The Inconvenient Bride (10 page)

Not that he was trying.

He'd stalked off to his study after their little blowup—and he'd still been there when she'd gone up to her room. He'd stayed there a good long time, too, immersed in his files and his mergers and his papers.

It was well past midnight when she heard his footsteps outside her door.

She'd heard him stop, then try the handle.

As if!

Like she would have left the lock undone so he could just come in and grab a quickie before he barricaded himself in his own little business world once more!

And then he'd had the audacity to tell her she was being childish. She was tempted to throw a pot at the door. If he wanted to see childish, she would be only too happy to show him!

But she hadn't. She'd glared in stony silence at the locked door, and finally he'd gone away.

She'd heard him banging around in his room, making plenty of noise, letting her know how displeased he was.

Well, he could take his displeasure and shove it, Sierra thought. She'd be glad to help!

Finally the noise had abated. The room had quieted. And Dominic, no doubt, had gone right to sleep.

Sierra had spent the rest of the night fuming. If she slept at all, it was close to dawn and she only dozed fitfully, dreaming alternately about making love with him and throttling him. The latter dreams gave her far more satisfaction. And then, close to five-thirty, she heard the shower go on in his bathroom.

“Getting an early start?” she muttered sourly.

Undoubtedly. He wouldn't want to let more than a couple of hours go by when he wasn't totally consumed with his work. Still furious, she rolled over, pulled the pillow and the blanket over her head and shut out the sound of Dominic.

Not until she was sure he was gone to work did she get up and unlock the door.

Then she took a leisurely shower, dressed in her own clothes this time. There was nothing romantic or sexy or remotely enticing about wearing one of Dominic's shirts. In fact she was tempted to burn the one she had worn. Fortunately she had just enough maturity not to do anything quite that stupid.

Pity she had been stupid enough to marry the man.

Pity she'd been stupid enough to bare her heart to Mariah, too. Now her sister would be worrying and, worse, very likely meddling.

Sierra decided she would have to put a stop to that before Mariah even got started. So she took a bus to the West Side and, fetching Reuben sandwiches from Mariah's favorite deli, she turned up on her sister's doorstep for lunch.

“You're not going to be morning sick, are you?” she asked when her sister opened the door. Last year Mariah had opened the door, taken one whiff of the corned beef and sauerkraut sandwiches and dashed for the bathroom.

“Blessedly no,” Mariah said. “Not yet. Good grief. Stephen and Lizzie aren't even six months old. Come on in. How did dinner go?”

“That's what I want to talk to you about.” Sierra came in and shut the door.

Of course Mariah was furious. “That jerk!” she exclaimed when Sierra gave her a brief and reasonably objective rundown of last evening's encounter. “He actually
said
he doesn't want to get involved?” She paced around the living room of the brownstone apartment she and Rhys shared, Stephen bouncing on her hip.

“That's what he said.” Sierra was spreading out the lunch so they could picnic on the coffee table.

“Humph.” Mariah lifted her small son up and looked squarely into his eyes. “Your uncle's an idiot,” she told him. “You will
not
grow up to be like him!”

“Of course he won't,” Sierra said firmly. “He'll be just like Rhys.”

“Oh, there's good news,” Mariah said dryly. “Rhys is so enlightened.”

“He's come around,” Sierra reminded her. Rhys hadn't wanted to be involved either. He'd literally run the other way when he'd discovered Mariah was expecting the twins. Now, though, you couldn't ask for a more doting husband and father.

“So there is hope, then.” Mariah sat cross-legged on the floor and set Stephen down beside her. “Let's eat quick,” she said. “Before Lizzie wakes up.” She took a bite out of her sandwich.

Sierra sat down opposite her sister and unwrapped her own. Maybe there was hope, but she wasn't going to kid herself anymore. She was done being Pollyanna where her relationship with Dominic was concerned.

“He'll come around,” Mariah promised, “just like Rhys did.”

“You say that now.” Sierra poked glumly at a piece of sauerkraut sticking out of her sandwich. “You didn't sound so confident six months ago.”

“Well, I wasn't,” Mariah admitted. “But Rhys had reasons not to want to get involved.”

“Presumably Dominic does, too.”

“His wife didn't die,” Mariah said. “He didn't lose an unborn child.”

Which Rhys had, Sierra knew.

“He got dumped at the altar though. That must have hurt.”

Silently, simultaneously, they both considered the awful
ness of that. Sierra couldn't imagine a man as proud as Dominic suffering it easily. And she could see very clearly why he wouldn't want to get involved again.

It wasn't a comforting realization.

Stephen waved his arms and rocked back and forth, trying to reach his mother's sandwich until finally he toppled over and started to cry. Mariah scooped him up and hugged him, then, when he'd stopped fussing, she set him back on the floor.

“You've got to do that with Dominic.”

Sierra blinked. “What? Pick him up, brush him off and assure him he's going to be fine? I don't think so.”

“You have to be there for him,” Mariah insisted. She coaxed a smile out of Stephen. He gurgled and batted at her.

He had his father's and his uncle's blue eyes and Sierra wondered what it would be like to share a child with Dominic. The thought actually hurt. But it made her say, “Like you were there for Rhys, you mean.”

“Yes.”

“And you think Dominic, like Rhys, will see the light?”

“Yes,” Mariah said more slowly.

“I can just hear all the confidence in your voice,” Sierra said dryly.

“Well, he and Rhys are different. He's a little harder. More businesslike. But I can't believe he'd feel worse about being jilted than Rhys did about Sarah dying, for goodness' sake!”

“Maybe not. But that doesn't mean he's going to fall in love with me. Rhys was your friend at least…first.”

“You have to start somewhere.”

“Well, Dominic and I started in bed—and I don't think the success rate is as high as if you're friends.”

“But not nonexistent, surely. Where's your innate optimism? Where's your supreme self-confidence?”

“I think they died last night.”

“Don't let them,” Mariah said urgently. “You can't.”

“Yesterday you were telling me he was a lost cause.”

“He's not.”

“How do you know?”

“Because he married you. He wouldn't have married you if he hadn't felt something.”

“He might have married me because he felt nothing and preferred it that way!”

“Do you really think so?”

And Sierra, confronted with the blunt question, hesitated a long moment, then shook her head slowly. “No. But—”

“So bear with him. Give him a chance.”

“Pick him up and dust him off?”

“Just be there. Propinquity.”

“I don't know those big words.”

“The nearness of you,” Mariah translated.

Sierra wanted to believe in it. She wanted to hope. But she was afraid. “What if…what if it doesn't work?” Her throat seemed to close on the words.

“What have you lost by trying?” Mariah asked gently.

When you put it like that…

“You're right,” Sierra said.

 

Something smelled delicious when he opened the door that evening.

Just like last night.

God, he didn't want a rerun of last night.

Not that he was likely to get one. He figured she had probably cooked for herself and he was smelling what she'd already eaten an hour or two before.

It was after eight when he got there. He'd had a meeting with Kent and a couple of the men in his office that lasted until six-thirty. Then he'd taken his time going over what they'd discussed, making notes, leaving a recording for Shyla to type up tomorrow morning. He'd done it with the thorough deliberation with which he had always worked in his pre-Sierra days—those days when his mind had been
blessedly unfogged by lust and desire and a woman with purple hair.

He tried telling himself that it had been unfogged tonight. But that wasn't true. He still thought about her every minute or two. He just resisted the thoughts now. He refused to allow himself to dwell on what they'd do when he got home tonight.

He knew what they'd be doing. He'd be in the study working and she'd be in her room.
If
she even stayed home.

It was wondering if she'd be there that finally got him out of the office and hurrying on his way home. Not that he'd go looking for her if she wasn't!

But he couldn't deny he'd wanted to know.

And he couldn't deny the shaft of pure relief he felt when he turned the key in the lock and pushed open the door to be greeted by mouth-watering smells emanating from the kitchen, and the soft Caribbean sounds of Jimmy Buffett on the stereo.

He set down his briefcase, then picked it up again, intending to take it to the study straight away. But before he could move, Sierra came out of the kitchen.

She wasn't wearing his shirt.

No surprise there, of course. But he felt oddly bereft to see she was wearing a pair of faded denim jeans and a scoop-necked, long-sleeved pale pink T-shirt. She looked…normal. Except, of course, for the hair.

“I fixed some beef bourguignonne this afternoon,” she said casually. “Would you like some?”

What was he going to say? No?

“That'd be…good.” He hoped he didn't sound as awkward as he felt. “I'll just put my briefcase away.”

“Sure. We're eating in the kitchen.” She disappeared again, leaving him to stare after her for a long minute before he gave himself a shake and carried his briefcase to his study and left it there. He washed up, then went back to the kitchen
where Sierra had served the meal. She was already sitting on one side of the small table.

She looked up fleetingly when he came in and gave him a vague smile, then focused on her plate again.

Dominic sat down opposite her. “Looks good.” His voice sounded too loud for the small room. “Is this another of your mother's recipes?”

He usually had no trouble at all making small talk. He'd been raised to make social conversation by both his parents. He could do it in his sleep. He couldn't seem to do it with Sierra without feeling like a fool.

But she nodded gravely. “Mariah gave it to me. I was never interested enough in cooking before.”

Dominic wanted to ask,
before what?
but he didn't dare. He took a bite of the meat dish and savored it. “Tastes even better than it looks.”

This time he got more of a real smile from her.

“There's plenty,” she said, then sighed. “It makes enough to feed the French Foreign Legion. We'll probably be eating it for a week.”

He took heart from that. She'd said
we,
and she'd said
week.
That didn't sound like she was planning to leave him. The meal tasted even better after that.

He ate two big helpings and, she was right, there was still a lot left. Besides that, there was salad and some leftover garlic bread from last night, too. Also the rest of the bottle of the wine they'd drunk.

Neither of them mentioned last night.

Sierra, in fact, didn't talk at all, which meant that things were definitely not normal. Still, he was glad she wasn't holed up in her room, shutting him out, which is what he'd expected.

He studied her silently over his wineglass. Most of the time when he watched Sierra, it was with an eye to what was going to happen next—or more bluntly, he was busy
gauging when he was going to get her into bed and what was going to happen when he got her there.

They were thoughts worthy of consideration, to be sure. But Dominic was smart enough to know he wasn't going to get her in bed tonight.

Still he couldn't stop looking at her. His gaze seemed drawn to the soft curve of her cheek, the creamy length of her neck, the pulse beating at the base of her throat. Her gaze was hooded. She gave the meal her full attention and didn't pay any attention to him at all.

He started to talk, to tell her about something that had happened in the office, then didn't. She wouldn't care. And he didn't really want to tell her. He'd just be making conversation. He, too, focused on the meal.

When they were finished eating, Sierra stood up at once. “I'll clear up,” she said briskly. “I'm sure you have work to do.”

You're dismissed.
She couldn't have said it more clearly without using the words.

And it was true, he did have work to do, but something stopped him. “I'll help you with the dishes.”

His willingness surprised her no more than it did him. What was he, a glutton for punishment? He wasn't getting anything out of her tonight—and he had a briefcase full of papers he needed to go over.

Still, he didn't like being superfluous. Didn't like being dismissed. He helped clear the table, and when she scraped the dishes, he loaded the dishwasher.

As they were finishing, and he put the last pan in, she wiped her hands on a towel. “I'm going back to work tomorrow. At Finn's.”

There was a note of determination in her voice, followed by a moment's pause, as if she was waiting for him to object and for the battle to begin to rage again. Dominic inclined his head to show he'd heard.