by Kat Cantrell
Gah, she should have her head examined if a simple conversation with a man had her so flipped upside down. Nodding, she ducked back into the condo, snagged her Marc Jacobs bag from the counter in the kitchen and rejoined Hendrix in the hall before he got any bright ideas about testing his will behind closed doors. Hers sucked. The longer she kept that fact from him, the better.
He ushered her to a low-slung Aston Martin that shouldn’t have been as sexy as it was. At best, it should have screamed I’m trying too hard to be cool. But when Hendrix slid behind the wheel, he owned the beast under the hood and it purred beneath his masterful hands.
She could watch him drive for hours. Which worked out well since she’d apparently just volunteered to spend the day planning flowers for her wedding with her fiancé. Bizarre. But there it was.
Even she had heard of the florist he drove to. Expensive, exclusive and very visible, Maestro of the Bloom lay in the Roundtree shopping district near downtown. Hendrix drove around the block two times, apparently searching for a parking place, and she opened her mouth to remind him of the lot across the street when he braked at the front row to wait for a mother and daughter to get into their car. Of course he wanted the parking place directly in front of the door, where everyone could see them emerge from his noteworthy car.
It was a testament to his strategic mind that she appreciated. As was the gallant way he sped around to her side of the car to open the door, then extended his hand to help her from the bucket seat that was so low it nearly scraped the ground. But he didn’t let go of her hand, instead lacing their fingers together in a way that shouldn’t have felt so natural. Hands nested to his satisfaction, he led her to the door and ushered her inside.
A low hum of conversation cut off abruptly and something like a dozen pairs of eyes swung toward them with varying degrees of recognition—some of which held distaste. These were the people whose approval they both sought. The society who had deemed their Vegas tryst shocking, inappropriate, scandalous, and here the two of them were daring to tread among more decent company.
Roz’s fingers tightened involuntarily and dang it, Hendrix squeezed back in a surprising show of solidarity. That shouldn’t have felt as natural as it did either, like the two of them were a unit already. Peanut butter and jelly against the world.
Her knees got a little wobbly. She’d never had anything like that. Never wanted to feel like a duo with a man. Why did it mean so much as they braved the social scene together? Especially given that she’d only just realized that turning over a new leaf meant more than fixing her relationship with her father. It was about shifting the tide of public opinion too, or her charity wouldn’t benefit much from Helene’s participation. Roz would go back to being shunned in polite society the moment she signed the divorce papers.
Against all odds, he’d transformed Roz into a righteous convert to the idea of marriage with one small step inside the florist. What else would he succeed in convincing her of?
With that sobering thought, Roz glanced at Hendrix and murmured, “Let’s do this.”
Three
As practice for the bigger, splashier engagement party to come, Hendrix talked Roz into an intimate gathering at his house. Just family and close friends. It would be an opportunity to gauge how this marriage would fly. And it was a chance to spend time together as a couple with low pressure.
The scene at the florist had shaken Roz, with the murmurs and dirty looks she’d collected from the patrons. That was not okay. Academically, he knew this marriage deal was important to his mother and her campaign. In reality, he didn’t personally have a lot of societal fallout from that photo. No one’s gaze cut away from him on the street, but he was a guy. Roz wasn’t. It was a double standard that shouldn’t exist but it did.
Who would have ever thought he’d be hot to ease Roz’s discomfort in social situations? It had not been on his list of considerations, but it was now. If this party helped, great. If it didn’t, he’d find something else. The fragile glint in her eye while they’d worked with the florist to pick out some outrageously priced flowers had hooked something inside and he’d spent a considerable amount of time trying to unpierce his tender flesh, to no avail. So he did what he always did. Rolled with it.
The catering company had done a great job getting his house in order to host a shindig of this magnitude. While the party had been floated as casual, Hendrix had never entertained before. Unless you counted a handful of buddies sprawled around his dining room table with beer and poker chips.
Roz arrived in the car he’d sent for her and he ignored the little voice inside taunting him for hovering at the front window to watch for her. But it was a sight to see. Roz spilled from the back of the car, sky-high stilettos first, then miles of legs and finally the woman herself in a figure-hugging black cocktail dress designed to drive a man insane.
She’d even swept up her wavy dark hair into a chignon that let a few strands drip down around her face. It was the sexiest hairstyle he’d ever seen on a woman, bar none.
He opened the door before she could knock and his tongue might have gone numb because he couldn’t even speak as she coolly surveyed him from under thick black eyelashes.
“Thanks for the car. Hard to drive in heels,” she commented, apparently not afflicted by the stupid that was going around.
He shouldn’t be, either. He cleared his throat. “You look delicious.”
Amazing might have been a better term. It would make it seem more like he’d seen a beautiful woman before and it was no big thing. But she was his beautiful woman. For as long as they both deemed it beneficial.
That seemed like a pretty cold agreement all at once for two people who’d burned so very hot not so long ago.
She smiled with a long slow lift of her pink-stained lips. “I’ll take that as a compliment, as weird as it is.”
“Really? It’s weird to tell my beautiful fiancée that she looks good enough to eat?” he questioned with a heated once-over that she didn’t miss.
“You can’t say stuff like that,” she murmured and glanced away from the sizzling electricity that had just arced between them right there on his doorstep.
“The hell I can’t. You said no kissing. At no point did I agree to keep my carnal thoughts to myself, nor will I ever agree to that. If I want to tell you that I’m salivating to slide that dress off your shoulders and watch it fall to the ground as it bares your naked body, I will. I might even tell you that I taste you in my sleep sometimes and I wake up with a boner that I can’t get rid of until I fantasize about you in the shower.” Her cheeks flushed. From embarrassment at his dirty talk or guilt because she liked it? He couldn’t tell. He leaned closer and whispered, “Believe it or not, I can tell you what I want to do to you without acting on it.”
A car door slammed behind her and she recoiled as if it had been a gunshot to her torso.
“Invite me in,” she muttered with a glance over her shoulder. “This is a party, isn’t it?”
Should have been a party for two with a strict dress code—birthday suits only. Why had he agreed to her insane stipulation that they abstain from any kind of physical contact until the wedding? It was a dumb rule that made no sense and if Jonas and his wife, Viv, weren’t waltzing up the front walk at that precise moment, Hendrix would be having a completely different conversation about it with his fiancée.
He stepped back and allowed Roz to enter, slipping an arm around her waist as she tried to flounce past him into the living room. “Oh, no you don’t, sweetheart. Flip around and greet the guests. We’re a couple.”
Her smile grew pained as he drew her close. “How could I forget?”
Jonas and Viv hit the welcome mat holding hands. Funny how things worked. Jonas and Viv had gotten married in Vegas during the same trip where Hendrix had hooked up with Roz.
“Hey, guys. Th
is is Roz,” Hendrix announced unnecessarily, as he was pretty sure both Jonas and Viv knew who she was. If not from the photo flying around the internet, strictly by virtue of the fact that she was glued to his side.
Viv, bless her, smiled at Roz and shook her hand. “I’m Viv Kim. It’s nice to meet you, and not just because I love any opportunity to use my new name.”
With an intrigued expression, Roz glanced at the male half of the couple. “Are you newly married?”
Jonas stuck his hand out. “Brand-new. I’m Jonas Kim. My name is still the same.”
Hendrix nearly rolled his eyes but checked it in deference to one of his oldest friends. “Thanks for coming. Roz and I are glad you’re here to celebrate our engagement. Come in, please.”
He guided them all to the cavernous living area that had been designed with this type of gathering in mind. The ten-thousand-square-foot house in Oakwood had been a purchase born out of a desire to stake his claim. There was a pride in ownership that this house delivered. It was a monument of a previous age, restored lovingly by someone with an eye for detail, and he appreciated the history wafting from its bones.
The house was a legitimate home and it was his.
Curiously, Viv’s gaze cut between the two of them as she took a seat next to Jonas on the couch. “Have you set a wedding date?”
“Not yet,” Roz answered and at the same time, Hendrix said, “Five weeks.”
She shot him a withering look. “We’re waiting until we pick a venue, which might dictate the date.”
The doorbell rang and his mother arrived with Paul Carpenter right on her heels. Introductions all around went smoothly as nearly everyone knew each other. As the CEO of Kim Electronics, Jonas had met Mr. Carpenter several times at trade shows and various retail functions. Helene frequented Viv’s cupcake shop on Jones Street apparently and exclaimed over the baker’s wares at length. It was Paul and Helene’s first meeting, however.
Hendrix raised a brow at the extra beat included in their hand shake, but forgot about it as Roz’s friend Lora showed up with a date. Hendrix’s other best friend, Warren Garinger, was flying solo tonight, which was lately his default. He arrived a pointed thirty minutes late.
It wasn’t until later that evening that Hendrix had a chance to corner his friend on his tardiness.
“Just the man I was looking for,” he said easily as he found Warren in the study examining one of the many watercolors the decorator had insisted went with the spirit of the house.
Warren pocketed his phone, which should have melted from overuse a long time ago. He worked ninety hours a week running the energy drink company his family had founded, but Hendrix didn’t think that was what had put the frown on his friend’s face. “I had to take a call. Sorry.”
“The CEO never gets a day off,” Hendrix acknowledged with a nod. “It’s cool. I was just making sure you weren’t hiding out in protest.”
“I’m here, aren’t I?” Warren smoothed out his expression before it turned into a full-bore scowl. “You’ve obviously made your decision to get married despite the pact.”
Hendrix bit back a sigh. They’d been over this. Looked like they were going over it again. “The pact means something to me. And to Jonas. We’re still tight, no matter what.”
Jonas, Warren and Hendrix had met at Duke University, forming a friendship during a group project along with a fourth student, Marcus Powell. They’d had a lot of fun, raised a lot of hell together in the quintessential college experience—until Marcus had gotten his heart tangled up over a woman who didn’t deserve his devotion. She’d been a traitorous witch of a cheerleader who liked toying with a man’s affections more than she’d liked Marcus. Everyone had seen she was trouble. Except their friend.
He’d grown paler and more wasted away the longer she didn’t give him the time of day and eventually, his broken heart had overruled his brain and somehow suicide had become his answer. Shell-shocked and embittered, the three surviving friends had vowed to never let a woman drive them to such lows. They’d formed a pact, refusing to fall in love under any circumstances.
Hell, that had been a given for Hendrix, pact or not. Love wasn’t something he even thought much about because he never got close enough to a woman to develop any kind of tender feelings, let alone anything deeper.
But the pact—that was sacred. He’d had little in his life that made him feel like he belonged and his friendship with Jonas and Warren meant everything to him. He’d die before violating the terms of their agreement.
“If the pact is so important, then I don’t understand why you’d risk breaking it with marriage,” Warren countered and the bitterness lacing his tone sliced at Hendrix far more severely than he’d have expected.
They both glanced up as Jonas joined them, beers in hand. “Thought I’d find you two going at it if I looked hard enough. I’m the one you want to yell at, Warren. Not this joker.”
Hendrix took the longneck from his friend’s hand and gave Warren a pointed look until the other man sighed, accepting his own beer. No one was confused about the significance. It was a peace offering because Jonas had already broken the pact by falling in love with Viv. Warren had not taken it well. The three of them were still figuring out how to not be bachelor pals any longer, and how to not be at odds over what Warren viewed as Jonas’s betrayal.
Hendrix just wanted everything to be on an even keel again so he didn’t get a panicky feeling at the back of his throat when he thought of losing the one place where he felt fully accepted no matter what—inside the circle of his friends.
“If it makes you feel better,” Hendrix said after a long swallow of his brew, “the odds of me falling in love with Roz are zero. We’re not even sleeping together.”
Jonas choked on his own beer. “Please. Is this April Fools’ Day and I missed it?”
“No, really.” Hendrix scowled as both his friends started laughing. “Why is that funny?”
“You’ve finally met the one woman you can’t seduce and you’re marrying her?” Warren clapped Hendrix on the back, still snickering.
“Shut up,” he growled. Why did that have to be the one thing that got his buddy out of his snit? “Besides, I can go without sex.”
“Right.” Jonas drew the word out to about fourteen syllables, every one of them laden with sarcasm. “And I can pass as Norwegian.”
Since Jonas was half-Korean, his point was clear. And Hendrix didn’t appreciate his friend’s doubt, never mind that he’d been angling for a way to kibosh the no-sex part of his agreement with Roz. “I don’t have to explain myself to you guys.”
Jonas sipped his beer thoughtfully. “Well, I guess it’s a fair point that this is a fake marriage, so maybe you’re pretty smart to skip sex in order to avoid confusion. I of all people can understand that.”
“This marriage is not fake,” Hendrix corrected. “Your marriage was fake because you’re a moron who thought it was better to live together and just pretend you’re hot and heavy. I’m not a moron. Roz and I will have a real marriage, with plenty of unfake hot and heavy.”
Especially the honeymoon part. He was already glancing at travel websites for ideas on places he could take his bride where they’d have no interruptions during a weeklong smorgasbord where Roz was the only thing on the menu.
Jonas raised his eyebrows. “You’re trying to tell me you’re waiting until marriage before you sleep together? That’s highly unconventional for anyone, let alone you.”
It was on the tip of his tongue to remind Jonas how late Hendrix had been to his wedding. Roz had been the reason, and these yokels were lucky he’d showed up at all. It had been sheer hell to peel himself out of Roz’s bed to make it to the chapel before the nuptials were over.
But something held him back from flinging his escapades in his friends’ faces. Maybe it had something to do wit
h their assumption that he was a horndog who couldn’t keep it in his pants, which had frankly been Roz’s assumption, too. Was that all there was to him in everyone’s mind? Always on the lookout for the next woman to nail? There was a lot more complexity to his personality than that and he was suddenly not thrilled to learn he’d overshadowed his better qualities with his well-deserved reputation.
“That’s me. Unconventional,” he agreed easily.
And now he had an ironclad reason to stick to his agreement...to prove to himself that he could stay out of a woman’s bed.
* * *
Roz’s father had smiled at her tonight more times than he had in the past five years. As much as she’d craved his approval, all this cheer made her nervous. Paul Carpenter ran a billion-dollar furniture enterprise, with manufacturing outlets and retail stores under his command as far away as the Philippines and as close as within walking distance. He rarely smiled, especially not at Roz.
“I’ve always liked this house,” her father commented to her out of the blue as they found themselves at the small minibar at the same time.
“I think Hendrix mentioned it’s on the Raleigh Historical Society’s list as one of the oldest homes in Oakwood. It’s really beautiful.”
Small talk with her father about her fiancé’s house. It was nearly surreal. They didn’t chat often, though that could be because she rarely gave him a chance. After years of conversations laden with her father’s heavy sighs and pointed suggestions, she preferred their communication to be on a need-only basis.
Maybe that tide had turned. Hendrix, Jonas and Warren had disappeared, likely having a private no-girls-allowed toast somewhere away from the crowd, so there was no one to interrupt this nice moment.
“You haven’t mentioned it, but I’d really like it if you allowed me to walk you down the aisle,” her father suggested casually.
Something bright and beautiful bloomed in her chest as she stared at his aged but still handsome face. She’d never even considered having the kind of wedding where such a thing happened, largely because it had never occurred to her that he’d be open to the idea. They’d never been close, not even after her mother died. The experience of witnessing someone they both loved being eaten alive by cancer should have bonded them. For a long time, she let herself be angry that it hadn’t. Then she’d started to wonder if he’d gotten so lost in his grief that he’d forgotten he had a daughter dealing with her own painful sense of loss.