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  Katie was cranky as the dickens and rightfully so, he conceded. No woman, even one entering into a marriage with few illusions, wanted to hear that her honeymoon had been tacked on to a business trip. It was a tactical blunder on his part if ever there was one.

  He reminded himself irritably that he was supposed to be cementing this marriage into some facsimile of the real thing. If he couldn’t show a court that he and Katie were the ideal couple, who knew what some wayward judge might do about Robby’s custody. Tommy was no prize, but he was the boy’s natural father, albeit a single one. Luke had figured this marriage, along with Betty Sue’s support, was going to give him a comfortable edge in the custody dispute. That could hardly work if he and Katie were glaring daggers at each other or, worse, not even speaking. And Tommy knew exactly how to wield that particular weapon in court. As he’d already threatened, he wouldn’t hesitate to use it.

  Beyond all of that, in the past few weeks, ever since Katie had declared her bed off-limits, Luke had been ridiculously obsessed with getting her into it. He couldn’t even look at her without desire slamming through him. Aside from the pure frustration, it was getting to be damned uncomfortable. And wanting Katie this badly wasn’t a complication he’d considered when he’d selected her for this marriage scheme of his. It suggested she held more power over him than he’d ever wanted any woman to have.

  The obvious answer to that was to seduce her quickly and sate this hunger that had been building in him since the first instant he’d laid eyes on her again. He was widely regarded as being incredibly persuasive, a talented negotiator. Surely he could talk one normally sweet-tempered, affectionate woman into his arms. He knew she was attracted to him. The kind of passion they’d once shared couldn’t possibly die, even from lack of nurturing. There were times even now when he caught her looking at him with a hint of blazing desire in her eyes.

  So, he decided, it was all a matter of getting around her mule-headed decision to get even with him for proposing a marriage of convenience in the first place. A few dozen roses, a couple of boxes of expensive chocolates interspersed with several well-timed, bone-melting kisses, and she’d abandon this crazy stance she’d taken. If he couldn’t pull it off in Atlanta—and the odds were definitely against that at the moment, he conceded with some regret—then he would just have to wait until they got home.

  At his request Mrs. Jeffers was already surreptitiously interviewing prospective new tenants for the boarding house. Surely she would find someone suitable by the first of the week, when he and Katie returned home. And then, because there would be no way to avoid it without revealing to everyone that their marriage was a sham, Katie would have to welcome him into her bedroom.

  It was a sneaky, underhanded thing to do, Luke admitted to himself. But every once in a while the end did justify the means. He regarded Katie worriedly and wondered if she would agree. He’d have to ask her. After they’d made love a couple of hundred times seemed like the best timing. If he asked her anytime soon, he doubted if her response would be all that encouraging.

  “Katie,” he called as he turned into the secluded hotel driveway. When she didn’t stir, he caressed her cheek. “Hey, Sleeping Beauty, wake up. We’re here.”

  She blinked sleepily once, twice, then stared at him as alertly as if she’d never nodded off. Her ability to come wide awake in an instant was an admirable trait for the most part. He couldn’t help imagining, though, what it would be like to have her awaken in his arms, all sleepily sensual and willing.

  His imagination was very vivid. His body was aroused in less time than it took her to peel off her seat belt. While he wondered if he’d even be able to move, she was already smiling brightly at the hotel doorman, who’d just swept open her door.

  “Mrs. Cassidy, welcome.”

  Luke caught Katie’s startled expression and was glad he’d at least had the good sense to call ahead and warn the hotel that he was returning with his new bride. He’d stayed there for several weeks while he and Betty Sue had been finalizing their divorce settlement. Just about everyone on the hotel’s small, discreet staff knew him well.

  “Good evening, Raymond,” he called out to the doorman, when he was finally able to step from the car.

  “It’s good to see you again, sir,” he said, handing Luke the suite’s key. “I’ll have your bags sent directly up.”

  “Whatever happened to check-in?” Katie inquired dryly as they were whisked to the penthouse floor in a private elevator. “And exactly why are you so well-known here?”

  “I lived here for a while.”

  “And tipped generously, no doubt.”

  He nodded agreement. “It always pays to reward excellent service.”

  Katie murmured something he couldn’t quite hear.

  “What was that?”

  “I said for ten thousand, you must be expecting really extraordinary service from me,” she said, her chin lifting with a touch of familiar defiance. Glittering green eyes challenged him. “You probably should have tried my cooking, at least, before we got to this point. My fried chicken is good, but I’m not sure it’s that good.”

  “Katie...” Luke began, then cut off his protest. What could he say to convince her that she was hardly in the same league as the hotel staff? Or that he didn’t give two hoots about her fried chicken? He could readily see how a case could be made that he had bought her services just as impartially as he might those of a maid or a concierge.

  He fell into a brooding silence that lasted until he saw her awestruck expression as the elevator door opened into the elegant penthouse with its sweeping view of exquisitely landscaped gardens and city lights. Apparently this much at least he’d done right.

  “Oh, my,” she murmured.

  “Like it?”

  The last of her harsh facade dropped away. “It’s amazing. I feel as if I’m in someone’s very expensive, very tasteful apartment, not a hotel at all.” She glanced around slowly. “Except for the basket of fruit and the bottle of champagne. Those are definitely hotel touches.”

  Since her mood seemed to have shifted, Luke risked taking her hand in his and drawing her over to the windows. He could see her increasingly delighted expression reflected in the glass as she stared out at their surroundings.

  Softly lit fountains cascaded amid the well-tended displays of flowers. Romantic pathways wound through the grounds with benches scattered in secluded nooks for private conversations and stolen kisses. He recalled how many times he’d observed couples on those pathways and had felt a shaft of pure envy for the closeness they shared.

  Once, long ago, he’d had that kind of uncomplicated intimacy with someone, but he’d thrown it away. His hand around hers tightened instinctively, and at once her expression turned guarded. She tugged her hand free in a deliberate gesture he couldn’t mistake.

  “Katie...”

  “It really is wonderful,” she said interrupting, her voice coolly polite.

  “The food is excellent. I’ve ordered dinner. It should be here soon.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “Katie, you’re always hungry.”

  She shook her head. “Not tonight,” she insisted stubbornly. She regarded him speculatively. “You stayed here for a while? How long?”

  “Several weeks. I wasn’t in this room, but in one very similar on the floor below. Robby stayed at home with his mother until we’d worked out the divorce and custody arrangements.”

  She regarded him with amazement. “Just how rich are you?”

  “Rich enough, I suppose.”

  “You had all this and you still came back to Clover. Why?”

  Luke wasn’t prepared to reveal that she had drawn him back, that he’d been consumed by memories of what they’d once shared, that he’d needed something desperately—a mother for Robby—and she’d been the first person who came into his head. Duty to his son and an aching yearning that was his alone had become so intertwined he hadn’t been able to separate them.
/>   “I wanted the sort of life that’s possible there for Robby,” he said instead. “I want him to grow up surrounded by people who will care about him as much as I do. I don’t want him to grow up afraid of going to school because of guns the other kids might have. The only sort of gang I want him involved with is a bunch of kids walking to the movies on Saturday night.”

  “Those are the things you wanted for your son,” she said pointedly. “What about for you? What did coming home represent to you?”

  He said the first thing that popped into his head. “Peace of mind. I wanted my life back the way it used to be.”

  Katie seemed surprised by the answer. “Luke, you always hated Clover, hated the small-town mentality. You couldn’t wait to get out.”

  He shrugged. “Hey, darlin’, I never said I was perfect. But I did learn from my mistakes, and a longing for urban life was one of them. Just read the headlines. City living these days isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

  The worst mistake of all, though, had been leaving Katie behind. He’d finally accepted that and come home to claim her, albeit on terms far different from those he’d once imagined. He doubted he could ever love anyone, not even Katie, as freely as he once had. He had no one to blame but himself for the shallowness of his first marriage, but the experience had soured him on the institution and on the kind of love that was supposed to be its foundation.

  But surely he and Katie could build a new relationship that would be mutually satisfying without endangering the protective wall he’d erected around his emotions after Betty Sue had left them battered and bruised.

  Best friends always understood, were always quick to defend. Best friends never made unreasonable demands. And they never, ever cheated. He thought perhaps that level of loyalty, always granted him by Katie without hesitation, was something he’d missed most of all in the cutthroat environment in which he’d found himself in Atlanta—at home and in business.

  He caught the softening in Katie’s expression, and for one brief instant he was able to convince himself that everything was going to be just fine. He circled her waist from behind and stood gazing out over her head. Already a deep sense of peace was stealing through him.

  That and desire, he conceded ruefully when the evidence became unmistakable. Katie’s sharply indrawn breath hinted that she was aware of it, as well, but she didn’t protest, didn’t pull away.

  Because the moment was so fragile, so fraught with possibilities for doing the wrong thing, Luke did nothing. He just held Katie, her back tucked against his chest, her bottom brushing against his arousal, and thanked his lucky stars that they had come this far. Tomorrow would be soon enough to worry about the rest.

  * * *

  When the lavish dinner Luke had ordered arrived, accompanied by champagne, Katie fled. She could no longer keep up the dangerous charade without fear of getting too caught up in the seductive fantasy it promised.

  She quietly, but emphatically shut the door to the hotel suite’s bedroom, then leaned against it and sucked in a deep breath. Talk about close calls! She had very nearly succumbed to Luke’s unspoken hunger.

  Surrounded by his masculine scent, enveloped by his heat, tempted by his hard body, she had felt her already flimsy resolve wavering. It would have been so easy, so natural to give in to the desire that had swept through her at his first touch. And the expensive, intoxicating champagne would have made that capitulation a certainty.

  How many nights had she lain awake remembering the way it felt to be held by him? How many months had she imagined the sweet torment of his touches? How many years now had she tried to forget those very same things, only to have the memories reawakened in a heartbeat?

  Slowly, she stripped off the pink silk dress she’d worn for her wedding day, then the daring gossamer lace underwear. She reached for the sexy nightie that Lucy had insisted she pack, then went into the huge tiled bathroom and turned on the shower. When the room had filled with steam, she stepped into the marbled enclosure and let the hot water slide over her body, touching her in all the places she had dreamed that Luke would caress tonight. Before she knew it her body was sensitive and throbbing with need.

  Groaning, she flipped off the hot water and let the cold water cascade over her until she was shivering and no longer caught up in the kind of desperate yearnings that only Luke could fulfill. The irony, of course, was that tonight he was within reach, only a few feet away, with an unlocked door between them. Legalities and proximity had made him hers, and yet, she couldn’t bring herself to claim him.

  Stepping out of the shower and putting on the sheer nightie that skimmed her figure, concealing virtually nothing, Katie looked at that door longingly. What was being accomplished by keeping Luke out of her bed? Was she merely trying to salvage her pride?

  Or did she hope that the burning desire she’d seen in his eyes would come to translate into love, if only she gave it enough time?

  Whatever her eventual goal, the only certainty was that she was about to spend a very sleepless wedding night and for none of the usual, provocative reasons.

  “Katie?”

  Luke’s low voice sent a shaft of pure need through her. “Yes.”

  “Good night,” he called softly.

  “Good night,” she whispered, as tears brimmed over and spilled down her cheeks. Then lower still, in a voice she knew wouldn’t carry through the thick hotel door, she murmured, “Good night, my love.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The first thing Katie heard when she awoke after a restless night of tossing and turning was the murmur of Luke’s voice coming from the living room of their suite. She rolled over and closed her eyes, thinking what a pleasure it was simply to know he was close by. This, she supposed, was one of the little-discussed benefits of marriage, a tiny intimacy that couples grew used to and took for granted. After being separated from him for what seemed an eternity, she doubted she would ever take Luke’s presence for granted.

  Hearing his low murmur from just behind the closed door was such a unique and wonderful experience that she very well might have stayed in bed and listened to him for hours, except she was starved. Apparently her stomach had suffered nearly as much as her libido with last night’s stubborn decision to turn down the wedding supper Luke had ordered—and whatever might have come later.

  Hopping out of the luxurious, albeit very lonely bed, she stretched lazily, donned her sexiest bra and panties, then tugged on tan linen slacks, a peach silk blouse, and slipped on a pair of flats. All were new and far dressier than what she usually wore in Clover. Studying herself in the mirror, she decided she could hold her own in the big city.

  After a cursory brushing of teeth and hair, she skimmed a pale peach lipstick across her lips, then opened the door into the living room.

  Luke was still on the phone. At the sight of her, he murmured a hurried goodbye, then hung up, a slow smile spreading across his face, transforming his too-serious expression into a look that was pure invitation.

  Katie’s composure suddenly slipped. Luke was wearing a pair of dress slacks, zipped up, but unbuttoned at the waist, and nothing else. His hair was curling damply. His chest was...well, his chest didn’t bear too close an examination. Her heart was thumping hard enough as it was. If he’d stripped down this provocatively last night instead of offering far less intoxicating champagne, she never would have made it to that huge bed alone. Determined not to let the tantalizing effect ruin her stance this morning, she reminded herself that he, at least, was in Atlanta for the sole purpose of conducting business, not seduction.

  Or so he claimed. The current dangerous gleam in his eyes suggested otherwise.

  “Hard at work already, I see,” she said when she thought she could get the words out without giving her susceptibility away by sounding too breathless.

  “Ordering breakfast, actually,” he countered with another of those smiles that could have melted an Arctic iceberg. “I hope you still love pancakes, scrambled eggs, bacon, str
awberries and fresh-squeezed orange juice.”

  “I do, but all at once?”

  “It’s a special occasion.”

  “What are we celebrating?” she inquired innocently. “Did a big deal go through?”

  That high-voltage smile dissipated. He scowled at her. “Okay, Katie, enough with the sarcasm. You made your point last night. Turning our honeymoon into a business trip was a rotten idea.”

  She nodded with satisfaction. “It’s nice to see you grasp things so readily. No wonder you’re wildly successful in business.”

  “However,” he said, as if she hadn’t spoken. “If you want a real honeymoon, then it can’t be one-sided on my part. You have to cooperate.”

  Her gaze narrowed as she considered the suspicious glint in his eyes and the dare in his voice. “Cooperate?”

  “No shopping with old Cee-Cee and Pris.”

  “But I was really looking forward to it,” she protested just to taunt him.

  “About as much as a flu shot,” he muttered.

  “I don’t take flu shots.”

  “My point exactly.”

  Katie began to get the notion that she’d won the first round in this latest test of wills. The taste of victory was definitely sweet. She relented and grinned at him. “Okay, no business for you. No shopping for me. What’ll we do?” Having three whole days stretched out ahead of them seemed to offer limitless, very intriguing possibilities.

  “There are certain traditional things a bride and groom usually do on a honeymoon,” he suggested hopefully.

  “You wish,” she countered. “How about sight-seeing?”

  “Sight-seeing?” he repeated blankly as if the concept were totally foreign.