by Ryan, Emma
It was amazing how much art I could create when I wasn’t trying to keep yourself afloat with a million different odd jobs. Walker had insisted I pull myself off the roster of the temp agency that had sent me to his office.
A wife of mine, even a fake one, isn’t going to be cleaning other peoples’ offices. Not if I have something to say about it.
After that pronouncement, he’d pulled out a giant bag full of oil paints, watercolors, and acrylics. A wedding gift, he’d said. Just because he could. It would have been crazy romantic, had this been an actual marriage.
I finished up my coffee, pushing that thought aside.
“I don’t know, Alex. Maybe if you come around enough, you can worm your way into his heart, and he’ll make you his second marriage,” I said wryly.
His eyes sparkled as he laughed. “I’ll keep dreaming.”
I showed him around the rest of the house, letting him marvel at the sheer size and luxury of it. I showed him my bedroom, which was looking much more lived in these days, but just pointed to the closed doors of Walker’s room before moving on quickly. Alex slowed his steps, and when I turned around to see what was holding him up, he waggled his eyebrows and jerked his head toward the doors.
“So, getting any action?”
I gave him a deadpan stare.
“What?” He shrugged. “It’s a logical question. You’re married, you might as well be getting all the perks of married life.”
“It’s not that kind of marriage! And no, we’re not sleeping together,” I said. “There wouldn’t be a chance even if we wanted to. He doesn’t usually get home until late, and considering he’s an absolute workaholic, he usually brings work with him.”
Alex chuckled.
“What?”
“For your ‘fake’ marriage, you certainly sound like you’re in a real one. Sexual frustration and all.”
I sputtered. Sexual frustration? “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Alex rolled his eyes. “Honey, you’re sharing a house with the beefcake you dated in high school. And from the sound of things, he’s even hotter and richer now. That bitterness over those uneventful late nights isn’t for nothing.”
Damn Alex. I needed some less perceptive friends.
He was right. Being stuck this house with the man who had owned my heart and soul, taken my virginity, and showed me what true love really felt like was torture.
Unbidden, an incident from a few days ago flashed through my mind.
I’d spent almost the entire day in the studio and finally stepped out for a shower.
Paint ran down from my fingers, leaving drips and splatters that ended up on my thighs. The water ran in a kaleidoscope of colors. It was artwork in and of itself, really. A temporary painting with a limited, appreciative audience. It was kind of magical in its own way. I’d always been fascinated with the different ways art could be interpreted.
Smiling to myself as I finished up my shower, I wondered when Walker would be home. Not that I’d cooked him dinner or anything. I wasn’t really the domestic sort; I’d never been big into cooking or cleaning or those sorts of things. Walker didn’t seem to mind, since he had his own routines and preferred sticking to them.
Part of me wondered if I should make the effort while I was here…
A chuckle fell from my lips before I could even finished the thought.
Me in a kitchen was a recipe for disaster. Walker was probably better off if I left the domestic tasks to his tidy mind and the housekeeper who came once a week.
Stepping out of the shower, I patted myself dry before wrapping the towel around my body. I could put up my hair for the night and chill for the rest of the evening. Maybe do a cool down sketch before bed—
As I stepped out of the bathroom, I stopped dead in my tracks.
Walker must have come home while I was still under the hot spray of my shower. His bedroom doors were open, and he’d just come out of his walk-in closet, shirtless and pantless. My mouth dried, eyes instantly falling down to the hard trail of muscle leading to his pelvis. Walker liked wearing boxer briefs, the good well-fitted kind that left little to the imagination with the semi-hard outline of manhood beneath black material. It wasn’t the first time that I had seen him in anything outside of his usual perfectly pressed suits, but it was the first time that I had seen him in so little. I hadn’t been prepared for it, and the heat on my face showed that much.
Christ. He was so… unbelievably gorgeous. Could you call a man gorgeous? Perhaps not to his face, but Walker never cared about things like that when we were growing up. He was a gorgeous man. The complexion of his naturally tanned skin, the tone of perfectly cultivated muscle—
“Oh, Macks. You’re done.”
His voice made me jump, and I dragged my gaze up his body to his face. I was sure my own face was flushed beet red.
“Hey, uh, Walker. Sorry. I didn’t mean to…”
I wasn’t quite sure how to end that sentence. I’d rather gouge my own eyes out than admit I’d been ogling him.
A grin tilted his full lips. “It’s okay. Hazards of sharing a house with someone, I guess.”
“Right. Well, I’ll just…”
Trailing off again, I pulled my towel tighter around my body and made a beeline toward my bedroom.
I could have sworn, though, that I’d caught a glint of fire in his eyes before I ducked away.
“Mackenzie?”
I blinked, pulling myself from my tangled mess of thoughts as Alex gave me an enigmatic look.
Donkey balls. Maybe my face really was as expressive as Walker had claimed it was. Alex looked like he was reading every thought it my head.
“So…” he drawled. “You never did tell me the full details about you and lover boy. How this whole crazy arrangement has been. Come on, I need the hot deets!” He chuckled. “Jokes about your obvious sexual frustration aside.”
“There are no details to tell.”
“Only someone who has a story to tell but is too shy to tell it says something like that.”
Well, Alex wasn’t wrong, but I wasn’t going to let him hear it. I scoffed, shaking my head.
“Seriously, there’s nothing to tell,” I insisted.
“I know you two dated in high school.”
“You also know how it ended.”
“And yet,” Alex said, smirking, “you’ve come to his aid. Funny, that.”
Again, I rolled my eyes. He made it sound so romantic, like I’d swooped in on a damn white horse.
“Well, fine. So, you’re not sleeping together and you’re not living out some long awaited love story. You’ve been strangely secretive about him. Talk to me Mackenzie. We’re best friends.”
My shoulders slumped. I hadn’t realized how much I’d been unintentionally holding back from Alex about the situation—I hadn’t even let him come to the wedding since it hadn’t seemed like there was a point. I should’ve known better than to think he wouldn’t be interested. Or rather, that I couldn’t confide in him. We’d known each other almost as long as Walker and I had been apart.
We ended up settling on the couch back in the living room.
“It’s been different from what I expected,” I admitted.
“Different in a bad way?”
“Different in a different way.” I shook my head. “I don’t know. He’s just… different. More rigid, like he’s on this linear plane with no deviation instead of just being—how he used to be. I guess it makes sense. A lot changed when his mother died. He’s so much more… more put together now.”
Alex laughed. “You sound like you admire that.”
I smirked wryly. “Only sometimes,” I said. “Other times, I think he’s so painfully uptight I might explode. Did you know he feeds Bruno on a schedule instead of just leaving the food out like a normal person? Or that he organizes everything by color. Oh! And the other day, he got all uppity over the fact that I left the TV on while I showered.” I straightened myself up, putting on my best Wa
lker impression. ‘‘It just doesn’t make any sense to have it on when you’re not in the same room.’”
Alex snorted. “So, he’s a bit uptight. Aren’t all businessmen?”
“The Walker I knew was never ‘like all businessmen,’” I said. “You know, he never even wanted to run the business? He used to talk about getting out from under his father and the family business all the time. He wasn’t like the other guys at that school, or their stuck-up girlfriends. I was just…”
I bit my lip, a warm feeling spreading through my chest as I let myself remember all the wonderful qualities that’d made me fall in love with Walker. His openness. His goofy, playful side. His ambition.
Alex patted my hand, giving me an understanding smile. “Damn, girl. You had it bad for him, didn’t you?”
Clearing my throat, I pulled my hand away.
“Things change.”
8
Walker
I pushed my hand through my hair, messing up the carefully laid strands with twitching, annoyed fingers.
Today was shit.
I had my phone ringing off the hook from investors wanting their questions about my standing with the company answered. They were all concerned about rumors that I may not even have a stake in it since my father’s death, let alone the controlling share that would give them the good-faith reassurance needed to back me and the company. I had no idea where the hell the rumors had come from, but I couldn’t afford to let them take root.
A few hours and several calls later, I’d assured the most skittish investors that my recent marriage to a long-time love was the security needed to keep my hold on Royal Technology.
All was well. Mostly.
But as I leaned back in my chair, rubbing the bridge of my nose, I still wasn’t at peace. I had a hell of a full plate in front of me. New hires to vet, old hires to scan and deem keepers or sackers, not to mention going over a list of new warehouses that needed approval before being built.
It was all work that other business owners would say was layman’s work, too trivial to be dealt with by the head of the company. But if there was anything my father had taught me over the years, it was that if you wanted things done right, you had to do them yourself. Of everything he’d instilled in me, that was the lesson that had stuck with me my entire life.
Of course, my father had also worked himself to death, so maybe following in his footsteps wasn’t the best idea.
Mid-thought about how haggard I probably appeared at the moment, I grimaced as my personal cell rang. Grumbling only until I saw who it was, I answered.
“Grant. Aren’t you on set?”
He’d flown back to L.A. for some reshoots; it was still fairly early over there—for a party-boy movie star, at any rate.
“Nah, taking a break,” he said easily. “Wanted to call and make sure you were handling business all right.”
I shook my head, but my lips twitched up in a smile. Well, whatever haters might say about him being a one-trick show pony, Grant always looked out for the people he held most dear.
“Settling in as well as possible,” I said, holding my cell between my shoulder and my ear so I could go through paperwork as we talked. “I was already doing a lot of this work before Dad died, but there’ve been a few long days getting caught up to speed on everything now that it’s just me. No one else is reliable enough to handle a lot of this—”
“Dude!” Grant interrupted. I could imagine the look of utter boredom on his face. “I don’t mean work business; I meant business with Macks. How are you two doing?”
Oh. That. How were we doing?
It’d only been a week, so logically there shouldn’t be a lot for me to really comment on. But there was so much. The words came before I could hold them back.
“She drives me fucking crazy. She’s not exactly the most put together person on the planet.” Yet I can’t get her out of my mind—and not in the bad way.
Grant laughed. “Yeah, that sounds a lot like a man who’s lying to himself. Trust me, I’ve studied psychology and shit.”
“She’s more distracting than I thought she would be,” I admitted.
“Distracting…?”
“You know, pulling away attention. Distracting.”
“Because she’s not ‘put together?’”
No. Because everything about the woman is equal parts tempting, frustrating, and charming.
There wasn’t a space in my apartment anymore that didn’t have a trace of Mackenzie in it. Her fruity shampoo tended to linger in the bathroom hours after her lengthy showers, and her clothing led trails like breadcrumbs through the apartment more often than not. Shoes here, a t-shirt there, a jacket strewn over a chair—it was maddening, making me hyper-aware of her presence permeating my life. It usually led to a confused mix of agitation and arousal that I wasn’t prepared to deal with at this point.
I cleared my throat, not answering his question. “Listen, Grant. I have to go.”
“Sure, sure, lover boy.”
My thumb jammed the ‘end call’ button, cutting off his amused laughter.
* * *
I hauled my ass back after 10 p.m., more exhausted than usual. On most days, I liked the intensity of my job, and I wasn’t a stranger to an eighty-hour workweek. But tonight, I just wanted a drink and something to eat.
“I’m home!” I called tiredly, surprised to see Bruno padding out from the living room to greet me, his tail wagging. He’d never been a very excitable dog; he was a bit like a dog-shaped piece of furniture sometimes, but it made taking care of him easy as hell.
“Macks?”
Music from the back room—Macks’ art studio—cut off.
“Coming!”
Her singsong voice made me smile. I shrugged off my suit jacket as I made a beeline for the liquor cabinet in the kitchen; I needed that damn drink.
“You’re home. I was wondering if I should start to gather up a search party to have you found,” she quipped.
I chuckled. “Well, don’t gather the squad for little ol’ me—”
Grabbing a bottle of my favorite whiskey, I moved to pick up a glass. Then I paused, blinking at the sight of Mackenzie striding into the kitchen. She padded through the arched doorway with her hair piled high atop her head in a messy, frizzy bun; the thin tank top she wore rode up to show off the expanse of a flat, perfect stomach. She had on a pair of cut-off shorts that did nothing to quell the twitch that wracked through my cock. She’d only gotten more alluring—no, downright sexy—over the years. The fact that she was spattered in colorful splotches of paint here and there was only a bonus to her sexy, artistic charm.
She smiled as I stared, coming up to the marble-topped island in the middle of the room. I was struggling to remember what we’d been talking about when my eyes caught sight of something on the floor.
A little trail of round, misshapen droplets of blue and green led from the back room—which I still hadn’t been allowed to see the inside of yet—to Mackenzie.
I groaned. “Macks… the floor.” I gestured to the trail behind her.
She looked back, confused, before spotting the objects of my annoyance. She turned to me with a nonchalant laugh.
“Oh, they’re just acrylics. They’ll wash right off with some hot water and a good soap.”
I stared at her, deadpan. It was one thing to have her clothes all over the apartment, her habit of leaving dishes on the counter rather than the sink. It was another to have paint trailed all over my marble floors.
“Macks, it’s still a mess,” I insisted. “Do you know how much these floors cost to have installed?”
Mackenzie gave me the look—the one that said are you serious right now? in a single, cutting gaze. Whatever the case, her little smirk lit a fire in me; whether for good or bad, it was hard to tell.
“Aww… Walker… you are upset over your marble floors? That’s so very ‘rich man’ of you,” she said with a laugh.
“I’m serious.”
&n
bsp; “So am I.” She tilted her head. “It’s just paint, Walker. It’ll wash off. See?”
To my abject disbelief, Mackenzie ran her hand through a still wet patch along her belly and smeared a mix of red-green paint along the counter top. Her eyes never left mine, and between the smirk that quirked her plump lips and the fine arch of her dark brow, I realized something.
Mackenzie was challenging me—and it was sexy as hell.
She’d worked her way completely under my skin, and I didn’t know whether to be pissed off or turned on.
Fuck. Maybe both.
9
Mackenzie
“You’re going to clean that up.”
Walker’s voice was downright tight, forced to be level. He was mad, I’d give him that—but there was more to the frustration than just, well… frustration. It was the glint in his eyes and the forced tension in him that made me pause, and that’s when I remembered—
Before Walker had become Mr. Fancy-Pants Businessman, he’d loved a good old-fashioned challenge.
I used to be able to rile him up so easily. Just a few pokes, a few pushes in the right direction, and I’d get to watch the alpha male in him rise to the surface. The only difference between then and now was that I knew there were other, more enjoyable ways to push a man.
Maybe it was the nostalgia that swept over me for those fun, easy days. Maybe it was the fact that Walker pushed my buttons too, whether I wanted to admit it or not. But whatever the reason, instead of doing what he wanted, I flashed a cherry-sweet smile and shook my head.
“Nah. You know what, I don’t think I will.” I chuckled. “You need to loosen up, Walker. You’ve gotten too uptight over the years.”
It was exhilarating, watching his gaze bore into me as I pushed away from the kitchen island to walk to the fridge. He was like a predator keeping his eye on a piece of non-cooperative prey.
Slowly, challengingly, I gave him a haughty look as I drew more paint across the stainless steel surface of the fridge.