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“I did. You try telling my grandfather what to do. Es imposible.” She threw up her hands, and he bit back a two-bulldozers-one-hole comment, which she would not have appreciated and wouldn’t have heard anyway because she rushed on. “He’s thrilled to pieces about me marrying you, God knows why, and bought the reunion story, hook, line and sinker.”
“Hey now,” Lucas protested. “I’m an upstanding member of the community and come from a long line of well-respected businessmen. Why wouldn’t he be thrilled?”
“Because you’re—” she flipped a hand in his direction, and her engagement ring flashed “—you. Falling in and out of bimbos’ beds with alarming frequency and entirely too cocky for your own good. Are we going inside? I’d like to put the house in some kind of order.”
Enough was enough. He tolerated slurs—some deserved, some not—from a lot of people. Either way, his wife wasn’t going to be one of them.
“Honey?” He squashed the urge to reach out and lift her chin. Determined to get her to meet him halfway, he instead waited until she looked at him. “Listen up. What you see is what you get. I’m not going to apologize for rubbing you the wrong way. I like women, and I won’t apologize for that, either. But I haven’t dated anyone since Lana, and you’re pushing my considerable patience to the limit if you’re suggesting I’d sleep with another woman while my ring is on your finger. Even if the ring is for show.”
A slight breeze separated a few strands of hair from the rest of her ponytail as she stared up at him, frozen, with a hint of confusion flitting across her face. “No. I didn’t mean that. It was, uh … I’m sorry. Don’t be mad. I’ll keep my big mouth shut from now on.”
He laughed. “Darlin’, I don’t get mad. I get even.”
With that, he swept her off her feet and carried her over the threshold. She weighed less than cotton candy, and her skin was fresh with the scent of coconut and lime. Did she smell like that all the time or only on moving day?
Her curled fist whacked him in the shoulder, but he ignored it, too entranced by the feel of previously undiscovered soft spots hidden amid all her hard edges.
“What is this?” she sputtered. “Some caveman show of dominance?”
Gently, he set down the bundle of bristling woman on the marble floor in the foyer.
“Neighbors were watching,” he said, deadpan.
They hadn’t been. Matthew had carried Amber over the threshold and had told the story a bunch of times about nicking the door frame when he whacked it with his new bride’s heel.
Lucas had always envisioned doing that with his way, way, way in the future wife, too—minus the door frame whacking—and wasn’t about to let the Queen of Contrary tell him no. Even if they weren’t technically married yet. Close enough, and it was practice for the eventual real deal, where his wife would gaze at him adoringly as he carried her.
He couldn’t get a clear picture of this fictitious future wife. In his imagination, Cia reappeared in his arms instead.
“We have an agreement.” She jammed her hands down onto her hips. “No division of property. No messiness. And no physical relationship. What happened to that?”
He smirked. “That wasn’t even close to physical, darlin’. Now, if I was to do this—” he snaked an arm around her waist and hauled her up against him, fitting her into the niches of his body “—I’d be getting warmer.”
She wiggled a little in protest and managed to slide right into a spot that stabbed a hot poker through his groin. He sucked in a cleansing breath.
This was Cia, the most beautiful and least arousing female he’d ever met. Why did his skin feel as if it was about to combust? “That’s right. Snuggle right in, honey. Now that’s so close to physical, it’s scorching hot.”
“What are you doing, Wheeler?” She choked on the last syllable as he leaned in, a hairbreadth from tasting that high-speed mouth, and trailed a finger down her tight jaw.
“Practicing.”
If he moved one tiny neck muscle the right way, they’d be kissing. Soon, this firecracker in his arms would be Mrs. Lucas Wheeler, and he hadn’t kissed her once. Maybe he should. Might shut her up for a minute.
“Practicing for what?”
“To be a happy couple. My parents invited us over for dinner tonight. Engagement celebration.” Instantly she stopped wiggling, and the light hit her upturned face and her wide, frightened eyes. “Well, I’ll be hog-tied and spoon-fed to vultures for breakfast. Your eyes are blue. Not brown.”
“My grandparents came from northern Spain. It’s not that unusual.”
“A man should know the color of his wife’s eyes. Marriage 101.” Disconcerted, he released her. He had to get her scent out of his nose.
He shoved a hand through his hair, but it didn’t release a bit of the sudden pressure against his skull.
He’d wanted to kiss her. It had taken a whole lot of willpower not to. What had he gotten himself into?
He barely knew her, knew nothing about how to handle her, nothing about her past or even her present. He had to learn. Fast.
The Manzanares contract represented more than a vital shot in the arm for his livelihood. It was a chance to fix his problems on his own, without his big brother’s help, and prove to everyone that Lucas Wheeler wasn’t the screw-up womanizer people assumed.
“What else don’t I know?” he asked.
“That I have to work tonight. I can’t go to your parents’ for dinner. You have to check with me about this kind of stuff.”
Yeah. He should have. It hadn’t occurred to him. Most women of his acquaintance would have stood up the president in order to have dinner with his parents. He’d just never invited any of them. “Call in. Someone else can cover it. This is important to my mother.”
“The shelter is important to me. Someone else has been covering my responsibilities all week.” Her hands clenched and went rigid by her sides. “It’s not like I’m canceling a round of golf with a potential client, Wheeler.”
Golf. Yeah. His workday consisted of eye-crossing, closed-door sessions with Matthew, poring over his brother’s newest strategies to improve business. “What is it like, then? Tell me.”
“The women who come to the shelter are terrified their husbands or boyfriends will find them, even though we go to extreme lengths to keep the location secret. Their kids have been uprooted, jammed into a crowded, foreign new home and have lost a father, all at the same time. They’re desperate for someone they know and trust. Me.”
Bright, shiny moisture gathered in the pockets of her eyes as she spoke, and that caught him in the throat as much as her heartfelt speech. No one could fake that kind of passion for a job. Or anything else. “Dinner tomorrow night, then.”
Mama would have to understand. God Almighty, what a balancing act. The ripples were starting already, and it was going to be hell to undo the effects after the divorce.
He had to believe it would be worth it. He had to believe he could somehow ensure his family didn’t get attached to Cia without vilifying her in the process. He needed a nice, stable wife to combat the Lana Effect nearly as much as he needed Manzanares.
She nodded, and a tear broke loose to spill down her cheek. “Thanks.”
All of a sudden, he felt strangely honored to be part of something so meaningful to her. Sure, his own stake meant a lot, too, but it was nice that his investment in this fake marriage would benefit others.
“Come on.” He slung an arm around her slim shoulders. Such a small frame to hold so much inside. “Better. You didn’t even flinch that time.”
“I’m trying.” As if to prove it, she didn’t shrug off his arm.
“We’ll get there.”
Legs bumping, he guided her toward the kitchen, where he’d left every single box intact because God forbid he accidentally put the blender in the wrong spot.
Most of Amber’s touches had been removed, thrown haphazardly into the trash by a blank-faced Matthew, but a few remained, like the empty fruit bowl his sister-in-law had picked up at the farmers’ market.
Must have missed that one. During those weeks following the funeral, even he had been numb over Amber’s sudden death, and neither he nor Matthew had put a whole lot of effort into clearing the house.
Maybe, in some ways, his marriage to Cia would be a lot easier than one built on the promise of forever. At least he knew ahead of time it was ending and there would be no emotional investment to reconcile.
“Look how far we’ve come already,” he told her. “You’re not going to make cracks about my past relationships, and I’m not going to make plans for dinner without checking first. The rest will be a snap. You just have to pretend you love me as much as you love being a crusader. Easy, right?”
She snorted and some color returned to her cheeks.
Good. Hell’s bells, was she ever a difficult woman, but without him, she’d be lost. She had no idea how to fake a relationship. Her fire and compassion could only go so far, though he liked both more than he would have thought. If she ditched that prickly pear personality, she’d be something else. Thank the good Lord she hadn’t.
Otherwise, he’d be chomping at the bit to break the no-physical-relationship rule and that would be plain stupid. Like kissing her would have been stupid.
No complications. That was the best way to ensure he put Wheeler Family Partners back on the map. He and Cia were business partners, and her proposal challenged him to be something he’d never been before—the hero. She deserved his undivided attention to this deal.
But he had to admit he liked that she wasn’t all that comfortable having a man’s hands on her. Maybe he had some caveman in him after all.
Cia spent a few hours arranging the kitchen but had to get to the shelter before finishing. Okay, so she took off earlier than planned because there was too much Lucas in the house.
How could she sleep there tonight? Or the next night or the next?
This was it, the real thing.
She’d taken her bedroom furniture, clothes and a few other necessary items, then locked up her condo. She and Lucas now lived together. They’d attend Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler’s engagement dinner tomorrow night, and a blink after making the man’s acquaintance, she’d marry Lucas at the courthouse Monday afternoon.
Cia Wheeler. It wasn’t as if Lucas had made forty-seven other unreasonable demands. It was petty to keep being freaked about it.
So she spent a lot of her shift trying to get used to the name, practicing it aloud and writing it out several hundred times while she manned the check-in desk.
Dios, she’d turned into a love-struck teenager, covering an entire blank page with loopy script. Mrs. Lucas Wheeler. Cia Wheeler. Dulciana Alejandra de Coronado y Allende Wheeler. Like her full name hadn’t already been pretentious enough. Well, she wouldn’t be writing that anywhere except on the marriage certificate.
The evening vaporized, and the next set of volunteers arrived. Cia took her time saying goodbye to everyone and checked on Pamela Gonzalez twice to be sure she was getting along okay as her broken arm healed.
A couple of weeks ago, Cia had taken the E.R. nurse’s call and met Pamela at the hospital to counsel her on options; then she’d driven Pamela to the shelter personally.
Victims often arrived still bloodstained and broken, but Cia considered it a win to get them to a safe place they likely wouldn’t have known about without her assistance. It wasn’t as if the shelter could advertise an address or every abuser would be at the door, howling for his woman to be returned.
Pamela smiled and shooed Cia out of the room, insisting she liked her three roommates and would be fine. With nothing left to do, Cia headed for the new house she shared with her soon-to-be husband, braced for whatever he tossed out this time.
She found Lucas’s bedroom door shut as she passed the master suite on the way to her smaller bedroom.
She let out a rush of pent-up air. A glorious, blessed reprieve from “practicing” and that smile and those broad shoulders, which filled a T-shirt as if Lucas had those custom-made along with his suits. A reprieve by design or by default she didn’t know, and she didn’t care. Gratefully, she sank into bed and slept until morning.
By the time she emerged from her room, Lucas was already gone. She ate a quick breakfast in the quiet kitchen someone had lovingly appointed with warm colors, top-of-the-line appliances and rich tile.
The house came equipped with a central music hub tied to the entertainment system in the living room, and after a few minutes of poking at the touch-screen remote, she blasted an electronica number through the speakers. Then she went to work unpacking the remainder of her boxes.
Sometime later, Lucas found her sitting on the floor in the living room, straightening books. She hit the volume on the remote, painfully aware that compromise and consideration, the components of a shared life, were now her highest priority.
“You’re up,” he said and flopped onto the couch. His hair was damp, turning the sunny blond to a deep gold, and he wore what she assumed were his workout clothes, shorts and a Southern Methodist University football T-shirt. “I didn’t know how late you’d sleep. I tried to be quiet. Did I wake you?”
“You didn’t. I always sleep in when I work the evening shift at the shelter. I hope I didn’t make too much noise when I came in.”
“Nah.” He shrugged. “We’ll learn each other’s schedules soon enough I guess.”
“About that.”
She rose, shook the cramps out of her knees—how long had she been sitting there?—and crossed to the matching leather couch at a right angle to the one cradling entirely too much of Lucas’s long, tanned and well-toned legs. “I appreciate the effort you put into making all this possible. I want to do my part, so I found a questionnaire online that the immigration office uses to validate green card marriages. Here’s a copy for you, to help us learn more about each other.” He was staring at her as if she’d turned into a bug splattered on his windshield. “You know, so we can make everyone believe we’re in love.”
“That’s how you plan to pretend we’re a real couple? Memorize the brand of shaving cream I use?”
“It’s good enough for the immigration department,” she countered. “There are lots of other questions in here besides brand names. Like, which side of the bed does your spouse sleep on? Where did you meet? You’re the one who pointed out I haven’t got a clue how to be married. This is my contribution. How did you think we would go about it?”
His eyes roamed over the list and narrowed. “A long conversation over dinner, along with a good bottle of wine. The way people do when they’re dating.”
“We’re not dating, Wheeler.” Dating. Something else she had no idea how to do. If she’d had a normal high school experience, maybe that wouldn’t be the case. “And we don’t have that kind of time. Your parents’ party is tonight.”
“Yeah, but they’re not going to ask questions like which side of the bed you sleep on.”
“No. They’ll ask questions like how we met.” She stabbed the paper. “Or what made us decide to get married so quickly. Or where we plan to go on our honeymoon. Look at the questionnaire. It’s all there.”
“This is too much like school,” he grumbled and swept a lock of hair off his forehead. “Is there going to be a written exam with an essay question? What happens if I don’t pass?”
“My grandfather gets suspicious. Then I don’t get my money. Women don’t get a place to escape from the evil they live with. You don’t get the Manzanares contract.” She rattled the printed pages. “Pick a question.”
“Can I at least take a shower before spilling my guts?”
“Only if you answer number eighteen.”
He glanced at the paper and stood, clearly about to scram as soon as he recited the response. “‘What do the two of you have in common?’” Eyebrows raised, he met her gaze. Then he sat back down. “This is going to take hours.”
“I tried to tell you.”
For the rest of the day, in between Lucas’s shower, lunch, grocery shopping and an unfinished argument over what Cia proposed to wear to dinner, they shot questions back and forth. He even followed her to her room, refusing to give her a minute alone.
Exhausted, Cia dropped onto her bed and flung a hand over her eyes. “This is a disaster.”
Lucas rooted around in her closet, looking for an unfrumpy dress. So far, he’d discarded her three best dresses from Macy’s, which he refused to acknowledge were practical, and was working up to insulting the more casual ones in the back.
“I agree. Your wardrobe is a cardigan away from an episode of Grandmas Gone Mild.” Lucas emerged from her closet, shaking his head. “We gotta fix that.”
“Nowhere in our agreement did it say I was required to dress like a bimbo. You are not allowed to buy me clothes. Period.” Knowing him, he’d burn her old outfits, and then what would she wear to the shelter? BCBG and Prada to work with poverty-stricken women? “That’s not the disaster.”
“You dressing like something other than a matronly librarian is for my benefit, not yours. What could possibly be more of a disaster than your closet?”
It was disconcerting to have that much Lucas in her bedroom, amid her familiar mission-style furniture, which was decorating an unfamiliar house. An unfamiliar house they would share for a long six months. “Do you realize we have nothing in common other than both being born in Texas and both holding a business degree from SMU?”
He leaned his jean-clad rear on her dresser, and Dios en las alturas, the things acid-washed denim did to his thighs. Not noticing, she chanted silently. Not noticing at all.
But therein lay the problem. It was impossible not to notice Lucas. He lit up the room—a golden searchlight stabbing the black sky, drawing her eye and piquing her curiosity.
“What about bourbon?” he asked. “You drink that.”
“Three things in common, then. Three. Why didn’t I look for someone who at least knows how to spell hip-hop?”
His nose wrinkled. “Because. That’s not important. Marriages aren’t built on what you have in common. It’s about not being able to live without each other.”
First clothes. Then declarations à la Romeo and Juliet. “Are you sure you’re not gay?”
