But Max had made it pretty clear that the point wasn't up for discussion. So Kimberly sighed and tried to move past it for the moment and onto more productive things.
Unpacking didn't take long. She added her array of dresses to the already filled closet, put her toothbrush and electric rollers in the bathroom, and stuck her bikini and lacy undies in the drawers provided. She had no intention of letting Carlo Coletti ever see her in anything lacy, of course, but it had seemed like a good thing to have around just in case he did something gross like go through her drawers. Besides, the character of Mrs. Max Tate, whom she would become this evening, didn't wear cotton panties like the ones Kimberly often did. Only the most luxurious of lace for Kimberly Tate, stockbroker's wife and femme fatale.
Max had explained to her already that the rest of the house was completely furnished and stocked with everything they needed for their stay. Before the day was through, she'd have to tour it carefully and find out the little things—where they kept the bath towels, what kind of food was on hand, how the alarm system worked. She'd have to make sure it seemed as if she and Max really lived there.
Of course, that was only part of it. They had to convince Carlo Coletti that they were married. Had Max really thought about that? She wandered back to the bed and let herself plop down on it to stare up at the vaulted ceiling. Perhaps she should address the question with him, but it was obviously a touchy subject. She didn't want to imply that they should or shouldn't do any specific married-seeming things in front of Carlo Coletti. Physical things, for instance. Still, she figured they'd have to. The thought made her shiver, just as when she imagined sharing this bed with him. Oh well, she guessed she had no choice but to cross that bridge when she came to it.
And maybe Max
did
have a plan. Maybe he was going to be one of those unaffectionate types of husbands, the ones who took their wives for granted and never paid them any attention. As cold as Max was acting to her, it would be an easy role for him to take on.
He seemed to think he was the only one who had suffered any losses because of the Carpenter case. He blamed her for everything, though, so of course he wouldn't be sitting around thinking about how her life had been affected. She'd lost her job, which she'd loved, and she'd lost him, whom she'd also loved, all in one fell swoop. Not to mention that at the time she'd also been dealing with the very fresh news that her mother had cancer.
Two months of depression later, Kimberly had pulled herself together enough to take a job with another company. Unfortunately, the guy she'd worked for wasn't as good as Max, and business was bad. When the agency finally folded just over a year ago, she'd signed on with Frank.
She'd recovered from the blows she'd taken during that period, but she considered it the blackest spot of her entire past, for reasons both professional and personal.
Oh sure, she'd made mistakes under Max's tutelage, but she'd never completely screwed up a case. And she'd never been fired from a job before in her life.
Max's way of handling what had happened had shown her that he obviously hadn't cared for her very much. Sure, she'd been the one to walk out of that office, but he hadn't stopped her. Then he'd gone to
Las Vegas
, just like that. Only then had she come to the conclusion that what they'd shared had been one-sided. Not sexually—she knew that—but in other ways. In emotional ways. She was glad she'd never said the words to him that had lingered in her heart whenever they were together—
I love you
. If any shred of doubt about how Max had felt had been left lingering in the back of her mind, seeing him again had killed it off entirely. It was clear that she'd been nothing to him.
But that's okay
, she affirmed as a familiar hurt melted through her.
That's okay because you don't even want to share a bed with him. You don't want to be close to him
. The fact was, Kimberly was over Max. Completely and for good. As of right now,
he
was nothing to
her
, either.
* * *
Max lay on the plush leather couch in the big family room watching TV, trying to take it easy in the last few hours before the show began, and also trying to feel as if this place, this life, were
his
. Meanwhile, his pretend wife was in the kitchen digging through drawers and cabinets, getting herself familiar with things.
He didn't know why he'd made that crack about her handling the job earlier. He'd told himself this morning that he had to quit that crap if they were going to work together with any success, but it had leaked out like air escaping a punctured balloon.
Three years hadn't healed his mistrust of her. This was going to be hard, perhaps the hardest case of his career. Now it was being made even harder, not only by his fears of her screwing up or letting him down, but also because he had to own up to the fact that he was still attracted to her, which he'd have to forget or ignore or something. It was like he'd told Frank last night. If he wanted sex, he could get it. He certainly wouldn't attempt to get that or anything else from the woman who had betrayed him.
"Oh my God, we have caviar!"
Her voice sounded from somewhere in the kitchen behind him and he worked to hold in even the hint of a smile, whether she could see him or not. He couldn't start going soft on her. But that's what he remembered about Kimberly. How fascinated she could be by the world. How in awe.
Maybe that's why he'd given her such a hard time over her wonder regarding the house—he hadn't wanted to be reminded of her, of them together. And maybe that's why this morning he'd thought of those simple, easy times with her, those T-shirt-and-jeans times. He knew they'd done other things, too—gone out to dinner, gone to plays, to nightclubs—but she could find unmitigated joy just in eating ice cream or watching the rain fall. She wasn't like that all the time, though. When she was working, she was strictly business. But when work was done, she took the joys of life pretty seriously, and he'd liked that.
Suddenly, she came rushing into the room in a flurry, cutting into his thoughts and stirring up a small breeze. "Tate, I just thought of something!"
"What's that?"
"Dinner! Am I supposed to be cooking? Because if I am, what am I making? And how am I making it?" She waved her arms around in total panic. "I mean. I cook—you know I cook—but I don't …
cook
. Not like anything fancy. So…?"
He hesitated, feeling devilish for no reason and having no luck in pushing it down. "I thought maybe you'd learned, taken lessons or something," he said, trying to keep a straight face.
She widened her eyes in what was obviously sheer horror. "Why on earth would you think that?"
"Well, we haven't seen each other in a while. I thought maybe you'd taken up a hobby."
He thought it obvious that he was only kidding, but she looked even more distressed. And he guessed he could understand it easily enough. This was the first time he'd done anything even remotely lighthearted since laying eyes on her yesterday.
And actually, kidding her was a bad idea. Hadn't he just told himself not to go soft on her? There would be enough of that once they assumed their roles as husband and wife.
"Tate, if you were going to write things like that into my character, you could've at least told me and I'd have studied a cookbook last night or something. Now, what are we going to do about dinner?"
This time he made sure to keep his face expressionless. It was much safer not to let her know he was even mildly entertained by anything she did. "Don't worry. I have a chef coming at five-thirty to start dinner. She'll serve us at seven, then clean up the mess when we're through."
Kimberly let out a sigh of relief. "A chef. That's good. Thanks for letting me suffer through that, by the way."
He got the idea she might be waiting for a comeback from him, some teasing remark, but he didn't oblige.
Then she was suddenly looking around, no longer in awe, but as if something terrible had just struck her. "You know, Tate, this is a big place. Shouldn't we have housekeepers or something? Shouldn't we have a
fulltime
chef?"
"Already thought of that," he said, remaining emotionless. He'd contemplated hiring people to fill those roles, but he hadn't particularly wanted anyone extra around, considering that Carlo might be dangerous and anything could happen. "I'll just mention to Carlo that our housekeeper, who also happens to be our chef, asked for the weekend off," he explained. "So when she leaves, it won't seem weird."
"Ah," Kimberly said, nodding. "Okay. That's good. That will work."
"Of course it will," he answered absently. From his peripheral vision, he saw her staring at him while he watched TV, since he'd made a point of returning his attention to it already. Maybe she was waiting for him to say something else, keep this merry little conversation going, but it wasn't going to happen.
This was simple if he could only remember the rules.
No more Mr. Nice Guy.
* * *
Scents of something succulent met Kimberly's nose as she moved delicately down the stairway in three-inch heels. But she couldn't look forward to dinner, or enjoy her surroundings, or even anticipate the thrill of satisfaction in the job that was about to begin. Her chest felt tight and her throat did, too. The butterflies that had invaded her stomach while she dressed had suddenly begun releasing hand grenades in there now. She wasn't nervous about the job. She wasn't nervous about Carlo Coletti. She was nervous about Max. About Max seeing her.
Odd, for a second there when they'd been discussing the whole dinner thing, she'd thought she'd sensed something new in him, something fresh and almost friendly. A hint of a smile and maybe even a soft tone. But things had changed quickly as he'd put up his typical wall between them and she'd been forced to change her opinion. Max, friendly? Nope, she'd clearly been imagining things. Now she had to wonder all the more how things would be between them as they progressed into the charade, and as she became his "wife," the femme fatale.
At the bottom of the stairs she approached a gilt-framed mirror that captured her image from head to toe. Her hair was bunched up on top of her head, tiny wisps of it falling over her cheeks and nape. Along with a "wedding ring" pilfered from the black box upstairs, she wore a pair of fake diamond earrings that dangled and sometimes tickled her neck, and a thin diamond necklace that she thought would be a teaser for their guest. But the real event was clearly taking place below her neck.
The dress was slinky, black and short, and hugged her every curve. Tiny straps held up the low-cut bodice, which was built for cleavage and definitely delivered. She was pretty sure she'd been a size smaller when she'd bought this dress and it had looked fine on her then, hanging looser and more comfortably. But now … well, she finally understood how it was meant to fit. She barely recognized herself, and she couldn't help wondering how Max would react.
She tried to tell herself that her nervousness was because she wanted to please him as an employee wishes to please a boss, that she wanted him to think she was the perfect woman for this job. But it was more than that. Ever since she'd started feeling this way, she'd tried to tell herself that it
wasn't
more than that, but it was. And what was worse, it was something
sexual
. Since the moment she'd put on this dress and thought of Max seeing her in it, her entire body had been charged with an undeniable sexual tension.
And here she'd thought she was over him. Completely and totally.
"How do you explain
that?"
she whispered, scowling at her reflection in the mirror.
Perhaps it had to do with the nature of this case, she decided. It centered on sex, after all. Unfortunately, the guy who would want her was going to be an icky, lecherous thief. But the guy who was supposed to be her husband—her protector, sort of—was
not
icky. Far from it. So that was it. She was being forced to think about sex because of the case and the way it had caused her to dress and she had to vent those sexual feelings in
some
direction. That meant Max.
She smiled into the mirror, feeling much better. She still didn't like the way she felt, but she'd decided it made sense and that she'd given herself a logical explanation. Her desire for Max would go away, she promised herself. It was just a preliminary feeling brought on by the role she was being asked to play.