Her Convenient Millionaire (8 page)

“Do you want to go with him?” Mike asked.

“No. I want him to leave me alone.” Sherry tried and failed to pull her arm free.

“I'm your father. You're coming home with me.”

Sherry pried at his fingers. “No, I'm not.”

“Sir, you'll have to let her go.” Mike kept his voice calm, though he could feel his own temper flaring, threatening to burn through his control.

A small crowd was beginning to gather, remaining at a distance, cautious but curious. Mike didn't know yet if it would be to their advantage or not. Probably it was.

“Your daughter is obviously over eighteen.” Mike spoke loudly enough for his words to carry. “You can't force her to leave.”

“Mind your own damn business.” Nyland tried a feint-left-run-right maneuver to get past Mike, but failed to factor Sherry into the move. He jerked her off balance, making her cry out. She was falling to the sidewalk face-first when Mike caught her.

He tried to set her down, but Nyland still had hold of her arm, pulling at her as if she were a wishbone and he'd pull her in two if he had to. Mike kept her wrapped tightly in his arms.

“Do you know who I am?” Nyland trotted out the standard Palm Beach resident line. Every one of them thought
their money granted them special treatment. Not in this case. Mike had as much money as Nyland, or more, even if nobody knew it. “I can break you down to nothing.”

“Not if you're breaking the law. This is kidnapping. Let her go.” Mike leveled his gaze at the sweating man. “Now.”

Nyland let go. He looked shocked that he'd obeyed the order and reached for Sherry as if to reclaim his prize, but Mike had her safely behind him now.

“You'd better leave,” Mike said. “Go home.”

“Not without my daughter.”

“I'm not going anywhere with you, Tug.” Sherry started to step out to the side, but Mike's raised finger kept her where she was.

“Leave,” he repeated. The other man's obstinacy was beginning to seriously annoy him.

Nyland swore. “This isn't the end, Sherry. You're going to marry Greeley.”

“No, she isn't.” Mike spoke before Sherry could.

“What business is it of yours? Why should you care who she marries?”

Mike had an explanation ready. About how this was the twentieth century and people had rights. About how Sherry worked for him, and he wouldn't let anyone cause trouble at his place of business. About how he would get a restraining order to keep Nyland from coming within a hundred yards of the club. But that wasn't what happened.

What he said was, “Because she's already married to me.”

The stunned silence that followed encompassed all three of them. Mike shook his head, trying to clear it. What had he just said? More to the point, why in hell had he said it? When, exactly, had he lost his mind?

At least he recovered it first. To the applause of the crowd that had gathered, most of them from inside his club,
he swept Sherry up in his arms since she didn't seem too steady on her feet, and walked away, leaving Tug Nyland sputtering.

He spotted Bruno among the crowd. Great, now gossip would really spread. He headed for the alley. He was not walking back inside the club carrying the woman he'd just announced to the world was his wife. His car was parked out back. Escape sounded like a good plan.

“Mike?” Sherry spoke when he reached the corner of the alley. “You can put me down now. I can walk.”

He glanced at her, her face entirely too close to his, shrugged and set her down. When she stumbled, her knees buckling, he picked her back up. Maybe he hadn't found his mind yet after all. He had his body working okay, but his thoughts still seemed to be frozen in shock.

“Mike?” Sherry looped her arms around his neck as he turned. “We're not married.”

“I know.”

“So why did you tell Tug we were?”

“Hell if I know.” He reached his car and tried setting her down again. This time she was a little steadier, maybe because she had the car to hold on to. He unlocked the door and opened it for her. When he got in behind the wheel, she was waiting.

“So what are we going to do now?” she asked.

“I guess we're going to get married.” He started the car and pulled out of the lot, trying to force his brain to think where he needed to go in order to do what he needed to do.

“Why? You don't want to marry me.”

He sighed. He wasn't up to a lot of conversation right now. He'd just fried his brain with shock.

“Mike?”

But it looked as if he was going to have to make the effort. “I don't want to make a liar out of myself. If we
get married, you can't marry the Geek because you're already married to me. That makes what I said true.” He hoped that would satisfy her.

Apparently not. “Is that the only reason?” she asked.

“He made me mad,” Mike admitted. “He had no business putting his hands on you like that. You were right. He won't give up until he either gets his way, or he understands that what he wants isn't going to happen, no matter what he does.”

“Maybe we don't have to actually go through with it. You told him we were married. Maybe that's enough.”

Mike shot a glance toward her. She sounded nervous, timid even. That wasn't the Sherry he knew.

“Do you think he won't check the records?” He wasn't about to push her. If she wanted to back out, fine. This was her plan.

She chewed at a thumbnail briefly before hiding her thumb inside her fist. “No. He'd check. He would assume you're lying. He lies so much, he thinks everybody else does, too.”

“Then we'll make it fact. No problem.”

“Are you sure?” Sherry turned her china-blue gaze on him, and he had to look away.

He couldn't make this personal. She needed his name, his protection, nothing more. He could feel sorry for her, feel protective, but other feelings were not allowed. No possessiveness, no passion and, most especially, no tenderness. This would be hard enough as it was, because he already liked her. It was a steep, slippery slope from there to being in over his head.

“Just so we understand each other,” he said in self-defense. “This is strictly business. We'll get married long enough to make your pop back off. Till you get your money. Then it's over. Got it?”

“Gotten.” Sherry nodded.

“No kissing. No sex. No running around in just a T-shirt. I don't want anything to complicate this. In fact, it would probably be better if you stayed where you are, at Mom's.”

“Okay.”

He sent her a suspicious look. She was certainly agreeable. Maybe too agreeable? Then again, she was getting everything she asked for. She hadn't actually said she
wanted
to have sex with him. She just said it would be okay if he wanted it.

He wanted it so badly his teeth ached with the wanting, not to mention every other body part he possessed. But he couldn't have it. Because it would be too damn hard to give it up when this was over. And it would be over. The minute she got her hands on that trust fund of hers. He couldn't forget that the money came first.

“When?” Sherry asked.

“Just as soon as I can get all the ducks lined up.” Mike pulled into a parking lot and pulled out his cell phone. There had to be somebody he could call tonight. It wasn't that late.

 

The next morning near noon, Sherry got out of Mike's car in front of the Palm Beach County courthouse. He had called a judge who was a regular customer and was willing to cut through the red tape with a speed that made her head spin.

“Sherry!” Juliana ran across the sidewalk and threw her arms around her sister in an exuberant hug. “I couldn't believe it when you called me.”

“I'm not sure I believe it myself.” Sherry let Juliana draw her toward the courthouse entrance, while Mike helped Clara out of the back seat of his car.

“You're getting married!” They had to pause for a
squeal and another hug. “This is so exciting. So…so…
je ne sais quoi.
”

“Impulsive?”

“Yes. And spontaneous. Free-spirited. We always wanted to be free spirits, didn't we? Well, now you are one.” Juliana looped her arm through Sherry's. “Maybe it will rub off. So spill. Who is he? Where did you meet? When did all this happen?”

“We just decided last night.” Sherry felt as if she were wading through a swamp, trying to keep to the more solid ground.

When they had discussed witnesses during the whirlwind wedding preparations, Sherry had asked to invite Juliana. Mike quickly agreed, as long as Juliana was encouraged to believe theirs was a real marriage, so she could help convince Tug to give up on his quest. They had told Clara the truth.

“We met at La Jolie,” Sherry said. “When he was working.”

“He's a bartender?” Juliana's eyes opened wide in shock.

“He does a little of everything. He manages the place.”

Shock melted into a grin. “Won't Tug bust a gut when he finds out what he does?”

Sherry grinned back. “You'll have to take notes and tell me all about it. Come meet him.”

“Oh my, my, my.” Juliana leaned closer, stretching a little to murmur in Sherry's ear as they neared the others. “There is something to be said for the rugged man of action, isn't there?”

Sherry just smiled. Juliana didn't know how right she was. That kiss, the single kiss he'd given her, had curled not only her toes, but her fingers, her eyelashes and all of her internal organs, as well. She would have thought it had curled her hair, too, but when she looked in the mirror the
next day, it had been as straight as always. She could see no external sign that such an earth-shattering, molecule-rearranging kiss had ever occurred.

Every touch, every glance since then had increased the impact, and when he'd carried her in his arms last night, it had been all she could do to keep from kissing that hollow at the base of his throat. If she had, she'd have gone on kissing her way down his body. She didn't know why she was acting this way. She'd never felt these kinds of crazy urges before.

She wasn't a virgin. She'd grown up in Palm Beach, where sex was just another after-school activity. She'd lost her virginity late for this town—at fifteen beside her boyfriend's pool while his parents were away. She'd hoped sex would make him hers, make him love her, but of course it hadn't. At least he'd had a good time. Sherry hadn't, particularly.

She'd had a few other boyfriends since—guys who seemed as if they might be worth the bother of having sex with. None of them were. But with them, she'd never wanted to do any of the things that had been floating through her mind about Micah since that kiss.

Obviously the kiss had not had the same effect on Mike, or he wouldn't have eliminated the possibility of more from this mock marriage they were getting into. Then again, her lame “all right” to sex didn't exactly convey her growing enthusiasm for the idea. That was totally his fault. How could he expect a girl to say anything after she'd been kissed like that?

Quick introductions were made, which included a smile from Mike that made Sherry go weak at the knees, and they formed up for the procession into the courthouse. Clara led the way with Mike's sisters on either side of her, while Mike wheeled the oxygen behind. She hadn't wanted to bring it, but Mike had blackmailed her, threatening not
to let her come, to take his sister Nina as his witness to the wedding instead, unless she agreed to bring the oxygen. And use it. The argument had amused Sherry greatly.

Clara dawdled, moving even slower than she usually did. The explanation came when a delivery boy hurried into the courthouse lobby, carrying a long florist's box.

“Here we are.” Clara's fluttery sleeves flapped like semaphore flags as she waved her arms to get his attention. “Tip the boy, Micah.”

He scowled, reaching into his pocket. The flowers were obviously all Clara's doing. Sherry could tell Mike wanted to complain, but with a glance at Juliana's watching eyes, he held his peace. If they wanted her to believe, flowers would help.

Six cream-colored roses nestled inside the box, each petal edged with deep pink. Their long stems were tied with pink-and-navy ribbons to match Sherry's tired dress. There was even a matching rose for Mike's lapel. Since she hadn't had time to find anything special to wear, the flowers made the event seem a little more special. Which was
not
a good idea.

Despite what they wanted Juliana to believe, this wouldn't be a real marriage. Still, the wedding ceremony itself was real. Sherry supposed that would have to be enough.

The wedding was in the smaller courtroom, the ceremony squeezed in between two divorce hearings. Sherry sometimes thought that marriage and divorce were the primary form of entertainment in Palm Beach. It made her sad to think she would be adding to the statistics; but this make-believe marriage would give her the chance to try again later. In the end she would have the time and space to find—if not true love—at least better-than-average love.

At the moment,
any
love might be nice, as long as she
didn't have to jump through hoops to get it. Whatever love came her way in the future would have to be “as is” love. The kind that loved in spite of everything. She refused to settle for anything less.

T
he ceremony was soon over, the words all spoken, the vows made. Juliana wanted to treat them all to a late lunch at the Mar-al-Lago—Donald Trump's extravaganza of a private club, where he even lived in his own set of rooms—but Mike insisted they go to a nice restaurant just across the bridge, outside of Palm Beach. Sherry didn't see that it mattered, but apparently Mike did. After lunch, Juliana delivered the suitcase she'd packed for Sherry and headed back to Palm Beach. Then Clara announced that she was ready to collect her things and go home.

“Not yet.” Mike opened the back door of his car for her.

“Why not?” Clara glared at him over her oxygen cannula. “You're married now. Sherry's father can't bother her anymore.”

“He can still bother her plenty. You bother Nina, don't you? She's been married for years.”

“You know what I mean.” Clara poked him. “He can't make her marry that other man. The Greek.”

“I don't think he's Greek,” Sherry murmured. “Prussian, maybe.”

Mike ignored her. “But he doesn't know it yet.”

“Well, you did tell him…” Sherry didn't know whether she had any right to participate in this family discussion. She was—technically—married to Mike, but it wasn't like it was a real marriage, was it?

“See?” Clara jumped on Sherry's statement. “He knows. I can come home. I am going to come home.”

Mike turned on Sherry, his eyes hard. “Do you think he believed me? Do you think it will stop him? You know the man better than I do.”

She opened her mouth intending to answer, but Mike stepped closer, right next to her, filling her vision, her senses. He smelled like soap and man in the sun. She couldn't think, forgot everything she meant to say and stood there looking like a landed fish.

“Do you really think my mother will be safe?” He lowered his voice to an intimate caress. “Honestly?”

Sherry shivered, the sun's warmth suddenly not enough. “No,” she whispered.

“Then tell her that.” Mike backed away, and Florida returned.

“Give it a little more time,” Sherry said. “Tug is stubborn. He won't give up until he's convinced beyond any doubt. You don't have to worry about your things. I'll be staying in your—”

“Oh no, you won't.” Clara interrupted with a slash of her hand, edging forward till she was in the space Mike had just evacuated. “You are married to my son and you are going to live in his house.”

“Mom, we explained—”

She cut Mike off with another wave. “I don't care what
you explained. Marriage is marriage. Besides, how are you going to convince this Tug person—what kind of name is Tug anyway? Makes him sound like a boat, not a human being.”

Sherry laughed, hoping to lighten the atmosphere. “If you'd ever seen him under full steam, you'd know that he looks more like a boat.”

“You can't make him believe you're really married if you're not living together.” Clara finished her statement. “You couldn't possibly expect him to believe it.”

Sherry looked at Mike and found him looking back, his expression resigned. “She's right,” she said.

“I know.” He took a deep breath and let it out. “Okay. We'll move you back to my place. And, Mom, you're going back to Nina's. No arguments.”

Clara deflated, looking sour. “Oh, fine. No arguments. But that doesn't mean no grumbling.”

“If you ever stopped grumbling, I'd have to rush you to the hospital to make sure you were still alive.” Mike took her arm and, finally, assisted her into the car.

 

“I'm not staying here forever, either,” his mother announced when Mike pulled into his sister's drive. “Two days.”

“Two weeks.” He thought he could make sure Nyland knew he'd lost in that length of time.

“One.”

“Two.” He had to hold firm. Mom didn't negotiate. She battered the other side into capitulation the instant she found the smallest crack in their armor.

“I'll take it under consideration,” she said huffily. “I love my grandchildren, but truthfully, teenagers are exhausting.”

Sherry opened her door and Clara leaned forward to
touch her shoulder. “Micah can walk me in, dear. I'd like a few minutes for a little mother-son talk.”

“I already know about sex, Mom.” Mike rolled his eyes.

“You might think you know all about sex, Micah Thomas, but you do not know everything.” She latched on to his wrist with an iron grip, not weaker than the one he remembered in childhood, and let him lift her out of the car. The oxygen followed.

Clara pulled the cannula out now and flung it at the tank. Mike let her. It would make the trip up to the front door take twice as long, but she'd done as he'd asked on the wedding expedition, so he wouldn't complain. He would even listen to what she had to say.

“Micah, I want you to promise me that you will do your best with this marriage.”

“Mom, it's not like—”

“Don't tell me what it's not. I'll tell you what it
is.
You're married to that girl. Married. You wouldn't have done it if you didn't like her. Maybe even more than like her.”

He shook his head. Why didn't she understand? “Okay, maybe I do like her. But that's not enough. I want what you and Dad had. I won't settle for less.”

“Do you see me asking you to?”

“Yes.”

She made an exasperated noise in the back of her throat. “I'm not telling you to settle. I'm telling you to give it a chance. You'll never find what you want if you don't take any risks. Stop playing it safe. Give Sherry a chance.”

“She's from Palm Beach. She grew up there. She has a twenty-million-dollar trust fund she's getting in a few months. You know what those people are like. Selfish to the bone.”

“I know what Babs was like—or Bitsy or Buffy or what
ever the hell the woman's name was. But she's only one person. They can't all be like that.”

“Only one pers—” He broke off, shaking his head in wonder. “Look at Sherry's dad. He's worse than Blair ever thought about being. I can name two dozen people, without even thinking hard, who are
exactly
like that. I know them, Mom. I deal with them every day.”

“Okay, so there's two dozen of them. How many people live in Palm Beach? Ten thousand? That's a lot of lumping Micah, to lump them all in the same pile. What about Sherry's sister? She seemed awfully nice.”

“
Seemed.
You don't
know.
”

“Well, neither do you.” His mother stopped at the bottom of the step to Nina's wide sunny front deck and glared up at him. He couldn't prevent the little quiver of fear he felt deep inside him at the fire in her eyes.

“Micah Thomas Scott, I swear if you do not stop feeling sorry for yourself and get down off your snobbish high horse and
try
to make this marriage work, not only will I make the rest of your life miserable, I will get your father to come back and help me haunt you.”

He laughed. Big mistake. Mom stabbed her long narrow finger hard into his stomach. He wasn't ready, though he should have been, and it felt as if she'd poked a hole clear through his liver.

“And I'll get Noble to move me back into my apartment this afternoon.” She followed up her first threat with a more deadly one, one Mike knew she would carry out. His teenaged nephew was a pushover when it came to his grammy.

“Okay, okay. I'll try. But don't blame me when Sherry hightails it out of our lives the minute she gets her money.”

“I most certainly will blame you if I think for one second you pushed her there. I understand why you're keeping quiet about the real state of your finances when you've got
thirty million of your own and more rolling in every day, but this pity party of yours has to end, Micah.”

What pity party?
Exercising a little caution didn't mean he was feeling sorry for himself. “I said I'd try, Mom. Okay? What else do you want from me?” He tried to move her onto the deck, and after some initial resistance finally succeeded.

“I want you to do it,” she said. “Not just say it. I know you, Micah. All your life you've said this and said that and then done what you damn well pleased.”

“Don't swear, Mom.”

“Why not? You do it. Promise me, Micah.”

“It doesn't sound right coming out of your mouth. And I promise.”

She turned back at the front door and gave him a hard look.

“I promise,” he repeated, holding up his right hand.

After another long hard stare, her expression softened and she patted his arm. “You're a good boy, Micah. Sometimes.”

Mike opened the door and set the oxygen inside, turning escort duty over to his nephew who was waiting patiently.

“Don't forget what you promised.” She got one last instruction in before the door closed and he turned to walk back to the car and his waiting bride.

His bride.

He had always expected to say those words some day, had even once known who she would be. Or he thought he had. Until she had made it apparent that she wasn't marrying him, just his bank account. A few years had gone down the road since then, years in which he hadn't been looking for a replacement. But that didn't mean he'd spent his time wallowing in self-pity.

Nor did it mean that Sherry was Ms. Right, no matter how much his mom might want her to be. In fact, Mike
was ninety-nine-point-nine percent sure she was Ms. Wrong.

He had promised his mother he would try to make this marriage work. That meant fitting Sherry into his lifestyle. Not exactly the sort of lifestyle set by those who'd never had to work for their money. He would immerse her in it, and she would be running scared well before her trust-fund birthday in August.

Sherry Nyland, temporarily Sherry Scott, would never fit into his world, just as he would never fit into hers. Proving it would be easy, and he could keep his promise while he did.

 

The sun was bright and almost-summer hot when they reached the building where Mike and his mother lived. Sherry deliberately did not think “home,” no matter how easy it was. This wasn't her home. Would never be. The silent ride back from Mike's sister's house had made that abundantly clear. And that was the way she wanted it.

She got out of the car without waiting for Mike to open the door. Although he beat her to the door to the lobby, she got to the elevator first and punched the call button. The little competition made her want to smile, but Mike's semiscowl stifled the temptation. What did he really think about this?

When they got off on the eighth floor, two not-quite-teenage girls in neon-bright swimsuits and flowered flip-flops stood waiting for the elevator. As Mike held the elevator door open for them, the skinny blond girl of the pair leaped back toward the corner of the hallway.

“Come on, Mom!” she shouted. “The elevator's here. You are so slow.”

“I'm coming, I'm coming. Keep your pants on.”

Seconds later, two women in swimsuits and cover-ups rounded the turn. The younger of the two was obviously
the blond girl's mother, given her harassed expression, the towels overflowing her beach bag and the tube of sunscreen she held out insistently. “Use it. I'm not listening to you whine about sunburn.”

The girl rolled her eyes, but took the sunscreen.

“Well, hello, Michael,” the mother said, ogling him up and down, when she noticed Mike standing there.

Sherry took comfort from the fact that the woman obviously did not know him well enough to know his name wasn't Michael. She took no comfort at all, however, from the twinge of jealousy that caused the original comfort.

“Don't you look fabulous,” the woman went on. “Where have you been so early, all dressed up?”

The woman took advantage of Mike's kindness in holding the elevator to straighten a lapel on his suit that didn't need straightening. Her daughter rolled her eyes. The other woman hid a smile, while the second girl, plump and dark-haired, looked confused. Sherry tried not to seethe, without much success.

“I got married this morning,” he said.

The two women and blond girl stared, mouths dropping open in shock. The other girl still looked confused, but she took over the elevator-door-holding job when asked.

Mike grinned and put his arm around Sherry's waist, pulling her tight against him. She thought he was enjoying this entirely too much. Come to think of it, though, she didn't exactly object to being pressed tight to all those muscles of his.

He indicated first to the older woman, then the younger, then the girls as he introduced them, “Donna, Lanita, Katie—and I don't know you, Miss—”

“Tracy,” the door-holder whispered.

“Tracy,” he repeated with a smile that made the girl sigh. “Ladies, this is my wife, Sherry Scott. Sherry, these
ladies are our neighbors. Donna is in 806, and Lanita and Katie live in 808.”

Sherry smiled and waved, but had time for nothing more. She squeaked as Mike swept her up in his arms and carried her toward the front door of his apartment.

“Talk to you ladies later,” he said, and they were inside, the door closing behind them.

Immediately his grin vanished. He deposited her in the middle of the living room and walked into the kitchen without speaking.

Sherry swayed a moment until she found her balance, overwhelmed by the strong arms she could somehow still feel around her, beneath her, holding her up. “What was that?”

“Can't convince your dad unless we convince the neighbors, can we?” he said. “Want a beer?”

“No, thanks.” Did that mean carrying her was such a traumatic experience that he needed a drink when it was over? She didn't know. Her head still spun from his rapid-fire mood swings. Only his mood wasn't really swinging. He was just acting.