His Not-So-Blushing Bride: Marriage with Benefits / Improperly Wed / A Breathless Bride. Fiona Brand

he took a sip. He swallowed, clearly savoring the sensation of coffee sliding down his throat. “And one for the sale of Manzanares.”

      Taken aback, she laughed and thumbed through the papers. “No, really. What is it?”

      He sat back in his chair without a word as she skimmed through the documents. He wasn’t kidding—legalese covered page after page.

      Now completely off balance, she cocked a brow. “Are you sleeping with your lawyer? Is that how you got all this put together so fast?”

      “Sure enough,” he said, easily. “Can’t put nothing past you.”

      Great. So he’d no doubt ensured all the terms favored him. Why hadn’t she had her own documents drawn up last week? She’d had plenty of time, and it threw her for a loop to be so unprepared. Business was supposed to be her niche. It was the only real skill she brought to the equation when continuing her mother’s work. If passion was all it took, her mother would have single-handedly saved every woman in danger.

      “Run down the highlights for me, Wheeler. What sort of lovely surprises do you have buried in here?”

      It dawned on her then. He was on board. She’d talked Lucas Wheeler into marrying her. Elation flooded her stomach so hard, it cramped. Take that, Abuelo. Her grandfather thought he was so smart, locking up the money, and she’d figured out a way to get it after all.

      “No surprises. We each retain ownership of our assets. It’s all there in black and white.” His phone beeped, but he ignored it in favor of giving her his full attention. “You were up front with me, and I appreciate that. No better way to start a partnership than with honesty. So I’ll direct your attention to page fifteen.”

      He waited until she found the page, which took longer than it should have, but she had this spiky, keen awareness of him watching her, and it stiffened her fingers. “Fifteen. Got it.”

      “I want you to change your name to Wheeler. It’s my only stipulation. And it’s nonnegotiable.”

      “No.” She spit out the word, eyes still stumbling over the lines of his unreasonable demand. “That’s ridiculous. We’re going to be married for a short time, in name only.”

      “Exactly. That means you have to do the name part.”

      The logic settled into her gut and needled. Hard. She couldn’t do it, couldn’t give up the link with her parents and declare herself tied to this man every time she gave her name. It was completely irrational. Completely old-fashioned. Cia Wheeler. And appalling. “I can’t even hyphenate? No deal. You have to take out that stipulation.”

      Instead of arguing, he unfolded his long frame from the chair and held out his hand. “Come with me. I’d like to show you something.”

      Nothing short of a masked man with an Uzi could make her touch him. She stood without the offered hand and scouted around his pristine, well-organized office for something worth noting. “Show me what?”

      “It’s not here. I have to drive you.”

      “I don’t have all day to cruise around with you, Wheeler.” If his overwhelming masculinity disturbed her this much in a spacious office, how much more potent would it be in a tiny car?

      “Then we should go.”

      Without waiting for further argument, he led her out a back entrance to a sleek, winter-white, four-door Mercedes and opened the passenger door before she could do it. To make a point, obviously, that he called the shots.

      She sank into the creamy leather and fumed. Lucas Wheeler was proving surprisingly difficult to maneuver, and a husband she couldn’t run rings around had not been part of the plan. According to all the society articles she’d read, he only cared about the next gorgeous, sophisticated woman and the next party, presumably because he wasn’t overly ambitious or even very bright.

      Okay, the articles hadn’t said that. She’d made presumptions, perhaps without all the facts.

      He started the car and pulled out of the lot. Once on the street, he gradually sped up to a snail’s pace. She sat on her hands so she couldn’t fiddle with a hem. When that failed, she bit alternate cheeks and breathed in new-car smell mixed with leather conditioner and whatever Lucas wore that evoked a sharp, clean pine forest.

      She couldn’t stand it a second longer. “Madre de Dios, Wheeler. You drive like my grandfather. Are we going to get there before midnight?”

      That drawn-out, dangerous smile flashed into place. “Well, now, darlin’, what’s your hurry? Half the fun is getting there and the pleasures to be had along the way, don’t you think?”

      The vibe spilling off him said they weren’t talking about driving at all. The car shrank, and it had already been too small for both her and the sex machine in the driver’s seat.

      Slouching down, she crossed her arms over the slow burn kicking up in her abdomen. Totally against her will, she pictured Lucas doing all sorts of things excruciatingly slowly.

      How did he do that? She’d have sworn her man repellant was foolproof. It had worked often enough in the past to keep her out of trouble. “No. I don’t think. The fun is all in the end goal. Can’t get to the next step unless you complete the one before. Taking your time holds that up.”

      Lucas shook his head. “No wonder you’re so uptight. You don’t relax enough.”

      “I relax, women suffer. Where are we going? And what does all this have to do with me changing my name? Which I am not going to do, by the way, regardless of whatever it is we’re going to see.”

      He fell quiet for a long moment, and she suspected it wasn’t the last time she’d squirm with impatience until he made his move. Their whole relationship was going to be an unending chess match, and she’d left her pawns at home.

      “Why don’t we listen to the radio?” he said out of nowhere. “Pick a station.”

      “I don’t want to listen to the radio.” And if she kept snapping at him, he’d know exactly how far under her skin he’d gotten. She had to do better than this.

      “I’ll pick one, then,” he said in that amiable tone designed to fool everyone into thinking he couldn’t pour water out of a boot with instructions printed on the heel. Not her, though. She was catching on quick.

      George Strait wailed from the high-end speakers and smothered her with a big ol’ down-home layer of twangy guitars. “Are you trying to put me to sleep?”

      With a fingertip, she hit the button on the radio until she found a station playing Christina Aguilera.

      “Oh, much better,” Lucas said sarcastically and flipped off the music to drop them into blessed silence. Then he ruined it by talking. “Forget I mentioned the radio. So we’ll have a quiet household. We’re here.”

      “We are?” Cia glanced out the window. Lucas had parked in the long, curving driveway of an impressive house on a more impressive plot of painstakingly landscaped property. The French design of the house fit the exclusive neighborhood but managed to be unique, as well. “Where is here?”

      “Highland Park. More specifically, our house in Highland Park,” he said.

      “You picked out a house? Already? Why do we need a house? What’s wrong with you moving in with me?” A house was too real, too … homey.

      Worse, the two-story brick house was beautiful, with elegant stone accents and gas coach lights flanking the arched entryway. Not only did Lucas have more than a couple of working brain cells, he also had amazing taste.

      “This place is available now, it’s close to the office and I like it. If this fake marriage is going to work, we can’t act like it’s fake. Everyone would wonder why we didn’t want to start our lives together someplace new.”

      “No one is going to wonder that.” Is that what normal