Read The Groom's Revenge Online

Authors: Susan Crosby

Tags: #Romance

The Groom's Revenge (3 page)

BOOK: The Groom's Revenge
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“Where can I hook up the computer?” he asked her.
Mollie looked around her work space.
“While you’re learning,” he said, “your living quarters would probably be best. You can practice without interruptions.”
“That would be upstairs. I’ll show you the way.” She locked the cash register, then moved to the stack of boxes.
“You’re going to let me into your apartment? Just like that? When you hardly know me?”
She grabbed the top two boxes, leaving the heavy one foi him. “What could I have that you could possibly want?”
As she walked away shaking her head, he studied her long, shiny hair and slender back, her softly swaying skirt, envisioning the lithe body beneath it. A drift of something in the air had him breathing deeply. A rainbow would smell like that. Frowning at the thought, he followed her trail through the back of the shop and up the stairs to a small, neat apartment with a distinctly floral motif. Femininity personified.
After Mollie made a quick return to the shop, Gray surveyed the apartment. The first door led to a bedroom. Twin beds. She must have shared the room with her mother, a situation not conducive to romantic liaisons, for either of them.
One wall was dotted with framed photographs of Mollie and her mother through the years. He studied each picture, noting the same wide, smiling mouths and reed-slender bodies, the deep-copper-colored hair. The togetherness.
He wandered out of the bedroom and into the bathroom, with its claw-foot tub and garden-print shower curtain. The room smelled of woman, something flowery and fragrant and... comforting.
Comfort. Something he neither wanted nor needed.
Be a man.
His stepfather’s words echoed in Gray’s mind, as they had since the day his mother had married James McGuire when Gray was eight. No allowance for weakness. No quarter given. Go after what you want, no matter the cost. Winner takes all. Losers... die.
James McGuire was a winner. Stuart Fortune was a winner Gray’s father...
Go after what you want, Gray reminded himself as he returned to the living room to unbox the computer components. Along a wall, desk space had been created by laying a Formica countertop on two-drawer file cabinets, making room for two people to work simultaneously. He chose the side closest to the phone jack, wondering how much of a fuss Mollie was going to put up at having a second line installed. For now he would set up the modem on her existing line. He hooked up the hard drive, the monitor, the printer. He loaded software, including an Internet server.
All the while he eyed a cigar box bearing Mollie’s name in bright purple paint over a crudely designed birthday cake and candles made of sequins and glitter. It looked like something a very young child might have done as a school project.
Gray glanced toward the open front door. Mollie’s voice drifted up the stairwell from the shop. With just his forefinger he lifted the lid of the decorated cigar box. He leaned closer, seeing birthday-cake candles inside. A piece of paper was taped to each—
“Gray!”
Plunk. The lip dropped into place. He put his fingers on the keyboard at the sound of Mollie hurrying up the stairs.
“Hi,” she said breathlessly as she came up beside him. “Wow. You’ve got it all set up and going.”
“Just testing it out.”
“It looks confusing.”
“Pretty soon it won’t. Did you want something?”
She curved her hand over his shoulder and bent low to look at the screen with him. Her fragrance—heather?—dropped a net over him so that he couldn’t move, could barely breathe. Like some damned teenager, he thought, amazed. Heat flashed through him.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“E-mail from my office.”
“You can get mail on my computer?”
“I set you up with the same server.” He turned his head fractionally toward her. “Did you come up here for something in particular?”
She moved a little closer to him. “You seem a little warm.”
Warm, hell. His blood had begun to simmer.
She straightened. “Do you need the air-conditioning turned up?”
“I’m comfortable, Mollie. Is that all?”
Move away.
“Did you want something to eat or drink? Tony’s here. He can get something from the coffeehouse. There’s not much in my refrigerator.”
He’d noticed. A pitcher of iced tea, two peaches, milk, several cartons of yogurt. A couple of unidentifiable items in plastic containers.
And a red-velvet, heart-shaped box of candy, half-full.
He glanced at his watch. “I’m fine for now. Why don’t I just order some takeout to be delivered around the time the shop closes? We can eat together, then get to work showing you how this computer is going to simplify your life.”
“Okay. If it’s pizza, I don’t like mushrooms.”
“Any other likes or dislikes?” He saw her glance settle on the cigar box.
Her cheeks flushed. Casually she swept up the box, tucking it close to her chest. “Not really,” she said.
“Are you adventurous?”
Mollie shrugged, letting him choose his own answer from the vague gesture. Adventurous? Hardly. More like “tiresomely sensible.” Except that less than a minute ago she’d almost pressed her lips to his. She wondered what he would have thought of that, considering his claim that everything was to be strictly business between them.
“Any particular wine you like?” he asked.
She shook her head. She’d had maybe five glasses of wine in her whole life. The box she clutched seemed to weigh a ton. Had he looked inside? Were her secrets no longer secrets? She must have been really nervous not to notice the box sitting out when she’d first brought him upstairs. She’d gotten used to it being there over the past several months, since her last birthday—the day she’d stopped believing in making wishes. She’d been working up the nerve to throw the box into the trash.
“I need to get back to work,” she said, aware of his watchful silence.
She hurried into the bedroom and shoved the box into a drawer, sliding it under her lingerie, a fancy name for her plain, practical bras and panties. But then, she was a practical person.
Mollie mumbled goodbye as she hurried through the living room and down the stairs, fighting images of Gray seeing just now practical she was. She knew there wasn’t a chance in leaven that he would be interested m someone like her, someone so unsophisticated And computer illiterate—a major strike against her, undoubtedly.
Don’t mix business and pleasure.
How many tunes had she heard that? And if she took a chance on letting things become personal between them, then he rejected her, would she lose not only the job, but her dreams? For the past month she’d spun fantasies about him without any fuel other than magazine and newspaper stories and photos.
She needed him to fill up the emptiness. She also wanted to know the real man beneath those glossy pages.
There had to be some reason why she’d chosen him as her obsession when she’d never even had the slightest crush on anyone before, not even a movie star or singer. Gray was a businessman. A genius. An international icon—
Who had the prettiest blue eyes, the nicest smile and the most ncredible body she’d ever seen. And for the first time in months, she wasn’t lonely.
Three
M
ollie’s mouth caught fire. So much for her first foray into adventure, she thought as she swallowed half a glass of Char donnay to douse the flames.
Gray had ordered Thai takeout, and while most of it was jus a little spicy and really delicious, the chilies in one dish burned her mouth, her throat and anywhere that the fumes alone touched. She didn’t care much for his amused smile, or the way he continued to eat the blistering dish as if it were macaroni and cheese.
“You said—” she panted “—it was hot.” She took another swig of wine. “But I didn’t expect fire. Your taste buds mus be cauterized.” She took her plate into the kitchen, grabbed a Popsicle from the freezer, then plopped back onto the sofa bedside him. She’d already consumed two glasses of wine, and the room seemed draped with gauze.
“It’s an acquired taste.” He closed the cartons with their left overs and carried them into the kitchen.
“Grab a Popsicle, if you want,” she said, then moaned as the frozen treat numbed her mouth at last.
“I’m okay, thanks,” he called out
She heard water running and realized he was rinsing the dishes, something she should be doing, but nothing could have induced her to put aside her icy first aid. Warm and lazy from the wine, she snuggled into the cushions and closed her eyes.
After a minute she felt him sit beside her.
“Something tells me you aren’t exactly ready for computer lessons,” he said, humor in his voice.
“Whose fault is that?”
“I didn’t know that two glasses of wine would put you under.”
“Now you know.” She opened her eyes and smiled at him.
“Your lips are red.”
“Cherry,” she said, then took the last of it off the stick as he watched. Her inhibitions nonexistent, she ran her tongue over her lips. “Cold, too. Wanna feel?”
He didn’t say a word. Smiling, she leaned across the cushion and touched her lips to his just long enough to feel how warm his were—and how unresponsive. He didn’t attempt to deepen the kiss.
She looked away. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what got into me.”
“Is there someone in your life who might not be too pleased that you’re spending time alone with me, Mollie?”
“No.” She couldn’t just sit there. Embarrassment had probably turned her face as red as her lips. She took her Popsicle stick to the kitchen to throw away.
“No boyfriend?” he asked.
“Nope.”
“So the heart-shaped box of candy in your refrigerator...”
“Left over from Valentine’s Day.”
Which was probably as much of an answer as he was going to get, Gray decided as she disappeared into the kitchen. “Is there some woman who will challenge me to a duel for kissing you?” she called out.
“No.” She called that a kiss? A press of cold lips that had lasted all of maybe two seconds? She’d caught him off guard—which was probably just as well, since a more personal relationship wasn’t in his plans, which were getting hazier by the moment. The surge of protectiveness he felt toward her constantly surprised him, but the physical attraction amazed him. She was so young and innocent. And she had way too much faith in him.
If she only knew—
She came out of the kitchen. “Really, Gray? There’s no special woman?”
“Most women don’t like taking second place. My work consumes my time and energy.”
“But you date. I’ve seen pictures.” She frowned. “And not just Hollywood-type women. Samantha Simeon, right here in Minneapolis.”
“I come out of my cyberworld long enough to date occasionally. As I’m sure you do.”
She tucked her legs under her and rested her head against the sofa cushions. “I haven’t been on a date since my mother died.”
“You said that she passed away late last year ”
“An aneurysm. There was no warning at all.”
“My father died suddenly, too. I was eight.”
“Oh!” She lifted her head. “Oh, I’m so sorry. At least I had my mom a lot longer. She was forty when she had me, but she’d never even looked middle-aged to me. We even shared clothes. I thought she was invincible. Sixty-one is too young to die ”
“What about your father? You said he was gone before you were born.”
She plucked at the upholstery fabric. “I never knew him.”
Damn it. He couldn’t read her.
Do you know that Stuart Fortune is your father, Mollie?
“Any other family?” he asked.
“None. How about you? Your mother remarried, obviously. Do you have siblings?”
He shook his head. “I guess we have a lot in common ”
“Were you lonely as a child?”
Lonely was hardly the word. He’d been subjected to scandal, uprooted to California, given a new father and a new last name, commanded never to speak of his real father again. Ever. His life hadn’t only been turned upside down but also inside out. “I was a loner,” he said to Mollie.
“My mom was the best. It’s been very hard without her.” She touched his hand that had clenched into a fist. “We’ve become morbid, haven’t we? I think my head has settled down enough to take a computer lesson.”
“It’s probably a good night to learn how to use e-mail and maybe surf the Net a little.”
“No one is going to believe this,” she said a minute later as she sat in front of the computer. “I’m going to have to take pictures to prove you were here.”
He dragged up a chair beside hers. “You can invite your friends over, if you want.”
Mollie rejected the idea. Share him? No way. Not yet, anyway. Maybe not ever. He was her dream, after all. The reason for her sanity. She was afraid to diminish it by letting other people share in his attention. “Do you mind if we keep this relationship between us for a while?”
“Not at all. Show-and-tell was never my favorite part of the school day.” He pointed to the Power key and told her to press it. “Do you know how to type?”
“I took two years of it in high school.”
“Good. The rest is easy.”
The sun set and the evening cooled. He taught She practiced. He smiled at her contagious enthusiasm. She squeezed his arm when she found her flower shop listed in the on-line yellow pages. He was careful not to touch her, then a lock of hair fell over her shoulder and rested temptingly on her breast, rising and falling with her can’t-sit-still excitement, but at the same time curtaining her face.
She stayed focused on the screen as she searched page after page of florists. After a few minutes he used just his fingertips to pull her hair back from her face. Softer than silk, he thought. He wondered what it would feel like against his chest—
Awareness sizzled through Mollie as his fingers grazed her shoulder blade. She turned toward him. His palm skimmed her arm. If his goal was to seduce her, he’d accomplished it She tingled head to toe, partly from his touch, partly from his nearness, partly from the soapy scent that lingered on his skin, better than any spicy aftershave.
He pulled his hand back. Dam. She’d done something to ruin the mood. She lifted her brows in question.
“Your hair was in your face.”
“Was it?” She tossed her head, feeling the familiar weight shift then settle against her back. His eyes darkened. He
was
attracted to her. But the women he usually dated were so different. So sophisticated.
She waited for him to say something, all the while feeling his body close to hers—not touching, but near enough to transfer heat Conscious of how his gaze lowered to her mouth, she leaned toward him the slightest bit, willing to take advantage of the moment if he would only take the hint. Willing to test her theory that reality couldn’t be as wonderful as her dreams. Her lips parted.
“This is a good place to stop for the night,” he said, pushing his chair back and standing. “We can continue tomorrow, if you’d like.”
She grabbed the papers stacked next to the computer and straightened them. “Um, sure. I’ll provide dinner.”
“I don’t mind bringing it.”
“You must be sick of restaurant food. I’m a decent cook, I promise.”
“Okay. Good night, Mollie.”
She grabbed his hand. “I need you—” she almost laughed at the panic in his eyes “—to show me how to shut down the computer.” Could it be that he wasn’t as sophisticated as she’d thought? That women scared him a little? The intriguing thought settled in her mind. Was that why his media interviews came across as all business? Because his confidence didn’t extend to personal relationships?
No. He couldn’t have risen to the position of CEO if he was socially inept.
So was it
her
that threw him off stride? The possibility that she might in any way intimidate him stunned her. Maybe no one had ever treated him like an ordinary human before. He’d been placed on a pedestal when he was twenty and his computer operating system debuted. Fame and fortune had soon followed. Yet he seemed so alone...which was probably an illusion, or some wild imaginings on her part.
“You have to let go of my hand to turn off the program,” he said quietly to her.
He talked her through the steps, writing them down so she could do it again without him.
When the hum of machinery stopped, she turned to him. “Thank you.”
“Not as daunting as you thought, was it?”
“Not so far, but you’re also a patient teacher. Wait’ll we get to spreadsheets. I hate them even on paper. Math was always my least favorite subject.”
“The worst that can happen is that you lose the information and have to reenter it. Be fearless.”
Fearless. She would like to be fearless with him. She’d like to kiss him, really kiss him, to know how that spectacular body felt pressed against hers. She wasn’t brave enough to make the first move, though, no matter how many
Cosmo
articles she’d read giving women permission to be the aggressors.
However, the man was either dense or not attracted, because he headed down the stairs. She followed to lock the door, but their good-nights were brief and cordial. She trekked back up the stairs.
Needing to unwind, Mollie relaxed in a bubble bath. Normally in bed by ten and up by six, she was still awake at midnight, like the night before. Finally she gave up, turned on the computer and waited for it to open.
The e-mail icon was lit. She stared at it for almost half a minute, trying to remember what to do. Finally she clicked on it, A new screen appeared, identifying mail awaiting her from GKMcGuire, the subject left blank. She clicked it open and read the message.
“I wanted to be your first. G.”
Mollie felt her face heat. Her first e-mail, she assumed he meant. Either that or he
had
peeked into her birthday box before she hid it in her dresser.
She was trying to decide what to do when the mail icon flashed again.
From GKMcGuire: “I know you just got my message. An you going to write me back? G.”
How did he know? What trick was there to knowing that And the most important question—how could she answer him’ He’d told her how, but she hadn’t practiced or written it down
No sooner had she asked herself the question than the icor lit up.
From GKMcGuire: “Hit the Reply button, type in your mes sage, then hit Send. G.”
Mollie grinned, hit Reply, then typed: “Thank you for being so gentle. M.” Send.
She waited. The icon flashed almost instantly.
From GKMcGuire: “Was it good for you? G.”
She laughed as she clicked on Reply: “I’m still all aquiver M.” She waited a little longer for his next response.
From GKMcGuire: “I hope you remember me fondly. Good night. G.”
From MollieS: “We never forget our first. Good night and thank you. M.”
 
Gray shut down his computer, shutting down the temptation of her words at the same tune. He had sunk to innuendo with her, displaying all the maturity of a teenager. Except that he hadn’t done that even as a teenager. And she had responded ii kind—
Irritated with himself, he slipped into bed, turned out the ligh and tucked his hands behind his head.
Knowing her past, he’d expected to find a bitter young woman. Mollie Shaw was anything but bitter. She’d accepted him into her life as if he belonged, had made him feel at home faster than anyone ever had, yet she didn’t seem to want any thing from him except a kiss—and that, he figured, was the wine doing the asking.
Her vulnerability reminded him of his life before Stuart For tune had destroyed it. Memories of those carefree days surfaced too frequently now. He couldn’t get those days back, but he could make up for the loss. And he could get Mollie the fisca base she needed.
Muttering a curse, he switched on the light, tossed the sheet aside and crossed the room to where he’d draped his jeans over a chair. He dug into a pocket, coming up with a Popsicle stick, stained red, like her lips had been. Red and cold.
BOOK: The Groom's Revenge
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