Teddy Bear Heir (7 page)

* * *

Michaela checked into the same hotel once she reached the registration desk. She knew how she had to look in the clerk's eyes and didn't even care. Her makeup was smeared, her hair mussed. But as long as she had the plastic to support a night in a hotel like this one, why should it bother her what the young man in the front lobby thought?

She had enough to worry about, like how to repair the shambles she'd made of her life.

She'd made cursory attempts to repair her makeup on the elevator ride down. Now, keycard in hand and the necessary forms filled out, she went back up the elevator, stopping at a different floor from Cameron Black's, and let herself inside one of the elegant rooms. Then she did exactly three things.

She locked the door behind her.

She undressed down to her underwear.

She fell into bed and didn't even notice her head hitting the pillow.

* * *

Nancy was superstitious.

On the eve of embarking on her relationship with Cameron Black, she knew she had to make sure things went as smoothly as possible. And she'd need a little more help than a few marital tips, or even marital aids.

Thus, on her left pinkie finger she wore the good luck garnet ring her grandmother had given her, rinsed her face exactly fifteen times before blotting it dry with one of the hotel's plush towels, and spritzed herself with her favorite cologne before exiting the lavish bathroom.

Cameron was asleep in bed, his face pressed into the pillow. Naked. And really quite magnificent.

She studied him silently and wondered at what she'd agreed to do. She didn't feel a tremendous amount of guilt. Her older sister had been a surrogate mother for her closest friend, and Nancy saw this arrangement she'd agreed to as something quite similar.

Looking at Cameron, she knew she could grow to love him. He scared her, just a little. But she sensed that beneath his powerful front there was a basically decent man.

She'd researched him online and had decided she was never going to take advantage of him. Being filthy rich made for some complications in life. She was absolutely certain she wasn't going to be one of them.

Her gaze flitted over his strongly muscled back, down to his buttocks, then skimmed his legs and finally ended at his feet.

He even had sexy feet.

Nervous, she darted back into the bathroom. Nancy carefully brushed and braided her blond hair, then put her pink chenille bathrobe on over the lacy pink nightgown she wore. She pulled on light pink knee socks with white polka dots, then turned off the bathroom light and went back into the darkened bedroom.

What a night.

She'd watched the sky lighten into pale gold and pink as the limousine had raced toward the hotel, watched the full moon fade slowly against the morning sky. Now, as she lay down in the large bed next to her future husband, she closed her eyes and said a small, heartfelt prayer, hoping everything would work out for the best for everyone concerned.

Exhausted from her night of misdirection, she finally fell into a light, nervous sleep.

The following morning Julian woke up, stretched, then walked to the window and picked up the little pre-Columbian Venus. Rubbing the statue's swollen belly thoughtfully, he set it back down on the windowsill.

Michaela roused herself out of a deep sleep when her wake-up call jarred her awake, then put in a call to her law firm. She hadn't taken a sick day so far this year and now seemed as good a time as any. After making the necessary excuses as to why she couldn't come in, she finished her call, pulled the covers over her head and went back to sleep.

Cameron woke up and looked at the woman who'd made him lose all rational control. The woman who'd turned him into a raging sexual
animal,
totally driven by a raw, insatiable libido.

The woman who was now tightly curled up on her side of the king-sized hotel bed and wrapped in a bright pink chenille bathrobe.

But it was the polka dot socks peeping out from beneath the robe's hem that stunned him.

* * *

He didn’t want to push Nancy. Not their first day.

But he was beginning to understand the roots of sexual obsession.
Fatal Attraction, Basic Instinct, Damage
  had all been merely movies before last night, but now—

They'd practically burned down the bedroom, the sexual heat between them had been that intense. Yet he knew she was a shy, modest girl, so Cameron decided to make absolutely no reference to how thrilled he was at their incredible sexual compatibility.

That resolution lasted until the end of breakfast.

She was sipping a cup of cappuccino and he was having his usual cup of morning coffee—black, as was his preference—when he made an oblique reference to the previous night.

She blushed a furious rose and averted her eyes.

"We didn't... we didn't sleep together last night," she whispered. "I mean, we slept together but we didn't—" She stopped. "You know, sleep together."

He started to protest, then took a good look at how young she was. They were breakfasting out on the balcony, the early spring San Francisco morning was mild. Nancy looked so fragile he simply didn't have the heart to insist she was lying.

It would be like kicking Bambi.

"Well," he said, trying to figure out what to say next. "Well." He remembered the deal they'd made and how carefully he'd spelled out the terms of their agreement. Nancy, with the help of her gynecologist, had figured out her most fertile times of the month and he'd agreed to confine himself to approaching her bed at those times. Thus, according to her cycle, he wouldn't be sleeping with her for another few weeks.

Last night had been the perfect time for conception.

Last night had been perfect, period.

Now, his sperm count depleted and her particular cycle finished, optimal conditions for pregnancy no longer existed. But perhaps, just perhaps, Nancy was a lusty lass who liked to fool around and would consider breaking their agreement.

Perhaps Nancy had liked what had happened in their bed last night. Perhaps he could persuade her...

"Nancy," he said softly. "About last night—"

"Nothing happened," she said. This time he saw a desperate sheen of tears in her eyes. She stood, and, taking her cup of cappuccino, went back inside the master suite and locked herself in the bathroom.

* * *

Michaela slept until seven that evening, then soaked in a tub filled with rose-scented bubbles. She wanted to eradicate all traces of Cameron's scent from her body.

Too bad there wasn't a bubble bath for her brain.

Thus, here she was, considered by many an incredibly talented lawyer, a single woman extraordinaire, a woman on top of the world.

Here she was, miserable.

She had every reason to feel lower than an earthworm, and she did. What she'd chosen to do last night was absolutely inexcusable. But why couldn't the gods have been kinder?

Why couldn't Cameron Black have been lousy between the sheets? Why hadn't he had bad breath or cold, sweaty, clammy hands, or kept a pair of short black socks on his feet the entire time?

The room was totally dark, you moron,
  she answered herself.
You wouldn't have seen the socks.

Okay. Fine. Why hadn't he touched her in all the wrong places? Or why hadn't he rubbed her with the pressure and intensity of the machine one of the hotel workers had been buffing the floors with early this morning, so she would've been sexually numb by the end of their lovemaking and would've had a reason for wanting to never be caught dead in bed with the man again?

Or snorted when he laughed?

Or wheezed after sex or developed a crick in his back? Or told old war stories or bad jokes far into the night? Or—

The imaginary list was endless but useless. Cameron was exquisitely sensitive to the female body and perhaps—

She tried to stop the thought. It was just too depressing.

Perhaps it was like that with him and every member of the fairer sex. Perhaps what happened last night was the normal drill, so to speak, for the sexually brilliant Cameron Black.

No wonder he'd had any woman he wanted. The only thing that puzzled her was how his fame hadn't spread to Europe and beyond.

That was depressing. Cameron plus any woman equals a white-hot combustion. A sexual meltdown. A chemistry so intense she could barely breathe and she was lying in a bathtub full of bubbles just
remembering
what had happened, for God's sake!

She tried to blank her mind and found she couldn't. She kept remembering sounds and sighs and smells, touches and soft moans, deep breathing, strong hands, a sure touch, a slow hand –

Determined to forget, Michaela pulled the plug with her toes, then stood in the bathtub, slid the glass door shut and turned on the cold water.

Full blast.

* * *

That night with Cameron was harder to forget than she thought.

Five days after
L'affaire de l'hotel,
or
L'affaire de le Stoopid,
as she preferred to call it, Michaela found herself in Cameron's office going over yet another contract.

"Are there any loopholes?" Cameron demanded. "Any way that they can back out of the merger once they've signed?"

She'd gone over the contract countless times, as both Cameron and Julian were ruthless negotiators. You didn't get to be a millionaire by being Kris Kringle, even if you did own the biggest and most successful toy company in the world.

"None. It's airtight."

"Good."

She was gathering papers into her briefcase when he gestured her to sit. Cameron had always had a sort of natural arrogance that she actually found quite appealing. But now everything he did set her nerves on edge. She wondered what he was going to do.

"Can I ask you something?"

She nodded her head.

Then the miraculous occurred. Cameron Black, San Francisco's answer to Christian Grey, actually blushed.

Blushed!

She stared at the dark color slowly seeping up his neck and into his face.

She swallowed. Bit her lip. Dug her nails into her palms.

This is it. He knows. Talk about unprofessional business behavior—

"It’s rather...personal," he said quietly.

Oh, like personal matters when you've had my legs up over your shoulders—

"Mike, why would a woman want to totally forget an incredible sexual experience?"

For one awful moment the office went totally still, then darkened. The air seemed heavy, too heavy, it hurt to draw it into her lungs. She thought she was going to pass out from total shame until she took one quick peek at his face and realized he had no idea what had happened that night.

None at all.

Zip.

Nada.

Michaela took a deep breath and felt a measure of sanity return.

"Why, whatever do you mean?" she replied.

"It's just... we had this agreement, but..."

She was one sick cookie because she encouraged him.

"You can tell me, Cameron. I won't tell anyone. I'll consider this a . . . business conference, and therefore confidential."

The road to hell in a handbasket was paved with banana peels.
Actions have consequences. What are you doing?

"I don't suppose it's any news to you that I came to this... marital arrangement with a considerable amount of sexual experience."

"Mmm." She nodded her head and tried desperately to curb the images flitting through her brain.

"I thought I would take things slowly with Nancy, perhaps even wait until her next...fertile period." He shot her an intense look. "Is this bothering you, Mike?"

Oh, not in the way you think...

"Not at all."

"But that night—"

"Yes?" She couldn't help herself. It was a compulsion. She had to know if what had happened in that hotel room had shaken him, emotionally devastated him, sexually enthralled him, as much as it had her.

"I—well, she—I thought for a moment that we weren't going to go through with the... sexual arrangement, after all."

"Mmm." She nodded her head again, trying to radiate calm and understanding.

Mother Teresa, that's me.

"But—and this is the part I don't quite understand—she...she—" He glanced at the door. "This goes no farther than this office, is that understood?"

"Absolutely."
Boy, you've got my word on that.

"She turned into...this voracious sexual animal."

Why, thank you.

"And I can honestly say that in all my experience with women—"

Go on, go on.

"I just—I've never—"

That sexy blush suffused his face again. Michaela had to bite her lip to keep from shouting with joy.

Yes!
  It wasn't Cameron plus any willing female, it was something between the two of them!

She came back to earth rather quickly when she realized that, no matter how resplendent the experience had been, it could never be repeated.

She cleared her throat.

"I understand, Cameron."
Good, that's very good. Keep your voice soft and soothing, your expression concerned.

"But now there seems to be a problem."

Uh-oh.

"She doesn't—she claims that—"

Michaela swallowed quickly, willed her throat to open back up, and decided to tell one last little white lie. For Nancy's sake.

"The two of you never had sex."

"Yes!" He looked at her with such amazement in his expression that she had to dig her nails into her palms to prevent herself from falling down at his feet, groveling, humiliating herself completely and confessing to the entire thing.

"Mike? You don't look well. Is something wrong?"

The perfect opening in which to confess all—and, of course, she chose not to take it.

"No, I'm okay, I think it must have been something I ate at lunch. But about Nancy—"

"I'd appreciate your help with this matter."