Suddenly, Zach tensed. “Speaking of business, my work, uh…”
Now, Piper tensed. He was leaving? She knew he’d worked Saturday, but his wedding day, too?
“You have to go?” Wistfulness couldn’t be helped in her tone, and she couldn’t hide it, even to save face. “Because so do I. I haven’t even chosen the menu. Usually I’m done at the market by now and starting to prep. You go on over to your office, and…”
She’d be seriously behind. Maybe she could just do omelets today. That was a low-prep meal, and she hadn’t done them yet.
“Actually, no. I’m not going in today or tomorrow.” He wasn’t? “Possibly not until Thursday.”
“What’s the matter? Is there a quarantine going on? I didn’t think the wheels of justice ever stopped.” She exhaled, throwing out a joking tone, but secretly more relieved than she should be. Hope inflated her again at the chance she might get to spend some of that time with him, possibly revisiting that soul-bending kiss. Definitely revisiting it.
“I told them I’d be sending in my work from Bermuda or some other super-secret honeymoon location.”
“Oh. Honeymoon.” The word turned to ashes in her mouth. She’d considered the kissing aspect, but honeymoon implied more—a lot more—than kissing. “Wow. That’s a major point we haven’t discussed.”
“Yeah, uh…” Zach scratched the back of his neck. “Considering both of our situations, I’m going for the as-convincing-as-possible route. So…what do you say?”
“To what? To your missing work and going to Bermuda to convince your boss you’re married?”
“To a honeymoon. Us. You and me.”
Whoa, boy. That was not part of the business arrangement they had discussed.
He saw her distress. “Hey, I know this is sudden. And you have Du Jour. You can’t really leave it.”
“I really can’t.” She shook her head. It might have been vigorously, but not so much about Du Jour but about…that other matter. The one she totally should have told him at the outset, but now which had grown so much as to eclipse every other matter in the world. “I—can’t.”
“That’s fine. No Bermuda, or wherever. We can just go into hiding around here instead, if we want. I’ll take a couple days off. When you’re not running the restaurant, we’ll, uh, you know.”
She didn’t know. Not at all. She was completely un knowing.
“It could be fun,” he said, stepping closer, raising her temperature, her pulse, her fear and anticipation and blood. “Really fun. I mean, I was there for that kiss a few minutes ago. You felt that. Don’t deny it.”
Oh, she’d felt it all right. His warm arms encircled her again, emptying her mind of everything but the memory of it. Just recalling its transcendent force, she whispered, “Beam me up, Scotty.”
“Exactly,” he said under his breath, leaning down and placing a series of soft kisses across her brow. Sparkles flowed over her.
Yeah, he was right. It could be really fun. Too much fun. Dangerous fun. And she wasn’t going there.
“Zach.”
“Piper.”
“No, I mean. I guess I thought you knew. I mean, I’ve told every other guy I’ve dated. Not that you and I have actually dated, which is probably how this problem cropped up.”
“Problem?”
They’d eaten a meal together and gotten engaged and married. Bammo.
“I don’t think of it as a problem, but some might. You might. It’s made a few of my boyfriends dump me.”
“What? You’re not sick or anything? Because I’d never hold that against you. CBH has great insurance, covers all preexisting conditions, and—”
That was sweet. So sweet. Bless him for how sweet that was.
“No. Not exactly. But it’s definitely going to affect your plans for a so-called business honeymoon.”
“Then what is it?”
“I’m a virgin.”
Chapter Eleven
Zach kept his face the mask of calm he’d practiced a thousand times for the courtroom, but this time it cracked.
What on earth had he done?
“Wow. That’s…great. I mean, wow.” He cleared his throat. “You’re right. It does change things.” For one, he was either the luckiest or the unluckiest man this side of the Rio Grande today, depending. He didn’t know how to figure out which, so he waited. And waited. What she said next would define his bliss or his crushing disappointment.
Finally she spoke.
“A long time ago I decided, I’m only giving myself to one man, ever.”
So not to her fake husband. Unluckiest.
“Now I can see that I probably should have led with it.” Piper looked across the courtyard toward the fountain. “Usually I do. It either makes the guys I date a lot more or a lot less interested.”
Zach fell squarely into the former category, even now. A pure girl, one who had kept herself for her husband, and now…he had the paper to prove his qualifications.
However, unquestionably, it added complexity to the situation they’d created.
“We probably should have discussed this before we put our names on the dotted line,” Zach said.
Piper closed her eyes. “Look, I know it’s a big deal. Believe me.”
“Yeah.” Zach agreed. Now it was an even bigger deal.
She put her palm over her eyes sideways and said, “I don’t even kiss until the third date. It’s that important to me.”
Disappointment rattled him for a moment—but it probably shouldn’t.
“We did say it was a business arrangement.” He was the bozo who defined it in the first place. He had no one to blame but himself. If he’d wanted to date her, go about things the right way, to get her to that point, he could have been patient, done things right.
But he didn’t. And now here she stood looking afraid.
“Look, I know it’s a big deal. It is. And if you want to go back inside and get this annulled, we can turn around right now.” Piper looked like dejection itself, and it softened him even more toward her. “They haven’t recorded it at the county recorder yet. It’s probably not too late.”
For a girl who was facing deportation, and worse—a life as a potential hobbit-wife and house slave, she was surprisingly willing to let him off the hook. Considering, the fact that all Zach faced was another year or ten in the associates’ pool, with a side of his dad’s continued slide into degradation, the stakes felt wildly unbalanced between the two of them, and her bravery looked all the more noble.
“Come here.” He took her in his arms. Her curves and contours felt amazing nestled up against his torso, molding herself perfectly into his embrace. “I’m not planning on annulling anything. We’ve both got too much to lose. We’re not turning back.”
“Really?” She looked up at him with hope. “You’re not mad?”
Mad, yeah. But at himself, for expecting to cheapen her, when he should have been thinking of the high road instead.
“Trust me. We’ll make this work.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.” He hoped he could make it work, considering how incredible she felt against him, how her kiss had made his hormones crank into the red zone, and her sweetness and purity appealed to even his higher nature at a level so attractive he might transcend in her presence. “We’ll put all that on hold. We can do it.”
They’d better be able to do so. Because if not, they had a lot of consequences piling up, including the possibility of breaking her resolve, and leaving her devastated.
He would not do that to her, regardless of how insanely magnetic her beauty, or how her kiss reeled him in like a fish on the line.
He’d better change the subject before he made any more dangerous analogies.
“You have a restaurant to run. Since I’ve got the morning off, can I do anything to help?”
Piper’s eyes lit up. “Let me get out of this dress and you can go with me to the farmer’s market.”
“Sounds good.” No
t as good as a honeymoon, but he wouldn’t argue with the getting-out-of-the-dress part.
∞∞∞
Unfortunately, Zach had been forced to field three phone calls outside while Piper went up to her second-floor walk-up to change out of her dress. He would’ve liked to see where she lived, maybe get another insight into what she was like. He felt like he knew so much and so little about her at the same time.
A few minutes later, he finished his calls, and before he could go knock, Piper came downstairs in a blue top and jeans. Her blond hair was pinned up, and some kind of dangling earring she wore made him keep looking at her neck.
She did have quite a nice neck. If he couldn’t go farther with her, for obvious reasons, maybe she’d still let him spend a little time worshiping her neck.
“Do you mind shopping with me?” She walked him a half block to a small, open lot with twenty little booths of flowers, fruits, vegetables, mushrooms, and other things. She went straight to choosing items like a pro. The vendors all knew Piper by name.
“Piper. You brought a man.”
“This is Zach,” she told them. “My husband.”
Her words hit him like a juggernaut. Her husband. An hour ago, he wasn’t anybody’s husband. Now he was Piper Quinn’s. Er, Piper Travis’s.
That reminded him. They had official, married-people-paperwork-trail stuff to do—and fast.
“It still has to be convincing—for both our sakes,” he said quietly as they left the market, with Zach carrying her bag of sweet peppers, onions, mushrooms, and fresh cream.
“Of course,” she said. “So, that would probably entail public displays of affection, even if there are no private, er, displays.”
Oh. So she was still talking about the other thing. He’d meant the paperwork: name change, driver’s license update, Social Security card, the works, but he’d gladly revert to that other topic.
“Wait. No private ‘displays?’ Are you sure?” He looked at her neck, so smooth and inviting beside that filigree earring that tinkled when she moved her head.
Piper looked askance at him, eyebrow raised. “Business and pleasure. How well do they mix for you, Zach Travis?”
“Pretty well, so far.” They turned the corner onto the street with Du Jour. “But in all seriousness, there’s a public display coming up soon. A firm dinner for associates and spouses.” He hadn’t even considered the fact she might already have plans, so he’d better solidify things. He needed her there for this. It would be their debut as a couple. Eisenhower and Nakamura would be there for certain, not that taking her on a date should be any kind of competition. “Are you free?”
“Are you asking me on a date, Zach Travis?” It was so cute when she used both his names. It made his shoulders square up.
“Will you, Mrs. Zach Travis, be my date for the Crockett, Bowie, and Houston potluck dinner this Wedneday?”
Her face clouded. “Potluck.”
“Yes. Is that a problem?”
She paused. “Only if you are just telling me this to tease me.”
What? “No. It’s for real. Don’t tell me you’re self-conscious about your cooking. You’re a full-time chef at a booming bistro—with your face on a billboard on I-10, no less.”
“Talk about self-conscious anxiety-inducement. Trust me, I had no idea Mitzi had done that. Believe me.”
“I’m telling you, your friend Mitzi’s billboard idea is ingenious. You’ll get every male commuter into downtown dropping in for a look and a meal.” The photo of her had shown off her figure, too. All of a sudden, that didn’t please Zach as much as it had when he first saw the proof for the ad. This was his woman now.
Stop it, fool. She’s your woman because you in effect drew up a contract—with a sunset clause—for her to pretend to be your wife for a defined period of time. Quit acting like it’s real.
Because it’s not.
“I don’t know.” They entered through the back door of the bistro, into the bright white kitchen where she’d fed him that tastebud explosion of a lunch the other day. Where he’d started to see her for all her many qualities. Where he’d decided he didn’t mind if he did marry this woman, come what may.
Piper, however, wasn’t getting nostalgic about their first lunch together; she’d shifted into gear. Within a moment, she’d washed up and was cutting vegetables, whipping together ingredients and spices into an amalgam.
“Can I help?”
“Sure. Hand me that whisk, would you?”
He figured out which cooking tool she meant and watched as she whipped eggs into a foamy froth.
“Wash these mushrooms?” She pointed to a pile of button-topped mushrooms with long stems. “I like the enoki mushroom flavor for omelets.”
“Omelets. Good.” He sounded like a caveman dimwit. The kitchen wasn’t his area. He spent most of his kitchen time staring while a square piece of plastic turned on a rotating dish, its clear film flapping atop frozen lasagna.
“I hope they’re good. I’m starting late. Thanks for the help—I really needed it.” She needed him? Mostly Zach helped by keeping up with dishes as she needed. How she did it all alone most days, he had no idea.
“You’re a machine. Has anyone ever told you that?”
“I started to cook for my parents when I could reach the stove. They encouraged it. They liked the food so much, they asked me to make more—a few times a day on the weekends. Breakfast, second breakfast, all of that. It’s probably my fault they went full-hobbit.”
“Have you ever visited them there?”
“No. It’s so far,” she said, “and they’ve only been there since last fall.”
Zach frowned and dried a fry pan from the sautéed onions. “Have you ever talked to the mayor?”
“Mayor Ebbles? I’ve heard enough about him.”
And his son, too, probably. Zach didn’t trust that guy. “I’m probably not his biggest fan.”
“Pretty sure he’s got that slot covered.”
“Exactly.” Good to know Piper wasn’t keen on him either. Piper poured another mound of charred green and red peppers onto a plate under the warming lamp. “Do these smell good?”
“Only if you’re a fan of delicious flavor.”
“No snitching.” She batted his hand away. “Oh, okay. Here.” She handed him a plate with a perfectly done lunch. “Taste test. Tell me the truth. Is it good enough to serve to the fine diners of San Antonio?”
It was good enough to serve at the historic Medici wedding.
Piper stuck her head through a door of a back office and he heard her say, “Mitzi. The menu is omelets with enoki mushrooms. Yeah. E-N-O-K-I. Good.”
He hadn’t seen Mitzi yet.
“Mitzi’s busy?”
“It’s a quarterly taxes day. I’ll introduce you another time. She’s…probably not fit to be seen right now.”
Taxes could turn anyone unfit to be seen. He got that.
Four and a half hours later, lunchtime ended, and Zach stared at her in disbelief.
“You do that every day? And you don’t die?”
“Monday through Friday.” She hung up a dishcloth and grabbed her purse. He bowed to her, up and down, several times with hands out, palms down. She laughed. “Well, I can’t believe you stayed the whole time.” She did a miniature version of his bowing in return.
“Frankly, I can’t believe I didn’t jinx you with bad-cooking-luck. I burn microwave popcorn as one of my culinary skills. But all the plates came back empty.”
“They generally do. Except your table’s, on Thursday.”
“So you noticed.”
She shrugged, and they headed outside into the spring afternoon’s sunshine. California and Florida might lay claim on the sunshine, but Texas got its fair share.
“Have you told Mitzi?”
“What? About you? She’s the one who suggested I find a lawyer.”
“About us.” He took her hand. They had to make it look real, so they might as well look official on th
e street. She’d called him her husband at the farmer’s market after all.
“I—no. Not yet. But I will. Soon.”
The flowers blooming along the riverbank smelled better today than usual. Maybe it was because he wasn’t walking as fast as possible to get to a meeting he was already late for. Or maybe it was because their fragrance mixed with Piper’s.
Piper’s thumb rubbed across his palm, and he stopped listening to whatever else she said. Soon, they were at her apartment door, and he hadn’t noticed how they’d arrived there. All he’d felt was the pressure of her touch.
“Well, I’m home.” She looked up at him. Her green eyes sparkled, like sun on the water. He’d kissed her this morning, and her eyes had fluttered shut. He’d like to make that happen again. Six hours was far too long to go without her lips on his, now that he’d had his first taste.
“I should go up.” She didn’t seem to be in a particular hurry to leave him.
He rubbed his thumb over the palm of her hand. “But there’s paperwork.”
“What paperwork? Good old Father Ryan is going to file the marriage with the recorder’s office.” They stood across from each other on the stoop of her apartment building. He kept hold of her hand.
“I mean name change, and so forth.” When Piper exhaled, clearly tired by the thought of paperwork, he said, “You created hundreds of gorgeous lunches today. You probably need a nap.”
“Trust me, I barely slept last night.”
Neither had he. But he rarely did. CBH wasn’t big on sleep for associates.
Maybe that would change, now that Piper Quinn was Piper Travis. Zach would be partner, and someone would be on the other side of his often empty bed, evening things out for him. Her breathing would mirror his in the night, comforting, soothing him back to sleep when the insomnia hit, as it usually did, midweek.
Yeah, sleeping beside Piper. Not a sacrifice.
Except—the brakes squealed inside him. Right. The thing. With her virginity.
He’d better scale back expectations. For now. Take it slow. Maybe things would build. They had built in him, no question, and they didn’t seem likely to deconstruct anytime soon, not with everything he was seeing in this woman as the day went on.
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