Wife for Hire (For Hire 1)

A rumble reverberated through his chest and he pulled her up. He let his hands trail lower, closing them over the swell of her hips, anchoring her against him.

“O-Owen?” she whispered, her breath hitching.

“Looks like somebody finally got a handle on this, yes?” Talia said with a brilliant smile. “Fabulous job, O’Neils. I love the passion. Same time Wednesday, if anyone is interested.”

People scooped up their towels and water bottles then filed out of the room. Lindy shifted in his arms and he bent to her ear and muttered, “I’d appreciate it if you can stay close for a minute until I get a handle on this…situation.”

Her already flushed face turned a darker shade of pink, and she nodded.

“We’re going to hang back for a sec and practice our dips if that’s okay,” she called to the instructors who had begun packing up.

Marcel gave Owen a knowing smile and chuckled. “Great idea. We’ll come back in a bit to lock up.” He ushered Talia out of the room, and the next moment, he and Lindy were alone.

“That fooled no one,” he said with a sheepish grin and released her.

Lindy laughed nervously and stepped back. “That? We’re at a couple’s retreat. Surely that is exactly the result they’re hoping for, am I right? It’s basic biology. Rub two people all over each other, and stuff comes up.”

He tipped his head and watched her gather her stuff. Her movements were jerky, and her hands trembled. He couldn’t deny the darker part of him swelled with satisfaction at the sight. He reveled in making her nervous.

“Is that what you think?” he asked, moving closer to where she stood, toweling off her face. He reached out a finger and toyed with the damp tendril of hair clinging to her forehead. Her gaze flew to his, and she held the towel in front of her like a shield.

He continued. “You think if it had been Bitsy and I, things would have…come up? Or even Talia and I?” He shook his head firmly. “You don’t give yourself enough credit. I’m not nineteen, Lindy. I can control myself around a beautiful woman. It’s you I’m having a tough time with. For the life of me, I can’t seem to behave, no matter how much my brain tells me I should. Now the question is what to do about it?”

She dropped the towel and met his gaze head on. “The more I’m around you, the less I want the answer to be ‘Get it out of your head’,” she said warily.

They faced off for an electric moment, until he tipped his head toward her. The scent of pears assailed him. “If you don’t want me to, say the word.” He drew close…closer, until their lips—

“Sorry,” a voice squeaked from the doorway. “I left my water bottle behind.” Bitsy scurried over, giving them a “don’t mind me” wave of her hands. “I’ll be out of your way in one second.” She scooped up her bottle in a flash and rushed back by them, hands shielding her eyes. “Please, don’t let me stop you guys from whatever it is you’re doing.”

Owen leaned his forehead against Lindy’s. “Saved by the bell, hey?”

She drew away and called after Bitsy. “Wait up! I was just coming to find you. Want to go for a quick swim before lunch?”

Bitsy hesitated, weighing the mood in the room. When it became clear that whatever she’d interrupted had died an abrupt death, she nodded apologetically. “Okay, then. If you’re not too busy.”

As Owen watched them go, eyes locked on Lindy’s swaying hips encased in spandex, he couldn’t resist calling after her.

“Chicken.”

Chapter Eleven

“Chicken my ass,” Lindy muttered to herself as Owen pulled the car out of the lot a couple hours later.

After her swim with Bitsy, they’d gone to the great room for lunch only to find there wasn’t a shrimp in sight. It had clearly been the last straw for poor Bitsy. Her face had crumpled, and she looked near tears.

“I sat through that whole dang yoga class, swam thirty laps, and danced my patootie off and now there’s not even any shrimp?”

Lindy had felt so sorry for her, she suggested they go to The Rusty Scupper in town. Bitsy would get her shrimp, and she would get some much-needed space. Only Calvin and Owen had caught them on their way out, and now the cozy twosome was an annoying foursome.

“What’d you say?” Bitsy asked with a questioning glance in Lindy’s direction. “You don’t want to order the chicken?”

Lindy winced. She hadn’t realized she’d spoken aloud. Luckily, Calvin had commandeered the front passenger seat and was waxing poetic on his business acumen in his thundering voice, so it was unlikely that either of the men had heard her. “Yeah, uh, chicken sucks. I’m so…sick of it.”

“At least wait until you see the menu to decide.” Bitsy gave her a friendly pat on the hand.

Lindy nodded and agreed to do just that. For the remainder of the short ride, she allowed herself to stew. Owen had a fat lot of nerve calling her a chicken when he wouldn’t even allow himself to consider an emotional connection with a woman. At least she was willing to take the risk. But then again, she’d had a beautiful example. Her parents had twenty incredible years together before their accident, and Lindy and her brothers knew one thing for sure. Life was too short not to spend every precious minute of it surrounded by people you loved. She’d be damned if she was going to ignore that lesson because of Owen. She’d do the job she’d been contracted to do, and then she’d go back to her life with her brothers, and her puppies and her Melba. Then, someday, when the time was right, she’d find a guy who would love her the way she deserved to be loved…the way she would love in return.

By the time they got to the Scupper and settled into their table, she’d managed to talk herself down. She’d spent more of her day annoyed at Owen for his little jab than she had doing her job, and her job was to gather information. With a renewed sense of purpose, she focused on the Cedarhursts. Owen had given her a look when he and Calvin had asked to join her and Bitsy, so she was pretty sure he intended to use the time to get some information from the man. While they discussed bull markets and brokers, she turned her attention to Bitsy.

“So have you been to a couple’s retreat before?”

Bitsy shook her head and leaned forward to whisper. “No. I was lucky I even got Cal to agree to this one. He’s only doing it to please me, but at this point, I’ll take what I can get, you know what I mean?”

It took all her strength not to shake the woman and shout, “No! I have no earthly idea what you mean. Why would you ever take what you can get from this man?” The woman was so sweet but so infuriating. Bitsy Cedarhurst deserved a lot more than Calvin gave her, but until the woman figured that out for herself, nothing would change between those two, fake retreat or no.

She posed more questions, but at a point they felt more like grilling than curiosity, and Bitsy seemed to clam up a little. When their lunches came a short while later, Lindy was grateful for the reprieve, especially when Owen took the reins.

“So what do you think of our host so far?”

“Stephanopoulos?” Calvin asked. “He’s all right for a pretty boy, I guess. A little much with the hippy dippy nonsense, but seems like a nice enough guy.”

“He’s very charismatic,” Bitsy added with a shy smile.

“He certainly is,” Owen said. He seemed as if he was going to say more, but then froze, gaze glued to a point over Lindy’s head.

“Honey?” she said, in hopes of snapping him out of his strange behavior.

“I think I just saw—” He hadn’t finished his sentence when she twisted around to see the restaurant door open and a young blond woman in a smart Burberry coat and black boots stalk toward their table.

“Owen?”

Her lilting soprano was at odds with her expression of shocked fury. She stood a few feet from their table, annoyance adding harshness to her otherwise soft features.

“Can I speak to you, please?” she hissed through her straight white teeth.

Three heads swung toward Owen, awaiting his response, which, at the moment, appeared to be stunned silence. Lindy was pretty floored, too. What were the odds they’d run into someone he knew the one time they’d left the retreat? Pretty high apparently, because here stood a woman—a scorned lover maybe?—who clearly knew him well enough to be angry with him.

“Cara, this is a nice…surprise.”

Cara. Owen’s sister. The whole reason for their charade, and here she stood in front of them, exactly where she shouldn’t be. Lindy scrambled for an explanation, for something to say, but Calvin Cedarhurst beat her to it.

“Hello there, pretty lady. Calvin Cedarhurst, pleasure to meet you.” His gaze traveled the length Cara’s body in a way that could only be described as creepy, and he struggled to his feet. “Would you care to join us?”

Bitsy’s misery was so absolute that, even through Lindy’s haze of panic, she still managed to feel a twinge of empathy for the woman.

To Cara’s credit, she ignored Calvin and honed in on her brother. “You said you were in Houston.”

“Lindy and I were going through a tough time, and we decided to check in to a couple’s retreat. We felt that it was better to keep the details of our whereabouts between us. You understand how it is with married couples. Forgive me?”

The question weighed a ton and hung in the air like a Mac truck suspended by a fraying cable. Owen’s eyes pleaded with his sister, but she clearly didn’t know what he was asking for.

“And Lindy is…”

The defeat on Owen’s face spurred her to action. “Right here, silly! Like the new ’do, sis? I went dark and short because you know how your brother has that thing for Dorothy Hamel. Didn’t even recognize me, did you?”

Cara finally seemed to get it, or at least some of it, and nodded slowly. “Yeah. Looks good. Um, Owen, will you join me for a sec at the bar?” She didn’t wait for his answer, instead turning to give the rest of the table a finger wave. “It was nice to meet you, Calvin and…you as well.” She gave Bitsy a kind smile. “Sis, I’ll give you a call later, all right?”

This last was aimed at Lindy, who was too busy choking on her relief to do anything more than give Cara a thumbs up and bright smile.

Owen stood and wiped his mouth with the napkin. “Excuse me for a moment.”

He followed his sister from the room, leaving Lindy to contend with two curious sets of eyes.

She set her voice to stage whisper and improvised. “Owen’s sister is a drug addict, poor dear.”

…

“What the hell is going on here?”

His sister’s arms were crossed, and her eyes were spitting green fire. Rule number one when dealing with an angry woman? Deflect. “How did you find me?”

“Don’t pull that shit with me. I shouldn’t have had to ‘find you’.” She capped that last phrase off with what looked more like air claws than air quotes. “You should’ve been in Texas where you said you were. Imagine my surprise when I went to The Chelsea to drop off the suit I bought you and saw this on your dresser.” She held a crumpled pamphlet in her hand, and Owen sighed.

His sister had free reign of all his homes, including his Midtown penthouse. She popped by when he was away on business…almost never. He briefly considered questioning her about her sudden interest, but dismissed it. She was the only family he had. He never wanted her to feel like she wasn’t welcome. They’d spent the past handful of years building this bond, and he wasn’t about to set them back to save face. He’d been careless. She often bought him clothes on her travels if she found something she loved that would suit him. Many times she’d stopped by to drop them off on her way home from her shopping excursion. Since Nico had crushed her spirit, she had barely left her apartment, never mind gone on a shopping spree. Murphy’s Law dictated that the trend would start again right when he needed it not to.