She was wearing the silk gown she’d had on last night and her feet were bare. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail and her face was free of makeup. She looked young and sweet and pretty, but from the neck down, she was all woman. Full and firm breasts, perfectly proportioned hips. He had to fight the urge to scoop her up in his arms and carry her back to bed. Having a little occasional fun was one thing, but they shouldn’t overdo it. He didn’t want her getting the wrong idea.

“Are you hungry?” she asked. “I made breakfast.”

“Starved,” he said. They had skipped dinner last night. “Can I help?”

“I’ve got it. Do you want coffee?”

“I can get it,” he said, but she shooed him away.

“Go sit down. Relax.”

Ooookay.

He took a seat in the nook by a window overlooking the pool, while she filled a cup that was already sitting by the coffeemaker.

“Milk or sugar?” she asked.

“Black, please.”

She laughed lightly and shook her head.

“What?” he asked.

“It’s just weird,” she said, crossing the room and setting the cup in front of him. “We’re married and I don’t even know how you take your coffee. I guess this just wasn’t the way I imagined my life.”

Amen to that. He never imagined himself ever getting married. He would have been happy playing the field the rest of his life. Having relationships on his terms. Living life by his own rules.

She walked back to the stove and he was mesmerized watching her hips sway, the curve of her behind under the silk gown. He couldn’t help but wonder if she was commando under there. If so, it wouldn’t take much to lift up the gown and pull her into his lap…

He gave his head a shake. He needed to stop with the fantasies and keep his hands to himself.

She scooped scrambled eggs onto his plate, added a few links of sausage and then set the plate in front of him. “Bon appétit,” she said, then sat down across from him and rested her chin on her clasped hands.

“Aren’t you eating?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I had something when I got up.”

He stabbed a forkful of eggs and shoveled it into his mouth…and nearly spit it back out. The eggs were so salty he almost gagged. He forced himself to swallow and chased it down with a guzzle of coffee, but almost choked. The coffee was so strong that if he didn’t already have hair on his chest, it would have put some there. He tried to cover the bitter flavor with a bite of sausage, but it was so overcooked and dried out he could barely chew it.

The meal was a total and complete disaster. And one thing was absolutely clear. Lexi did not know how to cook.

If he had a choice, he would dump the whole thing down the sink, or do like he had when he was a kid and feed it to the dog. Unfortunately, they didn’t have a dog, and she was gazing at him with such a hopeful look on her face, he didn’t have the heart to hurt her feelings. He pasted on a smile and said, “Delicious.”

He wasn’t sure what brought on this sudden attempt at domesticity, but, mind-boggling as it was, he gave her credit for the effort. He forced down every last bite of eggs and sausage, stopping just short of licking his plate clean, and he even asked for a refill on his coffee.

“That was really good. Thanks.” He stood to clear his place, but she stopped him.

“You sit. I’ll do it.”

She cleared away his dirty dishes and set them in the dishwasher. “I was thinking of making lamb for dinner,” she said.

If it was even half as bad as breakfast, he didn’t think his stomach could take it. “Why don’t you let me cook dinner?”

She frowned. “Why?”

He could see that he was walking a very delicate line here. One wrong step and he would hurt her feelings. “It’s only fair that we split the household chores while we’re here. Don’t you think?”

“But I’m your wife. I’m supposed to take care of you.”

That was the part he didn’t get. Hadn’t they agreed that this wasn’t a real marriage? That this was a business deal? This was the last thing he expected. “Why, Lexi?”

The space between her brows furrowed. “Because that’s what wives do.”

Real wives maybe, not pretend ones. Maybe she had caught a bug and wasn’t feeling well, or she was a little off due to jet lag. “You don’t have to.”

“But I want to.”

What was he supposed to say to that? You can take care of me in the bedroom anytime you like, but otherwise leave me alone? That was just…sleazy.

It was obvious that a sexual relationship was a really bad idea. And he hoped like hell that this desire for domestic bliss would wear thin. They would get back to Houston and settle into a life of servants and chefs, and live amicable but very separate lives.

“If it means that much to you, you can make dinner,” he said.

She sat back down at the table across from him, wearing a smile so full of relief it worried him.

What the hell was going on?

“So, what did you want to do today?” she asked. “We could walk to the village, or hire a car to take us on a tour of the island.”

“Actually, I was thinking of just hanging out by the pool.”

“Oh. Well, that sounds like fun.”

He meant alone. As in, by himself. He hadn’t even entertained the idea that she would want to spend the day with him. He figured they would just go their separate ways. But what was he supposed to say? Leave me the hell alone?

This was just too weird.

He rose from his chair and she stood up, too. “I’m going to take a shower.”

“And I have to clean this mess. Meet you outside in thirty minutes?”

She looked so eager, so desperate to please him, all he could do was smile and say, “I can hardly wait.” But he felt as if he’d climbed out of bed into an episode of The Twilight Zone.

Chapter Six

When Mitch was gone, Lexi collapsed back down into her chair, dropped her head in her hands and blew out a relieved breath. Talk about stressful. Making Mitch think this marriage was real was going to be a lot harder than she’d anticipated. Especially if he refused to cooperate. She had the feeling that in her attempt to impress him with her domestic skills, she might have overplayed her hand just the tiniest bit.

Thank goodness Tara had answered the phone when Lexi called—considering it had been after midnight, Houston time—and knew how to make scrambled eggs. Although it had still taken Lexi a dozen eggs and six tries to get it right. But part of that was due to the fact that she wasn’t sure how to work the electric stove to get the proper heat settings.

It wasn’t that she had never wanted to learn to cook, it was just that her father would never allow it. That was what they had servants for. He considered cooking and cleaning beneath her. She was sure it would be fun once she got the hang of it.

There was a leg of lamb thawing on the counter that Tara assured her would be a no-brainer, and tomorrow for breakfast, she might even try something complicated, like pancakes.

She walked to the stove, grabbed the pan of leftover eggs and was about to dump them down the sink when she realized her stomach was feeling marginally settled. She picked up a fork and took a bite, gagged and spit it directly into the sink.

They were awful. Yet Mitch had sat there straightfaced and eaten every bite. Even told her they were delicious. Though she wasn’t supposed to have any, she poured herself a splash of coffee and gave it a taste. It was even worse than the eggs.

No wonder he’d suggested that he make dinner. He probably thought she was trying to poison him. She would have to be sure that she made dinner extra special. Maybe then he would think that breakfast had been a fluke and she wasn’t completely useless.

She loaded the rest of the dishes and the frying pan into the dishwasher and filled the receptacle with the liquid dish soap she found under the sink, giving the dishes an extra squirt just to be safe. It took her a few minutes to figure out the digital display, but after randomly pressing buttons, she eventually got it running. It was amazing all of the things she didn’t know how to do, but she was determined to figure them out. To be the perfect wife. The perfect partner.

However, one thing she definitely had to avoid was sleeping in Mitch’s bed. She woke this morning with her stomach in knots, and barely made it to her own bathroom before she vomited. Mitch was bound to get suspicious if he realized she was tossing her cookies every morning. Every day she didn’t tell him about the baby she risked making an even bigger mess out of things. But if things went according to plan, by the time she finally did tell him, he would be so happy, and love her so much, he wouldn’t even care that she’d kept it from him.

Her baby’s welfare depended on it.

Mitch showered, changed into his swim trunks, then headed to the kitchen to grab a soda on his way out to the pool. He stopped short in the doorway when he saw Lexi on her hands and knees, wearing a white beach cover-up, amid an ocean of thick white soap bubbles on the kitchen floor. She was trying frantically to wipe them up with a dish towel, but wasn’t doing much more than pushing the suds around, and it was starting to overflow into the living room.

“What the hell happened?” he asked.

Startled, she looked up at him. “I don’t know. Something is wrong with the dishwasher.”

He looked over and saw that suds were continuing to ooze out from underneath the unit. He slipped and slid his way across the soapy floor and hit the cancel button. “Why didn’t you shut it off?”

Only after the words were out, and he saw Lexi’s wounded expression, did he realize how harsh he’d sounded. She looked at the dishwasher, then up at him and shrugged helplessly. It was then that he realized, she probably didn’t know how to shut it off.

Keeping his voice calm, he asked, “How did this happen?”

“I told you, it’s broken,” she said. “I went to change and when I came back out, there was soap everywhere. You can bet the rental company is going to hear about this.”

He had a pretty good idea what had happened, and it was in no way the rental company’s—or even the dishwasher’s—fault. “What kind of soap did you use?”

“The bottle under the sink,” she said, in a tone that suggested he was dim for even asking.

He opened the cupboard and pulled out the soap sitting right in the front. “This one?”

“Yes, that one,” she snapped. “Dish soap, for washing dishes.”

“That’s not for a dishwasher.”

She frowned. “What do you mean? It says it is right on the label.”

He reached back into the cupboard and extracted a box of granulated dishwasher detergent. “This is for the dishwasher. It doesn’t suds up like regular dish soap.”

“Oh,” she said, pulling her lip between her teeth, looking mortified by her error. Once again, Mitch couldn’t help but feel sorry for her. At least she was trying. How could he expect a woman who had probably never washed a dirty dish in her life to know how to run a dishwasher?

“Sorry,” she said, her cheeks blushing bright pink.

He shrugged. “It’s an honest mistake. No big deal.”

She looked helplessly around at the mess she had created, as though she didn’t have the first clue how to fix it. And though he felt like a complete degenerate for it, the only thing he could think about was getting her naked, laying her down and rolling around with her until they were both all slippery. Then he would…probably have his head examined.

“Why don’t you go out by the pool,” he told her. “I’ll clean this up.”

“It’s my mess,” she said.

Yes, and he had the feeling that if he left her alone to deal with it, she would only manage to make things worse. Besides, it would be advantageous to both of them if they weren’t within mauling distance of each other.

“You’re not here to wait on me hand and foot,” he said. “You made breakfast, it’s only fair that I clean up.”

“Are you sure?” she asked, looking relieved for a valid excuse to bail on the situation.

“I’m sure. I’ll have this cleaned up in no time.”

“Okay.” She rose to her feet, her legs all soapy, and tiptoed her way carefully across the floor, so she didn’t slip and fall. “I’ll see you outside.”

No time ended up being over an hour, and he still hadn’t been able to get all of the soap residue off the floor. He would just have to warn Lexi to be careful so she didn’t slip while she was making dinner.

Though it wasn’t noon yet, he felt he’d earned himself a cold beer. He grabbed one from the fridge, put his sunglasses on and headed out to the pool. Lexi lay in a lounge chair on the opposite side, sunning herself. Her eyes were shaded behind dark, designer sunglasses and she was wearing what looked like a very skimpy, pale bikini.

Wait a minute…

He slid his glasses down his nose to get a better look at her, and as his eyes adjusted to the bright sunshine, he realized she was in fact not wearing a pale bikini, skimpy or otherwise.

Lexi wasn’t wearing anything at all.

Eyes closed behind her sunglasses, the latemorning sun drenching her skin at a very comfortable seventy-five degrees, Lexi tried to shake off the mortification of failing at the simple task of working the dishwasher. She should have called Tara before she went anywhere near it. She also should have stayed in the kitchen and helped Mitch clean, but she was too embarrassed. And no doubt if she had stayed, she would have done that wrong, too, and looked even more inept than she already did. How could she expect him to take her seriously, to consider her a good wife, if she couldn’t even negotiate her way around a kitchen? She would have to make an absolutely perfect dinner.

More than an hour had passed when she finally heard Mitch open the patio door. She peeked through half-closed lids and saw that he was walking in her direction. A shadow robbed the sunshine as he hovered over her. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he asked, his harsh tone making her jolt with surprise.

Was this some sort of trick question? “S-sunbathing?”

She could see by his exasperated expression that it wasn’t the answer he wanted to hear.

“Yes, I can see that,” he said. “What I would like to know is why you’re naked.”

“Technically, I’m not naked. I have bottoms on.” More exasperation on his face, so she added, “I don’t like tan lines. Besides, everyone in Europe sunbathes topless.”

“You’re a senator’s daughter. I would think you’d know better.”

She looked around. “Who’s going to see me? We’re in the middle of nowhere.”

“That’s not the point.”

Then what was the point? What man didn’t enjoy seeing his wife sunbathing topless?

The kind who married his wife for business. One who found her so physically unattractive, the only place he cared to see her naked was in a dark bedroom, where he could pretend she was someone else.

She felt sick all the way down to her soul. She pulled herself up from her chair, grabbed the towel she’d been lying on and wrapped it around herself. “I’m sorry that you find my body so offensive.”

“Lexi, that isn’t what I—”

“I’ll be sure to keep it appropriately covered from now on,” she assured him, nose in the air, giving him the cold and bitchy routine so he wouldn’t hear the hurt in her voice. She turned to walk away, but Mitch wrapped a hand around her upper arm to stop her.

“I swear you’re the most insecure woman I’ve ever met,” he said. “And you’re making it really hard for me to do the right thing.”

The right thing? What was that supposed to mean? She tried to tug her arm free. “Let go.”

Instead, he yanked the towel from around her and scooped her up. She let out a shriek as he flung her like a sack of potatoes over one shoulder and carried her toward the sliding glass door that led to his bedroom.

She wiggled, trying to get loose, but he only held on tighter. “What are you doing?”

“I could tell you that you’re beautiful and desirable until I’m blue in the face, but you probably wouldn’t believe me.”

Okay, so maybe he didn’t find her completely undesirable.

She pounded on his back with her fists, which was about as effective as hitting a boulder with a feather. “So, you pull a caveman routine instead?”

He slid the door open and carried her into his bedroom. Despite his brutish and uncivilized behavior, a shiver of excitement rippled through her. After all, it had been her plan to keep him in the bedroom as much as possible.

He slid her off his shoulder onto her back on the mattress and knelt beside her, a look of pure mischief in his eyes. “You won’t listen to me,” he said. “So, I’m just going to have to show you.”

Mitch spent the rest of the morning and a good part of the afternoon showing Lexi just how beautiful and desirable he thought she was. And boy, was he good at it. Every time she tried to climb out of bed, he would pull her back in and start convincing her all over again. When she finally insisted she had to put the lamb in the oven or it wouldn’t be ready in time for dinner, he reluctantly let her go. She wobbled into the kitchen on spaghetti legs, and every inch of her skin hummed with sexual satisfaction.

At this rate, it wouldn’t be long before she could tell him about the baby.

Following Tara’s instructions to the letter, Lexi seasoned the lamb shank and popped it in the oven. And though it took a minute of pushing buttons, the oven finally beeped and turned on. She peeled the potatoes and carrots next, then put them aside to add to the roasting pan forty minutes before the lamb was done. Until then, she didn’t have much to do, so she went looking for Mitch.

She found him sacked out in a lounge chair by the pool, sleeping so deeply, he was snoring. It looked as though she’d worn the poor guy out. For a second, she considered all the creative ways she could wake him, most using her mouth, but he looked so peaceful, she didn’t have the heart.

Instead, she stretched out in the chair beside him to get some sun, but her eyes felt heavy and in no time she drifted into a deep sleep, and had strange and erotic dreams about Mitch. Hazy, disjointed images of bare skin and feelings of intense sexual sensation flooded her. She could smell him, taste the flavor of his mouth and skin. She could feel the weight of his hands touching her, her hair tangled in his fingers, the flex of her muscles as she took him deep inside her body. The strum of sensation on her nerve endings.

Not a strum so much as a loud hum. And the hum grew louder, the sound filling her head until it was more annoying than arousing. A sharp, piercing bleat.

Her eyes flew open and she realized the sound wasn’t in her dream. It was coming from the house, through the open door that led to the kitchen…and was that smoke she was seeing?

Wide awake now, she jumped from the chair, grabbed her cover-up and tugged it on as she dashed for the house. She was stunned by what she encountered in the kitchen.

Acrid smoke hung in the air, the oven sat open and empty and the pan the roast had been in was sitting in the sink under a flow of water. She could only assume that the black lump was the charred remains of the lamb shank. Mitch stood in the middle of the room in his swim trunks, fanning the smoke detector with a broom.

Oh, God, what had she done this time?

Mitch finally looked over and saw her standing there, watching him. He flashed her a smile and said, “The lamb is done.”

After the dishwasher fiasco this morning, there didn’t seem to be much point in trying to blame it on the oven. She had obviously screwed up again. Only this time, instead of flooding the house, it looked as though she’d nearly burned it down.

They had made some real progress today, and now she’d ruined it. She couldn’t even imagine what he must be thinking, and she wondered how long it would be before she and the baby were out on the street.

Mitch swung the broom around and, using the handle end, gave the smoke detector a solid whack. It gave one final bleat, then fell silent. Which was even worse than the deafening screech.

She opened her mouth to say something, apologize maybe, but words escaped her.

Mitch walked over to the sink and turned off the tap, looking down at the soggy remains of dinner. “We should probably open a few windows to let the smoke out.”

“I’ll get the family room,” she said, eager to skulk away in shame. This could go one of two ways. He would be completely exasperated with her and make her feel like a total dope, or he would be understanding and sweet, all the while thinking that she was a lost cause.

She honestly wasn’t sure which would be more humiliating.

When every window on the main floor was open, she walked back to the kitchen where Mitch was closing the oven and shutting it off. She couldn’t tell if he was angry, or just resigned to the fact that he’d married a domestic disaster.

She gestured to the sink, taking a feeble stab at humor. “Was the lamb thirsty, or is this your way of telling me it’s too dry for your taste?”

“I couldn’t find the lid or fire extinguisher, so this was the only way to douse the flames.”

Flames? It had actually been on fire?

Just when she thought she couldn’t be more embarrassed, she discovered a whole new level of humiliation. “I don’t suppose you would believe me if I said the lamb was supposed to catch on fire.”

He cracked a smile.

“So, what did I do wrong this time?” she asked, even though she wasn’t sure she wanted to know. She couldn’t imagine he would ever let her near the kitchen again, much less cook something.

“The oven was on broil instead of bake.”

Which meant what, exactly? She thought meat was supposed to broil. Her confusion must have been obvious because he added, “Bake warms the entire oven uniformly and allows food to cook slower. Broil is a direct flame right over the pan and cooks things much faster. Obviously.”

Something she would have known if she’d ever used an oven before.

“I’m sorry I murdered dinner,” she said.

He shrugged, again like it wasn’t a big deal. “Unless you’re a pyromaniac, which I seriously doubt, it was an honest mistake.”

She wanted to believe he felt that way, but he had to be realizing how truly useless she was. What would her next honest mistake be? Accidental poisoning?

Maybe there was a reason her father had kept her so sheltered. Maybe he could see that left to her own devices, she was a danger to herself and others.

“I suppose it’s obvious that I’ve never cooked before. Or used a dishwasher.”

“Seriously?” he asked, trying to look surprised, but he was a terrible liar.

She shot him a look.

“Okay,” he admitted. “I sort of had that feeling.”

“I appreciate that you choked down breakfast despite how awful it was.”

He shrugged. “It wasn’t that bad.”

“Yes, it was. We would probably both be safer if you cooked from now on.”

“What makes you think I can cook?”

“You can’t be any worse than me. I should stay as far away as possible from the kitchen.”

“How are you going to learn if you don’t try?”

“I did try, and I almost burned the house down! I’m useless.”

He huffed out an exasperated breath. “What is it with you and this low self-esteem? You are not useless. And if you really would like to learn, when we get back to Texas we’ll enroll you in a cooking class.”

She shook her head. “No, my father would never allow it. He considers it beneath me.”

“Your father isn’t the one calling the shots. You’re married to me now, and you have a say in your own life.”

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