His Not-So-Blushing Bride: Marriage with Benefits / Improperly Wed / A Breathless Bride

She rolled her eyes. “I don’t even want to know how you plan to guarantee that.” She let their hands slip apart and successfully navigated around him to leave the kitchen. Over her shoulder, she shot the parting volley. “See you at seven-ten.”

Later that night, Lucas hit the ground floor of their house at six fifty-five. When Cia descended the stairs at seven on the dot, his pulse stumbled. Actually stumbled. He’d known the floor-length red sheath would look amazing on her as soon as he’d seen it in the window.

Amazing didn’t cover it. She’d swept her hair up in a sexy mess of pins and dark locks and slipped black stockings over legs that peeped through the skirt’s modest slit.

“Darlin’, you take my breath away,” he called up with a grin contrived to hide the fact that he was dead serious. His lungs hurt. Or at least something in his chest did.

Compared to his vivacious wife, Lana was a pale, lackluster phantom flitting along the edges of his memory.

“Yeah, well, I have a feeling when I trip over this long dress, I’ll take my breath away, too,” she said as she reached the ground floor. “Did you seriously tell me to throw Versace in the trash?”

The distinctive scent of coconut and lime wafted over him.

“Not seriously.” His mouth was dry. He needed a drink. Lots of drinks. “I knew you wouldn’t hate it.”

“Don’t pat yourself on the back too hard. I’m only wearing it because the price tag is equal to the GDP of some small countries. It would be wrong to throw it away.” Sincerity oozed from her mouth. But he was onto her.

He stared her down. Even in heels, she only came up to his nose. “I still have the receipt. Pretty sure the store would take it back. Run upstairs and change. I’ll wait.”

“All right, all right.” She spit out a bunch of Spanish, and danged if it wasn’t sexy to watch her mouth form the foreign words. Then she sighed, and it was long-suffering. “It’s beautiful and fits like a dream. Because your ego isn’t big enough already, I will also admit you have an excellent eye for style. If you undress a girl as well as you dress one, your popularity with the ladies is well deserved.”

A purifying laugh burst out of him. He’d missed sparring with her this past week and the mental gymnastics required. When she engaged him brain to brain, it thoroughly turned him on.

Something was definitely wrong with him.

“Well, now. As it happens, I believe I’m pretty proficient at both. Anytime you care to form your own opinion, let me know. Ready?”

She laughed and nodded. Obviously, something was wrong with both of them, because he’d bet every last dollar that she enjoyed their heated exchanges as much as he did, though she’d likely bite off her tongue before saying so. Which would be a shame since he had a very specific use in mind for that razor-sharp tongue of his wife’s.

The ribbon-cutting ceremony at Walrich’s new facility was packed. People talked to Lucas, and he talked back, but he couldn’t for the life of him recall the conversations because he spent the evening entranced by his wife’s bare neck.

Since they were in public, he had every reason to touch her whenever the inclination hit, which happened often. The torch-red dress encased her slim body with elegance, and the sight of her very nice curves knifed him in the groin.

Sure he’d bought women clothes before, but not for a woman who lived under his roof and shared his last name. Everything felt bigger and more significant with Cia, even buying her an age-appropriate dress. Even bringing her to a social event with the strict intent of jump-starting his reputation rebuild.

Even casually resting his hand on the back of her neck as they navigated the room. The silk of her skin against his fingers bled through him with startling warmth. Startling because the response wasn’t only sexual.

And that just wasn’t possible.

“Let’s go,” he told Cia. Matthew could work potential clients, which was his strength anyway. “We’ve done enough mingling.”

“Already?” She did a double take at the expression on his face. “Okay. Where are we going for dinner?”

He swore. Dinner put a huge crimp in his intent to distance himself immediately from the smell of coconut and lime.

But if he bailed, whatever had just happened when he touched Cia would stick in his mind, nagging at him. Not cool. That fruity blend was messing with his head something fierce.

What was he thinking? He couldn’t leave the schmoozing to Matthew like he used to. Cia hadn’t balked at attending the ribbon cutting. What kind of coward let his wife do all the hard work?

The best way to handle this divorce deal, and his disturbing attraction to the woman on his arm, was obviously to remember the Lucas Wheeler Philosophy of Relationships—have a lot of sex and have a lot of fun, preferably at the same time.

This was a temporary liaison with a guaranteed outcome, and besides, he was with an inarguably beautiful woman. What other kind of response was there except sexual? Shake it off, Wheeler.

“A place with food,” he finally said.

Cia eyed her decadently beautiful husband, who should be required by law to wear black tie every waking hour, and waited a beat for the rest of the joke. It never came.

She hadn’t seen Lucas in a week and had started to wonder exactly how mad she’d made him by the pool. Then he’d appeared and asked her pretty please to attend this boring adult prom, which she couldn’t legitimately refuse, so she hadn’t. For her trouble, he’d spent the evening on edge and not himself. “Great. Places with food are my favorite.”

Matthew Wheeler materialized in front of them before they could head for the exit.

Lucas glanced at his brother. “What’s the climate with Moore?”

Since Matthew was pretending she was invisible, Cia openly studied her authoritative, remote brother-in-law. A widower, Lucas had said, and often dateless, as he was tonight. Clearly by choice, since any breathing woman would find Matthew attractive—as long as he didn’t stand next to Lucas. When he did, he was invisible, too.

“Better than I expected.” Matthew signaled a waiter and deposited his empty champagne flute on the tray. “He’s on the hook. I booked reservations in your name at the Mansion for four. Take Moore and his wife to dinner on me. Since closing the deal is your forte, I’ll bow out. Bring it home.”

As if they’d practiced it a dozen times, Lucas kissed Cia’s temple, and she managed to lean into it like his lips weren’t hotter than a cattle brand. Nothing like a spark of Lucas to liven up the prom.

Not that she’d know anything about prom. She’d missed that and the last half of senior year, thanks to the accident that had taken her parents.

“Do me a favor,” Lucas said, “and hang out with Matthew for a minute. Looks like we might have different plans for the evening.”

Then he strode off through the crowd to go work his magic on some unsuspecting guy named Moore.

Matthew watched her coolly through eyes a remarkably close shade to Lucas’s. “Having a good time, Cia?”

Oh, so she’d miraculously reappeared. But she didn’t mistake the question as friendly. “Yes, thank you. Your clients are impressive.”

“What few we have, I suppose.” His shrewd gaze narrowed. “I’ll be honest. I have no idea what got into Lucas by marrying you, but I see the way he looks at you and I hope there’s at least a chance you’re making him happy.”

What way did Lucas look at her—like a spider contemplating a particularly delectable fly? His brother should find a pair of glasses. She narrowed her gaze right back. “So, you’ll hunt me down if I hurt him?”

He laughed, and the derisive note reminded her again of Lucas. They didn’t look so much alike but they did have a similar warped sense of humor, apparently.

“I highly doubt you have the capacity to hurt Lucas. He’s pretty good at staying emotionally removed from women. For example, he didn’t blink when he found out about Lana. Just moved right along to the next one.”

As warnings went, it was effective—if she’d been harboring some romantic illusion about Lucas’s feelings toward her. “How many of the next ones did Lucas marry?”

“Touché.” Her brother-in-law eyed her and then nodded to an older couple who’d swept past them on the way to the bar. “I know you’re not after Lucas’s money. I checked out you and your trust fund. I’m curious, though, why didn’t you stay at Manzanares?”

The loaded question—and Matthew’s bold and unapologetic prying—stomped on her defenses. “I worked there for a year to appease my grandfather. I’m probably the only one he’d trust to take over.” Shrugging, she wrapped it up. She didn’t owe him any explanations. “It’s not my passion, so he plans to live forever, I guess.”

Matthew didn’t smile. Thank goodness Lucas had been the one in need of a wife and not his brother. There was a brittleness to Matthew Wheeler, born of losing someone who meant everything, and she recognized it all too well.

In contrast, Lucas played at life, turning the mundane fun, and he smiled constantly in a sexy, self-assured way, which sometimes caught her with a lovely twist in the abdomen. That was the thing she liked most about him.

Dios. When had that happened?

“Family may not mean much to you, Cia. But it’s everything to us.” Matthew’s expression hardened, and she revised her opinion. The frozen cerulean of his irises scarcely resembled the stunning smoky blue of Lucas’s. “Lana punched a hole in Lucas’s pride, which is easily dismissed, but in the process, she nearly destroyed a century of my family’s hard work. That’s not so easily overcome. Be an asset to him. That’s all I’ll say.”

Matthew clammed up as Lucas rejoined them with a deceptively casual hand to the place where her neck and shoulder met. The dress she wore nearly covered her from head to foot and yet her husband managed to find the one bare spot on her body to brush with his electric fingertips.

She’d missed him. And no way would she ever admit it.

“Dinner’s on,” he told Matthew. “I’ll call you later.”

Matthew’s advice echoed in her head as she let Lucas lead her to his car. Well, she was here, wasn’t she? There was also a contract somewhere in Lucas’s possession granting him the sales rights to the Manzanares complex, which Abuelo had gladly signed.

Her relationship with Lucas was as equitable as possible. How much more of an asset could she be?

Regardless, all through dinner she thought about Fergie. And the house. She wore the Versace and the diamond rings her husband had selected. The scales in her mind unbalanced, and she was ashamed Matthew had to be the one to point out how little she’d given Lucas in return for throwing his strengths on the table.

She’d been so focused on making sure she didn’t fall for his seduce-and-conquer routine, she’d forgotten they had an agreement.

Their partnership wasn’t equitable at all, not with her shrewish behavior and giving him a hard time about attending a social event. She should have been glad to attend, but she wasn’t because her husband was too much of a temptation to be around.

Lucas didn’t try to kiss her or anything at the end of the evening, and she reminded herself four times how pleased she was the back-off messages were sinking in.

She slept fitfully that night and woke in the morning to dreary storm clouds, which she should have taken as a warning to stay in bed.

A young Hispanic woman in a crisp uniform was scrubbing the sink when Cia walked into the kitchen.

The girl smiled. “Buenos días, señora.”

Cia looked over her shoulder automatically and then cursed. She was the señora, at least for the next few months. “Good morning,” she responded in Spanish. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize Mr. Wheeler hired a maid.”

Of course if he’d bothered to tell her, she would have. Men.

“I’m to come three days a week, with strict instructions you must be happy with my work.” The girl bobbed her head and peeled yellow latex gloves from her hands, which she dropped into the sink. “I’ve already cleaned the master suite. With your permission, I’d like to show you what I’ve done.”

“Sure.” Cia was halfway to the stairs before the raucous clang of a big, fat warning bell went off in her head. “You, um, cleaned the master suite? The bathroom, too?” Where there was a noticeable lack of cosmetics, hair dryer or conditioner.

Her heart flipped into overtime.

Satanás en un palo. The maid had cleaned Lucas’s bedroom while Cia slept in her room down the hall. They might as well have put out a full-page ad in the Dallas Morning News—Mr. and Mrs. Lucas Wheeler Don’t Share a Bedroom.

While the maid politely pointed out the sparkling tile and polished granite vanity in the master bathroom, Cia listened with about a quarter of her attention and spent the other three-quarters focusing on how to fix it.

Lucas had royally screwed up. Not on purpose. But still.

“So you’ll be back on Wednesday?” Cia asked when the maid finished spouting about the cleaning process.

“Tomorrow, if acceptable. This week, I have Wednesday off. And then back again on Friday.”

Of course she’d be back tomorrow. “Fine. That’s fine. Your work is exceptional, and I’m very pleased with it. Please let me know when you’ve finished for the day.”

The maid nodded and went off to clean, oblivious to Cia’s ruined day. Cia called the shelter to let them know she’d be unavoidably late and sent Lucas a text message: Come home before eight. I have to talk to you.

The second the maid’s compact car backed out of the driveway, Cia started transferring her clothes into Lucas’s bedroom. Fortunately, there was a separate, empty walk-in closet inside the bathroom. It took twelve trips, fourteen deep breaths and eight minutes against the wall in a fetal position, forehead clamped between her fingers, to get all her clothes moved.

Toiletries she moved quickly with a clamped jaw, and then had to stop as soon as she opened the first dresser drawer, which contained tank tops and drawstring shorts. Sleepwear.

She’d have to sleep in the same room with Lucas. On the floor. Because there was no way she’d sleep in the same bed. No way she’d sleep in it even if he wasn’t in it. No doubt the sheets smelled all pine-tree-like and outdoorsy and Lucas-y.

And, boy, wouldn’t the floor be comfortable? Especially with Lucas breathing and rustling and throwing the covers off his hard, tanned body as he slept a few feet away.

God, he better be several feet away. What if he pounced on the opportunity to try to sweet-talk her into bed?

What if? Like there was a snowball’s chance he’d pass up the opportunity. And after last night, with the dress and the warm hand on her shoulder all evening and the way he kept knocking down her preconceptions of him, there was a tiny little corner of her mind afraid she’d let herself be swept away by the man she’d married.

Her feminine parts had been ignored for far too long—but not long enough to forget how much of a mess she’d been after the last time she’d jumped into bed, sure that this was finally the right man to heal the pain from losing her parents, only to scare yet another one away with colossal emotional neediness.

She was pretty passionate about whatever she touched, and there weren’t many men who could handle it, especially not when it was coupled with an inadvertent drive to compensate for the gaping wound in her soul. Until she figured out how to be in a relationship without exposing all the easy-to-lose parts of herself, the best policy was never to get involved—or to get out as quickly as possible.

There had to be another way to solve this problem with the maid besides sleeping in the same room with Lucas. What if she moved her stuff to Lucas’s room and got ready for bed there but slept in her room? She could get up early the days the maid came and make up the bed like she’d never been there. Or maybe she could pretend the maid hadn’t met her standards and dismiss her. Maybe moving her stuff was a total overreaction.

Her phone beeped. She pulled it from her back pocket. Incoming text from Lucas: What’s wrong? What do you need to talk about?

She texted him back: It’s an in-person conversation. BTW, how did you find the maid?

In thirty seconds, the message alert beeped again. Lucas: She just started working for my mother and came highly recommended by your grandfather. Why?

Abuelo. She moaned and sank to the floor, resting her forehead on the open drawer full of sleepwear.

Well, if anything, she’d underreacted. The maid was her grandfather’s spy, commissioned to spill her guts about Cia’s activities at the shelter, no doubt. Abuelo probably didn’t even anticipate the coup of information coming his way about the living arrangements.

It was too late to dismiss her. Imagine the conversation where she said a maid who was good enough for Lucas’s mother wasn’t good enough for Cia. And was she really going to fire a maid who probably sent at least fifty percent of her take-home pay back to extended family in Mexico?

Not only did she and Lucas need to be roommates by tomorrow, she’d have to come up with a plausible reason why they hadn’t been thus far and a way to tell the maid casually.

With a grimace, she weaved to her feet and started yanking tank tops out of the drawer, studiously avoiding thoughts about bedrooms, Lucas, beds and later.

Beep. Lucas: Still there? What’s up?

Quickly, she tapped out a response: Yeah. No prob with the maid. Late for work. Talk 2U tonight. Have a good day.

She cringed. Wait until he found out his wife telling him to have a good day was the least of the surprises in store.

Seven

Lucas rescheduled three showings he could not afford to put off and pulled into the garage at home by five, thanks to no small effort and a white-knuckle drive at ten over the speed limit. Suspense gnawed at his gut. Something was wrong, and Cia being so closemouthed about it made it ten times worse. Most women considered it worthy of a hysterical phone call if the toilet overflowed or if they backed the car into the fence. With his wife, the problem could range from serious, like the shelter closing down, to dire, like her grandfather dying.

Cia’s car wasn’t in the garage or the driveway, so he waited in the kitchen. And waited. After forty-five minutes, it was clear she must be working late. More than a little irritated, he went upstairs to change. As he yanked a T-shirt over his head, he caught sight of the vanity through the open bathroom door.

The counter had been empty when he left this morning. Now it wasn’t.

A mirrored tray sat between the twin sinks, loaded with lotion and other feminine stuff. He picked up the lotion and opened it to inhale the contents. Yep. Coconut and lime.

In four seconds, he put the cryptic text messages from Cia together with the addition of this tray, a pink razor, shaving cream and at least six bottles of who knew what lining the stone shelf in the shower.

The maid had spooked Cia into moving into the master bedroom. Rightly so, if the maid had come recommended by Cia’s grandfather, a detail he hadn’t even considered a problem at the time.

Man, he should have thought of that angle long ago. In a few hours, Cia might very well be sleeping in his bed.

He whistled a nameless tune as he meandered back to the kitchen. No wonder Cia was avoiding home as long as possible, because she guessed—correctly—he’d be all over this new development like white on rice. Her resistance to the true benefit of marriage was weakening. Slowly. Tonight might be the push over the edge she needed.

At seven o’clock, he sent her a text message to find out what time she’d be home. And got no answer.

At eight o’clock he called, but she didn’t pick up. In one of her texts, she’d mentioned being late for work. Maybe she’d stayed late to make up for it. He ate a roast beef sandwich and drank a dark beer. Every few bites, he coaxed Fergie to say his name.

But every time he said, “Lucas. Looo-kaaaas,” she squawked and ruffled her feathers. Sometimes she imitated Cia’s ringtone. But mostly the parrot waited for him to shove a piece of fruit through the bars, then took it immediately in her sharp claws.

At nine-thirty, Lucas realized he didn’t know the names of Cia’s friends and, therefore, couldn’t start calling to see if they’d heard from her. There was avoidance, and then there was late.

Besides, Cia met everything head-on, especially him. Radio silence wasn’t like her.

At eleven o’clock, as he stared at the TV while contemplating a call to the police to ask about accidents involving a red Porsche, the automatic garage door opener whirred.

A beat later, Cia trudged into the kitchen, shoulders hunched and messy hair falling in her face.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” she repeated, her voice thinner than tissue paper. “Sorry. I got your messages.”

“I was kind of worried.”

“I know.” The shadows were back in full force, and there was a deep furrow between her eyes he immediately wanted to soothe away.

“I’m sorry,” she repeated. “It was unavoidable. I’m sure you saw my stuff in your room.”

None of this seemed like the right lead-up to a night of blistering passion. “I did. So we’re sharing a bedroom now?”

She squeezed her temples between a thumb and her middle finger, so hard the nail beds turned white. “Only because it’s necessary. Give me fifteen minutes, and then you can come in.”

Necessary. Like it was some big imposition to sleep in his bed. He knew a woman or two who’d be there in a heartbeat to take her place. Why couldn’t he be interested in one of them instead of his no-show wife, who did everything in her power to avoid the best benefit of marriage?

Fearful of what he might say if he tried to argue, he let her go without another word and gave her twenty minutes, exactly long enough for his temper to flare.

He was married, mad and celibate, and the woman responsible for all three lay in his bed.

When he strode into the bedroom, it was dark, so he felt his way into the bathroom, got ready for bed and opted to sleep naked, like normal. This was his room and since she’d moved into it without asking, she could deal with all that entailed.

He hit the button on the TV remote. She better be a heavy sleeper, because he always watched TV in bed, and he wasn’t changing his habits to suit anyone, least of all a prickly wife who couldn’t follow her own mandate to be home by eight.

The soft light of the flat screen mounted on the wall spilled over the empty bed. He glanced over at it. Yep, empty. Where was she?

A pile of sheets on the floor by the bay windows answered that question. “Cia, what are you doing over there?”

“Sleeping,” came the muffled reply from the mass of dark hair half-buried under the pile.

Since she still faced the wall, he turned the volume down on the TV. “You can’t sleep on the floor.”

“Yes, I can.”

“This bed is a California king. Two people could easily sleep in it without touching the entire night.” Could. But that didn’t necessarily mean he’d guarantee it. Although, given his mood, he was pretty sure he’d have no problem ignoring the unwilling woman in his bed.

After a lengthy pause, she mumbled, “It’s your bed. I’m imposing on you. The floor is fine.”

The martyr card. Great. A strangled sigh pushed out through his clamped teeth. “Get in the bed. I’ll sleep on the floor.”

“No. That’s not fair. Besides, I like the floor. This carpet is very soft.”

“Well, then.” Two could play that game. “Since it’s so comfortable, I’ll sleep on the floor, too.”

With a hard yank, he pulled the top sheet out from under the comforter, wrapped it around his waist and threw a pillow on the floor a foot from hers. As he reclined on the scratchy carpet, she rolled over and glared at him.