He knocked again. The music stopped.
The door flung open. “Don’t even say it,” Ashley blurted. Her cheeks were flushed. Her eyes flashed in their usual near-manic state. “I’m late. I know it.”
Marcus didn’t speak. Or blink. Ashley’s hair and makeup were done up. The rest of her was...wrapped in a fluffy white bath towel.
“I need two minutes to get dressed. The hair and makeup people just left, and my phone has been ringing like crazy.” With a wave, she invited him inside.
Marcus closed the door behind him, his eyes as dry as parchment. He still hadn’t blinked. Not once, and it wasn’t from shock that Ashley might be late for her own party. It was the damn towel. He hadn’t been so close to a beautiful woman in that state of undress in a while, and this wasn’t just any woman. This was the woman he’d been trying like hell to stay away from. Every inch of his body felt a prodigious tug as Ashley rushed down the hall, showing slender legs, bare feet and naked shoulders. She left a damning smell of summer rain and vanilla in her wake. The sweet fragrance begged him to follow her. He cleared his throat, feeling as though he needed an oxygen mask. “No worries,” he muttered, but she was already gone.
Eager to set his mind straight, he turned away and surveyed the apartment. The layout mirrored Marcus’s, but it was otherwise in disarray—tarps draped over furniture, building supplies in every corner of the open space. A patchwork of construction paper blanketed the floor, and an enormous chandelier, cocooned in plastic, hung over the dining room table. How could she live in such bedlam? He wouldn’t have lasted five minutes. It would have had him at sixes and sevens—completely crazy—in no time. The room smelled of fresh paint, with the faintest trace of Ashley’s perfume not just shadowing him but needling him. Taunting him. Reminding him that the woman he wanted and the woman he needed were two entirely separate people.
“I told you it would only take me a minute,” Ashley said from behind him.
He turned, ill-prepared for her wardrobe change. No pink monstrosity. Oh no. That would’ve made things too easy on him. Instead, she wore a silvery gray gown of impeccable taste. Delicate, silky straps skimmed her shoulders. The neckline was sublime, dipping just low enough to please him greatly...and make him wish his pants were a bit roomier. Her golden-blond hair was in an elegant twist to the side. She closed in on him as if she floated on air, quite possibly the breath that had been knocked from his lungs by surprise.
She was grace in motion, not at all what he’d expected. Just like a few nights ago in the hall, when she’d grabbed his arm, he struggled to understand why his libido had formed one opinion of Ashley and his logical mind had formed another.
“What?” she asked, looking down at her dress and turning, again afflicting him with her intoxicating smell. “Is it too much? Too fancy?”
It’s perfect. You’re perfect. Except that she was otherwise the opposite. He needed to forget the way she made him feel at this moment, and remember the way she’d made him feel every time she did or said something that screamed, “I’m not the right woman.” He shook his head as fog encroached on his thoughts. “No. You look fine.”
She arched both eyebrows, making her vibrant brown eyes appear even larger. “At least I don’t have to worry about you killing me with kindness.”
He had to change the course his mind kept veering onto, one where their business arrangement abruptly ended with a deep kiss and his hands dragging those skinny dress straps off her shoulders. “Remember, tonight is all about business.” He gestured to the front door. “Shall we?”
They met the limousine down in the parking garage after Ashley explained that some of her fans had been spotted outside their building. He added that to the list of reasons Ashley was all wrong for him—the intrusion of her public. He didn’t like the idea of tallying negatives and essentially building a case against Ashley, but most of the time, the list made it easier to ignore his attraction.
Ashley fidgeted in her seat, repeatedly opening a compact mirror, checking her makeup and sighing.
“Everything alright?” he asked.
“Oh, sure. Just a few butterflies.”
He wasn’t sure what sort of wildlife had chosen to inhabit his own chest and stomach. He only knew that something was going on in there. He took a deep breath. Tonight was about saving his family’s business. Nothing else. Tomorrow he and Ashley would go right back to their semiregular spats over drywall dust and construction noise. That he could manage much better.
“We should probably get our stories straight,” Ashley said. “People will want to know how we met. How serious we are.”
The notion of constructing a romance struck him as all wrong. That wasn’t the way things were supposed to happen, but Ashley was used to it. Her job was orchestrating love, or at least the appearance of it. “Can’t we keep it simple and truthful? We met because we’re neighbors and we’re taking it one day at a time. That’s satisfactory, isn’t it?”
“What if people ask about our first date? If we’re truthful about that, everyone will know we’re not a real couple.”
Marcus cleared his throat. “Is it any of their business?”
“The press will say it’s their business. We’ll get skewered if we don’t say something.” She sat back in her seat, compulsively closing and opening the jeweled clasp of her small silver handbag. “We’ll tell people we went to dinner and sparks flew. We’ll skip the part about how you shook my hand at the end of the night and essentially started the Wars of the Roses the next day.”
The woman had no fear of uncomfortable subjects. “I was being a gentleman that night. I didn’t want to lead you on.”
“Nor did you allow me to explain myself. I had one too many glasses of wine that night, you know. I was nervous. I say stupid things when I’m nervous.”
Flashes of light came through the darkened limousine windows as they pulled up to the curb, thankfully putting an end to that particular strain of conversation. The car stopped and idled. The photographers outside continued taking pictures.
“Just follow my lead with the photographers. I’ve trained myself to do exactly what they want. It’s fairly painless. I promise.” She reached over and patted his knee. “And please relax tonight. I know you can be charming. I’ve seen you do it. That’s the Marcus I need at this party, not your normal grumpy self.”
His spine stiffened. Why did she continue to use those words? Grump. Curmudgeon. She had no idea what he’d been through, the trials that necessitated his serious nature. He wasn’t about to launch into an explanation now. “I know how to act at a party. Don’t you worry about me.”
“Fine. Let’s see how you do.”
The driver opened the door. The instant Ashley rose from the car, the crowd roared with excitement, fans and photographers shouting her name. She stepped on to the red carpet and turned to him, taking his hand, offering an enchanting smile with plump pink lips that begged for a gentle nip. He was transfixed by that look on her face, so genuine and warm. It made a surreal moment even more so—the object of his mysterious weakness, reaching for him. He had no choice in front of this audience but to go with it. He clutched her impossibly soft fingers and trailed behind her, stepping square into the lion’s den.
Cameras were everywhere, all pointed at the two of them. The more persistent the flashes, the tighter Ashley gripped his hand, the closer she pulled him. She seemed to crave the security of someone by her side, and his instinct told him to protect her, even when he knew it was the wrong inclination, one to fight with everything he had.
She smiled wide as the photographers snapped their pictures, beguiling the masses before them as if she’d been born to do this. Butterflies, my ass. Seeing the Manhattan Matchmaker in action, he knew he was being sucked in just as the rest of the world was, but there was only so much he could do about it. He was there to be the handsome man on her