Humiliating to admit now, but she had actually hoped that Sean would come to her that night. Had thought that after what they’d shared in the moonlight—even though it had ended badly—he wouldn’t be able to stay away.
That he would be the one to break their vow so she could enjoy him and still maintain the illusion that she hadn’t wanted him. Because it was an illusion. Melinda sighed, looked out at the fishing boats as the rolling waves made them bounce and sway on the water. The truth was, she did want Sean. Badly. More than she would have thought possible. She could hardly believe it herself. She hadn’t felt the slightest bit of interest in any man since Steven’s death and she hadn’t expected to feel anything for Sean. But oh boy, did she.
Lifting one hand to her mouth as if she could still feel the burn of his kiss, Melinda tried to reconcile what she was feeling with what she knew. She had loved Steven. She didn’t love Sean. So how could she be on fire by simply thinking about the man? And how would she ever get through the next couple of months?
This shouldn’t be happening. Wanting another man was a betrayal of what she’d had with Steven, wasn’t it? Guilt ratcheted up another notch or two inside her.
She sighed and remembered that the morning after the wedding, she had found Sean sleeping on the too-short-for-him couch in the living room, his long legs hanging over the edge. He hadn’t looked at all comfortable, but every night since, that’s where he had slept.
“I’m not even sure if he’s punishing me or himself,” she mumbled.
But either way, it was working.
“Not exactly the picture of a happy bride.”
She gasped as a deep, familiar voice spoke up from behind her. As if she’d conjured him with her thoughts, Melinda turned to look up at Sean. He was tanned and relaxed and all too gorgeous. He wore a King Construction T-shirt, faded blue jeans that clung to his long, muscular legs and a pair of scuffed-up work boots that somehow just added to his appeal. His hair was wind-tossed and lying across his forehead and when he tipped his sunglasses down to look at her, his eyes were warm, but shadowed with fatigue.
If something didn’t break in their relationship soon, they’d both be in comas.
“You look like you’re thinking deep thoughts.” Sean watched her, and she was glad he couldn’t read her thoughts as easily as he could her expression.
“Not deep, just…thoughts.”
“Uh-huh.” Sean looked up and down the narrow coast road. They were three miles outside the village and the only other cars around were the few parked alongside Melinda’s. When he turned his gaze back on her, he pointed out, “You were talking to yourself. Never a good sign.”
Great. Now she had to try to remember if she’d said anything completely embarrassing. But looking into his eyes was making her mind go blank. Probably not a good thing.
“It’s only bad if you answer your own questions—or is that laugh at your own jokes?” Oh God, she was babbling. But her stomach was spinning and her mouth was dry. Sean had hardly spoken to her in more than a week, so why was he here now? And why couldn’t she calm down? She couldn’t stay nervous with him for the next two months.
He took the cloth bag from her hand and peeked inside. “Fruit?” He looked at her and his mouth curved in that half smile of his. “They run out of food at the hotel?”
“No.” She made a grab for the bag, but he swung it out of her reach. “I just like having fresh fruit in the house and it’s silly to call room service if I want an orange.”
“Good point.” He took her arm and steered her toward the rental car he had been driving since he got to the island. “You know, my brother Rafe used to live in a hotel. For years. He dug the maid service and the twenty-four-seven room service. But he hasn’t missed it at all since marrying Katie. They live in her little cottage down by the beach.”
She was hurrying her steps to keep up with his much longer strides. “Sounds nice—Sean—”
“It is, but Rafe never can leave things alone. He’s adding on to the cottage. Building a second story, punching out a wall into the backyard to add a family room, too. Adding all kinds of stuff. Making Katie nuts, of course.”
“Sean—”
“That’s how they met, actually,” he said with a laugh, “we redid her kitchen, and Rafe just never left. Good thing, too. She makes incredible cookies. I’ll get her to send us some—”
Melinda didn’t know what he was doing or where they were going so she dug her heels in until he stopped to look at her. “I don’t need a ride home. My car’s parked over there.”
“Yeah, I know.” He shrugged. “Saw it and you when I was driving past. Just leave the car. We’ll get someone from the hotel to come pick it up.”
Nothing from him for days and now he was practically kidnapping her. She threw a look behind her at the people and caught them staring after her fondly. No doubt the local gossips would be cooing over this, seeing it all as very romantic when in fact, Melinda had no idea at all what was going on.
“What are you doing, Sean?” she asked, walking beside him again, trying not to think about the heat of his hand on her bare skin. “Where are we going?”
He drew her around to the far side of the red convertible, opened the passenger door, ushered her inside, then dropped the bag of produce onto the backseat. Leaning both hands on the top of the door, he looked down at her and said, “Thought we could go out to the hotel site. You can show me around.”
She frowned and saw her expression reflected back at her in his sunglasses. “You’ve seen it already, haven’t you?”
“Not up close and personal,” he told her, going around to the driver’s side and getting in.
Melinda took a long look at him and that twist of longing inside her tightened a little in spite of her best efforts. But she squashed it a moment later. She should just accept his change in attitude. Just go with the flow here and pretend the last week of awkward silences had never happened. But she couldn’t. She wanted to know why he was suddenly acting more like the Sean she had first met than the man he’d been since the wedding.
“Sean, what’s going on?”
“Nothing.” He shrugged and started the engine.
Before he could put the car in gear though, she reached out and laid one hand over his. He stilled, pulled his hand free and slowly turned his head to look at her. Dark glasses hid his eyes though, so she had no idea what he might be thinking. After a long minute, he said simply, “I just decided to get over it, okay?”
“Get over it?”
His mouth worked as if he were choosing his words carefully before letting them out. “Look, things got out of hand on our wedding night. We both said some things, and I figure we should let it go. Start over. Spend some time together. Get past this—whatever it is between us. Make the next two months easier on both of us.”
She blew out a breath and smiled. “I’d like that. Until just now, I was actually thinking that maybe you were going to call the whole thing off,” she confessed. “Back out of our deal completely.”
He took off his glasses and looked directly into her eyes so she couldn’t help but see the insult written in his gaze. “If you knew me better, you’d know I don’t quit. I don’t go back on my word once it’s given.”
“Okay,” she said and watched as his expression softened. He might be quick to a temper, but it faded just as fast, she thought, and chalked it up as one more thing she’d discovered about her temporary husband.
“So,” he said, offering his hand, “truce?”
She took it, her much smaller hand swallowed by his. Again, there was that delicious flash of heat that seemed to zip directly from his hand into the center of her chest. But ignoring that heat was the only way to deal with it, so she did. “Truce.”
“Excellent!” He wiggled his eyebrows at her, slapped his glasses back on then turned, put on his seat belt and told her, “Buckle up.”
He put the car in gear and pulled out of the lot, waving to the people at
the produce stand as he went. Out on the coast road, the wind slapped at them, but Melinda loved it. Her hair whipped into her eyes, so she gathered it up in one fist and held it at the nape of her neck. She turned her face into the wind and inhaled the salty sea air and the thick, intoxicating scent of the flowering vines along the road. Pink and white and deep red flowers burst from a wall of greenery so thick you could hardly see past them to the hills beyond.
But she didn’t need to see it to know what was there. Acres of farmland followed by miles of green, stands of ancient trees and, farther inland, waterfalls. This was her place in the world, and she knew every square inch of it.
Now that she and her husband had a new understanding, the weight of worry and anxiety slid off her shoulders and Melinda felt the best she had since the wedding. She turned her head to glance at him. Even in profile, Sean King looked amazing.
“I took a drive by the site last week,” he shouted, to be heard over the wind, “but haven’t had a chance to really check it out in person.”
“What have you been doing all week?” she asked, and thought how odd it was that she didn’t already know the answer to that question. But since they’d been avoiding each other, it wasn’t all that surprising, was it?
He glanced at her. “Mostly I’ve been setting up an office at the hotel. I’m using one of the suites for now. When construction starts, I’ll find something more permanent.”
The car followed the curve of the road and as they came up from behind a row of vine-covered hedges, a spectacular view of the ocean spread out in front of them. Whitecaps danced on the surface and, in the distance, a lone sailboat skimmed over the water.
“It really is beautiful here,” he said.
“It is,” she agreed, then turned to look at him. “But you live at the beach in California, don’t you? You’re used to views like this.”
Sean smiled as he glanced from the view to the woman beside him and back to the road. “I live in Sunset Beach. Not far from Long Beach where my brothers live.”
“Is it nice?”
He thought about that for a minute. He’d always liked his place, loved the beach community and the easygoing pace of life. And he had always believed that the view from his house couldn’t be beat. Until he’d come here.
“Yeah, it is,” he said, slowing the car down so he didn’t have to shout to be heard. “Used to think that I had the best view in the world.” He grinned and added, “You already know I live in a rehabbed water tower. It’s so much higher than any of my neighbors, I can see for miles in any direction. The ocean at home, it’s…tamer than here. With the jetties and the piers, by the time the water hits shore at home, all of the temper’s been taken out of it. It just sort of whimpers ashore—except during a storm, of course.”
She smiled at his description.
Sean shrugged and said, “Never bothered me before really, but seeing the ocean here…waves crashing. That color. Not really blue, not really green. And so damn clear.” He shook his head. “Have to say, your view beats mine.”
“That’s nice to hear.”
He glanced at her again and smiled. “Still, can’t get decent Thai food here at one in the morning.”
“True,” she said, glancing out at the ocean. “But there are compensations.”
“Good point.” And not all of the compensations were centered on the lush beauty of the island. Melinda Stanford herself was pretty damned intriguing whether he wanted her to be or not. Sean shifted a quick look at her and his insides stirred again. Probably not a good thing, but there didn’t seem to be much he could do about it.
His hands fisted on the steering wheel as he gave himself a stern talking-to. He had no intention of getting involved with Melinda. There was no future here. There was nothing beyond the duration of their two-month deal. Best to keep that thought uppermost in his mind.
But then, his mind wasn’t giving him problems. His body, on the other hand, seemed to be in a constant state of painful frustration.
“Have you talked to your brothers since the wedding?”
His thoughts splintered at the sound of her voice, and he was grateful for the reprieve. And he wasn’t an idiot, either. He heard the unspoken subtext all too clearly. She was wondering if he had told his brothers about what had happened between them. About the aborted wedding night. About the kiss that had been driving him nuts for days and the fact that they hadn’t even been speaking since that night.
Right. Just the thought of telling his brothers any of what was really going on made him cringe. Rafe and Lucas had given him so much grief over getting married in the first place, the last thing he wanted to do was give them more ammunition to use to hammer at him.
Besides, Sean had had an epiphany late last night. Easy to do lots of thinking when you were trying to sleep on a torture rack called a couch. Damn thing was so short for him, the backs of his knees had permanent dents from hanging over the arm for hours at a stretch. But thinking time had helped him come to a decision about this temporary marriage.
He’d been married before, and it was a nightmare. His ex-wife had lied to him, used him, then walked off and, he told himself, good riddance. So Sean knew the whole love and happily ever after thing was a crock told to fools to give them something to cling to on lonely nights.
Melinda hadn’t learned that.
Hell, she’d grown up in Brigadoon. Sunshiny, happy people living in a world filled with glorious sunsets, warm water and sweet-smelling flowers. Of course she’d believe that the late, lamented Steven was a saint. The man hadn’t lived long enough to disabuse her of the notion. He hadn’t been around to disappoint her. Or hurt her. He hadn’t lived long enough for Melinda to learn the cold, hard truth.
There was no such thing as love.
Happily ever after only existed in books.
Instead, Melinda had been left behind holding onto memories that no doubt got prettier and prettier with the passage of time. She was being romantic and female, insisting on tucking her emotions away and burying them with Steven.
Well, Sean had decided that the least he could do for her while they were married was to wake her up. To make her live again. And no way could he do that when they weren’t even speaking.
So he put his own anger at being lied to aside and decided to use what he was best at. Charm. Hell, there wasn’t a woman alive Sean couldn’t get around when he turned on the charm. And once he got past Melinda’s defenses, she’d see that lust was a lot more substantial than “love.” Lust, at least, was honest.
“No,” he said finally when he realized she was still waiting for him to answer her question. “Well, I mean I’ve talked to them. Not talking to Rafe and Lucas about a job would be considered a felony in the King family.”
“Oh.” She turned her face away to look out at the ocean. He didn’t have to see her features to know what she was thinking though. Tension fairly radiated off her body. Even the line of her jaw was tight enough that he knew she had to be clenching her teeth.
“But, I haven’t told them anything about us.”
“Really?” Her eyes were hopeful but wary when she turned her head to him. “Why?”
“None of their business, is it?” He steered around a hairpin curve in the road. “They’re in California. We’re here. And what happens between us,” he added with a meaningful look at her, “stays with us…to borrow a phrase from the Vegas ad agency. Just relax, Melinda. It’s a great day. We’re at the beach. It’s all good.”
“Okay,” she said softly. “I can do that.”
He slid a glance at her and saw her ease back into her seat. Her features smoothed out and the tension around her mouth disappeared. Good, he thought. Already working. In no time at all, he’d have Melinda Stanford King eating out of his hand. Then he’d let her seduce him, and they could both enjoy this marriage as long as it lasted.
In a few more minutes, they were at the future hotel site and he was parking the convertible. Beside him, she still seeme
d a little tense. Well, he was going to take care of that.
“Come on,” he said, “let’s build a hotel.”
She smiled at him, and Sean felt a quick jolt of…something. He didn’t want to put a name to it. Didn’t even really want to admit to it. Ignoring that feeling wouldn’t make it go away but, for now anyway, he was going to give it a shot.
Clearing his mind of everything but the moment, he got out and waited while Melinda did the same. She came around the front of the car, giving him a great view. She looked amazing in a simple pair of white pants and a bright yellow T-shirt. Her sandals displayed toes painted a soft pink and when he lifted his gaze to hers, he smiled. He was glad when she smiled back.
He just naturally took her hand in his. That burst of heat he was almost getting used to happened again with that simple touch, but he paid no attention to that, either. Whatever it was that lay between them was only going to help him seduce her.
This was going to go Sean King’s way or no way.
Seven
Sean looked around, taking in the whole place in one long gaze. Had to hand it to Rico, he thought. The man knew his stuff. This was the perfect spot for a luxury hotel. The land was crescent-shaped, with a wide, perfect beach and two spits of land that jutted into a sea that was simply an impossible blue. Sean could imagine the private cottages Rico wanted, sitting out on those points—private spots perfect for honeymooners.
He hoped those future newlyweds had a better time than he was having at the moment. A glance at his wife sent another jolt of need shooting through him. He kept control, though it wasn’t pleasant. Sean wasn’t used to wanting a woman and then being denied. Until now, the only other woman who had ever given him any trouble at all had been his ex. Figured he’d only have problems with the women he married.
Maybe it was karma, he told himself. Payback for never letting women get too close. So the moment he did, it bit him in the ass.
The Temporary Mrs. King Page 8
