Everything But Perfect (5 page)

She glared back, but accepted this
challenge. “Well, so do I!”

She yanked the pen out of his
hand, but this did not mean her heart wasn’t in her throat, or that doing this
was not going against everything she ever believed in. She was only doing this
to save Angel from ruin. She bent, scribbled her name on each of the dotted
lines, and then tossed the pen at his face. Of course, he had no trouble at all
catching it before it did any damage.

Mitch then stared at her in, seemingly
in awe she’d folded like a house of cards. He bent and signed where his
signature required.

She might have just sold her soul
to the devil, for all she knew. However, that did not mean she was condemned to
an eternity in Hell with this man.

He gathered up the contract,
placed it in his breast pocket, and smiled. “Good night, Ms. Ribbons.”

For the first time since meeting
him, she realized how tall, devastatingly handsome he was, and yet, she was to
have nothing to do with him other than the exchange of name.

He stopped short of exiting the
room. “Pleasant dreams.” There was a half-tilted grin on his lips.

Cheyanne snorted. “You can’t
possibly think to tell me how to dream.”

“Oh, I can…and I will. It says so
in our contract.” He then tapped his breast pocket. “Perhaps you should have
read the fine print before signing away your future.” His long pause truly
unsettled her. “I can tell you what to think, how to act, and who you can
associate with…for the next four months.”

“Only if you get me to the altar,
Mitch. I do believe there has to be an exchange of vows, unless you blackmailed
a minister to falsify a marriage certificate on your behalf.”

“Don’t you worry your pretty
little head about exchanging vows, sweetheart. Everything will be done as it
should be.”

The insolent, leisure drift of
his eyes up and down her body made the flames of her mutiny return. Cheyanne
aimed her brandy glass at his head, missing by mere inches, and the crystal
shattering on the floor.

“Better luck next time,
sweetheart.” He then left the room with her jaw touching the floor.

She was too angry to swear. The
man’s honey-coated voice, devilish good looks, smug attitude and burning mocha
eyes had finally worn her thin.

What could he possibly have over
her that controlled her every thought and emotion?

She may have dreamed of him
kissing her, subconsciously of course; it was only after the actually exchange
of saliva and consequent rudeness that galled her. And those eyes! Damn him.
How was she ever going to sleep, let alone dream? Mitch had literally spoiled
her thoughts of a decent night’s rest from this moment forward.

It was not until three a.m., her
body exhausted, that her dreams were literally drowning with the images of one
man and his amused smile.

Chapter Six

Mitch had driven straight to his
apartment on the Upper East Side. He stifled a yawn, tossing his tuxedo jacket
on the back of his leather sofa. He then changed into sweats and headed to the
kitchen, all hope of continuing on projects left unfinished obliterated from
mind.

He had so much to do, then an
impromptu dinner party arose from the ashes, and what could he say?
No. He
was too busy.

The opportunity to rush the
takeover came to him, and he took it, no questions asked. Now he wished he’d
faked an excuse to miss the party. He wasn’t ready for her icy exterior to
freeze him out. Nor had he been ready for her molten interior to contradict his
every thought. He had enough on his plate. Dealing with more had to take
occupancy on the back burner until things settled down.

Unfortunately, his mind was
nowhere near work. Overloaded, the gears distracted by the mere thought of an
auburn beauty with deadly sharp claws, fool that he was, kissing her as he had,
those passionate lips softening under his touch; he should have known she was
more than she seemed.

Listening to her tales of Africa,
then battle with her father right in front of him, the woman was hellfire
bottled up. He’d wanted only to shut her up, control her tongue for the
briefest of seconds.

He vowed never to make that
mistake again. Even touching a feline with just the tip of her tail caught in a
trap was a hunter’s worse nightmare. He could not imagine what she would be
like with her whole body trapped by marriage.

Giving up on getting anything
done, he went to bed, his thoughts settled on a very dangerous woman with hazel
eyes.

****

Cheyanne, while watching Rosa the
following morning, found it hard to believe the housekeeper knew nothing about
the forced marriage. Rosa and her mother were tight. If the company was having
troubles, Rosa would be the first to know. This mansion had ears in every
corner. Nothing could be said without Rosa knowing about it.

Louise, acting the part of the
surprised soon-to-be mother-of-the-bride had Cheyanne sick with disgust. The
pretense of both women made her think committing murder as reasonable.

Five hours later, she still had
no answers from either.

Dumping boxes and bags after an
impromptu but necessary shopping trip, she kicked off her shoes and headed
straight for a shower. A half hour later, toweled off and feeling much better,
she glanced in the mirror. The sorrow she could not hide hadn’t been washed
away. No matter how hard she tried, she could not forgive them for what they
were doing to her.

She went down to the rose garden,
roaming among the scented blooms. There was not a variety grown that her mother
did not have—the very reason she’d gotten the nickname
Little Rose
. When
little, if wanting to find her, all they had to do was look for her here.

Most of the time they never
looked, and she’d spent her childhood lost among the blooms and fallen petals.

She bent and sniffed a tempting
fragrance. The last four years she’d lived with sand, dust, and sweaty bodies,
not to mention tons of elephant dung. Here, among the blooms, life seemed to
slow down.

Inside the mansion, the doorbell
rang. Cheyanne wondered at the late afternoon visitor—her father not back from
University and her mother doing her usual, errands for charities. Rosa was at
the grocery store and Vito, their chef was too busy to answer a door. She went
inside, called to duty.

She opened the door and groaned. Mitch
was leaning against the exterior wall.

“What do you want?” she snapped.

“Is that any way to talk to your
betrothed?”

“You are not my betrothed. You’re
a man I’m being forced to marry.”

He held his gaze far too long on
her bare feet, his smile intermittent with a sudden glare.

Hell, she’d just been looked over
as if a prize calf at the state fair—and every square inch had felt the caress
of his gaze as if done by hands.

“Did you miss me while I was gone?”
he inquired.

Cheyanne snorted in his face.
“Missing you would be like missing a tooth extraction.”

He pushed from the wall. “Then it
should not matter to you why I am here.” He stepped into the marbled foyer
without invitation. With purpose, he ignored her and headed straight for her
father’s study.

“Are you always this rude? My
father isn’t home. You’ll have to come back later,” she said at his back.

He turned and smiled. “Did I ask
you if your father was home?”

“No.”

“Then what do you care, Princess?
I have free roam of the estate, so back off.”

Her mouth agape, he quickly entered
her father’s study and slammed the door in her face.

“Of all the…”

She could not quite fathom the
depth of her fury not doing him harm. Therefore, she left the man to his
trespassing. What did she care if he stole whatever he could carry out? It was
no concern to her anymore. This was no longer home to her—alas, the walls of
Hell, nothing more.

****

Mitch watched out the study’s
window Cheyanne’s progress to the rose garden. What had started out as a simple
takeover was gaining a whole new meaning; Cheyanne hell bent on snapping off
the heads of as many roses as she could.

He could well imagine those heads
as his, her actions done in fury. Her face determined; she was plotting
something against him, no doubt.

For the first time in three days,
the pleasure of envisioning her struggles brought a smile to his face. Being
married to the youngest Ribbons was going to be so much fun. Claws, thorns, and
all, he would be wise to find suitable armor against
Little Rose
.

He may have lied to her about the
details of their ‘marriage’. It wasn’t going to be in name only; that was said
just to get her to sign the damn papers before he aged unnecessarily. Only a fool
would not read a contract involving most of their life.

He shrugged this off before it
got the better of him. He wasn’t marrying a fool; he was marrying a woman worth
billions.

She disappeared around a bush,
and he lost interest in staring out the window, going back to the shambles of
financial records laid out on the desk. Regina was about to marry an idiot, by
the standards of these books. There was so much money wasted over the last four
years, it made the head spin. Obviously, Regina was clueless to what her future
entailed.

Mitch made a mental note to keep
it that way. The bitch deserved a shakeup. She liked wealth, but he wasn’t into
charity. Jessup would get a pittance to his normal tastes. The rest Mitch would
absorb into Lavede Enterprises.

Had Regina not sent daggers into Cheyanne
at every chance she could get last night, he might have felt pity for her. Now,
all he felt was contempt. Two alley cats about ready to scratch each other’s
eyes out, only one of them had started the hissing contest, and Cheyanne wasn’t
that one.

His smile disappeared. There was
an enormous pile of books still to go through and he did not have all day—even
if his eyes were drawn back to the window, looking for one more glimpse of a
rose more dangerous than imaginable.

****

One week passing, then another, Cheyanne
did not care if she ever saw the whites of his eyes. Her life was in a shambles
and her ability to change this fact was nowhere near her grasp.

Minute by minute, the hours
dragged on. Joe would leave for University early in the morning. Louise went
off to her charity functions or expensive shopping trips. Mitch would arrive
around ten; work on the books all day, which had him growling every night. He wasn’t
sociable to anyone, at least not with the last name of Ribbons. The stupidity
of Jessup and his inevitable lack of corporate knowledge were aggravating the
man, more than anything else.

She did not question his actions,
feared the raw power he possessed, so she held her tongue. The longer he took
to sort through the mess, the longer it would be before she had to lower her
dignity and marry the man.

She would be no more glad to be
his wife, than she would another spider bite; of which, she’d endured twice. In
fact, she could easily grow to hate him, even loathe him. Her greatest desire
was he should find a high cliff and fall off it. This was war between them.

Cheyanne had walked away from him
one day without answering him. He had, in turn, slammed the door in her face,
just to acknowledge his anger. If you were made of money…you easily burned. It
was that simple.

She could not help the frown on
her face now, thinking about what changed. Angel had praised her brains,
perhaps out of fear of showing more of himself than allowed. Dorn, Lemane,
Geovanni—they’d all treated her as a kid sister, one they could fun with, and
get away with pranking. Men weren’t exactly beating down her doors, likely
because they had a great fear of an association to her.

She had to forgive Jessup for
putting her in this mess. More importantly, she had to forgive herself for
allowing it to happen. She could easily hate her father
and
Mitch, but Jessup
had been her favorite—until now. She should say something to him about the
woman he’s intent on marrying, but why bother? Jessup wasn’t in a listening
mood any more than Mitch was.

****

Mitch completed everything he
could by Friday morning. What little there was to achieve could wait another
day. He hadn’t trusted Joe’s accountants, and he sure as hell did not trust his
own when involving an underhanded takeover of a huge company.

He wanted nothing to go wrong. Too
much was at stake. His personal investment, and a few years of his life, he’d
been calculating the perfect time to acquire Ribbons Corporation. That time was
now.

Monday would be the full
announcement Ribbons was his, assuming all went well on a few legal issues.
They already spent months harping out the legalities with the Federal
government.

His plan was to wed two days
later, take them all by surprise.

The idea of sitting through Jessup’s
engagement party tonight made him sick. The money the family was wasting for a
waste of a man was ridiculous. He had to go to the party, of course, endure the
proceedings long enough to announce his surprise. It had to look and feel
legitimate.

Joe had a lot of friends and
associates. Mitch could work them into his plan, while giving Cheyanne a final
understanding on who would be in control of her life for the next four months.
He would be her husband, she would be his wife, and she would not be able to do
a damn thing about it.

He quickly imagined those hazel
eyes flaring at him, as he had seen them do more than he cared to admit. He
stood from the desk, agitated, and then went to the door. He wanted a hot
shower, tons of sleep, and perhaps finding the energy to come back here in
relative peace.

Damnit, kissing her was all he
could think about. He ran two red lights before realizing what the pull she had
over him was. He could live with boredom for a few months—been there, done
that. The wealthy wife of a wealthy man, she should have no complaints. The
problem was, unless careful he might find himself caught in her trap.

Power should be controlled by
only a select few. Fate would not have it any other way. He had to make certain
she never gained the control.

****

Cheyanne, having risen earlier
than usual went for a jog around the streets of New York to clear her thoughts.
Her pace quickened by agitation. In twenty-four years, she never felt a lack of
freedom as she had over the past week. She had scratched and clawed her way to
the top of her field, but the freedom was always there.

Archeology was the blood in her
veins. Without it, she would be bored to tears. Her parents too busy to care
about her life, they’d built an empire—that empire now being used against her.
She was their pawn, one they could move at any time.

She rounded the corner, ran up
the marble steps and headed straight to her room. Her life was so screwed up.
All of it stemmed from knowing one man—Mitch Lavede.

Two hours later, the confining
walls of the mansion turned claustrophobic, smothering her. She was used to
fresh air and sunshine twenty-four hours a day. Since her time home, her
nervousness was increasing, a lack of energy and appetite slowing her down. The
fact she was going to marry a man against her will, all of it was controlling
her every waking thought.

She pulled out a chaise on the
patio, dropped onto it, and well into reading a trashy novel purchased on a
whim, so engrossed with the farce of true love, she missed the doorbell—and
consequent answering of it. She looked up, hearing a strange sound.