Marriage by Mistake (8 page)

Being nice, ingratiating herself. To Robby!
Who did she think she was? Who the
hell
did that Kelly
female think she was?

Dean whirled toward a rustling sound by the
French doors. Troy halted on the threshold, his hands raised.
"Hey," he mock-begged, "don't shoot."

Dean exhaled slowly. "What?" He made it cool.
"Not joining the happy party?"

"Oh, why do that when I can enjoy your cheery
company?" Troy sauntered into the room.

Dean tried to even out his breathing and
stalked over to his desk. He made a show of looking for something
on its surface. "Pardon me very much if I don't believe you. You
want something, I presume?" His cousin, like every other male of
the family, had no visible means of support. He had plenty of
invisible means, however. Not that Troy didn't run into financial
trouble every couple of months, anyway.

And, indeed, Troy now heaved a deep sigh. "I
do want something."

Dean resigned himself to a beg for a couple
thousand dollars as Troy ambled toward the desk.

"I want somebody to tell me what's wrong with
me." Troy's voice went whimsical. "I'm actually here to lecture
you."

Dean glanced up sharply.

"Now don't jump all over me." Troy hitched a
hip on the edge of Dean's desk. "You know you deserve one."

"I have no idea what you're talking
about."

"Come on, Dean. You haven't told her the
truth, have you?"

Dean raised a brow. "The truth?" Surely Troy
didn't expect him to tell Kelly what he really thought of her just
then, which was pure dirt.

Troy sighed. "The hypnosis, Dean. You haven't
told her the truth about the hypnosis."

Oh, that
. Dean lowered his brow. He
sat down and opened a desk drawer. "Of course I told her. She knows
I was acting under hypnotic suggestion when I met and married her.
That's why she's here."

"But she doesn't know what the hypnotic
suggestion was."

Dean frowned at the contents of the drawer.
"So?"

"So?" Troy straightened off the desk.
"
So
?"

"She doesn't need to know."

Troy's eyebrows shot into his hairline. "Like
hell she doesn't! She thinks you were tricked into marrying
her."

"I was."

"Bull."

Slowly, Dean stood up. Troy was off base
here, completely off base. That had to be why Dean's heart was
galloping. "She doesn't know anything about hypnosis. She would
misunderstand."

"Or maybe understand all too well." Troy set
his palms on Dean's desk. "You
wanted
to marry her."

Dean clenched his jaw and placed his palms
opposite Troy's. "I
wanted
to have sex with her."

"You did both."

"Yes," Dean hissed. "Because I couldn't get
the one without the other."

That gave Troy pause. His eyes narrowed. "I
told you to do what you wanted, instead of what you should. You
wouldn't have married her unless you'd wanted to."

Dean snorted. "Sure I wanted to   
that night."

The two men's gazes locked. Dean's breathing
wasn't as steady as he'd have liked. He hated what he'd done, the
stupidity and impetuousness, and now he had to stand here and
confess it all to Troy. But that was better than having anyone
think he'd
wanted
this marriage, for God's sake.

Slowly, Troy straightened. His expression
turned quizzical. "You're telling me the marriage was only a means
to an end?"

Dean rolled his eyes. "Elementary, my dear
Watson."

"But    "

"Troy. Do I share a single interest or value
with this woman?"

"But    "

"Do I?"

Troy's brows tangled. He didn't bother trying
to answer Dean's question. "Only a means to an end. You're saying
you were considering divorce, even as you were pronouncing
vows?"

"No." Dean wasn't ready to condemn himself
that far. "I'm saying I wasn't thinking about the consequences. I
wasn't thinking about anything but what I wanted at that moment."
Namely, sex. Completely uninhibited sex. Dean didn't have to
remember to figure out that much.

"Oh." Troy's frown eased. "You mean, you were
acting like the rest of us."

Dean looked away. "Not all men are completely
irresponsible."

"No, just the ones in our family." Troy
laughed.

Dean's jaw set. "I don't intend to carry on
that tradition." And so far in his life, he hadn't. He had a trust
fund, too, but that hadn't kept him from making his own way in the
world. He'd worked hard about things that mattered. Last year the
FDA had approved a drug for multiple sclerosis that his company had
developed.

But Troy was still smirking. "Mm hm. You're
responsible, straight and narrow    which is why you
choose to conceal the truth about the hypnosis from your wife."

Dean's teeth crunched together. "It's not
concealment."

"Then what would you call it?"

"I'd call it    intelligence. Kelly
came home with me for one purpose only: to find out 'who I
am.'"

"And    ?"

"And    I don't want the waters
muddied with some fantasy I'm something I am
not
."

"Uh
huh
."

Dean only barely kept himself from slapping
his palms on his desk. "I don't want her to create a fantasy of
something I am not, and never could be. Or even want to be."
Love
, she had said.

When hell froze over.

But Troy's brows arched. "It's rather
unclear, though, exactly what you
want
to be."

Dean glared at him. "Not in the least
   to me. But apparently it's unclear to you, and very
probably would be to her. Please realize she's already confused by
how I behaved for two days    behavior I can't even
remember
!"

Troy's amusement sobered. "Another mystery,"
he murmured. "I didn't suggest for you to forget."

The men's eyes locked again. A feeling like
panic crept up Dean's throat. It was a mystery, indeed. How could
he walk out of a donut shop and suddenly realize he didn't know
what city he was in, how he'd gotten there, or how long it had been
since he'd patted Robby on the head and wished him better luck next
time? How could that happen?

"Well, I did forget," Dean said now, his
voice carefully controlled. "Probably because I didn't
want
to remember. It was all too embarrassing."

Troy raised his brows. "Or too much fun."

Dean's throat felt even tighter. "Sure." He
closed his eyes. "Fun."

###

Well
.

Troy walked out of Dean's study and into the
quiet hall feeling as if he were stepping out of an alternate
universe. Dean had stood behind his big desk playing the part of
the defendant    for the first time ever. And in arguing
for the defense    to Troy, of all people   
he'd blatantly bent his hitherto iron-clad integrity.

Troy rubbed a hand over his eyes. What was
the world coming to? Dean was lying, and Troy, well    he
felt as beat as if he'd spent all night at one of his friends'
unbridled parties. In actuality, he'd spent the night looking for
that little brat, Robby    terrified he'd actually lost
him this time. He'd been acting almost
responsible
.

Egads.

Troy yawned and made for the wide, carpeted
stairway at the end of the hall. Well, he'd had more than enough of
being responsible. Right now his bed was calling. Loudly. Thank
goodness it turned out he didn't need to feel responsible for that
Kelly woman, too. No, she looked like she could hold her own. Troy
felt a grin spread over his tired face as he trudged up the stairs.
Yeah, she looked like she could take Dean. Troy would be willing to
bet she'd have his cousin all wrapped up in a nice little divorce
settlement before you could say 'boo.'

Which meant that Dean was, indeed, turning
out to be a prime example of Singleton male.

Troy was still smiling sappily as he swung
open the door to his bedroom, a bedroom he'd slid into fifteen
years ago when no one had been paying much attention and in which
he'd squatted ever since. The curtains, rugs and furnishings had
been chosen by some long-ago housekeeper in varying shades of
brown, purple, and gold. Troy had no actual ownership of the
bedroom, which was fine by him. Owning things required work. Troy
never worked if he could help it.

He yawned again, and as he pulled his
Cashmere sweater over his head he thought about the tennis match he
was missing by crawling back into bed. Thinking about tennis led to
thinking about the Club, and thinking about the Club led to
thinking about Felicia, not that Troy spent much time thinking
about the five foot seven, svelte, blond and blue-blooded,
twenty-eight-year-old Felicia Thurgood. No, not much time at
all.

Troy dropped to a seat on the thick
counterpane of the bed and toed off his shoes. Felicia, Felicia,
Felicia...so much female glory encasing so much female warrior. The
formidable woman had had Dean in her matrimonial sights for years.
So when Dean had called Troy that second time to say that he was
bringing his wife home with him, after all, Troy had immediately
wondered how Felicia would take the news.

But now that Troy had seen Kelly, he wondered
if Felicia was even going to
find out
about the marriage.
The whole thing might be over and done with before the rumor mill
got a chance to sink its teeth into it.

Instead of standing up again to take off his
pants, Troy simply fell back onto the bed. With his arms resting
above his head on the bed, he gazed at the coved ceiling. It would
certainly be more
merciful
if Felicia never discovered
Dean's utter perfidy in selecting a mate other than her perfect
self, but Troy couldn't say it would be more...entertaining.

Troy's eyes closed and he smiled.
Entertaining, yes. He'd dearly love to be a fly on the wall.

All of Felicia's commendable and upstanding
expectations    trashed. She, the high and mighty, would
be brought down low. She'd be so low she might even fall down to
Troy's level. Oh, yes, if she ever did find out Dean was
married...

To a Las Vegas dancer!

Still wearing both the smile and his pants,
Troy fell asleep.

###

An hour after the rescue in the forest, Kelly
was still alone in the morning room. She leaned her head on one
hand and tapped her fingers on the polished sheen of the dining
table. She'd long since consumed a plate of scrambled eggs,
buttered toast, and hash browns    all complete no-no's
in her usual diet    and then washed the whole criminal
feast down with some excellent Colombian coffee.

Discipline, at least for her diet, was
usually strong, but she'd gotten thrown way off balance. Had she or
hadn't she seen 'her' Dean out there in the woods? One minute she'd
been so sure, the next she had to wonder if she hadn't made the
whole thing up. Yes, made it up out of a pathetic wish that she
could
have seen him.

Because, darn it, she missed 'her' Dean.

At the table, Kelly sighed. Who wouldn't miss
that slow smile, that easy drawl    and okay, she'd be
honest    the great sex? More than anything, though, she
missed how he'd
liked
her.

And for an instant there, a brief blink of
time coming out of the tree house, she'd thought she'd seen
him.

Kelly's fingers abruptly halted their dance
on the table top. She turned.

Dean stood in the archway to the hall. He
looked showered, freshly shaved, and was wearing a different
Italian suit from the one he'd worn on the plane.

Kelly's heart staggered. He was that
handsome. Admittedly, he was handsome in a vastly different way
from the man she'd married. The fellow who stood before her was
cool, collected, and quietly powerful. 'Her' Dean was definitely
not looking out of this man's eyes. His gaze was as cold and remote
as the North Pole.

He nodded toward the empty dishes on the
table. "I trust your breakfast was satisfactory?"

Kelly cleared her throat. "Uh, yeah. It was
great."

"Good. You'll find lunch in this room as
well, but dinner is in the dining room. We dress."

"Oh, hey, I'm very glad to hear it."

He shot her a sharp look. Kelly didn't know
whether to be amused or insulted that it seemed to take him a full
minute to realize she was joking. "Yes, well." He smoothed his tie.
"In any event, I came to say goodbye, and to tell you that if you
need anything, ask Maggie. She's the housekeeper."

"Goodbye?" Kelly startled upright. "You're
leaving?" But of course he was leaving. He was all dressed up in a
suit and tie and there was a building in downtown Boston with his
name at the top of it. She shook her head. "Sorry. I suppose you've
got a million things to do."

"Yes, well, perhaps not a million, but my
presence is required."

Kelly nodded, wondering why she felt let
down. Surely she hadn't expected, or wanted, him to dance
attendance on her.

"So." Dean inclined his head. "If you'll
excuse me?"

Kelly bit her lower lip. Yes, he had to
leave, but on the other hand, they needed to get the
getting-to-know-him business out of the way. And there was one
thing she very much wanted to know. "You have time for one
question?"

Dean halted his retreat in progress. Turning
halfway around, he raised his eyebrows.

"Uh...how did a nine-year-old boy manage to
hypnotize you?"

Dean went very still. "He told you."

Kelly huffed. "What do you think we were
discussing in the tree house, the weather? So, how did it
happen?"

Dean tapped a thumb against his thigh. "It
was an accident, as I already explained to you."

"An
accident
?"

Dean's thumb kept tapping. "Robby was doing a
science project, to make up for missing school. I didn't want to
discourage his initiative."