Her Convenient Millionaire Read online

  Seven

  Mike was kissing her before he knew he’d moved, his tongue following the call of hers back into her mouth. She tasted sweet, cool from the water she’d been drinking, but she warmed quickly to his caress. Her hands slipped behind his neck as he pulled her close, easing forward until she nestled in the cradle of his widespread thighs. He filled his hands with her bottom, squeezing, shaping, pressing her tight against his arousal.

  He tilted his head the other way, taking the kiss deeper. His knees bent until he was her height, until his erection nudged her mound, told her where he wanted to be. She gasped at the intimate touch, and Mike’s brain snapped back where it belonged from the other end of his body.

  He stumbled back a few steps and sat down on the bench with a thump, somehow not cracking his head against the weight bar.

  Sherry didn’t seem any steadier. “What was that?” she rasped out. “A paper kiss?”

  Mike wanted to hide his face in his hands, but confined himself to drawing a shaky hand across his mouth. Not to wipe away the kiss—he was sure that kiss was branded on his soul—but in hopes of recovering a little composure.

  “’Cause I have to tell you, sweetheart,” Sherry went on, her voice a little clearer, “that sure didn’t feel like paper. It didn’t feel like ‘no kissing’ or ‘no sex,’ either. So if you want to enforce your ban, you’re going to have to do a whale of a lot better than that.”

  She backed away till she reached the doorway, then turned and fled the room. Mike scrambled to follow. But what could he say? She was right. He would have to do better.

  “Look,” he said from the opening to the kitchen, where she was busy refilling her water glass. “Sex isn’t a game to play for lack of anything better to do. It should mean something more than just a way to get some feel-good exercise. To both of the people involved.”

  “Why did you kiss me, then?” Sherry turned off the faucet but stayed where she was, staring at the sink.

  “Hell if I know.” Frustrated, Mike ran both hands back over his hair. “I think my brain dissolved.”

  She stifled a snicker, badly. Most of it escaped. “How much more?”

  “How much more what?” He must not have all his brain cells reconstituted yet, because now he was confused.

  “How much more should it mean? Sex…to the people involved…?” Sherry turned and looked at him.

  He frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “Is it enough to like each other, or do you have to be all the way in love? Obviously, being married isn’t enough. So what is?” She bit her lip, reminding Mike that his body still wanted what he wouldn’t let it have.

  “What does it matter? It isn’t going to happen.” He wouldn’t let his teeth grind together, either.

  “Okay, fine. But I still want to know. Hypothetically speaking, if you insist. How much more? In love?”

  “It’s not something I can put a tape measure to.”

  “Why not? You’re the one making up all these rules. I just want to know what they are.”

  Mike threw up his hands. Why did she think he had all the answers? “All right. Yes. In love.”

  “So if people just like each other, sex is out.”

  “Sure.” He agreed for the sake of agreeing.

  “What if they like each other a whole lot, but they’re not sure if it’s love? What if having sex would help them figure out if they love each other? Wouldn’t that be all right?”

  “Yeah. Why not?”

  She was pacing now, from refrigerator to sink, thinking out loud. “But what if they just got swept up in the moment? Carried away by passion?”

  “Sherry.” Mike was pretty sure that if she didn’t stop talking about it, sex would be taking place in the kitchen in the next two minutes. “Leave it alone.”

  He turned and walked away. Not back to his weight bench. He didn’t know if he’d be able to bench press anything again without getting a hard-on. Maybe the living room would be safe.

  “So I guess this means you just like me a little bit, right?” Sherry followed him, perching on the arm of a chair.

  Mike rummaged through his shelves for a movie. Something safe. Something with a high body count, none of them naked. “I like you fine,” he mumbled.

  “But not enough for sex.”

  “Sherry.” He put a warning in his voice. “Enough.”

  “It’s okay. It doesn’t hurt my feelings. I’m used to people not liking me. Bebe doesn’t like me much.”

  “Who’s Bebe?” Mike asked before he could stop himself.

  “My stepmother. Remember? She thinks I’m prettier than Juliana. I’m not. Juliana’s pretty in a different way. But that’s what Bebe thinks, so she hates me.”

  “I don’t hate you.” He switched on the TV, giving up on the idea of a movie. Sports would do.

  “You don’t like me much, either.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Will you stop? I like you plenty.”

  “Just not enough to have sex with me.”

  If he strangled her, they would call it justifiable. “It’s not me liking you that’s the problem. It’s the other way round.”

  “I like you. A lot.”

  “Today.”

  “I’ll like you tomorrow, too.”

  He did not want to talk about this, but he couldn’t stop himself. He was caught in an undertow and it was about to drag him far out to sea. “What about after that? What about when your money comes in? You won’t be able to say goodbye fast enough.”

  That shut her up. For a minute or two.

  “You don’t know that.” She actually sounded as if her feelings were hurt. But that was impossible.

  “Sure I do.”

  “How? How can you possibly know—”

  “You’re from Palm Beach, babe. You’re one of them. And I’m not.” Not deep down. Not really. He had enough money to be one, but he didn’t care about the right things. Mike sank into one of the cushy club chairs and put the remote through its paces.

  “I’m not her, Micah.” Sherry’s voice came softly, floating just louder than the TV, creeping inside him.

  “Her who?”

  “Whoever made you feel this way. Whoever played games with your heart and kicked it aside when she was done. The one from Palm Beach.”

  “Don’t kid yourself, babe. You’re just like her.” He found a baseball game and slumped lower, till his head rested on the back of the chair. He was lying, of course.

  Sherry was different. She’d refused to marry Mr. Money-bags Greeley. Lots of people with fewer advantages than she’d grown up with would turn their noses up at the job he’d given her. Sherry hadn’t. She worked hard at it. All of that didn’t mean much, though, in light of the trust fund waiting at the end of the summer. He had to make sure she saw the problems, without ever discovering the truth.

  “Get me a beer, will ya?” He clicked over to the fishing show during the commercial. “Since you’re up.”

  The silver can came whistling through the air and smacked him in the head. He should have ducked.

  They tiptoed around each other for the next few days. Mike took some time off to make things look good, in case Tug investigated, but the close quarters didn’t improve things between them. Sherry felt guilty every time she saw the bruise on Mike’s forehead where she’d thrown the beer can at him. She’d intended to hit him, just not in the head. She could have killed him.

  Then again, probably not. Hard as his head was, she thought a sledgehammer would barely dent it. She’d never known anyone so thick-headed stubborn. Tug took stubborn to a high art, but he was an amateur compared to Sherry’s temporary husband.

  On Monday Mike had business to take care of off the island. Sherry talked him out of insisting she come with him. She didn’t want to trail after him like some idiot who couldn’t tie her own shoes, nor did she want to sit in the car and wait. But sitting in the apartment wasn’t much more exciting.

  After several hours of twiddling her thumbs,
flipping through a thousand television channels that had nothing on, cleaning out the refrigerator, eating the rest of a bottle of olives, half a jar of peanut butter and way too many crackers, followed by more thumb twiddling, Sherry couldn’t stand it anymore. She grabbed a towel and headed for the beach.

  Mike’s T-shirt and shorts were about to be introduced to sea water. If Tug showed up—well, Mike would just have to save the princess from the dragon. She was certain he’d rather that than have his apartment upended by a crazed woman sent over the edge by boredom.

  Sherry didn’t do much more than get wet. She knew better than to actually swim alone. Mostly she sat under a palm tree and watched seagulls fight over scraps of food. The sun and the waves and the breeze gradually soothed away her restlessness and she headed back to the apartment.

  When she walked in the door, Clara was waiting.

  An hour later Sherry was almost ready for work, hunting her wandering shoes, when Mike walked in the door. He looked way too good in yet another of his fabulous suits, this one black. He wore it with a silvery shirt that matched his eyes.

  “How’d it go?” she asked, locating the missing sandals under the edge of the coffee table. She sat down in one of the cushy arm chairs to drag them out.

  Mike went still a moment before opening the refrigerator to pull out a drink. “Don’t try to play Ozzie and Harriet.”

  “We can’t even talk?” Sherry was getting tired of all Mike’s rules.

  “We can talk. Just leave off the ‘how was your day,’ ‘honey, I’m home’ stuff.”

  “Okay. Fine.” She’d rather throw another beer can at his head. Maybe this time it would knock some sense into him. She stuck her foot in a shoe. “Conversation. Your mother has moved back home. She wants to know why we’re not having sex.”

  Mike froze, the can he was drinking from tipped high. Then he started to cough. Sherry put on her other shoe as she waited for him to recover.

  “You told her that?” he croaked between coughs.

  “No, I did not.” Maybe she’d get one of those super-size cans to whack him with. “I didn’t have to. She knew.”

  “What, exactly, did she say?” He sounded almost normal now.

  “Exactly? She said, ‘Why aren’t you and Mike sleeping together?’”

  “What did you say?”

  “I said—I didn’t know what to say—so I said, ‘We are.’ And she said, ‘Liar.’ And I said, ‘How do you know?’ And she said—”

  “Wait.” Mike stopped her. “How did you say it? Did you say it like, ‘How do you know?’ or like, ‘How do you know?’”

  “What difference does it make?”

  “One way you’re saying ‘None of your business’ and the other way you’re saying ‘Caught me.’ So how did you say it?”

  “How should I know?” Sherry couldn’t believe this conversation. The man was certifiable. Besides, she wasn’t about to admit the truth.

  “You told her,” Mike said.

  “She tricked me!”

  “She’s like that.”

  “So are you. You tricked me just now, you sneak. But I expect it of you. You’re a man. She’s a little old lady. A sneaky, little old lady.”

  “Who taught me everything I know.”

  Sherry sighed and pulled one of the decorative pillows into her lap, carefully combing the tangled fringe straight. “So what do we do now?”

  “Nothing.”

  “What about your mother?”

  He sighed. “She’ll give me a lot of grief. I won’t pay her any attention. Things will go on like they are.”

  “She told me to seduce you.” Sherry didn’t understand that. “Do you think she meant it?”

  “Probably. Are you going to do it?”

  “Do you want me to?”

  “Do you want to?”

  “Can you say anything without turning it into a question?” Now the conversation was getting silly.

  “I don’t know, can I?” He turned it back on her once more with a wicked grin.

  Sherry laughed and tossed the pillow at him, which he caught and threw back at her.

  “You know,” he said. “For somebody who got all up-tight over whacking me on the arm a few short days ago, you sure have turned violent all of a sudden. I went to the club for a minute this afternoon and had to tell everybody that my wife coldcocked me with a beer can. I’m a victim of domestic violence.”

  “You told them?” Her stomach did a funny little dance.

  “I told them the truth. Mostly. You were tossing me a beer and missed. Don’t worry about it.”

  “No, I mean, you told them we were married?” It made it seem more real that he’d told their co-workers.

  “They already knew. Bruno followed me outside the night your dad came to the club. He heard me. When I said…what I said. That’s the idea, isn’t it? For people to know we’re married, so your dad will leave you alone.”

  “Okay, yes, but—” Why did she feel so uncomfortable?

  “I went ahead and put you on my insurance, just in case, but I didn’t make any other changes, if that’s what you’re worried about. You don’t mind, do you? I just want to be sure somebody’s close by to make sure Mom gets the treatment she needs if I’m away. Putting you as my next of kin will do that.”

  He’d named her next of kin?

  Sherry had to take a deep breath. Maybe his accusations did have cause. Maybe she had been seeing all of this, their marriage and everything associated with it, as a game. As playing make-believe, something she could put back in the box like dress-up clothes when it was over and forget about. Mike would be hard to forget, but she thought she could do it. It wasn’t as if she was in love with him or anything.

  But it was real. Maybe not all the way real, given their sleeping arrangements, but a lot more so than she had let herself realize. When a man started talking about next of kin and life-or-death situations, things couldn’t get much more real than that.

  “I’m going to go clean up before we head in for work,” he said, throwing away his empty can.

  Sherry met him halfway across the living room and threw her arms around his neck.

  Mike set his hands on her waist. “What’s going on?” He sounded puzzled.

  She was, too. She didn’t know why she’d done it. Sherry turned and rushed into her bedroom before she could embarrass herself anymore and shut the door. He didn’t have to know how much she liked him.

  Two days later Mike was at his mom’s, cooking dinner before work. He did it whenever he could because he liked knowing she had eaten, knowing what she’d eaten and knowing she wouldn’t be sneaking around cooking things.

  The elevator rattled as it arrived on their floor, loud enough to be heard over his own rattling around in the kitchen. He’d have to call someone and get it worked on. It shouldn’t make that much noise. Mike paused to listen, trying to tell who might be getting off. Sherry had taken the car this afternoon to “run errands,” but she ought to be back. It would be time to head into work soon.

  He hadn’t insisted on going with her today, because she swore she’d be safe, and he knew she was too afraid of her father to say so if it weren’t true. Since Mike hadn’t a clue where she planned to go, he figured Nyland wouldn’t, either. She wasn’t back, but he wasn’t worried. Not exactly.

  They’d been getting hang-up phone calls over the past few days, both at Mom’s and at his place. He suspected her father, but hadn’t gotten round to getting the phone company to put a trace on the line. They didn’t come often enough to be harassing, and no one ever spoke, but they made him uneasy, and they had Sherry jumping at shadows. She didn’t need more grief from the man.

  “Sherry’s back,” his mom said from her perch on a kitchen chair. She liked to supervise his cooking, even though it had been many years since he set the oven on fire trying to bake one giant chocolate-chip cookie. It hadn’t occurred to him then that the dough would expand and drip off the sides of the cookie sheet.
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br />   “How do you know?” He tasted the pasta sauce and added more oregano.

  “Because if it was Donna or Lanita and Katie, they’d have gone the other way. Your apartment is the only one past mine.”

  “Is that how you spy on me?”

  She ignored him. “Aren’t you going to go get her? Tell her where you are?”

  “She’s a smart girl.” He lifted the lid of the other pot to see if the water was boiling yet. “When she sees I’m not over there, she’ll figure it out.”

  “Aren’t you going to go kiss her hello?” His mother sounded annoyed.

  Mike hid his grin. “With my mother watching?” He gave a fake shudder. “Heavens, no.”

  “Come over here so I can stick you with this fork.” She waved the utensil menacingly.

  “I’m not that stupid.” He had to laugh. She was half bark, and half bite. Trouble was, he could never tell which half he would get.

  The front door burst open and slammed shut again hard enough to rattle the family pictures in the living room. Sherry had arrived.

  “Guess what?” She dropped a small pile of shopping bags near the door, bounded into the kitchen and threw her arms around Clara hard enough to half knock her out of the chair before hugging her gently.

  She bounced over to Mike, and before he knew what hit him, she threw her arms around his neck and planted a big kiss right on his mouth. Then she was gone. Long before he could recover from the brain explosion caused by the feel of her curves pushed hard against him, the scent of woman overwhelming tomato and basil, the taste of mint and woman left behind on his lips. He wanted her back, where he could catch and hold on, taste more, smell more. Feel more.

  “Guess what?” she said, yet one more time.

  “I don’t know. What?” Mike tucked his hands in his front pockets to keep from reaching out for her.

  “I’m back.” Her wide grin never faded. “And I had a wonderful time, all by myself without a bodyguard.”

  She swooped back in for another fierce hug, one more quick kiss, and, damn it, his hands were stuck in his pockets. He couldn’t get them out fast enough to capture her before she flitted away to kiss his mother’s cheek.