by Misti Murphy
“You’ll do it?” Liv’s eager voice in my ear almost makes me jump.
“You’ll do it,” Finn says, matter of fact.
“This is my life we’re talking about,” I grumble.
“I know it’s a nightmare, but we need you to do this, Nox,” Finn argues. “Besides, you know Dad would want you to try and make it work with this Beck chick. Married is married.”
“What about Beck? Does she know you’re trying to set her up?” I ask Liv.
“No,” she admits. “She‘d never in a million years agree to it, which is why you can’t tell her.”
“Do you expect me to make her fall in love with me or something?” What if she does? That’s the last thing I need. Don’t want that at all. Thought I wanted it that morning she disappeared. I was mind fucked back then. Now? Don’t need the trouble.
“No. I wouldn’t ask that of you. It’s probably not realistic. She doesn’t believe in love. All you need to do is make it through three months of real married life. It won’t be easy though.”
I can handle it. “I wouldn’t expect so.”
I stalk out to the kitchen, and Finn flops onto my couch, his feet sticking over the end, and kicks off his shoes.
“You don’t believe you could deal with her?” She sounds perplexed.
Staying married to the woman for another three months won’t be so bad. We’ve been married for almost two years now. And this last little bit, it’s for a good cause. “No, I could definitely...” I’m being handled right now, aren’t I? Wheedled and cajoled into agreeing to this deal. “Always this charming in business, Liv?”
“Only when I need to be.”
A rumbling freight train fills the cabin with noise. Just Finn, asleep on his back. He has a point. Taking Liv’s deal would get my family back on their feet. I could pay my siblings back and make good on my promise to dad to take care of his legacy. I could get Casey Records running again. Restore it. Maybe even do something that would have made the old man proud.
“Are you near a railroad?” Liv asks curiously.
“No. That’s not... It’s nothing.” Am I really considering this crazy plan? “But why is this so important to you if your friend doesn’t believe in love?”
“Because she married you.”
“I don’t get it,” I say.
She laughs like it’s the greatest joke in the world. “If you knew her, you’d understand how big that truly is.”
I rap on the door to room 107 and wait. I’m fifteen minutes late thanks to the conversation with Liv. We’re probably not off to a good start. Though I’m supposed to be here to talk about annulling the marriage, not making it real, so it probably doesn’t matter. Beck Casey will most likely hate my guts from this point on.
The door finally opens, and I catch my breath. There’s that same overwhelming crush in my chest from earlier today. That same sensation that washed over me when I said hello to a stranger at a bar in Vegas, and she twisted on her stool to smile at me. “Damn it, you’re still just as beautiful.”
Her blue eyes widen and then narrow as though she’s not sure what to make of my admission. Can’t blame her. I didn’t expect it either. “Will you come in?”
“Absolutely.” I follow her as she turns and walks back into the suite. “What brings you to my neck of the woods?”
The room is huge. One of the bigger rooms the Lakeside Hotel offers. The large dining table is littered with clothing, shoes, and minibar bottles of champagne. The ones that hold about one glass, two for a lightweight.
“Work. I’m a journalist for an online publication.”
Something inside my gut tightens unexpectedly. We talked a lot that night. About life and art and music. But there are things about my past I didn’t tell her. Doesn’t mean she couldn’t have dug up the information herself. “There’s something around here that’s worth writing about?”
“I don’t know yet. But I’ll be spending a few months here while Liv gets this hotel running the way she likes and there are a few landmarks I want to check out. I hope that isn’t going to be an issue.” She makes her way toward the couch in bare feet, folding them under her when she sits. Her eyes are a little glazed. She picks up her laptop from the coffee table where half a dozen hotel mugs with cherry red lipstick stains on the rims sit in stages of coffee consumption interruptus. A Nikon sits beside several books that are stacked on a lamp table.
“Nope. No issue.” That’s only going to make it easier to keep my end of the deal I made with Liv.
“I’m not sure how we go about this. I’ve been trying to work it out.” She pats the couch beside her. “I looked it up to see if perhaps we were lucky and it had never been registered.”
“And?” I sit down beside her, carefully, giving her space. Don’t want to throw her off just yet.
“Unfortunately, we’re very married, Mr. Casey.”
“Nox. Call me Nox.”
“Okay then, Nox. We’re very married and have been these past twenty-one months. Proving the marriage invalid might be a touch difficult considering the amount of time that’s passed and that we consummated it.” She glances at me out of the corner of her eye while she blushes.
They’re some of my favorite memories too. “It was quite the night.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that.” She squirms away from me. Not enough to be rude, just enough that I notice. “All that alcohol. I have little recollection.”
I glance at her thigh, where one of her hands is balled up in a fist, and then reach for a magazine in the spread on the table. “Rock Rag? August 2001?”
“Yes. Research.”
“Sophie Valentine was the spread, right?” I flick through. “You said you were a fan of The Valentines, if I recall.”
“I did.” She plucks the magazine from my hands and puts it back with High Frequency and Chorded. “I met her once. Didn’t marry her though.”
“I suppose if you had you wouldn’t be trying to work out how to void it.”
“Would anyone? She’s amazing. That voice.” She puts the laptop down on the glass topped table. Last time we’d been near a glass table she’d been more than eager to make our wedding night real. “Like an angel.”
“I might know a guy.” I shrug. “Who thinks she’s the devil.”
She snorts, settling back into the plush leather and dragging a pillow onto her lap. “I think I remember you making me laugh.”
I had. As much as possible. Couldn’t get enough of the way her eyes lit up and crinkled in the corners because of me. “I liked putting a smile on your face. Made me happy.”
“You weren’t when you came to the bar.” She frowns as she drops the pillow over the side of the couch and gets up.
No, I wasn’t, but she’d made me smile. It was some kind of magic. I follow her movements across the room. “It had been a rough day.”
She opens the fridge and pulls out another one of those mini champagne bottles along with a couple of tiny liquor bottles. “Do you drink red label?”
“Sure.”
“Great.” She snags a tumbler from a tray on top of the fridge and walks back to where I’m sitting. I watch her legs. Long, tanned pins, shapely, flexible, and dangerous to a man’s pulse. She’s wearing tiny crushed cotton shorts with daisies on them and a long-sleeved T-shirt, despite having the air conditioning running at an almost icy level. Can’t drag my gaze from them. Even when she stops right in front of me and drops the glass in my lap. “Time to work out the quickest and easiest way out of this mess.”
Might be the nicest mess I’ve ever found myself in.
CHAPTER FOUR
To have and to hold? Until death do us part?
Over my dead body.
Or should that be his?
The only thing he’ll be holding is his balls by the time I’m done with him.
BECK
I’m tipsy. Probably wasn’t the smartest move, pre-drinking this situation, but it was something to do while I mentally ran through t
he conversation we’d have.
I’d tell him we’d most likely need a divorce, not an annulment. I’d reassure him that I didn’t want anything from him. And he’d be ready, willing, and more than eager to go along with it. It’s all a formality at this point.
A formality. Because this isn’t real. And seeing him again, freaking out over it, makes me realize how much I need to put it behind me. Can’t believe I waited this long to deal with it. “We’ll probably have to involve a lawyer. If they can’t void it, at least they’ll be able to help us to divorce.”
“Hmmm.”
He’s looking at me like...I don’t know. It’s prickly and uncomfortable and altogether too friendly. It’s one step forward and one to the left of pure lust. It’s what I’m coming to imagine is straight up Nox Casey. Dangerous. Surely he must have used this same look on me the first time we met. “Are you really single?”
“No.” He puts the glass on the coffee table and scoots forward. His knees are on either side of my legs. There are rips in his jeans, threadbare patches in the tight material around his muscular thighs.
“Didn’t think so. Liv tried to tell me you were, but...” I shake my head. Have to get back on track. “You’ll probably be relieved to have this behind you.”
“I don’t think you understand.” He reaches out and takes a hold of my hand, bringing it between us. “You might not wear the ring but married is married.”
“Until we’re divorced.”
“Until then.” He tugs me toward him, and I land on his knee. Déjà vu. Or is this similar to something I forgot? Warm blue eyes stare into me as he secures my position with one arm, but ugh, I’m not drunk enough to get lured in this time. “So we’ll talk to a lawyer tomorrow? File the paperwork? Be done with this?”
His fingers are cruising along my side. His other hand still holds my left hand as he moves his face closer to mine. Warm breath, and oranges blossom, and trees. He smells like sturdiness, and dependability, and nature. Christ, can a scent convey all that?
“Beck?” His mouth is wide, his tone hushed and musical. “Ever considered this so-called mistake we made might not be such a bad thing?”
“What?” I whisper. He is sheer animal magnetism. Does he know that?
He finally lets go of my hand and puts two fingers against the base of my jaw. The way his lips move is intoxicating to watch. “I’m not going to divorce you.”
“Mmm.” He’s not going to divorce me. It must be shock that makes it difficult to comprehend what those words mean. It takes me a moment to get it clear. “What?”
“I’m not going to divorce you, Beck Casey.”
I jump off his lap as though I’m in danger of being bitten by a venomous spider. “What do you mean you won’t...are you crazy?”
“Not crazy.” He scratches at the neat stubble on his chin.
“Then what? I don’t have any money. I don’t own any assets. You’re not going to get anything out of me if that’s what you’re hoping for.”
“Didn’t consider it,” he says, no deceit in his tone.
I stalk across the room to put some space between us. What the hell is his problem? What’s he hoping to achieve? “Y-you’re not some Neanderthal that thinks he can drag me back to his cave and I’m going to cook and clean and...”
“A girl like you?” His lip curls the tiniest amount. And what’s that supposed to mean? A girl like me? “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Then what? I’m not going to fall in... I won’t develop...”
“Love. Feelings,” he offers.
“Right. That.” A shiver runs up my spine. Just the thought of them tastes awful on my tongue.
“I don’t know, Mrs. Casey.” He climbs to his feet, spreading big hands on his thighs when he shrugs. “I think we ought to give this thing a shot. See what happens.”
“Divorce happens,” I fire back. My voice is rising. I’m practically shouting. Divorce happens. All the time. Or death. Nothing much else in life is certain. Those two are guaranteed. “And I don’t need you to agree to make it happen.”
“I suppose you don’t.” His expression grows serious, hard around the edges like it was earlier. He steps away from the couch.
“Let me show you out.” I march toward him, veer in the direction that will have him leaving my life again. The sooner the better. Opening the door, I hold it for him. “I’ll have my lawyer get in touch with you. That way we won’t have to see each other again.”
He stands there for a moment, his gaze flicking from me to the hallway beyond. Just leave already.
“Actually, I’m good right here.” He puts a hand behind his back and my mind overlays it with him taking his shirt off. The way he’d grabbed the collar and pulled it up over his back, those shoulder muscles stretching fluidly. Those pectoral muscles tensing and then relaxing. The tattoo with those words about taking life on like a beast. Only it’s not memory. He’s shirtless, the cotton dangling from his fist.
“What are you doing?” I march back toward him.
I’ll push him out the door if I have to, shirt or no shirt. My hands are on his skin before I have time to plan this through properly. Thick, corded muscle bunches and releases under my palms, but doesn’t budge. The man is an oak; tall, proud, unmovable.
He stares down at me with that twisted half smile. God, if I could wipe that expression straight off his gorgeous face...Or at least if he could stop looking at me like he’s hungry and I’m a Kobe steak. It’s been a long time. A really long time. Two years almost. Twenty-one months to be exact.
Rugged arms, well-developed and bronzed, probably from some sort of outdoor labor, surround me. Big hands grip my hips, more intently this time, holding me still. “You might want to stop pushing me, or I might take it to mean you like touching me.”
“I don’t,” I say, slightly out of breath from trying to move something so immovable.
“Didn’t like it that night we spent together either, did you?” He peers at me a little too close for comfort, like he’s trying to see something more than I’m showing.
And okay, he’s gorgeous, and I have a thing for a great set of arms. I mean a phenomenal pair of arms. Perfect, corded forearms, sculpted from marble biceps, shoulders you could park a Coupe de Ville on. And his hold on me is spreading warmth into all the parts of my body that I’ve ignored and put a lock on. Because of him. Because I married him. Even though I didn’t mean to, and it meant less than nothing. What’s even more less than nothing? It meant that.
Still. I tug on my lip with my teeth and take a deep breath, which might be a mistake since his scent makes saliva pool in my mouth. And now my panties need changing, not that he needs to know.
“You were something.” Is his voice rusty with desire, or am I imagining it? “Eager. Demanding. You couldn’t get enough. You’re one of my favorite memories.”
“I don’t remember.” It’s not a lie. No matter how hard I try, there are parts I will never recall.
“I can fix that.” He drops his face closer to mine, and now all I can see is his wide sensual lips and that small dimple in the right corner where they crease. Boy, he knows how to bring back what I do remember. “I could kiss you like I did that night. If you wanted me to.”
Maybe I do want him to. Just to see what all the fuss is about. I must nod, because his eyes get bluer. If that’s even possible. Those firm weights brush along my lips, and I get a little lost in the sensation and the solidness of his kiss and the way the tip of his tongue touches my bottom lip.
“No.” I push both hands into his chest, which only serves to keep him where he is while I take a step back. “No, this isn’t what we’re doing here.”
“It could be.”
“Don’t try to confuse me.” Why can’t he just agree? To cancel our marriage. To get out of my hotel room. “Why are you being difficult? Why won’t you go along with this?” I can hear the desperation rising in my voice. “It shouldn’t matter to you.”
“Well,
Beck Casey—”
“It’s Beck,” I snip. “Or Beckett, or if you insist on using my full name, Beck McClain. It isn’t Beck Casey. It will never be Beck Casey.”
“Fine. Beck.” He practically rolls his eyes, like my discomfort amuses him. “You can go ahead and start the proceedings. And sooner or later you’ll get your wish. But until then I’m going to stay right here. See what happens.”
“You can’t.”
“See that’s the beauty of marriage, Beck. I can.” He glances around, notices the open door to the bedroom. “Now if you don’t need me for anything else, babe, I’m exhausted.”
“Don’t you dare.” I grip his arm to stop him from marching into the bedroom. “I’ll call hotel security. The police. My lawyer.”
He glances at the somewhat ineffectual hold I have on his arm. “You go ahead and do that. I’ll wait.”
Is he for real? I guess so, since he wanders into the bedroom, drops his shirt on my floor, and flops onto his back amidst the tangled covers and my clothes that I left out when I tried to work out what to wear for this evening’s simple conversation. Easy, yeah right!
Legs hanging over the edge, he kicks off his shoes and shuts his eyes, resting one hand under his head. The other pops the button on his jeans and undoes his zip about an inch. I catch my breath. Is he really going to make this situation even more uncomfortable than it already is? He wouldn’t be that perverted, would he? Sliding his fingers into the top of them, he stills, exhales, and relaxes.
I should be relieved that he didn’t get naked, but I’m almost disappointed. Such a pretty man. Ugh, that’s the last thing that should be on my mind. Such an obstinate prick.
He can’t stay here. I storm across the room and pull on a pair of ballet flats before walking out of the suite and directly to Liv’s door. Bang. Bang. Bang. The nerve of him, telling me he won’t end this sham of a marriage then falling asleep in my bed. The absolute nerve. “Liv, open up.”
Nothing.
My palm starts to sting from slamming it against her door. She’ll know what to do with him. She’s better at dealing with the opposite sex than I am. “Liv, come on. I need your help.”
