by Mora Early
“Neither of you are screwed up.” Emma raised her eyebrows at his words, and Josh’s lips twitched. “Okay, but not any more screwed up than most people. Come downstairs, apologize, smack him upside the head if need be, and move on.” And then they could deal with William Ransler and figure out why he was poking around Emma’s house. “Okay?”
She sniffled a little, wiping at her nose. “You’re right. I’m always telling Todd he has to take responsibility for his mistakes. Maybe it’ll help if I lead by example.”
Josh pushed to his feet, grasped her shoulders, and drew her up to hers. He cupped her face, wiping away the tear tracks, and smiled. “There’s my girl,” he murmured.
The words were out before he realized what he was saying. He’d meant it as a comforting gesture, but the minute they fell from his tongue they seemed to charge the air around them.
Emma’s green eyes widened. Her lips parted in surprise. His gaze honed in on the soft curve of her lips. He heard her sharp intake of breath. Her lashes fluttered down over her eyes and her hands came up to grip his wrists. But she didn’t try and pull him away.
“Josh...”
He didn’t wait to hear what she was going to say. He bent swiftly, with a soft groan, and covered her mouth with his. Her lips were as soft and plump as he remembered, the smooth satin skin on the inner curve of her lower lip just as sweet tasting as he swept his tongue along it.
Josh had kissed Emma before. As Madame Butterfly, at the ball, they’d shared some of the most brain meltingly passionate kisses he’d ever experienced. And when he’d confronted her at the luncheon, he’d kissed her then too. A challenge. But this kiss... this was something else.
Beneath his hands, her cheeks were still warm and slightly damp with her tears. He could taste salt on her lips. Her slender body leaned lightly against his, trembling and soft. Her eyes were wide and green and startled before they slipped closed. Her tongue met his tentatively, curling like a velvet frond around his own.
He kept the pressure of his mouth gentle as he pulled back and then slanted his lips over hers again and again, changing the angle, brushing kisses from one corner of her mouth to the other. His tongue was coaxing as it played with hers, exploring the silken cavern of her mouth with delicate strokes.
Josh’s heart played big band music on his ribcage as the kiss went on and on. His hands slid from her jaw back into her hair, pulling her against his chest and tilting her head back to deepen the languorous lip lock. Emma’s hands trailed up his arms to clutch at his shoulders.
She didn’t pull him closer, but she kissed him back. She kissed him back. She did want him. The glide of her tongue, the fine trembling of her body, the pressure of her soft breasts against his stomach, nipples pebbled and hard. They all said so.
The desk dug against the back of his thighs as he tugged her closer, into the V of his legs, shifting to align their bodies until they were touching from shoulder to hip. He dropped one hand to the small of her back, fingers stroking the dip at the base of her spine.
Emma shuddered, a small whimper pouring into his mouth, at the touch. Her hips curved into him. Josh groaned. He’d been half hard from the moment their lips touched. Another minute or so of this slow, heated kissing with Emma’s slim, soft body snuggled against him and he’d be ready to spread her out on the desk.
Her fingers slid up into his hair, her short nails scratching lightly against his nape. She’d done that the night of the ball too. Just like then, it sent an electric curl of desire shooting straight down Josh’s spine. She scraped her teeth lightly over his lower lip, sucking it gently into her mouth and smoothing the small nip with her tongue.
Josh caressed the curve of her ass, curling his fingers around one small, soft buttock and lifting her onto her tiptoes, bringing her pelvis in line with his. They both gasped as the soft mound of her sex pressed into the hard ridge of his erection.
“Josh!”
“Christ, Emma,” he murmured against her damp, swollen lips. He wrapped his arms tight around her waist and slanted his mouth back over hers with mounting passion.
“Honey, is everything – Oh. Well. I see it is.” Kara Owens leaned against the office doorjamb, a small smile on her wide mouth.
Emma pulled back, shaking her head as if to clear it. Josh gritted his teeth and reluctantly released her. He blew out a long breath and shoved a hand through his hair before shooting a glare at his mother over his shoulder. “Yes, mother. Everything is fine here. What about down there? No one’s gotten in a fist fight, I hope.”
He adjusted himself as inconspicuously as he could before turning but from the wry twist of his mother’s mouth, he doubted he was fooling anyone. Emma was making a great show of straightening her skirt and hair and putting her shoes back on, not meeting anyone’s gaze.
“Everything’s fine. I’ve gotten most of the story straightened out. It seems Mr. Ransler is under the impression that you’re paying Emma to marry you as some sort of scam to convince him you’re not a philanderer.” She snorted and rolled her eyes. Josh managed to keep even a single muscle in his face from moving as she continued.
“Anyway, he went to her house to tell her the jig was up, or whatever, and when he found Todd instead, he tried to appeal to his sense of brotherly duty. You know, save Emma from the evil billionaire.” His mother shook her head.
Josh fiddled with the button on his shirtsleeve to keep from reaching out to smooth an errant lock of dark chocolate brown hair from Emma’s throat. “So Todd punched him?”
“Well, apparently he took offense to William’s implication that Emma would accept money to marry you.”
Emma sighed. “So he punched William and William punched him back. How did they end up here?”
“William figured he’d confront Josh next. Todd followed because he thought you might be here. And the rest...” His mother shrugged.
Josh scrubbed a hand against his cheek. Emma bit her lip, meeting his eyes briefly. Her brows tangled. “What are we going to do?”
“You don’t have to do anything, dear. William Ransler isn’t going to pursue this any further. In fact, he’s agreed to stand up with you at your wedding, Josh. As a show of good faith.” She beamed, crossing her arms beneath her breasts.
“Ben’s my best man, mom.” Josh scowled. William Ransler was turning out to be the biggest pain in the ass he’d ever encountered. Josh didn’t really want him in his wedding party. Even if it was a sham wedding.
“Of course he is. William will just be a groomsmen.” She tilted her head, as if this was obvious.
Josh slumped in defeat. He’d been on the planet long enough to know it was impossible to argue with his mother when she used that tone. “Fine. He’s a groomsmen.”
“Good. I’m glad that’s settled. Now, you two come back downstairs. We still have more plans to make!” She reached out, pulled Emma to her side and tucked her arm through Emma’s elbow. Emma blinked.
“We do? I mean... we’ve got everything settled already, Kara. Or almost everything.”
“Then you’ll have to tell me all about it. Josh?” His mother turned back to look at him over her shoulder as she lead Emma out the door.
Josh pressed his fingertips against the cool wood of his desk, wishing he could snatch Emma back, shut the door in his mother’s face, and finish what they’d started. But he couldn’t. Not right now. “Yeah, Mom?”
“Go get some more of those spicy crab cakes, will you? And leave the puppy here. Your father sounds like a foghorn.” She flashed him a sweet smile and then sailed away, dragging Emma along with her.
Emma glanced back once, but she was too far away for Josh to read the expression in those brilliant green eyes. He rolled his shoulders, trying to ease some of the tension there. “Crab cakes.”
It could have been worse, he supposed. His mother could have overheard the part about the blackmail. Josh shuddered at the thought, and headed to the kitchen for some more hors d’oeuvres to placate his mother.
Emma disengaged herself from Josh’s mother as soon as they reached the conservatory. Kara let her go with a nod toward the open French doors. Emma gave the older woman a small smile, trying to compartmentalize the jumble of emotions in her gut.
She took everything that had coursed through her at the touch of Josh’s lips – the desire, fear, elation, and hope – and stuffed it into a box. She would deal with that some other time. Sometime far, far in the future. Maybe in a few years, once her life had returned to normal and all this madness was a distant memory.
She smoothed her skirt, though she knew it didn’t need smoothing, and strode past Josh’s father and William Ransler with only a slight nod of her head. She didn’t meet their eyes, still embarrassed about her outburst during the fight with her brother.
Todd. Her breath caught on what felt like a jagged snag in her lungs. She’d had a right to be mad, but she shouldn’t have exploded like that. He had just been trying to defend her, the way he always did. When they were growing up, he’d always tried to hide the fact that many of the fights he got into were over things people said about her, but she’d known.
It had never really bugged Emma when people gossiped about her. They said that she was odd, weird. ‘That weird girl’ was her most common high school moniker. And that was to her face. Yet, she hadn’t let it bother her. She’d reconciled herself to leading a solitary life, except for Todd, a long time ago. Even as a small child, she’d never made friends easily. Later, add to that the fact that she was an orphan, and well, most kids didn’t know how to respond to her. So she was always on the outside, looking in. But she’d never really been lonely. That’s the thing that no one understood.
Not even her baby brother.
She had her books, and him, and every once in a while she made friends with someone who understood her particular brand of introversion. It was rare, though. Most people didn’t get how she could be perfectly content without speaking to someone else for long stretches of time while she went quietly about her life. Especially confusing was the incongruity of how Emma occasionally liked to be in the center of a crowd.
Her personality was a good fit for her job, because she alternately had to deal with a ton of people and then go for days without leaving her office. Todd wasn’t like that. He craved company. Their childhood had been harder on him in that way. Aunt Margaret was more of a headmistress than a family member, and Emma would sometimes hole up in her room with a book and not come out. Todd couldn’t do that. He was a social butterfly trapped in Aunt Margaret’s glass case of a house.
Which is why he’d always been willing to do just about anything to be part of a group. Any group. Then came the trouble, and Emma had never known how to reprimand him. Their aunt’s old-school punishments had always seemed so harsh to Emma that she’d never been able to bring herself to add to them. Maybe it would have been different if their parents had lived. Maybe not.
“Hey, T-rex.”
Todd was leaning against the patio railing, looking out over the rolling green expanse of Josh’s manicured back lawn. Thick trees lined the edges of the yard, blocking the house from view of any neighbors. Not that there were any close by. Josh’s mansion sat on a ten-acre plot, a fair portion of which was wooded.
Todd was staring off into the woods, his light brown hair hanging over his forehead as he leaned on his elbows. The lump under his eye was beginning to bruise. He didn’t look at her as she slid into place beside him. Emma pressed her shoulder against his.
“I’m sorry,” he said softly, before she could speak again. Emma turned to him and laid her forehead against his stubbled cheek.
“That’s what I was going to say.”
Todd slid his arm around her waist and pulled her into his side. “No. You were right. I made a bad situation worse. Dad would be ashamed of me.”
“Todd, he wouldn’t. Not for defending me. I’m just stressed and I lashed out at you. It wasn’t fair and you didn’t deserve it.” She wrapped her own arms around him and squeezed. But Todd pulled back a little to look down at her.
“I did. Don’t think I don’t know why you’re stressed. Em.” He grasped both her shoulders and held her away from him. Emma blinked. She didn’t think she’d ever seen this particular expression on her brother’s face before. His usually smiling lips turned downward at the corners and the skin between his brows furrowed.
“You shouldn’t go through with this. I thought it would be just another game. Like when we used to pull the free meal thing. You’re always so good at pretending. And you always got us off the hook. But seeing you in there... what this is doing to you...” He took a deep breath. “I’m going to go to the police. Turn myself in. I’ll tell them I forced you to help me. Then Owens won’t have anything to hold over your head.”
Emma’s mouth dropped open. She shot a frantic glance at the terrace doors, but she’d remembered to close them, thank god. “What?” Her voice was barely a breath.
“Ems, I think Ransler is right. I should be talking you out of this, not convincing you to do it. You look... I’ve seen you worried before when we pulled a trick, but you’ve never looked like you were tied in knots.” He shook his head.
“Gee, thanks,” Emma replied weakly. She had not expected this sudden turnaround from her brother, and she had no idea how to process this change of events. “Why? Why now? What changed your mind?”
In her kitchen just a week ago he’d thought this ‘marriage’ would be the answer to all their problems. And without telling him how Josh made her feel, which she couldn’t even explain to her own self, she hadn’t been able to argue with him.
“I’ve never seen you two together before. You and Owens.” He smiled, but it wasn’t his usual boyish grin. The smile was much more grown-up, bittersweet.
“So?” Emma slid her gaze away from his, checking the French doors again. She could see Josh returning with another plate of crab cakes. His blond hair was slicked back from his smooth forehead as he bent and slid the platter onto the table in front of his mother. Kara reached up and touched his cheek briefly. Josh smiled, his dimple appearing and then disappearing in a flash.
“You’re in love with him.”
Emma’s head whipped around at Todd’s words. “What? Don’t be ridiculous. I hardly know him.”
“Ems.” Todd squeezed her shoulders, his smile softening. “Don’t try to con a con, huh? I know that look. Once I calmed down, I recognized what I saw in your eyes when Owens threatened to pummel Ransler. You’re head over heels for the guy. I should have realized when you didn’t want to do the fake marriage thing. I’m sorry.”
She tugged out of his grip and paced the length of the railing, twisting her fingers together. Bile burned in the back of her throat. “How would you know what ‘in love’ looked like, anyway?” she scoffed.
Todd crossed his arms over his chest. This time he was the one whose gaze drifted away. Whatever he was seeing, it wasn’t here. “I’ve seen it before. The way a woman looks at a man when she sees the future.”
The words stopped Emma in her tracks. A ripple of intense emotion went through her, longing, sharp and fierce. She squashed it into a box, stacked it on top of that kiss, and pretended it wasn’t there. Instead, she focused on the meaning behind her brother’s words. Suddenly, things she hadn’t noticed before clicked into place.
“Carla Fiorentino?” As soon as she said the woman’s name, she saw the tightening around Todd’s lips and eyes. The small signs of pain she’d been missing until now.
He nodded curtly, a sharp jerk of his chin. “So, I know. And I know that Owens doesn’t know. So there’s no way you can go through with this fake marriage. It’ll be four months of torture for you. I was just waiting until you came down here so I could tell you before heading to the precinct.”
“You’re not doing that. I don’t know what happened between you and Carla, or what you think you saw, but I am not in love with Josh Owens. Not e
ven a little bit. The only future I see is four months of extended event planning. Only instead of a garden party, I’m organizing a marriage. That’s all.” She dropped her voice to a hiss so no one inside would hear. “Now, I’m sorry I said what I did about Dad. You were trying to protect me, and you were right. I probably would have done the same. So let’s just forget it.”
“Ems–”
“No.” She wasn’t about to let Todd go to the police. Even if he said he forced her, they’d still bring her in. The whole thing would come out. Ransler would find out. Clarice, Suzanne, Kara and Cam... No. It was better to go through with it and let them think she and Josh had just rushed into things too quickly when their ‘marriage’ dissolved in four months. She’d prefer that to seeing the look on everyone’s face when they found out she was a thief and a liar.
The next four months would be hard, yes. Keeping up any act for that long would be difficult. But she could do it. And it wouldn’t be torture. Because she was not in love with Josh.
Todd was studying her face, his lips curled in a crooked smile. His green eyes were twinkling with wry amusement. She scowled at him. “What?”
“Is this what you usually feel like? Like you clearly see all the things that are going to go wrong if I take a particular path but it’s blatantly obvious I’m going to be too stubborn to listen?”
Emma opened her mouth to retort, glared at him, and closed it again. “Yes.” She crossed her arms over her chest. Todd snorted.
“Well, then I guess this time I get to be the Emma. Are you sure about this?”
“Yes,” she bit out between clenched teeth. She didn’t find anything amusing about this situation. She’d come out here to apologize for her uncalled-for outburst and make up with her brother, not hear him get all preachy and condescending. She wasn’t like that with him. Was she?
Todd hooked an arm around her shoulders, sighing. “Well, then I’m coming along for the ride, to make sure you get in as little trouble as possible.” He grinned and reeled her against him to plant a smacking kiss on her forehead. “Come on, Ems. Let’s go get to know your in-laws a little better.”