"Can you tell me where to find Chester Bradshaw's office?" Feeling self-conscious under the scrutiny of the grizzled man in the wrinkled white lab coat, Cookie pulled on the lapel of her dove-gray tailored suit. Large machinery rose to one side of them in the central atrium of the Scents Allure manufacturing plant. Pipes travelled from one large vat to another.
"If I tell you depends." The man squinted at her. He wore a name tag that said 'Henry Dublin' and underneath that, 'Head Technician.' "Who are you and who let you in?"
"The, um, security guard at the front door let me in. You see, I'm Mr. Bradshaw's fiancée." Cookie coughed, proud at how smoothly she'd gotten out that last word. Or maybe she should have felt dismayed. It had become surprisingly easy to claim this relationship to Chess after living with him for the past two-and-a-half weeks.
"Fiancée, huh?" The man's squint became more pronounced. "How nice that Mr. Bradshaw is gettin' married. What with the place falling down around us. That's sweet. I'm sure he deserves every happiness." The man then pointed toward the far end of the atrium. "Your fiancé's office is down there. Name's on the door." Blowing out a long breath, he turned and stomped in the opposite direction.
Definitely not a happy camper. Cookie bit her lower lip. There was even more pressure on Chess to succeed here than she'd imagined. Henry Dublin, Head Technician, clearly knew the company wasn't doing well but had no idea Chess's marriage—to her—was designed to allay that situation.
Of course, the marriage might not save the company. The perfume launch could fail to net a profit. Or, God forbid, the formula for the new perfume could be stolen, too, despite the new security measures Chess had told her about. Perhaps it was just as well the technician expect the worst.
Letting out her own long breath, Cookie turned. She gazed in the direction she'd been pointed, unsure why she felt nervous. Chess had certainly surprised Cookie at any number of her jobs over the years, checking them out for her father. Why shouldn't she, for once, be the one checking Chess out at his job?
Right. It was simply turnabout and fair play. It wasn't that she was developing a personal interest in the man.
But when she found the glass door labeled "Director of Design" with Chess's name underneath, she could not help a peculiar pang of pride.
After straightening the skirt of her suit, she knocked on the glass. Slatted blinds obscured a view of the room beyond, so she couldn't see any movement or indication that her knock had been heard above the hiss of the machines in the factory behind her.
With a shrug, Cookie tried the knob. The door was unlocked. Cautiously, she pushed it open.
Although she'd effectively let the noise of the factory into his office, Chess did not appear to notice. He sat at a low laboratory-type counter, a number of little glass bottles spread before him. As Cookie watched, he dipped a white strip of paper into one of them, drew it out, and waved it under his nose. Then, leaning back in his chair, he shook the strip of paper in the air and brought it back to his face.
The dark lashes lowered over his cheeks as he breathed in deeply. Every line of his face and body concentrated in the act of inhalation. In that moment Cookie knew she was watching an artist at work.
She felt a sudden, sharp access of identification. In some ways they weren't so different, herself and this man she'd agreed to marry.
Finally, Chess seemed to realize he was no longer alone in his office. He opened his eyes and turned his head.
"The door," Cookie said, gesturing toward that object with one hand. "It was unlocked. I don't think you heard my knock."
To her relief, he smiled. Actually, the smile wasn't so unexpected. She was afraid there was something about herself that was amusing him these days. He often smiled at her and not just when other people were around.
"Where on earth did you get that suit?" he asked.
Cookie looked down at her outfit, which was vintage 1940. The styles from that era seemed created for her figure. This one fit like a glove. "It was a real find," she told Chess. "Five dollars at a garage sale. In perfect condition."
"So it seems." He stood from his laboratory bench, throwing the white strip of paper on the counter. As he came forward, he was still smiling. "I didn't know you were coming." He put a hand on her shoulder, bent forward, and did something very strange.
He kissed her.
It was just a chaste kiss on the cheek, but they both stopped and froze.
He forgot, Cookie thought. Chess had taken to making the odd gesture of affection for appearances' sake, just in case anybody noticed. This time, out of habit perhaps, he'd done so even though there was nobody in his office but the two of them. No witnesses.
Taking in a breath, Chess let go of her and stepped back.
Cookie didn't dare look at him. She didn't want anybody to see the sharp, stolen pleasure of that little kiss. When Chess touched her, there was pleasure instead of fear. It was a surprise each time. Each time, she felt as though she were pilfering someone else's treasure.
"I thought we were going to meet at the lawyers' at two." Chess's tone clearly stated he'd like to forget the little slip-up.
Cookie had been trained to act through the missed line or the messed cue. Besides, this wasn't her treasure, didn't belong to her. She smiled brightly. "I know. I thought I'd first drop by here instead." She averted her gaze and let it travel around the room. "You see, I've never been here. And since all of my assets are about to be tied up in the place, I was a little curious..." Her voice trailed off into an awkward silence.
She stole a look back at Chess.
He appeared nonplussed. "You want me to show you around?"
"Only if you have time," she waffled. She'd known the man over half her life, but it was only during the last three weeks that she'd made an attempt to get to know him. She was finding the project an uphill battle.
Right now, however, he appeared willing to oblige her. "Oh, I can make the time." But as he looked around the room, he frowned again, clearly wondering where to start. The room was a hodgepodge. About the size of his living room at home, it contained a mixture of laboratory equipment: mortars and pestles, beakers, and glass bottles. In one corner was an ancient scarred wood desk. The place was plain, even shabby. Not what she'd have expected of Chess.
But then, she'd been learning that Chess was often quite different from what she'd expected.
Oh, she would expect him to show up every night like clockwork to pick her up from the theater. Yes, he'd do that and without having to be asked. But she wouldn't have expected him to stand in the dressing room after the rest of the cast streamed in, clearly bewildered by the barrage of good-natured ribbing. Cookie wondered if anyone had dared joke with him in his life. He appeared to drink it all in like a very thirsty man.
Then, no matter how late they got home, Chess would be up early the next morning, leaving a pot of coffee warming for Cookie on the counter and scribbled instructions on the counter regarding anything special in the house for breakfast.
Sweet. That's what it was. Surprising, astonishing, but true. Chess was sweet.
And tender. All anyone had to do was watch him with his roses in the backyard to learn this additional amazing fact about him. She watched every morning. From her bedroom window, she could see him among his prizes, digging or watering or trimming. He touched them with exquisite care. She didn't think dew would drop from the petals his hands were so gentle.
Even when she wasn't watching him, Cookie often thought about Chess's gentle hands.
Now she gestured in the direction of his lab bench. "Why don't you start with what you were doing just now?"
He gave her an oddly shy smile. "That's where I do my composing."
"Music?"
Chess smile became almost boyish. "Fragrance people tend to talk in terms of music: high and low notes, themes and symphonies." He motioned for her to sit where she'd found him, behind a set of shelves filled with little glass bottles. "Those bottles hold different pure scents. After I make a combination, I test the results on these blotting papers." He picked up the white paper strip she'd seen him sniff.
"Oh, yes!" Now Cookie made the connection. She'd been finding those strips of paper around the house. There were also normally a few sticking out of Chess's top jacket pocket when he came to pick her up from the theater.
"Here." Chess picked up a blue bottle that stood at one side. He twisted open the cap and tilted the bottle to wet his finger. "This is a prototype of the new scent we're bringing out, the one you're betting all your money on. Why don't you try it out?"
Cookie rolled the chair back as Chess held out his perfumed finger. "Oh, no," she said, waving her hands. "I can't."
Chess's face went blank. "What?"
Cookie closed her eyes. She supposed this moment had been inevitable. "I can't wear perfume. I— Well, I seem to be allergic."
He stared at her for a moment, and then a broad grin spread over his face. "You're allergic?"
"My throat gets scratchy and my eyes turn red and watery. Really, I'm sorry, Chess. But it's true."
He started to laugh. "You're allergic!"
Just then the glass door to Chess's office burst open. "Chess, what in the world—?" Kate exclaimed. Her eyes went to her son in shock. "You're laughing!"
"Cookie can't wear perfume!" Chess announced. "She's allergic!"
"You're laughing," Kate repeated. She truly seemed amazed by the fact.
Meanwhile, the woman behind Kate could have passed for her daughter. She was blond, delicately made, and dressed to a crisp professionalism. She did not look amazed nor did she smile.
Finally, Kate swallowed her astonishment. Her brow furrowed. "I am sorry to interrupt, but Diana here has just told me some disturbing news."
Sobering, Chess set down the prototype perfume bottle and sighed. "I suppose she told you how I plan to allocate the advertising budget."
"Chess, we can't simply cease advertising our classic line," Kate remonstrated. "At least a minimum amount of advertising is necessary to remind our customers that the old perfumes still exist."
The woman with Kate, Diana apparently, arched a well-shaped eyebrow at Chess.
Looking at her, Cookie experienced a familiar sense of inadequacy. This Diana was the sort a man could take seriously. She was sure in her femininity but also certain that that femininity was never going to get in her way. No one would be measuring her intellect in inverse proportion to her bust size.
Chess got to his feet. "While I agree it's not a good idea to abandon advertising for the classics, Diana and I discussed it. Given the overall amount we'll have at our disposal, we need to throw every dime we've got at the launch."
Kate's mouth tightened. "With the loan you're getting from the bank—putting the whole company up for collateral—you ought to be able to spare a few hundred thousand on advertising the classic line."
Chess's mouth went into a tight line to match his mother's. "The return on our investment will be greater on the advertising for Temptation."
Cookie knew Chess was delicately evading the truth: any money spent advertising the classics was wasted. It became money spent advertising the discount rip-offs.
Kate glanced toward Cookie. "It's not too late to stop this."
"Kate," Cookie began, conciliating. "I—"
"As a matter of fact, we're going to sign the loan papers today," Chess put in, cutting her off. "They'll go into effect as soon as the vows are said."
Kate's lips went white. "Maybe I've been wrong about— But as far as the launch is concerned, you're both headed for disaster." With an angry whirl, she stalked toward the door. The glass shuddered in its frame as she slammed it behind her.
Cookie turned from the drama to witness Chess and Diana exchanging a glance. It was a glance that spoke of a hundred private understandings.
"She's been impossible all morning," Diana informed Chess. "It seems there was an announcement of your upcoming nuptials in the newspaper."
Chess snorted. "That must have been Ruth's idea. Her Dad's fronted nearly a million on this already, and she's terrified the wedding won't come off if she doesn't put some pressure on." Remembering Cookie, Chess turned her way with a slight frown. "I don't think you two have met. Rebecca, this is Diana Lorimar. Diana simply is my marketing department. Only been here six months, but I already don't know what I'd do without her. Diana, Rebecca Thibideaux." Chess paused with a peculiar smile. "And I don't know what I'd do without her, either."
"Indeed." Diana's tone was arch as she held out her hand. "So, you're David's daughter."
She knew. Ice went through Cookie as this realization hit. An office flirtation with the woman Cookie could have understood. Chess was a man, after all, and one of the more predatory of the species. She didn't expect much of him in the taste or abstinence department. But he'd told the woman about the deal, about David's will and that their marriage was solely for the benefit of the company. He hadn't told the head technician that Cookie was a mere paper bride, but he'd told this woman.
That was betrayal.
"David's daughter," Chess confirmed. "Our savior."
Cookie felt his arm come around her waist and stiffened against the contact. No doubt about it. Chess had told Diana everything.
"I had some numbers I wanted to go over with you." Diana spoke to Chess as though Cookie were not even there. "You want to come up to my office to look at them?"
"Maybe later this afternoon. Right now, Rebecca and I have an appointment regarding the bank loan."
"Oh." Diana smiled. "That's right. I guess none of my numbers will have much meaning if you don't get the loan to pay for the advertising campaign." She laughed.
The laugh was like a spear through Cookie. Diana thought Cookie was funny.
Cookie's eyes narrowed as she watched Diana's hand come to rest on Chess's arm, the one that was not around his fiancée's waist.
"I'll see you later," Diana promised.
Over my dead body. Chess would have to wait until the divorce if he wanted to fool around with the office help.
"Sure, sure." Releasing his hold on Cookie, Chess stepped back, away from both women. "Cookie, let me put a few things away, and then we can go. Best not to keep lawyers waiting who charge by the hour."
Cookie smiled sweetly at Diana. "So nice to meet you."
Diana's eyes tightened a fraction of an inch as she smiled back. "Likewise."
~~~
Cookie was being awfully quiet, Chess thought, as he maneuvered the car up Van Ness and toward the office of Scallini, Lampert, and Robbins. It wasn't a quietness of sound, but a whole-being kind of quiet. Normally she radiated: heat, light, energy. But now it was as though someone had turned off the switch.
"You're not nervous about pulling this off, are you?" he asked. After he'd picked her up from the theater last night, Cookie had insisted on 'blocking out' the act they intended to put on for David's lawyers. In private amusement, Chess had let her lecture him on how to supply all the little physical details that would convince the lawyers that theirs was to be a real marriage.
Chess didn't need a lesson on how to appear sexually intrigued by Cookie Thibideaux. The depth of his quite genuine interest was becoming impossible to ignore. Chess's sleeping male appetite had come awake again—and for the most inconvenient person possible: David Thibideaux's daughter.
Maybe it was the marriage thing, Chess mused. That changed the chemistry. Married, he didn't feel like he was adding his best friend's daughter to his list of casual sex playmates. But marriage didn't change the danger. Millions of dollars and the fate of Scents Allure were on the line. Throwing a sexual element into the mix would be an act of sheer recklessness. He and Cookie had to end up married, and they had to do it sensibly, like the business partners they were.
Cookie rubbed a thumb against her opposite index finger. "I don't understand why we couldn't have used a law firm other than my father's to set up the bank loan."
Chess lifted a shoulder. "Efficiency and lack of time. Besides, putting the arrangements for the loan in the hands of David's lawyers makes it look like we don't have anything to hide about the deal."
Cookie's thumb rubbed harder. "I suppose you're right. You're the expert, after all."
"Pardon?"
"On intrigue. You're the expert."
Chess shot her a startled look. "Right." He hadn't expected trouble, particularly not at this crucial point. Things had been going so well—better even than he'd expected. Despite her stand about keeping her apartment, little by little Cookie had ended up moving into his house.
Chess had felt a distinct pleasure when she'd brought in her plants. He was sure then that she meant to stay.
But now he couldn't figure out what was wrong.
His nervousness increased as he walked Cookie through the well-appointed reception area and down the hall to the office of Carl Robbins, the junior partner. The carpet was thick and the pale cream walls held original abstracts in oils and watercolors. Expensive. Naturally. David wouldn't employ any but the best.
And the best, Carl Robbins, would be shrewd, not easy to fool. It didn't help that suddenly Cookie didn't seem to have her heart in the role.
Chess stopped her outside the closed walnut door of the lawyer's office. They'd better get their act together before they went inside. "Cookie, wait." His hand clasped her shoulder.
Cookie whirled on him. "Don't touch me!"
Carl Robbins opened his door just in time to witness Chess's shocked face as Cookie stepped back from his hand.
"Uh oh," Robbins murmured.
Cookie didn't skip a beat. "Mr. Robbins? How do you do? Rebecca Thibideaux." She stuck out her hand, received a bemused shake from the gray-haired lawyer, and stalked past him into the office, clearly pissed off at her fiancé.
"Chester Bradshaw," Chess muttered, privately steaming. How dare she do this to him!
Robbins, a scholarly-looking man with wire-frame spectacles, genially shook Chess's hand. He was the same lawyer who'd explained David's will a few days after his funeral. "I've heard a lot about both of you over the years. Please, come in."
Cookie, of course, had already entered the room. Without invitation, she flopped into one of the two leather chairs facing the large walnut desk at one side of the room. She crossed her arms over her chest and pursed her lips toward the empty space across the desk.
"Please, have a seat," Robbins murmured in Chess's direction. His eyes, however, were on Cookie and the stocking-clad knee she'd exposed by crossing one leg over the other.
Chess felt the same uncomfortable twist of jealousy he now experienced every time another man looked at his bride. Cookie, he'd observed, never seemed to notice the male attention. She didn't appear to notice now, either, too busy ruining everything for which he'd worked.
Silently cursing, Chess took the chair to her side. He had no idea what her problem was. He only knew that everything was at risk.
Robbins took the seat behind his desk and pulled a manila file folder in front of himself. "First of all, I want to thank you both for choosing Scallini, Lampert, and Robbins to handle the negotiation for your bank loan. It's a considerable amount of money, and we appreciate the trust you've placed in our firm."
"We didn't think David would choose wrong," Chess explained. "He used your firm for years."
Robbins inclined his head and continued. "Of course, we cannot proceed with the final processing of the loan until Ms. Thibideaux marries, fulfilling the condition whereby she can inherit her father's shares in the business. Only then does she have the power to vote to put the factory up for collateral."
Cookie's demeanor didn't change a micro-inch. She continued to wear an expression of restrained pique and disgust. Her free foot rotated about her ankle.
Robbins gave her a keen, if oddly amused, regard. "Your father made it clear to us that not just any marriage would do. It had to be a real marriage, one based on mutual respect and caring." He paused. "Not a mere business deal for you to get your hands on the shares."
Cookie's foot kept rotating. She glared at Robbins and didn't say a word.
Chess could feel adrenaline zinging through his blood, preparing him for a fight. Everything was on the line here, everything he'd worked for over the past dozen years of his life. But all of that paled in comparison to a deeper hurt. He'd trusted her. How could Cookie betray him this way?
Robbins dropped his gaze to his manila folder. He opened it up. "I see no reason not to proceed with the necessary papers for the loan now. Mr. Bradshaw, do you want to sign these first?"
Chess was so stunned that he didn't at first understand the man's words.
"Twice on the top sheet," Robbins went on, "and once on the three sheets underneath." His lips twitched when Chess still didn't make a move to approach the desk. "I understand it's a big move, putting up your factory as collateral. But you did want that loan."
Chess finally got it. Robbins had given his seal of approval on the marriage. He was giving the go-ahead on the loan.
The room settled back down on its axis. With a shake of the head, Chess rose from his chair and took Robbins's proffered pen. Unbelievable. They'd pulled it off—despite her. Robbins hadn't even asked any probing questions. Though he didn't understand it, Chess wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. He signed in all five spots. Then he turned and handed the pen to Cookie.
She took the instrument with an extremely ill grace and then rose and signed as Chess had. She lifted her head to confront the attorney. "Is that it?"
Robbins cleared his throat. "As a matter of fact, no. There's also an envelope for you, Ms. Thibideaux."
Her face went blank. "What?"
"Your father left us an envelope to keep until such time as you got married." Robbins sifted through the papers in his folder until he found a well-stuffed envelope. He handed it across the desk to Cookie. "I think I can trust you to wait until after the wedding to open it."
Instead of taking the envelope, Cookie regarded it as though it were a venomous snake. "What's inside?"
If Chess hadn't been so angry and disappointed in her, he might have been moved to pity. She looked positively stricken.
Robbins smiled gently. "I assume it's some sort of letter."
"But—" Cookie looked past the envelope to the attorney. "Why would my father write me a letter?"
At this, Robbins' smile faded and he slowly dropped his hand. "I don't think he expected to get a chance to speak to you again before he died."
Chess saw Cookie swallow. "But— I know we weren't speaking. But these tiffs—they never lasted more than a couple weeks. Surely—" She stopped, seeming to come to an understanding. Her voice then came out as a faint whisper. "He knew."
Robbins gave a solemn nod. "He had a previous heart attack, a few weeks before the fatal one. He knew that another was going to come soon and that he'd have very little chance of surviving it."
"He knew," Cookie repeated, sinking back into her chair. Her face was ashen.
It was a strange thing that, furious as he was, Chess still couldn't stand to see her in pain. It caused a pain right inside of himself.
He rose to his feet. "We'll take that," he growled, scooping the misbegotten envelope from Robbins's desk. "Come on, Rebecca, it's time to go home."
She offered no resistance as he took a firm hold of her arm.
"Oh, and Chess?" Robbins's voice stopped him at the door.
Chess turned around, displeased. Cookie slipped out of his arm and proceeded unsteadily down the hall.
Robbins rose from his seat. "The wedding's less than a week away, right?"
Chess tensed, aware of the dangerously increasing distance Cookie was putting between them. "The ceremony's Friday."
"Look." Robbins grinned. "Don't take these moods personally. I remember my own wife nearly chopped off my head with an ax the night before the wedding."
Chess's gaze sought out Cookie at the end of the hall. Somehow he didn't think this was pre-wedding jitters.
"Just you wait." Robbins was chuckling now. "When they get pregnant, it's about a hundred times worse."
Chess hit the attorney with a killing glance before turning to catch up to his bride. Pregnant! Hell, he had to make sure she'd walk down the aisle.
But Cookie seemed to have forgotten her dispute with Chess—whatever it was—in favor of brooding over the envelope her father had left her. During the drive back toward Chess's house, the thing lay like a loaded bomb behind the gearshift.
"I wouldn't take it wrong." Chess felt determined to break her morbid concentration. "David was simply trying to make up with you."
Cookie kept her gaze out the front window. "Only on condition I get married."
There was no arguing with this fact, so Chess didn't try. Instead he observed, "We came very close to not getting married at all."
Cookie raised a shoulder. "The lawyer bought it. That's what matters."
Chess's hands tightened on the steering wheel. "What got into you, anyway?"
She set her jaw and crossed her arms under her breasts. "I decided we'd do better playing it as a spat than all lovey-dovey."
"I'm not buying that. You aren't playing. So why not tell me what you're mad about?"
Her voice was clipped. "Nothing."
Bullshit. Chess wanted to pull the car over and throttle her. In his entire life, he'd never met a woman who could rile him so thoroughly.
"Look." He gritted his teeth to keep his tone relatively calm. "We're getting married. Neither one of us can afford to hold grudges."
"It's not a real marriage," Cookie replied with a flip of her head. "You don't own me."
That did it. Chess pulled to the side of the road, after all. He found a parking spot in front of a Chinese restaurant, squealed to a halt, and jerked up the parking brake.
Cookie must have guessed what was coming because she pushed open her car door at the same time Chess did.
But he was stronger than she and not wearing high heels. Before she'd taken two steps from the car, he'd caught her arm.
She gasped and nearly lost her balance.
Chess steadied her by pushing her back against the car.
"Let go of me!" she muttered.
"Not until we get something straight." Chess heard his own voice come out low and gritty. Her words played in his head, radiating out with barbs of pain. You don't own me. "This is going to be a real marriage, Rebecca. For as long as we're married, all the ties and bonds that go along with that are going to be very real." He didn't know when he'd made that decision, but as he spoke he knew that he meant every word of it.
"Is that right?" Cookie's chocolate eyes, eyes that were usually as warm as the sun, were now as cold as the North Pole. "All ties and bonds?" She smirked.
His hands tightened on her shoulders. "You belong to me. I want your word. I want your word that while we're married, there won't be any other men."
For a minute she looked at him as though he'd gone crazy. Then the coldness expired, leaving behind nothing but a misty ruin of sorrow. "My word?" She dropped her lashes. "Sure, you can have it."
He let go of her, feeling thoroughly ashamed. Damn it all! How had she managed to do that? In the space of an instant, she'd turned the tables. She was the victim now, and he was a prime heel.
"Fine," he grumbled. "And the same goes for me."
Her movement checked as she straightened. "Pardon?"
"I said, you have my word, too."
She stared at him. "Isn't it a little late for that?"
"Excuse me?"
She put her hands on her hips. "You've already told your girlfriend all about the business aspect of our marriage. Some ties and bonds."
"What?"
But Cookie was already striding off down the sidewalk. She'd apparently decided to catch a bus the rest of the way home.
Chess ran after her. He stopped himself from catching hold of her, though. He'd manhandled the woman enough this afternoon.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Chess insisted, dodging other passersby as he strove to keep up with her surprisingly quick pace.
"You're going to get a parking ticket," Cookie coolly observed.
"Who cares? What girlfriend? I don't have a girlfriend."
She came to an abrupt halt, whirling to face him.
His expression was pure bafflement, Cookie saw. Apparent innocence. Why did he insist on playing such a game? When he wanted, the man could be brutally honest.
"Please," she told him. "I do have eyes in my head. Diana, Chess. You told Diana about our deal."
There was a long silence between them in the midst of the clamorous city. Buses lurched by, cars honked, and there was the steady drill of a jackhammer further up the street. Chess's normally impassive face underwent some startlingly expressive transformations: shock to disbelief and then horror. Finally, and to Cookie's considerable astonishment, he laughed. "Diana?"
"Oh, please." Cookie didn't think she was obliged to take his mockery. She turned.
"Cookie. No." He reached out both hands to grab hold of her and then stopped himself, raising his palms in a gesture of surrender. "Please, don't walk away. Just—hear me out."
She paused, uncertain.
"Cookie." His voice turned unexpectedly soft. "God's honest truth. Diana is not my girlfriend. Never was, and I have no interest in changing that."
She wanted to believe him. Foolish as that made her, oh, how she wanted to believe him. She struggled against such weakness. "If she isn't close to you, then why did you tell her the truth about our marriage?"
For a moment he was baffled. "Did I?"
"She knew about the deal. That we needed to get married to allow the loan."
His brows drew down. "She did," he slowly admitted. "I must have told her, I guess." He shook his head. "I've been discussing marketing ideas so heavily with her that it probably slipped out. I'm sorry, Cookie. You're right. That wasn't fair."
She stared down at her gray pumps. Was it possible he was telling the truth? Though Chess could be sneaky, she'd never known him to outright lie. Which meant that Diana really wasn't his girlfriend. Angelic voices started to sing in her head, celebrating. Diana wasn't his girlfriend. Cookie tried to tamp them down. "Is there someone else?"
Chess drew in a breath. When she ventured to glance up at him, she saw him release it with a peculiar smile. "No. No one else. And I'm sure as hell glad that you asked."
Cookie blinked up at him as he took her arm. "You are?"
"Yes." He spoke softly, leaning close to her ear. "Because that means you care."
The timbre of his voice shivered through her. "Of course I care," Cookie muttered back. "We're getting married, aren't we?"
He laughed, low and a little wicked, as he pulled back. "My feelings precisely. We're getting married."
He let go of her, and Cookie went still as she regarded him.
Had he been hiding this from her, or had she refused to see? Well, Cookie saw it now. She saw it in his eyes and felt it in the tension of his body.
He wanted her.
Okay, don't panic. Cookie was used to men wanting her. Chess was no different from any of the rest. Just a simple beast who wanted his physical needs fulfilled.
So why didn't she immediately set him straight? Why was she standing there like an idiot, staring at him and feeling all sorts of wheels start into motion, wheels she'd never known existed inside of her?
He smiled and raised one hand to brush his knuckles across her cheek. His touch was soft, as gentle as the one he used on his roses. "You're in this just as deep as I am."
"No." But Cookie's body seemed to uncurl at his touch.
"I didn't believe it at first, either." Chess leaned closer, his nose against her neck. "But now I think this must have been between us all along. Otherwise, I don't see how it could have gotten so strong so fast." His lips, cool and soft, touched the edge of her jaw. "We just neither of us wanted to admit it."
"I'm not sure I want to admit it now." But Cookie had to bite back a moan at the feel of his kiss. And though Chess then took hold of her shoulders in his big hands, his strength didn't bother her the way such things usually did. Instead it felt...rather good.
"I thought we should resist it, but now I'm not so sure." His lips grazed her neck.
I am. That's what Cookie would have said. I'm sure we should resist it. But the sensation of Chess's mouth on the surprisingly sensitive skin of her neck prevented her from being able to say anything at all.
"What do you think?" Amusement hummed in his voice. "Should we ignore this?"
The sensations he was sending through her made the suggestion absurd. But Cookie realized it was one thing for her to enjoy this gentle, subtle by-play. It would be quite another to endure the rudeness of a full sexual encounter.
"I think we should...think about it," she managed to counter, though it didn't sound like she had much to think about from the way her voice came out, all soft and sweet.
Chess touched his lips to her neck once more and then pulled back. He wore a very satisfied smile. "I can't begin to tell you how good you smell."
"Oh, Chess..." From him, this was the highest possible compliment.
He raised his brows, a smile lingering on his face. "You still need to think?"
No, she needed to escape. This was a perfect disaster. Chess thought she was into him sexually when the thought of actual sex threatened to make her lose her lunch. "The marriage was only supposed to be a business arrangement," she said, scrambling to extricate herself.
"True." Sobering some, he tilted his head. "Is that the way you want to keep it?
The question shone like a light in a forest. It was her out, her escape.
"I..." Something was wrong with her. She didn't rush to take the out.
"Hmm." His thumb brushed against her lower lip, brushing every nerve in her body at the same time. "I believe you said you wanted to think about this."
"Well, yes, I—"
"Fine." He tapped two fingers against her lips. "You have three days. Think about it."