Body Double (36 page)

“Go away, Blake.”

He pulled the folded paper out of his back pocket and tossed it onto the counter. “We need to talk.”

“What’s that?”

“I amended the prenuptial agreement before we got married. Read it.”

She picked it up and unfolded it. “Why would you amend the prenup? We agreed on everything.”

“You neglected to tell me you were planning to divorce me. I wanted to sweeten the pot.”

She moved the paper closer to her face and then farther away until she found the right distance from her squinting eyes, but then she set the paper aside. “I’m tired from traveling and trying to get drunk. What does it say?”

Blake picked it up. “It says that if you stay in the marriage, I’ll donate five million dollars to The Lighthouse every year on our wedding anniversary for five years. If you stay for for ten years, I won’t ask for my half of that fifty-million-dollar wedding gift.”

“You don’t get half of that.”

“Ah, but I do. It’s a marital asset, received after our marriage was recorded.”

Sarah drained her drink and went to the minibar to pour another. “So you’re basically paying me five million per year to stay married to you.” She lifted the decanter to him with raised brows, asking silently if he wanted one. He shook his head and held up one hand. “Ten years is a long time.”

“By then, we might have a couple kids.”

“Ha!” she said, taking her seat again and bringing the decanter with her. “You’re assuming I’d sleep with you.”

“You don’t think I’d pay that kind of money simply to have my name on a legal document,” he said. “There is a catch. You won’t be able to take a lover, even if we’re separated. You have to stay faithful for the entire ten years.”

“What?” Her green eyes glowed like miniature emerald suns. “You can’t do that.”

“We already did. Andrea thought it was fair, and so she signed it on your behalf.”

“All this time, you’ve been screwing her, and you tell me I can’t take a lover? How is that fair?”

“It isn’t. The no-lover clause began when we got back from the honeymoon, which was the original agreement you had with Andrea. We haven’t had sex since then.”

She punched him in the shoulder but not hard enough to hurt. “I have a girlfriend, you asshole.”

“It’s too late now. We’re married. You’re going to have to dump her.”

“You bastard!” she screeched, launching herself at him with her fingers hooked into claws. He reacted quickly by grabbing her wrists and turning them aside, leaving her helplessly seated on the stool with both arms pinned to the counter top. She kicked him in the shin, but she was barefoot, so she hurt herself more than she hurt him.

“Sarah, calm down. You’re the one who gave her power of attorney. Besides, your father won’t give you the fifty million until the marriage is completed.”

She stilled. “What do you mean?”

Blake eased up on her wrists, hoping that she wouldn’t attack him again. “The marriage isn’t completed until it’s consummated. That’s not something Andrea could do for you.”

“Shit.”

He shot her a grim look. “You’re so good for my self-esteem.”

She glared at him for a moment, and then said, “All right. Let’s do it, then. You want to screw me over so badly, now’s your chance.” She tossed back her drink, breathed out loudly, clenched her eyes shut for a moment, and then slammed the empty glass on the counter. “Whoo.”

“Listen, Sarah. We’re at a crossroads here, and we’re in a great position to go our separate ways with minimal fuss.”

She cast him a curious but sharp glance. “Sounds like you’ve changed your mind about the notion of getting a divorce.”

“Your dad convinced me. He made a suggestion that will solve our problems.”

“What problems are those?” she asked drily as she poured herself another drink.

“We’re in a marriage neither of us wants. Harold suggested I file for an annulment and avoid a divorce.”

“On what grounds? We married for business instead of love?”

“On the grounds that you refuse to consummate the marriage.”

She sipped her scotch and considered him thoughtfully. “And that was my father’s idea?”

“Yep. Ingenious, if you ask me.”

She pursed her lips and tapped one fingernail against the cocktail glass. “No.”

Blake scowled, not understanding why she would object. “No? Why not? Sarah, it’s perfect. With an annulment, we wouldn’t have to figure out who owes who what. You wouldn’t have to give me half of that fifty million bucks your dad promised you. It’d be like the marriage never happened.”

“And then you can be with Andrea.”

“Yeah, so? Why do you care?”

She turned in her chair to face him fully. “Are you freaking kidding me? After what she did to me?” Though she more resembled the photos of Anna Gentry he’d seen, he could see her father in her too. As much as she claimed to despise him, she was acting just like him, and she probably had no idea she was doing it.

“I know you’re pissed about the hospital, and we both wished we’d been the ones to tell you instead of Richard. What Andrea did, she did out of love and caring for you and your dad. She didn’t have all the information, and she had to use her own judgment and experiences. If that had been my dad, I’d feel grateful.”

“Well, it wasn’t your dad. She shouldn’t have intruded.”

Blake felt irritation heat his tongue. “Maybe, but what’s done is done. We could hammer it to death, but I doubt it’ll make you feel any better, and it certainly won’t change anything.” When Sarah said nothing, he continued. “Do you think she sat around thinking up ways to piss you off? Oh I know, I’ll try to mend her relationship with her dad. That’ll get her so mad, she’ll stay in the marriage with Blake just to spite me.” As the words came out of his mouth, he heard the ghost of Andrea’s voice calling him passive-aggressive. He took a breath and counted down from five. That wasn’t how he wanted to be. He wanted to be more direct, more honest. Like Andrea.

“Let me see if I got this straight. If I go through with... it, I get my fifty million?”

“
We
get the fifty million, and you split it with me when we divorce.”

“If we get an annulment, I get nothing.”

Blake shrugged. He didn’t see it that way. If they got the annulment, they all won. “There’s still the matter of your dad’s will.”

“He wrote me out of it years ago. This marriage to you is my ticket.”

“Is money more important to you than living true to yourself?”

“The Lighthouse is more important to me than anything, Blake. Anything. And if I have to lay on my back under you to keep it running, then that’s what I’ll do.”

Then he understood that The Lighthouse was to Sarah what Blake’s mom was to him. Family.

She drained her glass and set it firmly on the counter. “Let’s go, baby. Upstairs.” She grabbed his hand and tugged, trying to get him to stand up and follow her.

Blake didn’t want this. He didn’t want her, but going upstairs with her was the only way to make his point. She might pretend to be willing, but at the last minute, she would come to her senses and pull the plug. In fact, he counted on it. Then she would see reason. Then she would agree to the annulment. “All right.” He stood and let her lead him down the hallway and up the stairs. The alcohol was already starting to affect her, and she stumbled on a couple of the steps, cursing under her breath.

“If we’re going to do this, let’s do it right.” He pulled her to a stop and then picked her up in his arms.

She gasped at first and then giggled as she flung her arms around his neck. “Ooh. Studly Do-right. I think Roxanne needs to work out more.”

“Who’s Roxanne?” Blake asked, and immediately regretted it. Sarah’s lover, the one he suspected she’d been seeing all the time they were engaged. And he thought she’d been seeing a guy.

“Rooooox-anne,” Sarah sang, trying to emulate Sting’s voice. “She hates it when I sing that song.”

He reached the top landing and turned down the hallway to the master bedroom. “I’ll bet she’d hate to know what we’re about to do.”

Sarah’s smile fell. “Leave her out of this. Put me down.”

He set her down, and she brushed the hair away from her face before walking the rest of the way to the bedroom. She flung open the double doors so hard, they banged against the walls and bounced back. Blake caught them and closed them gently. When he turned around, Sarah was lying on her back spread-eagled, still fully clothed in navy slacks and a white high-necked blouse.

“Okay, get it over with.”

He gave her a crooked smile as he moved to the foot of the bed. “That’s not how this is going to go down, darling.” He knelt on the bed and began to caress her foot and ankle, sliding his hand up her calf under her trouser leg. “Do you want to take the pants off, or shall I?”

She started to pull her leg away, but he stopped her with an “ah-ah-ahh.” He wasn’t any more comfortable with this than she was, but she was forcing his hand. “This is what you wanted, remember? We could solve this problem by agreeing to an annulment, but no. You want to make love.”

“I want to consummate. That’s different.” She lay perfectly still, watching him with eyes filled with trepidation. “Fine.” She rolled off the bed to the side, unfastened her trousers, and let them fall, leaving her in light blue thong panties and the blouse. She resumed her position and squeezed her eyes shut.

He crawled up the bed to lay next to her. Though she was a beautiful woman, she no longer looked like Andrea to him. She didn’t have Andrea’s warmth in her eyes, the coy smile, or the slightly crooked tooth in front that he found so endearing. She didn’t have Andrea’s perfect chin or her adorable nose, and those were certainly not Andrea’s sensual lips. The more he looked at Sarah, the more she resembled a poor imitation of the woman who was, in his heart, his real wife. He slid his hand across her flat abdomen to her waist and down to her hip as he settled onto his side, leaning partly over her. Part of him wanted nothing more than to pull his hand away. It felt like cheating, though she was technically his wife.

She flinched away from his touch and pinched her lips tightly together. Never had a woman responded to him this way, not even when he was a bumbling fourteen-year-old trying to get close to fifteen-year-old Maria Delgado at the school dance. She was obviously no more comfortable than he was.

“Sarah, look at me.” When she didn’t react, he decided to try humor. He said in a mock-Schwarzenegger voice, “I am the consummator.”

Despite her best effort to keep from smiling, she stifled a chuckle, but she didn’t open her eyes.

He kissed her lips, wishing they were Andrea’s soft ones that yielded under his, but instead they were rigid. He tempted her to part them by running his tongue along the crease, but she stiffened even more.

She turned her face aside. “Stop. Your face is prickly.”

He moved his lips down to her chin, trailing kisses along her jawline to her earlobe while he explored her hip and thigh with his hand. Not only was Sarah not reacting to him, his own body was unengaged. If he couldn’t get a woody, he wasn’t going to convince her of the impending reality of this situation. He shut his eyes and thought of Andrea, feeling the warm skin of her thigh and hip, the slightly salty taste of her neck, and pretended her coldness was a game she was playing. Still, nothing was happening for him. Maybe skin against skin would help. “I’ll be back,” he said in his Schwarzenegger voice.

Blake climbed to his knees on the bed to strip off his shirt and unfasten his belt and jeans. Once he had them down around his knees, he flipped onto his back, pushed them the rest of the way off, and kicked them to the floor. Being on the bed in his underwear, with her in that skimpy panty, he felt the mild warmth of arousal. “There. Now we’re getting somewhere.” He took his place again and continued kissing her neck, while he slid his hand up under her blouse toward her breast.

She pushed his hand away. “Don’t touch me there. Just get on with it.”

“We’re going to need this to come off.” He slid one finger under the elastic side of her thong, encouraging her to lift her hips so he could pull it off, but she pushed his hand away once more.

“Just move the crotch aside. You can get to it like that.”

“You’re kidding, right?” he asked, gaping at her.

“No,” she said with a dim smile. “If you’re going to consummate this marriage, that’s how you have to do it.”

“With your clothes on,” he said in a tone of disbelief.

She smiled at him triumphantly. “Uh huh.” He could still smell the scotch on her breath.

“You want our first time to be like this?”

He saw hesitation in her eyes, but that quickly gave way to determination. “Get used to it, baby. This is your life now.”

“Fine.” He moved her legs apart and knelt between them. What little swelling he’d started to feel had dissipated, but he was a man on a mission now. He yanked down his underwear and started tugging on his penis, staring at Sarah’s body. She had a lovely figure, if on the thin side, and that was what he focused his mind on. Not her coldness, not her lack of desire for him, but her beautiful shape and smooth skin like he would a photoshopped centerfold in a girly magazine. He studied the curve of her hips, the shape of her thighs, and the mound between her legs while he stroked his penis erect. He wasn’t as hard as he got with Andrea, but he could get the job done if he had to. He ripped open a condom wrapper, hoping to hell she would stop him before he had to admit to the bluff. “Got any lube? I don’t want to hurt you.”

Sarah’s gaze fell to his erection. The sober expression of terror on her face reflected her understanding, finally, that she was about to commit herself completely to a man she didn’t love, and all because she was being stubborn and vengeful. “Blake, wait. I’ve changed my mind. We can get an annulment if that’s what you want.”

He paused rolling on the condom to look her in the eye. “Is that what
you
want? Or do you want this?” He wagged his stiff penis at her. “The choice is yours, Sarah. I married you in good faith, and you’ve been nothing but deceitful, cold, and hardheaded. Just like your father.”