HOT-BLOODED HERO

by Donna Sterling

  “Relax.” Lianna slipped into the dressing room with an encouraging smile, her dark eyes warm and dreamy. “You look incredible. You’ll knock his socks off.”

  Tess shot her friend a fond but exasperated glance. “If you’re talking about Cole, I don’t care about knocking his socks off … or any other part of his attire, for that matter. Haven’t you been listening? This is business, Li. Just business. I’m going to speak to the press right outside the display window of the boutique, where the cameras will pick up the name of the shop.”

  “Yeah, yeah, good plan. But getting back to Cole and his, uh, removable attire…” Lianna’s mouth curled in a naughty half-grin and she arched one tawny brow. “You’ve got to admit it’s an intriguing idea. Even if he wasn’t ridiculously rich, he’s got those bedroom eyes, and that tight muscular build, and all that thick, silky hair that makes a woman just want to—”

  “Lianna, please,” Tess begged. She’d forgotten Lianna’s tendency to drool over handsome men. “I’m well aware of what the guy looks like.” And sounds like. Smells like. Feels like… “But there’s nothing personal between us.”

  “You keep saying that, but I can’t believe it. The two of you were so cute together on the newscast. And the way he stared at you … mmm … I don’t know how you didn’t just melt.”

  “I’ve already told you, he was putting on an act. We did that bit about being in love only because I didn’t want everyone believing I was sleeping with him for the money. I barely know him. The marriage will be in name only, and this is strictly a business deal. Can’t we just leave it at that?”

  “Gosh, I hope not,” Lianna muttered with a dejected shake of her light brown mop of spiral curls. “You’ll have a great opportunity to get to know him.”

  “In case you’re forgetting, I’m in love with someone else.”

  Lianna winced, bit her bottom lip, and studied Tess with troubled concern. “So you still think Phillip will come back?”

  Tess drew in a pained breath and concentrated on straightening her pearls. She wouldn’t think about Phillip now—not when she was dressed as a bride, and he wasn’t her groom. They’d had so many plans for their wedding, their future. “I pray he will.”

  “How long are you going to put your life on hold,” demanded Lianna, “hoping for this miracle? Philip’s been gone for over a year, with no word to anyone. And you haven’t even dated. Get on with living, Tess. You’re being thrown together in wedlock with this gorgeous hunk of manhood. Why not open your mind to the possibilities? I think you should pack one of those fabulous negligees you have here in the shop—the one in candlelight lace, I think—and wear it tonight. See where things lead.”

  Tess knew exactly where such insanity would lead—to an intolerable situation. She couldn’t imagine anything more debasing than becoming one of Cole’s many women, especially when she would have to live at his house for the next five months. An otherwise casual fling would be dragged out into awkwardness. Besides, she never had been capable of casual flings. She’d been with one man, and one man only. It would take more than a sexy, gorgeous, velvet-voiced millionaire to change that.

  But oh … the thought of going to bed with him did make her heart pump harder. “Forget about the negligee,” she told Lianna. “Cole has his women, and I … I have my memories of Philip to keep me warm until he comes home.”

  Lianna opened her mouth to argue, but Tess’s mother appeared at the door of the dressing room. “The limo is here,” she announced with an air of excitement, despite the anxious shadows beneath her eyes. “And two big young fellas who look like bodyguards are waiting to escort you.”

  “Thanks, Mama.” Tess’s heart thumped in a maddening tattoo. She turned to Lianna and squeezed her hands. “And thanks for your help, too, Li. If this were my real wedding, you know that you and Kristen would be there at the altar with me.”

  “I can meet you at the chapel in a jiffy. You need someone at the altar with you. Won’t take me but a minute to run home and change…”

  “No.” Tess shook her head emphatically. “The media won’t be allowed inside the chapel grounds, so there’s no need to carry on the pretense inside. This isn’t a real wedding, and I don’t want you or anyone else I love getting confused about that fact. Besides, you don’t want to get on my father’s bad side, do you? If you, Mama or Kristen attend the ceremony, you’ll be branded as traitors for life.”

  Lianna assured her she could deal with her father’s wrath—and that she wouldn’t get confused about the mature of the marriage—but Tess prevailed. “Okay,” Lianna acquiesced. “I’ll be there in spirit, though … even if it’s just to ogle your groom.” With a rueful smile, she ushered Tess from the dressing room. “Oh, and don’t worry about your suitcase. I’ll give it to the bodyguards.”

  “Don’t forget your flowers.” Her mother handed her the fragrant bouquet of lavender cattleya orchids, pink roses, and white lilacs that a florist friend had sent. With a quivering lip, Margaret whispered, “Oh, honey, you look so beautiful. I only wish—”

  “It’s okay, Mama.” She hugged her mother, then turned abruptly toward the exit, dismayed at the tightening in her own throat. This wasn’t a real wedding. The fact that she was dressed as a bride, though, seemed to be confusing the issue—even in her own mind. This would never do!

  Two strapping young men in suits and ties nodded politely and fell into place beside her. Summoning her poise and reclaiming her perspective, Tess breathed deeply, then stepped outside onto the city sidewalk, into the balmy May afternoon.

  A roar of questions from the reporters assailed her, reminding her of her immediate purpose. She paused beside the display window, just beneath the shop’s tastefully gilded sign. “I’d like to say that, contrary to rumors, my parents couldn’t be more delighted that I’m marrying Cole Westcott. If it wasn’t for my father’s recent back injury, he’d be escorting me down the aisle today. As it is, he and my mother are sending me off with their best wishes, and my grandmother’s wedding pearls—” she touched the antique strand at her throat “—and one of the finest gowns from their new spring collection here at Belles and Brides Boutique.”

  With a careful turn so the cameras could focus on the graceful folds of the satin gown swirling around her, she proceeded to the gleaming white stretch limo where a uniformed driver held open the rear door.

  She hoped the limo wouldn’t turn into a pumpkin. At least, not while the cameras were rolling.

  *

  She was late. Cole stood at the top of the chapel’s stone stairway and gazed across the lawn at the oak-canopied driveway, resisting the urge to pace.

  Inside the chapel waited the preacher and Cole’s witnesses for the ceremony. He had chosen two well-respected political supporters of powerful South Carolina judges, just in case a question should be raised regarding the legality of this marriage. He’d seen no reason to choose family or friends, or to invite personal guests. This wasn’t a social occasion, but a business transaction.

  What was keeping Tess?

  Had the media attention caused problems? He himself had been hassled, followed and photographed every time he’d stepped outside. And though he’d stationed guards at the gate of the chapel grounds, a few journalists had perched themselves along the wrought iron fence, their zoom lenses, ready. He suspected a few may have jumped the fence and now lay in wait behind the bushes.

  Cole paced across the chapel’s porch, his eyes peeled for the limo’s arrival. Maybe he should have gone to get Tess himself. He’d considered it, but his presence at her parents’ business would have shown defiant disrespect for her father, like kicking a man when he was down. He’d called Ian McCrary at the hospital—the only civilized response to his visit—but McCrary was refusing all calls. Probably rethinking his strategy of attack.

  Cole hoped not. The last thing they all needed was more hostility.

  In hopes of avoiding future problems, he’d suspended his cousin Leo from his part-time job as
security guard at Westcott Hall. Leo should have called Cole when McCrary showed up. He would have set up a meeting with him. Leo always had been touchy when it came to slights against the family, though. Cole hoped to find him another part-time job away from Westcott Hall, at least for as long as Tess would be living there. As troublesome as Leo was at times, he had a good heart—along with a new little family that required more money than his cop’s salary provided. The stubborn son-of-a-gun refused to take a dime from Cole unless he worked for it. He hoped Leo hadn’t landed them both in legal difficulties.

  Cole wished he himself had been there to prevent the crisis. He wondered if Tess blamed him for her father’s injury and arrest. They’d spoken briefly over the phone about the incident yesterday, and she’d assured him that her father’s rifle hadn’t been loaded. He hadn’t been trying to gun him down.

  Good to know. But another question had been hammering through him that couldn’t be easily answered. Did Tess, like her father, view him as the enemy? Her cool tone of voice and abrupt conversation led him to suspect she might.

  Cole glared at the vacant driveway. He didn’t care how she viewed him, as long as she honored their bargain.

  What if she’d changed her mind? He gritted his teeth and drove his hands into his pockets. Not too difficult a question, really. He’d choose another McCrary bride. All this publicity had flushed out a whole slew of candidates. He’d received mail and phone calls from McCrary women around the country—and McCaslins, McClintocks and McDaniels, too. Some were willing to marry him on any terms. Some sent photos, videotapes, declarations of love … even perfumed panties. A few applicants actually seemed like reasonable, level-headed possibilities.

  He glanced at his watch and cursed. Tess had better show up. If she didn’t, he’d go and get her, even if he had to barge into a stronghold full of armed McCrarys and bodily carry her out.

  Had her family talked her out of marrying him?

  Another possibility gripped Cole then with a sickening lurch. Had the news broadcast brought her long-lost fiancé home to her?

  No. She would have called. Tess McCrary, with her haughty manner and prim business suit and tender-hearted scruples regarding the welfare of women she’d never even seen … she would have done the honorable thing and called him. Tess McCrary, with her changeable gray eyes that scolded and challenged and reached deep inside him with the damnedest allure…

  It made no sense, her hold on him. She wasn’t a traffic-stopping beauty. Some men might not even find her particularly attractive. But then, those men hadn’t looked close enough. They hadn’t prodded at her armor, teased her out of her poise, stoked her inner fire until she glowed, flashed, sizzled. Beckoned. Yes, beckoned.

  Five more minutes. That’s all he’d give her.

  A glimmer of white flashed through the thicket of live oaks and palmetto trees. The limousine soon glided around a curve into full view. Was she in it? The tinted windows prevented him from knowing.

  The long, sleek vehicle pulled to a stop. To Cole’s frustration, reporters rushed from behind bushes and trees to swarm the limo. The driver climbed out and strode to the back door, where a cluster of jostling photographers blocked Cole’s view. Tyrone and Bruno appeared, only their heads and shoulders visible over the teeming crowd.

  She’d obviously come, or his employees wouldn’t be hovering near the back of the limo. Security guards converged from all corners of the property, forcing the journalists back, creating an opening in the crowd. Tyrone and Bruno moved to either side of the walkway as the driver opened the rear door.

  A woman slowly disembarked from the limousine. A bride. A traditionally gowned, tiara-wearing, bouquet-carrying bride!

  Cole stared in astonishment for the briefest moment before rational thought kicked in. It wasn’t her. It wasn’t Tess.

  Anger and disappointment surged through him. What was this—a decoy for the media? A lame idea for a joke? A McCrary plot to piss him off? Someone had sent a woman of Tess’s approximate height and build, with the same vibrant color of hair and creamy complexion, but dressed in a way that Tess would never consider dressing. She’d be wearing a touch-me-not, kick-butt business suit … probably in gunmetal gray.

  The imposter lifted her face toward the chapel, and wide, luminescent gray eyes connected with Cole’s. Familiarity jolted the very breath out of him.

  Tess.

  He couldn’t have been more stunned if a bullet had struck him.

  A rosy hue crept into her cheeks and she shifted her gaze away from his to focus on the path ahead of her. With regal grace, then, she proceeded up the stone walkway and ascended the long, wide, chapel stairway.

  Cole stared in utter stupefaction.

  She was beautiful. Not merely attractive, or alluring. Goddamn beautiful.

  And it wasn’t just the rich ivory satin, the gleam of pearls, the elegance of the exotic flowers trembling in her hands. It wasn’t even the beauty inherent in every bride.

  It was the first time he’d seen her hair not confined by a frazzled braid or a pragmatic twist, but curling in a lush, shining mass of fiery auburn. It was the first time he’d seen her long, slender throat and shapely shoulders bare. The first time he’d seen the full roundness of her breasts, the sweet, narrow curve of her waist, all so clearly delineated by the soft, sleek-fitting satin.

  Goddamn beautiful.

  She drew closer. A rushing sound pulsed in his ears; his mouth went dry. The provocative scent he’d come to think of as hers and the fragrance of blossoms immersed him. She’d reached the top of the stairway and halted, her gown gently rustling, the breeze riffling shiny tendrils about her neck and face. Though she stood beside him, her gaze remained fixed on some distant point.

  He couldn’t, for the life of him, stop staring.

  Slowly, with clear hesitation, she glanced up at him. “I guess that I … uh…” her voice sounded low and unusually breathless “I’m a little late.”

  He angled his head to study her closer; to drink in the incredible beauty she’d somehow kept hidden from him. The hint of shyness in her eyes, the hushed quality of her voice, only entranced him further. “Are you?”

  “I believe so. Sorry if I’ve kept you waiting.” Her mouth, which had always captivated him, always warmed his blood, now glimmered with a wildly sensual sheen. “So … are you ready?”

  “Ready?”

  “To go inside,” she said in a near whisper, casting a surreptitious glance in the direction from which she’d come.

  Only then did he realize that journalists watched and cameras flashed from a short distance beyond the stairway. Only then did he remember where he was, why he’d come, and the fact that a preacher and two witnesses awaited them inside the chapel.

  She was here. His McCrary bride. He would marry her. In the eyes of the world, she would belong to him.

  A sharp, hot pleasure expanded within him. He crooked his elbow and offered her his arm. Graciously she took it. Together they strolled toward the entrance of the chapel. Two uniformed guards swung open the heavy wooden doors, which then closed slowly behind them.

  “You’re late,” Cole told her, trying to keep his eyes off of her for civility’s sake … and failing miserably.

  She slanted him an odd glance, as if he’d said something unreasonable. “I thought you hadn’t noticed.”

  “What gave you that idea?”

  Curiously enough, a slight smile lit her eyes. He had to stop then, just inside the small, private vestibule, to fully immerse himself in that smile. He had no idea what had prompted it. He also had no idea what had prompted her to dress as a bride. A genuine, honest-to-God bride. As if they’d be saying their vows in front of family and friends. As if those vows would mean something. As if she would, in truth, be his.

  He suddenly needed to know what she’d been thinking when she’d slipped into that gown. Inspecting the elegant ivory satin with deceptive leisure, he murmured, “Nice dress.” He then fixed his gaze pointedly on he
rs. “Why are you wearing it?”

  Self-consciousness flickered across her face, and she lifted one bare, satin-edged shoulder in a suggestion of a shrug. “Business purposes. With all this publicity, I thought my parents’ bridal shop might benefit from—”

  “Try again.” He wasn’t about to let her off the hook with such a simple, sensible explanation—not when his imagination had supplied so many more interesting motives. “The truth this time.”

  Her delicate auburn brows wove together in puzzlement. “You don’t believe me? Think about it. With all those television cameras rolling, I—”

  “I think you and I both know you had an ulterior motive.”

  She parted her lips in outraged innocence. “What ulterior motive?”

  “You’ll never admit it,” he predicted, pressing closer, as the afternoon sun streamed through the vestibule’s leaded windows and bathed the room in a golden glow, “but you’re a tease, Tess McCrary.”

  “A tease!” After a wide-eyed stare, she squared her jaw, and a low but unmistakable fire lit in her eyes. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, but I figured you’d think this gown had something to do with you. You must be the most egotistical man alive.”

  Cole couldn’t help thrilling to her fire. He wanted to feel her heat at closer range. He wanted to pull her against him, smooth his hands over her naked shoulders. Inhale the scent of her skin, her hair. Taste her mouth. Oh, yes … he needed to taste her mouth.

  “You’re deliberately teasing me,” he charged in a voice soft and gruff, “by dressing like a bride when you have no intention of giving me a wedding night.”

  Her blush burned as warmly as the indignation in her glare. Oh, he’d rattled her composure but good this time. Which was only fair. She’d damn near shattered his.

  While she searched for words to slay him, he tipped her chin up and distracted her by gazing deeper into her gorgeous gray eyes. “Or…” he whispered, his lips a mere breath away from hers now, “have you changed your mind about that?”

  Tess stared at him with her pulse beating wildly in her throat. How could she think, how could she speak, when he saturated her senses with his nearness? Though he wore an exquisitely tailored suit of rich sage-gray that must have cost more than her gown, and his dark, gleaming hair had been freshly cut, his jaw smoothly shaven, she felt a savage male heat emanating from his strong, lean body … a heat that too easily aroused a savagely sensual response within her.