A Negotiated Marriage

by Noelle Adams

  “I’m fine, Luke,” she said, getting a little impatient. “Surely this isn’t the first time you’ve left a woman kind of sore. It was great. You were great. I loved it.”

  His face relaxed, as if he finally believed her. “You were great too.” He reached out to brush a stray piece of hair away from her hot cheek.

  “Okay,” she said, flushing at the compliment. “I’m going to take a shower and then go to sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “Have a good night.” Luke didn’t move or start walking down the hall, so Molly had to just shut her bedroom door in his face.

  She shook her head as she went to take a hot shower. She let the massage heads beat down on her, and her muscles relaxed wonderfully, her body fully sated and the soreness starting to ease.

  It was nice, she decided, that Luke had been worried about her. That he’d tried to take care of her.

  It wasn't entirely foreign to their relationship. He’d always been considerate with her when she needed it. He’d gone out of his way to help her when she’d sprained her ankle last year. And, when her father had died, he’d sat with her for hours. She’d known he was horribly uncomfortable in the face of her grief, and he’d never hugged her or held her, no matter how helplessly she’d been crying. But he hadn’t left her alone, and that had meant something to Molly.

  Still, it was nice that Luke been worried about her just now, even though his reason for worrying was silly.

  It was also nice that he clearly wanted to have sex with her as much as she wanted to have sex with him.

  Now they could have sex more than once a week.

  Although she realized as she got out of the shower and dried off that they hadn’t made it clear how many times a week their newly negotiated agreement would allow.

  It was probably something they should work out.

  Five

  Molly hadn’t expected the guard.

  She’d had a perfectly serviceable plan—one that would allow her to retrieve the information Baron needed and complete the job while still getting back to Toronto in less than a week. It had taken some prep work and the help of an expensive burglary tool, but she’d already bought it a few years ago for a job.

  So she was all ready when she arrived at a branch office of one of James Coffee’s local competitors on the outskirts of New York in the middle of a Thursday night.

  It was just a branch office and security was low. The building was locked, of course, and it had a basic security system installed. She also had to leave her car in a nearby parking lot and walk to the site, since a strange car pulling up to the building at that time would attract too much attention. But she had no trouble gaining access by a secondary door at the back of the building.

  She’d studied the layout of the offices, so she wasted no time in walking quietly through the dim hallways to the corner suite of one of the associate vice presidents. The suite door was locked and so was his private office, but Molly had a lock-picking device that got her inside. It took her about fifteen minutes to find the file she needed in the man's office, but she eventually found it, snapped digital images of the relevant documents, and slid the file back into the drawer. She relocked the drawer, relocked the office, and relocked the suite on her way out.

  Then all she had to do was return to the back door through which she’d entered.

  She stepped outside without triggering any alarm and pulled the door shut behind her, making sure it was locked. She was rather pleased with her night’s work—getting the information she needed to complete Baron’s job in less than a half hour.

  That was when she heard the security guard.

  Having a guard must have been a last-minute addition to security for the building, since her research had said there wasn’t one. Shocked and absurdly outraged by the last-minute change, Molly stared for a moment at the young man—who looked about the level of a rent-a-cop—as he shouted out a question about her presence here.

  Then she obeyed her instincts and ran.

  The guard started to chase her.

  Fortunately, she was dressed in comfortable black pants and rubber-soled shoes. She wasn't hampered when she took off at a dead run through the back parking lot. She headed toward the wooded area that separated the office complex from the main road and the more commercial area where she’d left her car.

  The parking lot hadn't seemed very big when Molly had walked through it on her approach, but now it seemed endless, a vast stretch of pavement between her and her car.

  She wasn't a bad runner for someone of her height and build, but the guard was young and fit and he must run faster than she did. She could feel him getting closer as the night air rushed against her face and hair, and her lungs and leg muscles started to burn.

  She really hoped she wasn’t about to get caught, arrested, charged with breaking and entering.

  She’d never live it down.

  She was almost through the parking lot when she stumbled in a pothole, which wasn’t clearly visible because of the darkness. She fell hard on the pavement, jarring herself, scraping up her hands and tearing her pants at both knees. Ignoring the pain, she jumped up immediately and launched herself into another run.

  The guard had gotten even closer.

  It was all so surreal. That she would be back in New York in the middle of the night, being chased by a rent-a-cop.

  She tore through the wooded area she'd finally reached, pushing away tree branches and trying not to stumble over roots. Her mind was a blur of instinct and reaction, and she was barely conscious of the pain when a broken branch gouged her in the arm.

  She’d reached the road and was starting to cross it when a set of headlights suddenly lit up the darkness, and she saw a dark, sleek, flashy sports car, which had evidently been sitting on the far side of the road.

  She knew who the car belonged to, but she couldn’t quite process why he was here.

  Because she’d slowed to register the car’s sudden appearance, the guard came rushing up behind her. When he reached out to grab her, she gave an embarrassing little shriek (one she hoped no one heard) and leapt forward into a run.

  The driver’s door of the car opened up and a voice said, “Get in.”

  Molly hurled herself into the open door, landing in an ungainly sprawl, halfway on top of Baron James, who laid on the accelerator and sped away, before the guard could figure out what happened.

  Molly could barely breathe. Her knees and hands burned from where she’d scraped them on the pavement, although the pain was only a vague sensation. She might have pulled a muscle in her leg during her awkward leap into the car, because her inner thigh seemed to hurt a little too. She was lying flat, her face on the passenger seat, the console poking her stomach, and her ass in Baron’s face.

  He grunted when she accidentally kneed his groin as she awkwardly tried to scramble up into a sitting position in the passenger seat.

  Of all people to witness her humiliation.

  “Sorry,” she panted, trying to suck air into her lungs. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  There was no way his presence was a coincidence. She wasn't sure if she was more relieved or outraged that he had been waiting for her.

  Baron turned his head briefly and gave her a significant look. He was dressed in black trousers and a black t-shirt, and he looked as dark, intense, and handsome as ever.

  Molly scowled at him, still feeling like the top of her head might fly off. “Don’t give me that look. What are you doing here?”

  “I’d come over to your hotel to see if you wanted to go out for a drink, and I saw you leaving. So I followed you.”

  Although she was vaguely aware that she wasn't thinking as clearly as she normally did, she still found this statement confusing. “I didn’t see you.”

  “That was the point.”

  “Oh.” She tried to make herself sort through the situation, but her mind had gotten weird and slow. When she looked over at Baron, she seemed to notice t
he oddest details—a strand or two of gray in his thick dark hair, the creases on the corners of his brown eyes, the way the hair of his forearm lay against his tanned skin. “So why did you wait, when you saw what I was doing?”

  “Because I couldn't believe you would do something as crazy as break into the office building.”

  Molly gasped in indignation and tried to think of an appropriate rejoinder.

  Before she could, Baron continued, his eyes slanting from the road to her face. “If I’d wanted to do the investigation that way, I would have broken into the offices myself.”

  She snorted. “Do a lot of breaking and entering, do you?”

  His eyes cut back to her with an annoyed look.

  Feeling like she wasn’t giving a good defense of her actions, she tried again. “This was the only way to find out what we needed quickly. The only other thing I could have done is to go undercover and get a job at the branch office and hope that I’d be given access in a month or two.” She’d gone undercover in the workplace before—quite a lot when she was first starting out, since it was one of the main ways corporate investigations was done—but she hadn’t for a long time. It was one of her least favorite parts of her job.

  “I would have paid you for a couple of months, if you'd done it that way.”

  “Sure, but I don’t have a couple of months to give you on this job. I have a life back in Toronto, and I don't want to put it on hold indefinitely to go undercover. This was the only other way.”

  “And did you find what you needed?” Baron was driving way too fast—at this rate, they’d be back downtown in no time.

  “Yes.” She grinned at him and retrieved the camera she’d tucked into her pocket. She pulled up the image of the interoffice memo she’d found in the file. “You, Mr. James, have a mole in your company.”

  “Damn it.”

  “But the good thing is I know who it is.” She changed the image on the camera to another memo she’d found in the file. “So all you have to do is fire him.”

  Obviously, if Baron were going to pursue legal options, he wouldn’t be able to use information she’d found by breaking and entering. But he had no intentions of using the legal system to deal with his difficulty. Once he’d found the disloyal employee who was feeding confidential corporate information to his competitor, all he had to do was fire the man.

  “Excellent,” Baron murmured, his eyes focused on the mostly empty highway he’d just merged onto.

  “So I got you what you needed in record time. Don’t you think it was worth a little covert action?”

  “From the looks of you, the covert action took you kind of rough.”

  “That was just because of the guard. He wasn’t supposed to be there. Why the hell would they have decided to hire a guard?”

  “Maybe to keep someone from doing what you just did.” He glanced over at her, assessing her torn pants, scraped up hands and knees, and bleeding arm. “Are you seriously hurt?”

  She shook her head. “Doesn’t even hurt much. In fact, I’m feeling pretty good.”

  “It’s the adrenaline.”

  “Huh?” She couldn’t help but notice that he needed to shave, dark bristles standing out with startling clarity on his strong jaw.

  She’d loved his bristles when they were sleeping together. Now she just figured he was too lazy to shave.

  “Adrenaline. It’s got you pumped up good. That’s why your scrapes don’t hurt. It’s also why your mouth is dry, and your hands are shaking, and why you’re obsessing on little details about my appearance instead of looking me in the eye. It’s the adrenaline. When you get back to the hotel, you should drink some water, lie down, and try to breathe slowly.”

  Molly made a face, irrationally annoyed by his matter-of-fact advice and even more annoyed by the suspicion that he was right. “I don’t want to lie down. I feel fine. And why are you somehow the expert on adrenaline?”

  Baron didn’t answer—just slanted her an ironic look.

  “I know. You’re into all those stupid extreme sports.”

  “At least now I don’t have to listen to you nag me about them.”

  If Luke ever tried to do something as utterly foolish as cliff diving—which had been the source of one of her and Barron’s biggest fights while they were together—Molly would have to wring his neck.

  “My car is still back there,” she said randomly. She’d rented a car when she’d arrived at the airport five days ago.

  “I’ll have someone bring it to you tomorrow.”

  “Since we’re both here, do you want to go back to your office and finish up the details of this job?” She gestured toward her camera. “It shouldn’t take more than an hour.”

  Baron shook his head. “It’s late and you’re high on adrenaline. And I’m pretty sure Lyons wouldn’t approve of me spending time alone with his wife under those circumstances.”

  Molly scowled. “What the hell does he have to do with it? I’m not going to come on to you. We’ll be working—who cares if it’s the middle of the night?”

  Four years ago, Molly would have given anything to spend another night in bed with Baron.

  Not anymore.

  “I have a feeling that Lyons might care. I’ll drop you off at your hotel, and we can finish up in the morning.”

  Molly released a long breath and slumped against the seat. She was suddenly tired and her hands and knees were starting to hurt. “Fine.”

  She could still get back to Toronto by tomorrow evening.

  Luke had called her yesterday and said he may have business in New York at the end of the week, so he might fly in himself. She hadn’t known then that tonight’s errand would reveal the name of the mole—she’d been hoping only to confirm Baron’s suspicion that there was one. Because she had the name, her trip to New York would be over tomorrow.

  Which meant, if Luke flew in, they would probably miss each other.

  It was too bad. Maybe it had only been six days, but she really wanted to have sex with Luke again.

  She’d spent three years without having sex at all. One would think she’d be better at controlling her physical urges. The more she had sex with Luke, however, the more she wanted to have.

  Honestly, it was a little annoying.

  The irony of her whole situation—so ridiculously horny for her fake husband that she couldn't go a week without him—hit her suddenly, and she giggled out loud.

  Baron gave her a sharp look.

  She giggled again because he’d looked so startled.

  “Is there a reason for the laughter or just general hysterics?”

  His dry tone made her giggle even more.

  “You're losing the adrenaline high,” Baron concluded, almost resignedly, after studying her carefully. “You're gonna feel like shit. Fortunately, here’s your hotel. You can go up and sleep it off.”

  “I don’t want to sleep it off,” Molly complained. She suspected he might be right about her condition, but that didn’t make his rightness any more palatable. “I feel fine.”

  Baron didn’t reply. Just pulled up to the front door of the hotel and got out. He’d walked around to the passenger door and opened it before Molly could get her seatbelt off.

  He helped her out of the car. Molly didn’t even object because her knees had started stinging painfully and the thigh muscle she’d pulled was aching.

  “I’ve never told you this before,” she said as she let him pull her to her feet. “But Baron is a stupid name.”

  He gave a huff of surprised laughter. “You’re the only one who calls me by it. Everyone else calls me James.”

  “I'm very sorry to admit that you might be right about the adrenaline,” she mumbled, slumping against him as he helped her in the front doors of the ritzy hotel.

  “Mrs. Lyons,” the clerk—a courteous middle-aged man who staffed the evening hours—exclaimed as she entered. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.” Baron felt solid beside her, so she leaned on
him a little more. She supposed she looked rather torn up and bedraggled. “Thank you.”

  “Your husband has been very concerned,” the man added, his eyes shifting to the opposite side of the lobby.

  Molly felt a drop in her gut, even before she looked over where the clerk’s eyes were focused.

  “Well, this should be interesting,” Baron muttered under his breath. She wasn't sure if he was talking to her or to himself.

  She knew what to expect when she turned her head. Luke was dressed in what counted as casual for him—trousers and a black crew-neck shirt. He held his phone as if he’d just been talking on it, and he walked toward them now, his expression absolutely unreadable.

  His eyes scanned her almost urgently, but his voice was cool when he asked, “Are you hurt?”

  “No.” She was still hanging on Baron’s arm, and she wished she didn’t look quite so much like a wreck. “Just took a little tumble.”

  Luke’s gaze shifted to Baron. “And James’s part in your tumble?”

  Molly rolled her eyes, since the nuance of his question was fairly obvious and a little offensive. “He drove me back, since I had to leave my car. What the hell are you doing here, anyway?”

  She was getting a little tired of men showing up where they weren't supposed to be. Luke was the third one tonight.

  “I told you I may have a meeting in town. I arrived a couple of hours ago and was surprised to find you weren’t in your room, since that’s where you said you’d be tonight when we talked earlier.”

  Molly didn't want to have this whole conversation in front of Baron. She didn’t want to have it at all. If truth be told, she felt a little guilty. Not for doing her job but for lying to Luke on the phone call.

  She hadn’t wanted to get into it, since she’d known he’d ask a lot of questions about her errand. Still, she shouldn’t have lied to him.

  He might look like a block of ice at the moment, but he’d probably been a little worried.

  Molly didn't like feeling guilty. She also wasn't used to feeling like she owed Luke something other than her negotiated obligations.

  So she felt kind of huffy and defensive about the whole situation. “I had a job. We can talk about it later.”