Honeymoon For Hire

“We understand,” Carol put in before Nellie could speak. “But before you go, there is one more thing. We’d like to invite you to a barbecue at my home, Saturday evening. It’s a get-together for all the neighbors. It’d be a good chance for you and Dillon to meet everyone. And of course children are welcome so you can bring your baby.”

Hayley wasn’t up on suburban etiquette, but she was fairly certain that most of the residents didn’t bring their hired help to parties. On the other hand she was going to be living here, too, for the next year. And so would Christine. She wanted to make friends with the people in the neighborhood. She hoped Dillon would, too, but even if he didn’t, that wasn’t going to stop her, no more than his distaste for suburbia would stop her from settling here in Connecticut permanently.

“I’ll tell Dillon about the invitation and ask him if he’d like to come,” she promised. “I’ll definitely be there.”

* * *

“I THOUGHT I HEARD the doorbell,” Dillon said several hours later. He strode into the kitchen and paused to probe her eyes.

In a khaki shirt worn open at the throat, faded jeans that fit his lower body like a glove and hiking boots that had definitely seen better days, he looked casual and at ease. His dark brown hair was agreeably tousled, his jaw clean shaven and scented with after-shave. His dark blue eyes were alive with interest.

“You certainly did,” Hayley finally confirmed. She couldn’t believe how good Dillon looked. And on so little sleep…

“What the—” For the first time, Dillon noticed what Hayley had been dealing with for several hours. He stared at the confections, casseroles, salads and breads that lined the kitchen counters and covered the breakfast nook table. “Where did all this come from?” he asked, amazed.

Hayley straightened and shut the refrigerator door. She leaned back against it. “Would you believe almost half of our, uh, neighbors stopped by to say hello?”

Dillon quirked a dark, disbelieving brow. “All at once?”

Hayley tossed him a wry smile. “It seems they noticed you didn’t take the train in to New York this morning. It also seems that they’re drowning in curiosity about us.”

Dillon pulled up a kitchen chair, turned it around backward and slid into it, folding his arms over the back. His eyes glimmered with suppressed amusement. “What’d you tell them?”

“Not nearly as much as they’d like.” Hayley grinned back impudently.

“Bet they’re frustrated as hell,” Dillon predicted.

“And running out of Tupperware containers,” Hayley said, trying hard not to notice how rock hard his thighs looked beneath the soft, much-washed fabric of his jeans as he straddled the chair. She forced her gaze back to the rugged contours of his face. “There’s more. One of the women, Carol, and her husband, Hal, are throwing a barbecue Saturday night. They’ve invited all three of us. I’ve already promised to attend with Christine. You’re welcome to go over with us. But if you’d rather go alone,” she went on hurriedly, “you know, arrive separately, I understand.”

Dillon almost choked. “Are you kidding? I’d sooner have my teeth drilled than attend some suburban get-to-know-you bash.”

Hayley had half suspected he might react that way.

“Never mind about going it alone,” Dillon muttered. “No, if we’re going, and we probably should for the sake of neighborhood harmony, we’re going together.”

“Are you sure?” she asked, thinking maybe it would seem too much like a date. She was already fantasizing about him as it was and about what it would be like to live here permanently. “It might seem a little odd to people for you to take your housekeeper and her child along to a party,” she managed.

He quirked a brow.

“I mean, wouldn’t it cramp your style if…we were together?”

Dillon grinned. “First of all, I doubt there’s anyone I want to date at this party. Second, nothing cramps my style, I assure you. If I want to go after a woman, I go after her all the way. I don’t care who’s watching. Third, you’re not getting out of this. It’s just as important for you to meet everyone out here as it is for me. After all, you’re probably going to be around more. And you never know when you’ll need a helping hand.”

True, Hayley thought.

“Or want to be available to lend one to someone else,” Dillon continued. He tested one of Carol’s frosted walnut brownies. “And even if it is dull, it can’t last all that long. Besides—” he grinned at Christine, who was in her high chair “—we can always use your little darling as an excuse to leave early.”

Chapter Three

“Tell the truth, Dillon. Hayley’s not really your housekeeper, is she?” Bob asked, casting a lustful glance in Hayley’s direction. “You guys are shacking up together. Aren’t you?”

Dillon sampled a Mexican meatball and decided to play dumb. “You mean living under the same roof?” he asked, wondering for the thousandth time why he’d come to the backyard social. Not that he minded the company or the food; he just wasn’t used to having the details of his private life open to public discussion. Hayley had been right. They were the talk of the entire neighborhood.

“I mean making whoopee,” Bob corrected. “You know. The ultimate act.”

Dillon wondered if he could be convicted for his thoughts. In his thoughts he and Hayley had made love plenty of times.

Hal left the grill to join the group of men sampling the array of hors d’oeuvres. “What’s the powwow about, guys?”

“We were just talking about Dillon’s housekeeper,” Bob confided with a look behind him to make sure none of the women—most of whom were busy in Carol’s kitchen—was within earshot. “I personally find it hard to believe that Hayley is just Dillon’s housekeeper.”

“What gives you guys the idea I’d want a live-in mistress?” Dillon challenged them all casually. He’d always shied away from that. Too many complications. Too much potential for domestic hassles, none of which he found attractive.

“Come on!” Bob said. “A gorgeous woman like that! Who wouldn’t want to go to bed with her!”

True, Dillon thought. Hayley was a constant temptation. Everything she wore, everything she did or said, no matter how subtle or ordinary, prompted endless yearning and fantasizing on his part.

“Sounds like she’s angling for more than a housekeeping job to me,” Bob remarked, helping himself to another beer from the washtub full of ice. “Sounds like she’s auditioning for a position as your wife.”

Chuck grinned at Bob. “You only wish your wife looked like that. Who cares if she doesn’t cook?”

“Dillon sure doesn’t!” All the guys laughed.

Turning back to Dillon, Bob remarked, “Sorry if I’ve been ribbing you. I guess I’m just envious of the setup you’ve got. A gorgeous young woman to take care of you and see to your every need without the complications of marriage.”

The only problem was, Dillon thought, she wasn’t seeing to his every need. Even if she was fueling his every fantasy.

“What you’ve got going for you, Dillon,” Bob continued, “is every guy’s fantasy.”

“Yeah, I’ve got it made all right,” Dillon said. He had no outlet for his passion. And yet he knew instinctively, even if Hayley didn’t, how great it would be if the two of them ever did get together.

“Not necessarily,” Hal disagreed. “I mean, she could fall in love with somebody else and pack up and leave Dillon at any time, so there’s no security in that.”

“True,” Chuck agreed.

The idea of Hayley packing up and walking out on him made Dillon’s throat burn more than the cayenne pepper in the Mexican meatballs. “I don’t think so,” Dillon disagreed shortly.

Everyone turned to look at him. He shifted uncomfortably. “She was really in love with Hank,” he defended her objectively. “I don’t think she’s looking to replace him with anyone else.”

“Maybe not,” Hal sighed. “But face it. Guys are going to be hitting on her night and day, once word gets out that she’s single and you’re not making any permanent claim on her. The only reason the single guys in the community haven’t already approached her is everyone thought—well, it looked like—we just assumed the two of you were married or at least—”

“Cohabitating,” Chuck supplied tactfully.

Dillon sent his brother-in-law a dark look.

Chuck shrugged. “Sorry, Dillon. You know I don’t mean anything by it but the guys are right. Hayley is gorgeous and you’ve got a heck of a reputation as a ladies’ man. Of course, now everyone knows you’ve got no intention of marrying her, the guys are going to be lining up at your door, trying to get her to go out with them.”

Just the thought of Hayley going out with someone else made Dillon’s gut tighten. “Wait a minute,” he interrupted. “I never said she was up for grabs.”

“Aha! I told you guys! They are—”

“What I mean is, she’s got a lot left to do on the house,” Dillon managed. A whole year’s worth. And in a whole year, who knew what might happen between them? “Decorating, unpacking, overseeing repairs.”

“Yeah, Nellie told me she’d torn holy hell out of that house,” Bob sympathized.

And she had yet to begin to put it back together again, Dillon thought. Except for his den and both their bedrooms, the place was a wreck.

“Even so, she must have some time off,” Hal said.

“Why not fix her up if you’re not interested?” Chuck asked. “A woman that nice shouldn’t be alone.”

Dillon turned to his brother-in-law and stifled the urge to shoot him. “You’re a big help, Chuck,” he said dryly. “And the reason I’m not fixing her up is ’cause she’s still vulnerable.”

“She doesn’t look that vulnerable to me. In fact, she doesn’t seem to be grieving much at all,” Hal said thoughtfully.

“Why should she be, when she’s got Dillon to keep her warm nights?” Bob joked.

The backyard echoed with raucous male laughter.

“Admit it, Dillon,” Bob continued, slapping him on the back, “you’ve got it made in the shade!”

* * *

“HOW COULD YOU have done that to me?” Hayley demanded, the moment they’d returned to the house and she’d put Christine to bed.

Baffled by her obvious pique with him, Dillon followed her down the upstairs hall to her bedroom. “Done what?”

Hayley planted both hands on her hips and whirled to face him. “Marge’s husband told her verbatim what you men were laughing and talking about with such hilarity just before dinner.”

Dillon uttered a string of swear words as he recalled all the bad jokes that had been made. Worse, he’d reveled in the fact he was the envy of every man there. “I don’t get it,” he said to no one in particular. “Why would she do something like that?”

“Why would she do something like that? What about you? Besides, she wanted to know what everyone else there wanted to know!” Bright spots of color appeared in Hayley’s cheeks.

“Which is?”

“If we’re sleeping together!”

Dillon watched as Hayley hauled a suitcase off the shelf in her closet, marched to the bed and flung it open. “I told the guys we weren’t,” he said flatly.

“With a glint in your eye and a smile on your face!”

“So sue me for laughing at those guys! It was funny!” Dillon defended himself hotly. Hayley knew how conventional the residents of this suburban Connecticut community were. Hell, he had even joked about it before they went to the party.

“Well, I’m not laughing,” she informed him between tightly gritted teeth. Hayley stalked to her dresser drawer and pulled out a handful of some of the most filmy, lacy lingerie Dillon had ever seen in his life. Shoulders back, she flung her hair out of her face.

Dillon bit down on a string of curse words. It was too late to take back all the kidding around that he’d done. The most he could do was manage a save. And, judging from the thundercloud looks she was giving him, that looked like it was going to be one hell of a task. “Hayley, come on,” he coaxed softly, stepping as near to her bed as he dared. “Be reasonable here. I said I’m sorry.”

She whirled on him. For a moment he thought she was going to try to deck him. Instead she planted her balled-up fists on her slender hips. “Sorry doesn’t cut it here, Dillon. We had one chance to be accepted in this neighborhood. One. And you blew it with your macho antics.” She’d hoped, foolishly it now seemed, they could be friends. Even more than friends.

But she’d been wrong. Otherwise Dillon never would’ve joked with the other men about her. Worse, he had blown her chance to be really accepted by the women in the community. She didn’t want to lose her dream, especially when it had all seemed just within her grasp. But she would if this was the way Dillon intended to act, and apparently he did.

Dillon sobered. He ran a hand across his jaw and realized that although he’d used a razor before the party, he needed another shave. “I’ll set them all straight,” he promised. He didn’t want to lose Hayley. Didn’t want her to bail out on him before he’d had a chance to somehow do right by Hank and see that his widow and infant child were not just surviving all right, but were well situated for their future. Not to mention the fact that for the first time in his life he looked forward to coming home at night.

“It doesn’t matter what you say now, Dillon. They won’t believe you. After what you intimated tonight, the only way our relationship could be legitimized in their eyes is if we were to admit everyone else was right about us all along and marry.”

“So marry me,” he said.

Her eyes were liquid pools of pure dark green. “That isn’t funny, either,” she said.

Dillon felt even more guilty. He’d never meant to hurt her. “Who’s being funny?” he said softly, trying once again to approach her, his hands outstretched. “I don’t want you to leave.” Damn it, he liked having her here, even if she did turn his house and his life upside down.

She elbowed him aside and strode militantly toward her closet again. “Well, isn’t that just too bad!” She pulled out a handful of negligees, hangers and all. Dillon was disconcerted to see those were even sexier than her undergarments.

His mouth dry, he paced toward her beseechingly, then followed her back toward her suitcase. This was no time to be thinking about what a great body she had or how incredibly enticing she’d look in those filmy garments. “You can’t leave me with this mess.”

She folded the negligees and placed them neatly in her suitcase. “Just watch me.”

Dillon tore his eyes from a lace gown and thought about all the tiles she had ripped up, the light fixtures she’d torn out, the cabinets that had been sanded to bare wood. “I’ll never be able to finish.”

“So what?” Was she supposed to care about that? When she had just lost the one and only chance she’d ever had to live her dream, even for a little while?

“So there goes your share of the profits,” Dillon pointed out smugly. Her face fell. But only for a minute.

“So I’ll come in days while you’re gone and finish,” she shot back triumphantly.

Dillon crossed his arms over his chest. He stood, legs braced apart. He hadn’t expected her to be so damn stubborn. “And live where in the meantime?” he asked. Because he knew it would irritate her, he let his eyes trail slowly over her honey blond hair before returning with laser accuracy to her thick-lashed green eyes. “You already sublet your apartment in the city, remember?”

Hayley’s chin shot up another notch. “You think I’m backed into a corner financially, do you?”

Dillon smiled and twisted the knife in a little deeper. She wasn’t the only one who could threaten with impending disaster. “You know you are, sweetheart.”

“You did this on purpose.”

“Yeah, sure I did,” he agreed. “I went to that party tonight determined to start a fight with you that would force you to leave my employ. I want my house to look like a nuclear disaster. I want to lose my entire life savings over this.”

“Well, maybe you didn’t want it, but you sure got us into this mess, and now we’re stuck with it,” she said, looking equally distressed with herself and with him.

Her chest rose and fell with each furious breath. Color flooded her cheeks. Her eyes glittered. Her sensual lips pursed. She had never looked more beautiful to Dillon, or more inaccessible. He had never wanted to kiss her more. Suddenly he knew he couldn’t let her go. Not like this, anyway. Unfortunately she was right; there was only one way she could stay and retain any shred of reputation there.

But damn it all, he didn’t want to get married. Didn’t want to fall into some dull domestic trap. On the other hand, who said they had to do things the usual way? God knew they hadn’t so far. “Look, Hayley,” he said impatiently. “You know what the solution to this is. We have to—” he choked out the words in a strangled voice “—get married. But don’t worry,” he soothed. “It’ll be purely a business arrangement.”

“You really are an egotistical jerk, aren’t you?” Hayley tossed her mane of golden hair and sent him a withering look. “For your information, Dillon Gallagher, I wouldn’t marry you if you were the last man on earth.”

She meant it. Desperate not to be left alone to deal with the rubble the interior of his house was in, he searched for a way to keep her. He had already offered her ten percent of the sale profits. “Okay, okay,” he said frantically, as she closed the first suitcase and glided regally to the closet to pull out another. “I’ll up the ante. I’ll give you thirty percent of the profits from the sale.” Surely, he thought confidently, she couldn’t turn that down! Not when he desperately needed her to stay.

She stared at him with a hauteur that would have turned a lesser man to ice. He knew then she’d stop at nothing to make him pay for what he’d done to her. “Fifty percent of the profits,” she demanded in a cool, calculated tone, “and you’ve got a deal.” Her soft pink lips formed in a brittle smile. “One penny less and I walk!”

“That’s highway robbery!” Dillon exclaimed.

“You’re catching on,” she said.

Dillon’s jaw set. “That’s way too much money!” he volleyed back.

She lifted her delicate shoulders in a careless shrug. “Considering all you’ve asked me to do here, Dillon, I don’t think so. Besides,” her voice turned practical again, “we’ll easily get double the money you paid for the place when I’m done with it, if we bide our time during the sale and pick the right realtor. Marge was right, you got this place at a steal.”

Dillon was silent. “All right,” he said finally. “Because you’ve already ripped the house to shreds and I’d lose more money if I had to hire someone else at this point, I’ll—” He choked. For a moment he was unable to go on. “I’ll give you fifty percent,” he finished irritably.

Hayley’s face lit up. “Great.” She turned away from him and methodically opened up the second suitcase she’d laid across the bed. “I’m still moving out first thing tomorrow, but I’ll—”

“Moving where?” He was vaguely aware he was beginning to panic all over again. His insides twisted into a pretzellike knot.

“I don’t know.” Hayley made another beeline for the dresser. This time she returned with a stack of workout clothes and leotards. She placed them neatly in one corner of the suitcase, then pivoted back for another handful. “Your sister Marge and I get along well. Perhaps she’ll let Christine and me stay there temporarily and pay rent. Her kids are off at college and she has extra space.”

Being humiliated in the neighborhood, by having Hayley walk out on him, was one thing. Having his sister not only in on the mess he’d made, but cleaning up after him, was quite another. “You can’t do that,” he said. By God, if she was going to get fifty percent of the profits from the house out of this, then he was going to get something out of it, too. He wanted their budding friendship back.

“After what you did to me tonight, I have no choice.”

“I told you. I’ll straighten it out.”

She sent him an exasperated look. “I only wish it were that simple, Dillon, but you know as well as I that once a woman is considered involved with a man that’s a hard assumption to shake off, particularly in a conservative neighborhood like this. I have Christine to consider. I want to reside in Connecticut permanently. I don’t want this assumption about us coming back to haunt me years from now. I have an example to set for Christine.”

“Don’t you think you’re overreacting a bit?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. I only know I’m upset by this. If I’m upset by gossip, I expect she will be, too.”

“Then I’ll marry you,” he repeated sternly.

Hayley scowled at him. “I told you before I didn’t think that was funny.”

Dillon slid his hands into his back pockets. He just didn’t want her to leave. “Who’s joking?” Dillon asked calmly.

“Dillon—”

“We could make it work, Hayley. Just until you finish the house and we sell it, you understand. Then we’ll get an annulment. In the meantime, we could go on as we have been.” It made perfect sense.

“You make it sound so simple,” she said, sighing.

Dillon shrugged and said, “It would be, as long as no one else but us knew it was just a business arrangement.”

Her eyes widened. “You want everyone to think it’s a real marriage?”

“I think that would be best, yes.”

Hayley swallowed and backed away from him uncomfortably. “I don’t like subterfuge, Dillon.”

He watched her sit down on the edge of the bed, beside her open suitcase. As she began to relax, so did he. “Neither do I but sometimes it’s the only way, and in this case I know I’m right. If Marge knew, she’d try to talk me out of it. She’d say it was a crazy thing to do.”

Hayley was back on her feet again in a flash, moving restlessly about the room. “She might be right.”

He watched the color climb her cheeks again and couldn’t help but grin, she was so edgy and unnerved. “Not adult enough to handle it?” he taunted lightly.

She shot him a sharp look, meant to debilitate, but all it did was intrigue him. What was she so wary of?

“What’s the matter, Hayley?” he continued, teasing her gently, yet wanting, needing, to see her reaction all the same. “Don’t you think you could live under the same roof with me and not sleep with me?”

Hayley crossed her arms at her waist. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

“See?” Dillon said, as even more fire came into her eyes, making her look simultaneously sexy and unapproachable as hell. “We’re acting like an old married couple already. Sniping. Trading barbs.” He grinned at her unrepentantly.

Slowly, her sense of humor returned. She smiled back at him, just as audaciously. “This is crazy,” she repeated, in a low voice that let him know she was almost sold on the idea.

“It’ll work,” Dillon promised.

Without warning, Hayley’s brow furrowed. “What’ll we do?”

“About what?”

Hayley gulped again. “About sex.”

Now they were talking, Dillon thought, his mind going back to that sexy lingerie and the unbearably sexy way he imagined she would look in it. “Hey, if you want to write that in, too…” he offered magnanimously.

“No,” Hayley said swiftly, her color heightening even more.

“Too bad. I was looking forward to—”

She whirled toward him. “These are not feudal times, Dillon Gallagher. You may not exercise that right, even if we do make it legal. Understood?”

“Understood,” he repeated obediently. It wouldn’t keep him from making love to her, though, if and when the time and the mood were ever just right. And he had a whole year to try and see that they were.

“And if either one of us wants to be with someone else,” Hayley continued in a strangled voice as she avoided his laser-bright gaze, “we can do so, as long as we’re discreet.”

Dillon didn’t like the idea of Hayley with anyone else, but he also knew he had no right to protest. “Agreed.” he said, assuring himself silently that Hayley was just talking big to save face. He believed the truth was that she was just as attracted to him as he was to her, even if she hadn’t allowed herself to act on that attraction yet.