A Bride Worth Fighting For (12 page)

He frowned and released her. She was right. Other than surprising and annoying her, the fall wouldn’t have damaged anything, but his waterlogged boots would be hell to dry. Too late to change his mind, he stood in the knee-deep water, his hands encircling her waist. “I wouldn’t mind taking back a lot of my decisions.”

She stepped away from him and reseated herself on the rock. “I can only imagine. Coming here with me probably tops the list.”

He pulled himself onto the rock next to her. His soggy boots were lead weights on his feet, matching the weight dragging his heart down in his chest. “That decision, I’d stand behind. But maybe I’d wait to judge you until I got to know you.”

She wrapped her arms around her knees and drew them up to her chest. “In your defense, getting to know someone who doesn’t remember who she is makes for a tricky challenge.”

“I’m trying to apologize. You don’t need to excuse my abominable behavior.”

“Abominable?” She met his gaze. “Your behavior didn’t feel abominable when you were licking my pussy.”

He groaned, wanting to kneel in front of her and lick and caress her again. But he didn’t deserve a second chance and wouldn’t ask for one. “Listen, I was wrong. I made assumptions about you, and I didn’t give you the chance to defend yourself. Any manipulations were Darlene’s doing. I can see that now.”

She shrugged, her gaze on the water again. “You weren’t totally wrong. I wasn’t marrying your brother for love. I was marrying because I needed funding to get my resort off the ground. The financial institutions I’d approached had turned me down. Darlene and John were the only ones who believed I could turn my dream into a reality, and more than a business deal, they offered me the chance to be a part of a family again.”

“Darlene doesn’t want to turn your dream into a reality. She wants to turn it into a subdivision. As for the family part, you can do a lot better than our dysfunctional mess.” He squeezed her shoulder. “I know I’m not a person you’d trust for advice, but, for your sake, don’t sign anything over to her. Don’t let her touch your dreams.”

She continued to focus on the water, not flinching away from him but not leaning in either. “I wish I still had amnesia. Life was so much easier. I believed in so many more possibilities.”

Guilt stabbed him for stripping her of her innocence. She’d counted on him to protect her, and he’d failed. “I’m not telling you to give up your dream.”

She laughed without humor. He’d have preferred anger. Her lack of emotion terrified him.

“Yes, you are. From the moment the word resort came out of my mouth in the hospital, you’ve made no secret of how you feel about my dream.”

“My opinion about resorts is based on research and facts. I wasn’t taking aim at yours specifically.” Not at first, but he had shot at hers. His biggest regret, though, was not realizing her goodness was an intrinsic part of her and not something that would disappear when her memories returned.

“Don’t try to manipulate me, Tucker. You put yourself in the same class as your stepmother, and I want to think better of you.” She swiveled around on the rock, dropped onto the sand, and walked up the beach to her shoes.

Tucker sloshed behind her in his soggy boots. Of course he thought better of her. He thought the world of her. However, he no longer believed in himself as a man with noble goals and lofty intentions. His actions proved he was a jerk who set out to hurt a woman who would never have intentionally hurt him.

“I’ve been thinking,” she said, her tone surprisingly conversational as she stood on one foot and rubbed the sand off the bottom of the other. She pulled on her sock and then her shoe. “Building a resort takes money. If a person isn’t filthy rich to start with, she needs to partner with someone or accept she’ll never pull it off.”

He shoved his hands in his pockets to avoid the temptation to place a hand on her waist to steady her. “You tried the partner thing already. It didn’t work out so well.”

“Right.” She hopped to the other foot and rubbed the sand off the opposite sole. “So what happens if people want to preserve a natural area? They wouldn’t have the big capital outlay and expenses that come with building a resort complex, but they also lose the opportunity to make back whatever money they invest in it because they’re not commercializing it.”

“Conservation is a money sinkhole,” he agreed. “That’s why parks and preserves are owned by government agencies that are funded by tax dollars or at the very least by nonprofits.”

She finished tying her shoes and spread her legs, leaning over one and stretching for her toes. “So, if I decided to be all noble and turn my great-aunt’s land into a natural area, I’d still have to marry your brother to be able to afford the investment?”

He flinched. Getting what he wanted with the land wasn’t worth standing as best man at her wedding again. “I’m not going to recommend that you marry John.”

“I wouldn’t. Don’t worry. Your family is safe from me.”

His chest ached nearly as much as his cock as she bent over in the form-fitting spandex outfit.

“I’ll go back to working for someone else,” Gwen continued. “I assume you know I started my resort career in college working for a bed and breakfast. Since then, I’ve worked as an assistant manager and manager at a couple of different hotels.”

“I didn’t know.” He hadn’t known anything about her life before the Wiccan Haus, other than her ability to dance and his dangerous assumptions about her personality and motives.

Shrugging, she straightened and pulled her foot toward her buttocks. “I’m not exactly on a career path that will make you fall head over heels for me, but at least I know who I am. I’m going to run some more. I’ll see you at dinner.”

She took off before he could reply. Tucker took two steps after her, but if he’d had any chance of keeping up, his waterlogged boots nixed the possibility. She didn’t want his company, anyway.

All the professed emotional and spiritual healing touted in the Wiccan Haus brochure was crap. He’d never felt more miserable, and he couldn’t even blame Darlene for setting him up as Gwen’s fiancé.

He treasured the days when she’d almost been his. If he could find a way for her to forget the past two days, he’d jump on the opportunity to prevent her from being hurt by him. Instead, he needed to convince her to give him another chance to make things right, even though he didn’t deserve it.

***

Gwen dug her nails into her palm. Tucker stood in the doorway to the dining room, waiting for her. If she turned away, she could avoid him and the whole dinner scene by gorging on apples in the orchard. Unfortunately, for all the flexibility the staff showed to their guests, they were pretty rigid about the rule forcing everyone to congregate together each evening.

“Have dinner with me so I don’t have to be that pathetic guy eating at a table alone.” He held out his arm to her.

“You couldn’t be pathetic if you tried.” She glanced toward Holly and Justin, but their table was full, and they were oblivious to her desperation to distance herself from the man who had never been hers. She could suck up her misery—and eat fast.

Placing her hand on Tucker’s forearm, she ignored the tingling that shot through her fingers and up her arm as they walked toward their table. As soon as they reached it, she released him and took her seat. Silence stretched while she fiddled with her napkin and the servers delivered the food.

If she had to endure the meal, listening to his gravelly voice would at least make it bearable. “You must be eager to return home and get back to your life. Babysitting me this week can’t have been much of a vacation.”

He lowered his fork, his eyes darkening with intensity. “Do you know how many relaxing memories I created with you—the picnic in the orchard, waltzing in the ballet room, lying next to you outside as the sun came up.”

He might have enjoyed a peaceful sunrise, but she hadn’t. By the time she’d awoken, his scorn and dismissal had destroyed whatever serenity had surrounded them.

Pushing aside the chicken breast that had smelled so good a moment ago, she forced herself to meet his gaze. “Want to guess my biggest disappointment over regaining my memory?”

His face paled. “I can’t imagine.”

“That you didn’t turn out to be my fiancé.” She should have kept the confession locked inside, but she couldn’t stop the words from flowing. “We had a spark. I wanted it to be real so badly, my chest hurts.”

He reached across the table for her hand. “If we want it enough, we can make it real.”

She shook her head, refusing to accept his touch and set herself up for more heartbreak by buying into the fantasy. “Here’s what I’ve learned this week: wishing for something doesn’t make it come true.”

He scooted his chair around the table until he sat thigh to thigh with her. Her resolve disintegrated, even before he draped his arm around her shoulders. “We need one more chance to see how good we are together,” he whispered against her ear.

She fought to hold herself stiff and not sink into him, trying to focus on the ache in her chest rather than the thigh-to-shoulder heat radiating between them and the tingling in her nerve endings.

“Give me one night,” he continued, “and I’ll prove our connection wasn’t a fluke.”

She needed another night with him, not because she believed the bullshit he was whispering to get in her pants, but because she longed to say a private and intimate good-bye to the love that fluttered just beyond her grasp.

Gwen lifted her hand and squeezed Tucker’s palm where he rested it on her shoulder. “I can’t think of anything else I’d rather do tonight. I accept your deal.”

He leaned toward her, but she tipped her head down to avoid the kiss. His lips settled on her temple, a gesture filled with sweetness, gentleness, and care, the same treatment he’d bestowed on her from the moment she’d awoken in the hospital. She’d believed the act for too long and still wished he’d felt the same emotions he inspired in her.

She and his brother might not have been a good match, but they’d been on to something with their plan to marry for business and family without bringing love and heartache into the equation. She tried to force herself to eat, but the chicken stuck in her throat, and she gave up the pretense.

“Do you want to talk?” Tucker asked.

“No. I want to get out of here.”

“Let’s go then.” He kept his arm secure around her shoulders as they left the dining room.

To keep from getting cold feet, she clung to the illusion he cared for her. Inside the elevator, she faced him and slid her hands under his T-shirt, skimming the pads of her fingertips over his flat nipples and wiry chest hairs.

Taking the role of the aggressor gave her the best chance he’d only see her physical lust and not her emotions. As she pinched his nipple, he gasped, and she smirked. Yes, she would make the plan work.

“I love it when you touch me,” he said.

“I want to see you naked.” She pulled his shirt over his head. “I want to keep the lights on in the bedroom so I can watch my hands and mouth caress your skin. I’m going to ride you and watch you come.”

His eyes dilated with desire. If she inspected his groin, she had no doubt he’d be rock hard. “I have one request.”

“What?” The elevator doors dinged and opened, but she didn’t glance away from him.

“Let’s get out of this elevator and into your bedroom now.”

She couldn’t sneer at his eagerness because it matched her own. Stepping into the hall, she led the way to her room. Before she could walk inside, Tucker lifted her and carried her over the threshold.

While he held her, she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him with abandon. With her focus on the moment, she refused to acknowledge the past or the future. If she couldn’t have true amnesia about the reality of their situation, she’d fake it to herself.

Tucker lowered her to her feet, but she didn’t stop kissing him. She stroked her fingers over his unshaven cheeks, inhaling his purely male scent. With her mouth, she explored his chin and neck and then caressed his lean, strong chest. His navel beckoned, and she trailed kisses down his flat, smooth abs. She knelt in front of him and unsnapped his jeans, lowering the zipper.

“Gwen.” He tangled his fingers in her hair.

She tugged down his jeans then the elastic on his briefs. His erection bobbed free and proud as she knelt and wiggled his underwear down his hips. Unable to resist, she breathed lightly over the tip of his cock.

He gasped, his fists tightening on her hair.

“You licked me last time. It’s only fair I return the favor.” She brushed her tongue over the tip, swirling in a circle, and then licked to the base before working her way back to the head.

“If you keep that up, you’ll make me come with my pants still around my knees.” He lifted her to her feet.

She kissed his lips, pleased to call the shots and leave him at the mercy of his desire. “This is a problem because?”

“Because you’re still dressed and I haven’t touched you yet.”

“I don’t see any problem.” She attempted to dip her head to take his cock in her mouth again, but he tugged her shirt off, holding her upright.

Eyes blazing, he walked her backward toward the bed, his erection rubbing her stomach with every step. She wanted to climb on him and pull him inside her, as if by claiming him she could make him a part of her and never let him go.

He unhooked her bra and tossed it aside. His gaze on her breasts, he smiled. “Better.”

The backs of her knees hit the side of the bed. Her legs folded, and she sank onto the mattress. Still matching her step for step, Tucker leaned over her, demonstrating both his devotion and his passion for her breasts with his hands and mouth.

She could lie on the bed and allow him to touch and taste her, pleasuring her with a shattering orgasm. But she refused to passively accept what he offered. They were coming together in lust, and the longer she lay still, soaking in his caresses, the more the poignant emotions that he would never feel for her in return began to surface.