Chapter Ten

 

 

“You cannot be serious.”

Shea’s puffy lips curved with his wicked smile. “Oh, but I am. Deadly.”

A bark of incredulous laughter escaped her. “You’re crazy.”

“Nope. I’m finally seeing things clearly.” His gaze held hers, startling in its intensity. “Before I sign any papers, we’re going to make one last go at fixing this marriage. What better place to start than with a kiss? Or better yet, lots of kisses.”

Her pulse echoed in her ears. “Kisses… on the mouth?”

“I’m not inflexible. If you want to open negotiations—”

“No, no.” Heat swamped her face and chest. “The mouth is fine. I was just clarifying.”

“So we have a deal?”

She shook her head to clear it. “The last time we kissed, we got ourselves into trouble.”

“Believe me, it was no trouble.” His voice rumbled with a gravelly smoothness that sent the heat in her face spiraling downward.

“Kissing won’t fix us.”

“Worked great the other night.”

Her heart gave a painful wrench. “Sex will only complicate things.”

“I’m willing to risk it.”

An anguishing tangle of emotions crashed through her. Wild exhilaration at connecting with him physically, the way they used to, and the thrill of feeling him inside her again after so long were crushed by the dread of certain heartbreak. How long before their first fight? How long before he shut her out again?

A low, heavy sigh tumbled from her. “Well, I’m not.”

The line of his mouth thinned with his grimace. He studied her with somber eyes a moment and then turned his head in the direction of her dresses. Slowly, he reached out and touched the blush ballgown.

Her heart stuttered, tripping into a frantic rhythm as his large, masculine hand fingered the delicate fabric.

Watching him, her breath snagged in her throat. What did he see when he looked at her dresses? Did he see the creative outpouring that went into each design? Or the long hours spent drawing out the patterns, fashioning toiles, hunting for the perfect fabric, saving what little she had left over from her paychecks and scavenging for sale prices so that she could purchase the finest quality material? Did he see the fear, the work, the love that went into every stitch? Could he possibly understand the terror that, after all the parts of herself she’d poured into a dress, in the end, no one would want it?

More likely, he saw nothing but a silly exercise in losing money.

Bright blue eyes fastened on her face. “Vanessa really loved these.”

A beat of pride kicked in her chest and she dropped her chin to hide her sudden smile. “She’s from New York City. I’ll bet she makes a big deal out of everything.”

“She didn’t strike me as an excitable sort, or a clueless one.” His expression softened with his voice. “You have real talent, Iz.”

Talent? Her? Pleasure bloomed, marching through her veins with the sweet blossom. Had she finally found something she was good at? Something she could point to and say, “Look at this amazing thing I’ve done. See? I am not just my dad’s throwaway. I am worth something to someone.”

“How long have you been making wedding dresses?”

At the vulnerable hitch in his voice, a bubble of surprise enfolded her. “I’ve been doing alterations for years. I made a few dresses before we separated.” She tucked a loose strand of hair behind one ear and shrugged. “I think I’ve made eight others since then.”

“Nine wedding dresses?” His features twisted. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

The stab of sorrow in his tone punctured the bubble. “Probably the same reason you didn’t tell me you quit your job at the firm.”

He reared back. His anger flashed, swift and white-hot.

She plunged ahead before he hurled hurtful words at her. “I know. You forgot. At least I had our good friend Amber Jessop to tell me. At the summer carnival. In front of half of the island.”

“Amber Jessop. Jesus—” He gulped down the rest of the curse.

She braced for his counterstrike, but it didn’t come.

His anger fizzled out, to be replaced with something soft and wounded. “Were you going to tell me?”

Uncertainty swamped her. “I don’t know. Maybe. Eventually.” Pain clouded his features and filled her with regret. She struggled to put words to her reasons. “I guess I thought you’d think it was silly.”

“Why would I think that?” he asked softly.

Her mind chased the memories. After they married, she’d watched him breeze through college on a full-ride scholarship, tackle law school with relative ease, and then when he got bored with that, he started his own business, turning the pub into the premier establishment on the island. He’d done it all on his own, with hard work and stubborn determination, and without any help from anyone.

He was a success two or three times over and she… was a retail clerk who’d dishonored her family. Once, they’d been equals, but their paths had diverged even before that first dinner party at the senior partner’s extravagant home.

She’d tried to play along. For years, she worked hard to become the woman he deserved. The perfect wife and mother with a perfect home, perfect children, perfect hair and clothing. The perfect woman. But every day she failed, and eventually she grew exhausted and defeated with the trying. Somewhere along the way, she’d taken her dreams and sheltered them away inside the secret chamber of her heart.

With a pang, she realized how unfair that had been to him.

“I don’t know.” His familiar face suddenly appeared strange to her. “Maybe... I was wrong.”

His Adam’s apple dipped when he swallowed. “I’m sorry.”

The words carried the weight of a thousand sorrows and their heft slammed into her.

“I’m sorry if I made you feel like you couldn’t talk to me,” he said, his raspy voice rough with emotion. “That you couldn’t, or shouldn’t, pursue this.”

A current passed between them. Not sexual, or even sensual, but intimate nonetheless. Then his gaze touched over her dresses again.

When he glanced back at her, an eager light winked in his vivid blue eyes. “Can I see the other dresses?”

She blinked away the cobwebs of confusion spun by his apology and hurtled back to reality.

“There are no other dresses.” Her hand met her forehead with a soft smack. “This is it.”

His brows pulled together. “What happened to the other five?”

“I sold them.”

“You’ve sold five dresses?” A low whistle leaked out of him. “But didn’t Vanessa say something about ten dresses?”

A sliver of panic shivered through her. “Give or take.”

“And you only have four dresses?”

“I only have four dresses.” Her voice pitched.

“How long will it take you to make the others?”

“Each dress can take weeks. Months even.”

His face fell. “You don’t have months.”

Panic veered toward hysteria. “I have two weeks. To make six dresses.”

“That’s not a lot of time.”

With shaking hands, she pressed her palms against her cheeks and gaped at him. “There isn’t enough time. Or money.”

Suddenly, his expression cleared. “You were trying to get a loan.” A smug smile tipped up one side of his mouth. “That’s why you went out to dinner with Cooper.”

She dropped her arms. “I already told you that.”

“You said it was a business meeting. You didn’t tell me the topic was your business.”

“Cooper and I never got around to discussing business.” She pinned him with a look. “Somebody ruined everything first.”

The corners of his eyes creased when he winced. “You didn’t get the loan?”

She shrugged to hide her disappointment. “I haven’t heard from him, so I’m guessing not.”

“It’s only been a few weeks. It’ll come through soon.”

Her hand moved through the air with a dismissive wave. “I don’t think it’s going to happen. I mean, I’m a high school dropout who’s never earned more than minimum wage. Not exactly the résumé of a successful business owner.”

“Stop that,” he snapped. “You’re as smart as anyone I know, and a thousand times more talented. You’ve sold five wedding dresses totaling how much? Several thousand dollars? Don’t you dare talk that down.”

His words soothed the mark left by his biting tone. “Thank you. I think.”

He thrust a hand through his hair. “Okay, we need a plan.”

“What plan?”

“Let’s start with inventory. Is there any way you can borrow back the dresses you sold?”

She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t know. A wedding dress is sentimental to a woman. I don’t think they’d give them back.”

“We aren’t going to keep them, we’re only borrowing them. Every dress will be professionally cleaned before we return it. Tell them that.” He dropped his chin and bright blue eyes pierced her. “And this is business now. No sentimental girly stuff. Got it?”

She touched her forehead in mock salute. “Mina and Emily each bought one of my dresses. Maybe we could ask them?”

His smile sent her pulse racing. “Can you make four dresses in two weeks?”

Pulling her bottom lip between her teeth, she gnawed on it, considering. “With my work schedule, I’ll only have a couple of hours in the evening.”

“Can any of your coworkers pick up some of your hours?”

“Sarah might want the extra time.”

“Does she happen to sew?”

“No. But Ginny does.”

“Is she good enough to help you make these dresses?”

Isobel worried her bottom lip. “She is, but I don’t know… her parents are elderly and—”

He silenced her with a look. “Get her. It’s only for two weeks. If she’s worth it, offer to pay her double her salary.”

“I definitely don’t have enough money to double her salary.”

A thoughtful frown tugged at his handsome features. “You’re right. We need to sit down and come up with a budget.” His fingertips smoothed over his puffy mouth. “How much money did you ask Cooper for?”

When she told him the amount, he surprised her with his unflinching reaction. “We might need to borrow against Maisie’s and Connor’s college funds to start you up.”

Her jaw dropped. “You’d give me that much money?”

Confusion rippled across his face. “It’s not my money. It’s ours.”

Except that in all their years together, she’d never pulled in even a quarter of what he had earned.

“You worked just as hard as I did,” he said, as if reading her thoughts. “Maybe harder, considering you had a job, a houseful of my brothers and a colicky baby to contend with. You took care of me and everyone I care about in the world while I went to school and built my career. I can’t put a price on what I owe you. What we all owe you.”

The soft tenderness in his rough voice caused her skin to flush with heat.

Or maybe it was the way he looked at her, his gaze quiet and probing. “If this is what you want, then I say let’s go get it for you. We’ve got the money. You’ve got the talent. And a golden opportunity has just landed in our laps.” His devastating smile reached inside her. “What do you say?”

A sweet bloom of hope blossomed in her chest. He made it all seem so… possible. Probable. To make her dream reality, all she had to do was reach out and take it.

Emotion squeezed her throat and she nodded. “Okay. Let’s do it.”

With the quick flash of his wide smile, he brushed her cheek and pulled her close. When his lips brushed hers, sensation ricocheted through her. Thoughts of resisting him scrambled when his fingers stroked the hollow beneath her earlobe. He tasted her with possessive licks and nips that roused a gentle fire in her. The kiss was slow, drugging, and when he stopped, a whimper of regret escaped her.

“Was that so bad?” he murmured against her mouth.

“Dreadful.” She extracted herself from the warm cocoon of his arms. “I guess you were serious about that kissing thing, huh?”

He studied her with the intensity he used to show his law briefs. “I was serious.”

She pressed the tips of her fingers to her scalded lips. “Vanessa will probably learn the truth about us anyway from one of the island gossips.”

“I doubt she’d care about a bunch of rumors, as long as she gets her story for the feature.” Storm clouds gathered at the edges of his features, contradicting his smooth tone. “But in case it does matter to her, we can be sure to give her the story she wants.”

“It’s a bad idea.”

Dangerous and doomed to failure.

Yet she hadn’t rejected the notion outright.

His broad shoulders lifted with his callous shrug. “I’m not an actor. I can’t fake something I don’t feel and expect people to believe me. If I have to act happy, I need to be happy, and kissing you makes me really fucking happy.”

She bit back a smile. Would it be so bad? If she was going to make four wedding dresses in two weeks, she was going to need his help. What were a few harmless kisses if the end result was a career doing something she loved, something she was good at?

It might even be a good thing. Good for the kids if their parents stopped arguing, and maybe even got along, like they used to do. And when Shea signed those divorce papers, it’d be good for them both, for everyone, if they moved on as friends rather than enemies.

She searched the handsome face of her fierce, determined husband, who she’d never been able to resist for long.

“Those are my terms.” His husky voice tickled a spot low in her belly. “Take it or leave it.”

The risk of failure was great, heartbreak all but certain.

But what were a couple of days of danger for a chance at her dream? If she was going to take a shot at it, she might as well take a big, wholehearted grab. Shouldn’t she?

Of course she should.

But… could she? Could she pretend to be happily married to him? Could she let him help her? Let him kiss her whenever he wanted?

Yeah, she could.

Given the delicious tingling that remained on her lips, she might even enjoy it.

“Okay.”

Blue fire flared in his eyes. Her heart fluttered wildly when he tugged her to him, and as he claimed a kiss, she experienced a flash of fear that the happiness in her heart had less to do with the realization of her dream and more to do with the delicious slide of her husband’s mouth against hers.