The Misconception (4 page)

“So what are you in the mood for?” Jax asked as they entered the hotel through beveled glass doors so pristine Marietta couldn’t even discern fingerprint smudges. “I could go for a big, juicy steak, but I better stick to pasta. Do you think they have pasta?”

She peered at him. “What are you talking about?”

“Lunch.”

“Lunch?” she repeated, seriously miffed. Hadn’t they fed the man some peanuts on his flight? It was barely past eleven a.m., well before the time he should have been thinking about food. He was in town, at her expense, specifically to get her pregnant. Didn’t he have any sense of duty? Any sense of honor?

She stopped walking, and so did he.

“It’s a little early, but I could eat,” he continued, and it was obvious from his smile that he was oblivious to her displeasure. He was so unrelentingly cheerful that, if she weren’t so determined to have her way with him and get him out of her life, she might actually start to like him. “I think lunch is the perfect way for us to start out our day together.”

She shook her head, thinking that for a man with an IQ of 145, he wasn’t very smart. One day was all they had. To maximize her chances of getting pregnant, they’d obviously have to do the deed as many times as she could stand it. Obviously, they should get started immediately.

“If you’d like to have lunch in the restaurant, go right ahead,” she snapped, figuring she couldn’t get a club, bop him on the head and drag him to the room. “I’ll be waiting in room 414 when you’re through.”

She turned on one of her low heels and walked quickly away. The heart of the hotel was beautifully appointed, with marble flooring, stained glass windows, brilliant chandeliers and a gurgling fountain shooting water six feet into the air. Marietta barely noticed the surroundings as she determinedly made her way to the elevator.

Did the. . . bewilderment she’d seen on Jax’s face mean that, now that he’d met her, he’d decided there was no rush to have sex with her?

“Rhea, wait.”

He’d get around to it eventually, of course, because that’s the way men were made. But it stung that his appetite commanded more attention than she did. Sure, her features weren’t as symmetrical as his. But she had all the things men historically looked for in a sexual partner: shiny hair, firm muscle tone, supple skin.

“Rhea!”

Not that she wanted him to be
too
interested. Even if she hadn’t decided long ago that she didn’t want a man, she wouldn’t want this man. Sure, he was handsome. Sure, he was charming. Sure, he was uncommonly personable. But what had her sister called him? A sperm whore, that was it.

“Rhea!”

The female of the species was perfectly capable of raising a child alone, but Marietta couldn’t respect a man who’d take money for his sperm. This man had even gone a step further. He’d signed a legal document surrendering rights to his child before it had even been born.

“Rhea, didn’t you hear me calling you?”

If a hand hadn’t touched her shoulder, Marietta wouldn’t have bothered to turn around although she’d been vaguely irritated that Rhea hadn’t answered the man’s calls.

The man, it turned out, was Jax.

“Rhea?”

Rhea
. She nearly thumped her forehead. She’d forgotten her alias again. He peered at her through eyes that had gone soft with concern, which was another reason to like him when she shouldn’t. She most definitely shouldn’t.

“Are you hard of hearing?”

“Of course not,” she denied, then realized that would have conveniently explained her faux pas. She searched for another explanation. “It’s just that Rhea’s such a common name. I thought you were calling someone else.”

Jax cocked his head, bemused by her reply. Her assertion that a bunch of Rheas could be wandering the lobby of the Grand Hotel was completely unbelievable. There had to be another reason she hadn’t answered his call.

A ping sounded as the elevator doors opened. Instead of commenting on the Rheas, he gestured that she should precede him inside the elegantly padded box.

“It’s okay with me if we get room service,” he said as she punched the button to the fourth floor.

She didn’t look any happier than when he proposed dining at the restaurant. If she had been any other woman, he’d think she was proposing that they have sex. Because she didn’t seem to like him very much, that couldn’t be it. Maybe she was one of those people who felt uncomfortable eating in front of others.

The elevator doors slid open at the fourth floor, and he followed her through them and down lush green carpeting slashing a long creamy hallway cleverly lit with recessed lighting. Soft music filled the space, and he recognized an old Beatles tune set to Muzak. Pre-printed plastic cards hung from several doorknobs, reminding him of another joke.

“What did the maid do when she saw a ‘Please make up’ card hanging from the hotel door?” Jax plowed ahead with the punch line when Rhea didn’t attempt a guess. “She got out her mascara and lipstick.”

Again, there was silence.

“You’re determined not to laugh at my jokes, aren’t you?” he asked. She didn’t bother to answer, and he couldn’t blame her for that. One of the big unsolved mysteries of his life was that few people laughed at his jokes. Granted, he wasn’t fall-down funny like Nancy and Sluggo, but he was at least worth a couple giggles.

“All I want to do,” she said as she put the key card in the door and the button flashed green, “is get this over with.”

He followed her into the room, beginning to think they were speaking a different language. If his suspicion that she didn’t like to eat in front of others was correct, maybe she intended to gobble her food.

He pulled the door closed while he tried to think of something to say that would put her at ease. All he could come up with was a banality about the perceived quality of the hotel food. “I’m sure it will be good.”

Her eyebrows furrowed, and the corners of her sexy mouth turned down. She still hadn’t smiled at him, he noted. “I’m sure
you
think so.”

She disappeared into the bathroom, and he sank onto the mattress of a mahogany four-poster bed, a little surprised she’d reserved a room with a king-sized bed. She seemed very controlled, not at all the sort of woman who’d spread out in bed. He’d have thought she’d occupy one, very small corner of it.

The room itself was surprising, because it qualified as a suite. The heavy reproduction furniture was fashioned of the same mahogany found on the bed and complemented by a brass chandelier and decorative fireplace.

Rhea couldn’t be hurting financially if she could afford to stay in a joint like this.

A sharp rap on the door drew him to his feet, and he crossed the expensively decorated room, expecting a maid who’d forgotten to put fluffy, oversized towels in the bathroom.

Instead, a muscular young man stood in the hallway carrying his luggage. “I’ll just put these bags inside for you, sir,” he said, shouldering past Jax into the room.

The young man deposited the bags and then looked at Jax expectantly, no doubt waiting to be tipped. But why should he tip him for making a mistake?

“I didn’t tell you to bring those bags up here,” Jax said.

The young man shifted uncomfortably. “No, sir, you didn’t. I believe I saw the lady tell the valet to have the bags brought to your room, sir.”

“It’s not my—”

The bathroom door banged open to reveal Marietta, interrupting what Jax had been about to say. She obviously hadn’t been inside the bathroom primping for their date. Her blonde-brown hair was still in the loose bun, and she’d washed off what little makeup she’d been wearing. Her dress was wrinkled, and her skin even paler than before.

“Oh, good,” she said when she saw the bell boy. “Your bags are here.”

She crossed the room, picked up her purse, withdrew a bill and handed it to the bell boy, who beat a hasty retreat out the door. He shut it, leaving them alone in the room.

Jax thought for a minute, but nothing he came up with made sense. She was standing six feet from him, as though carefully trying to keep her distance, which further confused the matter.

“Let me see if I’ve got this straight,” he said slowly. “You told the bell staff to have my bags brought up to your room?”

“That’s correct.” Her words were bold, but she twisted one hand with the other, a sure sign of nerves.

“Why?”

“For heaven’s sake.” The tempo of her hand twist reached double time. A muscle in her jaw twitched. “How do you expect to do it if we’re in separate rooms?”

Jax stared at her, but she wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Are you talking about sex?”

She put her hands on her hips, and the sack cloth bunched up against her body in a way that gave him his first glimpse of the shape underneath.

“Of course I am,” she hissed under her breath.

Everything inside his body went still, even the blood rushing through his veins.

“We can’t very well have sex if we’re in separate rooms,” she said.

“You want to have sex with me?” His voice cracked, parts of his body leaped to attention, his mind whirled.

“Why on earth,” she began, staring at the ceiling instead of him, “did you think I was taking you up to a hotel room?”

He’d thought they were going to have lunch. Jax had met his share of women on the make, and this wasn’t the way the drill went. They smiled at him. They made eye contact. They found excuses to touch him. They moved in ways to get him to notice them. True, Rhea hadn’t called off the blind date when she’d seen him, but she hadn’t done any of those things.

“Why would you want to sleep with me when you don’t even seem to like me?”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake.” She threw up her hands. “What’s liking you got to do with it?”

Jax swallowed. Never, starting with the night Loretta Hood had invited him into the back seat of her daddy’s Chevy convertible when he was fifteen, had he made love to a woman who didn’t like him.

He was likable. Everybody said so. Just as everybody knew that liking the person they jumped into bed with enhanced the experience. That’s why Jax wasn’t inclined to one-night stands. He liked to build up to the lovemaking, possibly with dinner and a few drinks. Definitely with conversation. He and Rhea hadn’t even talked. Well, that wasn’t quite true. He’d talked. He wasn’t sure she’d listened.

“Don’t you want to know more about me first?” he asked.

“I know everything I need to know about you,” she said, moving to the bed and sitting down. She patted the mattress, and he was pretty sure he saw her hand shake. Women who boldly announced they wanted sex from a virtual stranger didn’t suffer the trembles.

“But. . .” The reasons he shouldn’t get on that bed with her were plentiful, but they died on his lips when she crossed her leg. Her dress had ridden up when she sat down, and the leg cross offered him a view of shapely bare calf that exceeded his expectations. His gaze traveled upward, but the rest of her body was still covered by the sack. If her leg looked that good, the other parts of her would match. His body hardened while he valiantly tried to remember what he’d been about to say. “. . . but I don’t know anything about you.”

“If you’re worried about that,” she said, sweeping her hand in his general direction, “take a look at those papers on the dresser.”

He turned, although it took a monumental effort to look away from the inviting picture she made. He picked up the papers and scanned the top one.

“What is this?” he asked. “Your health history?”

“It’s a doctor’s statement asserting that I’m free of communicable diseases.”

She delivered the statement as though it made perfect sense for her to be in possession of such a document. He put the papers back down, wondering what possible zinger she’d surprise him with next. He caught sight of a stack of dog-eared books on the opposite side of the dresser. One of them was entitled “The Sure-fire Method of Natural Family Planning.”

She’d thought of everything, it seemed, even the birth control.

“Well?” she prompted.

Jax liked sex as much as the next guy — okay, he liked sex more than the next guy — but it would be lunacy to make love to a woman who didn’t like him. Never mind about respecting her when they were through. Jax wasn’t sure he’d respect himself.

He started to tell her that, but she spoke first.

“If you don’t mind,” she said in that clipped, prissy way she had of speaking. “I’d like to get it over with.”

“Get it over with?”

“Yes.” She abruptly got up from the bed and moved to the window in that no-nonsense, no-swaying way she had of walking. The blinds were the room-darkening variety favored by hotels, and she pulled them shut. The only light in the room came from a bedside lamp. She turned that off, too, plunging the room into darkness.

“What are you doing?” Jax asked.

“I’d rather you didn’t see me when we, you know, do it.”

Jax rubbed his forehead while his eyes adjusted to the darkness. “I have to tell you, Rhea, this has to be the strangest come-on in history.”