“To answer your first question—no, I don’t miss trading. I still love numbers, their orderliness and dependability, but racking up dollars in my bank account was pretty empty.”
She looked over, all clear blue eyes and windblown hair, and despite her secrets and her father’s potentially career-damaging conviction, Nick felt something raw and primitive and protective release inside his gut, but he shoved the instinct aside. He needed to stay focused on his goals, his long-term, worked-his-ass-off-to-get-there goals.
“Oh, turn here.” Marianne pointed toward an entrance half hidden by the tall sea grass and he made a hard left onto a pristine pebbled driveway. They drove a short distance along the shoreline to the water’s edge where, surrounded by wide expanses of manicured lawn, stood an exquisite beach house. Strike that, a beach mansion.
“Holy shit.” The hits just kept coming. He sure as hell wasn’t in Brooklyn anymore.
Her fingers twisted the skirt’s hem into a knot. “Six bedrooms, seven baths, every room with a view of Gardiner’s Bay.”
“Even the bathrooms?”
“Even the bathrooms.”
“Holy shit,” he said again—for emphasis. Definitely not Brooklyn.
“Lord, here she comes.” Marianne glanced up the driveway, exchanged the sunglasses for her spectacles, and straightened her shoulders as if expecting a hard line tackle from a Giants defensive back. Nick wondered why the hell she looked so uptight until…
“Oh, sweet baby chicken, you made it.” A petite redhead waved at them, her heels crunching on the pebbled driveway as she approached. “Come here and give your mother a hug.”
Rooted to the passenger seat, Marianne’s eyes rounded at the words “sweet baby chicken,” and her everyday blush turned raging scarlet.
“Mom, please, this is so not the time,” she said, smoothing the line of her skirt.
Paying no attention, the woman pulled Marianne from the car and enveloped her into a bear hug that lasted a full two minutes. Finished, she gave the ring on Marianne’s left hand a quick glance and trained her sights on Nick. “And this must be your new fiancé.”
Nick plastered on his most charming smile and extended his hand. Her new fiancé. What the fuck. What the hell happened to her old fiancé?
“That’s me,” he said, with a pointed look at Marianne. “The new guy.” His one and only fiancée was full of more secrets than Al Capone’s vault.
“I like him,” her mother said, accepting his hand with a sly smile. “A vintage Spider, a sapphire engagement ring, smart enough to propose to you—the man’s a keeper.”
A six week kind of keeper. He cocked an eyebrow, wondering how her family would react when fiancé number two hit the bricks.
Releasing his hand, Mrs. McBride linked her arm through her daughter’s and started toward the house. “The barbecue starts at seven. Cocktails at six.”
“But where’s Dad?” Marianne asked, stumbling in her sneakers alongside her mom, her gaze searching back for Nick.
“With his parole officer.”
Nick shot her a reassuring smile, pulled three suitcases from the back end of the car, and shut the trunk with a swift, solid crash. Welcome to the Hamptons.
…
A carnival.
Marianne stood under the twilight sky in the midst of a literal circus and sipped her vodka-laced frozen rainbow. While she wasn’t much of a drinker, if there was a time to start drinking seriously, it was when your parents threw a welcome-home-from-prison carnival, complete with flamethrowers and funnel cake. If she could melt into the shimmering flagstone patio and leave her peep-toe heels behind, she would. Instead, she’d have to be content with retreating to the edge of the party until she could face down her ex, show off her sexy side, and make him eat his words. One by one. But where was her impeccably charming date?
She took a sip of the multicolored drink as her gaze scanned the crowd until she saw him—not Nick. Her ex, her proverbial nightmare, her Jason—and not like sexy-soap-opera-hero Jason, more like Friday-the-13th-mask-wearing Jason. Yes, that’s who he was—her nightmare on Ocean Avenue. She wanted to stab him with her cocktail umbrella. He caught her eye and started toward her. She bit down hard on her bottom lip.
Where the heck was Nick?
In a moment of weakness, she considered bolting until she could find him, but blushing and bolting were the old Marianne’s habits. While having Nick stand beside her all sexy and spectacular would have been ideal, he was…currently out of range. And while another two weeks of practicing her seductive skills would’ve been helpful, her dad’s early release had made the additional practice impossible. But she was ready. She reached for her cardigan draped on the back of the wrought iron chair, but her fingers stopped short of picking it up. Cardigans were no longer required. She didn’t need a cotton suit of armor. She needed confidence.
Marianne took another sip of her neon cocktail and shifted into her best Marilyn pose, shoulders back and down, one foot slightly in front of the other as if ready to step out and sashay. Despite the pose, a modicum of panic took residence in the back of her throat, but she refused to fall to pieces. If the cake jumping was her subway grate moment, then right now was Some Like it Hot, and she was ready to show her miserable cheating ex what he’d let go.
Jason worked his way across the lawn—without the dominatrix, she noted—and Marianne adjusted the sweetheart neckline of her light blue sundress to accentuate her sans-cardigan curves. Not flirting. Just underscoring her point.
Jason closed the last of the distance between them and, as the multicolored circus lights twinkled down from the palm trees, he leaned in and kissed her cheek.
An old reflex reared its ugly head, and she closed her eyes and breathed in his Dial soap and musk scent. But she felt nothing. A twinge of annoyance or irritation, maybe, a bit of curiosity about the missing dominatrix, but otherwise…nothing. Even the desire to stab him with the cocktail umbrella had evaporated into the night air. Certainly, there was none of the panting, desperate heat she felt when she looked at Nick. None of the longing that accompanied even his simplest kiss. With Nick, the world fell away.
Right now, Marianne knew exactly where she stood—across from a man who’d stolen a part of her. A part she hadn’t known was missing until her time in close proximity to Nick. A part she was ready to reclaim.
“Hello, Marianne.” Jason smiled, attractive in his polo-shirted, moneyed way. “You look…different.”
“Different?” Not exactly the when-did-you-get-so-smoking-hot/I-was-a-fool-to-let-you-go reaction she’d been imagining, but she tried hard not to let him crawl under her skin.
“Different,” he said, lowering his voice to the level of secrets. “And amazing.”
“Thank you.” Marianne offered a tight smile. The past ten months, all she’d wanted was to prove him wrong—prove she wasn’t an ice queen—maybe hear him say she looked amazing. But now that he’d said it, she simply wanted to forget the past and move on. Even if he’d failed to be loyal to her, he’d been an invaluable asset to her father. “Thank you for helping my dad. I understand you worked to secure his early release.”
He buried his free hand into the pocket of his Jack Spade Bermudas and eased back on his leather sandals. “The least I could do for my mentor, a man who was like a father-in-law to me.”
Almost exactly like a father-in-law. The thought provided more relief than regret.
“Where is your new girlfriend?” Marianne asked, raising her hand to gossip behind the tips of her fingers in the way she’d seen people do, as if the existence of a dominatrix was too hush-hush to say aloud.
He raised his glass of white wine in a kind of mock good-bye. “No longer my girlfriend.”
Funny, how she’d never noticed his white wine fixation before. Never red wine or tequila or dark beer, nothing to stain his designer clothes. “Decided she preferred a different kind of kinky?”
He raised his eyebrows in an expression filled with h
umor and surprise. “Listen to you, kitten. Less than a year away from the Street and you’ve got claws.”
Marianne circled her vodka-based carnival-in-a-cup with the red and white striped straw. “Oh, I’ve learned a few tricks since you and your ex-dominatrix sent me packing. More than a few, actually.” Her gaze searched the starlit patio for Nick and found him walking toward her, leaving behind her father and his parole officer, each one of them holding an extra-large cone of cotton candy. She glanced back at her ex. “And for the record, I never liked being called kitten.”
A misty-eyed, almost pleading look ambled across his face, and he reached for her elbow, only to be edged out of the way by her bigger, brawnier fiancé.
“Hello, gorgeous,” Nick said, dropping a lingering kiss on her mouth before handing over the sugar-spun candy. “Your dad’s been showing me around the place.”
Flushed and unreasonably pleased to see him, Marianne smiled up at him, lifted a couple inches of the pink confection from its cone, and settled a bit on her tongue. She let its sweetness melt in her mouth, and imagined licking the tasty treat from her fiancé’s lips. Or other less accessible places. A warmth that had nothing to do with vodka stole through her system and she pulled more candy from the cone as her gaze drifted south along the line of Nick’s body.
He looked so yummy wearing a sand-colored linen shirt, open at the collar, and a pair of navy pants that showed off his muscular hips and thighs to such perfection. She dragged her gaze back to his eyes to keep from staring. Wow, the thoughts he made race through her brain. She shook her head and raised another piece of the candy to her lips. Delicious.
Jason cleared his throat, and she blinked over at him, surprised again by how the world simply fell away whenever Nick was close enough to touch. Blushing, she turned back toward her ex and dropped a bombshell smile. “Jason, this is my fiancé, Nick Wright.” She looked up at him from beneath her lashes. “Nick, Jason Ward.”
MasterCard priceless. There was no other way to describe the look on her ex’s face. No calculation or analysis could capture the way his smile faltered, the way the color drained from behind his spring tan. The blond highlights. The sexy sundress. The updated eyewear with the perfect amount of bling. All absolutely priceless when compared to the look of shock on her ex-fiancé’s face.
Never a woman who enjoyed another person’s discomfort, a twinge of guilt twisted in her stomach. But then she remembered her hopeful willingness, the satin panties, the dominatrix. Timid. Hopeless. Ice queen. She drew in a wobbly breath. Misplaced guilt would have to wait.
The men spent a minute sizing each other up before Nick extended his hand. “Jason.”
“Nick.” He reached out to accept the handshake, and she noticed how he seemed dwarfed by Nick’s build and presence. “Engaged? Not expected, but congratulations seem to be in order.”
Not expected. Marianne fought an urge to wrinkle her nose at the condescending comment. “And yet, current statistics show that four out of five people fall in love within one year of a breakup.”
Jason gave her a flirtatious wink. “But do statistics show how long that kind of love lasts, Marianne? Or are you simply talking about a rebound relationship?”
Nick smiled easily, letting his fingers rest on her hipbone in a proprietary way that screamed, back off, she’s mine. The caveman move sent a girly thrill racing up her spine and made her want to sneak into the clown’s tent and shimmy out of her sundress.
“I don’t know about you, Jason,” he said in a low voice tinged with warning. “I’m not much of a statistics guy, unless we’re talking quarterback ratings, and yet, I fell for this woman at first glance.” He made a sexy sound of approval in the back of his throat. “One look at her curves in this hot, silvery dress, and I’ll tell you, I was lost.”
Lost.
Yes.
That’s exactly how she’d felt.
He grinned down at her like a man in real love. She took a breath and reminded herself that their engagement was temporary, a six-week run that closed as soon as the show was over. Still, when he looked at her that way, convincing her heart of their short-term status proved to be difficult, especially when it all felt so real. “Funny how that can happen.”
“Funny.” His fingers fanned out, skimming her hips and upper thigh, and Marianne felt the temperature between them rise into the red zone. Not timid or hopeless or icy. Her gaze moved back to her former fiancé, and she was pleased to find him staring, practically open-mouthed—like a carp. She shifted toward him in that innocent, Marilyn way she’d practiced. “Some loves do last, Jason.”
His gaze raked over her body, seeming to take in how Nick’s palm had drifted south and now rested firmly across her backside. Probably wondering if she let Nick spank her.
“My loss,” he said, pressing his hand to his chest in a mock gesture of pain. “But maybe we can put the past behind us. Get a drink next time I’m in the city.”
Meeting up with Jason didn’t interest her in the least, but she played along. “We’ll have to check the calendar, right, honey?”
Nick nuzzled her cheek in an intimate gesture that was all kinds of possessive, and Marianne felt her breath catch in her throat. She was overheating like a late-night bonfire on Montauk Beach. “Why don’t you call my office?” Nick said.
A small, hopeful smile touched her lips. Was she misreading the situation, or was Nick actually staking his claim? Could he be jealous?
Marianne shook away the notion. He’d agreed to play the charming fiancé, and he was simply doing a bang-up job. The annoyance written on his face at her subtle flirtation, at the mention of an off-the-books date with her ex was all in her imagination. Then he reached for her cardigan and draped it securely over her shoulders. Definitely a caveman move.
Marianne gave him a sidelong look and let the sweater fall away, but before she could blink, he was easing it back over her shoulders, buttoning the top button as if saying it was fine for him to encourage and embrace her wild, cake girl side. But as for anyone else…forget it. She turned her attention briefly back to her ex and said, “Yes, call the office and we’ll see if we can make it happen.”
Jason offered a slow nod of comprehension. “Call your office. Absolutely. Where are you working, Nick?”
Her fiancé’s muscles tensed, but his easy smile never wavered. “Morgan Wealth Management & Trust. Midtown.”
She smiled up at him. “Nick’s about to make partner at the firm.”
“Impressive,” Jason said, his indifferent expression belying his words, “I’m considering a hedge fund investment. Maybe I throw some business your way?”
Marianne felt Nick turn to stone at her side. “Be my guest.”
Another nod. “Nick Wright, Morgan Trust. I will definitely be in touch.” Jason returned their smiles, but the way he spoke felt off, like it was part promise, part veiled threat. He lifted his drink in lieu of a handshake. “Enjoy the carnival.”
As he walked away, Marianne’s eyes narrowed on his back. Something about his cagey exchange with Nick made her decidedly ill-at-ease when she ought to be celebrating. She’d done it, convinced her ex-fiancé’s cheating ass that she’d moved on with the world’s most perfect man. A feat that seemed impossible a week ago. And she owed it all to Nick, her six-week fiancé. A small stab of pain twisted in her chest. Her time with Nick was already 17 percent over. She winced. Only 83 percent left.
“Everything okay?” Nick asked, his chin nestled against her temple, the tension seemingly melting away from his body.
“Everything is okay.” Everything except how her heart would suffer when the percentages failed to work in her favor.
Marianne leaned her head back against his chest and gazed at the bright lights of the miniature Ferris wheel in the distance. There was only one man at this carnival she wanted to take for a spin tonight. The man who held her in his arms and made her feel protected and free. She turned around in his arms slowly, letting her breasts skim acros
s his chest as her palms ran up his chest to the open neck of his shirt.
Her hands slipped inside his collar, and she took a step back, enjoying the heat of his gaze skimming over the curves of her body. She drew in a soft breath and unbuttoned the cardigan. The thin cotton fell away from her shoulders tugging the straps of her sundress down an inch or two on both sides. She tossed him a naughty smile. “Ready to take a ride?”
Nick glanced over his shoulder and quickly back. “Is that a trick question?”
Chapter Thirteen
“Listen more, talk less.”
—mantelligence.com
“Don’t move.”
Sweet Jesus, Nick wasn’t going anywhere. Not now. Maybe not ever.
Across the dimly lit third floor bedroom, Marianne eased the strap of her sundress away from her shoulder. Outside, the carnival rolled on, noisy and bright and crowded. But here in this intimate, quiet room, it was just the two of them, and Nick had never felt so turned on in his life.
Holding his gaze, Marianne bit down on her bottom lip as her hand moved to the side zipper. She tugged on the pull slowly and the sound of the small metal links unzipping echoed across the room. He made a move toward her, but she held up her palm. “Not yet,” she whispered in a sweet, shaky voice.
Nick pressed his back against the door and stayed put, ready to do anything she asked. Marianne was in the driver’s seat, and he was enjoying every single second of watching her move along the road to seduction.
In an achingly adorable motion, she eased the pastel blue fabric down one arm and then the other until she was naked from the waist up. No striptease had ever been this sweet. Or this hot. His palms itched to touch her. He wanted to breathe her sweet, citrus scent, taste the salt air on her skin.
She was beautiful.
Crazy-beautiful.
He’d seen a lot of attractive women, but not one of them struck a chord in him like his fiancée. She was too good for him, so smart and freaking sexy, but awkward and vulnerable, too, an intoxicating mix. Maybe it was his protective instincts kicking in, but staying away from her was becoming impossible. He’d actually been jealous of her ex, the way he’d looked at her like he’d known her. Nick knew better. If he’d really known Marianne, he never would have let her go.
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