I really, really don’t want to share a bed with Marcus.
Or rather, after those brain-melting kisses outside, I want it way too much.
“Thank you, Mary. It looks lovely. We really appreciate your hospitality,” Marcus says—again taking the lead before I can figure out how to deal with this development. And why is he on a first-name basis with my grandmother?
Did they get all buddy-buddy while waiting for Gramps and me to arrive?
Stepping around me, he walks into the room, my suitcase in one hand and a duffel bag that must be his luggage in the other. He probably grabbed them from the living room when I wasn’t looking—except how does he even have luggage in the first place? To get here so quickly, he had to have jumped on a plane right after I left.
Does he keep an overnight bag on his private jet in case he wants to chase some woman on a moment’s notice?
Wait, why am I worrying about his luggage when we’re about to be forced into sharing a bed? This is not a viable sleeping arrangement. At all. Given Marcus’s intense sex drive and the fact that I go up in flames if he so much as breathes on me, it’s pretty much a given that as soon as that door closes, we’re going to be horizontal—and for the sake of my sanity, that can’t happen. I definitely need to ask Grandma for separate rooms. Only how do I do that without fessing up to the whole deception? She and Gramps have seen me in a robe at his place, so I can’t exactly pretend our relationship hasn’t progressed that far.
As I’m wrestling with this dilemma, Marcus sets down both bags and begins to unpack my suitcase, taking out my clothes and setting them in neat piles on the bed with the calm self-assurance of a man who has every right to handle my things. At any other time, my jaw would be on the floor, but after everything that has gone down tonight, his temerity barely fazes me.
What does bother me is that my grandmother beams brighter at this arrogant display. To her, it must look like we’re already perfectly comfortable with each other, kind of like an old married couple. She probably thinks Marcus is being helpful by unpacking for me, instead of seeing his actions for what they are: a ruthless takeover of my life. I can just see her telling Gramps all about what a nice man Marcus is, so domesticated and caring and organized.
At this very moment, he’s hanging my T-shirts. Actually hanging them in the guestroom closet. Oh, and ordering them by color, light to dark, like a serial killer.
He must be the one with OCD, not his butler.
“Goodnight, sweetheart. Goodnight, Marcus,” Grandma says before I can come up with a solution to the bed problem. “Sleep well.”
With a quick hug, she hurries away, and then there’s no choice left.
Feeling like I’m entering a dragon’s lair, I ball my fists and step into the guestroom.
5
Emma
Marcus hangs up my last T-shirt—I only brought four, one for each day of the trip—and turns around to face me. His expression is impassive, but there’s no hiding the savage heat in his piercing blue eyes as they rake over me from head to toe. I swallow as my body reacts in an instant, my heartbeat speeding up and my nipples tightening in the confines of my bra. My panties are still damp from making out outside, and that look is all it takes for arousal to flood my core.
This is going to be even harder than I thought. Literally, because I can see the growing bulge in his jeans. A big, thick bulge that—
Ugh, stop it, Emma. Yanking my mind out of the X-rated gutter, I call forth every ounce of my fury and advance into the room. “You broke your promise. You said you’d keep your mouth shut and—”
“I never said that.” His eyes narrow. “I said I ‘got it’—as in, I understood what you wanted me to do. I never promised to do it, though.”
My molars clench so hard I’ll have a toothache tomorrow. “Stop splitting hairs. You knew what I thought, and you played me. I told you what you had to do to stay, and you did the exact opposite. You lied to my grandparents—”
“Did I?” He folds his arms across his chest, causing his shirt to outline the impressively defined muscles underneath. “What did I say that was untruthful?”
“You said I’m moving in with you!” I almost shout the words, but at the last moment, I remember where we are and lower my voice to a whisper-hiss. “That is a complete lie, and you—”
“Oh, but you are. You just haven’t admitted it to yourself yet.”
I stare at him, taken aback by the unshakeable certainty in his voice. Is he delusional, or just that used to getting his way? Has no woman ever told him no?
Wait a minute.
Is that why he’s here?
Because I rejected him and became a challenge once again?
I wondered about that when he disappeared earlier this week—whether that’s what my appeal to him had been all along. I doubt many women have sent him away in recent years, but that’s exactly what I did the night he broke down the door in my apartment. Of course, less than two weeks later, I caved and we had that amazing weekend together.
A weekend during which I ceased to be a challenge.
Is that it? Is that what all of this is about?
I told him no once again?
If so, he didn’t lie about wanting me instead of Emmeline. He does want me, and he will until I give in—at which point he’ll lose interest, like he did this weekend.
And this time, he might disappear for good.
My anger fades, replaced by a squeezing ache in my chest, and I turn away, my eyes stinging anew.
I can’t
