by Leanne Banks
Alex lifted his hand to the applauding crowd. “Thank you for coming. Please enjoy the rest of the party. Good night,” he said and guests tossed rose petals as he led her out of the room.
Alex had arranged for them to stay in the resort’s penthouse suite for the night. He guided her to the private elevator. As soon as the doors whooshed closed, he turned to her. “What’s wrong?”
She leaned her head back against the cool steel wall and closed her eyes. She didn’t know whether to cry or scream.
“Mallory, why are you upset?”
She sucked in an indignant breath and met his gaze. “Why in the world would I be upset when you are in the corner with a beautiful blond woman at our wedding reception?”
Realization crossed his face and he sighed, rubbing his hand over his face. “You weren’t supposed to see that.”
She blinked. “That makes everything better.” The elevator doors opened and she stalked toward the doors decorated in ivy and roses.
“Dammit, wait a minute,” he said, catching her arm. “I meant I didn’t want you upset. That was Chloe. She crashed the reception. I was trying to avoid a big scene by having security remove her from the room.”
Mallory met his gaze. “Really?”
He nodded. “Really.”
She took an extra breath. “Do you always have this kind of problem when you break up with a woman?”
“Never like this. I’m starting to see the reason for restraining orders,” he said, his gaze troubled.
“Should we do something about this? About her?” Mallory asked.
Alex looked at her for a long moment and lifted his hand to her cheek. “You just gave me an amazing gift.”
“What?” she asked, confused.
“You said we. Should we do something? Even though you’re miffed,” he said, rubbing his finger over her mouth as if it were a lush flower.
Mallory felt some of the fight drain out of her. “Just imagine if the tables were turned,” she said. “If you’d seen me in the corner with another man at our wedding reception.”
“That’s easy,” Alex said. “I would have made a scene and given him a bloody nose. You handled it with much more class.” He glanced at the door. “Why are we standing outside?”
With no warning, he picked her up and carried her to the door, pushed it open and brought her inside where the room was lit with oodles of candles and dozens of white roses. “What are you—”
“The threshold tradition,” he said. “It’s supposed to bring good luck. Everyone can use good luck.”
He looked down at her and took her mouth with his in a searing, possessive kiss that left her breathless. “What was that for?”
“Because I’ve been wanting to kiss you all night,” he said, sinking onto a white leather sofa and holding her on his lap.
“You’ve already kissed me several times today.”
“Not like I wanted,” he said. “Not enough.” He rubbed his lip over hers from side to side in delicious, sensual movements. “You feel so good,” he said, sliding his tongue over her bottom lip. “Taste so good.”
“It’s the cake,” she said. “I taste like wedding cake.”
He gave a dirty chuckle. “Trust me. It’s not the cake,” he said and took her mouth in another kiss. After a moment, he pulled back and tugged off her shoes. “Bet you’re ready to get rid of these.”
She nodded and it began to sink in that she had gotten married. She was now his wife. The notion made her chest tighten with a strange mixture of emotion.
“And your dress,” he said with a devil’s look in his eyes. “Bet you’re ready to get rid of that, too.”
She couldn’t keep a smile of amusement from her face. “Good luck. This dress has fifty buttons.”
He shot her a look of disbelief then glanced at her book. “What idiot thought of that?”
“A very famous designer.”
“Who is clearly a man-hater,” he said and lifted his hand to the buttons. “Good thing I’ve got staying power.”
She lifted her hand to his shoulder and met his gaze. “Do you?” she asked. “Do you really have staying power?”
He paused, clearly hearing her serious tone. “Yes, I do.”
Mallory bit her lip, but felt a resolve strengthen inside her. “I don’t want to be married to you if you’re going to have other women.”
His face turned dead serious. “There will be no other women for me, no other men for you,” he said in a low, rough voice.
His latter comment caught her off guard. She would never consider being with another man. Now that she’d been with him, now that she’d been his wife, how could she think of anyone but Alex?
“Do you understand?” he asked, lacing his long fingers with hers.
She nodded. “Of course.”
“I take my wedding vows seriously, Mallory. I’m committed to you,” he said.
She nodded, but her mind was still full of questions. The biggest was would he ever love her?
“I’m your husband,” he said, his hands moving over her buttons, releasing them with a speed that surprised her. “Soon enough, there won’t be an inch of you that doesn’t know that you are my wife.”
They spent the night making love until Mallory was too exhausted to continue. She fell asleep in Alex’s strong arms and awakened to his kisses. He made love to her again and they shared a delicious meal before it was time to leave.
Alex’s job made it impossible to leave his work for a honeymoon. He swept her off her feet and carried her inside his condo. “Welcome home, Mrs. Megalos,” he said and allowed her to slide down his body until her feet touched the floor. “The movers will bring anything you want from your parents’ place. Just give instructions to the housekeeper and she’ll handle everything. I want you to feel comfortable here, so feel free to convert one of the other bedrooms into an office if you like. I’ll leave a charge card for you in the morning. Something’s up with the board of directors, so I’ll need to go in early.”
Her heart twisted at the notion of him leaving, which was silly. Having his undivided attention for the last twenty-four hours had knocked her equilibrium completely off-kilter.
He studied her face as if he could read her mind. “You’ll be okay, won’t you?”
“Of course,” she said, refusing to give into her weakness for him. Alex would need a strong woman for his wife, so she needed to buck up and pull herself together. “I have plenty to do to get settled here and make-up work for my class. We can have dinner tomorrow night on the upper terrace.”
“Sounds good,” he said. “But it may need to be late. I only got half the story from Max at the reception, but it’s sounding like we may be in for a major reorganization. I’ll send in the housekeeper to unpack for you while I check my messages and give you a chance to relax.”
Two hours later she sat propped up in bed, staring at her laptop screen. Feeling a shadow cross over her, she glanced up to see her husband leaning over her wearing a towel looped around his waist and, she suspected nothing else.
His green eyes full of seduction, he shot a quick glance at the laptop. “Anything you need to save?” he asked.
She nodded tearing her gaze from the sight of his amazing body. She wondered if the time would ever come when he didn’t take her breath away. She marked the Web site for future research, saved her notes and turned off her laptop.
He immediately took the laptop from her and set it on the dresser. Dropping his towel seconds before he turned off the bedside lamp, he climbed into bed, covering her body with his.
Mallory shivered in anticipation.
“You’re not cold, are you?” he asked, sliding his warm hands under her pajama tank top.
“No.”
“Good, because you’re wearing entirely too many clothes,” he said and pulled her top over her head. His hard chest rubbed deliciously against hers, causing a riot in all her most sensitive places. He took her mouth in a hot kiss and pushed her shorts
and panties down her legs.
He immediately found her sweet spot with his talented fingers. After a few strokes, he had her panting. “Open up, sweetheart,” he told her and as she slid her thighs apart, he thrust inside her, claiming her again, all the way to her core.
Alex left before she woke the next morning. Their days fell into a pattern where Alex left early, arrived home late, worked a couple hours after dinner, made love to Mallory and fell asleep.
An uneasiness inside her began to grow. Was this going to be their future? A distracted dinner followed by late-night sex? It almost seemed as if they talked less now than they had before they’d married.
She wanted to get through to Alex. She wanted him to see her. She wanted him to, heaven help her, love her. Mallory racked her brain for ways to get to him. She tried to meet him for lunch during the day. She invited him to play golf. He was always apologetic, but always too busy.
One evening when Alex was working late again and Mallory was trying her best not to sulk, the condo phone rang and when she answered it, she knew she’d found a way to get Alex’s attention.
“Thursday night’s not good for me,” Alex said absently to Mallory as he made a mental note to himself about the resort in West Virginia. “I’m working late.”
“Not on Thursday night. Change your plans,” she said in an airy, but confident voice as she sipped her wine during their late dinner.
Surprised that she would disagree with him, he shook his head. “I can’t change them. I have a late meeting with marketing then I have a conference call with three contractors in West Virginia.”
“Reschedule,” she said, surprising him again with her insistence.
“Sweetheart, you don’t understand—”
“No,” she corrected. “You don’t understand. I need you to be available on Thursday night. I need you to go somewhere with me.”
“Mallory, be reasonable.”
“I am. Do you know how many evenings you’ve spent with me since we got married?”
“I told you this month was going to be tough. I have an unusually heavy workload partly due to the construction project in West Virginia. Maybe we could schedule something for Sunday night.”
She shook her head stubbornly. “No. It has to be Thursday.”
“Tell me what it is,” he said.
She took a deep breath. “A surprise.”
She was such a tenderhearted woman, he thought. Lord he was lucky he hadn’t married one of those sharp, brittle women he’d dated during the last several years. “That’s sweet,” he said. “But I really can’t cancel—”
“You have to,” she said. “Or I—I’ll have to do something desperate.”
Alex blinked at her. “What the hell—”
She rose from the table, her meal nearly untouched. “I mean it. I’ve made plans. I need your presence on Thursday night, and as your wife, I shouldn’t have to—” Her voice broke and she bit her lip. “Beg.”
Swearing under his breath, Alex stood and reached for her. “You’re feeling neglected. Dammit. I can’t change my schedule.”
She pulled back and lifted her hands. “Don’t try to charm me. Don’t use seduction. Do you realize I’ve seen you for an average of sixty waking minutes each day since we got married? I’m just asking for one night,” she said, her voice breaking again. Clearly appalled at herself, she spun around and ran from the dining room to the terrace, whisking the door closed behind her.
Alex swore under his breath and rubbed a hand over his face. The downside of marrying a woman with heart was dealing with her sensitivities. Alex’s primary focus was his career. His role at Megalos-De Luca Enterprises was his destiny. Everything else came second. Relationships, his needs, his desires. Everything. Now that he was forging ahead on his individual resort project, more was demanded from him than ever.
As his wife, she would need to grow accustomed to his schedule. His first mistress was his work. This once, however, he would bend, but he would make it clear that in the future, she should never make plans that required his presence without consulting him first.
Thursday night arrived and Alex’s chauffeur drove Alex and Mallory to the address she’d given him. Mallory was scared spitless. Her palms were clammy, her heart raced. Her only saving grace was that Alex was distracted by a call he’d received on his cell phone. For once, she was thankful for the interruption.
The more she thought about it, the more she feared this may not have been such a good idea after all. Alex might not appreciate his new wife interfering. By the end of the evening, he could very well be furious with her.
Her stomach twisted into another knot and she tried to rein in her fear. Her instincts had screamed that this was the right thing for her to do. She prayed she was right.
Todd pulled in front of the entrance to the lecture hall and he opened the door for Alex and Mallory to exit the Bentley. Alex wrapped up his call and curiously glanced at the building. “Thanks, Todd,” Alex said then turned to Mallory as he escorted her inside. “Are you going to tell me what this is all about now?”
“No,” she said, forcing a smile to her face as they approached an auditorium. “You’ll know soon enough.”
Alex gave a long-suffering sigh. “Do we have assigned seats?”
“Yes,” she said, her stomach twisting and turning. “Near the front.”
They took their seats and Mallory held her breath.
“You’re really not going to tell me,” Alex murmured in her ear.
“I’m really not,” she said and prayed this would all turn out right.
Finally the lights dimmed and a gray-haired man mounted the platform. “Ladies and gentleman, as director of bio-genetic studies for the University of Nevada, it is my honor and pleasure to introduce this evening’s speaker, Dr. Gustavas Megalos…”
Mallory slid a sideways glance at Alex as his brother’s name was announced. His eyes rounded in surprise and his gaze was fixed on the podium as a man with dark hair and glasses climbed the platform.
“Gus,” he whispered, leaning toward her. “How the hell did you know he was coming to town?”
“He called and said he wanted to see you,” she said, trying unsuccessfully to read her husband.
“You couldn’t just tell me,” he said.
“I didn’t know how you would respond. It was too important to risk you saying no.”
His jaw tightened. “That’s why you said you would do something desperate.”
She swallowed over the knot in her throat. “Yes. Are you angry?”
“I’m surprised,” he said and focused on his brother.
Mallory suffered in limbo as Alex’s brother discussed the importance of genetic studies and the advancements that had been made. She stole glances at Alex throughout the lecture, trying to read him, but his expression was inscrutable.
She hoped she’d made the right decision. That time Alex had opened up to her, she’d glimpsed a longing for his family. She prayed this would be a turning point, and that Alex could reconnect with his family.
Alex’s brother finished his speech and the crowd applauded. Alex turned to Mallory. “You want to tell me the rest of the plan now?”
“There’s a bar next door. You and your brother can go there and have a beer together,” she said, feeling a spark of hope.
“What about you?” Alex asked.
“I’ll go home.”
Alex shook his head. “I want my brother to meet my wife,” he said, standing and extending his hand to her.
Her heart dipped at his words and the emotions she read in his eyes. Maybe, she felt herself begin to hope more and more, maybe Alex could grow to love her after all.
Nine
One week later, Mallory and Alex attended a charity gala held at the Grand Trillion Resort and Casino. After Alex’s successful visit with his brother, Mallory’s confidence had begun to climb. Although Alex still worked late, he’d begun to call her during the day, and if she wasn’t mistaken,
she was seeing a new light in his eyes when he looked at her. As for her own feelings, she felt as if she was glowing from the inside out. Her heart was traveling in uncharted waters with him. She’d never felt so strongly about a man, but now she had reason to hope their marriage would work.
Unable to keep a smile from her face, she glanced around the room and saw her father wave. She and Alex visited him at the bar.
Mallory kissed her father on the cheek. “Hi, Daddy. How’s business? Ready to hire me?”
Her father choked on his whiskey, pounding his chest. He scowled at her. “You shouldn’t frighten an old man like that when he’s got half a glass of whiskey in his throat.”
“I’m not that scary,” she said.
“No, but you don’t need a job,” he told her giving her a quick squeeze. “You have a husband to take care of you now.”
Getting married hadn’t changed Mallory’s desire to prove herself professionally, but she could see that it would be futile to argue with her father. “Where’s Mom?” she asked, looking around the beautiful room.
“She’s over there talking to one of our neighbors. I have to tell you, Mallory. Your wedding did wonders for her. She’s getting out more, taking some kind of exercise class. Plating or something.”
“Pilates,” Mallory said, trading a smile of amusement with Alex.
“She’s trying to get me to go with her,” he said, clearly appalled.
“You should try it,” she said. “It would be good for you.”
He shook his head. “I’ll stick to golf. Go give her a kiss. She’ll be glad to see you.”
Spotting her mother in a cluster of women, Mallory walked toward her. Her mother glanced up and smiled, breaking slightly away from the other women. “Hi, sweetheart. I told your father I was looking forward to seeing you tonight.”
“Thanks.” Mallory kissed her mother on her cheek. “It’s good to see you, too. You look wonderful.”
“You look wonderful, too,” her mother said. “Something about seeing you get married made an impact on me. Life does go on, doesn’t it?” she asked, with a hint of her former fragility in her eyes.