The Billionaire's Bride

by Jackie Braun

  “Where’s the chocolate?” Marnie asked, inspecting the handful she’d taken from the brown paper bag he’d held out to her.

  “There’s no chocolate in trail mix.”

  “Sure there is. M&M’s, chocolate-covered peanuts or whatever.” She slanted a look at him. “I think there might even be a law that says sugar must be supplied in equal proportion to salt in snacks such as these.”

  “You’re nuts,” he said and tossed a handful of the mix into his mouth.

  “No, these are nuts.” She held out her hand, palm open, for him to inspect. “With a few shriveled raisins thrown in.”

  “Well, there’s something for your sweet tooth, and just for the record, all raisins are shriveled.”

  “These are extra-shriveled,” she complained, trying to tuck away her smile. God, she enjoyed goading him. “And they’re not up to the job. Unless raisins are doused in milk chocolate, they don’t count. This isn’t really trail mix.”

  “I made it and I say it is. This is a trail,” he said, pointing toward the path they were taking. “And this assortment of dried fruit and nuts qualifies as a mix. Put it together and you get trail mix.”

  “But M&M’s would be nice,” she muttered, not quite able to suppress a grin.

  He snatched Marnie off the rock and yanked her close, kissing her so quickly that she had no time to think, only to enjoy. His lips left hers after a moment of sensual exploration to roam across her cheek, and Marnie felt his tongue tease the lobe of her ear, sucking on it lightly before he nipped at it with his teeth.

  She gulped in a breath and felt her knees turn to rubber.

  “Wh-what was that for?”

  “Just taking your advice and balancing out the salty with something sweet.” He grinned lazily then. “Although that pretty mouth of yours can be plenty tart, too. Are you always this contrary?”

  “It’s a gift.”

  “Seems more like a curse from where I’m standing.”

  She blinked slowly but moved fast, letting her hands glide up his chest until they reached his shoulders and drew him to her. She kissed him this time, exploring his mouth more thoroughly than they had explored the rugged Catavania countryside. She nipped his lower lip as the kiss ended, satisfied with the soft groan of pleasure he issued. No one would ever say Marnie LaRue didn’t give as good as she got.

  “You were saying?”

  “Gift, definitely a gift,” he told her.

  An hour later, they both decided they needed more to sustain them than chocolate-free trail mix.

  “I know a small place about an hour from here where we can grab a bite to eat. Nothing fancy mind you, but the food is plenty filling.”

  “Señor Lundy, so good to see you again. And this is a new face you bring to see us. She is prettier than the last one,” the café owner, Juanita Garza, teased him in Spanish.

  “The last one was my sister,” he reminded her.

  But it did no good. She merely winked at him, “Of course. Your sister. And is this one your sister as well?”

  “No, she’s…a friend,” he supplied in Spanish after a pause.

  But he knew that with that tepid description he wasn’t being truthful with either Señora Garza or himself. Still, he wasn’t sure exactly what Marnie was to him or how to describe the relationship between them—a relationship that seemed to become more complex and complicated by the minute. And yet he couldn’t bring himself to regret that or to call a halt to it. Some things just had to run their course—and be enjoyed while they did.

  “Just a friend?” The other woman grinned gamely, as if sensing his indecision. “She might as well be your sister if that is the case. And what a pity that would be.”

  “They seem to know you well here,” Marnie said once the woman had gone.

  “Yeah, well, I try to come in whenever I’m down for an extended stay. The food isn’t fancy, but it’s tasty and filling. And there’s never a wait for a table.”

  Marnie sipped from one of the bottles of water Señora Garza had left on their table.

  “Sounds like you dine in some exclusive places back in California.”

  He leaned forward, lowered his voice. “Want to know a secret?”

  Her brows lifted in surprise. “Will I be killed afterward?”

  “Huh?”

  “I kind of took you for one of those, ‘I’d tell you, but I’d have to kill you’ types.”

  He scowled. “You want to hear this or not?”

  “Do tell, please,” she said, scooting forward in her chair, settling her elbows on the table and then plopping her chin into her hands. “And spare no details.”

  “All right. I like fast food.”

  Marnie slumped back in her seat. “That’s not a secret. Or, if it is, then half the population of the United States is in on it. Try again. Tell me something juicy, something, I don’t know, shocking.”

  “I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours,” he bartered.

  “I have no secrets.”

  “Is that a no?”

  She blinked slowly. “More like a spill yours and then we’ll see about mine.”

  “Okay.” He thought a moment. “If you hadn’t come back, I might have gone looking for you.”

  He hadn’t intended to say that. In fact, he hadn’t realized it was true until just that moment, but there was no denying something about Marnie made him want the kinds of things he’d wanted before his divorce when he’d envisioned having a partner and a family, rather than a fashionable accessory to show off at cocktail parties. He’d wanted a lover certainly, but more than that, he’d wanted someone to share his life. All Terri had shared was his bank account and a house so big and showy that it had never felt like a real home.

  Since the ugly court battle two years earlier, he’d convinced himself those things just weren’t possible any longer. Wealth hadn’t changed him, at least he didn’t feel it had, but it had changed how others viewed him and treated him.

  Then he’d met Marnie—forthright and passionate, silly and sweet. Even riddled with doubts about their relationship, she had him reconsidering the solo life he’d so thoroughly mapped out for himself over the past two-dozen months.

  “You would have looked for me? Really?”

  He nodded. “And I would have found you.”

  “That’s what you do for a living.”

  She sounded sad when she said it. The truth perched on his tongue, wanting to take flight.

  “What if it wasn’t?”

  “You’re a risk-taker by nature or you wouldn’t have gravitated to that profession.”

  “It bothers you that much?”

  Her smile was overly bright. “No. Why would it? We’re just…what are we exactly?”

  “Haven’t figured that out myself.”

  “More than friends but not quite lovers.”

  “Yet,” he added, after which the talkative, even argumentative Marnie was amazingly silent.

  They lodged for the night in a small ten-room motel that overlooked a ravine halfway between Catavina and El Rosario. Phil’s Lodge. The name had her baffled until they walked inside. The owner was American or had been before he’d chucked his three-piece suits and migrated south. Now he looked more like a middle-aged surfer than the accountant he’d been.

  Marnie hadn’t had to request separate rooms. J.T. rented two before she’d even had to ask.

  “I can pay for my own,” she said, when he handed Phil some bills to cover their tab.

  He sent her a wink. “This one’s on me.”

  “Thank you,” she said.

  Under his breath so that Phil couldn’t hear, he said, “You might want to hold your gratitude until after you’ve seen them.”

  She thought he had a point when he swung open the door of the two rooms and gave her first dibs.

  “The choice is so hard,” she said sarcastically.

  The rooms, which were right next door to one another, were small and identical. The only furnishings were
battered six-drawer bureaus, lamps and lumpy full-size beds, both of which were pushed up against the interior wall the two rooms shared.

  “I guess I’ll take this one,” she said.

  J.T. held Marnie’s door open for her and she stepped inside, wrinkling her nose at the musty smell.

  “It’s not much,” he apologized, glancing around.

  She dropped her backpack onto the bed and shrugged. “It’s fine. And, if the water is hot and clear, it’s a step up from my accommodations in La Playa de la Pisada.”

  “And here I thought you were high maintenance,” he teased.

  She batted her eyelashes. “I get that a lot, and I’ve never figured out why.”

  She tried to open the room’s only window, but it wouldn’t budge.

  “Allow me.”

  After one brawny push, it slid open with a squawk of protest.

  “Thanks.”

  They stood awkwardly in the center of the room for a moment, and then he kissed her, quickly, and left. Next door, she heard his window creak open.

  “How’s your room?” she asked, not even bothering to raise her voice. “Same pleasing…fragrance?”

  He laughed. “Yeah. Eau de mildew.”

  She heard the creak of bedsprings then and her libido hurdled well ahead of her imagination.

  “Wh-what are you doing?” she asked.

  He hesitated a moment before replying in a silky voice, “What do you think I’m doing?”

  “Laying down?”

  “Close. Sitting down and pulling off my hiking boots. I’m going to take a shower. What about you? What are you doing?”

  She sank onto the edge of the mattress, smiling when the bedsprings sent up a similarly squeaky chorus. She reached down to untie her dusty sneakers.

  “Untying my shoelaces.”

  “I’m taking off my shirt now,” he said as Marnie toed off her shoes.

  Smiling, she replied, “Mine unbuttons.”

  One at a time, she fished the buttons through their holes, keeping him apprised of her slow progress.

  “That was the last one. Shirt’s off.”

  “Bra?”

  “White lace with a front hook.” She hummed as she worked the clasp free and slipped her arms out of the straps. “And there it goes.”

  As she tossed it onto the heap of clothes, she thought she heard his groan float through the open window. Then the bedsprings creaked again.

  “Jeans,” he said in a tight voice.

  “Shorts.” And then she barely waited a beat before upping the ante. With a wiggle that jangled the rusty springs, she added, “And a little silky something that matched the bra.”

  “Marnie?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Meet you back here after a shower?”

  She swallowed thickly. “Deal.”

  Fifteen minutes later, they were both lying on their separate beds, talking through their open windows.

  “What is the craziest thing you’ve ever done?” she asked.

  “Easy. Laid in a cheap motel room in Mexico with a beautiful woman in the next room and talked through the open window rather than climbing in bed with her and putting us both out of our misery.”

  She laughed, even as heat shimmied through her belly. “Besides that. Come on, fess up.”

  “All right. Let’s see, craziest thing. Ah, I’ve got it. I once mooned a competitor at a trade show when I was young and stupid.”

  He couldn’t believe he’d exposed himself that way—either then or now. Hell, he’d never confided even in his ex-wife about that juvenile prank, and thank God or an embellished account of it no doubt would have wound up in her tell-all book.

  But all Marnie said was, “They have trade shows for bounty hunters?”

  He hesitated a moment. Maybe he should tell her the truth now. He wanted to and he thought he could trust her with it. But before he could get the words out, she was saying, “Well, don’t you want to know my craziest thing?”

  “Of course.”

  He heard the grin in her voice when she said, “I put plastic wrap over the toilets in the teachers’ lounge at the middle school. Mary Jane Battle dared me to do it. Caused quite a splash when my social studies teacher went in to relieve himself, if you know what I mean.”

  Then she laughed, sounding young and carefree and making him feel that way, too. How long had it been since he’d felt either of those things?

  “Who knew that the heart of a reprobate beat in that impressive chest of yours?”

  “It was just a prank. Not malicious really. Not like the time Mary Jane’s brother Brice added a laxative in the brownies his grandmother made for the county fair.”

  “Eew.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Did the grandma win any blue ribbons?”

  “None, but to hear Brice tell it he was black and blue afterward.”

  They were silent for a few minutes. Then he asked, “What did you put on after your shower?”

  “Why do men always want to know what a woman is wearing?”

  He chuckled softly into the darkness. “Because we like to torture ourselves.”

  “Masochist.”

  “Guilty as charged. Well?”

  “Black silk.”

  Marnie purred out the words, surprised at how easily she could flirt. Surprised by how young and carefree he could make her feel with one simple, silly question.

  “How’s it look on you?”

  “How do you think?”

  There was that groan again. “Great. Form-fitting?”

  “Like a second skin,” she confirmed, grinning as she ran one hand down the loose white cotton tank top she wore. “And remember that lacy little thong that was snagged on the switch of my flashlight the day we first met?”

  “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

  “You asked,” she reminded him, not bothering to camouflage the smugness she was feeling.

  “Want to know what I’m wearing?”

  “Sure.”

  Deep laughter rumbled then and she called herself a dozen kinds of fool when he replied, “Not a thing, unless you count the sheet.”

  Bedsprings rattled again.

  “It’s too hot for a sheet,” he informed her wickedly, right after which he said, “Pleasant dreams.”

  In the morning, he knocked at her door dressed in his hiking clothes and bearing coffee, which made it easy to forgive him even though he’d woken her from a sound sleep.

  “That doesn’t look black,” he said, motioning toward the tank top.

  She grabbed for the coffee, ignored him until she’d inhaled deeply from the spiral of steam curling over the cup’s lip, and then, feeling sufficiently awake said, “And you don’t look naked.”

  “I can get that way,” he offered.

  She didn’t miss a beat. “Coffee’s more important to me than a naked man at this point.”

  “Let me know when that changes.”

  She brought the cup to her lips, paused. “You’ll be the first.”

  And it scared her only a little to realize that she actually meant it.

  He rubbed the back of his neck, but changed the subject when he finally spoke.

  “I was wondering if instead of heading back you’d like to head a little further south today, maybe spend another night away from La Playa de la Pisada? Down off Guerrero Negro there’s a charter boat company that takes sightseers out whale watching. It’s late in the season, but we might get lucky. Ever been?”

  “Whale watching?”

  He nodded.

  “No.”

  “It’s an awesome sight.”

  “I’d like that,” she said, wishing Noah were going with them. Then she handed him the empty coffee cup. “And I’d love another cup of coffee if you’d be so kind.”

  “Maybe I could round up a Danish, too,” he replied.

  She chose not to notice the roll of his eyes or the slight sarcasm that had shaded his tone.

  “Do they
have those down here?” And without waiting for him to answer, she fired off her instructions. “No jelly-filled or plain. But anything coated in chocolate or oozing custard would be okay.”

  “Thought you were worried about calories?”

  “I’ll work those off later,” she said, enjoying immensely the basic male speculation that flooded his expression. And talk about hunger, the man looked famished.

  “I can be ready in fifteen minutes,” she said when he just continued to regard her.

  That snapped him out of it. “No woman can be ready in a mere fifteen minutes.”

  She shrugged, knowing in her case at least his chauvinistic response was unfortunately true.

  “Yes, but I’ll be ready for you to wait for me by then.”

  She turned toward the small bathroom, stopped. Over her shoulder she said, “And I’ll be ready for my second cup of coffee, too.”

  “You’re something else,” he muttered, but his lips were twitching.

  It took Marnie forty minutes to get ready, but only because she knew J.T. was sitting on her bed, foot tapping and glancing at his watch.

  And maybe it took her that long because she wanted to look her best, she admitted, assessing her appearance in the small mirror.

  She’d pulled on a sleeveless blouse over a crimson bra. The lacy-edged underwire gave her figure support as well spilling a generous amount of cleavage into the V of the shirt, the buttons of which she’d left undone one lower than she normally dared. The blouse tied at the waist over a pair of tan hiking shorts that were snug across her rear and short enough to show off her slim thighs, which were nicely tanned now. After applying a minimal amount of makeup, she pulled her hair back into a ponytail, slid a pair of small hoop earrings through the holes in her lobes and smiled at her reflection.

  He stood when she walked out of the bathroom.

  “Ready,” she announced.

  His gaze slid down, stopping just below her shoulders, as she knew it would.

  “And worth the wait,” he replied, tugging her to him for a kiss.

  The springs squawked like a flock of wounded geese when they tumbled together onto the bed.

  “No need to go out on some boat when we could view the wonder of nature up close and personal from right here,” he suggested.