Chapter 11
11
Theo
I wake the next morning to a pounding on my door. Or is that my head? I shut my eyes. I’ve woken too many mornings like this, and if I turn the pillow at the correct angle and put the other over my head, I can pretend I’m not alive. For another hour at least. Because it’s Saturday, right? At least I think it is. But what if it’s not, and I have to be at the office? Nah, I don’t schedule early meetings. I shut my eyes. The pounding starts again. That is most definitely the door.
I stalk to it, wrench it open, and stare into my wife’s chocolate eyes.
Right. My wife. She lives here now. I found a pink lip balm on the kitchen counter last night.
“What?” I growl. I’m ready to deliver the tongue-lashing of a lifetime, and then I look at her. “What are you wearing?”
She looks down at her outfit. Her nipples poke at her silk camisole, and I drag my eyes up to her face. That’s safe. An eyebrow. Too close to her eyes, though. Maybe an ear is better?
“Pajamas? ”
“Those are not pajamas. That’s lingerie. I know the difference.”
“I’m not surprised,” she says sweetly.
It is lingerie, and it’s the best damn lingerie I’ve ever seen. Black silk shorts and a matching tank top edged with white lace. Indecently short and leaving just enough to the imagination. Imagination is the best part, and mine is active. Too fucking active if the way my morning wood presses against my briefs is any indication.
“Why are you here?” I grit the words out. “Why are you even in this wing of the house?”
“I tried all the beds. Which you would know if you’d been here to help me settle in.”
Right. Last night, when I was busy getting drunk, she was directing the movers. I grunt in response.
“The bedroom next door to yours has the best bed. A firm mattress, with a plush topper. Surely you won’t mind?”
I mind. I very much mind. I do not want her close to me. “Catherine. Go away. It’s early.”
“It’s ten a.m.”
“So?” I finally look her in the eye, which turns out to be a mistake. She’s sleep-tousled and trusting in the morning. A fresh face, plump pink lips, and those damn nipples. I could tongue them through the silk. I bet they’d get hard and sensitive. I run a hand through my hair, glad that, for once, I wore a shirt to bed. I don’t need to be even one inch closer to naked. I might tease Cat about sleeping with me, but if it ever happened, it would be on my terms. Not in my bed and never at her behest. Ideally, I’d be wearing clothes, I’d fuck her against a wall, and then I’d walk away forever.
“Don’t you want to…I don’t know, get brunch or something? Pretend to be a couple? Nurse our woes over a Bloody Mary that’s more vodka than tomato juice? Or whatever it is you dissolute sorts do on a Saturday morning?”
“Us dissolute sorts are usually not up this early. You know, with the hangovers and all. I’d usually be getting ready for round two or three.” I give her a cocky grin full of sensual meaning. It should send her scurrying .
She stares calmly back.
“Okay.” She shrugs. “I’m going to study. I thought I’d ask. Since you were the one in a froth about making this marriage seem real.” She turns and walks down the hall. I can see the bottom curve of her butt under her silk shorts.
“I don’t froth,” I shout down the hall. “I’m very calculating. Good at what I do, you know.”
“Sure, sweetheart.”
“Don’t call me that,” I grumble before shutting myself in my room.
When I stride into the kitchen thirty minutes later, she’s there, because of course she is , and her head is bent over what looks like a textbook.
“I didn’t go back to sleep after you barged in this morning.”
“I’m very sorry,” she murmurs, but her lips curve up. Her pen is in her mouth, her full lips closed around the tip . I turn abruptly to the fridge.
“There’s no food. I checked,” she says.
“I don’t need food. Besides, there’s beer.”
“Can’t have beer for breakfast,” she says primly.
“Watch me,” I growl. But I don’t go for the beer. I skate straight past the healthy shit Cole makes me buy. I don’t blame her for not wanting that. Hidden in the bottom drawer are all the treats I buy for myself—chocolate mousse, caviar, illegal unpasteurized cheese. I go for chocolate mousse, and when I sit down at the table, Catherine ignores me while I peel the gold foil off the top.
“You look fresh,” I remark.
“Feeling like crap?” She underlines something in her textbook and glances up, a half smile pulling at the lips I was just fantasizing about. “You got in late last night.”
I scowl at her. She’s too pretty and distracting, and I’m particularly weak this morning. Letting her move in was a bad idea .
“I’m fine. Like you said, I’ll just have a Bloody Mary and be right as rain.” More like forty-five minutes of laps and some electrolytes. “How do you know when I got in?”
“Couldn’t sleep.” She shrugs. “It being a new house and all. And I never sleep well. You know that.”
I do remember that about her. She was always ready for late-night mischief because she never slept.
“Do you want a tour?” I probably should have given her one last night, but I was too focused on forgetting about my problems.
“Maybe later,” she says absently. She makes a humming sound and underlines something in her textbook. She won’t even look at me.
“What are you studying?”
“Nothing at all, with the way you keep talking to me.” She flips to the back of her book, looks at a financial statement, and flips back. I smother a smile.
“Come on, wife. Talk to me. We’re supposed to get to know each other.”
She spears me with those chocolate eyes. “I’m getting my MBA.”
I set my mousse down. “Bit old for an MBA, don’t you think?”
She reddens. “I’m twenty-eight. Not the oldest in the class by any means. Didn’t you get yours? At night or something?”
“Checking up on me?” I give her a smug grin.
“We were forced to read interviews with modern business leaders. Somehow, yours slipped in there too.” She gives me a flat, unamused stare.
“I did. I traded stocks for years before I met Miles and Jonah. They wanted me to come on to Kings Lane but wanted me to have a degree too. I went to night school.”
“You traded stocks?” She tilts her head. “I didn’t know that.”
“A man has to support his lavish lifestyle somehow.” I don’t tell her the truth, which is that I traded like a goddamn drug addict, at all hours of the night, and made twenty million dollars from two thousand by the time I was twenty-five.
“Be serious, Theo. ”
“Where’s the fun in that?” I wave my spoon in her direction. “Want help? You’ve been staring at that same problem for ten minutes.”
She purses her lips. “Because someone keeps bothering me. And no. I have to figure this out myself.” The words are resigned, like she’s tired of figuring things out on her own.
I narrow my eyes at her. She’s hiding something. It’s there in the way her expression goes flat sometimes and her spine straightens. She’s oblivious to my perusal, biting that full bottom lip and scratching notes on her paper. She leans over the counter, and the strap of her tank top slips. It’s so close to falling off her shoulder. Oh lord, no. I can’t handle that. A flash of the other night hits me. Cat’s smooth, lickable skin bared, her breasts edged with lace. My mouth watering when I looked at her. I need the money. I freeze, my spoon halfway in the mousse. That can’t be right. Cat Peterson does not need money. Her parents have gobs of it, and as soon as she runs out, she’ll be back in their loving arms.
“Catherine.”
Her head snaps up.
“What did we talk about the other night at the bar?”
“You don’t remember?” She looks relieved. Why does she look relieved?
“Here and there. It’s hazy. I guess I got really drunk.”
She smiles. “You did. I stuffed you into your car at closing time and had Daniel drive you home.”
I wince. Not my best look. “Did I say anything embarrassing?”
“Let’s see.” She taps her chin. “You admitted to playing with Barbies at age fifteen, and you told me you can’t last more than two minutes in bed.”
I burst out laughing. “Sounds like me.”
She grins at me, and my stomach flip-flops like it did those summers after college when she’d flirt with me. I was powerless to resist her then.
Not anymore. I’ve built up tolerance to Catherine Peterson.
“So you admit it? You can’t last more than two minutes? ”
“Want to find out?” I wag my eyebrows. “Best two minutes of your life.”
She giggles and smacks a hand over her mouth, like she’s embarrassed I made her laugh.
Her smile falls just as quickly as it came. “How does your girlfriend feel about the fact that you’re married?”
“Girlfriend?” I stare at her in shock. “What girlfriend?”
She squints at me. “The woman you were with that night. Rose. Or did you already forget her name?”
Cat’s jealous face. Rose’s hand on my shoulder. I called her babe. “Rose likes women,” I say slowly.
“So you let me believe—you know what? Never mind.” Cat’s cheeks are pink.
“You were bothered by it,” I say delightedly. Masculine pride warms my chest. Cat was bothered by me with another woman.
“I was not,” she says. She’s biting her lip, though, and I want to bite it too. One little taste of my thumb isn’t enough. Desire rushes through me, heady and intoxicating.
“You were. Admit it. Or I’ll do it again.”
“Go right ahead. See if I care,” she says flippantly.
“Mm-hmm.” I take a bite of the mousse. It’s silky and bitter, just the way I like it. I have it imported from France every month.
“Chocolate. For breakfast?” Cat looks disapproving, which prompts me to take a huge bite.
“You should try it sometime. Live a little, Catherine.” A soft groan comes from my throat at the second bite. Better than the first, because Cat is watching me. “It’s delicious. Especially with a hangover.”
“How can you eat crap and still look like—” She stops talking and clamps her lip shut. “Forget I said anything.”
“Look like what?” I grin at her.
She gulps her coffee and shakes her head, cheeks puffed out. She points at her mouth.
“Nothing to say?” I’m going to start laughing. I’m barely keeping it together as it is. I’ve just unlocked the secret to messing with Cat Peterson.
She shakes again.
I slot the spoon between my lips and take a long, slow bite of chocolate. Her eyes are on my mouth.
“Want some?”
“Nope.” She looks back down at her paper, but she’s flushed.
“How about that tour?”
“Theo.” She closes her textbook with a snap. “I’m busy.” Her eyes flash with annoyance.
“We have things to do.” I tap my finger on the table. “Can’t sit at home with your head buried in a book all day.”
“Watch me,” she says, and I nearly laugh. If I said the sky was blue, Cat would claim it’s green.
“You haven’t changed at all, bookworm.” I slant her a smile. Come on, Cat. Give me something. “You still spend every summer reading?”
“When I can,” she says warily.
“And what’s this week’s book?” I used to ask her this all the time as teenagers. Reading interested me not at all, but Cat interested me very much. And sometimes the books had kissing in them.
“Oh no.” She reddens. “Lane gave me a romance novel. I don’t think you’d be interested.”
I set the mousse down. “Oh, I’m very interested. Tell me more. I’ve seen some of the stuff Lane reads. Wasn’t there one with an alien that had a spiked—”
“Yep,” Cat says before I can finish. Her voice is strangled. “How did you know?”
“Miles wouldn’t stop talking about it.”
“Well, he’s a very supportive boyfriend,” she says, her face reddening. She pushes back from the table. “Let’s do the tour.” Her words come out in a rush. “I see we have the kitchen here. Why don’t you show me the rest of the house?”
“Sure.” I stand. “Let’s start with the living rooms.”
I tilt my head for her to follow me into the hallway off the kitchen. “The mansion was built in the late nineteenth century by a cousin of the Vanderbilt family. Here, you’ll see the formal living room.” Cat peeks into the room as I gesture to the right. We pass stuffy groupings of couches that my interior designer chose. “I don’t use that room.”
“It’s original?” Cat asks.
I nod. “One of the few remaining rooms with the original decorative moldings and marble. I bought the mansion just a few years ago. A lot of the rooms were renovated at some point in the past. So not much of the original house remains, except for the exterior.” We pass through the hallway and into the massive living room I prefer.
Cat sucks in a breath.
“Nice, right?”
“It’s lovely.” She trails a hand over one of the couches. It’s white and looks like it’s made of giant pieces of marshmallow.
“Look at this.” I press a button, and a massive flatscreen descends from the ceiling, and a second later, the blinds on the windows descend.
“The Theo Archer decorative touch.”
“For Royals games, of course.”
“Of course,” she murmurs, still glancing around the space. “Can I, um, use this whenever I want? Assuming you don’t have people over, or I’m not bothering you.” Her words tumble over each other, like she’s pretty sure I’ll say no.
I cock my head. “Why would you be bothering me?”
Her gaze cuts to mine before she looks away. “I just assumed—”
“You know what they say about that,” I say lightly. Why is she so nervous?
“Very funny.”
“Use the house, Cat. Seriously. I’m not home that much, and the mansion is laughably large.”
“I guess it is pretty big for one person,” she says slowly.
I dip my chin. At one point, a small part of me had hoped it might not be just one person here forever.
She sighs. “Theo, I think we should announce the marriage this week. ”
I straighten. “I agree. I’ll have the announcement released. You can review it first if you like.”
She nods. “I’m going to tell my father too.”
My brows go up. “What’s he going to say?”
She smiles, sharp and pleased. “He’s going to lose his damn mind.”
I keep the surprise off my face. Cat’s father is a real prick, and I always knew things were strained between them, but this depth of dislike…it mirrors my own.
“What happened there?” I ask slowly. A flash of the other night comes back to me—Cat telling me she was disinherited. Her obvious hatred of her father. “You were disinherited by him, right?”
“You remember.” She doesn’t look happy about it.
“What happened?” I have to know.
Her throat works on a swallow before she tips up her chin. “My father realized I would control Peterson International if I married. He doesn’t want to lose control. This is his way of forcing my hand. Tightening the purse strings, that sort of thing.”
I nod. “Fairly typical for a family like yours, I suppose.”
Her face is unreadable. “Sure. I suppose it is.”
“How do you feel about it?”
“I feel fine,” she says coolly. “My father and I were on the outs anyway. His greatest regret is that he can’t force me to change my last name.” She shrugs. “I was planning to change it myself, until I realized how badly he wanted to sever ties. I’m not sure what I would pick anyway. Nothing feels right.”
She’s not telling the truth. Her face betrays little, but I’ve known Cat Peterson for a long time. She can never keep eye contact and tell a lie. And she spends a hell of a lot of time looking away from me.
“You can take mine.”
Idiot.
“Excuse me?”
Take it back. Do not go down this road with her. But my foolish mouth is running away with me .
“My last name. You can take my last name. If you want to get away from your family.”
She looks at me with a befuddled expression. “You’d do that?”
Yeah, dumbass. Why would you do that?
Because it will feel damn good to flaunt it in her father’s face. That’s why.
“Would your father hate it?” I ask.
Her face takes on a viciously satisfied cast.
“He would. He’ll lose his mind when he sees the news.”
“Then yes. I’ll do it. Why don’t we announce the marriage right now?”
“How?” Cat asks warily.
“Just a selfie. For social media. I’ll have the PR company post it. You put it up on yours.”
“I don’t think I need to do that.”
“Oh, come on, Cat. The world needs to know. We want people to talk about us.” I loop an arm around her shoulders and drag her into my body. She’s tense at first, but when I grip her shoulder, she relaxes, leaning in to me, pressing close.
Ah, shit.
The contact sends sparks shooting through me. Her hand is on my stomach. Her soft skin is warm under my palm. I focus on pulling my phone out of my pocket and not on how indescribably good it feels to be close to Cat. As good as it did the first and only time I held her.
I thought I’d forgotten about that, but my body remembers. My hands itch to explore her curves, to see what’s changed between nineteen and now. Are her breasts still that perfect teardrop shape? Does she still have a freckle on the side of her thigh?
Focus. I put the phone on selfie mode. “Look like you love me,” I tell her.
She grimaces, and I take the shot.
“Yikes,” she mutters. “We look deranged.”
“No, you look deranged. I look hot.”
She laughs and pinches my side before I grab her hand. “Take two,” I tell her. I turn her in my arms, bend, and press a kiss to her cheek as I snap the photo. She makes a little sound of surprise. I breathe her in, letting my lips linger for just one second, before I pull away. Her cheeks are pink and her mouth is parted, in the photo, and in life. With her tousled hair and her skimpy pajamas, she looks like she just left my bed.
Her eyes flick to my mouth before she takes a swift step back.
She wants me. The knowledge sends excitement galloping through me.
I can use this. This marriage is a battlefield, and I intend to win. I might have promised not to have sex with Cat, but that doesn’t mean I can’t flirt with her.
Tease her, touch her, figure out her secrets, break down her walls. I’m done being controlled by the Peterson family.
Game on, Catherine.