Meddling with a Millionaire

by Cat Schield

  Nathan slid his hand up her thigh and across her backside. He spread his fingers over the curve, applying pressure to ease her against his hard-on. Her lashes flickered, telling him she was awake. He nuzzled her temple.

  “I have to go,” she murmured, her muscles tensing as she braced to move.

  He tightened his grip. If he let her escape, his contentment would go with her. What was happening to him that he could think of nothing better than spending the entire day in bed with her, just reading the paper or enjoying the feel of her body against his?

  “Just stay a little longer.”

  “I’ve stayed too long already,” she retorted, squirming against his grip, arousing him still more with her wriggling. “I’ve got work to do.”

  “Forget about the show. You’ll never make your father’s deadline.”

  “I’ll make it.” She glared at him and wedged her hands between their bodies to push him away. “I will make it.”

  “Why don’t you just give up and marry me? You know I’ll take care of you the way you were meant to be taken care of.”

  “I don’t want to be taken care of.”

  Says the girl who wants a fairy-tale marriage, Nathan thought. If she’d give him half a chance, he could change her mind on that score, show her how thoroughly he could spoil her.

  “Why are you fighting this so hard? We’re great together. Last night was amazing.”

  Nathan rolled her beneath him, pinning her wrists above her head. Her muscles melted, body yielding. But her lips thinned in mutiny, and a resentful tempest darkened her eyes.

  “Last night was about sex. That’s not what I’m looking for in a marriage.”

  “It had better be or your husband will wander,” he teased, nuzzling her neck, enjoying her skin.

  “What I mean is sex isn’t all I’m looking for in a marriage. I need love, too.”

  “Love doesn’t last.”

  “Sometimes it does.”

  Feeling the tension in the slim body beneath his, Nathan released her wrists and shifted his weight off her. She slid out of bed.

  His body ached as he watched her walk toward her discarded clothes. Was there anything sexier than a woman’s back, he wondered, linking his fingers behind his head. The sheet slid to his waist, stopped from going farther by his morning erection. A cold shower would take care of that. In the meantime, he savored the dimples at the small of her back on either side of her spine, the sexy swoop of her narrow waist, and the flare of her heart-shaped derriere. She bent to retrieve her underwear, and he sighed as the action shoved her luscious tush into the air.

  Keeping her back to him, she stepped into her pale pink panties. Watching her slide the scrap of lace into place was almost as sexy as watching her remove it. Everything about her turned him on. When she was done hooking her bra, she pivoted to face him.

  “The man I marry will want me because of who I am, not because of who my father is.”

  Nathan leaned forward, running his eyes roaming over her half-naked form, filling the room with his desire for her. “I do want you.”

  “But you don’t love me.”

  Could you?

  The question peeked at him from beneath her long lashes. In her expression, he saw the barest hope that he might someday change his mind about love.

  Cody’s words came back to him. She wanted a fairy tale. A happily-ever-after. Is that what his mother had hoped for? His father’s wife? His brother, Sebastian, whose marriage had disintegrated after two short years? Probably. Instead, they’d gotten heartbreak.

  Her lips curved downward as the silence between them stretched out. He hated seeing her unhappy, but it wasn’t fair to lead her on.

  Finally, she got fed up with his lack of an answer. “I didn’t think so,” she muttered, scooping her shirt off the floor.

  As much as he didn’t like to be the source of her pain, she deserved his honesty. She needed to understand that she’d have his respect, his fidelity, his affection, just not his love.

  And in the end, both of them would be happier for it.

  “Love isn’t what makes a marriage last,” he said. “Or there wouldn’t be half as many divorces. You need mutual respect and shared goals.”

  “I agree that marriage takes work,” she said. “Supporting each other’s hopes and dreams. Listening and compromising. But wouldn’t those things be easier with an emotional bond? Something powerful and all-consuming that keeps you together no matter how many curveballs life throws at you?”

  The raw certainty in her eyes speared through him. A fervent crusader, she’d made a convincing argument for love. It might work on another man, one who hadn’t seen the ravages of love up close and personal.

  “And what happens when that powerful and all-consuming emotion dies?” he countered.

  Hands on her hips, she pressed her lips together and glared at him. “I’ll bet you think you’re better off not letting anyone in. That way you don’t get hurt. But isn’t that awfully lonely? Don’t you ever wish you could let someone take care of you for a change?”

  And risk being disappointed when she stopped? “I’m a big boy,” he said. “I haven’t needed anyone for a long time.”

  She slipped the shirt over her head. “I’m sorry to hear that,” she murmured and with one last searching glance, strode from the room.

  Nathan threw off the sheet and stood, irrationally annoyed. He didn’t need her pity. Or her love. He just needed her hand in marriage and her body in his bed.

  Dismissing what felt suspiciously like regret, he headed for the shower.

  Emma knelt on the floor, surrounded by the jewelry she’d made, and assessed a month’s worth of work. Ten necklaces, a dozen pairs of earrings, fifteen rings and six bracelets. It wasn’t enough. But it would have to do. In two days she was on her way to Baton Rouge for the art and design show. Her four weeks of exhausting work were at an end. This weekend would determine how the rest of her life would play out.

  In the living room, Nathan sang along to a Sinatra tune. The romantic music wrapped around her like a comfortable sweater and Emma found herself smiling. As much as she’d protested against moving into Nathan’s condo, she had to admit that it had probably helped her prepare for the show. Left alone in her loft or staying at Addison’s, she would have driven herself into the ground way before her deadline. Being forced to rest and eat, she’d met all her goals and crafted better jewelry. If she had a profitable show in Baton Rouge, she could credit a lot of that success to Nathan.

  “So, this is where you’ve been hiding out.” Addison appeared in the workroom doorway. She’d called an hour ago to say she was stopping by. “How is it going?”

  “See for yourself.” Emma gestured toward the pieces she’d recently finished.

  Addison sat beside Emma and let her fingertips drift along a ruby-and-diamond necklace. “This is gorgeous.”

  “Here’s the piece I created for the silent auction.” Emma pulled a square flat box off her worktable and handed it to Addison. “I hope it makes up for the fact that I wasn’t able to help you with the gala this year. I feel terrible about that.”

  For the last five years, she and Addison had co-chaired the committee in charge of a big event that raised money to fight juvenile diabetes. It was a labor of love for Addison, whose sister had been diagnosed with the disease at the age of five. How Addison managed a career, family and all her volunteer activities, Emma didn’t have a clue. Her friend seemed tireless.

  Emma was always happy to help, but this year her free time had been eaten up by her jewelry business and both her show and the gala fell on the same weekend.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Addison said, popping the lid and gasping at the sparkling necklace that lay on the bed of black velvet. “This is incredible. And way more than you should be donating.”

  “You’re sweet to say that. Here I was thinking I wasn’t doing nearly enough.”

  The women hugged. Emma felt the burn of tears behind h
er eyes. She exhaled a shaky breath. Lately her emotions had been uncomfortably close to the surface. Frustration. Happiness. Desire. Anger. Emma’s moods had been on a merry-go-round without end.

  “I’ve missed having you around,” Addison said. “But I can see why you decided to move in here.”

  “What are you talking about?” Emma stretched her lower back and grimaced as pain lanced through her muscles.

  Addison eyed Emma. “You’re sleeping with him, aren’t you? Not that I blame you.”

  She wasn’t ready to talk about how Nathan had swept her off to the bedroom every night for the last week or how the previous evening he’d plied her with a soothing massage that put her out for almost five hours. Damn the man.

  As if her thoughts had conjured him, Nathan appeared in the doorway with a glass of wine he handed to Addison and a plate of cheese, bread and fresh fruit he placed on Emma’s worktable.

  “See if you can’t persuade her to eat something,” he said. “All her wonderful curves are disappearing.”

  Ever since she’d stopped making the trek to Addison’s house every night, he’d been badgering her to eat and rest. After the first couple days, she’d stopped telling him that she could take care of herself. Why waste her breath when he wasn’t listening to her anyway? And then three days ago, something awful had happened. She’d discovered that having him fuss over her was wonderful.

  So much for Miss Independent.

  “I’m not hungry,” Emma said, frowning at him.

  Tonight he wore a black T-shirt that clung to his chest and shoulders. The color emphasized the bad-boy gleam in his eyes and made her pulse hitch. All she wanted to do was lay her head against his broad chest and close her eyes.

  “He won’t stop fussing,” Emma complained to Addison after he left. She popped a grape in her mouth and followed it up with a slice of Brie on fresh French bread. “It’s not as if I need him to take care of me.”

  “But isn’t it nice that he does?”

  Addison’s sly question hit a little too close to the mark. No one would believe Emma could take care of herself unless she demonstrated that she could. “I was doing okay before he came along.”

  Nathan returned with a glass of water for Emma. The ice cubes tinkled in the glass as he set it down. “Dinner will be ready in a half an hour. Can you stay?” he asked Addison.

  Addison looked from one to the other. “I can’t. I promised Paul I would be home for dinner tonight.”

  Emma watched him go, her gaze following his sexy posterior until it disappeared around the corner.

  “For a woman who claims she’s not interested, you are emitting some smoking-hot vibes.” At least Addison waited until Nathan returned to the kitchen before her accusation burst forth. “I half expected to see scorch marks on his backside the way you were staring at him just now.”

  “It’s awful.” Emma massaged her stiff shoulders. “I can’t stop myself. It’s like handing a two-year-old a cookie and telling her not to eat it. He’s impossible to resist.”

  “And given the way he looks at you, I think you’d better dust off your platinum card and buy yourself a trousseau. That man’s got marriage on his mind.”

  Emma nodded. Pity that it was for all the wrong reasons.

  Nathan covered his yawn with a fist as he parked Emma’s borrowed van in the lot next to the Baton Rouge River Center. He blinked to bring moisture to his dry eyes. The clock on the dashboard told him it was a little before 9:00 p.m. Five hours earlier, he’d arrived home from a quick business trip to Chicago, anticipating a romantic reunion with the object of his desire and found her about to get behind the wheel of this dilapidated vehicle. Appalled by the idea that Emma intended to drive to Baton Rouge in something that had obviously seen more than its share of the open road, he’d overridden her objections and insisted on driving.

  After the week he’d had, the last thing he’d wanted to do was more traveling. Not to mention that this was the worst possible moment for him to take time off. His brothers’ interest in Lucas Smythe’s company was taking on a life of its own. His location scouting near Chicago had not been as productive as he’d hoped. He really should be in the office tomorrow phoning Cody about other facility locations. What good would it do to win Emma and sign contracts with Silas if they had no production space?

  Instead, he was in a van, almost three hundred miles away.

  Nathan turned to the woman sleeping beside him. She’d napped almost the entire trip, confirming that he’d been absolutely right to insist on driving her to Baton Rouge. He’d never have forgiven himself if she’d fallen asleep at the wheel. And it wasn’t as if his brothers would notice if he was out of the office another day.

  She looked so peaceful. During the drive he’d contemplated how much he’d enjoy having her in his life on a permanent basis. Although he hadn’t been blind to the perks of being married to Emma—the companionship, the incredible sex, the sense of purpose he’d felt these last ten days—he hadn’t expected that she’d arouse such protectiveness in him, or that he would so completely enjoy something as simple as watching her sleep.

  He liked taking care of her and sensed that as much as she resisted, she liked having him do so. Soon, she would realize they had all the elements for a solid marriage.

  Everything but love.

  The thought emerged out of the conversation with his father. Hearing Brandon praise Marissa for her strength and voice his regrets that he’d settled too fast into a marriage of convenience, Nathan had noticed doubt creep into his opinions on love. His father’s words rang in his head, keeping him awake at night while Emma toiled down the hall, and forced him to notice a hole in his chest, a suspicion that something was missing.

  Did he want Emma to love him the way his mother had loved Brandon? No, that couldn’t be right. His mother’s love hadn’t made her happy. He wanted Emma to need him, lust for him, like him even. Nothing more. No unrealistic expectations mucking up what promised to be a satisfying blend of friendship and sex.

  Nathan turned off the van and rubbed the back of his neck as he considered the woman asleep beside him. She’d lowered the seat back and turned on her side toward him. With one foot braced against the floor, she’d bent the other and her skirt rode halfway up her smooth thigh. He imagined running his hand up her leg until he reached heaven. He sighed. She was too tempting to be believed.

  One hand pillowed her cheek. She’d draped the other across her middle. He reached out to grab her shoulder and shake her awake, but the soft skin beneath the denim jacket distracted him. Before he knew what he intended, Nathan slid his hand under the fabric and cupped the side of her neck, his thumb brushing her cheek. Mesmerized by the warmth and soft fragrance of her skin, he leaned down and swept his lips against hers.

  Trapping a groan in his throat, he dipped his head again and lingered long enough to taste her. She stirred, her hand lifting to coast inside the open V of his cotton shirt. Placing her palm against his chest, her lips parted.

  Nathan lost himself in the lazy press, slide and retreat of his mouth against hers. He rubbed her lips with his, coaxing forth a soft murmur of delight. Her hand moved to the back of his neck, fingernails raking through his hair. Peace filled him. What was it about kissing Emma that made the world and his problems melt away?

  Her perfume reminded him of springtime. He loved the season for all the possibilities it offered. The opportunity to build on past successes. A chance to grow in new directions. To take new risks.

  Risks. In business. But not in his personal life.

  Struck by the contrast, Nathan broke off the kiss. When it came to his heart, he shared his brothers’ aversion to risk. It was the one way he didn’t take after his father. Brandon had been bold in business and in love.

  Memories surfaced. His father sitting on the worn couch in their tiny house, Marissa’s feet in his lap. Marissa and Brandon washing dishes. Him kissing her neck. And laughter. Always laughter. His parents had been happy toget
her, Nathan now realized. Devoted to each other. It wasn’t being in love with his father that had made his mother unhappy. It had been their time apart that had hurt her. Funny how anger and resentment had tarnished his recollections of that.

  Cupping Emma’s face in his hands, he set his forehead against hers. “We’re here.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Close to nine. How long will it take you to set up?”

  “A couple hours, I think.”

  “Are you hungry? We missed dinner. We could go grab something before getting started. You should probably keep your strength up.”

  “I’m too keyed up to eat. Maybe later, after we’re done we could catch a late, late dinner.” The hand that had been playing in his hair dropped to her lap. “Thanks for driving and letting me sleep.”

  “After almost a three-hour nap you probably won’t feel much like sleeping tonight,” he said, kissing her brusquely on the forehead and setting her away from him. “I, on the other hand, feel like I could sleep for a week.”

  He caught the clear confusion on her face. The tender kiss they’d shared made him feel vulnerable in a way he’d never known with a woman. New insights into his parents’ relationship made him question what he’d told Emma he wanted from her. He wasn’t used to doubting his decisions. He wasn’t used to feeling off balance.

  He was no longer convinced that marrying without love was a good idea.

  He just wasn’t sure marrying for love was.

  Nine

  Emma half trotted to keep up with Nathan’s long stride. She shot a glance at his profile, her chest tightening at the thoughtful frown pulling his brows together. He seemed miles away, and with longing tight and sharp beneath her skin, Emma felt all too present. What had just happened in the van?

  Waking to the tenderness in his kiss had been her undoing. The memory of it yanked at her heart. His passion she could dismiss as lust and not let it into her soul, but gentleness—she had no protection against that.