Honeymoon For Hire

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?”