Lady Be Good (38 page)

“There aren’t that many,” she said glumly.

The corner of his mouth curled. “We’ll work it out.”

Half an hour later she was standing under the shower in the spacious marbled bathroom of their hotel suite. The door slid open behind her and two suntanned arms encircled her waist. She leaned her head back against his chest. “Oh, Kenny, we should never have done this.”

“I don’t see what the big damn deal is, especially since you already told me you loved me.”

“Marriage bloody well is a big damn deal!”

“Don’t cuss. Profanity just isn’t effective with a British accent.” He nuzzled her ear. “Even if you all of a sudden let loose with the Big One, it’d still sound like something you could say from the pulpit.”

She sighed. What was she going to do with him?

“Wash my back, will you?”

She soaped the washcloth, slipped behind him, and began stroking it over his shoulders. Slowly, she moved lower, to his waist, his buttocks, his thighs. “You have to be faithful,” she said. “As long as we’re married, you have to be faithful.”

He took the soap from her and replied softly, “I’m not the one who tried to buy herself a gigolo.”

“Still . . .”

He dipped his head and kissed her. She kissed him back—loved the feel of his mouth, loved the slide of his tongue, the scratch of his whiskers—but, even so, her kiss turned into a yawn.

He drew back. “I think this’d better wait until you’ve had a good night’s sleep.”

“Rubbish.” She could see what his consideration was costing him, and she mustered herself. “The only reason I yawned was that I didn’t sleep much last night either, and it’s late, and—Go ahead. Really. It’s fine.”

He lifted one eyebrow, turned her around, and began washing her in an impersonal fashion, as if he were taking care not to arouse either one of them. But it definitely wasn’t working for him, and as his finger accidentally brushed one of her nipples, she realized it wasn’t working for her either. She rubbed her soapy back against his front.

“Emma . . .” His voice held a husky, warning note.

She pulled his head under the shower and kissed him.

He took her right there in the shower, holding her against the wall, her thighs locked around his waist. Afterward, as they lay in bed together, their bodies were so closely entwined it was hard to decide where one of them began and the other left off. But as exhausted as she was, she didn’t fall asleep immediately.

As she listened to the deep sound of his breathing, she tried to absorb the fact that this man was her husband. She knew she loved him, and she certainly desired him, but that travesty of a marriage ceremony had given her no real connection to him. Where was the feeling of attachment she’d been searching for all her life? Despite Kenny’s ardent lovemaking and apparent fondness for her, he didn’t truly love her, and pretending anything else was too self-indulgent to even contemplate. Her relationship with him felt as transitory as those temporary bonds she’d had with teachers and friends, as fragile as her relationship with parents who were all too eager to forget they had a daughter.

If only she had some idea what he was truly feeling, it might be easier, but he remained as closed off from her as a locked door.

The next morning she awakened to the sound of him speaking quietly on the telephone in the suite’s adjoining living room. “I’m not going to talk about it, Shelby. And I’m not telling you where we’re staying, either. Now come on. Just put him on the phone.”

There was a pause before Kenny spoke again. This time his voice was pitched higher. “Hey, Petie. It’s Kenny. Listen, buddy, I didn’t mean to disappear on you. I’ll be back soon, and we’ll go swimming, okay? Swimming. You and me.”

Emma smiled to herself. This was the side of Kenny she loved the most.

Another pause, then his pitch deepened, so she knew Shelby had come back on. “If you know which hotel we’re in, you’ll somehow let it slip, and then the press’ll be all over me.” Another pause, then he said dryly, “Yeah, it was a real romantic ceremony. Uh-huh. I’ll tell her.”

He appeared in the doorway, his hair still rumpled and his stubble approaching the pirate stage. “Shelby says hi.”

Knowing Shelby, Emma imagined the message was much longer than that, but she didn’t question him.

They spent the next few hours in bed with Kenny directing the action, as always, but being so sublimely attentive to her needs that she couldn’t complain. Finally, they wrapped themselves in hotel bathrobes and ate a room service breakfast. Several times she tried to get him to talk about the enormity of what they’d done, but he shrugged it off as if they’d committed themselves to nothing more complex than a Saturday night date. Sex seemed to be the only connection he wanted to have with her, and the knot in her stomach grew tighter.

After they’d finished eating, they went out to buy a change of clothes for each of them. Kenny tried to disguise himself in a pair of trendy sunglasses and his Dean Witter cap, but several people in the store still recognized him and wanted to talk about what had happened. He dismissed their questions by acting as if he didn’t understand them.

Eventually, they found some anonymity by mingling with the tourists walking along the Strip. Although Emma’d seen photographs of Las Vegas, the reality of this resort built in the desert was far different. She found it fascinating from an anthropological standpoint, but not exactly to her taste, and Kenny seemed to read her mind. “Come on. I’ll show you a place I know you’ll like.”

“Where?”

“You’ll see.”

Less than an hour later, they were looking out over Hoover Dam. The sheer size of the structure took her breath away.

“I know you have lots of cool castles and awesome cathedrals and things like that back in England,” he said. “Not to mention some great golf courses. But you’ve got to admit this really kicks ass.”

His boyish enthusiasm made her laugh. “It certainly does.”

He gave her a squeeze, then gently brushed a tendril from her cheek. She wondered if the tender expression on his face was a trick of the light.

“Sweetheart, I know you’re itching to sit down and analyze this thing to death. Make a big list, fill out a whole bunch of
Cosmo
compatability quizzes, discuss short-term objectives and long-term goals, and who knows what else. But could you just let it go for now? Could we take it easy? Have a good time and see how things work out?”

As she gazed up into those marsh violet eyes with their fringe of spiky black lashes, she reminded herself that this was a man who’d made laziness his life’s goal. Or at least the appearance of laziness. Kenny didn’t want anyone ever to know he worked hard at anything. And apparently he had no intention of working hard at this. Or did he? In so many ways, he was still a mystery to her. She didn’t believe life’s important issues could simply be ignored, but she also knew she couldn’t make him talk about it. What he was asking was wrong, but this might be the only way he knew to cope.

And maybe she didn’t want to talk about it, either. The notion startled her. She was a person who’d always confronted problems head-on, but did she really want to hear him spell out the fact that he liked her, but didn’t love her? Did she really want to hear him say that he had no intention of taking this marriage seriously, that he’d been upset and sleep-deprived when he’d gone into it, and that he regretted the whole thing?

She was ashamed of her cowardice, and she gazed across Lake Mead toward a pair of sailboats. “All right, Kenny. Just for now.”

He smiled down at her. “Have I ever told you that you’re one terrific lady?”

“No. Just that I’m bossy.”

“One thing doesn’t necessarily cancel out the other.”

“You’re mad, do you know that? A complete madman.” As she smiled at him, her own words triggered a fragment of memory from the morning before, and she heard Hugh’s voice exactly the way it had sounded when she’d marched into his hotel room.

He’s a madman! If I’d known he was insane when I spoke with him that first time . . .

A funny prickling ran along her arms. This was what had been bothering her yesterday. What had Hugh meant when he’d said that? The
first time
implied there had been other times. But as far Emma knew, the men had only met once, in Shelby and Warren Traveler’s living room. Still, why would Hugh have said something like that if they’d only met once? Why would he have—

She let out an audible gasp as it all became clear to her.

“You bastard!”

“Wh—”

She slammed her purse into his thigh. Anger swirled around her and she found herself running. But there was nowhere to go, and this time she couldn’t commandeer his car since the keys were tucked safely in his pocket.

She raced blindly toward a Gray Line tour bus and pounded on the door to awaken the driver who snoozed at the wheel. “Let me in!”

“Emma! For Pete’s sake, what—”

The driver swung open the door, and she rushed up the steps. “Shut the door immediately. And whatever you do, don’t let that man in—”

Kenny stepped into the bus. “We’ve been having trouble getting my wife’s medication adjusted ever since her brain transplant. I’ll take care of her.”

“Stay away from me!”

“Honey . . .”

She rounded on him in the aisle. “Liar!”

“Now, Emma . . .”

“You weasel!”

“I’m not a—”

“Blackguard!”

He blinked. “Now, there’s a new one.”

“Don’t try to be clever! Driver, throw this man off the bus!”

The driver—short, balding, sixty if he was a day—blanched. Emma was so furious she could barely contain herself. Why hadn’t she been born tall and muscular and male?

“Don’t you think we should talk about this?” He advanced on her down the aisle. “Whatever it is?”

“Now you want to talk.” Suddenly, her knees would no longer support her, and she sank into one of the cushioned seats. “How could you have done it? How could you have betrayed me like this?”

His face grew stony as he stopped beside her. “I don’t betray my friends.”

Not only was that blatantly untrue, but hurtful as well. Was that how he regarded her? As just another one of his friends? “I know what you did. The moment Hugh said it, I should have realized what he meant, but I was too distracted by everything that had happened to pay attention.” As she gazed up at him, she was filled with outrage. “You were Hugh’s spy.”

He took a deep breath, then sat in the seat across the aisle. She waited for him to deny it—wanted him to—but he didn’t. “Somebody had to watch out for you.”

She felt as if she’d been ripped open. “
I
was watching out for me! I didn’t need you to do it.”

“Now, there’s a lie!” He sprang back up again. “Of course I fed him information. I sure wasn’t going to let him find out that you were buying lice shampoo and kissing your escort in the middle of town, not to mention getting tattooed.”

“I
wanted
him to find that out.” She jumped to her feet, too.

“Well, now, that just goes to prove my point.”

A new thought struck her. “My tattoo! Of course it’s fading. It’s not permanent, is it?” She shoved up the sleeve of her T-shirt and looked at the tattoo with fresh eyes. Sure enough, it was fading. “You—God!” She jerked down her sleeve. “You must have put something in my margarita. I wasn’t drunk! I was drugged! And the tattoo wasn’t done with needles. It’s some kind of dye.”

He splayed one hand on the back of the seat in front of him and leaned in to her. “Don’t you dare tell me you’re upset that you won’t have to spend the rest of your life with my name tattooed across your arm! If I don’t hear a thank-you in the next thirty seconds, we’re going to have a serious argument.”

Her skin was burning. “You drugged me!”

“Some knockout drops I got from one of my acquaintances in the medical profession. And the wife of an old friend did the artwork. She has a background in textile design.” He acted as if that made it all right, as if the details somehow mitigated the depth of his duplicity.

“What else have you done that I don’t know about?”

“Not enough, that’s for damned sure, or we wouldn’t have been forced to get married!”

She froze.

His voice softened. “Your plan was crazy from the start; you know that. And since I was supposed to be looking out for you, I felt responsible. All I wanted to do was make sure you still had a job when you got home.”

“Well, that didn’t work out, did it?” she managed.

“I’m not the one who French kissed Torie in the middle of the damn parking lot!”

“I didn’t French kiss her!”

“Close enough.” He took a deep breath. “Will you just let your brain work here for a minute instead of your emotions?” He pushed her back down, then once again took the seat across from her, sitting on the edge, so his long legs blocked the aisle. She felt the full voltage of those violet eyes. “I tried to get you to listen to reason from the very beginning, but you wouldn’t do it, and I couldn’t just stand by and watch you throw your whole career away over some idiot who wouldn’t take
no
for an answer.”

“It wasn’t your decision.”

He ignored her. “The day you told me about Hugh, something clicked in my mind. I remembered my father mentioning to Shelby that he was a big investor in TCS. After that, it was easy to get his phone number. I called and told him somebody needed to watch out for you, and after he huffed and puffed for a while, he let it slip that he’d already hired a Dallas PI to do the job. I told him that his PI wasn’t watching you nearly close enough, but that I’d volunteer for the job out of respect for his long relationship with TCS. He took me up on my offer, and that was pretty much it.”

She regarded him stonily. “Hugh acted as if he didn’t know you when you were introduced.”

“He’s arrogant, not stupid. I’m sure he realized you wouldn’t be too happy to learn that he’d set a spy on you. And it’s not like we were old school chums. We only talked once. After that, I gave my reports to his flunky.”

“Now I know why you rushed me into getting married,” she said bitterly. “You did it out of guilt.”