Til Death Do Us Part (25 page)

The judge coughed several times and then cleared his throat. Cleo glared at Roarke. He met her glare head-on, neither flinching nor smiling.

Roarke had to continue thinking of getting her pregnant as just part of his job. He would never allow himself to think of the child as his. The baby would be Cleo's— Cleo's alone—from the moment of conception. Things had to be that way. Otherwise, he'd never be able to go through with their deal.

He took a good, hard look at the woman he had just married. Even on her wedding day, she wore a simple navy blue suit with a cream silk blouse. No frills. Not even a
bouquet or corsage. She had dressed as if this were a business merger, not a wedding.

The fact that she had taken no pains to make herself feminine and alluring, hadn't bothered with flowers, music or even a little dab of perfume, made Roarke want all the more for her to act like a woman, a bride—his bride. Dammit, how could any female not wear something lace or satin on her wedding day? How could she not at least pin a rose on her lapel? And why the hell wouldn't she want to be kissed?

Maybe she did, he thought. Maybe she was just too proud to ask.

Before Cleo had a chance to object, Roarke slid his arm around her tiny waist and drew her up against him. Gasping, she gazed up at him, her cheeks coloring slightly.

“What—” She started to question his actions.

Quickly lifting her off her feet, he leaned over to meet her open mouth, capturing it in a kiss that left her breathless and shocked. When she jerked her head back, trying to end the kiss, Roarke deepened his attack, thrusting his tongue inside. She struggled momentarily, then melted into him, her lips softening, her moist warmth accepting him.

When he felt himself growing hard, Roarke slowed his pace. Tracing her lips with the tip of his tongue, he looked into her eyes and saw desire. And something more.

Good Lord, what had he done? The last thing he wanted was for this woman to care about him, and he figured that Cleo was the kind of woman who'd tie lust and love together in one neat little package.

“Why did you do that, after I'd expressly told you it wasn't necessary?” she demanded.

Roarke set her on her feet, then clutched her chin, tilting it upward so that she was looking directly at him.

“Every bride should be kissed on her wedding day, Mrs. Roarke, and every groom should have the pleasure.”

“Oh” was all she said before pulling away from him.

Dammit all, he had desperately wanted to kiss her. He'd warned himself not to give in to the temptation, to his need to discover just how deep Cleo's frigid, controlled exterior went.

Well, he had just found out. His wife's icy facade was only skin-deep. Buried just below the surface was a volcano of passion waiting to explode. And heaven help him, he was glad that he was the man who was going to set off that explosion.

T
HE IRON GATES
swung open, admitting Cleo's sleek, green Jaguar. Roarke could barely see the Steadman-McNamara house from the road. Cleo had told him that Jefferson Steadman, Aunt Beatrice's maternal grandfather, had built the country manor house around the turn of the century.

“How many acres have y'all got here?” Roarke asked, taking note of the vast, well-manicured green lawn, the huge, old trees that lined the driveway and the wooded areas in the distance.

“Three hundred and fifty acres,” Cleo replied. “At one time this place was a working farm. We still have the fruit orchards, and Pearl cans and freezes a great deal of the harvest each year.”

Three hundred and fifty acres. Not enormous, but large in comparison with the sixty-acre farm he'd grown up on in Tennessee. He had hated the way his overbearing, religiously fanatical aunt and uncle had treated him—like an indentured servant. But he had loved the land, the animals, the clean air and sunshine. That's what he missed, what he wanted again someday. Just a small place where he could raise a crop or two and keep a few chickens and horses and some cattle. He might even buy himself a dog. When he was a kid, he'd wanted a dog.

“Brace yourself,” Cleo said. “We're almost there.”

A two-story portico added a certain grandeur to the facade of the old manor house. Glistening white in the
afternoon sunshine, the home boasted three stories, neat black shutters and four brick chimneys.

Roarke let out a long, low whistle. “This is mighty fancy digs for an old country boy like me.”

Glancing at the man sitting beside her, Cleo noted the way he rested in the leather seat. His big, long body lounged in a half sitting, half lying position.

A quivering sensation hit Cleo's stomach. She quickly returned her attention to the driveway ahead of her. Just because Simon Roarke was devastatingly masculine didn't mean she had to overreact to the mere sight of him. If she allowed her hormones to dictate her actions every time she was around him, she'd be a nervous wreck by the end of the week.

“Do you really still consider yourself a country boy?” Cleo asked, remembering that Roarke's personal history stated that he'd been born in Chattanooga, but had grown up on a farm outside Lawrenceburg, Tennessee. “After a career in the Special Forces and having lived in Atlanta for several years, I don't see how you can think of yourself as a country boy.”

“You know the old saying.” Roarke scooted his massive frame up in the seat and spread one long arm out above Cleo's shoulders.

When she widened her eyes in a quizzical expression, he grinned. “‘You can take the boy out of the country,'” he said.

“‘But you can't take the country out of the boy.'” Smiling, she completed the sentence for him.

Cleo had a nice smile, Roarke realized. Warm, genuine and sort of sexy. Her wide mouth parted at a slightly crooked angle, curving the left side up more than the right. Her full, pink lips were moist and very inviting. Roarke's body tightened. Groaning silently, he warned
himself to concentrate on something other than Cleo's luscious mouth.

“One of the reasons I took this job as your hired husband is so I can buy myself a little farm somewhere and retire.”

“Thirty-nine is a bit young to retire, isn't it?” Cleo asked.

“Not from my line of business,” he told her.

“Yes, I suppose you're right. I can't begin to imagine the things you've seen, what all you must have endured, the types of people you've met.”

Yeah, he'd probably seen just about everything, experienced nightmares other people never even knew about. He wondered what Cleo would think if he told her that neither the horrors of being a professional soldier nor the dangers he faced in the private security business could compare with the never-ending hell a man lived in when he felt responsible for the death of his only child.

“Let's just say my life has been nothing like yours, Boss Lady.”

“I wish you'd stop calling me that!”

“I'll be careful not to use the term around your family.” He gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze.

Suddenly realizing this homecoming was going to be a worse fiasco than she'd thought, Cleo groaned as they drove up to the house. The whole clan waited on the veranda, like a group of overeager fans prepared to pounce on their favorite rock star.

Smiling warmly and waving enthusiastically, Aunt Beatrice stood at the top of the steps. Several feet behind Beatrice, Oralie and Perry waited in front of the double doors. As always, Aunt Oralie, in her flowing silk dress and her thirty-inch pearls, looked the part of an aging Southern belle. She gazed at the approaching couple with
cool, calculating hazel eyes, but put on a proper smile of welcome. Uncle Perry possessed a good poker player's face. One never quite knew what was going on behind his faded brown eyes.

Cleo pulled her Jaguar to a slow, smooth halt. Aunt Beatrice rushed down the front steps. Laughing giddily, she clapped her hands. “Congratulations, children, and welcome home.”

Gripping the steering wheel, Cleo took a deep breath and willed herself to stay calm. If she was going to make this charade work, she could not allow anyone to suspect that she wasn't a deliriously happy bride.

“I thought you said you told your family that you didn't want any fuss made.” Roarke surveyed the group of people hovering about on the porch.

The older couple had to be Oralie and Perry Sutton. Roarke thought that the woman's smile was too strained to be genuine, and he wondered what secrets lay hidden behind Sutton's unemotional demeanor.

The couple half-hidden behind one of the white columns were probably Trey Sutton and his wife, Marla. Young Sutton resembled his father a great deal, but he was a good three inches shorter. His wife looked very young and perhaps a bit too wholesome for this group of wealthy snobs.

“Knowing Aunt Beatrice the way I do, I imagine she's planned some sort of celebration.” Releasing her tenacious hold on the steering wheel, Cleo turned to her husband of less than an hour. “I'll forewarn you. They're going to be suspicious and will probably ask far too many personal questions. My cousin Daphne will, no doubt, flirt out rageously with you today. And sooner or later, she'll invite you into her bed.”

“I assume you would prefer that I didn't accept her invitation.”

Cleo glared at Roarke, her dark green eyes glowing hotly. “You assume correctly. That is one advantage of your being my
hired
husband. You're my employee, and if you want to get paid, you follow my orders.”

“I take it that your cousin Daphne isn't one of your favorite people,” Roarke said. “Does that mean we should put her at the top of our list of suspects?”

“Other than Aunt Beatrice, all my relatives should be on our suspect list.” Cleo opened the car door and stepped out, then plastered on a phony smile and turned to face her family.

Aunt Beatrice met Roarke the moment he emerged from the Jaguar. She slipped her arm round his waist and gave him an affectionate hug. “So wonderful to see you again, Simon, my dear boy.”

Roarke's gaze swept the veranda and stopped on the tall, bosomy brunette who had slunk out from behind a white column. She had to be Daphne. Exotic. Sultry. Seductive. He'd known women like her before. And they were all pure poison.

Daphne's mouth curved into a mocking smile when her gaze met Roarke's. She licked her red lips. Roarke grinned.

When Cleo rounded the Jaguar's hood, Beatrice reached out, motioning her niece toward her. “Come, Cleo, everyone's waiting. They're all simply astonished by your whirlwind romance and marriage.” Slipping her other arm around Cleo's waist, Beatrice whispered, “Oralie and Daphne have asked me a million questions, and Trey is fit to be tied. You're going to have to put on a good show to convince this—” Beatrice nodded toward the veranda “—skeptical audience.”

Bending to reach Beatrice's cheek, Roarke kissed his bride's aunt, who blushed and giggled. “You leave everything to me,” he told her.

Without warning, Roarke swept his wife up in his arms. Gasping, Cleo flung her arm around his neck and glared into his smiling face.

“What are you doing?” she murmured.

He nuzzled her neck. Cleo squirmed. His nose glided underneath her hair and circled her ear. Cleo swallowed hard.

“I'm convincing your family that you and I are madly-in-love newlyweds,” he said.

“Don't you think we could find a less dramatic way of doing that?”

“Don't frown, Boss Lady. All those people waiting on the veranda are going to wonder why you look unhappy on your wedding day.”

“Oh, all right. Proceed.” She forced her phony smile back in place as Roarke turned around and walked toward the house. Aunt Beatrice, all smiles and fluttering hands, followed the couple.

When he put his foot on the first step, Roarke whispered to Cleo, “I'm warning you so that you'll be prepared. I'm going to move my hand down from your waist to your hip, then I'm going to caress you. And when we get to the top of these steps, I'm going to kiss you.”

“Roarke, I—” The moment she felt his big hand gripping her hip, Cleo stiffened.

Her whole body tingled from his caressing touch. Relaxing, she gave herself over to these moments of sweet pretending. Almost unaware of her actions, she turned just enough to press her left breast against Roarke's hard chest and glided her fingers up his neck and into his thick, dark hair.

If only this were real, she thought. If only we were in love and wildly happy and unable to keep our hands off each other. If only this marriage
were
real and not a farce.

True to his word, the moment he reached the top of the stairs, Roarke took Cleo's mouth in a tongue-thrusting kiss that left her flushed, breathless and trembling.

For a split second, Roarke felt stunned himself and not quite in control. He had expected Cleo's acquiescence, but not her wholehearted cooperation. She had returned his kiss eagerly, her mouth opening in a warm, moist invitation, her tongue mating savagely with his.

He looked directly into her eyes—compelling green cat eyes—and saw a reflection of his own desire.

“You two might want to save that for later,” a soft, saccharine, feminine voice said. “Right now, we have a little party waiting inside for the bride and groom.”

Still slightly disoriented and sexually aroused, Cleo stared at her cousin. She focused on Daphne's moist, red lips, which were curved into a mocking smile. Daphne glared at Cleo, then turned to Roarke, and her expression changed. She sent him an invitation with her notorious come-hither look.

Cleo stiffened in Roarke's arms. She tightened her hold around his neck and glanced at her husband, who was surveying Daphne from head to toe. When he grinned at Daphne, Cleo wanted to scratch his eyes out. Dammit, wasn't there a man on earth immune to her sultry cousin?

Threading his big fingers through Cleo's short hair, Roarke pulled her face toward his. She quivered when his mouth touched her ear.

“If you laugh and then look longingly into my eyes, she'll wonder if I told you something about her,” Roarke said.

As though on cue, Cleo smiled, then laughed and gazed
at Roarke as if he were the only man in the world. In her peripheral vision, Cleo noticed the smile on Daphne's face vanish, quickly replaced by a sullen frown.

Still carrying Cleo, Roarke headed straight for the double entrance doors. A tall, skinny, gray-haired man, wearing faded, patched work clothes, hurried ahead of them and opened the leaded-glass doors, then stood back and nodded a greeting.

“Oh, hello, Ezra,” Cleo said. “Ezra, this is my husband, Simon Roarke. And this—” she smiled warmly at the old man “—is Ezra Clooney. He's worked here on the estate since before I was born.”

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Roarke,” Ezra said. “We're sure glad to see Miss Cleo got herself a husband.”

“I'm glad that I'm the man she chose for a husband.” Roarke carried his bride over the threshold and into the enormous foyer, where a sparkling crystal chandelier lit a hallway decorated with Persian rugs and antique furniture.

Once inside, he put Cleo on her feet, but kept his arm around her waist, securing her to his side. Beatrice McNamara scurried into the house behind them, followed by the other family members.

“Come on into the dining room,” Beatrice said. “I have a little surprise for y'all.”

“Heaven help us,” Cleo moaned.

“Let's go see what Aunt Beatrice has done for us, darling.” Following Beatrice's lead, Roarke led Cleo down the hallway and into the dining room.

A string quartet, set up in a corner in front of the Hepplewhite breakfront, played a Tchaikovsky composition. A classically romantic piece of angelic sweetness.

Cleo closed her eyes and said a silent prayer for the strength to see her through this ordeal. Wasn't it bad
enough that she'd had little choice but to marry a stranger? Did she have to go through the motions of celebrating a marriage that was destined to end in divorce?

An enormous wedding cake awaited them in the center of the Sheraton dining table that was obviously large enough to accommodate a good two dozen persons or more. The four-foot cake was traditional in style, with a bride and groom perched on the top layer. Several bottles of champagne were waiting to be opened and a small feast had been placed on the sideboard. A variety of floral arrangements filled the room with a sweet, springtime aroma.

“This is lovely, Aunt Beatrice. Thank you,” Cleo said, all the while wishing she and Roarke could escape upstairs to her suite and not have to endure this phony celebration. But it was her own fault, really, for letting her pride get in the way. Maybe she shouldn't have insisted on playing out this little drama with Roarke as her devoted lover.

Roarke glanced around at the assembled guests and discovered one person whose identity he couldn't discern. A blond man with a thin mustache. Somewhere in his mid-thirties. A three-piece-suit type. A slick, cultured pretty boy.