He needed a fiancée…you needed a date. Two plus two equals…
Personally, I think you should go for it! I mean, if you want to.
Just don’t give me too many details. LOL.
After all, he is my brother.
So be good. But not too good. :)
Marianne let go a sigh. Even texting her friend was exhausting. She turned down her tree-lined street and typed out a message. Not mad. Not anymore anyway. Not entirely. And I’m always good. Truth be told, she’d spent her life meeting, or rather, exceeding expectations. She bit down on her bottom lip and typed out the question boomeranging around inside her brain before she could change her mind. Eyes closed, she pressed send. But maybe I need to be bad?
A response pinged back almost immediately. Being bad sounds good. Then another. Maybe it’s time to act on that mad crush of yours.
A blush crept across her cheeks as she typed in her response. How long have you known?
The answer came back immediately. How long have you been working here?
Marianne climbed the front steps of her brownstone, typing as she ran through a mental list of what she’d need to pack. Six months.
And when did you first get a look at my brother? Her stomach did a stop, drop, and roll at the memory. Five months, fifteen days and six or seven hours ago. She wrinkled her nose at the digital confessional. Give or take.
Ping.
That’s how long I’ve known. <3
…
Nick rounded the corner of Mercer, heading home early—something he never did—to help his fiancée move into his place, a place that would be her home for the next six weeks. Sweet Jesus, talk about terrifying. He reached up to loosen the red power tie that suddenly felt too tight. Six weeks, six survivable weeks.
A new message buzzed into his phone, and he winced at the thought of another Congratulations, welcome to the club text. Or worse, another Are we still on for Saturday night invitation?
So much for no sleepovers, no back-to-back dates. His dating rules were about to take a serious beating. Thank God it wasn’t football season. He pulled up the text. Yankees game at the bar tonight. Up for it? Or are you spending the night with your fiancée?
Not a congratulations. Not an invitation. Just the inevitable taunt from the guy who’d slipped a ring on his sister’s finger a couple of months ago. And he would’ve fucked up the whole deal, too, if Nick hadn’t been around. What was he doing giving Nick a hard time? He typed out a message in response to Charlie’s text. You’re an asshole.
A grin creased his face as he pocketed the phone. Always best to keep it short and sweet.
But no matter how much shit he took from his friend, he’d be spending tonight, and several more nights, with Marianne, learning as much about her as possible. If they were going to pull this off, he needed to know more than just her preference for tea over coffee. They needed to get intimate. Or know a few intimate details, anyway.
The sunshine reflecting off the casement windows of his pre-war building welcomed him home, but as he neared the entry, his gaze drifted to the sight of a pair of killer legs. He stopped in the middle of the cobblestone sidewalk and stared at the woman parked in the loading zone in front of his building, the one reaching into the backseat of an aquamarine Prius, the one with the legs. Damn, his temporary fiancée got some back.
Hell, she’d looked so sexy this morning in her skintight workout gear he’d gone momentarily off the rails and flirted with her. His sister’s off-limits friend. He’d figured it was a one-time attraction. But now she was standing there on the sidewalk, all covered up in the knee-length skirt, and she still looked cute. Damned cute. Or maybe it was simply that Nick knew what lay underneath the prim hemline—a set of curves designed to conjure up some decidedly un-cute thoughts. Not that he should be noticing.
Despite her bodacious backside, Marianne McBride was not his type. Too uptight and inflexible. She drove a freaking Prius, for Christ’s sake. An aquamarine Prius. He shook his head. Probably a member of the Sierra Club, too.
Still, there was something about her…
But hooking up with a friend for a night of casual, no strings attached sex was not her style. Maybe he didn’t know her well, but that much he knew. Marianne was nice. Probably liked nice guys, too, guys willing to settle down in some solar-powered, all-brick colonial in the suburbs, willing to drive matching hybrids and have enough mediocre sex to produce two appropriate kids.
No. Thank. You.
Still, watching her heart-shaped ass move in that little pencil skirt had him thinking of other slightly less predictable futures. A future of hot sex. Of teaching the good girl the thrill of being bad. Highly improbable futures. Good thing she was strictly off-limits because an all-brick colonial was not for him. No, he was committed to a totally hands-off, sex-free six weeks. He shook off his thoughts and walked over to the car
“Hello, Nick.” Two simple words, but somehow full of accusation.
He smiled over at her. “Marianne.”
All shapely legs and loaded tone, she stood on the edge of the cobblestone, clutching a cardboard box, blinking like an owl behind those ubiquitous glasses. A glance at the box told him it was overstuffed to the point of bursting with books. The only books he owned were law books and the thrillers his sister gave him every Christmas. Not a book guy. He reached for the box, but she tightened her grip as if the damn thing contained the secrets of the universe. He peered over the top of the cardboard. Romance novels and a Kindle, probably full of ’em. So Little Miss Cardigan had a romantic side.
“Let me help you.” He shot her a smile meant to charm and pried the box from her grip.
She gave him a wary look, turned to grab another box from the front seat, and swiveled to close the door with the rounded edge of her hip. Her prim skirt rode a little higher on her thighs, and Nick dragged in a breath. Man, like being kicked in the solar plexus. He shook off his reaction a second time. Funny how he’d never been taken in by her rockin’ curves before today. Probably had something to do with the tied-back hairstyle and the stressed-out attitude.
“Are you coming?” she asked over her shoulder, her tone clipped as she marched toward the front door. Right on cue—all uptight and inflexible.
Nick hefted the moving box onto his shoulder and followed his brand-new fiancée into the marble lobby. Six weeks, six survivable weeks. This partnership better be worth it, he thought, striding behind her. At least her swaying hips in that librarian-style skirt were a side benefit.
Behind the desk, his doorman gave him a knowing smile. “I hear love caught up with ya, huh, Mr. Wright?” Max said, hustling over to hold the door open, “Congratulations,” he offered with a nod toward Marianne. “She’s a real cutie.”
A real cutie. Even his doorman knew the librarian wasn’t his type.
“Thanks, Max,” he said, his voice full of affection for the man. “Keep an eye on her for me. Don’t let her get into any trouble.”
“You can count on me, sir.”
Nick glanced over at her, standing by the elevator, all buttoned-up in her cardigan, unlikely to indulge in any kind of trouble, certainly not the fun kind. From the corner of his eye, he saw Max behind the desk, still smiling, and a twinge of guilt twisted in Nick’s chest. Why did he have to be such an asshole? If not for Marianne, he’d be a man without a fiancée, a man without a shot in hell of scoring his partnership. So what if she was a little prim? She looked back at him over the top of her glasses. Okay, a lot prim. He could spend the next six weeks appreciating her killer legs. From a businesslike distance.
The elevator’s bronzed doors slid open with a ding that echoed through the lobby like the death knell of his single man status. Marianne stepped inside and, with her chin pressed against a wayward flap of the cardboard, turned to peer at him over the top of the moving box. Leaning forward slightly, she pressed the inside button with her elbow to hold the door for him.
Nick couldn’t remember the last time a
woman had held an elevator for him. Kinda sweet. He walked over to the elevator, stepped inside, and the doors rumbled closed behind him.
He gave her a short nod and pressed the button for the tenth floor. “If I neglected to say it earlier—thank you. For saving my ass.”
A nervous smile. A quiet voice. “You’re welcome.”
The elevator ascended with a whirr, and a palpable silence settled between them. Nick caught a glimpse of her in his peripherals. She stood ramrod straight, her tense gaze focused on the glimmering bronze ceiling. Nick shifted his weight from one refined Barker Black cap toe to another. The elevator buzzed higher—L, 1, 2, 3—its hushed, confined space growing close as the clean, sweet lemony scent of her skin floated toward him, a faint reminder of some sexy moment he couldn’t recall…a kiss, maybe…the provocative tang of citrus on a woman’s lips…or her hair, her skin.
Damn, he couldn’t quite remember.
He imagined pinning Miss Cardigan 101 into the corner, breathing in her fresh scent, kissing her up against the electronic grid, letting every floor light up as he unlooped each button on her sweater, hell-bent on discovering what an impossibly proper girl kept tucked away under her sensible cotton.
Ding.
Whoa, what was that? Nick shook his head in an attempt to lurch back to reality. The elevator doors opened on ten and Marianne slipped past him in a breeze that smelled like the kind of summer vacations he’d always imagined. Not the kind he’d shared with Jane and Jake. The girl gliding past him vacationed in the warm sun on some white sand beach. She didn’t float empty soda cans down the East River and call it a getaway. She didn’t wish for a family trip full of laughter and fun. She didn’t shoot off bottle rockets all summer and dream of something better. No, this girl was better.
In a strange fog, Nick stepped out of the elevator as the doors began to close, catching up to her outside his condo. Without a word of acknowledgment, she swiped the electronic key he’d messengered over and opened the heavy door into a stack of cardboard boxes. The seductive pull of her breezy scent evaporated like summer rain hitting the overheated Brooklyn sidewalk. Across the threshold, the espresso-stained floors were littered with neatly labeled containers. Clearly, this trip wasn’t her first.
“Planning to stay six weeks or sixty years?” he asked.
She gave him a half-guilty, half-apologetic smile. “Just the six weeks, but I’m renovating my place in Gramercy Park—is it okay?” Her blue eyes blinked at him.
Like he had a choice. “Works for me.”
He deposited his box onto the stack and followed her through the labyrinth of cardboard boxes muscling their way into his man-style home with its floor-to-ceiling windows and built-in sound speakers. She detoured from the narrow hallway into the bathroom, set her box on the marble vanity, and emptied its contents. He felt like he’d been kicked in the nuts. His sleek black counter was being overrun with a stash of girly products.
Nick stared at the impromptu beauty counter. He wasn’t compulsive about much and that neurotic line of Bed, Bath and Beyond scared the shit of out him.
Instinctively, he glanced toward his subway-tiled, walk-in shower and felt the color drain from his face. An aggressively floral set of shampoo and conditioner bottles filled the shelf. Worse, they were pink. Not even a normal pink, but a bright fuchsia that screamed, a woman is infiltrating your sanctuary. He drew in a breath. Right now, he didn’t care about her killer legs or how incredibly fantastic she smelled, his handsomely tiled, black and white bathroom was being overtaken by the feminine touch.
Nick turned around, ready to discuss the situation, but she was already gone. What the hell? He glanced down the hall. She was like a ninja. He took a few steps toward the back of the condo…and that’s when he heard the humming coming out of his bedroom. Worse, the humming of some decades-old love song.
He drew in a breath and counted to ten. He could manage. Nick Wright wasn’t about to be chased out of his own place or lose a partnership he’d worked his ass off to get, all because of a little bit of feminine gear and some humming. He was a professional. A reasonable, capable professional. He could take the noise. After all, she was doing him a major solid. He’d be wise to remember that, he thought, walking toward the sound.
Just outside the door, an old memory hit him, snapping into focus like a faded photograph made suddenly clear. A warm summer night, his mom sitting on the front steps of the row house, humming while she waited for his father to stumble home from some late-night poker game, probably three sheets to the wind, a fact she’d successfully hidden from his siblings, but not from Nick.
A stab of familiar guilt hit him hard. He despised being like his father, even in the smallest way. Sure, he didn’t drink or bet the mortgage on the ponies, but when it came to women…he played ’em the same way. Love ’em and leave ’em. He stepped into the doorway and leaned against the frame. The strategy had worked for him, too, kept all his relationships light and fun and distant.
Until now…
Now she was here, humming in his previously sacrosanct, good-times-only bedroom.
And—fuck. She was a real cutie.
Neurotic maybe, but cute. His gaze took in the three hard-case Louis Vuittons lined up against the back of the closet, all emptied, everything starched and ironed, neat as a pin. Yeah, the neuroses ran deep. “I hope you left some room in there for me,” he said, his tone laced with more than a fifth of irony.
Marianne turned around, blushing. “I’m sorry, I probably brought more than the basics, but better to be prepared, although I was wondering…about the whole closet…or rather, the bedroom, or well, the…um, the bed issue…” She drew in a breath. “Is this the only…the only…”
“The only bed?” He nodded and shoved his hands deep into his pockets. “To be honest, I never have overnight guests. Company, yes. Overnight, no.”
“Oh.” She adjusted the glasses against the bridge of her nose. “Female company?”
A smile played at the corner of his lips. “Is there any other kind?”
Her gaze fell to the floor in a trademark move he was already starting to recognize. Devil damned if he understood why, but the impulse to needle her was irresistible. All buttoned-up and serious, she was just so different from the sleek, ambitious legal eagles lined up to fill his empty bed on Saturday night.
But he had no business teasing his sister’s adorably serious, strictly off-limits friend. No business at all. He bent his head to catch her gaze. “I’ll sleep on the pullout in the office—without company.”
She chewed on her bottom lip. Another trademark.
“Make you a deal,” Nick said, walking over to grab her keys off the nightstand. “I’ll park your sensible hybrid, and you…finish unpacking.”
“But I need a few more things.”
A few more things? He drew in another long breath and did a recount to twenty. How much stuff did one small woman need?
“Not tonight,” he said. “Tonight we’ve got work to do. The rest can wait until tomorrow.”
She eyed the keys as if considering a quick grab, but he tucked them securely into the front pocket of his suit pants. A smile edged across his face. No way was she diving in there for a set of keys. Not Little Miss Cardigan.
“Dinner, one hour.” He gave her a wink and strode out of the bedroom. “My place.”
Chapter Five
“I am good. But not an angel.”
—Marilyn Monroe
Marianne folded the hemline of her skirt until it looked like an accordion. Precisely one hour had passed since the dinner invitation, and now, freshly showered, totally nervous, and semi-unpacked, she sat on the edge of the king-sized bed. Nick Wright’s king-sized bed.
The other night at Temptation, she’d worn a mask just to work up enough courage to give him a simple happy birthday kiss. Now she was sitting in his one and only bedroom, wondering what it would feel like to roll around with him beneath the soft down covers of his one and only king-size
d bed. How had this happened to her?
Happened in the sense that she’d pulled on a slinky dress, climbed into his birthday cake, and agreed to be his fake fiancée. That kind of happened to her. She drew in a breath. Everything was okay. She could handle being here in his souped-up SoHo bachelor pad.
Here.
Alone.
With Nick.
And her secret.
Her nerves fired on all cylinders. Her inner siren wanted out. Badly, and right now, but she couldn’t just grab Nick by the shirt collar. Is that what Marilyn would do?
No. Marilyn would smooth her skirt, give the bed with its inviting down comforter one final glance, and slip barefoot into the hallway, all breathtaking innocence and sensuality. Much more subtle than the shirt collar grab, Marianne thought, kicking off her shoes.
After all, he was making dinner. Hiding away in the bedroom would be rude. Besides, she was looking to step out from behind her books and glasses and kick it up a notch. Hopefully, she wouldn’t retreat into her shell or have some kind of panic attack. His reputation as a roll-me-hard tonight, don’t-call-tomorrow kind of guy was notorious. Nick wasn’t just stepping out of her shell. Nick was setting her shell on fire. A quick novena and she stepped into the hallway.
Whatever he’d been whipping up in the kitchen smelled fantastic, tangy and sweet. Italian, maybe. Her favorite. Despite the nerves, she was hungry. As a regular at Gristedes’ takeout counter, a home-cooked meal sounded like a dream, and the fact that this particular dinner came with a side dish of sexy made it all the more deliciously dreamy.
As she approached the living room, Marianne’s breath caught in her throat. The oversized windows, high beamed ceilings, and textured white walls were designed to catch the reflection of the city’s lights, and the effect was so romantic, it took her breath away. And scared her to her death. Forty-two nights in this place…with Nick.
Her gaze drifted to the coffee table. A bottle of wine. Softly burning candles. Ed Sheeran’s X album playing on the Bose. Her inner siren started dancing the merengue. Even Marianne knew what X meant. Sex, plain and simple. The correlation between music and intimacy topped most measurable charts, and documented research confirmed a well-curated playlist significantly increased the probability of sex. But there was the no-sex rule, the one her siren wanted to smash to bits, given that she’d not had sex in…well, in a very long time. Still, he couldn’t be playing this music for her.
Unexpectedly His Page 4
