Bringing Home a Bachelor (14 page)

19

A
WEEK
LATER
,
Pete braced himself for the worst.

Melinda’s Mommie Dearest did her cobra dance again, bobbing her head menacingly and giving him that lipless grimace of hers. Today she wore a snug spring-green suit that looked a half size too large in the jacket, giving her plenty of room to hyperventilate.

The woman still had phenomenal legs. Her narrow feet were encased in beige leather pumps with dagger heels. And today she carried a bag with little L’s and V’s all over it. As she began her rant, Pete idly calculated what she must spend yearly on handbags alone. It probably equaled, in dollar value, the gross national product of a third world country.

“I find it deeply suspicious, Pee-ter, that every decent hotel in Miami and South Beach is booked solid on the days of my charity events.”

“Do you, Mrs. Edgeworth?”

“Yes.”

“South Florida is very active during the high season. It’s a top destination for wealthy travelers, ma’am.”

“Don’t lecture me like the Tourism Bureau, Peter.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it. Incidentally, I did discuss the matter of deep discounts for your events with Mr. Reynaldo. Unfortunately, we are unable to accommodate you at any less than full price.”

“That’s outrageous!”

“I’m sorry you feel that way, Mrs. E.”

“Don’t force me to have a serious talk with my daughter, young man.”

“About that, Jocelyn—”

She bristled at his use of her first name.

“—are you aware that your daughter is working with Reynaldo to bring a boutique bakery here? And that she’ll have her own cable TV show anchored from it?”

She froze, giving no reaction except for a long, slow blink. “I haven’t spoken with my daughter in weeks.”

“Mr. Reynaldo would hate for a deteriorating relationship with you yourself to jeopardize such a deal with your daughter, since it’s very much to her benefit. It will make her a local celebrity and spotlight her business.”

Score. Jocelyn actually gasped, and he was low enough to enjoy her shock and white rage. Whatever had happened to Peter S. Dale, CEO of Mr. Nice Guy, Inc.? Pete wasn’t sure, but he didn’t really care for this new man who’d taken his place.

“You bastard.” Her hands shook with suppressed emotion. She reached into her purse and he had the wild thought that perhaps she had a concealed carry permit and was hunting for a gun. But she retrieved a handful of keys, to his relief. “You actually dare to use my daughter and her happiness against me?”

Pete leaned a hip against his desk and stared her down. “Didn’t you do the very same thing? Turnabout is fair play, Mrs. E.”

“I bribed you!” she exclaimed. “You’re blackmailing me. That’s different. Worse. Much worse.”

“Is it?”

“You. Are. Going. To. Pay. Peter. Start wondering when the other shoe will drop.”

He nodded. “How like you. Now that you’re not getting your way, you’ll hurt your daughter to exact revenge. You must enjoy being you, Jocelyn.”

“At least,” she spat, “I’m not using her, stringing her along, all the while planning to destroy her when she learns the truth.”

“What exactly is the truth, Mrs. E? And why is it so damaging? I think your daughter is an amazing, beautiful, creative, smart, hardworking woman. I love spending time with her. I love going to bed with her. Shit, if she didn’t come pre-packaged with a mother-in-law like you, I’d probably propose to her!”

“Over my dead body,” Jocelyn hissed, and stormed toward the door.

“Go stand in front of my car, woman,” Pete growled. “It’s the pale blue BMW Z-4 in the parking lot. Go stand in front of my car as I hit the gas, and I’ll marry Melinda tomorrow.”

* * *

S
IX
WEEKS
LATER
, an architect had drawn up preliminary plans for Melinda’s boutique bakery in Playa Bella. She was naked in Pete’s bed, and was, in fact, bound by the wrists to Pete’s headboard with one hellaciously ugly pink necktie and one dark red power tie.

She still wasn’t altogether sure how she’d gotten that way. He’d been stealthy and kept her laughing the whole time while distracting her with his clever mouth.

Her helpless position made her self-conscious. While she had relaxed a lot around Pete, something about being fully exposed and unable to cover herself made her feel bigger…and almost desperate. But she didn’t want to reveal her psyche any more than she did her large thighs.

“You have to let me go,” she insisted, casting about for a reason.

“Why?” He grinned at her with purely male enjoyment.

“So that I can show you the designs.”

Pete waggled his eyebrows and bit her lightly on the thigh. “But I have designs of my own, and they involve keeping you right here on this mattress.”

“Pete!” She tried not to let her distress show.

“I still haven’t paid you back in full for jerking me around on the deal,” he announced.

“I didn’t jerk you around. I drove a hard bargain.”

“Yep. And I intend to drive you with something hard, too.” He grinned evilly.

“Uh-oh…but didn’t we just do that?”

“Yes, my pretty Melinda, but now you’ve really got it coming. Uh, no pun intended.” Pete got up and strolled, sans clothing, into his small galley kitchen.

She pulled futilely at the ties that bound her wrists, but couldn’t help being distracted by his taut, muscular buns. Then she went back to tugging.

Stop it. Either you trust Pete, or you don’t.

Did she trust him? Could she?

Were they having fun together, or was he having fun at her expense?

You let yourself be used, Melinda.
Her mother’s voice came back to haunt her. Was she still letting herself be used?

She heard the refrigerator door open and shut. Then fiendish male laughter, which did nothing to reassure her.

Pete came back and stood in front of her with something profane in his right hand. Something that was not in her culinary vocabulary. Something she did not recognize, and refused to recognize, as food.

Insta-Wip.

“No,” she said.

“Oh, yeah, baby.” Pete’s smirk widened as he popped off the blue plastic top and shook the can with menace.

“You are not putting that on my body.”

“That so?” He advanced upon her.

“No!” Melinda struggled against the ties restraining her. “I knew I should never have let you do this. I knew it!”

“Mwah ha ha ha…”

Pete was definitely having fun at her expense. So why was she laughing, too?

Mel shrieked as the first obscene whispering sound came from the can. Shhhhhhhhhhh! And fake whipped cream, made with horrifying things like high-fructose corn syrup, partially hydrogenated oils, and cheap man-made chemicals, hit her skin.

Shhhhhhhhhh! Her epicurean principles were utterly violated.

Shhhhhhhhhh! Her insistence on purity of ingredients was decimated.

“I hate you!” she gasped, still laughing in spite of her disgust. “You are a vile, unprincipled, terrible pers—”

Pete squirted the nasty stuff into her mouth.

“Aaaaggghh!”

Then, redeeming himself only slightly, he licked it out, giving her a kiss that weakened her knees.

Pete covered every inch of her with blobs and stripes of the Insta-Wip while she continued to protest, only shutting up when he threatened her with a brown plastic bottle of commercial chocolate syrup, too.

She had to admit that she didn’t mind the removal process. She didn’t mind the spin cycle on the washer, either, when they shoved the sheets into it and Pete decided that she looked irresistible on top.

He kissed her, lifted her down, and led her to the couch in the living room. “Okay, sit there for a minute and close your eyes, Mel.”

“Why?”

“Just close your eyes.”

She did.

She heard him moving across the room, then a drawer opening and shutting. Then something small and cold hit her chest just above her cleavage. His hands were warm as they moved her hair aside, brushing the back of her neck.

“There,” he said.

Melinda opened her eyes and looked down. “Oh!” She fingered the small disc of gold lying snug against her skin. “Pete…”

It was a sand dollar.

He’d given her a spontaneous gift, for no reason. A lump rose in her throat. He wasn’t using her. He wasn’t simply having fun at her expense. He actually cared.

“Pete, it’s gorgeous. Thank you.” She swallowed the lump as she tilted her head back, and he dropped a quick kiss on her mouth. Then he rounded the couch and sat down beside her.

“I thought, since you found one on the beach the night we, um, re-met—”

She chuckled. “That’s a nice way to put it.”

“Anyway. I thought you might like the necklace.”

“I do. I love it. Thank you.”

He slid an arm around her and they sprawled, naked and content, while his iPod played Green Day in the background.

A lump rose in Mel’s throat as she realized that never in her life before had she sat, naked and unselfconscious, next to anyone. Especially not a man.

She’d always covered herself hastily, with a sheet, a blanket, a robe, a towel—even if she was by herself and emerging from the shower. She’d always had the urge to hide her body, her bulk, her imperfections.

Her eyes filled and her throat ached as she thought about it. She lay her head on Pete’s shoulder, though, and let the music and companionship wash over her. The tears gradually faded and so did the ache.

Melinda smiled. She could get used to this…

“Penny for your thoughts,” said Pete.

“Not for sale,” Mel told him. She squeezed his hand. “Someday, I’ll tell you for free, though.”

20

T
HE
DAYS
CAME
AND
WENT
as Melinda worked on orders for the bakery in the last month before closing her original location and moving to the storefront in Playa Bella. She still hadn’t spoken of the move to her parents, and the rift in her relationship with her mother bothered her. But her mother owed her an apology, and it hadn’t been forthcoming.

She made a cake shaped like a large wedge of Swiss cheese, with molded sugar-mice playing on and around it. It was for a little girl’s birthday.

For a nature-conservancy group, she did a rectangular sheet cake covered with fondant; then added a complete woodland forest scene to the top of it, using wire armatures to support trees built out of gelatin paste with royal icing brushed over the top. She used marzipan to sculpt tree stumps, fallen logs, toadstools, woodchucks, raccoons, rabbits and even gnomes with beards and pointed hats.

Between customers, Scottie helped her do a baby-shower cake with a frilly carriage on top and then an aqua-tinted Sea World cake with sculpted killer whales, dolphins and seals.

And for Mami, she created duck a l’orange bites, garnished with fresh thyme sprinkled over the tangerine-hued icing.

Scottie, enraged, immediately got to work on tiny filet-flavored mousses. Mel burst out laughing when she found them in the steel industrial refrigerator. “Cheater!” she exclaimed. “These aren’t cookies.”

“Cheater?” Scottie looked wounded. “No, that would be Low-Down Lyman.”

Mel winced. “Sorry.” Scottie had caught his boyfriend with someone else recently, which had resulted in huge drama, untold numbers of consolation martinis and an ongoing legal battle over a chair he and the departed Lyman had designed and built together.

The chair had been removed to Mel’s townhome for “safekeeping” (aka spite) while Lyman petitioned to get it back. Since it resembled a futuristic dental recliner that had collided with a hooker’s leopard coat, Mel hoped the dispute would be resolved soon. She found it a little disconcerting, especially late at night when she was afraid it would grow fangs and come alive.

She’d blocked the chair from her mind and was working on a cake for the Fraternal Order of Police, shaped like an officer’s hat, when the jingle of bells at her bakery door announced a visitor. It was her brother, all six-foot-three of him, dressed in immaculate khaki pants and a white shirt, looking exactly like the handsome young lobbyist that he was.

“Mark!” she exclaimed, and came around the cold case to hug him. “I haven’t seen you in forever.”

“Too true,” said Scottie, who emerged from the back to drool. “Hey, Good Lookin’.”

“Beam me up,” said Mark, still embracing his sister. He wasn’t Scottie’s biggest fan.

“Trust me, if I could beam you naked right into my shower stall, I’d do it in a heartbeat.”

“Scottie,” Mel said in warning tones.

Mark curled his lip. “Don’t make me flatten you, little man.”

Scottie sighed and fanned himself with a menu. “Oooh. Danger. It always turns me on.”

“You’ll have to excuse Scottie. He’s missing his boyfriend,” Mel said pointedly, glaring at him.

“And Mel’s missing hers. Check out the new jewelry, Marky-Mark.”

Her brother eyed the gold sand dollar around her throat and lifted his eyebrows. “Who’s the lucky guy?”

Mel felt her face catch fire. “Nobody,” she mumbled, shooting Scottie an “I’ll-get-you-for-this-later” look.

“Nobody’s giving you some pretty expensive gifts, sis.” Mark lounged against the counter with his hands in his pockets. “Do I know him?”

“Nope,” she said dismissively. “Want an éclair?”

“Nice change of subject. I’ll have a couple of cannoli, please, and a cup of coffee. So who’s your beau, Bug-Eyes?”

“Don’t call me that, Jerk-Face.” God, how easily they slipped into childhood taunts, even decades later. “How’s Kendra?”

“Kendra’s fine. She gained about five pounds on the honeymoon, though.” Mark blithely accepted the plate of cannoli she passed him, clearly not at all concerned about his own caloric intake.

“What a crime,” she said dryly. “Did you have her fingerprinted and booked?”

“Funny,” her brother said, stuffing his face. “Mom gave her that old recipe for cabbage soup.”

“Tasty. Hope you’re enjoying that for dinner.”

He grimaced. “Are you kidding me? That shit stinks up the whole house.”

“I remember the lovely aroma all too well.”

“I’ve been eating at Chipotle on the way home from work.”

Mel rolled her eyes as Scottie snickered. “Well, gosh. What newlywed domestic bliss, Marky.”

“So who’s the guy?” he asked again, impatiently.

“What guy?”

“Mr. Jewelry. Captain Sand Dollar.”

“His name is Pete,” Scottie said, smirking. “So, Mel, does Pete have a big peter?”

Mark set his plate down with a snap. “Pete? Pete Dale?”

“No!” Mel turned to Scottie. “You are so fired.”

“He would have found out anyway,” her obnoxious assistant pointed out.

“Yeah? Well he didn’t need to find out today!” Mel stole a look at Mark’s expression, which was thunderous. “Scottie, get out of my sight or I really will fire you. I’m not kidding.”

Scottie vamoosed.

“I’m going to kill him,” Mark said, sweeping the remaining cannoli remnants into the trash and tossing his cup of coffee after them.

“You’re not killing anyone,” Melinda said firmly.

“Yes, I am.” Mark shuddered. “If he’s buying you jewelry, then he’s in your pants. That means I’m going to rip off his head and crap down his—”

“Mark! My pants—and who may or may not be in them—are not your business. So stop.” She took a deep breath. “Pete and I, we, um…we reconnected at your wedding, and—”

“I knew it! That lying, conniving sack of shit.” Mark’s face suffused with red.

“He’s not. Pete and I have been dating, okay?”

“Not okay!” Mark shouted. “Out of all the women in Miami, he has to hit on my sister?”

“Stop yelling. He did not ‘hit’ on me. Pete and I mutually decided to—”

“Ugh!” Mark held out a hand. “Not one more word outta you, Bug-Eyes. I’m going to be sick.”

“Don’t you think you’re having a seriously immature reaction to this? Think about it.”

“I don’t want to think about it. He’s using you, Melinda, and I’m going to make him pay.”

“He is not using me, Mark! Why would you automatically assume that? What is wrong with you? What is wrong with Mom, that she’d decide the same thing? God, I really hate you both.”

“Mel, you haven’t had a lot of experience with men. We’re just trying to look out for you.”

“Well, stop! I am twenty-five years old, I run a business and I’m capable of living my own life without your interference.”

“Fine,” snapped Mark. “Then what’s next? You gonna bring Pete home for Sunday dinner? Have oatmeal-raisin cookies in the kitchen, just like in junior high?”

Melinda glowered at her perfect brother. “Yes. I think that’s a fabulous idea, as a matter of fact. Pete is my…my…boyfriend—”

Was he?

“—and it’s time everyone accepted that. I’ll set it up with Mom.”

“When was the last time you even bothered to call Mom, Melinda? She’s really hurt. They haven’t seen you since the wedding.”

“Right. And have you asked her why? No, I didn’t think so.”

Mark sighed. “You and Mom need to put your differences behind you.”

“We don’t have differences. She has a perfectionism disorder, and she needs to keep her mouth shut.”

He turned towards the door and pushed it open. “Gee, I can’t wait for this little family get-together.”

“Me, either. I’ll be sure to bring something fattening.”

* * *

“C
AN
’
T
MAKE
IT
TO
dinner that day,” Pete said, full-scale alarm igniting on his face. “Sorry.”

Melinda paused. “Okay, then how about the following Sunday?”

“Got plans,” Pete said, a little desperately. A tic started at the outside corner of his left eye.

“The Sunday after that?”

“No can do.” He popped out of her bed like a jack-in-the-box, but she caught his hand and pulled him backward. He sat down heavily on the mattress, his shoulders hunched.

What was wrong with him? Why did his discomfort make her feel nauseous? Did he not want to ‘out’ their relationship?

She reached for her newfound confidence, confidence that Pete had helped her to find, and pulled it around herself like a blanket. She was being silly. Pete just felt uncomfortable because her mother had been cold to him at the wedding breakfast.

“Pete,” she said severely. “You don’t have to be afraid of my mother. She doesn’t bite.”

“You sure about that?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. She likes you.”

“No. No, I don’t think she does. In fact, I’m sure of it, sweetheart.”

“Pete, she was frosty to you at the wedding breakfast because I told her that I’d slept with you, and she jumped to the same conclusion Mark did—that it was a one-night stand. Mom disapproves of those.”

“You say Mark’s going to be there, too? No. Can’t do it. I’m pretty sure I’m in the Bahamas that weekend…”

“Honey—”

“And why would you tell your mother that we slept together, right then? Isn’t there some kind of code against that? She would have carved off my dick with a butter knife that morning, by the way, given half the chance. And I don’t have any reason to think that she’s had a change of heart lately.”

“You’re overreacting. My mom will be so happy that I have a boyfriend that she’ll start adoption proceedings.”

Why that should cause an unmistakable shudder to go down Pete’s spine, Mel didn’t know.

Again, he tried to get up. And again, she tugged him down onto the mattress. “Are you my boyfriend?”

“What?”

She felt like throwing up. “Are you my boyfriend?”

“Yes,” he said, after too long a pause. “Of course I am.”

“O-kay…?”

“Mel, I have to get home. I’ve got an early meeting tomorrow morning.”

Why was he so resistant to this Sunday dinner? She felt her old insecurities awakening, yawning and stretching. Did Pete not want to officially be her boyfriend? Was he happy to screw her in private, but embarrassed to acknowledge her in public?

“Pete, is there something you’re not telling me?”

He turned to stare at her, his gray eyes wide and guileless. “Of course not. Why would you ask that?”

He was lying, and she knew it.

“Is it Mark you’re afraid to see?”

“I can’t say I’m looking forward to having a fist planted in my eye,” he admitted.

“He’s not going to do that.”

“Yeah? He left an extremely hostile message on my voice mail. Go figure, but I haven’t had a moment to call him back.”

Mel got out of bed and stood before him naked, hands on her hips. “Pete, this is really stupid. You and I are dating, right?”

“Yeah.” His gaze ran appreciatively over her body.

He couldn’t fake that, and she felt a tiny bit reassured.

“Then my family needs to accept that, and you need to accept my family. I think a nice way to bridge the gap is for us all to have a Sunday dinner together. So I’m going to ask you one more time—are you available next Sunday?”

Pete wore the expression of a hunted man. He shifted his weight from one butt cheek to another, and then back. He stood up as if the gallows awaited him. “Sure,” he said, after a long pause. “Of course. I’d be delighted.”

“Great.” Mel gave him her most dazzling smile. “I really appreciate it.”

“Uh-huh.” He fished his boxer briefs off the floor and climbed into them.

What was he keeping from her? She didn’t like this, not at all. But half to reassure herself, and half to reassure him, she said, “It’s going to be fine.”

“Right.” He stepped into his pants and pulled them up, then gloomily zipped the fly, slowly and with finality, as if sealing a body bag.

His omission, whatever it was, created a distance between them. And she didn’t know how to bridge it. She tried to catch his eye, but he averted his gaze from hers.

Silence stretched between them, a silence that was new and unwelcome.

“What can I bring?” he asked, at last. “A noose?”