel, Stephanie bolted from her chair and put an eye up to the standard-issue peephole provided in every door in the apartment complex.
“You won’t believe who it is,” she hissed over her shoulder.
Carrie chuckled. Grabbing her purse from the back of her chair where she had slung it earlier, she rose to her feet.
“Your husband maybe?”
Hearing nothing but a painful gurgling sound in response, Carrie took a final swallow of her coffee as she stepped around Stephanie, who remained rooted to her spot in the doorway.
“If you have no objections, I’ll just leave the two of you honeymooners alone,” she said.
“I do object,” Stephanie said, but it was too late. Her friend was already in the process of opening the door.
Carrie took her leave with a cheerful greeting to Alex on her way out.
Unlike poor Junior Weaver who had yet to grasp the impact of making a timely dramatic appearance, Alex swept into the room carrying a dozen long-stemmed red roses. He presented them to Stephanie with a flourish. Fragrance and color flooded the tiny living room. His larger-than-life presence made it seem even smaller.
“I hope you haven’t packed yet,” Alex said, looking around the room. What the place lacked in extravagance, it more than made up for in tidy coziness.
As much as Stephanie wanted to believe she was immune to the attentions of a fine-looking man standing in the middle of her living room proffering blossoms the size of a fist, her body told her otherwise. Her pulse registered his proximity with scientific precision. She felt hot all over. And her heartbeat galloped out of control at the thought that Alexander was here to tell her that he had changed his mind about using her. If she hadn’t been so incredibly nervous, that such a thought brought more anguish than relief would have given her reason to pause.
“I haven’t so much as started to pack,” she said, congratulating herself for having the good sense to resist the urge to do so when she had returned home last night, unable to sleep a wink.
As hard as she tried, Stephanie couldn’t get over the feeling that she was being made the butt of some horrible practical joke. She had invited Carrie over for coffee this morning thinking her friend would confirm that gut feeling and own up to her part in the prank. When Carrie had failed to validate that theory, it had been impossible to resist a growing sense of excitement. What woman wouldn’t be tempted by the prospect of embarking upon a wildly romantic adventure with one of the most sought-after men in all of Texas? An adventure that not only would place her right in the middle of Sin City itself with an entirely new identity, but one that also had the potential to make the world a better, safer place.
“I’m glad to hear it.”
Alexander looked pleased that he had arrived in time to spare her the inconvenience of unpacking her meager belongings. Hoping she was a good enough actress to hide her disappointment, Stephanie steeled herself against the let down that he had found someone better-looking and more socially connected to play the part of his wife.
He bestowed upon her a smile that threatened to melt her bones into a puddle.
“I’d like to take you shopping this morning,” he said. “A woman with a new identity along with a new husband needs a new wardrobe, don’t you think? The weather in Vegas is bound to be warmer than what it is here, and if we’re going to pretend to be married, my wife needs a suitable trousseau.”
Stephanie couldn’t have been more shocked by Alex if he had just stepped out of her closet wearing nothing but her underwear.
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“W-what?” she stammered.
He repeated himself. “Trousseau, new clothes traditionally bought specifically for and worn on one’s honeymoon.”
“I know what trousseau means,” Stephanie snapped. “I just don’t think it’s necessary to go to such expense.”
“Of course it is,” Alexander told her confidently. “If only to maintain the illusion.”
Speaking of illusions, he hoped to catch a magic show while they were in Vegas. Since Stephanie clearly hadn’t bought into their mission one hundred percent, he could use all the professional pointers he could glean from a Siegfried and Roy production if he hoped to pull this off.
Hands upon her hips, Stephanie looked him straight in the eye. “Are you by any chance implying that my clothes are unacceptable for this undertaking?”
Alexander didn’t flinch from the truth.
“In a word, yes.”
Stephanie’s anger at his response was barely controlled. “Surely you’re aware that clothes don’t make the actor?”
“And surely you know that costuming is as integral to a theatrical performance as setting the stage beforehand.”
The red burgeoning upon Stephanie’s cheeks rivaled the roses he had brought her. That traditional prop had failed him miserably. Although Alex hadn’t meant to hurt her feelings about her limited wardrobe, she was so damn prickly about every little detail that it was difficult to be tactful.
“Look,” he said, running a hand through a thatch of thick dark hair in a gesture of exasperation. “I don’t know what I did to get off on the wrong foot with you, but I brought you these flowers as a peace offering. The least you could do is put them in water.”
“Thank you,” Stephanie added pensively, remembering to respond with the kind of courtesy that her mother would have expected of her. “They’re lovely.”
The smile that broke through the fog of her bad temper caught Alex by surprise. When she stopped glaring at him long enough to bury her nose in those perfumed blossoms something stirred deep inside him. He couldn’t remember how long it had been since any woman had shown such appreciation for a gift as simple as those fleeting crimson petals. They overpowered the diminutive coffee table on which she placed them a moment later.
“Won’t you sit down?” she asked him stiffly.
Alex took a seat on a faded but clean couch that he suspected had come as part and parcel of a furnished apartment. He had come by his own money honestly enough, but the thought of this hardworking lady struggling day after day to pull people away from their televisions and hand-held electronic games to discover the joy of reading—and consequently living a lifestyle of scarcity made him feel somehow guilty for the abundance that marked his own life.
“Flowers are one thing,” Stephanie said, her gaze lingering upon them for a moment before looking at him directly. “But a whole new wardrobe is something else entirely. There’s no way I could accept such an extravagant and intimate gift from any man, even under the guise of purchasing costumes for a good cause. Besides, haven’t you ever heard of the folly of trying to turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse?”
Alex frowned. Besides not being able to recall a single woman in his past who ever worried about taking advantage of his generosity, he took exception to the self-deprecating remark. Like a wave rushing toward a foreign strand, it caused an unexpected swell of protectiveness to rise inside him. Why Stephanie’s old-fashioned scruples made him feel like showering her with gifts was a perplexing paradox.
“If it’s the money you’re worried about, there’s no reason to be. In case I didn’t mention the amount that Natalie was carrying when she found us, it’s around half a million dollars. The cash is tucked away in a safe down at the Cattleman’s Club and at our disposal anytime we need it. Since Natalie claims the money isn’t hers and believes that it is, in fact, ill-gotten gains, I doubt very much whether she’d mind us using some of it to protect her baby—and the babies of women who find themselves in similar circumstances.”
Alex saw no reason to tell Stephanie he intended to personally fund their week in Vegas as well as purchase her brand-new wardrobe out of his own petty cash. He had the sneaking suspicion that information would only provide her with a misguided sense of obligation to repay him out of her paltry salary.
“Half a million dollars,” she repeated in a tone suggesting that amount of money was beyond comprehension. She paused to consider the sum. “In that case, I suppose it couldn’t hurt to pick up a few things—if only to help set the stage like you said.”
Alex’s smile was reassuring. It warmed her from the inside out. Suddenly the prospect of going shopping didn’t seem so daunting. Stephanie herself would concede that her choice in clothes had more to do with practicality than with any thought of pleasing a man. And that was something a newlywed would be expected to do. She hoped Alex wouldn’t ask her to wear some frilly thing that would make her feel uncomfortable. She was used to comfort and affordability. Stephanie couldn’t picture herself in some skimpy getup like the ones she saw in the fashion magazines. On the other hand she couldn’t imagine walking into a typical discount store with this man, let alone scouring the bargain racks with him at her side.
“I hope you’re prepared to raise a few eyebrows,” she said, envisioning the commotion just being seen with Alexander Kent was sure to cause.
Stephanie issued the warning entirely for Alex’s benefit and was surprised by his reaction: a lusty belly laugh that filled her apartment and lightened her heart.
“I live for it,” he assured his wife-to-be.
Having been a constant source of gossip since his mother abandoned him at the tender age of five, Alexander didn’t care a fig what anybody had to say behind his back. In fact, he often took perverse delight in confounding the local gossip columnists and rumormongers. However, he couldn’t help but give some consideration to the fact that Stephanie’s reputation in this conservative community was far more precious to her than his would ever be to him.
“I have an idea,” he said conspiratorially, lowering his voice.
Patting the empty seat next to him on the couch, he invited her to sit down and lend him an ear. When Stephanie finally succumbed to the alluring wink that he threw in for good measure, Alex leaned in close enough that she could hear without straining.
“Since we know they’re going to talk about this anyway, what do you say we give them something really juicy to chew on?”
The suggestion struck Stephanie so funny that she actually laughed out loud. Alex was caught off guard by the sound of anything so utterly girlish escaping those surprisingly full lips. All too often, women made a point of laughing around him in a calculated effort to ensure that everyone in the vicinity was aware that they were together. The sound of pure amusement, Stephanie’s laughter was free of any such disingenuousness. It was also so infectious that he was unable to keep from joining in.
The delicate scent of the perfume that Stephanie wore threatened to undermine the unexpected camaraderie budding between them. Far from the heavy, expensive fragrances his other lady friends had specially mixed at great cost to interact with their own unique body chemistry, Alex was pretty sure this particular brand could easily be picked up off the shelf at any number of stores in the area. If he could coax the brand name from her, he’d have to stop by and pick up a gross or two. The stuff was utterly intoxicating.
Stephanie’s eyes sparkled mischievously as she accepted his offer for what it was: an invitation for a day of pure, unadulterated fun.
“I suppose if you really want to go shopping for trouble, you can count me in.”
Three
Just as Stephanie predicted, trouble was available in a variety of sizes and colors at the most exclusive boutique in town. And just as she feared, Alex refused to step foot in any of the department stores where she usually shopped, insisting that any wife of his might as well start acting the part of a wealthy socialite. The saleslady at the first shop they patronize
d took one look at Stephanie’s workaday jeans and sniffed, giving the distinct impression that a polecat had wandered through the door instead of a bona fide customer. She held a tissue delicately up to her nose.
“May I help you?” she asked.
Momentarily detained on the street by an old friend, Alex watched through the front window as the woman directed Stephanie to a sales rack at the back of the store where she disposed of her customer with an aristocratic sneer. The jaw-dropping looks the sales tags produced upon Stephanie’s face didn’t do anything to advance her plight with the pretentious clerk.
“Are they out of their minds?” she gasped, unable to believe the outrageous prices attached to last season’s fashions.
“There’s a bargain-basement special across the way that you might find more in your price range,” the clerk informed Stephanie before turning her attention to Alex as he stepped through the door.
His clothes alone marked him as a man of distinction. As did a reputation for being generous, which preceded him into any establishment in Royal. Had they a red carpet in the back room, Stephanie suspected the fawning clerk would have been on her hands and knees rolling it out before Alex’s every step. The only thing keeping her from acting on the snooty clerk’s suggestion to leave posthaste was her husband-to-be’s gaze pinning her like a butterfly inside a cigar box for a science-fair project.
“Tell me that I didn’t actually hear you suggest that my fiancée take her business elsewhere.”
Disdain dripped from Alex’s cultured voice in poisonous beads.
“Of c-course not, Mr. Kent,” the woman stammered.
Bewildered, she waited for the lucky lady to appear behind him. Her lips curved into a thin, welcoming smile.
Stepping around the clerk to claim this wayward fashion pariah as his own, Alex abandoned the woman altogether. He took Stephanie by the elbow. The sallow-faced woman’s decision to write her off at first glance left him seething. Familiar with all aspects of snobbery, Alexander was bothered that his wife-to-be considered herself unworthy of the clerk’s courtesy.
The Millionaires’ Club: Ryan, Alex & Darin Page 15
