After Hours Bundle (33 page)

He nodded. “We'll have to rent that.” He covered her hand with his and she didn't pull away. “Now, the only unanswered question, I believe, is what I do in my spare time. And here's the sad answer—I don't have any spare time. I actually made this time between us by canceling about three different social obligations.”

“But if you had any?” she prompted.

“If I did, I'd…take guitar lessons. I'd make love to you a lot. I'd grow my hair long and grab you and a backpack and tour South America and Asia and maybe even hit the Australian outback. I'd go sailing every weekend.”

“I don't know how to sail.”

“I'd teach you.” He reached over and tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “So what do
you
do in your spare time?”

She looked at him sadly. “I don't have any, either. Not really. What I do have—my one day off—I usually spend doing laundry and cleaning and basically collapsing because I'm too tired to move. But I'd love to travel,” she added in a wistful tone.

“Careful,” he warned. “We're in danger of having a lot in common. We can't allow that, you know. Especially since according to you, I'm crazy and we're not getting married.”

“I can't possibly have anything in common with a lowlife Republican,” Marly teased. “I'm already violating all my principles by sleeping with a man who wears a suit and tie.”

Jack lifted an eyebrow. “Funny. I didn't think you Democrats
had
any principles. Especially not Democrats with artistic leanings—ow! Don't make me call Jimmy and Rocket in here to defend me.”

“Even Frick and Frack would admit that I had provocation for punching you.” She shot him a sexy smile and he scooped her into his arms. “Hey! I can't have sex again. You've worn out all my parts. They hurt, you savage.”

“Ah,” Jack told her. “But I'm a tender-hearted savage. See, I can kiss them and make them all better….”

And he proceeded to do just that.

M
ARLY FELT
as if she were living a dream as she fastened her seat belt again and accepted another martini in preparation for the flight back to Miami. What was she doing in Gulfstreams and limos, hanging out in the governor's mansion?

And had the man really announced that he was going to marry her one day? Why her? None of this made any sense. She was a hairstylist, for God's sake. She wasn't the kind of woman that heads of state wanted to marry.

She looked down at her loose, bohemian cotton dress and now-copper toenails. She tugged on her braid. She took another large swallow of her martini. The texture of the cotton and the smell of the leather couch, the taste of the gin and the roar of the Gulf-stream's engines—all of these details told her that she wasn't dreaming.

Her body told her, too, since she could still almost feel Jack's hands on her, Jack's mouth on hers, Jack's rhythm inside her.

But wasn't she playing with fire? Could Jack swear his future over to her and the state of Florida at the same time? Wasn't she flying a bit high with this man? And if he had to choose…

Again, her common sense told her that he was too rich for her blood. His world was too exclusive, too different from hers, and things would never work between them.

Her mother's words during the atrocious dinner they'd shared in Fort Myers came back to her.
Probably not fancy enough for you…

Well, she probably wasn't fancy enough for Jack, no matter what he said to her in the heat of desire.

God. What would Ma say if she could see her now? It didn't bear thinking about. Most mothers would be proud. Hers would be—

Marly almost swallowed whole the olive in her martini as a thought hit her. Her mother would be jealous. Was jealous. And she always had been.

The idea shocked her. Ma had been
jealous
all these years—of the attention and focus Marly got from her father, of the bond between them. And though it made her uncomfortable to think about it, she was afraid Ma envied her looks. Which was probably why Marly had never made a big deal out of them and didn't wear makeup.

As the jet carried her into the sky, her mind took her back over the years, fitting puzzle pieces together. Ma's impatience, her lack of encouragement on anything, her quiet fury when it had been Marly who saved her father's life by insisting he see a specialist.

Fury! Not relief or gratitude, but anger. Because she'd been shown up by her daughter in the eyes of the man she loved.

She was competitive with her own daughter—not only for her father's love, but for a string of other things.

Ma had never had the chance to go to college. Ma had never been creative. Ma had never had her own business.

And what would her mother do if Marly became engaged to the governor?

She swallowed the rest of her martini and a small, awful, borderline-hysterical giggle escaped her. The scenario didn't bear thinking about.

The plane bucked a couple of wayward air currents, dropping suddenly and pulling Marly's stomach into the cargo hold. She gripped the metal armrest until her fingers turned white, half expecting to plunge downward through the clouds to her death.

Why couldn't she have died
before
she realized that her mother couldn't wish her well? Would never be able to wish her well?

She'd always carried inside a small flicker of hope that one day Ma would hug her to her bosom and tell her how proud she was of her. Tell her how much she loved her. Explain that all the years of nastiness had been due to some kind of evil spell that had now been broken by the miracle of maternal affection.

But that would happen when the winter Olympics commenced in Hell.

Ma wasn't evil or two-dimensional. She loved Fuzzy and she loved her husband.

She just can't love me. That's all there is to it. No big mystery, no unsolved riddle.

But tears filled Marly's eyes and rolled down her cheeks. One rolled right off the tip of her nose and plopped into the martini glass she still held on her lap. And then and there she made a promise.

If I ever have a child whom I cannot love, I will fake it to the end of my days.

Would she actually have Jack's baby one day? Marly tried to bend her mind around the concept, but it was so foreign. Could she be married to the governor and still have her own business? Run a salon?

And would their children go to Harvard…or to beauty school?

Another half-hysterical giggle slipped out of her mouth, and then another and another. Martinis and emotional turmoil and empty stomachs and high altitude sure didn't mix well.

At least the plane seemed steadier now, even if she wasn't. Marly unbuckled her seat belt and stumbled toward the Gulfstream's lavatory, where she sat on the floor in her funky cotton dress and cried while she giggled. She tugged at the roll of designer toilet paper on its little gold bar, pulling off half of it during the ridiculously short flight.

By the time they landed, she'd slapped sunglasses over her tomato-like face. She was arriving in style on a Gulfstream Jet, like some big-name celebrity. She might as well enjoy it and look the part, right?

Because no matter what Jack said and how much she might want to believe him, she was not The One and they weren't meant to be two.

 

T
HE FIRST PERSON
Marly saw the next morning was Alejandro, who took one look at her and said, “Come with me.” She followed him into the kitchenette, where he opened the freezer and took out a gel-filled eye mask. “Put this on,” he ordered. “And then tell me all about it.”

She sat in one of the wooden chairs, leaned back against the wall and did as he told her. “He's still insisting that he's going to marry me, Alejandro. That it's fate.”

“He being Jack?”

She nodded.

“
Chica,
I must tell you that this is very non-Republican behavior.”

She laughed. “I think I told him that. He doesn't care.”

“What do you feel for this man, eh?”

“I don't know,” she admitted. “Right now I'm back to thinking he needs a little white padded cell. But when I'm face-to-face with him…” She shook her head. “You've met him. You know how magnetic he is. When he stands there and looks into your eyes and tells you something with that sincere, blue gaze of his—all I can say is that you'd believe him, too. He's so charismatic. I swear he could put his hand on some woman's arm, tell her that she should step in front of a bus, and she'd smile back at him and
do
it. Gladly. With no regrets! She'd die happy because her last human interaction was with Jack Hammersmith.”

“That is quite frightening,
mi corazón.
”

“You're telling me!” She slapped herself in the forehead. “You haven't even slept with the man.”

“Nor do I wish to, if it's all the same to you.”

She pulled off the eye-gel mask and met his eyes. “If he had been born gay and decided to convert you, you'd agree on the spot.”

“No, I'm sorry. That's not possible.”

“I'm telling you, it
is.
”

“No. There's a woman in my business school class…now for
her,
I would consider bouncing on my head to Boston. But your Governor Jack leaves me cold.”

“Bouncing on your head to—” Marly stared at him and started to laugh. “My God, Alejandro, this sounds serious!”

He shrugged. “No. She doesn't know I'm alive. But she certainly is a concussion of a woman.”

“A
concussion?
Should I ask?”

“No. Back to the governor,” he said decisively. “So he can make people do what he wants. This is why he's in office, no? He has this skill.”

She twisted her mouth. “Do you know that he doesn't even want to be in office?”

“Aha! This is a good thing. Because you would make a truly terrible first lady of Florida.”

“Uh…thank you? You mean that as a compliment, right?”

“I mean it as a statement of fact. What would you do on the campaign trail, eh? Give free perms to all of Lake Okechobee?” His eyes twinkled.

“But, Alejandro, he's going to run anyway. So it's not a good thing at all that I would suck as a political wife.”

“Ah.” Her friend pursed his lips. “Then that is more difficult. You would perhaps have to sell out your interest in the salon to me and Peggy. You would have to get a makeover and change your clothing—”

“In other words, I'd have to become someone I'm not! And that's why this relationship between Jack and me will never work.”

Alejandro folded his hands on the table. “I don't know what to tell you, Marly. You love this man?”

She blinked at him. “I—I—of course not. I don't know him well enough to love him.”

“He says he loves you?”

She shook her head. “No. He says we'll get married, but he hasn't mentioned anything about love.”

Alejandro looked thoughtful. “He is chasing you with a ring?”

“No. He's chased me with his great-great-grandmother's cameo picture, but not a ring.”

“So he has respect for tradition.”

“Of course he does,” she said impatiently. “He's a Republican. They're all about tradition.”

Alejandro waggled a warning finger at her. “Stereotypes. But disregarding that, I've figured it out. He wants to court you the old-fashioned way.”

Marly flushed as she thought about the very modern activities they'd engaged in recently. “Um, I don't think so.”

“Trust me,” Alejandro said with a knowing nod. “You'll be meeting his mother very soon.”

 

“I
WANT YOU TO MEET
my mom,” said Jack when he called.

Marly choked.

“What did you say?”

“Nothing.”
I sure as hell don't want you to meet mine.

“We'll be in Miami on Thursday on a fund-raising project,” Jack told her. “Do you have any free time?”

Her heart sank. “I'm booked solid on Thursday. I'm sorry.” She walked to the reception counter and bent over Shirlie's shoulder to see the appointment book. “I have a thirty-minute window for a meal between 3:30 and 4:00 p.m. That's it.” Was that a little kernel of relief in her stomach? She really didn't know if she was up to meeting the governor's mother. There was no question that Mrs. Hammersmith would disapprove of her.

Jack stayed silent for a moment. “Well, if that's all you've got, then we'll take it. I'll arrange a reservation at Benito's, and we'll be there at three-thirty, okay?”

No.
“Sounds great.”
After all, it's not possible for your mother to disapprove of me more than my own does. So what's the harm?

She tried to swallow her rising panic. Jack was introducing her to his mother, which meant that he really was serious.

Mrs. Hammersmith was going to take one look at her and flip out about the blue toenail polish—she was back to blue today—and the fact that she wasn't wearing a bra, and kept her hair in a braid. She'd object to her flip-flops and her three-inch-long silver earrings and her blue-collar background. Most of all, she'd hate what Marly did for a living and she wouldn't consider her good enough for her son.

“My mom,” said Jack, “is going to love you.”

Right. About as much as she probably loves to find rotting vegetables in the crisper. Except I'm sure she has a housekeeper and never opens her own refrigerator.

“I'm sure I'll love her, too,” Marly managed to say. After all, she had a feeling it was socially incorrect to scream, “Don't bring your mother anywhere near me!”

“I miss you,” Jack murmured into the phone.

“Me, too.” And she did. She missed the person she'd been before she'd ever been featured in
Shore
magazine and gained a zillion clients and the passionate pursuit of the governor. She missed her uncomplicated prior life.

“Can't wait to see you. 'Bye, honey.”

“'Bye.”
Uh-huh. I need to tell him goodbye.
Preferably before she ever encountered Mama Hammer and her disapproval over the woman her son was nailing.