The Cinderella Deal Read online

  Daisy shook her head. “I can’t afford you until you’re rich. Get out.”

  Derek was, as always, a slow learner. And of course there was that hearing problem. “Just a place to stay for a while, love.”

  “No. Get out.”

  “Daisy, baby. Did you forget this?” He reached for her and wrapped his arms around her and kissed her neck while she shrank away.

  “Let go.” Daisy fell into the hall with him as she tried to squirm out of his grasp. Derek was no rapist, but he was a twit and there was a limit to how much of this she was going to put up with. She kicked him hard on the shin, and as he gasped, she heard the front door open. “Help!” she called out, hoping Derek would give up since they had an audience.

  Derek didn’t have time. Seconds later he was sprawled across the hall.

  Daisy straightened her sweater and turned to her rescuer. “Thank you. He wasn’t actually—” Her voice faded away.

  Linc loomed over Daisy, supporting himself with one hand on her doorframe as he tried to bring order and logic into her life again. The three Scotches he’d had on the plane to get his nerve up had joined the drink that Booker had given him, and now it felt right that he should be lecturing her. “Never open your door to anyone you don’t know.”

  “She knows me,” the creep who’d attacked her said from the floor. “I’m her boyfriend. Who the hell are you?”

  Her boyfriend? Linc focused on him. Oh, right. The musician. Darrin or Derek or something. Well, he was history. “I’m her husband.” Linc turned and loomed over him too. “Go away or I’ll break your fingers.”

  “You got married?” Derek stared at Daisy, indignant. “I was only gone eight months.”

  “But you never wrote,” Daisy pointed out. “So I took the next guy who asked. He’s a hit man. He makes sure that the people who bother me disappear. In fact—”

  Linc watched her get into her story. It made him feel nostalgic and dizzy, and he put a hand back on the wall to steady himself. Daisy’s eyes widened and she picked up speed. “He knows my brother in New Jersey. So you have to go now.” She took Linc’s hand and he squeezed hers, glad to feel her warm beside him as she tugged him through the doorway.

  “You don’t have a brother in New Jersey.” Derek picked himself up from the floor. “You’re an only child from Tennessee.”

  Daisy was supporting a lot of Linc’s weight now; she was stronger than he’d thought. “He’s adopted. Thanks again for the stereo. Now, go away or … my husband will hurt you.” She looked up at Linc.

  “Yeah.” Linc nodded slowly. “I could do that.”

  “Come on, honey.” Daisy nudged him with her hip, and he stumbled into the apartment so she could slam the door behind them.

  “What was he doing here?” Linc squinted at her.

  “He wants me back.” Daisy put her hands on her hips. She still had great hips. “I’m unforgettable. I thought you moved.”

  Oh, hell, now he had to explain things. “I did. Look, do you have any coffee? I don’t feel very well.”

  Daisy hesitated and then said, “Sure,” and moved toward the kitchen while he watched her, thinking unsafe thoughts.

  This is a very bad idea, he told himself, and then he followed her.

  Daisy was out of coffee, but there was some left over from the day before in the pot, so she microwaved it, watching him out of the corner of her eye while she worked. He was as big and solid as she remembered. And still square-jawed handsome. And safe. Oh, damn. She took the cup from the microwave when it dinged and put it in front of him.

  He drank from it and made a face.

  “Sorry, that’s all I have.”

  “No, no, it’s fine.” He focused on her, and his face looked funny. Then he took a deep breath, flaring his nostrils, and looked better.

  Tense, Daisy thought.

  “You remember the Cinderella deal?” She nodded and he said, “I need a wife.”

  Daisy’s heart kicked up speed, but she kept her face calm. “That’s what you needed before.”

  “No.” Linc shook his head, and the momentum kept him shaking seconds longer than necessary. “Before I needed a fake fiancée. Now Crawford wants me to get married in his garden. He wants me to marry you.”

  Daisy sat down. Marriage. For a moment she’d almost thought her story was going to come true, that he was going to invite her back to be a fake fiancée for a while, but this was the real thing, and standing up in front of a minister and lying to God was not a possibility. “Didn’t you tell him we had irreconcilable differences?”

  “Yeah. He told me to reconcile them.” Linc waved that away. “Forget that.” He leaned forward and presented his sentences carefully to her. “The house I’ve got has four bedrooms. You could set up your studio in one and paint all day. I’ll support you. All you have to do is show up at campus functions and be a wife. That’s all. You don’t have to do anything else in Prescott that you’re not doing here.” He frowned over what he’d said, nodded to himself, pulled his cup back, drank some more coffee, and winced. “I’ll make the coffee though.”

  Daisy tried to think rationally. It wasn’t her strong point at the best of times, and it was even worse with Linc sitting across from her in the all too attractive flesh, so she concentrated on the basics. “Let me get this straight. Essentially, you want me to marry you for your money. As God is your witness, if I marry you, I’ll never be hungry again?”

  Linc thought about it. “That pretty much covers it.”

  No, it didn’t. You probably haven’t noticed, but I have this thing for your body, she told him silently. She took a deep breath. “What about sex?”

  Linc blinked at her. Her dark hair tumbled over her shoulders and he wanted to tangle his fingers in it and pull her toward him. That was a bad idea, which was a shame because it had tremendous appeal. “I told you, you don’t have to do anything in Prescott that you’re not doing here.” Unless you want to, he thought, looking at her big brown eyes glowing at him. I want to.

  Daisy folded her arms and leaned back, and it was just his bad luck that she folded them under her breasts, and there went his mind again. “What are you going to do for sex?” she asked him.

  He needed a different topic fast. “That’s my problem, and I’ll solve it. Don’t worry about it.”

  “You’d cheat on me? What would Crawford say?”

  Linc thought of Crawford and his faculty wives. “He’d probably say ‘Way to go, son.’ College professors are not known for their fidelity.”

  She stuck out her chin at him, and his gaze traveled down the curve of her throat.

  “What about me?” she asked.

  “You? Sex?” He hadn’t thought about her having an affair. Or, rather he had thought about it, but he had thought about her with him. Some other guy? He didn’t like it, but he couldn’t afford to scare her off. He shrugged. “Be discreet.”

  “Sure, that’s always been one of my specialties.” She took a deep breath. “You know, I’m not sure I wouldn’t like to pretend to be married for a while. I can’t do it for real, the vow would be a lie to God, but I think I could pretend. It sounds sort of … secure.”

  He nodded, nudging her down the road to Prescott. “Security I can give you. And we could get married by a judge. No God in the ceremony at all.”

  She thought about it. “When’s midnight?”

  “Midnight?”

  “You know. When Cinderella turns back into a pumpkin. Midnight. When we stop being married.”

  “Oh.” Linc hadn’t thought far enough ahead to worry about an end. “I don’t know.”

  Daisy pursed her lips. She had great lips. Forget her lips. “A year? Lots of marriages hit the skids after a year. Or maybe the end of the school year. June. That’s ten months. I’ll flounce off at the end of June and leave you to be consoled by your adoring students and Little Gertrude.”

  “Ten months is fine. Whatever.” He was having trouble focusing again. “Will you do it?”