Fiona Brand - His Not-So-Blushing Bride - Marriage with Benefits / Improperly Wed / A Breathless Bride

Her feminine parts had been ignored for far too long—but not long enough to forget how much of a mess she’d been after the last time she’d jumped into bed, sure that this was finally the right man to heal the pain from losing her parents, only to scare yet another one away with colossal emotional neediness.

She was pretty passionate about whatever she touched, and there weren’t many men who could handle it, especially not when it was coupled with an inadvertent drive to compensate for the gaping wound in her soul. Until she figured out how to be in a relationship without exposing all the easy-to-lose parts of herself, the best policy was never to get involved—or to get out as quickly as possible.

There had to be another way to solve this problem with the maid besides sleeping in the same room with Lucas. What if she moved her stuff to Lucas’s room and got ready for bed there but slept in her room? She could get up early the days the maid came and make up the bed like she’d never been there. Or maybe she could pretend the maid hadn’t met her standards and dismiss her. Maybe moving her stuff was a total overreaction.

Her phone beeped. She pulled it from her back pocket. Incoming text from Lucas: What’s wrong? What do you need to talk about?

She texted him back: It’s an in-person conversation. BTW, how did you find the maid?

In thirty seconds, the message alert beeped again. Lucas: She just started working for my mother and came highly recommended by your grandfather. Why?

Abuelo. She moaned and sank to the floor, resting her forehead on the open drawer full of sleepwear.

Well, if anything, she’d underreacted. The maid was her grandfather’s spy, commissioned to spill her guts about Cia’s activities at the shelter, no doubt. Abuelo probably didn’t even anticipate the coup of information coming his way about the living arrangements.

It was too late to dismiss her. Imagine the conversation where she said a maid who was good enough for Lucas’s mother wasn’t good enough for Cia. And was she really going to fire a maid who probably sent at least fifty percent of her take-home pay back to extended family in Mexico?

Not only did she and Lucas need to be roommates by tomorrow, she’d have to come up with a plausible reason why they hadn’t been thus far and a way to tell the maid casually.

With a grimace, she weaved to her feet and started yanking tank tops out of the drawer, studiously avoiding thoughts about bedrooms, Lucas, beds and later.

Beep. Lucas: Still there? What’s up?

Quickly, she tapped out a response: Yeah. No prob with the maid. Late for work. Talk 2U tonight. Have a good day.

She cringed. Wait until he found out his wife telling him to have a good day was the least of the surprises in store.

Lucas rescheduled three showings he could not afford to put off and pulled into the garage at home by five, thanks to no small effort and a white-knuckle drive at ten over the speed limit. Suspense gnawed at his gut. Something was wrong, and Cia being so closemouthed about it made it ten times worse. Most women considered it worthy of a hysterical phone call if the toilet overflowed or if they backed the car into the fence. With his wife, the problem could range from serious, like the shelter closing down, to dire, like her grandfather dying.

Cia’s car wasn’t in the garage or the driveway, so he waited in the kitchen. And waited. After forty-five minutes, it was clear she must be working late. More than a little irritated, he went upstairs to change. As he yanked a T-shirt over his head, he caught sight of the vanity through the open bathroom door.

The counter had been empty when he left this morning. Now it wasn’t.

A mirrored tray sat between the twin sinks, loaded with lotion and other feminine stuff. He picked up the lotion and opened it to inhale the contents. Yep. Coconut and lime.

In four seconds, he put the cryptic text messages from Cia together with the addition of this tray, a pink razor, shaving cream and at least six bottles of who knew what lining the stone shelf in the shower.

The maid had spooked Cia into moving into the master bedroom. Rightly so, if the maid had come recommended by Cia’s grandfather, a detail he hadn’t even considered a problem at the time.

Man, he should have thought of that angle long ago. In a few hours, Cia might very well be sleeping in his bed.

He whistled a nameless tune as he meandered back to the kitchen. No wonder Cia was avoiding home as long as possible, because she guessed—correctly—he’d be all over this new development like white on rice. Her resistance to the true benefit of marriage was weakening. Slowly. Tonight might be the push over the edge she needed.

At seven o’clock, he sent her a text message to find out what time she’d be home. And got no answer.

At eight o’clock he called, but she didn’t pick up. In one of her texts, she’d mentioned being late for work. Maybe she’d stayed late to make up for it. He ate a roast beef sandwich and drank a dark beer. Every few bites, he coaxed Fergie to say his name.

But every time he said, “Lucas. Looo-kaaaas,” she squawked and ruffled her feathers. Sometimes she imitated Cia’s ringtone. But mostly the parrot waited for him to shove a piece of fruit through the bars, then took it immediately in her sharp claws.

At nine-thirty, Lucas realized he didn’t know the names of Cia’s friends and, therefore, couldn’t start calling to see if they’d heard from her. There was avoidance, and then there was late.

Besides, Cia met everything head-on, especially him. Radio silence wasn’t like her.

At eleven o’clock, as he stared at the TV while contemplating a call to the police to ask about accidents involving a red Porsche, the automatic garage door opener whirred.

A beat later, Cia trudged into the kitchen, shoulders hunched and messy hair falling in her face.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” she repeated, her voice thinner than tissue paper. “Sorry. I got your messages.”

“I was kind of worried.”

“I know.” The shadows were back in full force, and there was a deep furrow between her eyes he immediately wanted to soothe away.

“I’m sorry,” she repeated. “It was unavoidable. I’m sure you saw my stuff in your room.”

None of this seemed like the right lead-up to a night of blistering passion. “I did. So we’re sharing a bedroom now?”

She squeezed her temples between a thumb and her middle finger, so hard the nail beds turned white. “Only because it’s necessary. Give me fifteen minutes, and then you can come in.”

Necessary. Like it was some big imposition to sleep in his bed. He knew a woman or two who’d be there in a heartbeat to take her place. Why couldn’t he be interested in one of them instead of his no-show wife, who did everything in her power to avoid the best benefit of marriage?

Fearful of what he might say if he tried to argue, he let her go without another word and gave her twenty minutes, exactly long enough for his temper to flare.

He was married, mad and celibate, and the woman responsible for all three lay in his bed.

When he strode into the bedroom, it was dark, so he felt his way into the bathroom, got ready for bed and opted to sleep naked, like normal. This was his room and since she’d moved into it without asking, she could deal with all that entailed.

He hit the button on the TV remote. She better be a heavy sleeper, because he always watched TV in bed, and he wasn’t changing his habits to suit anyone, least of all a prickly wife who couldn’t follow her own mandate to be home by eight.

The soft light of the flat screen mounted on the wall spilled over the empty bed. He glanced over at it. Yep, empty. Where was she?