Momentary Marriage (24 page)

“Well, I didn’t want to buy one Doug didn’t feel comfortable on, not now that we’re together. So I asked him to go shopping with me.”

“And he did this voluntarily?” Kelsey asked, her tone dry.

Her sister laughed. “Yes, eventually. Then, out of the blue, last week he actually offered to pay for half of it and started talking about how we should move in!”

“Wow. Doug’s pretty tight with his money,” Kelsey commented, starting to feel relieved. “He must really be serious. I don’t think he’s ever lived with anyone before.”

Amy leaned back in her chair, excited contentment in her face. “No. I’ll be his first and last.”

“Actually moving in together. Jeez! When is this going to happen?” Kelsey looked at her younger sister, trying to suppress a niggle of anxiety. Her concern made no sense. Everything she’d done in the last two months had been with this goal in mind. Amy was the best. She deserved this.

“Well,” Amy said after taking a sip from her cup, “we haven’t talked about specific dates. But it’ll be soon.”

“I’m glad,” Kelsey said, affection rising in her as she looked at her only sibling, the younger sister she’d always tried to shelter.

“We talked about his crush on you, too,” Amy assured her. “And Doug says it was just a kid-thing and he’s really ready to move on.”

“I’m glad,” Kelsey murmured, her gaze resting on her sister’s face. “I’m so glad for you both.”

*
**

“Jared?” Kelsey’s voice was hesitant in the darkened bedroom.

“Mmmm?” He pulled her closer, reveling in the smoothness of her skin against his. He knew she still held back from him on some level, but at least the coldness was gone and he could once again act out his love. With every touch, every kiss, he wanted to show how important she was to him.

“The other day I heard you on the phone,” she said abruptly.

Jared frowned, puzzled by the note in her voice.

“Yeah?”

“This contract you’re negotiating with the union,” she said, pulling out of his arms to sit up in the bed.

She paused then, as if uncertain how to continue.

He turned to look at her, searching her profile in the dim light that shone through the curtains.

“I don’t know anything about your business,” Kelsey said, as if throwing out a disclaimer.

Jared sat up, leaning back against the padded headboard with a sense of growing disquiet. “But?”

“Remember, before we got married, I was there at dinner with you that night when you were talking about the contract?” Her voice quavered ever so faintly.

“Yes,” he said, unable to keep the implacable note out of the single word. He didn’t know where this was going, but he couldn’t imagine why she needed to concern herself with his contract disputes.

“I just wondered,” she started with a rush, “if you’re being….”

“What?” he prompted, pushing aside his annoyance at having a moment of intimacy disrupted by what he suspected wouldn’t be a pretty conversation.

“If you’re being fair. Now, I don’t know anything about it,” she repeated, “but I heard you tell Stewart Black one thing and…then say something totally different to your negotiator.”

“Yes,” he admitted readily, still not sure what her angle was.

“Well, then…then the other day, you were on the phone again and you said something about breaking the union,” her voice trailed off.

He didn’t respond, battling a confusing mix of frustration, helplessness and anger. Clearly, something was worrying her. He wanted to listen, to sort it through, but his heart was rebelling. With every day that passed she became more vital to him, every day he struggled to make this work.

He loved her, dammit. And she didn’t trust him. Didn’t trust him even to be fair with his employees.

“Are they asking so much, the union?” she asked. “Are their demands unreasonable?”

“If I didn’t think so, I’d give into them,” he said as calmly as he could.

“But…they seem to believe just as strongly that they’re within their rights,” she said. “If they’re willing to hold out, it must be for something they need.”

Jared carefully unclenched his hand, reminding himself that she didn’t know how much time and care he put into running the best hotels, how making the work environment good was a high priority. In the last ten years, he’d tripled the size of the company, all on his own. He couldn’t have done that without earning his employees’ loyalty first.

She didn’t understand. That should have made him feel better, but it didn’t.

Kelsey stirred next to him. “I, uh, happened to run into Stewart Black today.”

“What!”

“At the deli down the block from the office,” she hurried to say. “We bumped into each other.”

“And he asked you to talk to me about the contract,” Jared concluded, his voice grim.

“No!” Kelsey assured him. “Of course, not. I wouldn’t have discussed your business with him.”

“Then what brought this up?” In that instant, he longed to have the smooth-talking bastard alone in an alley.

“We just talked about…integrity and how it effects a marriage—“

“Shit!” Jared bit out the curse.

“I’m just trying to talk to you about it,” she said defensively. “You don’t have to get upset!”

“You’re taking the word of a man you met twice and assuming that I’m somehow cheating the bastard—“

“No! We never really talked about you.”

“If you didn’t accept his inferences that I’m cheating my workers, we wouldn’t even be discussing this.” Frustrated rage spilled into his words. He couldn’t help it. Of all the people in the world, he needed her to believe in him, needed her trust.

But she couldn’t give him even that much.

“You’re right about one thing,” Jared declared after several taut minutes passed. “You don’t know anything about my business other than what a slimy, silver-tongued asshole told you.”

“For the last time,” she snapped, “I didn’t talk to him about you. I’m asking you about this because of what
I
heard you say.
I
heard you tell your negotiator to break the union.”

Jared jerked back the sheet, unable to sit still another instant. “You don’t have to worry about my employees or my business. They’re in good hands. No one on my payroll is living in the ghetto and I can take care of my business without any interference from you.”

“Where are you going?” she asked, her voice suddenly husky.

“I have work to do,” he said, leaving the bedroom.

*
**

It was the first time she could ever remember Jared walking away from her, Kelsey thought muzzily, rolling over to check the clock again.
Three a.m.

A sliver of light shone from under his study door across the living room. She could see it’s glow from the bed. If her head didn’t hurt so badly, she’d have gone to him and apologized.

After all, she wasn’t his real wife, didn’t have any real right to worry about his character. If he was a bastard in business, what was it to her? She should have known better than to say anything.

But they’d made love with such a piercing intensity tonight. He’d cradled her afterwards like a man who felt something other than satiated desire.

He’d never believe her now, but she didn’t really care about anything Stewart Black might have said. She didn’t stay awake nights worrying about Jared’s employees’ financial status.

It was Jared himself keeping her awake. Why should she care, she wondered again. What was it to her that he seemed to be straying across the line of common decency?

He’d shown himself to have manipulative tendencies, even with her. But she just couldn’t stand the world seeing him that way. She wanted him to have personal integrity.

At heart, he seemed a better man.

Groaning, she rolled over and buried her head under a pillow. She had to get some sleep. Maybe sleep would quiet the hammers in her head.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Hours later, Kelsey surfaced to consciousness reluctantly, her headache now a macabre marching band with cymbals. Groggily, she lurched out of bed, obeying the demands of a clenching stomach.

About the time the spasms let up, she became aware of Jared behind her in the bathroom. Still clutching the toilet as the room swam, she didn’t turn to acknowledge him.

“Are you okay?” he asked quietly.

“No,” she said with difficulty, “I’m dying.”

He stepped around her feet, going to the sink. Closing her eyes and resting her head on the toilet seat, she heard him turn on the water.

“Here.”

He pushed a damp wash cloth into her hand.

Straightening, she wiped her face thankfully and handed it back.

“Give me your hand,” he said, putting his arm around her and lifting her off the floor. “We’ve got to get you back to bed.”

She’d often thought that going to the gynecologist was the most embarrassing thing a woman had to tolerate. Now she had something else to add to the list. Being sick all over a man’s bathroom in his presence.

That would keep the sparkle in a relationship.

Jared guided her back to bed and she sunk into it with all the grace of a dead mackerel. The pain in her stomach was gone, but her head ached and she was tired to death.

Drifting in and out, she lost track of time. When she surfaced once, she found a basin conveniently next to the bed. At some point, a glass of water appeared on the night stand along with a fresh washcloth.

Coming awake again sometime later, she found Jared standing beside the bed, a glass in his hand.

“Here’s some soft drink for you. It might help settle your stomach. How are you feeling?”

“Better,” she said, trying to smile. “I’ll be fine. You go on to work. You don’t have to stay. I’ve survived worse.”

“I’m sure you have,” he said matter-of-factly. “Do you feel like taking a sip of this?”

“Not right now,” she said, closing her eyes. “I’ll just rest a while.”

“Good,” he said, his voice deep and calm.

For a fleeting second, she thought she felt the coolness of his hand against her forehead. Before she could order her eyelids to open again, the sensation was gone.

With sleep coming and going, she was visited by wisps of dreams that came and went with startling clarity, but little logic. In one episode, she was back in her old apartment with all her things. Later, she saw herself on an old-fashioned swing with Jared pushing her as she laughed, soaring high.

Then there was the snatch of scene where she clung to him, crying—over what she didn’t know.

Later, sometime after noon, Kelsey opened her eyes and the room didn’t swim. She stared at the ceiling for several moments, mentally reviewing her own condition. Though the sheets were wrinkled and damp, she felt less feverish now. Her head still hurt, but not to the point of nausea.

Somewhere in the apartment, Jared was talking.

She rolled over, squinting at the clock. Hadn’t he gone to work?

Noises from the kitchen could be heard, the clink of cutlery on ceramic. Minutes later, Jared appeared in the doorway.

“You’re awake.” Dressed casually in jeans and an open-neck shirt, he smiled, bending over her to put his hand against her cheek. “Temperature seems close to normal. Do you feel better?”

“Some,” she admitted, both startled and warmed by his tenderness. In her experience, in the best of times men were useless as bedside attendants for minor ailments.

“Would you like to take a quick bath?” he asked, crossing the room to switch on the bathroom light.

“Yes,” she said, struggling to straighten in the bed.

“Here,” Jared said, coming swiftly to help her sit up. “Why don’t we get you into the tub and I’ll make you something to eat. Is your stomach settled enough for some soup?”

“That sounds great,” she said, conscious of the bizarreness of the situation. Here she was, weak as a kitten, sweaty and unpleasant with her hair hanging in her face and no claim to feminine charms—and yet she felt cared for.

It didn’t make any sense, particularly since she’d made him mad last night by butting into his business. Why would he take care of her like this?

Jared helped her up, steadying her as they walked to the bathroom. He ran her a bath, extricated her from the t-shirt she’d slept in, and actually put her hair up in a lopsided ponytail to keep it from getting wet.

Minutes later, she sat in the huge tub, lukewarm water up to her chin.

“We don’t want you getting too hot,” he said, as if he’d nursed a hundred invalids. “You just sit. I’ll go make the soup.”

“Thanks,” she murmured, sighing in contentment. She couldn’t ever remember being this pampered. Her mother had taken care of her childhood illnesses, of course. But for a man to do this seemed unbelievable.

It wasn’t as if she were terminally ill. Any decent human being would try to help then. She wasn’t even completely incapacitated. She could have gotten herself in the bathtub, could have scrounged something for her now-hungry stomach.