Once Upon a Marriage (17 page)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

T
HE
 
PRACTICAL
 
THING
 
would have been to take a nap.

He noticed Marie looking at the shiny new ring on her finger as she walked beside him, holding his hand—the hand with the shiny new ring. He wasn't a jewelry kind of guy.

They were on their way to a wedding breakfast before going up to their rooms to change, pack and head to the airport. If there was time, they were going to stop at a jeweler's and buy Marie a diamond to go with her new band.

His wedding gift to his wife.

His wife.

He was married. Had the signed and witnessed certificate in the inside pocket of his jacket. His mind wasn't wrapping around the idea. But he was happy.

Maybe stupidly so. Because now that he'd come down off his high, he knew that his happiness was built on sinking ground. He'd married Marie under false pretenses. She had his heart, but she didn't know his truth.

He'd just sentenced himself to a life of hiding. And of constantly being aware that at any moment his happiness—and Marie's—could be snatched from them. If she ever found out that her mother had hired him...

Liam and Gabrielle walked a few feet in front of them. Breakfast was their treat, and Liam was looking for a place he considered worthy of the occasion.

Because, in Vegas, there were choices, even at three in the morning.

Elliott was more interested in setting up a home with Marie. Making a concrete life before the sand shifted.

“I don't mean to be presumptuous, but I'm assuming that you'll want to stay at the Arapahoe,” he said when what he should have been doing was telling Marie how happy she'd just made him.

Marie stumbled. Her head bumping him halfway between his shoulder and his elbow. And he was reminded of how small she was. How easily she could be hurt.

He was reminded that he'd just promised to protect her for the rest of his life.

The thought of anything happening to her scared him in a way he hadn't been scared since he'd been a little kid.

Elementally. To the bone.

And if she found out he'd lied to her about who he was? Even if only by omission? If she ever found out that her mother had hired him to watch over her, he'd lose her.

“I'd like to stay there,” she said now. “I mean, if you want to move, I'll still be able to be there every day. I've got my shop. But...”

“I live in a one-bedroom apartment that's less than nine hundred square feet,” he said.

“I have a three-bedroom apartment that is slightly more vacant than it was because my roommate just got married and moved out.” She was grinning up at him.

“Good.”

“It is good, isn't it?” Marie's big brown eyes seemed to see right to his heart, and it was as though they were in Denver. In her shop. Alone in the world.

“Everything with you and me, it just clicks,” she said when Elliott couldn't find the right words to tell her all the things he was thinking. “You showing up right when I needed to find you. Us being in Vegas at the time that we're both finally acknowledging that we've found the person we want to spend the rest of our lives with. Our living arrangements gelling at just the right time...”

They'd left the hotel carpet for marble floor—were walking down a wide hallway filled with high-end shops on each side. The ceiling above looked like blue sky with clouds.

A sky that promised either sunshine or rain. Or neither.

She hadn't said she loved him.

They were married and he hadn't told her he loved her, either.

She thought they'd found each other by a quirk of fate. That they were simpatico. He wanted her to keep thinking that forever.

“I love you, Marie,” he said as he walked by her side down that long hallway. “No matter what happens in our lives, I want you to know how much I love you.”

She turned, looked up at him, and the smile she'd been wearing all day and throughout the night slid away. “That sounds ominous.”

He stopped walking. Held both of her arms as he looked her right in the eye. “It's not.” He swore it wouldn't be. Ever. Not because of him. Not if he had the power to prevent it. “I'm just that serious about this. I'm not declaring some note of passion in a moment of anything goes. I'm telling you, no matter where we are, no matter what we're doing, I love you.”

Her eyes filled with tears. And she stood on tiptoe to bring her lips to his. “I love you, too, Elliott Tanner. So much.” She kissed him then. It was the third time her lips had touched his. The brief caress outside her office. The more thorough but completely unsatisfying kiss with the minister and Liam and Gabrielle cheering them on. And now.

Elliott took her lips with his, sealing them together, a silent vow that nothing would ever split them apart.

And knew, even as he did so, that his word was worth nothing unless he told her the truth.

* * *

M
ARIE
'
S
 
FIRST
 
DAY
 
married wasn't anything like she'd ever imagined it might be. There was another threat waiting for them when they got back to the Arapahoe. Of sorts. A package had come in the mail. It contained a bottle of the sports drink Liam drank. On the label in stick-on letters it read How Does It Feel?

She'd thought that was the threat. The idea that whoever was stalking him knew what kind of sports drink he preferred. As if he was being watched that closely.

Elliott told all three of them differently. He'd noticed that the cap wasn't sealed on the bottle and had immediately grabbed a towel, taken the bottle from Liam, placed it back in the box and backed up.

They'd been home less than an hour. Marie had been downstairs in her office, taking care of the weekend's receipts and deposits while Eva and Sam ran the shop, when Elliott called, asking her to come up.

No one knew they were married yet. Other than Liam and Gabi, of course. They'd all been up more than twenty-four hours. And she'd wanted a night to get used to the idea of actually being part of a couple before the residents, and her staff, converged upon her.

“No one touch that box,” Elliott said. He'd already called the police. Before calling Marie upstairs.

“What do you think is in there?”

He was frowning. Moving around the apartment. “I have no idea. There's no liquid explosive I know of that would detonate by itself, but it could be laced with something. Cyanide, maybe.”

Gabi's intake of breath filled the room. “He's trying to kill Liam?”

“I doubt that he expected Liam to drink it. He would have noticed the broken seal. And it bore a threatening note. I think this is more warning. Playing with him. Letting him know how easy it would be to hurt him. And showing, at the same time, that whoever is doing this means business.”

“You think he's going to hurt him?” Marie asked. Life was as they'd left it. Someone was out there threatening Liam. And Elliott was working. It was as though the marriage that had happened in Vegas had stayed in Vegas.

Except that she had a shiny new wedding ring in her pocket. Matching the one Elliott had slid in his own. At her request. Just until they'd had some rest—and a night to get used to the magnanimous change that had just taken place.

“I have no idea what he's going to do,” Elliott said. “But I know that only a mentally disturbed person continues on like this for months. And there's no telling what a mentally disturbed person is capable of doing.”

Before he could say more, the police arrived. They asked their usual questions. Wanted assurances that nothing had been disturbed in Liam's apartment while they were gone. Elliott checked Marie's, as well. They talked to the security guards. And to Sam and Eva downstairs in the shop. No one noticed anything out of the ordinary.

When they were done, they took their notes, the box that had come in the mail and left. All Marie wanted to do was crawl into bed and sleep for a week.

It wasn't even six o'clock yet.

Elliott looked from her to Liam and Gabi. “I guess I'll get my things,” he said.

And Marie felt that peculiar piece of joy start to unfurl inside her again.

She might be home again. Back to work.

But she was married.

To the man she loved.

And he was moving in.

* * *

T
HE
 
FIRST
 
WEEK
 
of marriage turned out to be less...all encompassing...than Elliott had thought it would be. Sharing his nights with Marie was fantastic. Better than fantastic. When he was in her arms, he was willing to die there.

And when he woke up every morning, the sick feeling hit his gut. Toward the end of the first week, he could hardly stand to look at himself in the mirror of their bathroom as he shaved. On Thursday, still in her robe after a shower, she came up behind him just as he'd smeared his face with cream, slid her arms around his towel-wrapped middle and hugged him tight.

He wanted to turn in her arms and lose himself in everything good about her.

“I wish we could get out of the party tonight,” she said. “I've always loved having people around, having parties, but now...”

Her body slid upward against his—standing on tiptoe—and she kissed him. “I don't want to share you,” she said. “And I don't want to give up our alone time.”

Other than work, they hadn't left the apartment all week. Had turned down two invitations to dinner with Liam and Gabrielle.

But everyone at the Arapahoe knew they were married and wanted to celebrate. After the first day, Marie hadn't been able to bear being without her ring. And Grace, with Gabrielle's help, had organized a reception for them.

Similar to one Marie had thrown for Gabrielle and Liam six weeks ago.

“Anticipation adds to enjoyment,” he said, avoiding the mirror that was going to show him a picture of him and Marie together. “Maybe I should move to the other bathroom,” he blurted before he'd even thought about what he was saying.

He didn't want to move. He wanted to stay right where he was. Sharing a bathroom, a life, with his wife.

The wife he'd married with a lie between them. Barbara Bustamante would be coming back from her honeymoon soon.

That reminder did not sit well with him, either. He'd lied to her, too.

“Am I bothering you?” Marie's hands dropped away from him.

She'd backed to the doorway leading into their bedroom. The room that had been hers alone for the past eight or nine years.

“Of course you aren't bothering me,” he said. “I thought I was in your way. You've had this room to yourself for so long and...” He pointed to all his stuff on the counter. She'd said she was going to move some of the things that she didn't use every day into the cupboard in the spare bathroom to make room for him and hadn't done so yet. But stuff on the counter wasn't the problem.

The man in the mirror was.

The hurt he'd seen flash in her eyes quickly dissipated and Elliott breathed a sigh of relief.

“Whose fault is it that I haven't had time to move?” she asked him, grinning.

“Yours.” He smiled at her. Might have tried to kiss her, uncaring of the shaving cream on his face, if she hadn't suddenly seen the clock on the counter.

“Oh, my gosh. The shop's going to open in fifteen minutes and I'm not down there.” She was in their bedroom, throwing on clothes, leaving him to concentrate on shaving.

He'd visited his apartment on Monday, long enough to grab everything he could fit into his two biggest suitcases, had emptied his bathroom drawers and vanity into a duffel. They were planning to spend Sunday over there together, going through the rest of his things. Deciding what to keep. What to donate or sell.

She'd be in his place. Going through his things. He'd show her the pictures of his mother. At some point he was going to have to call his aunt. Tell her he was married. Take Marie to meet her...

“I'm heading down.” She was back. Fully dressed. Putting her hair in the ponytail he'd learned he loved to take out. He wiped the rest of the cream off his face and met her lips in a kiss that reminded him they were joined.

One.

Never to be separated.

“I'll be in as soon as I get Liam and Gabrielle to work.”

“You can start calling her Gabi anytime,” she said. “She's your sister-in-law now. Or as close to one as you're going to get. She's family.”

He nodded. If it made Marie happy, he'd call her friend Queen Elizabeth.

“I love you,” she called as she raced for the door.

“I love you, too.”

The words came so naturally. And the stab that followed was just as potent. Marie was going to be in his place on Sunday. Going through his things.

He had records of deposits from Barbara Bustamante's checks there. Paperwork that she'd signed. She was in his list of business contacts...

If he hadn't remembered, didn't get over there to hide everything, Marie could have walked right in on the file folder on his desk.

And what if she ever did find evidence that he'd worked for her mother?

What about his computer? Barbara had emailed. The paperwork he generated for every client was there...

He added cleaning out his computer files to his list of to-dos.

Slid into black pants, a black button-up shirt and black shoes. Black. Fitting for a man who suddenly had a dark cloud of guilt, of fear, hanging over him. One he couldn't seem to shake.

And it wasn't just fear, he had to acknowledge to himself. It was shame. He was a man of integrity who wasn't being honest with his own wife.

He should have told Marie the truth. Being sued be damned. He'd had no idea loving Marie, holding her at night, needing to protect her from hurt, would instill into him such a sense of responsibility to be the best man he could be because everything he did reflected on her, as well.