Weekend Wife (12 page)

“Ty!” she gasped, spinning around and tapping on the bathroom door.

“All dressed?” he asked eagerly as he started to push open the door.

“No!” she squeaked, slamming the door on his fingers.

“Ow!”

“Sorry... ” Adjusting the drooping sundress to better cover her modesty, she pushed her lips to the open crack in the bathroom door. “Ty! Roxanne is trying to come into our room!”

“What?”
he called as he poked through the cabinet, searching for a bandage. “What does she want?”

“You, of course!” There was a loud rap at the front door. “Ty! She wants in! I’m not dressed! What should I do?”

“Here, I’ll handle this.” Exasperated, Ty pushed the bathroom door open and, with his eyes closed, stumbled out to where Emily was standing. Waving his arms in front of him like a sleepwalker, he pointed his head in the direction he thought she was standing and reassured her. “Don’t worry, I can’t see anything.”

“That’s obvious.” She giggled as he spoke confidentially to the lamp.

“Oh.” He turned at the sound of her voice and shrugged sheepishly. “Point me toward the door, will you?” Thrusting his hands out in front of him, he swung in a half circle where he found and groped her face. “Is that you?” he whispered teasingly.

“No!” She laughed, pulling his thumb out of her mouth. “It’s Roxanne, and I bite.”

“Very funny,” he snickered in hushed tones as he tugged on a lock of her hair. “Are you sure you’re not decent? This is ridiculous.”

Her eyes dropped to the skirt of her sheer sundress that she held to shield her half-naked body. “I’m sure.”

“How about if I just open one eye?” he whined, feeling his way down her head to her smooth, bare shoulder. “Hmm...”

Another loud rap at the door.

“Who is it?” he called, tightening his grip on Emily’s shoulder as she shook with laughter.

“Tyler? It’s me, Roxanne,” she purred through the door. “Can I come in?”

“Uh, Roxanne? We’d love to have you in, but my wife is standing here naked...hem.” He coughed as Emily punched him in the ribs.

Tightening her sundress across her near nudity, she leaned over to Tyler. “That’s not true!” She giggled nervously.

“It’s not? Then you won’t mind if I open my eyes,” he whispered, sliding his hand down her bare back.

Gasping, she slithered out of his grasp. “You better not!” Her giddy laughter was louder than she’d intended.

“What’s going on in there?” Roxanne demanded.

Her mouth twisting in annoyance, Emily tugged on Tyler’s shirt. “Tell her it’s none of her damn business,” she huffed. “No.” She wiggled between Tyler and the door. “I’ll tell her!”

Clamping a large hand over her mouth, Ty whispered, “Easy, tiger,” and opened his eyes. Unable to control himself, his glance shot down to check the state of her undress.

Catching him in the act, she tried to protest, her muffled screeching traveling no farther than his palm.

“Quiet.” He chuckled. “She’ll think you’re trying to give me another black eye, and try to come to my rescue.”

“Mmm-mmm-hmm!”

As she swirled her tongue around the inside of his palm, he began to laugh. “Would you quit it?” he demanded as the tickling sensations she lavished wetly across his palm and between his fingers drove him slowly out of his mind. “I mean it, Em!” he growled, hauling her up against his body and pulling the delicate shell of her ear into his mouth. “You’d better quit while you’re ahead.”

“Tyler?” Roxanne called impatiently.

“Yeah?” he answered in a strangled voice.

Tapping an irritated nail on the door, she barked, “The Connstarr management team, which includes you, by the way, and accounts for over half the passengers on this tub, will be meeting topside in about two minutes to throw confetti and drink champagne and have fun! I will expect you and your wife there,
immediately!
” Her voice rose shrilly, revealing her annoyance at being kept out of his cabin.

“Yes, ma’am,” Ty drawled. “We’re nearly finished in here.”

“Good,” she snapped after a moment’s pause, and then, not wanting to miss the fun, the echo of Roxanne’s indignant heels faded away as she marched down the hallway.

“Think she’s mad?” Emily giggled as Tyler pulled his hand away from her mouth.

Shrugging, Tyler kissed the minx he still held in his arms on the side of the head. “Who cares?” he asked, shocked to find that for the first time since he’d arrived on the West Coast, he could relax.

* * *

“I suppose it would be useless to ask if she has to wear that,” Ty grumbled resignedly as they wove their way through the Connstarr throng toward the three remaining empty lounge chairs by the pool.

Emily glanced over her shoulder at Helga and grinned. The lopsided straw hat piled high with plastic fruit had caught the older woman’s fancy in the gift shop window. Unable to resist the longing in her eyes, Emily had talked Ty into buying it.

“Are you kidding?” she asked under her breath as Ty nodded and waved at the different Connstarr bigwigs they passed. “Just be thankful it’s this and not the plastic shower cap she was planning on wearing in the pool.”

“I guess,” he muttered as he called a cheery hello to a department head from the Detroit branch. Draping a casual arm around Emily’s waist, he wore the look of a proud and protective husband, propelling his beautiful wife toward her seat. “After we settle in here for a few minutes, I’d like to introduce you to a few people. Feel up to that?”

“Amazingly enough, I feel great. Those patches must be working. So I guess I’m as ready as I’ll ever be...” Mingling was something she was pretty good at. Not one to be intimidated by a strange social crowd, she could usually plunge in and make pointless small talk with the best of them. But this was going to be much trickier than her usual collegiate gathering. Now she was a middle-class student posing as a homeless waif, who was acting as a socialite. How would she ever keep the three faces of Em straight? Her expression clouded with uneasiness.

Patting her waist affectionately, Ty dropped a newlywed kiss lightly on her lips. “Don’t worry,” he whispered, giving her a conspiratorial wink. “I’m here for you, pumpkin.”

And she knew deep down in her heart that it was true. As long as she needed him, he would be there for her. Pausing at her lounge chair, Emily was surprised to discover that she completely trusted him, without reserve. In the past week an invisible bond had begun to form between her and Ty, binding them together and taking root in her heart. She would never forget Tyler Newroth’s kindness, and hoped that years after they’d gone their separate ways, they would still keep in touch.

“Sure,” she said, looking up at her handsome new husband with her best newlywed expression of adoration. “I’d love to meet some of your co-workers.”

He answered her adoring gaze with a look so piercing it stole her breath away. Though it was impossible to tell what he was thinking in that brief moment, Emily had the disquieting feeling that he was not as at ease with this act as he appeared to be.

Coloring, she averted her eyes and tossed her beach towel down on the lounge chair. “I, uh, think I’ll go for a quick dip,” she announced, and stepped out of her shorts and top, revealing the black suit she’d saved for the cruise.

“Good idea,” Ty agreed, running a hand over the tense muscles of his jaw. “A nice cold swim is just what I need.”

As Ty pulled his T-shirt off over his head, Emily could feel the sea of female eyes that surrounded the pool—disguised by dozens of pairs of expensive sunglasses—zero in on her husband’s powerful build. This past week of swimming lessons had turned his smooth skin a beautiful shade of bronze. His well-muscled body moved with easy grace to the deep end, and these admiring women exchanged hungry glances.

Plunging neatly into the smooth surface of the water, he swam several laps, while Emily slipped into the shallow end and watched his fan club begin to salivate. Fighting irrational feelings of jealousy, she willed herself to remember that he was not her man...and never would be.

Swimming easily to the metal stairs at the deep end, he shook the water from his face and pulled himself, with one fluid movement, out of the pool. His stance, hands planted firmly on narrow hips, broad shoulders square in silhouette, spoke of a man who had made it—in his mind and in the world. With a commanding air of self-confidence, he stood there, breathtakingly handsome, and lifted his upper lip in a lazy smile at his wife.

Sure that she would melt from the sheer heat of his look, Emily dived under the water’s surface and stayed there until she couldn’t hold her breath another second. Rising to the top, she scanned the deck for him, only to discover that he had gone to join Helga on the chairs. Valiantly, she tried to ignore the stab of disappointment she felt when he didn’t spend some time playing with her in the pool, and focused instead on Roxanne, who, ever on the prowl, was making a beeline to where he sat.

Paddling slowly over to the edge of the pool, Emily watched in disgusted fascination as Roxanne boldly pushed Emily’s beach towel off the chair next to Ty’s and replaced it with her own. With much flamboyant preening, she finally settled down and, digging through her large beach satchel, came up with a bottle of baby oil.

“Ty, honey, I was just wondering if you’d mind putting some of this on me?” she asked breezily, thrusting the bottle of oil into his hand. “I can’t always reach some of the more...delicate areas all by myself.”

“I’m not surprised,” Helga piped up, leaning across her son and gaping at Roxanne. “You’ve got a lot of southern exposure on the back forty there.” Pushing her fruit-filled straw hat back from her eyes, she peered at the indignant woman’s minuscule suit. “You call that a bathing suit?” Clucking her tongue, she rolled her eyes at Tyler and announced, “Looks like a piece of dental floss, the way it rides up her...”

“Mom!” Ty choked and coughed politely, attempting to stem the laughter that welled in his throat. “You haven’t tested out the pool yet. Why don’t you go join Em?” He pointed to Emily, who he’d noticed had had to duck under the water to stop from laughing.

“Okay.” She waved an impatient hand at Tyler and offered the thoroughly insulted Roxanne another piece of her mind. “I wouldn’t run around in that suit too much now, dearie. Why, that little string you’re wearing could saw you right in two.”

“Mom!” Ty was unsuccessful in his attempt to look sternly at Helga.

Roxanne’s smile could not hide the venom behind her eyes as she gathered up her beach towel and satchel and nodded curtly at Helga. “Mrs. Newroth, enjoy your swim.” Turning to Ty, she smiled provocatively. “I just remembered some unfinished business back in my cabin... I’ll catch up with you later, when we can discuss our business in
private.
” Setting her ample derriere in motion, she disappeared into the crowd.

Helga nudged Ty and nodded at the bottle of Roxanne’s baby oil he still held in his hand. “As long as you’re passing out massages, do me, sonny,” she ordered, and flopped over onto her stomach.

Shrugging, Tyler grinned over at Emily, who—legs still dangling in the water—had propped herself on her elbows at the side of the pool. Their gazes locked for a super-charged moment, until Ty, winking lazily, turned his attention to his “mother.”

Emily watched with smiling eyes as he good-naturedly oiled the nutty Helga, and suddenly realized, right then and there, that she was falling madly in love with her husband.

* * *

“Could I have this dance?” Ty whispered to Emily as the Enchanted Cruise Tones swung into a mellow ditty, just perfect for slow dancing.

Forgetting that she was merely putting on a show for the party at their dinner table, Emily nodded. She looked up into Ty’s dark, heart-stoppingly sexy eyes, and felt her body elevate, of its own accord, up out of her chair and into his arms.

“Yes. I’d love that,” she murmured. Slipping her arm around his waist, she followed him out to the dance floor.

His spicy aftershave filled her senses as she laid her head against the crisp, clean lines of his dinner jacket and began to sway with him to the music. No doubt about it, she mused, glancing around at the other diners in the Falling Star Dining Room reserved for Connstarr employees alone, he was definitely the best-looking man in the room. Probably even the entire boat, she gloated, and snuggled closer into her husband’s embrace.

Who was she kidding? Eyes closed, she lay against Ty and had to remind herself yet again that he was not hers. A powerful man like Tyler Newroth could never be interested in a woman like her. Not seriously, anyway. She had the feeling that when Ty fell in love, it wouldn’t be with a grungy woman he’d picked up at the side of the road. And if he were ever to discover that she was only posing as a homeless woman, how would he react to being lied to? Especially considering how generous and giving he’d been with her.

The thought of his displeasure at discovering the truth made her shudder involuntarily as they danced.

“Cold?” His warm breath tickled her ear.

“No,” she whispered, not bothering to explain. What was there to tell? He would probably jump ship and swim back to L.A. if he even suspected that she was beginning to fall for him. She would just have to take each moment as it came with him, collecting memories of their brief but glorious time together to sustain her in her old age. After all, she still had a whole week to bask in her role as Mrs. Tyler Newroth. Why not enjoy it?

Today had certainly been wonderful. Helga had collected Carmen from the Kiddie Korner and taken her to their cabin for a nap, leaving Ty and Emily free to swim and get to know the Connstarr crowd. After mingling with and being introduced to more of the immense management team than she would ever be able to remember, they had joined some of Ty’s friends from the Boston division in the lounge for happy-hour drinks and hors d’oeuvres. Unable to remember when she’d laughed so hard, Emily could see why he missed the crew on the East Coast.

Roxanne’s arrival had broken up the little party and, making their excuses, the Newroths had retreated to their room to dress for dinner. Ty had been a doll and changed in the bathroom, allowing Emily the space she needed to comfortably slip into her strapless black dinner dress. Once she’d put the finishing touches on her hair and makeup, she hurried down the hallway to the room she shared with Helga and Carmen to check on them.