Millionaire Mavericks: The Oilman’s Baby Bargain. Michelle Celmer

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СКАЧАТЬ 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. СКАЧАТЬ