The Wedding Band

by Cara Connelly

  “Very funny.” She took a bag from the cupboard. “You can’t expect me to get it perfect the first time. I need practice.”

  “Practice on your own lunch hour. I’m hungry.” He hadn’t been kidding when he’d told Em he’d worked up an appetite. And he needed strength for what the afternoon promised.

  He pointed at a stool. She shimmied her butt onto it, plopping Tri on her lap.

  It was almost like old times. Except now he knew she wasn’t what she’d pretended to be.

  He broke eggs from the carton she’d left open on the counter, then worked the dough while a hundred questions ran through his mind. Questions about her, about them. Questions he wasn’t sure he could trust her to answer honestly.

  He asked the most basic one first. The one that started it all. “What made you do it?”

  “Sneak into the wedding? Your guy Mercer must’ve figured that out by now. I did it to save my job.”

  He watched her draw smiley faces in the flour.

  “You don’t seem too broken up about losing it.”

  She rubbed out the faces. “Losing my job seemed like the worst thing in the world. Until it happened. Then it was a relief. I never wanted to be a journalist.”

  He would’ve scratched his head if he weren’t wrist deep in dough.

  “Then why do it?” he asked. “You put Billie Holiday to shame. Why do anything but sing?”

  “It’s hard to explain.” She went back to making faces again.

  He let the dough sit while he unboxed the never-­used pasta maker and washed the pieces in the island’s sink. He kept one eye on Christy. When she didn’t follow up, he leaned over and blew the smiley faces into her lap.

  “Hey!” She flapped her dress, while Tri fired off three pistol-­shot sneezes.

  “You were sayin’,” he said.

  She heaved a sigh. “My mother changed the world. If I had a nickel for everyone who reminded me of that, I could buy your island for cash. She spent half her life in war-­torn countries, surrounded by the dead and dying, peeing on the side of the road, dodging shrapnel.

  “And she wanted me to do the same. To carry on her work. Go into the heart of misery and strife and tell the world the truth about it. But I’m not as tough as she was. I’m not built for that kind of abuse.”

  She said it like that made her a failure. “I had enough of that life as a kid, trailing around the world behind her. Not that she brought me into the smoke and fire. But I was close enough to be scared shitless a lot of the time.”

  To Kota, it sounded like child abuse. Foster care sucked, but at least he was in America.

  He kept his voice neutral. “Who took care of you?”

  “When I was little, I had a nanny. She traveled with me and Mom, and came on tour with me and Dad in the summers.”

  So the poor kid never had a home. At least he and Tana had landed at the ranch, the best place a kid could grow up. Hard work, little money, but loads of love. And he’d put his feet under the same table every night.

  Still, he refused to feel bad for her. As fucked up as her childhood was, she knew right from wrong. She knew the truth from a lie.

  That said, he needed a minute, so he stuck his head in her fridge. And cringed.

  Three sad little Dannons surrounded an outpost of Ragú. “What the hell?” Nobody could live on that.

  He glanced over his shoulder, but she was ignoring him, tickling Tri, who wriggled gleefully, like the horny bastard he was.

  Kota rolled his eyes, but he was in no position to judge. After all, he was here to get tickled too.

  Rifling the drawers, he dug out a stick of butter and a moldy hunk of Parmesan. When he plopped them on the counter, Christy made a face at the cheese. “Ugh, don’t use that. There’s some good stuff in there.” She pointed.

  He opened the cupboard, curled his lip at the green cardboard container, and dropped it in the trash.

  “That’s not cheese,” he said when she squawked. “It’s the stuff they sweep up off the floor. This here is perfectly good.” He trimmed the mold from the hunk with the least-­dull knife he could find. “You’d know that if you spent more time cooking and less time ordering takeout.”

  “Hey, I was trying to make pasta. You’re the one who kicked me out of the kitchen.”

  That was true, but he wouldn’t give her an inch, not on anything. She’d use it to hogtie him, and he wasn’t making that mistake again.

  “So if you didn’t want to be a journalist, why’d you go to the Sentinel?”

  “Because my mother has Alzheimer’s.”

  “So you said, and I’m sorry about that. But if she doesn’t know one way or the other, what’s the point?”

  Her chin came up. “I felt guilty, okay? Guilt’s a powerful motivator.”

  “And now you’ve got even more to feel guilty about. Like lying to me. Lying to my folks.”

  OUCH. KOTA KNEW just where to jab her.

  But she’d asked for this when she’d engineered the pasta debacle. She wanted to get him talking instead of screwing, even though conversation was bound to be painful.

  She quit playing with the flour and looked him in the face. His eyes, once so warm, were chilly. She made herself hold his gaze.

  “When I accepted the assignment, I hadn’t met your parents. I hadn’t met you, or Tana, or Sasha. None of you were real to me. And to be honest”—­because that was the whole point—­“my biggest qualm was that dishing on a celebrity wedding was beneath me. Because I was a serious journalist.”

  Disdain curled his lip. She soldiered on.

  “Once I met you, I felt bad about deceiving you. And when I met your parents . . . well, I fell in love with them.”

  He snorted.

  “I did,” she insisted. “They’re everything my parents aren’t. I love my parents too, but they’re different. They have these huge egos, and both of them expect me to carry their torch into the future. My father’s just as bad as Mom. He can’t understand why I don’t throw myself into singing—­”

  “Neither can I.”

  “Because I don’t want to.” She slapped the counter, sending up a puff of flour.

  “Then what do you want?”

  Now she spread her hands. “Why do I have to want anything? Why can’t I just live a normal life like everybody else?”

  “Get over yourself. Everybody wants something.”

  “Maybe. But”—­she leveled a look at him—­“even ­people who know what it is don’t always go after it.”

  He crossed his arms. “We’re not going there.”

  “Why not? How can you judge me when you’re gearing up for another blockbuster you don’t want any part of?”

  “Mind your own business, sweetheart.” He backed it up with a death-­ray squint.

  She scooped up a handful of flour and threw it at him. Most of it drifted down onto the counter, but some of it speckled his black T-­shirt.

  “You don’t want to be doing that,” he said, low and deadly.

  She did it again.

  He came around the counter. She clutched Tri like a force field.

  “We’re wasting time talking,” he growled, “when we should be screwing.”

  She swallowed. “I thought you were hungry.”

  “I’ll get a burger when we’re done.” He took Tri out of her hands and dumped him on the floor. Then he cuffed her wrists. “Come on, baby. Let’s fuck.” He pulled her off the stool and over to the couch. “Where’s your roommate?”

  “At a casting call.”

  “She gonna walk in on us?”

  “Would you care if she did?”

  “Not a bit.” He caught the hem of her dress and whipped it over her head.

  Then he caught his breath. Hot eyes licked over her breasts, down her belly.

&
nbsp; She smiled. Her pasta run had included a detour to Rodeo Drive, where she’d dropped three hundred on a white teddy guaranteed to make him drool.

  Money well spent.

  He stroked his palms up her arms to her shoulders, hooked his pinkies under flimsy lace straps. She waited for the pop, but it didn’t come. Instead, he drew the straps down her arms, exposing her breasts. With the rough pads of his thumbs, he brought her nipples to life.

  Dipping his head, he rubbed his nose along her collarbone, breathing her in. She let her head fall to the side, giving him room, and he nipped the long muscle that tied her neck to her shoulder. It tickled, and she giggled. He bit harder, and she gasped.

  Slowly, he peeled her teddy to her waist, then slid his hands down the back, cupping her rump, kneading it, his wrists stretching the fabric. He pushed against her, circling his hips so bulging denim rubbed her where she wanted it.

  Nothing had ever felt so good, or so sexy.

  She didn’t want it to stop. Reaching around him, she clutched his ass, pinning him to her as she rocked against him, a victim of her own well-­planned seduction.

  He hooked a knuckle under her jaw, tilting her chin, taking her lips in a kiss that was more than a kiss. More than sex, more than lust. She rose up on her toes, giving him more too, her heart lifting, chest swelling.

  Then he stepped back, abruptly, and for an instant she thought he’d reconsidered. But he dropped his jeans and moved in, not going anywhere except inside of her.

  Yet in that instant, something had changed. Gone was Mr. Slow-­and-­Easy. His blue eyes blazed, scorching her skin. He tore her teddy. Boosted her up and brought her down on his cock, forging in, taking control. Backing her against the wall, taking her weight like it was nothing, pumping her hard.

  Words fell from his lips, dirty, sexy words, and she ate them up and gave them back, an X-­rated dialogue that drove them both higher, past anyplace they’d been before. She cinched his waist with her legs, doing her part, shoving her hands up under his shirt, raking his shoulders, scratching his pecs.

  He tried to take back control. “Come.” He growled out the command, wanting to call the shots, order her around, pretend he was using her.

  She held out, refusing to be bossed, refusing to be used. “Come with me,” she panted, biting his jaw, tasting his sweat.

  “Goddamn it, woman.” He couldn’t hold out. Throwing back his head, he roared out her name. And together they came, denting the wall, bringing books down off of shelves.

  When they could breathe again, he lifted her off of him. In less than a minute, he was headed for the door.

  “Bye?” she called after him. “See you later?”

  “Don’t count on it,” he threw over his shoulder and slammed the door behind him.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  KOTA JAMMED THE shifter into third, taking the winding road faster than he should.

  Shoving his hand down his pants, he unstuck his cock from his thigh. For Christ’s sake, he should’ve at least taken a minute to clean up.

  But no, he ran like a rabbit instead. And from what? They had sex. Just sex.

  He shouldn’t have kissed her. That was his mistake. A kiss was too intimate, too not-­just-­sex.

  But once he had kissed her, he should have been cool about it. Now she’d know she got to him. Just like she planned to when she slipped into that teddy. Hell. Nobody wore a teddy under a sundress—­nobody wore one, period—­unless they were expecting some action.

  Well, in her defense, she was expecting action. He’d promised to come back at lunchtime. He shouldn’t complain that she was ready and waiting for him.

  She’d even tried to make lunch. He snorted. She’d botched it, of course. The woman probably couldn’t boil water without burning it. But she tried. And then he’d gone and left without even cleaning up the mess. Ma would read him the riot act if she knew about that.

  He touched the brakes. He should go back and help. Flour was a bitch to get up off the floor—­

  His phone rang. Em. For Christ’s sake.

  “What?” he blasted at her.

  “Where are you?”

  “Don’t pretend you can’t track my phone.” Like he didn’t know she’d put him on her friends-­and-­family plan specifically to keep tabs on him.

  “Okay, then. You’re driving too fast.”

  He sped up. “Why’re you pestering me?”

  “Peter called. Levi’s is firm on three years.”

  “Tell him to say thanks, but no thanks.”

  Silence.

  He shot through a yellow light, whipped into In-­N-­Out, and squealed up to the drive-­thru.

  “Bring me a grilled cheese,” Em said.

  He backed up and squealed out. “I’m getting a new phone. Without the spyware.”

  “Like you have a clue how to get your own phone.”

  “I’ll have my new assistant take care of it.”

  “Great. When does she start? Because I cut short my last vacation to save you from the woman you’re currently banging—­”

  He hung up.

  Five minutes later, he braked at his gate and waved to the camera. Somewhere in the house Tony pushed a button to let him in.

  Em met him in the driveway. He gave her a “What now?” look. Then he did a double take.

  For the first time he could remember, she had circles under her eyes. Like she was sick, or hadn’t slept. Or was worried about someone she cared for who might be going off the deep end.

  “Get in,” he said.

  She shook her head. “No time for joyriding. You’ve got shit to do.”

  “Who’s the boss?”

  Huffing a sigh, she got in. He pulled forward into the garage and shut off the car.

  Rolling her eyes, she grabbed the door handle. He stopped her with a hand on her arm.

  “What now?” She snapped his own words back at him.

  “I want to be a vet,” he said.

  “You’re too old to enlist.”

  “Quit telling me I’m old. And I’m not talking about a veteran. I’m talking about a veterinarian.”

  She looked stumped.

  “That was the original plan,” he said. “Get Tana settled, then go back to school.”

  Sharp eyes assessed him. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

  “Because I gave up on it. Or forgot about it.”

  “Or repressed it so you could stay in Hollywood and babysit Tana.”

  “Or that.”

  “So why now? What changed?”

  “Tana’s married. He doesn’t need me anymore.”

  “What about everyone else who counts on you? Peter, and Tony, and me?”

  He cocked his head. “I never figured you’d lay a guilt trip on me.”

  “I don’t have to. You already feel guilty. I’m asking how you’re going to live with it.”

  Damn her, she knew him better than he knew himself.

  He rolled his shoulders, trying to roll off the guilt. “Brad told me he’s thinking about switching agents. I’ll give him a shove toward Peter. And Tony, hell, he can get any gig he wants. I’ve been overpaying him for years just to hang on to him.”

  She watched him steadily, waiting.

  “What?” he said.

  “Veterinarians don’t have PAs.”

  “Movie-­star vets do. Or they will, when I’m one. It coulda been you, if you weren’t such a pain in the ass.”

  As if he could manage his life without her.

  “Meanwhile, about the Levi’s deal,” she said. “You’re just blowing it off?”

  “They’ll take a year when they see I’m serious.”

  “What about the Abrams project? You signed the papers.”

  “I know.” A zillion-­dollar superhero extravagan
za set to start shooting a month after his current film wrapped. “The thing is, if it scores, they’re counting on a franchise. When I tell ’em it’s my last film, they’ll opt out and find somebody else.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “You’ve been thinking about this for a while.”

  “Two weeks.”

  Her eyes widened. “You’re shitting me. It’s Christy, isn’t it? She wants you to quit acting and go to vet school.”

  “She doesn’t want me to do anything. And believe me, if I was looking for a life coach, it wouldn’t be her. She’s a goddamn mess.” He shrugged. “She made me think about it is all.”

  Em held her tongue, but he could see the wheels turning.

  Finally, she shrugged. “Maybe she’s not as bad for you as I thought.”

  CHRIS WAS ON her hands and knees with a sponge when Zach strolled in.

  “Hey, honey pie. That’s quite a mess you got there.”

  She blew her hair off her forehead. “Flour’s a bitch to get off the floor.”

  “How’d it get there in the first place?”

  “We were making pasta.”

  “You and Ray?” Zach guffawed. “The blind leading the blind.”

  “Thanks, Dad.” She trickled sarcasm over it. “But actually it was me and Kota. He’s a wizard in the kitchen.”

  “In the bedroom too, so I hear.” He winked at her.

  She stood up and threw the sponge in the sink. “Sometimes I think we share too much information.”

  “To tell you the truth, I’m kinda surprised you two are hanging out again.” He wandered into the living room and ran an eye over the jumble of books on the floor. “Looks like you’re having fun, though.”

  “We were, until we kissed. Then he ran out like his hair was on fire.”

  Zach let out a laugh. “Boy’s got it bad. I saw it hit him the minute he laid eyes on you. He went ass over teakettle.”

  “Yeah, he’s a mess.” She poured two club sodas. “I’ll clean the flour up later. Let’s sit outside.”

  They settled at the tiny café table in her micro-­backyard. Zach stretched his legs out and made a show of relaxing. He was used to life on the road. On the rare occasions he was home, he got antsy, so he tended to drop in and stay awhile.