“This isn’t about fun—”
“Clearly,” he agreed.
Her lips thinned and her mouth worked as if words were trying to get out, but she refused to let them. Finally, though, she took a breath and said patiently, “It’s a small island, Sean. So you won’t be able to sleep with anyone else, either. My grandfather would find out and this whole thing would be over before it began.”
Sean stiffened at the insinuation. Sitting up straight, he laid both hands on the tabletop and leaned in toward her. Even riding that quick whip of anger, he kept his voice down. His gaze bored into hers as he said, “I. Don’t. Cheat. When I give my word, I keep it.”
Their gazes locked for several long seconds before she finally nodded. “I’m sorry. I just wanted to be clear about everything.”
He leaned back in his chair, gritting his teeth against the bubble of frustration inside him. “Fine. We’re clear.”
“And we still have a deal?”
He looked into those blue eyes of hers again and told himself this was surely a mistake. He felt it right down to his bones. But damned if Sean could see another way for him to get what he wanted.
“Yeah,” he said. “We have a deal.”
He couldn’t believe he was going to do this. Couldn’t believe he was going to get married. Again. And this one wouldn’t be any more real than the first one.
At least this time though, he’d know going in that the marriage would mean nothing.
Three
Walter Stanford was somewhere in his seventies, but his sharp blue eyes didn’t miss much. He was tall, with snowy white hair, a hard jaw and the bearing of a much younger man. He stood behind the wide desk in his library and looked at Sean with a cool, dispassionate eye.
Sean met the older man stare for stare, never blinking. He knew how to run a negotiation and knew all too well that the first man who spoke, lost power. So he kept quiet and waited for the older man to say something.
Walter Stanford’s suite took up half of the entire top floor of the hotel, with Melinda’s private quarters in the other half. It was old-world elegant, again with just a touch of shabbiness. As if the place had seen better times. Sean had to wonder if the old man was as wealthy as rumor suggested.
He had noticed a couple of telltale water marks on the ceiling, proof of a leaky roof that hadn’t been fixed in time. And there were other things too. Nothing over the top, he thought, just tiny warning flags. Scars on the wood floors, chipped molding, window casements where the plaster had crumbled.
Of course, none of that proved anything. All it might mean was that Walter Stanford was simply too busy or too uninterested to make the dozens of minor repairs buildings always required. Or, he thought, it could mean that the old man needed this hotel deal far more than he wanted the Kings to know.
Sean smiled to himself, but kept his expression carefully neutral.
“You’ve met my granddaughter,” Walter said, taking a seat in the bloodred desk chair.
“Yes. She seems…nice,” he offered, enjoying using her own word.
The three of them had spent the last twenty minutes chatting and talking about the island. Melinda had left the room just a moment ago and, Sean thought, Walter wasn’t wasting any time.
“Let me be frank,” the older man said, setting his elbows on the desktop and steepling his fingers. “You want to build a hotel on my island. I want my granddaughter happy.”
Sean took a seat in the chair opposite the desk and set one foot atop the other knee and prepared to play dumb. “What’s one have to do with the other?”
Walter gave him a smile and a wink. “You’re single. Wealthy. Reasonably good-looking.”
Wryly, Sean said, “Thank you.”
Tucking his fingertips beneath his chin, Walter continued. “I believe in laying my cards out on the table, how about you?”
“Always best to know what the other man’s holding.”
“Excellent. Then let’s get down to business. I want you to marry my granddaughter. Once you’ve done that, the land is yours.”
If Melinda hadn’t prepared him for this yesterday, Sean thought, he would have fallen out of his chair. Even prepared, even with a deal already in place, he was a little surprised. Amazing to think that in the twenty-first century, women were still being bartered. Of course, this woman had done the bartering herself and damned if she hadn’t negotiated a hell of a deal.
Walter was waiting for an answer and Sean let him wait. His brain raced with the implications of what he was about to agree to. Getting married, even temporarily, was a huge step. He didn’t want to, but he had spent the better part of last night lying awake trying to come up with a different way to get what he wanted—and he’d come up empty.
Just as, no doubt, Melinda had known he would.
The Stanfords, both of them, were stubborn enough to be Kings.
Tapping his fingers against his knee, Sean asked, “How does Melinda feel about this?”
Walter frowned briefly. “She understands. It’s good for her. Good for the family. Good for the island.”
Unexpectedly, a ripple of anger washed through Sean. If Melinda hadn’t stepped up to chart her own course and make her own deal with Sean, she would have been no more than a bound sacrifice, stretched out across the Stanford altar.
Good for the island.
Who did things like that now?
Frowning, Sean watched the older man and tried to read his eyes. But the old guy must have been a hell of a poker player back in the day. His expression gave away nothing.
“Well?” The older man dropped both hands to the black blotter on his desk. “What do you say?”
There was a lot he should say, Sean thought. He should tell the old man that his granddaughter was worth more than a bargaining chip to be used in a deal. Hell, a couple of hours spent with her had told Sean that much. He should say that Melinda had a sharp mind and a clever way of driving a bargain. He should tell both of the Stanfords to go to hell and take their island with them.
He’d love to tell him that his granddaughter was filling up his mind with tempting thoughts that were destined to go nowhere. That one touch of her hand was enough to set off fires inside him that were still burning hours later.
But he couldn’t tell him that either, so Sean would say nothing about any of it.
“Agreed,” he heard himself say and saw the flicker of surprise in the old man’s eyes. Apparently, he couldn’t disguise everything he was feeling. Or didn’t care to.