by Gail Dayton
“Okay, so there’s two dozen of them. How many people live in Palm Beach? Ten thousand? That’s a lot of lumping Micah, to lump them all in the same pile. What about Sherry’s sister? She seemed awfully nice.”
“Seemed. You don’t know.”
“Well, neither do you.” His mother stopped at the bottom of the step to Nina’s wide sunny front deck and glared up at him. He couldn’t prevent the little quiver of fear he felt deep inside him at the fire in her eyes.
“Micah Thomas Scott, I swear if you do not stop feeling sorry for yourself and get down off your snobbish high horse and try to make this marriage work, not only will I make the rest of your life miserable, I will get your father to come back and help me haunt you.”
He laughed. Big mistake. Mom stabbed her long narrow finger hard into his stomach. He wasn’t ready, though he should have been, and it felt as if she’d poked a hole clear through his liver.
“And I’ll get Noble to move me back into my apartment this afternoon.” She followed up her first threat with a more deadly one, one Mike knew she would carry out. His teenaged nephew was a pushover when it came to his grammy.
“Okay, okay. I’ll try. But don’t blame me when Sherry hightails it out of our lives the minute she gets her money.”
“I most certainly will blame you if I think for one second you pushed her there. I understand why you’re keeping quiet about the real state of your finances when you’ve got thirty million of your own and more rolling in every day, but this pity party of yours has to end, Micah.”
What pity party? Exercising a little caution didn’t mean he was feeling sorry for himself. “I said I’d try, Mom. Okay? What else do you want from me?” He tried to move her onto the deck, and after some initial resistance finally succeeded.
“I want you to do it,” she said. “Not just say it. I know you, Micah. All your life you’ve said this and said that and then done what you damn well pleased.”
“Don’t swear, Mom.”
“Why not? You do it. Promise me, Micah.”
“It doesn’t sound right coming out of your mouth. And I promise.”
She turned back at the front door and gave him a hard look.
“I promise,” he repeated, holding up his right hand.
After another long hard stare, her expression softened and she patted his arm. “You’re a good boy, Micah. Sometimes.”
Mike opened the door and set the oxygen inside, turning escort duty over to his nephew who was waiting patiently.
“Don’t forget what you promised.” She got one last instruction in before the door closed and he turned to walk back to the car and his waiting bride.
His bride.
He had always expected to say those words some day, had even once known who she would be. Or he thought he had. Until she had made it apparent that she wasn’t marrying him, just his bank account. A few years had gone down the road since then, years in which he hadn’t been looking for a replacement. But that didn’t mean he’d spent his time wallowing in self-pity.
Nor did it mean that Sherry was Ms. Right, no matter how much his mom might want her to be. In fact, Mike was ninety-nine-point-nine percent sure she was Ms. Wrong.
He had promised his mother he would try to make this marriage work. That meant fitting Sherry into his lifestyle. Not exactly the sort of lifestyle set by those who’d never had to work for their money. He would immerse her in it, and she would be running scared well before her trust-fund birthday in August.
Sherry Nyland, temporarily Sherry Scott, would never fit into his world, just as he would never fit into hers. Proving it would be easy, and he could keep his promise while he did.
The sun was bright and almost-summer hot when they reached the building where Mike and his mother lived. Sherry deliberately did not think “home,” no matter how easy it was. This wasn’t her home. Would never be. The silent ride back from Mike’s sister’s house had made that abundantly clear. And that was the way she wanted it.
She got out of the car without waiting for Mike to open the door. Although he beat her to the door to the lobby, she got to the elevator first and punched the call button. The little competition made her want to smile, but Mike’s semiscowl stifled the temptation. What did he really think about this?
When they got off on the eighth floor, two not-quite-teenage girls in neon-bright swimsuits and flowered flip-flops stood waiting for the elevator. As Mike held the elevator door open for them, the skinny blond girl of the pair leaped back toward the corner of the hallway.
“Come on, Mom!” she shouted. “The elevator’s here. You are so slow.”
“I’m coming, I’m coming. Keep your pants on.”
Seconds later, two women in swimsuits and cover-ups rounded the turn. The younger of the two was obviously the blond girl’s mother, given her harassed expression, the towels overflowing her beach bag and the tube of sunscreen she held out insistently. “Use it. I’m not listening to you whine about sunburn.”
The girl rolled her eyes, but took the sunscreen.
“Well, hello, Michael,” the mother said, ogling him up and down, when she noticed Mike standing there.
Sherry took comfort from the fact that the woman obviously did not know him well enough to know his name wasn’t Michael. She took no comfort at all, however, from the twinge of jealousy that caused the original comfort.
“Don’t you look fabulous,” the woman went on. “Where have you been so early, all dressed up?”
The woman took advantage of Mike’s kindness in holding the elevator to straighten a lapel on his suit that didn’t need straightening. Her daughter rolled her eyes. The other woman hid a smile, while the second girl, plump and dark-haired, looked confused. Sherry tried not to seethe, without much success.
“I got married this morning,” he said.
The two women and blond girl stared, mouths dropping open in shock. The other girl still looked confused, but she took over the elevator-door-holding job when asked.
Mike grinned and put his arm around Sherry’s waist, pulling her tight against him. She thought he was enjoying this entirely too much. Come to think of it, though, she didn’t exactly object to being pressed tight to all those muscles of his.
He indicated first to the older woman, then the younger, then the girls as he introduced them, “Donna, Lanita, Katie—and I don’t know you, Miss—”
“Tracy,” the door-holder whispered.
“Tracy,” he repeated with a smile that made the girl sigh. “Ladies, this is my wife, Sherry Scott. Sherry, these ladies are our neighbors. Donna is in 806, and Lanita and Katie live in 808.”
Sherry smiled and waved, but had time for nothing more. She squeaked as Mike swept her up in his arms and carried her toward the front door of his apartment.
“Talk to you ladies later,” he said, and they were inside, the door closing behind them.
Immediately his grin vanished. He deposited her in the middle of the living room and walked into the kitchen without speaking.
Sherry swayed a moment until she found her balance, overwhelmed by the strong arms she could somehow still feel around her, beneath her, holding her up. “What was that?”
“Can’t convince your dad unless we convince the neighbors, can we?” he said. “Want a beer?”
“No, thanks.” Did that mean carrying her was such a traumatic experience that he needed a drink when it was over? She didn’t know. Her head still spun from his rapid-fire mood swings. Only his mood wasn’t really swinging. He was just acting.
She followed him into the kitchen and found herself fascinated by the motion of his strong throat as he tipped his head back and drank from a beer can. There, just under his jaw, the faint shadow of his afternoon beard faded into vulnerability and she had to swallow, too. This might be harder than she thought. Especially since Clara had more or less blackmailed them into staying in the same apartment.
“Sure you’re not thirsty?” Mike was watching her the way she watched h
im. He held out his already-sweating can as if offering to share.
“I’ll have some ice water.” She needed something to cool herself down, though she wasn’t sure ice water would do the job.
Sherry got a glass from the cabinet while Mike broke ice from the trays. The water had the typical flat oceanfront taste. Not bottled designer water by any stretch, but it was cold and wet and felt good going down. It took her mind off Mike’s throat—and the places on it perfect for kissing.
She set the glass on the counter. “I guess I’d better go get my suitcase.”
“No.” He drank again.
Sherry didn’t notice his neck this time. She was too busy glaring at him. “No? What do you mean, no?”
“Just what I said. No.” He leaned against the kitchen counter, watching her without expression, but Sherry had no doubt something was going on behind that bland exterior. Probably lots of somethings. She wished she knew what they were.
“Does that mean you’re going out to get it for me?”
“No.”
Now she was annoyed. What happened to the nice guy? Not that he was so nice to start with. Or was this what always happened after the wedding? The nice guy turned into the tyrant. “Why not? I want to change clothes.”
“Sorry. But nobody’s going back downstairs for at least an hour.” Mike finished the beer and tossed the can at the swing-topped trash can across the room. It hit the lid and bounced off. “Two hours would be better,” he said as he strolled over to pick up his bride.
“Why?” Sherry did not understand.
He sighed. “Because Donna and Lanita are out at the pool with the girls. You have to walk by the pool to get to the garage. And we’re newlyweds. Remember?”
He waggled his hand at her so that light glinted off the plain gold band. Clara had provided the rings when they realized they would need the stage props. Mike wore his father’s wedding ring, Sherry wore Clara’s. She’d argued against using them—the sentimental value of the rings made her uncomfortable. But she hadn’t been able to let herself agree to new ones. She didn’t want Mike spending his money on her, and she didn’t have enough to contribute her share.
“I don’t think you should go over to Mom’s to get anything, either. They could have left something and come back.”
“I remember. We’re newlyweds.” Sherry ran her thumb across the inside surface of the matching band on her hand. “So what?”
“Are you sure you grew up in Palm Beach?” Mike’s forehead creased as he studied her, as if she presented a puzzle he couldn’t solve. “Think, Sherry. We just got married. I carried you over the threshold. What are the neighbors going to assume we’re doing?”
Heat rushed to her face as she finally put the pieces together. The neighbors would expect them to be involved in hot, sweaty, tempestuous sex right about now. “Oh.”
Sherry felt totally stupid. Especially since the idea now swelled up in her mind and took up all the space that normal thoughts usually occupied. She really, truly wished she hadn’t seen Mike in nothing but a bath towel. It hadn’t left much to the imagination, and her imagination had been working overtime lately. She knew what he had hidden under that shoulder-enhancing jacket and wilted white shirt, and she wanted to see it again.
See it? She wanted to touch.
Which was probably why she hadn’t caught on to Mike’s explanation of why they were trapped in the house. She was focusing too hard on being angry with him for all those blunt-force nos of his, so she wouldn’t think about that soft, vulnerable spot just under his jaw begging for a kiss. And now he thought she was ignorant about sex as well as indifferent to it.
“I’m going to change. It’s too hot to stay in this coat.” Mike slid out of his suit jacket and headed out of the kitchen. “I can probably find you some shorts and a T-shirt if you want.”
“That would be nice, thanks.” Sherry took her ice water with her as she wandered back into the living room. “What are we going to do for the next two hours?” She raised her voice so he could hear her through his closed bedroom door. “Vegetate?”
Mike didn’t deign to respond. She strolled around the room, inspecting the shelves of videos and music discs collected for the state-of-the-art entertainment system he’d assembled piece by piece. She assumed he’d gathered the components that way, since no three pieces bore the same brand name, except for five of the eight speakers. She thought Clara could listen to his music from next door if he turned it up higher than dead quiet. Heck, Donna and Lanita could probably hear it by the pool.
“We could watch a video,” Sherry called, running her finger across the titles that ran the gamut from action-adventure all the way to action-thriller, with a few sophomoric comedies thrown in. “Is there a particular shoot-’em-up, blow-’em-up movie you prefer?”
“Suit yourself. I plan to.” Mike tossed two gray somethings at her.
One landed on her shoulder, the other on the floor at her feet. When she investigated, they proved to be shorts and a T-shirt, just as he’d offered.
“Thanks,” she began, before she looked up and the rest of her words stuck in her throat.
She had seen him, before, wearing even less than the cutoff T-shirt with ripped-out sleeves and the knit shorts he had on now. Her short-term memory had to be slipping. That was the only explanation. Though she knew she hadn’t noticed the tattoo, which was right where he said it was, she did not remember that washboard stomach or the corded thighs. She did remember that little trail of hair leading down from his navel.
Sherry squeezed her eyes shut and took a deep breath. When she opened them, he was gone. Back to his bedroom, she decided, from the rustling-around noises. But it didn’t really matter where. The man was temptation in bare feet.
With a sigh she went into the other bedroom to change.
Mike straddled the weight bench in his bedroom and sat down. It wasn’t anything fancy, unlike the ones in the weight room downstairs, but it was enough to help keep him in shape and he didn’t have to leave home. He ducked his head under the bar as he lay back for some bench press. The weight was light, since he didn’t have a spotter. He wished he could pile it on. He needed to work hard, to wear himself out and sweat the woman out of his pores. The way she’d crawled under his skin, he figured it was the only way he could get her out again. He did not need this grief.
He listened over the hum of the air conditioner for her bedroom door to open, for the TV to click on, as he pushed his first set of lifts to double the usual number of reps. He smelled her first, the heady fragrance of woman mixed with some expensive perfume. Then he saw her watching from the doorway.
His T-shirt had never looked so good. The faded USMC stenciled across the front of the well-washed fabric followed every little rise and fall of his new wife’s breasts, making her braless state abundantly clear. She’d knotted the shirt at her waist and tied a big looping bow in the drawstring of the shorts to hold them up. Her panty line showed through the knit shorts. She wore bikinis with wide elastic. He could see both edges of the elastic where his shorts draped lovingly over her hips.
Mike never slowed the rhythm of his lifts as he watched her watch him. He should stop. Tell her to leave. Close his eyes the way she’d closed hers, as if it offended her to look at him in his workout gear.
It offended him to see her now, to see how she watched him, her eyes following the bar down and back up, skimming over him as if he were a pet she could play with for a while then dump out in the swamp for alligator bait when she got through with him. How would that look change if she knew the truth?
He lifted the bar high and settled it in its cradle, then sat up. “Like what you see?”
One of her shoulders lifted a tiny space, then dropped in a careless shrug. “Yes.” She paused briefly. “But then, I don’t imagine that’s any surprise to you.”
He allowed himself a brief, bitter laugh. He’d never had any doubt that his looks or his money would pass muster. It was his class that usua
lly got called into question. “No beating around the bush with you, is there, Sherry?”
“I’ve given it up. You never get anywhere that way.”
Mike picked up a small weight and fitted it over the end of the bar. He would add five pounds for the next set of repetitions. He fussed with the weights and the clamps, waiting for her to get bored and go away. She didn’t. Finally, he asked, “Was there something you wanted?”
“Is this going to get us in trouble at work? Us getting married?”
“There’s no written policy.” He gave up waiting—she apparently had no intention of leaving—and lay back down to start his next set. “Nobody’s going to say anything.”
Sherry came farther into the room, to the foot of the bench. “Are you sure? What about the owner?”
“Yes, I’m sure. The owner doesn’t care.” Which was a lie. He cared in ways he didn’t want to think about.
“How can you be positive?”
“I’m sure, okay?” He’d had enough of this conversation. Why wouldn’t she just go away? “Give it a rest, will you, please? It’s not any of your business, anyway.”
Mike concentrated on his form, keeping the bar balanced neither too far forward or too far back, holding his arms at the exact angle to do himself the most good. She still came seeping through all his cracks and crannies, impossible to ignore.
“I guess not. How can anything about you be any of my business? After all, I’m just your wife.”
His temper sparked high. He tossed the heavy bar back into its cradle and leaped to his feet. “Only on paper.”
Still straddling the bench, feet spread wide, he bent to put himself nose-to-nose with her. “Got that?” He had to be sure she understood. “Maybe you carried real roses, but this is a paper marriage, and you are a paper wife.”
She didn’t smell like paper, though. She didn’t look like paper, either, all round and sleek and satin soft, with golden skin and pink lips and a little rosy tongue that sang a silent siren’s call just by making a slow trip from one corner of her mouth to the other.
