Sweet Southern Betrayal (6 page)

“It sounds like she sells sex toys and lingerie,” Lucky said, a shit-eating grin plastered on his face.

“Well, that’s one way to describe it.” Risa made eye contact with all of them. “It’s very tasteful. My company is called Behind Closed Doors and I help people keep the romance alive.”

Teague resisted the urge to look for the hidden camera. Someone had to be fucking with him, because this kind of stuff just didn’t happen in real life. How the hell did he manage to find and marry the Vegas showgirl who also happened to peddle vibrators and crotchless underwear? This was
not
how he usually ran his life. He had plans. Everything was under control and ahead of schedule. He couldn’t have done this much damage in one night. Could he?

“That sounds wonderful. Such a nice way to help people, ” his mother said, her smile a little too bright and forced to be real. But, God bless her, she was trying. “Taylor, you’re practically still on your honeymoon, maybe you could find some things for you and—”

“Okay!” Teague was
not
going to listen to his mom discuss sex toys with his sister. He needed to get rid of them so he could talk to Risa and figure out how to become single again without anyone in DC finding out. “Speaking of honeymoons, Risa and I haven’t seen each other in a while so…”

He pulled Risa close to his side and nodded toward the door.

“Oh, of course.” His mother turned quickly, the relief of getting an escape making her almost break into a run. At the door, she recollected her manners and stopped short, turning to offer a smile to her daughter-in-law. “Risa, dear, we’ll have lunch when you’re settled. Welcome to the family.”

And with a nod of her head and a swift shooing gesture to Lucky and Taylor, she ushered them out the door in a clamor of shoes on the stairs down to the street. The apartment was startlingly silent in their wake, the only sound the ticking of the grandfather clock whose time told him that it had only been a half hour since his life had fallen apart.

“Your family seems nice,” Risa said, breaking away from him to walk to the fridge where she opened the door and emerged with a beer in hand. She could drink the whole damn case and he wouldn’t blame her. He was torn between wanting to get wasted and forget this all happened, and bashing his head against the wall.

“Not that I have a whole lot of family experience to compare it to, but they didn’t freak completely out when they got the news.”

Teague loosened his tie, stripping it off with a vicious tug and ignoring the distinct sound of the silk ripping under his abuse. Normally, his suits and ties were like a second skin and he was as comfortable in them as he was in a pair of sweats, but today the length of expensive Italian silk felt like a goddamn noose around his neck.

He didn’t even bother to check the anger and frustration in his voice this time. He was moving beyond shock and right into pissed-off and violent.

“Oh, don’t kid yourself, this was round one. Once my mother and sister have had time to digest this news, they’ll be back for the full interrogation. I’ll be lucky if my mother doesn’t kill me for doing this to her after the year she’s had.”

Risa flinched at his rant so he took a deep breath and nodded as she slid an icy cold beer across the countertop in his direction. “And I don’t want to even think about the ball-busting Lucky is going lay on me.”

“Will they keep it a secret?”

“
Fuck no
.” He shot her a look of sympathy; he couldn’t even accurately describe just how much shit they were both going to get for this move. He was the least likely of their crew to do something like this and they would milk it for every ounce of embarrassing opportunity. ”I apologize in advance for my best friends’ being jackasses.”

“Thanks for the warning.”

“The problem is with the fine residents of my hometown. Jerline and the Parkers already know there’s a new woman in town and it will start the cycle of gossip. People aren’t mean-spirited, but this town is too small to keep anything like this a secret for long. I only wish we’d had more time to get our story straight before my family walked in.”

“So the whole secrecy thing was blown within minutes of me being here.” Her lush mouth twisted down into a pretty little pout, evoking fuzzy images of long, slow kisses and deep sighs that had haunted him for the past two weeks. Another thing not in his carefully laid plans.

“Pretty much. But it’s more important for me to keep this marriage away from my
real
life in DC. That is what cannot happen.” He slid onto a barstool and motioned for her to sit down next to him as he snagged his laptop from where it rested on the island. Waking it up, he typed his query into the search engine and let it pull up the information he needed. “I’m only here long enough to wrap up my father’s law practice.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. When did he pass away?”

“He didn’t. He’s shacked up in Costa Rica with his twenty-five-year-old paralegal while I clean up the mess he left behind.” Teague clicked on the link to the Clark County clerk’s office and the information about getting a marriage annulled. He would do what he did best—figure out how to fix this mess. The work would help quell his urge to pick up the damn laptop and throw it through a window.

He kept typing and clicking until he noticed Risa was quiet beside him. He glanced over, confused by the expression on her face. “What’s that look for?”

“So, he just walked away from his wife and family after all these years? Your poor mother.”

“Who?”

“Your dad.”

“Oh.”
She was still thinking about that?
“I think her pride was hurt more than her feelings.”

“That’s a callous thing to say about your own mother. This must have been devastating for her.”

Teague sighed, turning to fully face her while he explained the sad reality of his parents’ marriage. “Look, we were like one of those perfect families on TV. We performed well for the live audience and made them feel bad they didn’t have lives as wonderful as ours. But we were all actors playing a role and my father got tired of pretending.”

“So they
never
loved each other?”

The wistful pain in her voice pierced his hard shell of cynicism when it came to marriage. He recalled her earlier comment about having no experience with real families and now felt as if he was bursting her bubble.

“Maybe. They had a plan, a course of action, that would make him a player in politics and she would be the society queen. This affair wasn’t his first, but he’d never broken the pact before. I honestly think my mother is more pissed about him busting the image than breaking his vow.”

“Well, that’s still sad.” Her chin jutted out in that stubborn tilt he was surprised to recognize and chagrined to discover made him want to kiss her. He had officially lost his mind. Pushing down that colossally bad idea, he turned back to the computer.

“My firm would tank my partnership and decline to back me for own political goals if I turned up with a wife I married in Vegas while drunk off my ass.”

“And if they knew she was a showgirl who sells sex toys on the side?” She kept her voice bright, but Teague didn’t miss the edge of defensive vulnerability in her tone. Hell, he’d just insulted her and it wasn’t his goal to make her feel bad. It wasn’t her fault he’d lost his mind.

“Their egos couldn’t handle the jealousy, so I can’t tell them.” He nudged her with his shoulder where she peered over his shoulder at the computer screen, chuckling with relief when she laughed in return.

“So, what are we going to do about this whole mess?” she asked.

“Well, it looks like I can file the annulment papers, and in about twenty days it will be a done deal. If you can hang around for a couple of days, I’ll get the paperwork filed and then you can get back to your life.” He could also call in a few favors and get any record of the marriage and the annulment to disappear, but he’d wait on telling her that until he firmed it up. Teague turned his head to gauge her reaction and found himself nose-to-nose with Risa, close enough for him to count the silver highlights in the mossy green depths of her eyes and the myriad colors and shades making her fiery hair shine under the lights.

Her eyes were clouded by sadness—there was no other word for it—and something else he couldn’t quite describe. She was upset and he couldn’t suppress the urge to do or say something to comfort her. She’d come a long way to deal with this situation in person when she could have handled it over the phone. He knew she was smart, sharp-tongued, and gorgeous, and now he could add considerate to that list.

“I didn’t thank you for coming out here to tell me in person.” Teague reached over and grasped her hand, their fingers lacing together in a perfect slide.

Risa swallowed, glancing down at their joined hands before reconnecting with his gaze, her sadness replaced with something much sharper. He felt it too—the zing of electricity that radiated from the skin-on-skin contact—no big surprise when he considered just how they’d ended up in this mess. Desire, even if he didn’t remember every detail of their one night together, was not their problem.

In spite of every cell of his brain screaming for him to ignore his baser instincts, the molten slide of lust in his blood made his cock ache. He leaned in closer—or she did, it was hard to tell when all he could focus on was the warmth of her breath on his cheek and the proximity of the hot, wet pleasure of her mouth. He swayed into her, a breath of separation between them, all the crazy emotions of this situation living in that space between “yes” and “we shouldn’t.”

“Like I said”—Risa swallowed again, her voice huskier than usual—“it isn’t something you should tell over the phone. And I needed to get out of town for a few days anyway.”

His lawyer senses tingled with her choice of words, but he kept his voice even. “Needed to?”

“Oh, just a few days to get away from it all. Stress, that kind of thing.” She withdrew her hand from his, using it to cover her mouth a little as she spoke. Risa had a tell—not a good thing for a place like Vegas. She was definitely lying about something.

Alarm bells went off in his head.

Risa was from Vegas. Risa worked for Tony Giambetti. Tony was a man who created the kind of trouble that caused people to have to leave town. It wasn’t that big of a leap to deduce that a gorgeous woman like Risa who
had
to leave Vegas might be running from a guy like Big Tony.

“Does Big Tony have anything to do with why you had to leave town? Anything to do with this situation?” Teague asked as the thought jumped into his mind. Risa jumped as if she’d sat on a live wire, her whole body going rigid and her skin turning a scary shade of pale. He’d bet that he had at least part of this right.

“I’m—” She swallowed hard, her hands trembling as they rose to cover her mouth again. “What makes you think that Big Tony had anything to do with this?”

“You said you had to get out of town. Considering your employer, it isn’t a stretch.” He leaned in, trapping her between his body and the counter, forcing eye contact with her. “If Big Tony is part of this mess, I need to know. I can’t fix it if I don’t know it all.”

Risa stared at him, her eyes unblinking and her expression blank. Everything about her expression screamed fear and stubborn refusal to accept his help. Damn it.

“I don’t need your help…except to get us legally unwed as soon as possible.”

“If you’re in trouble…”

Her abrupt rise from the stool stalled the offer of assistance. Everything about her body language, from the tense stride over to her luggage to the way she turned her back to him, made her point loud and clear—the conversation was over.

“Can you show me where I’ll be staying? I’m beat.”

“Sure. The second door on the right. I’ll be there in a few to make sure you have everything you need.”

Teague watched her move down the hallway before turning back to the computer and pulling up the program that would allow him to do a basic background search on whoever he wanted. He typed in Risa’s name, the mouse hovering over the button to start the inquiry. He’d gone into law because he loved the puzzle, the digging and unearthing clues until he figured out the way to make it work. But Risa wasn’t a client. Despite their marital status she was barely a friend, and he had no business prying into her life. He had no right to that information. He was just a husband on paper and within a couple of weeks he wouldn’t even be that. But his future was in the balance. If the news of their marriage spread too far and wide, everything about her would be his business.

And Risa had a secret. Risa worked for Tony Giambetti. Risa, by her own admission, had to get out of town for a few days.

Not
wanted.

Had to
.

Teague moved the mouse, clicking on the icon to run the program, watching as the hourglass on the screen told him it was working. Glancing over his shoulder to make sure he wasn’t going to get caught playing electronic Peeping Tom, he turned back to the screen when the computer gave a little beep to indicate it was finished.

Larisa Ellen Clay had been the homeowner of a small ranch-style villa in Las Vegas for the last eighteen months. She’d worked at the Gold Coast for the past eight years as a dancer and she was four years younger than his thirty-two years. She had earned a GED and an associate’s degree in business from a local community college prior to opening Behind Closed Doors. She owed money on her car, paid her bills on time, and was registered to vote. He couldn’t get to the good stuff—the secrets people liked to hide—but he’d get Jack to run a search on her as soon as possible.