Seducing Zeb (Tarnished Saints Series) (13 page)

“Seriously, Cat?” he asked. “You had to get half the town involved in our business?”

“Not half the town,” she said. “Maybe just half your family. Now here,” she held out a pen. “Sign it.”

Zeb read the paper as he
slowly slid down to the couch, shaking his head.

“I
t says I can’t wear my suits or Rolex?” he asked.

“That’s right. If I can’t wear my sexy clothes, then you can’t wear your designer clothes either.”

“But I’m a lawyer, sweetheart. I have a job – unlike you. I need to look good.”

“She’s got a job starting tomorrow,” said Cappy walking over with a bag in her hand. “She’s going to be working at Laney’s antique shop.”

“Why bother when you’ll be leaving in a few weeks time?” Zeb didn’t like any of this.

“We’ll see about that,”
Cat said, and he looked up to see her mocha brown eyes staring at him. If he wasn’t mistaken he thought he saw a glint of mischief within them. He kept thinking of what almost happened the other night, and how he should refuse to be a part of this contest since he wasn’t going to really get anything more if she failed and he won anyway.

He still didn’t want to be married, and the only reason he agreed to
this stupid contest in the first place was because he knew Cat couldn’t do it and he wanted to prove a point. That and the fact he didn’t like anyone saying he used his looks and his things to manipulate people because it wasn’t true. He was competitive and always had been, and when someone accused him of something, he’d go to any extreme to prove that they were wrong.

H
is eyes shot back down to the page, and he squinted since it was getting late and darker and there were no lights on in the apartment.

“Jeeva, l
ights on,” he called out, but when nothing happened, he looked up to the ceiling. “Jeeva, open the blinds,” he said, trying to get more light inside, but again nothing happened. “Nate, hand me that remote. You must have screwed something up with all these amps and mics.”

Nate hesitated and his eyes shot over toward Cat.

“Go ahead,” Cat told Nate, nodding at him, and the whole thing seemed so odd.

Then,
instead of handing Zeb the remote, Nate just said, “Jeeva, lights on.” Immediately the lamps on both sides of the couch turned on.

“Well, what do you know,” said Zeb, looking aroun
d. “I guess it’s working now. “Jeeva, music on,” he said, and waited. Then when nothing happened, Cat nodded to Nate again.

“Jeeva, m
usic on,” said Nate and all of a sudden loud rock music blasted from over the speakers.

“Why
did you change my music?” shouted Zeb.

“Jeeva, m
usic off,” commanded Nate and the room went silent again.

“I’d better get someone
out here to fix that tomorrow,” said Zeb shaking his head. “It’s crazy how it’s responding to your voice when it’s programmed to respond only to mine.”

“Read on,” said Cat, and Zeb looked down to see something he didn’t expect.

“I’m not supposed to drive my Mercedes? Well, how do you suggest I get to work?”

“Thomas was nice enough to lend you one of the cars he’s going to refurbish,”
said Cappy, placing the bag that was in her hands down next to him on the couch.

“
Going
to refurbish?” All of a sudden Zeb knew exactly why that junker was parked in his spot. “Oh, hell. I’m not going to drive that thing.”

“Yes, you are,” said Cat. “And Nate is going to drive your car
for the next week as well as be living here.”

“Oh really.” He looked up to his brother who just smiled at him sheepishly. He felt very hot under the collar and needed air.

“Jeeva, open patio doors,” he said, somehow knowing by now that nothing was going to happen. Suddenly, everything was starting to make sense. “Did you want to give it a whirl?” he asked Nate.

“Sure,” Nate said with a nod of his head. “Jeeva, darling, open patio doors.”

The doors unlocked and slid open, bringing a refreshing lake breeze into the room.

“Patio doors open,
my sex-stud, Nate,” came Jeeva’s voice over the speakers.

They all laughed
hysterically, except for Zeb.

“I thought something smelled fishy and it wasn’t the lake breeze
,” growled Zeb. “Nate, you can’t be serious. Did you really change my voice activation system to respond to your voice instead of mine? And you told it to call you – sex-stud?”

“That’s no different than you telling it to call you master,” came Cat’s snide remark.

“I didn’t do it,” said Nate, holding his hands in the air. “It was Cat and Aunt Cappy’s idea. One of the band members is a wiz with these kinds of things and he reprogrammed it. Cat got him to do it.”

“You used your sex appeal to get what you wa
nted again, didn’t you?” spat Zeb looking over to Cat.

“Yeah, that’s what I did,” said Cat sarcastically holding out the sides of her oversized
shirt. “Nate’s friends were hot-to-trot once they took a look at me in this getup.”

“Oh. So you . . . really got them to do it without . . . being sexy?”

“That’s right,” Cappy broke in. “And now you’re going to have the same chance, because I’ve had all your clothes replaced with what’s in that bag. Now give your Rolex to Nate for safe keeping.”

“I’d ask for the clothes off your back as well,” said Nate, “but I know they’d never fit me.”

Nate was a lot smaller than Zeb, but Zeb had no doubt that Cappy and Cat would probably be having his entire wardrobe altered to fit his brother in no time.

“Cat, can I talk to you on the balcony – in private please?”

Cat
followed Zeb to the balcony, throwing a worried glance to Cappy and Nate in the process. She knew Zeb wasn’t going to go for this. Why would he? He didn’t want the marriage in the first place and they’d already filed for the annulment, so he had nothing to lose. She knew he could never give up all his fancy clothes, his car or his playthings like his voice activation system. He wasn’t the kind of guy who could survive without his looks or his toys. She knew she could win this contest hands down, but Zeb was probably going to be trying to talk her out of the whole thing now.

“What is it?” she asked when they got to the balcony. He looked damned good in his suit and tie and his
black hair was slicked back with gel with a few stray pieces falling over his forehead and it looked impeccable as always. He held the contract in one hand along with the pen and with the other he loosened the knot on his tie.

“You know this isn’t fair. I have a business to run. I have my own law firm now and respectable clients.”

“If you have your own law firm then I guess you can wear whatever you want, can’t you?”

“I’m in the middle of an important case
. I can’t show up one day in a suit and the next in a pair of jeans. At that rate my client will never get full custody of his kid.”

“Not my problem.
Besides, as far as I’m concerned no man should take a child away from his mother. And if you’re a good lawyer than it shouldn’t matter what you wear, should it?”

“This game has gone too far. I’m not going to sign this, nor are you going to be walking
around here looking frumpy anymore. Now be a good girl and go put on some makeup and a nice dress and I’ll take you out for a seafood dinner and a bottle or two of wine.”

“No.” She shook her head, thinking how disappointed she was with him. “I knew you’d try to back out of this because you know as well as I that you can’t do it. You accuse me of using my looks to get what I want, but in reality the thing that bothers you the most about me is what really bothers you about yourself.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“I don’t know wh
y I even thought this marriage could work. And I am sorry now for the mix-up and that I didn’t marry your brother like I’d intended. He’s real. He’s not pompous and full of himself. He knows how to treat a woman like a woman wants to be treated.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”
The look on his face told her he didn’t like the fact she was saying James was better at something than he was.

“It means you think I’m a whore because that’s all you know. You shake your body and grind your hips to impress girls and get what you want and think nothing of it. Then you show
off with all your fancy gadgets and devices, and driving your expensive car, and you think that you’re better than everyone.”

“That’s not true.”

“I don’t know why I thought you would do this. I was just kidding myself I guess, thinking you had something inside that wasn’t as showy and as fake as the outside. Well, you disgust me, Zeb Taylor and I no longer want to be married to you. So forget the contest and forget the whole damned marriage. Because I could never, and I repeat never, be married to someone like you.”

Zeb just stood there with nothing to say as Cat stormed away. If he wasn’t mistaken, he thought he heard her whimper, and when the door to the bedroom slammed shut he figured she was in there crying.

He didn’t like to see a girl cry and never had he made any girl cry in his entire lifetime. He was the one who made girls smile
. He made them feel special by wining and dining them. He romanced them and gave them shiny baubles and took them fancy places and treated them like queens.

Suddenly, he realized that maybe he had been doing it to get what he wanted. That is, to get them into bed. And when he got drunk and started stripping, that probably wasn’t a very respectable thing to do either.

He’d been proud of himself and everything he’d accomplished – up until now. He thought about the horrible story that Cat had told him about her childhood and what she’d gone through. He couldn’t even imagine how much pain and abandonment she must have felt. After all, he’d always had his brothers around to talk to or to go to when he was in trouble. Cat had been on her own from a very young age. And if they split up, she’d be all alone again.

He liked Cat. A lot. Tho he didn’t want to admit it.
Because he didn’t want to be married. She was the only girl who had ever challenged him like this, and that was something he more than respected. She was smart and pretty and very sexy, even when wearing frumpy clothes and without a drop of makeup. Maybe he should give this whole thing a chance. For Cat’s sake. After all, she seemed to accept the challenge and be embracing it fully. If she could do it, then so could he. And then he’d prove to her that he wasn’t the louse she thought he was after all.

He walked off the balcony and into the living room where Nate and Cappy were sitting
there in silence. They just looked up to him and waited for him to speak. He sat down on the couch next to his brother.

“Zeb, I don’t blame you for not wanting me to drive your Mercedes
,” said Nate apologetically. “And I swear, it wasn’t my idea to move in here and kick you out.”

“Kick me out?” This was news to him.

“Well, Zeb, if you and Cat are going to do this right, you really can’t be living in a half-a-million-dollar condo now can you?” asked Cappy. “I figured Nate could live here for the next few weeks and you and Cat could live in one of the cabins on Thunder Lake.”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “Those are only for . . .” Suddenly he realized she was right. They were for each of the Taylor boys when they got married. And Zeb was married – for now anyway.

“You’re married,” Nate reminded him. “You may as well take advantage of it and get your inheritance. After all, I wish I could get mine.”

“Then maybe you should marry Cat,” he mumbled and noticed his brother’s eyes light up.

“You think so?” he asked anxiously, and Zeb just shook his head. Nate was only twenty-five and lived the vagabond life of a musician. Cat was thirty, and though she’d had a hard life, she was used to class and elegance now and he wanted to make sure she got it.

“No, I don’t think so, you fool
,” said Zeb, reaching out and swiping his hand over Nate’s head to ruffle his hair the way he used to do when Nate was just a child. “And although I know you’re probably pissing your pants to even think about having a woman like Cat, - you, little brother, wouldn’t know what to do with her. She’s more woman than you can handle.”

“And a little more than you’re used to also,” said Cappy
wisely.

“Not true,” said Zeb in his defense. “There is no woman on this green earth that I can’t handle.”

“Then sign the contract,” Cappy challenged him. “And move to the lake with Cat for the next week and see this through.”

“And what happens when the marriage is annulled in a few weeks and we’re not marri
ed anymore? You know that Pa stated in his will that we had to stay married a year in order to keep our inheritance.”

“I know that my brother Webster wanted to see all his boys married and with lots of children,” said Cappy. “You know, he always thought I was a failure since I never had kids.”