RiverTime

by Rae Renzi

  Casey could tell by the look on Reed’s face that however limited his imagination, it was sufficient to envision the proceedings of such a trial.

  Reed stared at Jack for a moment longer and bent over the document again.

  A whole new set of implications blossomed in Casey’s mind. “I bet your parents would really like that. It would, no doubt, be the talk of the town. Or, actually, given Dylan Raines’s fan base, the nation. Maybe even the world, now that I think of it.”

  “You wouldn’t. It would be so damaging…” Reed’s bluster was notably missing.

  Jack jumped on it. “Not to me. In fact, you may have noticed, in the entertainment world, as you so helpfully pointed out when we met, this is the sort of thing the public laps up. It would only enhance my reputation. The fans would love it. My publicist would do handsprings. Of course, in your field, I suppose it’s a different story. I’ll try not to be too upset about that.” He flicked an imaginary bit of lint from his sweater.

  “What about Casey? Don’t you care about what happens to her?” Reed asked, a hint of triumph in his voice. “Being married to you would kill her career—no one would ever take her seriously. And the publicity…” He shook his head woefully. “She’d hate it.”

  “You know, scientists don’t seem to even notice this type of thing. All they care about is the science, and I have it on good authority that the science that Casey turns out is top-notch. As far as the publicity—I guess you haven’t seen the news yet. Casey, it seems, is a natural on camera. She had the press eating out of her hand.”

  The room was quiet except for the rhythmic ticking of the mantle clock. Calculation replaced the surprise on Reed’s face. “I think we should let Casey decide. It’s her life, after all.”

  “Entirely appropriate, I’d say.”

  Turning to Casey, Reed asked in his lawyerly voice, “Is this marriage—” he waved the contract, “—legitimate, or not? Was it your intention to marry this man? Or were you acting under the assumption that the ceremony was a sham, a fantasy, mere entertainment? Think carefully, Casey, of all the ramifications. This is your life we’re talking about, not a soap opera.”

  Both men turned to Casey. She looked from ice blue to deep brown eyes, then back again. Her brain stuttered when the full implications settled in.

  This was not what she’d envisioned. She’d imagined, in the best of all worlds, her marriage to Reed would be magically dissolved. Then, and only then, she’d think long and carefully about the next step.

  But by denying her marriage to Reed, she was perforce claiming to be married to Jack—no careful consideration of the implications, no weighing the good and bad, no thoughtful planning. She would be married to Jack. Her, married to Dylan Raines, superstar.

  Did she want that?

  There was no point in pretending she wasn’t powerfully drawn to Jack. But the whole celebrity thing would undoubtedly make life difficult, chaotic and—maybe for her—an emotional sinkhole.

  Casey glanced at Reed, arm slung over the back of a chair, waiting for the inevitable decision. He knew of her aversion to publicity, knew she’d avoid it at any cost, probably didn’t believe Jack’s assessment of her media encounter. And Reed still had her mother in hock. He looked confident.

  She tried to imagine how he would have been on the river. Organized, in charge, efficient. No doubt he would have gotten them back to civilization in record time.

  She shifted her gaze to Dylan Raines, film star, leaning against the fireplace in offhand style, with that arresting combination of edgy attitude and sensual grace that had fueled thousands of female fantasies.

  Well, those women could have Dylan Raines. Their fantasy wasn’t hers. Her fantasy, the one she made, the one she wanted to live, wasn’t built on image or style or celebrity.

  As if reading her mind, Jack met her gaze, his eyes serious and deep, his guard down. Then he looked away, perhaps unwilling to seem the supplicant, but she’d already seen the look in his eyes, the look that spoke of too many unfulfilled prayers about love and loss and the people he cared about.

  Lifting her head and facing the two of them, she said, “When I agreed to the ceremony on the river…”

  At the sound of her voice, a ripple of tension ran through the two men. They both looked at her, each with his own brand of expectancy.

  “…it was because…”

  She could see Jack’s armor start to slide into place. Reed’s expression went from confident to satisfied.

  “…I intended, I wanted, to be married to Jack Raines.”

  Jack didn’t move but he closed his eyes, almost as if in pain. When he opened them again, they were unnaturally bright.

  Reed sat there with the satisfied look on his face for two beats before his mind processed what he’d just heard. Then he frowned. “Casey, if he coerced you by waving his fame and fortune in your face—”

  “Let me be clear on that account. I didn’t know he was Dylan Raines when we married. To me, he was—is—just Jack.”

  Reed looked at her as if she were mentally deficient. “If you didn’t know he was Dylan Raines, why did you marry him?”

  Jack looked at Reed pityingly. “You can’t really be that dense.” Turning to Casey, he added, “Can he?”

  Jack had left the room to give Casey and Reed a few moments to conclude their business. Reed sat bonelessly at the gaming table, his arms propping him up.

  “This isn’t how it was supposed to go,” he said to the tabletop.

  Casey gently slid the divorce papers over to him. “I know, Reed.”

  He sighed and gave the document his full attention.

  Casey twisted a curl around her finger. “It’s pretty simple—we weren’t married long enough for it to get complicated. Except—”

  Reed sat up straight and put his finger on a line. “Right here. Your mother’s house.” He looked up at her, incredulous. “You don’t actually think I’m going to sign it over to you?”

  A spark of resentment flared in Casey. “Why not? Your little plan to buy our marriage by holding my mother’s house hostage didn’t work.”

  “That’s not why I did it, Casey.” Reed sounded wounded. “I really wanted to help your mom. I never intended…I wouldn’t have gone through with it, you know. I just wanted—”

  Casey sighed. “Some leverage. I know. But that’s just it—the fact that you even thought of this scheme, that your mind even went there, doesn’t work for me. We’re too different.”

  “Still. I can’t just sign the house over to you.”

  “Read the fine print. I’ll pay you the money you put into it—I just want the deed for my mom. Anyway, do you really want to own a house in Knoxville, Tennessee, or is this just petty revenge speaking? I want to think better of you.”

  Reed heaved another sigh. “Okay, you win.” He pulled his pen out of his pocket and signed the document.

  Casey picked up the papers and folded them. “You’ll be better off without me, you know. Your parents will probably un-disinherit you.”

  Reed grunted. “You won’t be happy with him. He’s not educated, he has no background, you’ll never have privacy. He won’t—”

  Casey slipped the diamond ring from her finger, set it on the table in front of Reed.

  “Yes, Reed, he will,” she said over her shoulder as she left the room and joined Jack.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  They ended up at Jack’s local digs, a seldom-used townhouse that belonged to a friend, stopping along the way to pick up a bottle of champagne to celebrate.

  “We need to talk,” Jack said the minute the front door clicked shut.

  “We’re not really married, are we?”

  Jack treated her to a deep look. “We are if you want to be.”

  “But since we’re going the divorce route, and bigamy’s off the table, then…”

  Jack dropped down on one knee and caught her hand. He kissed it and looked up at her. “Casey, will you marry me? Again? This
time, outside RiverTime?”

  Casey started to answer, but he interrupted her.

  “Context—you know I have a child and she’d live with us, which means Ramona will surface every so often to take a bite. I don’t want a big house. I travel a lot and might be gone for months at a time. Sometimes when I’m working, I can be moody. And I can’t promise that you’ll never have to deal with the press.”

  Casey choked out. “With an offer like that, how could I resist?”

  “I just want it all on the table where you can see it before you decide.” After a heartbeat, he added, “But if we marry, we can keep it quiet. Just a short civil ceremony.”

  He remained on his knees, her hand held in his. His hair drifted across his brow, framing his dark eyes, usually so guarded. They weren’t shuttered now. He was letting her see his vulnerability and, in it, his strength, what he was made of.

  She brushed the hair out of his eyes. “No.”

  His eyes dropped, and his face froze. His fingers slid down hers until his hands dropped to his sides.

  Casey took a deep breath. “No hiding away with a quickie wedding. Nope, if we do this, we’re going to have a big wedding. Big. With all our friends and family. And as many of the paparazzi as want to come.”

  Jack’s face flashed through several emotions. “But, you’ll…how will you…?”

  Casey framed his face with her hands. “I love you, Jack, so you could say I’m pretty motivated. Let’s face it—publicity is your career’s lifeblood. I’m not saying it’ll be easy—I might need a few chocolate truffles to face those media sharks—but I didn’t do so bad with the press tonight. Anyway, it’s time to face that particular monster under my bed.”

  Jack’s smile was like the sun coming out from behind cloud. “You totally rocked tonight. We’ll get a Chocolate-of-the-Month Club subscription, if that’ll help. We’ll face those sharks together. I’ll bring a squirt gun.”

  The idea of Jack letting loose on the paparazzi with a barrage of water made Casey grin and pulled a tooth or two out of the sharks. “And to be clear about this wedding thing—my mom can wear any damn thing she wants, go any damn place she wants, say any damn thing she wants, agreed?”

  Jack looked perplexed. “Well, yeah. Why are you even asking? We’ll buy any damn dress she wants, take her any damn place she wants, and introduce her to any damn person she wants to talk to. Might have to wrestle her away from Emmaline and Wink, though. And Emma. And Justin. And Nocona. And Marionetta. And probably Tesla. And a few dozen others.”

  Tears pricked Casey’s eyes. “Okay, then. I think we have a deal.” Her voice wobbled a little.

  Jack stood and picked Casey up in one easy movement and carried her purposefully up the stairs.

  Casey wondered why she’d ever thought a relationship should be based on anything other than love. She wanted to talk to Jack about it. She needed to talk about it.

  However, after a look at Jack’s face, she reassessed her priorities.

  His eyes were like the softest, darkest silk sliding over her face, her body. He gently lowered her onto the bed and eased himself next to her, his movements slow and deliberate, as if he were holding himself in check only with the greatest effort.

  He eased the curls off her face, arranging a halo around her head. His fingers drifted down the side of her face, then across to her lips. His eyes were focused on her mouth as he slid his fingers across it. With a tiny frown of concentration, he bent his head to hers, just barely touching his lips to hers. Casey closed her eyes and got lost in his delicate intensity. She moved her lips a little closer to him—she needed a little more of him, now, right now, before…

  Too late. Her slight movement toward him disrupted whatever tenuous hold he’d had on himself. A primal sound came from him, part growl, part moan. Casey saw what was coming with only enough time to take a deep breath before she was swept away by his passion.

  The tender brushes of his lips gave way to a possessive kiss. Her pulse throbbed and her breath quickened at his touch. His fingertips stroked her breasts through her silk blouse, his thumbs circling her nipples until she moaned with lust. He slid his hot mouth down her neck and over her blouse until he found her taut peaks with his teeth, nibbling through the fabric until she was desperate with desire.

  She whispered his name, begging him not to stop. He ripped off his clothes, then hers, and took her swollen nipples in his mouth, teasing them with his tongue, sucking them until she writhed in exquisite agony. His fingers trailed down her stomach and between her thighs, finding the deep well of her heat. When she arched to meet his caress, he moaned. In one movement he rolled on top of her and entered her, the smooth, hard length of him fusing their bodies with heat and wonderful, sublime, intoxicating love.

  “I’ve been waiting my whole life for you,” he whispered in her ear, as he pushed into her core. “You are my center, my universe.”

  Casey slid her hands along the silken skin of his back and pulled him closer as their rhythm increased. She struggled for control, trying to hold on to the moment, to fix it in her heart until finally, overcome by her feelings, she surrendered and let the wave of their desire carry them away, together, on the wild ride to rapture.

  Her last coherent thought was that in love, as in nature, some things could not be contained, things that were in essence intractable, ungovernable, but from which turmoil unimaginable beauty could arise. The flash flood almost destroyed her and Jack separately, but had carried them together into RiverTime, where the journey of their love, illogical and unruly in its own right, had begun. The ride from here might be rough, but she had no doubt it would be worth it.

  Because Jack was right. The only context that mattered was love.

  About the Author

  Rae Renzi’s career in romance fiction began somewhere along the path of science (neuroscience, to be precise) when she recognized two things: First, there is an amazing overlap between science and romance, and, second, that romance is an essential condition of having a human brain—if you have one, you want it.

  She lives in the state of Texas surrounded by interesting and unusual people. When she’s not writing novels, she does research on human behavior and her favorite organ (the brain), which, although icky from a sensory perspective (grayish-pink, squishy), is nonetheless fascinating. She has a full complement of fabulous family, friends and pets, and likes horseback riding, swimming, papermaking and, new in the panoply of activities, raising her own food in an urban garden (which hasn’t been surpassingly successful yet, but she is sure it will be).

  Rae is crazy about writing romance because it lets her weave into words the many inspirational men (and women) she has known, and recast them as suits her as heroes, heroines or villains. Although she has numerous publications in science, RiverTime is her debut work of fiction. She is happy to hear from readers, and can be emailed at raerenzi@gmail.com.

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  ISBN: 978-1-4268-9721-4

  Copyright © 2011 by Rae Renzi

  All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  All charact
ers in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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