Marriage by Mistake (2 page)

"Dean," Kelly breathed.

Or was it? He looked so odd in that suit, as
if he were born to it. His jaw was unexpectedly clean-shaven and
the dark curls Kelly had loved to tousle were ruthlessly tamed.

Most peculiar of all, he stared at her in the
same manner as the rest of the people in the room. As if he'd never
seen her before in his life.

Kelly felt a hard bump in the progress of her
quest. He was supposed to shrink back in guilt. He was supposed to
crumple in shame and panic. And for heaven's sake, he was supposed
to look like
Dean
. Faded blue jeans, crooked grin,
come-get-me eyes.

This man looked like he'd been carved from a
slab of Massachusetts granite. His lips were a straight slash of
severity and his glacier-blue gaze was steady. Indeed, not a single
part of him moved as he stood there, pointer upraised. Strong and
cool, he looked like    a king.

He looked like he could be the actual,
real-life head of Singleton Industries.

Kelly felt a shiver run down her spine. Her
rage slipped.
Was
this Dean?

But a commotion behind her   
security?    propelled her back into action. "Okay," she
said, and straightened. "Okay, so you didn't feel anything, the way
I did. That's no crime. But    " She drew in a steadying
breath against a sudden upwelling of pain. Two days before she'd
hoped for so much, been so happy. "But why'd you have to go and
make promises?" she whispered.

That's when she caught it, finally, his
reaction. He flinched. Five hours flying and maxing out her credit
card    for a flinch.

The next instant strong arms seized her from
behind. Security. It was almost laughable. He was the dirty rotten
crumb, but she was about to be thrown from the premises.

"Let her go."

The words emerged from Dean. Yes, he heard
himself say them, but he felt like he was watching the whole drama
from the end of a very long hall. Or as if he were in the type of
nightmare where one needed to escape dire disaster, but could not
move one's arms or legs.

It had happened. The fallout he'd been
dreading, the consequences of his 'lost weekend.'

But staring at the woman who'd interrupted
his annual meeting of vice-presidents, Dean could not believe the
fallout was this bad. In skin-tight blue jeans and a jacket that
strained at her breasts, all under a kittenish face framed by a
great quantity of blond, upswirled hair, she looked like she'd
stepped out of some adolescent boy's wet dream.

Or out of one of his father's. Yes, the woman
standing at the door of the conference room looked exactly like one
of Dean's father's ridiculous, inappropriate women; a showgirl, an
actress, or a lingerie model.

As if that weren't bad enough, Dean had no
idea who she was.

Jeff and Frank, the two security guards,
stopped to look at Dean, their gazes questioning his odd
command.

The woman looked at him, too, her full lips
parted.

She might have been his father's type, but
she was not his. Desperately, Dean assured himself of this fact. He
was a sober man, a responsible one. A throwback to good,
old-fashioned New England stock. This woman's presence before him,
her knowledge of his name, her    her outrageous
assertion he'd made her promises simply could not be.

But a deep abyss opened inside him. He'd also
thought it impossible he could have been sitting in the leather
chair of his study at home one minute, and wandering a seedy
neighborhood he didn't recognize the next    a
neighborhood clear across the country, no less.

But it had happened.

He had to believe now that
anything
was possible.

"Let her go," Dean repeated quietly.

The guards released her. As Dean saw her go
free, he realized that any kind of chaos could ensue.

It was a moment that begged the mettle of a
man who'd created his own billion-dollar, cutting edge biogenetics
company, someone who could make a decision despite a flurry of wild
and contradictory stimuli.

So Dean made himself move. Through the heavy
fog that surrounded him, he put down his pointer and strode across
the room. With a smooth, efficient gesture he took his own hold of
the woman.

As he made contact, his arm muscles jumped.
To give himself a better grip, Dean told himself.

"We're going to talk," he affirmed, looking
down at her. "Alone."

Her brows pulled together.

He didn't want an argument about it, so Dean
didn't wait for one. Turning to his vice-presidents, he made a
brisk apology, something far too terse to make up for ending this
important annual meeting. Then he led the woman from the room.

She did not acquiesce, but neither did she
resist. Dean could only hope she didn't realize his hand was
trembling where it connected with her fake leather jacket.

He had no idea who she was, no memory of her
face, and not an inkling of her name.

But Dean kept a bland expression on his face
as he directed the woman down the busy hall to his office. It
wouldn't do for any of the employees they passed to guess there
were a good forty-eight hours missing from their meticulous chief's
memory.

Two days gone. Completely vanished.

Dean nearly reeled every time he thought
about it. How could he have lost that much time, just
forgotten
?

Okay, so he'd been hypnotized. Dean shuddered
to think of how easily
that
had been accomplished. But no
matter how deep a trance he'd fallen into, he should have been able
to remember his actions. He should have been able to know, one way
or another, if he'd followed his stupid cousin Troy's
suggestion.

Do what you want, instead of what you
should
.

Dean could feel his hand start to tighten
around the woman's forearm. With an effort, he relaxed it. Surely
even if he had followed Troy's idiot suggestion, it couldn't have
involved this woman, stumbling beside him in her too-high-heeled
boots. It simply
couldn't
. She wasn't    He wasn't
   No.

"Please hold my calls," Dean requested his
assistant, as soon as they entered his anteroom. Ignoring Mrs.
Barnes' startled glance, he ushered the other female through.
Whatever was going on, Dean wanted to hear about it in private.

Therefore, smiling inanely, he closed the
door to his inner sanctum in his executive assistant's face.

And then it was quiet. They were alone.

Dean released his hold on the unknown woman
with a deep, silent breath. He took a discreet step to the side.
She rubbed her arm where he'd been holding her. And their eyes
met.

She was still angry. Dean both saw and
expected that. What he didn't expect was the punch it delivered to
his gut. It was almost as if...he felt responsible.

Either that, or he was getting aroused.

Dean drew himself up. He was not getting
aroused. Well, yes, he could see now that she was pretty, on top of
the obvious sexual stuff. Her eyes were an extraordinary shade of
green, and...appealing. Her complexion was peaches and cream. And
there was a certain healthy vitality about her.

But that didn't mean he was attracted to
her.

Nor was he responsible for her mood.

"Please," he said, at his most
government-grant formal. "Have a seat."

She narrowed her eyes. "You must be
kidding."

Her tone was a slap in the face, but Dean
didn't let it show. He was an expert at not letting emotions show,
especially pain. "Suit yourself," he replied mildly.

She crossed her befringed arms over her
chest. "You don't seem too surprised to see me."

"I...wouldn't say that."

Her eyebrows raised. "So you
are
surprised." She sounded oddly bitter about it. "You didn't think
I'd have the nerve to come after you even    even after
what you did."

After what he did
? Dean calmed another
guilty sinking in his gut. He
couldn't
have done anything to
feel guilty about.

No, not even if the longer they stood
together alone in his office the more he became...aware of her; of
the way her lips curved up at the corners, of the silky look of her
hair. A small, hot ball began to form deep inside him.

But he refused to believe he'd done anything
irresponsible, anything reprehensible.

He was in no way like his father.

Meanwhile the woman's fingers visibly
tightened on her upper arms. "And now I come here and   
and, my
God
, Dean. This office. Your name on the
   on the
building
. And that

suit    " She paused, as if
overcome by this last item on the list. She lowered her arms and
snorted. "Is there
anything
you told me that was the
truth?"

Dean stopped breathing. She glared at him, as
if she had no idea of what she'd just said. In, out. Dean made
himself breathe again. "I do not lie," he said, very softly.

Her eyes widened.

He made his voice even softer. "I
never
lied to you."

"Huh." Her gaze turned derisive. "How about
'wait?'"

"Wait?"

"Oh, come on." She laughed. "You aren't going
to pretend you
forgot
."

Dean stared at her.

"Well." She put her hands on her hips. "Are
you?"

You forgot
. The ball of heat inside
Dean should have winked out then. She'd just given herself away.
But it didn't wink out. In fact, it was no longer a discrete ball
but an over-arching sphere. He
was
reacting to her,
vigorously, but not because there was any history between them.

Oh no, it was all becoming crystal clear. Her
presence here, his reaction to her    it was all
beginning to make sense.

"You know too much," he said.

"Excuse me?"

"'I forgot.' You know too much. How to get my
goat. What to say. It's too damn convenient."

Her eyes widened. "Ex-
cuse
me?"

Dean took a step back. A man who'd lost two
days of his memory was in a vulnerable position. An unscrupulous
individual could take advantage. Or merely a mischievous one, one
without any sense of propriety or limits.

And Dean happened to know just such an
individual. "Troy sent you."

"
What
?"

She seemed incredulous, too much so, and Dean
felt all the pieces come together. Her arrival at his important
annual meeting, the impression of sex kitten she exuded, his
reaction to her.

"Troy, my beloved younger cousin." Dean
wanted to make it clear the jig was up. "He was there during the
hypnosis, he gave me the suggestion. Now he thinks to turn the
screw even further. Send some blond sex goddess to my office during
the vice presidents meeting. Very funny."

The woman stared at him. "Sex goddess?"

An incredible burden rolled off of Dean. He
was so relieved he laughed. "You nearly had me there, for a
minute."

"I    I beg your pardon?" She
managed to sound both indignant and incredulous.

"You must be an actress." Dean smiled at her.
"You've obviously been trained to express and elicit emotion."

She merely stared at him, open-mouthed.

Sighing, Dean turned for his massive office
desk. "When I called in after being missing for two days, Troy
claimed he'd been frantic, looking for me, that he regretted the
hypnotic suggestion, his little joke, but I guess that didn't last.
He sent you."

Behind his desk now, Dean paused and threw
the woman a cutting glance. "And I have a good idea what he wanted
me to think about you."

Finally, the woman closed her mouth. But she
wasn't ready to give up the game. "Hypnotic suggestion?" she
repeated, very slowly. "Are you saying...you
don't remember
meeting me?"

"No." Dean met the little actress's eyes.
"I'm saying I have never met you at all."

She was looking at him as if he'd just grown
another head. "You deny it?" she finally asked, whisper soft. "You
deny we even met after my show on the Strip?"

She'd been in a show
?
On the
Strip
? Dean's heart plunged. But no, no    She was an
actress, a plant of Troy's. Of course. That's how she knew it was
in Las Vegas he'd finally 'woken up' from his trance. It's how she
knew the type of woman his father brought home, the type who'd
happily prance naked on a spotlit stage.

He cleared his throat, doing his best not to
envision this particular woman prancing naked. "Surely Troy
explained everything to you, but for the sake of argument, I'll say
it again. For two days I was following a hypnotic suggestion. I
don't remember anything that happened. Which makes it easy for
someone like you to help my cousin play this little trick on
me."

The fringes over her chest began to rise and
fall with her alleged emotion. "I don't believe this," she
muttered. "I finally go to the trouble of tracking down the lout,
confronting him, and he claims he was 'hypnotized.' Doesn't even
remember
me. That's cute. Convenient. And original."

"I'm not 'claiming' I was hypnotized. It's
true." Dean nearly bit his tongue. He didn't need to defend
himself. She
knew
.

She took a step back. "I'll tell you what's
true. You're a lying...Casanova!"

Dean's fingers clenched into fists. Was she
saying    ? All right, he'd admit he was attracted, maybe
even aroused, but that was just from...surprise, and her acting
ability. She wasn't his type; not understated elegance,
sophisticated or genteel. And besides, she was only Troy's friend.
Dean had never laid eyes on her before that morning. "We did not
sleep together," he told her, low.

She shot him a gaze replete with scorn. "Oh,
right. You forgot."

Dean's jaw tightened. He could not have,
would not have, slept with a Las Vegas dancer. No, not even if
watching the fringes rise and fall on her jacket was raising the
temperature beneath his suit to about four hundred degrees.