Something Borrowed. Jule McBride
Читать онлайн книгу.
grabbed her from behind, closing his fingers around her upper arm. “Let me go, Cash.”
“How’d you know it was me?”
Yeah, right. She’d smelled the clean male scent of him and heard the soft brush of his boot heels on the carpet. Somehow, she couldn’t force herself to turn around and face him, not yet. No heat in the man’s kisses? What had her twin been talking about? His every pore was leaking testosterone. “That’s the other thing,” Marley muttered hotly, hardly caring that she was continuing a monologue she’d been having in her head.
“What’s that?”
Wrenching her arm away, she whirled to face him. “I guess the rumors about southern men are true.”
His laugh shouldn’t have been annoying, but it was. “Which rumor? That we kiss to beat the band?”
“No, the rumor about having your way with women, regardless of their feelings. You have a pretty high opinion of yourself.”
“I hadn’t even started talking about myself yet.” Cash’s dark eyes twinkled with amusement. “Just my kisses.”
“They might not fly so well in Yankee territory,” she returned sweetly in her best southern accent, rapidly batting her eyelashes, a move that didn’t come naturally.
“I don’t see why we need to make this a North-South issue, since the Civil War was over a long time ago.”
“Ah. But was it really civil?”
“No war is,” he agreed.
Fortunately, she’d made it halfway to Trevor’s office, and now she reminded herself that, in just a moment, she’d be released from her obligation to the show, at least if she were lucky. Surely, they could start over tomorrow with the alternates. “Look. This isn’t what you think.”
The eyes drifting down every inch of her didn’t look convinced, but they did look curious. “No?”
This would shake him up. “I’m not Edie.”
She almost smiled, since she’d clearly unsettled him. Finally. With satisfaction, she watched his calm, cool, collected demeanor change, and she felt glad she was wearing Edie’s high heels. Now that she was standing still, the shoes made her tall enough to meet his liquid eyes.
As the seconds ticked on, however, she got uncomfortable again. She became overly conscious of people crowding into the hallway, the flicker of fluorescent lights and the shortness of her own breath. She became aware of other things, too, which she’d have preferred to ignore, such as how his well-worn jeans clung to lean hips and snuggled around the unmistakable rise beneath his zipper. The other male contestants had worn suits, but Cash had somehow stopped the reality-show staff from wrestling him out of his beloved jeans. She glanced around. Where were the other contestants, anyway? Had they exited by another doorway? And why wasn’t he saying anything?
When he finally did, he said, “You’re not Edie?”
She hated to disappoint him. Feeling a twinge of guilt, she rushed on. “Uh…I know I look like her tonight. I mean, with the blown-out hair and makeup.” She was even wearing panty hose. “But…” In mid-sentence, her mouth went dry again. He really was incredibly good-looking. Somehow, she managed to repeat, “Uh…no, I’m not Edie.”
He said the last thing expected. “Uh…no shit, Marley.”
Her heart fluttered. “You knew?” Oh, this made everything so much worse.
“Uh…yeah.”
She squinted. “So, why did you look surprised?”
“Uh…I thought you knew that I knew that you weren’t…” His voice trailed off.
At what exact point had he known? She had to ask. “When? Before or after?” The kiss.
He rubbed a jaw that was turning dark with five-o’clock stubble, his equally dark eyebrows knitting together. “I suspected all along,” he said in a slow drawl. “But I wasn’t sure until you kissed me. Let’s just say…you two don’t kiss alike.”
“TMI,” she managed to say, not about to encourage anything more about her sister’s kissing habits.
“TMI?”
“Too much information.”
“You asked me,” he pointed out.
“I didn’t kiss you, though. You kissed me.” Big difference. How could men be so deluded? Marley hated to generalize, but it wasn’t just Cash who seemed too full of himself. Lots of men overestimated their prowess. Marley was hardly the first woman to notice, either. History was full of astute women who had managed to pick up on this. “I did nothing,” she clarified, hoping he understood. “I sat there in stunned silence.”
Those inky eyes, so alive with shadow, widened. “Really?”
Why didn’t he seem to believe her? “Just now—” Marley jerked her thumb back toward the studio. “When you kissed me,” she continued, placing correct emphasis on the pronouns, “my mouth dropped open in shock. Maybe you saw more into that than it really was, Cash.”
“Maybe so,” he said, the words running together like molasses, his lips pursing pensively, “and since I pride myself on paying close attention, Marley, I have to apologize. I don’t know what confused me more, the way you flung your arms around my neck, or the way you went at me with all that tongue action.”
“Do men really say things like this?” she muttered. “Tongue action?”
He looked like he was fighting a smile. “Apparently, some do.”
Had she used her tongue? Had she wrapped her arms around his neck? Shutting her eyes briefly, she tried to remember, but she drew a blank. Surely, he was wrong. She’d remember if she’d kissed him back. “Look,” she began diplomatically, opening her eyes. “On this issue, let’s agree to disagree. Apparently, we each have our own version.”
Before he could contradict her, she quickly cleared her throat. “And my being on the show wasn’t intentional,” she plunged on. “Edie had nothing to do with it. She doesn’t even know. She asked me to come here, but not to be on the show with you. I mean, it’s not like we were trading places with each other, the way we did when we were kids.” He was looking at her expectantly, so she added, “It’s a long story….”
“I’ve got all night.”
“Well, I don’t,” she assured quickly.
“If you’re in a hurry, I’m all ears.”
Still trying to ignore the fact that they’d kissed at all, much less on national television, she took a deep breath and said, “Edie’s been trying to call you all day.” She tried to keep the accusation from her tone, but still, if Cash had made himself available to his own girlfriend, none of this would have happened. “She said you disappeared, but she wanted you to know she had second thoughts about being on the show.”
“She couldn’t come?”
“She got hung up.” When he didn’t look convinced, she added, “Really. She had to pick up ring designs from Bridget before she met the Dardens for a wedding-planning meeting.”
“So she sent you?”
“Sent would be strong,” Marley corrected, hardly about to divulge her own plans to interrogate him. “She asked and I agreed.” She wouldn’t have it implied that she took orders from Edie. “I tried to call your hotel and your cell phone, but there was no answer. I came here to leave a message, but one thing led to another. The male and female contestants were separated,” she explained, “and before I could stop them, the staff pushed me into the green room.”
“Even after you said you wanted off the show?”
She nodded. “I was trying to make them