The Temporary Mrs. King (11 page)

He shifted another look at Melinda, and she smiled at him from her end of the table. A curl of heat whipped through his belly, and Sean's mind instantly dredged up an image of him and Melinda, naked in the crystalline water, with nothing but the sand and the sea for miles around.

And just like that, he was ready to toss her over his shoulder and carry her to the nearest bed. He smirked a little at the realization that the one place he
hadn't
had Melinda was a damn bed. Though the boat, he told himself, had been an amazing experience.

“What did you think of the boat?” Walter asked suddenly and Sean jolted—grateful as hell the old man couldn't read minds.

“It's a beauty.” Sean took a sip of his after-dinner coffee. “I can't remember ever having that much fun on the water before.”

Melinda flushed. In the candlelight, she looked luminous, and Sean smiled a little watching her embarrassment.

“Glad to hear it,” Walter said. “I don't get out on the boat much anymore. I'm happy to know you're getting some use out of it.”

“Thanks. I'd like to take her out again soon.”

“Anytime,” Walter assured him.

Melinda took a long drink of her wine.

Smiling, Sean said, “I spoke with my brothers the other day. The cargo and some of our crew will be arriving next week. We'll be ready to start on the hotel construction soon.”

“Wonderful.” Walter nodded thoughtfully. “A lot of people on Tesoro are excited about it.”

“What about you, Walter?” Sean asked quietly. “How do you feel about it?”

The older man took a long breath and thought about it for a moment or two. Then he smiled. “I'm looking forward to it. Change can be a good thing. Keeps a man young. Interested in the world around him.”

“You'll always be young, Grandfather.” Melinda reached out and squeezed his hand.

“Hah!” Walter winked at Sean. “See that? How she sneaks into my heart so easily? She's always known exactly what to say.” He lifted her hand and kissed it. Noticing the burn, he frowned. “You are not being careful, Corazon.”

“Corazon?” Sean asked. “That's the name of your boat.”

“So it is. It means ‘heart' in Spanish and that is what Melinda is to me. My heart.” Fixing his steely gaze on her, he added, “And when she is not being careful, she worries me.”

“Me, too.” Sean looked at her and saw her scowl briefly.

“So the two of you are going to gang up on me?”

“That's what family's for,” Sean said.

“Hmm.”

“She's shown you her workroom?” Walter asked.

“She did. This afternoon.” Sean looked at her. “She does incredibly beautiful work.”

“It's a nice hobby,” Walter agreed pleasantly.

Melinda rolled her eyes, and Sean hid a smile. Odd that despite the fact that the older man loved his granddaughter deeply, he had no idea what was in her heart. Her soul. That he could dismiss artistry as a “hobby” was insulting. But clearly, neither Walter nor Melinda saw it like that.

“Oh,” the man said, “I meant to tell you this before. If you need a place for your workmen to stay, I have another,
smaller hotel not far from here. It's not fancy, but I'm sure your men would be comfortable.”

“We appreciate that,” Sean said. “Melinda was telling me that you once thought to build on that lot.”

“I did.” The older man sat back in his chair and lifted his coffee cup. “But when I lost my wife and Melinda's parents, I decided to stay in the hotel. A man raising a child alone needs all the help he can get, I'm not ashamed to say.” He glanced at Melinda, and she gave her grandfather a smile. “She was treated like a princess by everyone here.”

“I can see why.”

Walter gave Sean a proud smile. “I'm glad you see what I do when I look at her.”

He saw all of that and a lot more, Sean thought. Which was beginning to worry him. Somehow, the seduction of Melinda was working in the opposite way, too.
He
was being seduced right along with her, and he was going to have to find a way to pull back.

Or the end of this temporary marriage could get very messy.

“Okay, that's enough of the wonders of Melinda stories,” she announced suddenly and stood up. “I'm going upstairs. You two behave yourselves.”

“You do look tired,” her grandfather said. “Probably too much sun.”

She flicked Sean a glance. “Yes, that's probably it.”

And all of the sex
, Sean thought.

He watched her go and as she left the room, Walter leaned over and said, “She's a beauty, isn't she?”

“Yeah. Yeah, she is.” Sean looked over at the older man. “But she doesn't know your hotel's in trouble, does she?”

Walter pursed his lips, tapped his fingers against the
table and finally heaved a long sigh. “You're too clever, Sean. How did you guess?”

“Little things,” he said quietly. “Chipped paint. Frayed drapes. The bar's understaffed and the main dining room only serves lunch and dinner. When a business starts making cuts, letting the small things slide, there's usually a reason.”

Nodding, Walter smiled ruefully. “So there is. But to answer your earlier question, no. Melinda doesn't know. And now that you have guessed the truth, I will expect you to keep my secret.”

Sean didn't get that. This family had more secrets going on. Melinda wouldn't let her grandfather know about the marriage deal. He didn't want her to know that he needed money. She didn't talk about Steven and the old man seemed no different.

Way different than his family, boy. With the Kings, there were almost never secrets because no one shut up long enough to keep one. It was much easier to just argue about what was bugging you, get it out in the open, maybe punch your brother in the face and then let it all go.

Of course, Sean thought, he had been keeping a secret from his brothers for years. His first marriage. And suddenly, he wondered why the hell he hadn't told them. To save himself embarrassment? To avoid the shouting? Stupid to keep things from family. Especially
his
family.

“No disrespect intended, Walter,” Sean said carefully. “But lying to her? Not the best idea.”

“Ah,” the older man said with a wink. “Soon, there will be no reason for lies of any kind. The sale of that land to your family will take care of the problem. I'll be remodeling the hotel—can't have your cousin getting
all
of the new guests—and there'll be nothing to tell Melinda.”

“I sort of thought you might want to retire,” Sean said,
surprised at the old man's willingness to stay in the hotel game and battle the Kings for guests.

“Retire?” His eyes widened in surprise. “That's for old people. What would I do all day? No. You'll see. My way is better. Melinda will get her trust fund, the hotel will be remodeled and everyone will live happily ever after.”

“Here in Brigadoon,” Sean muttered.

“What was that?”

“Nothing,” Sean said and listened as Walter talked about his plans for the remodel. But even as the old man spoke, Sean's mind was upstairs with Melinda.

These last couple of weeks with her had been great. And today…put a whole new spin on the word
amazing
. But this marriage had an expiration date and it was fast coming up.

Which left him to wonder what the hell he was going to do when their time together was over and he was still on the island taking care of business. Were they just supposed to nod and smile at each other as they passed on the street? Was he supposed to pretend he didn't want her?

Walter's voice became nothing more than a buzz in Sean's mind. Background noise for the thoughts tumbling through his brain. He was getting wound up tighter and tighter in Melinda's life. Her world.

This hadn't been part of the plan. He didn't belong here on Tesoro. His life was back in California. His home was there. His family. This tiny tropical island wasn't the real world. Not for him. Melinda wasn't for him either. He knew that.

And yet…

This was getting more and more complicated, and
the worst part was, his brothers had been right. He never should have gone along with Melinda's scheme.

Because now that he was in, he wasn't sure he wanted out.

S
ean left Walter a half hour later and took the elevator to the penthouse. His insides were twisted into knots and he couldn't form a single, coherent thought, but one thing came through loud and clear.

He wanted to see Melinda. Be with her.

For as long as he could.

Upstairs, Sean looked forward to finally getting off that damned sofa and sleeping in a bed. With Melinda. It had been a hell of a long day, and he should be beat. But the truth was, he felt charged. Just being around her made him feel more…alive than he ever had before. And if he was smart, he'd be worried about that, he thought. Instead, he looked forward to touching her again.

He heard her sobs the moment he opened the door. Panic grabbed the base of his throat. He slammed the door and followed the heartbreaking sounds of her crying. He'd never been in her bedroom and hardly noticed it now. All
he saw was moonlight sliding through the open curtains and Melinda, sitting on the floor. Back against the bed, knees drawn up to her chest, she was staring at a framed photograph and crying as if her heart was broken.

Everything in him tightened into a hot ball of protective instinct that flashed inside him like lightning. Her tears were like a knife in his chest, pain ripped at him. In the space of a split second, he'd gone from a self-satisfied male about to get lucky to a man desperate to find whoever was making Melinda cry and beat the crap out of him.

Sean stalked across the room in a few long strides, went down on one knee beside her and said, “What is it? What's wrong, Melinda?”

She shook her head violently. Tears still poured from her beautiful eyes and her mouth was screwed up tight as if she were biting back the urge to wail.

He cupped her face in his palms and turned it up to him. “Talk to me. Tell me what's happened.”

“I shouldn't have,” she said and gulped in a breath. “I didn't mean to. But I did and now…”

“What're you talking about?” He looked at the photo she held so tightly and guessed instantly what was going on. The smiling face of a handsome man with too many teeth looked back at him, and Sean knew without a doubt that
this
was Steven.

Frustrated by his inability to fix this, he blew out a breath and muttered, “Damn it, Melinda, don't do this to yourself.”

“How can I not? I was going to marry him,” she said, her voice a painful hush that scraped at his heart. “I
loved
him and today I—”

“Melinda—”

“No,” she shook her head again, clearly furious with
herself. “It's like I cheated on him. Not just because of the sex but because I
enjoyed
it.”

Those protective instincts that had sent him racing to her side reared up inside him, stronger than ever, and put a stranglehold on the frustration pumping through him. He hated seeing her like this. Hated knowing that he'd pushed her here. That his plan to seduce her had left her feeling such misery.

Guilt was an ugly emotion. No one knew that better than Sean, he thought grimly. But this wasn't about him. This was about Melinda, and damned if he'd let her regret what had happened between them.

“It's okay to feel, Melinda,” he said softly, shifting to sit beside her. “You're alive. You're
supposed
to live.”

She sighed heavily. “You don't understand.”

“Oh, I understand plenty. I know all about guilt,” he said softly, dropping one arm around her shoulders and pulling her close to his side. She resisted at first, then slowly crumpled into him. He rubbed her upper arm in slow, comforting strokes. “Guilt will kill you an inch at a time until there's nothing left of you, Melinda. It's not worth it.”

“Tell me.” Her voice was a whisper against the curve of his neck. She cuddled closer as if needing the contact, and if Sean was going to tell this story, then he figured he'd need it too.

It was something he hadn't thought about in years. Purposefully. And it was a story he had told only to his father. So once again, he thought, he was sharing things with Melinda that he never shared with anyone.

“You know how I said I lived in Vegas until I was sixteen?”

She nodded.

“That's because at sixteen,” he said, in a voice detached
from feeling, “I was finally big enough, strong enough, to beat the crap out of my mother's boyfriend.”

“Sean—” She snaked an arm around his middle and held him.

He was grateful and tightened his hold on her in response. The years fell away easily and he was back in that miserable apartment in Vegas.

“The air-conditioning was broken, as usual,” he said, his voice soft and reluctant, as he mentally went back to a time he wished to hell he could forget. “It was so damn hot, it felt as if every breath I took was setting fire to my lungs.”

He paused and said, “Eric, Mom's boyfriend, was a big guy with what you could say was anger-management issues.” He smiled tightly at the understatement. “He'd been beating on my mother for a couple of years. She always threw him out, and she always took him back. And I couldn't
do
anything about it.”

God, he remembered the frustration, the fury that used to claw at his throat. He'd ached to be big enough that he could finally defend his mother. Take care of her.

And at last, that day came.

“He hit her again on my sixteenth birthday, and I hit him back.”

Melinda said nothing, and he didn't look down at her, not wanting to see what was in her face. Pity? Revulsion? Didn't think he could take either one. So he kept his gaze fixed on the wall opposite and let his memories dredge up the images.

“He went down, and I think I was as surprised as he was,” Sean admitted. And through the prism of time, he remembered seeing the bastard stare up at him out of eyes glittering with fury and fear.

“But like most bullies, he didn't like being hit as much
as he enjoyed being the one doing the hitting. So he just laid there on the floor, staring up at me like I had grown two heads.

“Mom was there too, and her latest black eye was just starting to bloom on her face.” He laughed shortly. “I was so damn proud of myself that I looked to her expecting to see a little hero worship.”

“What happened?” Melinda whispered.

Sean took a breath and said flatly, “She dropped to her knees beside Eric and shouted at me to get out.”

“
What
?”

He smiled a little at the outrage in her voice, but he still didn't turn his gaze on her. Didn't quite trust himself to finish this sordid little tale if he was looking at Melinda.

“Eric pushed away from her and headed out the front door, cursing and stumbling a little, which I admit, made me feel good in spite of everything. Mom chased after him,” Sean added. “But before she left she told me to leave and that she never wanted to see me again.”

“She was wrong,” Melinda said, pulling out of his grip to turn and look at him.

He couldn't avoid staring into her eyes, and he noticed the fierce, righteous indignation shining in those blue depths. She was infuriated on his behalf, and Sean appreciated it. But the story was old and long since over.

“Doesn't matter anymore,” he assured her, though the dark spot in a corner of his heart still burned with the memory.

Even now, so many years later, he could remember the look on his mother's face. And just like every time the memory sneaked up on him, he tried to put a name to the expression she wore as she looked at him. Disgust? Fury?
Hatred
? The last bruise on her cheek was a mass of green
and yellow streaks, visible even beneath her carefully applied makeup. And still, she had defended the bastard.

In his mind, Sean could hear her voice.

“He loved me. He took care of me. You had no right. You're just like your father, out for yourself and screw everybody else.”

“Where did you go?” Melinda's voice again, tearing him from the past and grounding him in the present.

He leaned his head back against the bed. “I called my dad. He sent a King jet for me, and I went to live with him.”

“Well thank God for your father, anyway.”

Sean chuckled. “Not too many people have ever said that about Ben King.”

“Well I am. Your mom was wrong, Sean.”

“Maybe. But because of what I did, I never saw her again,” he said, his gaze locked on hers. “She died a few years later.”

“Did Eric—”

“No,” he answered quickly. “Car accident on the strip. Some tourist ran her down one night.”

“I'm sorry, Sean. So sorry.” Her features were a mask of sympathy and fury for what he'd gone through. But Melinda wasn't finished. “You shouldn't feel guilty about what you did. It was right.”

He looked at her then and saw the fierceness in her eyes. All directed at easing his pain, and something inside him tightened another notch. She was the first person, other than his brothers, to care about what he was feeling. To try to make it better. Warmth stole through him, and Sean realized that talking about the past had actually distanced him from it as he had never been able to do before. He felt…freer than he had in a very long time.

He was walking a thinner and thinner line every damn
day with Melinda. He knew it. He felt it. But damned if he could pull away.

“And you shouldn't feel guilty about today,” he said quietly. “It's okay to be alive, you know.”

She stroked her fingertips along his cheek with a featherlight touch. He caught her hand and turned his face to plant a kiss in the center of her palm. “Let go of the guilt, Melinda. Trust me when I say holding onto it will tear you apart.”

As he watched, she glanced down at the photo she still held in one hand. Sean looked at the framed picture too and knew without a doubt that he hated Steven Hardesty. And no way would he let her turn her back on a life for the sake of a dead man.

Deliberately, he took the picture from her and set it facedown on the bedside table. “Steven's gone, Melinda.”

She took a long, shuddering breath and let it out again. “I know.”

“Would he want you to be miserable forever?”

“No.”

“Then let him go. Be with me.” He tipped her chin up so her eyes, red-rimmed from crying and pain, were focused on him. “I'm safe, Melinda. I'm the rebound guy. I'm temporary.” His fingers smoothed away the last of her tears, and he leaned in to kiss her forehead. “Use me to heal your heart, Melinda. I won't be here long. We both know that. There's no complications here. I don't want anything from you.”

Okay, yes, he was being a little self-serving, he told himself. Because he did want Melinda more than his next gulp of air. But it was also true. He wouldn't be staying with her. And if he could get her past wanting to bury herself, then they would both be able to walk away a little easier when their time together was done.

A wistful smile lifted one corner of her mouth, and he took his first easy breath since entering this room.

“I didn't mean to have a meltdown,” she said.

“It's okay—”

“No, it's not,” she said firmly. “I was fine, really. I came up here and I was going to shower and wait for you when I saw—” Her voice trailed off as she glanced at the facedown photo. “And suddenly, it all hit me. He's gone. I'm here. With you. And I felt
bad
because I was feeling so
good
. And that doesn't make any sense at all, does it?”

“You're wrong about that, too. It makes perfect sense.” Sean brushed her hair back from her face and felt a gentle warmth slide through him as he pulled her in and held her. This wasn't the heat he felt when he touched her. This was something more. Something deeper. Something he couldn't describe—and he didn't think he should try.

She leaned into him, and his arms just naturally tightened around her.

“Big day, huh?” she whispered.

“Yeah. You tired?” he asked.

She looked up at him and shook her head.

He smiled. “Glad to hear it.”

 

When he kissed her, Melinda melted against him, giving herself up to the truth of the moment. She was alive, as Sean had said, and she wasn't going to hide from life again. She was going to set guilt aside and reach for what she wanted.

And what she wanted was Sean.

In a few seconds, they were naked. Sean grabbed a condom, sheathed himself, then sprawled across her bed with her. She felt the delicious slide of Sean's skin against hers. He kissed his way down her body, lips and tongue tracing fiery lines across her flesh. He suckled at her
breasts until she was arching blindly beneath him, desperate to ease the coiled tension inside her.

But there was more. He didn't stop. Whispered words became muffled as he continued to gently torture her. Her breath was labored and she stared up at the ceiling, losing herself in the sensations that only he could cause.

His hands explored her every curve, his mouth tasted every inch of her, and when he moved down, kissing his way past her abdomen, she tensed. He spread her legs and kneeled between them, scooping his hands beneath her to lift her hips off the bed.

“Sean…”

“Just enjoy,” he said and covered her core with his mouth.

She gasped and moved into him, loving the feel of his tongue on her most sensitive skin. Again and again, he licked and nibbled at her center, until she was wild with need. With banked passion spilling up and over, inside her.

Her first climax hit her hard, and she called his name brokenly as her body quivered and shook and then finally exploded into shiny shards of pleasure. She was still quaking with release when his body slid into hers, pushing her into another orgasm, even more profound than the one before.

She reached for him, locking her feet at the small of his back, holding him to her, taking him deeper. Her hips rocked with his in a rhythm that was both breathless and timeless. Their bodies moved as one. Melinda looked up into his eyes and fell into those blue depths that were so filled with old pain and new promise.