Carol Ericson - Deception

Then she sucked in another breath and held it as she stared at Dylan’s straight back. What would he think about her marriage, especially once he knew the reason behind it?

He turned toward her, his blue eyes dark and unreadable, his expression slightly amused. “How’d you wind up married to a tool like that?”

She coughed, her hand covering her mouth and hiding her smile. Leave it to Dylan to distill the situation to its purest form. “You don’t want to know.”

“Sure I do, but tell me in your room. It’s getting chilly out here, and you don’t even have any shoes on.” He took her arm and his touch spread warmth throughout her body.

No wonder she could never fully commit to Peter, or any man. She’d always compared the men she’d dated to Dylan Reese, and they’d always come up short.

But Dylan had changed. Would the Dylan of her childhood have accepted the news of her marriage so calmly? She hadn’t noticed one drop of judgment in his face or his voice. Growing up as the Coral Cove police chief’s son, Dylan had held himself to a higher standard than everyone else.

Not that she could ever live up to it.

She picked her way over the rocky path to the rooms, and then Dylan curled an arm around her waist and swept her off her feet. “I hope you have several pairs of shoes in your room, or you’ll need to get tougher feet.”

With Dylan’s arms around her, gathered close to his body, Mia momentarily lost her capacity for speech…for rational thought. She dropped her head to his shoulder and breathed in his masculine scent, clean and outdoorsy.

Her eyelashes fluttered against his neck and he tightened his grip. Oh, Lord, she’d missed this man. But she’d returned to Coral Cove to take care of business, not to tempt a man she’d written off as too good for her.

Nothing had changed. Now in addition to her other faults, she’d added a divorce. That made her not only unworthy of the police chief but damaged goods.

She kicked her legs as they neared her room. “I thought you knew me better than that, Dylan Reese. Where would I be without at least ten pairs of shoes?”

“Do they all have sky-high heels like that last pair? Because you looked a little overdressed for Coral Cove.”

“Then it’s a good thing I lost them.” She twirled the key chain around her finger, but he still didn’t put her on her feet, even though they now stood on smooth cement.

He snatched the key from her hand and unlocked the door. Kicking it open, he carried her across the threshold.

“I don’t think Gladys is going to appreciate you kicking her doors.”

Releasing his hold on her, he grinned. “Gladys is a romantic. She’d appreciate the circumstances.”

Romance? He’d rescued her from a car about to tumble over the side of a cliff, stood up for her against Peter and literally swept her off her feet and carried her over a threshold. Yeah, that all added up to romance…or at least several selfless gestures.

“So spill.” He parked himself in an uncomfortable-looking chair, as if preparing for an interrogation. “How’d you end up married to Peter…?”

“Casellas.” She dropped to the bed, bouncing up and down for a few seconds, wondering how much she should tell him. “You know the story about how I showed up here in Coral Cove with a boyfriend, Raoul, whom my sister promptly stole from me.”

He crossed an ankle over his knee. “Yeah. I was here for about two minutes when you arrived. Marissa was engaged to Tyler Davis at the time—Mayor Tyler Davis now, who happens to be the biggest pain in my… Go on.”

“Well, after they ran off, I hightailed it out of here, and a lot of people figured I’d had my heart broken.”

“I didn’t figure that when I heard about it.”

“No?” A warm flush crept up her throat. Did Dylan realize nobody could break her heart because she’d kept it wrapped up in gauze for him?

“You’re not the running kind and you’re not the heartbroken kind. But keep going.”

She scooped in a breath and allowed her words to tumble out as she released it. “I left because I had to find someone else to marry.”

He raised one eyebrow. He didn’t even look shocked. “Because…?”

“Because marriage was one of the terms of my…our inheritance.”

He raised the other eyebrow. “Your grandparents stuck that in there?”

“Yes.”

“And this Raoul, he was your first victim?”

She reached back, grabbed a pillow and chucked it at him. “You make me sound like a black widow.”

“If you had to get married, why the hell didn’t you…find someone more appropriate?”

Her pulse quickened. Had he been about to say why hadn’t she asked him? She’d thought about it, but she hadn’t wanted to snare him that way. “That’s what I thought I did when I returned to New York and married my friend Peter.”

“Prenup?”

“Absolutely.”

“Is that what he’s trying to weasel out of right now?”

“Right again.”

He yawned and stretched his long legs in front of him. “Peter didn’t turn out to be much of a friend, did he?”

“He’s a photographer. He’d worked on a few of my fashion shows. I knew he wanted to set up his own shop and needed the capital, so I offered him a deal and he jumped at it. We’d dated a few times, but the marriage was in name only, and when I’d satisfied the terms of my grandparents’ will and it was time to call it quits, Peter got greedy.”

“Marissa had the same requirement?”

This time the flush spread from Mia’s neck and suffused her face. “I-it was kind of a competition.”

“Let me get this straight.” He hunched forward, gripping his knees. “You and Marissa were in a race to get married to get your hands on Columbella?”

“Sort of.” She bit the inside of her cheek. “It’s not like we were going to be cut off from our inheritance if we didn’t get married, it’s just that the first to marry got the house.”

He snorted and collapsed back in his chair. “Draconian. Is that why Marissa hooked up with that stick Tyler Davis?”

“Yep—the only reason. When I heard about their engagement, I rushed back here and, and…” She flopped back on the bed, allowing her hair to sweep across her hot face.

She heard a rustle and then the mattress dipped. Dylan’s low voice reverberated close to her ear. “Mia St. Regis, are you telling me you brought your boy toy Raoul to Coral Cove to tempt your sister away from marriage with Tyler Davis?”

“Umm, maybe.”

He hooked a finger around several strands of hair and pulled them aside like a curtain. “You’re unbelievable.”

She sat up, almost bumping her head against his chin. “I had to, Dylan. You knew Marissa. She had no feeling for the old place. If she’d have gotten her hands on it, she’d have auctioned off Columbella House to the highest bidder.”

“Instead of allowing it to fall into disrepair?”

Her face got even hotter and she dropped her chin to her chest. “I never meant for that to happen. It’s just that after everything—Marissa running off and disappearing and my hasty marriage to Peter—it turned out to be a hollow victory.”

“I could’ve told you that.”

“But you weren’t around then.” And if he had been? Would she have taken a chance and suggested marriage to her old friend? No. Dylan had too much honor for that.

She puffed out her cheeks and expelled a long sigh. “I don’t expect you to understand. You’d never do anything to compromise your standards.”

Dylan tensed and shifted away from her. “I’m not judging you, Mia. I know that house meant a lot to you at one time, and yes, Marissa would’ve sold it faster than she would’ve cheated on Tyler.”