Three
Penelope strolled into the oversize ballroom on Zach’s arm. The mansion boasted enough round tables and slipcovered chairs to seat the mayor’s one-hundred-plus guests. Similar to a wedding, there was a head table for the guests of honor. In this case those guests were Mayor Chase Ferguson, Stefanie Ferguson, Zach and the recent addition of Penelope.
The rectangular table was set apart from the others and dotted with votive candles and low vases with flower arrangements.
A few staff members from the mayor’s office were also seated at the head table. A plucky, talkative woman named Barb, Roger, who looked and acted the part of secret service, and a scowling, large-framed man named Emmett Keaton.
Emmett, who had been introduced as the mayor’s “friend and confidant,” had short, cropped hair, a healthy dash of stubble on his face and eyed Stefanie with disdain the entire time he ate his pear and Gorgonzola salad. Stefanie had glared at him from her spot across the table before rolling her eyes and drinking down her white wine.
Clearly there was no love lost between those two.
Penelope wasn’t surprised. Stefanie’s recent scrape had drawn attention to the Ferguson family—and not the good kind. It would make sense that she wasn’t favored among the mayor’s staff.
Speaking of scrapes, Pen now had another to deal with in the form of Zach’s ex-wife. Pen didn’t know what shocked her more—that Zach had married the unhinged woman, or that he’d been married at all. It might be a tie.
Zach wasn’t the marrying type. He was the one-night-stand type. Or so Pen had thought.
Slicing into the sun-dried-tomato-crusted rack of lamb on her plate, she kept her voice low and asked Zach the million-dollar question.
“Were you married when we slept together two weeks ago?”
His jaw paused midchew before he continued, smiling with his mouth shut, and then swallowed down the bite. He swept his tongue over his teeth and took a drink of water before responding. Pen didn’t mind the delay. The lamb was spectacular. She sliced off another petite bite, this time plunging it into the ramekin of balsamic dipping sauce first.
“No,” he finally said.
She patted her lips with her napkin. “When did it happen?”
“Last New Year’s Eve.” He glanced around the table, but no one was paying them any attention. Barb was chattering to Stefanie, and Emmett and Chase were having a low conversation of their own. Roger wasn’t at the table any longer. When had he left? He was sneaky, but then—secret service, so it made sense.
“In Vegas,” Zach finished.
Pen laughed, drawing Emmett’s and Chase’s attention before they returned to their conversation. “Cliché, Zach.”
“Yeah, as was the annulment.”
“And the need for our betrothal?”
Zach shrugged muscular, tux-covered shoulders. “You helped Stef. You’re a good ally to have.”
“You could have introduced me as an adviser. As anyone.”
He stabbed a bite of meat with his fork and waved it as he said, “Fiancée had a nice ring to it.”
“Very funny.” Fiancée. Ring. At least his personality was the same as the night she’d invited him home with her. He’d been cheeky then, too.
She smiled, glued her eyes to his and enjoyed the sizzling heat in the scant space between them for the next three heartbeats. Then she focused on her food again.
Once the dinner dishes were cleared, dessert appeared in the form of a dark chocolate tart, a single, perfect raspberry interrupting a decadent white-chocolate drizzle.
“Speech time,” Zach prompted his brother.
“Go get ’em, Tiger,” Stefanie said, clearly teasing him.
Chase stood and buttoned his suit jacket, then glided to the podium. From her side of the table, Pen wouldn’t have to so much as turn her head to watch. Unlike everyone else who had swiveled in their chairs.
Chase had great presence. Elegant. Regal. He talked and the world quieted to listen. She remembered the first time she’d seen him on television and thought—
A gasp stole her throat when warm fingers landed on her knee.
Zach.
Barb looked over her shoulder and offered a wide smile. Pen gave the other woman a tight nod as she reached beneath the table and removed Zach’s wandering hand.
Pen cleared her throat and refocused on Chase’s speech when Zach’s fingers returned. This time she managed to stifle the surprised bleat in her throat. She slanted a glare to her right where he lounged, elbow resting on the arm of his chair, his fingers pressed to his lips and his eyes narrowed as if hanging on to every word his brother said.
With the fingers of Zach’s other hand swirling circles on the inside of her knee, Pen couldn’t concentrate on a single word of the speech. A quick glance around confirmed that no one could see what was happening beneath the tablecloth.
She shifted in her seat, but before she could crush his fingers between her kneecaps, he gripped her leg with a tight hold. She swallowed down a ball of thick lust as he pushed her legs apart.
Pen flattened her hands on the tablecloth as Zach’s hand traveled from her knee and climbed the inside of her thigh. She closed her eyes, visions of the night they’d spent together flashing on the screen of her mind.
His firm, insistent kisses on her jaw, her neck and lower.
The deep timbre of his laugh when she’d struggled with his belt.
He’d ended up stripping for her while she sat on her bed and watched every tantalizing second.
She was snapped to the present when Zach’s fingertips dug into the soft skin of her thigh, and without warning, brushed her silk panties. Pen fisted one hand on the tablecloth, dragging her dessert plate to the edge of the table. Her glass of red gave a dangerous wobble.
She held her breath when he touched her intimately again, the scrap of silk going damp against his pressing fingers. When he pulled her panties aside and brushed bare skin, Pen bit down on her bottom lip to contain a whimper.
Then the mayor’s voice crashed into her psyche.
“To Penelope and my brother, Zach. Many congratulations on your engagement.”
She jerked ramrod straight to find every set of eyes in the room on her and glasses raised.
“Cheers,” Chase said into the microphone.
Stiff as a cadaver, Pen managed a frozen smile. Conversely, Zach moved like a sunbathing cat, lazily tossing his napkin on the table before taking Pen’s napkin from her lap and standing.
He offered his hand and a smirk, and Pen prayed that the flush of her cheeks would be taken for embarrassment at the attention.
Placing her palm in his, she surreptitiously tugged her skirt down and stood with him to accept the room’s applause.
Smooth as butter, Zach pushed her dessert plate from its perch at the edge of the table, handed Pen her wineglass and lifted his own.
Then, they drank to their engagement.
* * *
“I like this.” Zach touched the F dangling from Pen’s bracelet with his thumb. “Makes me feel possessive.”
Her hand in his, Pen swayed to the music.
He liked her hand in his. He liked her laugh and the sweet scent of her perfume tickling his senses. He liked the way she smoothly handled Barb’s question about a missing engagement ring.
Where is your diamond ring, darling?
Oh, we didn’t want to upstage the mayor on his big day.
Pen was the right partner to choose for this particular snafu. She was a woman at the top of her game. Touching her under the table and listening as her breaths shortened and tightened was a bonus.
“What are you grinning about?” she asked him now.
“I think you know.”
She hummed, not confirming or denying. Like he said, top of her game.
He turned her to the beat of the music, pressing his palm flat on her back and drawing her closer. She came rather than resist him, which he liked a whole hell of a lot.
“It’s kind of your brother to give first-time guests such decadent gifts,” she commented, redirecting his attention back to the bracelet. She waggled their joined hands so the pendant moved against her pale skin.
“You think that’s what this is for?” Zach joked as he clucked his tongue. “You don’t know the underground Chase Ferguson birthday secret.”
Her eyes widened slightly and he didn’t say more. Finally, she broke. “Are you going to tell me or not?”
“Depends.” He leaned in, his whisper conspiratorial. “Are you into multiple sex partners?”
“Zach!” she quietly scolded. A second later her lips parted in a laugh that warmed the very center of his chest. She took her hand from his shoulder to playfully shove his chest. If he wasn’t mistaken, she lingered a bit over his pectoral before resting her hand on his shoulder once again. “You’re impossible.”
He hovered just over her lips, testing her. “You’re wearing the first letter of my last name, Pen. That means you’re mine.”
Blue eyes turned up to his and for a second he thought she might give him the gift of saying, Show me to your room. She hadn’t been the least bit shy the night she’d invited him home with her.
Instead those blues rolled skyward and she hedged with, “Caveman.”
But she’d given him an inch not arguing that she was his.
“What really happens next?” she asked. The crowd was thinning. Only a few couples danced, while others ringed the bar or sat with their coffees at the cleared tables.
“Things wind down. Cigars are smoked. Bourbon poured. Stef and I have rooms here so we usually stay the night.”
“Well, make sure you tell me when it’s the proper time to leave. I don’t want to overstay my welcome on my maiden voyage to the mayor’s birthday party.”
“How about you don’t leave?”
She’d been looking around the room, but now snapped her attention back to him. “What?”
“You heard me. Don’t leave. Stay in my room. With me.” He pulled her closer, resting his cheek on hers as he spoke into the delicate shell of her ear. “Spend the night in my bed, Penelope. You won’t regret it.”
Her hand tightened in his. “I—I can’t. It’s...inappropriate.”
He pulled his face away from hers to find she looked as flustered as she sounded. Her eyes bounced from his face to his chest. Her steps faltered.
Zach dropped the pretense of dancing, and cradled her gorgeous face in both hands. “It’s not only appropriate. It’s expected. To this room of people, you’re my future wife. I would never let my fiancée drive home alone this late.”
A small smile found her face. “My God. You really are a caveman.”
“Aw, honey,” he said with a wink as he laced his fingers with hers. “But I’m your caveman.”
Her silken laughter as he led them to the bar was a good sign she’d join him upstairs when the night wound to a close. Zach wasn’t ready to draw the curtain on their evening yet, but he was anticipating getting her alone again. He’d give her the best night of her life.
Well, assuming the last night they’d spent together could be topped.
It was a challenge he embraced.