A Bad Boy is Good to Find - By Jennifer Lewis Page 0,53

cool droplets into his palm.

“I was contemplating my options.” Her makeup had run in the heat, and he resisted the urge to neaten her smudged mascara with his thumb.

“Why? Everything’s going your way. You’ve tricked me into coming back here to the swamp I crawled out of, and it’s all being captured on camera. You should be ecstatic. What’s the problem?”

“Where is the camera?” She glanced nervously toward the door.

“I don’t know. I don’t really care, but I do want to know what’s making you want to drink again when I’m doing this all your way. For you.”

“I don’t know.” She lay back on the bed. Her dress was soaked through at the waist. “I didn’t know it would be so hot.”

“So it’s hot. Drink some water, take a bath. Big deal.” He put the champagne bottle down on a walnut sideboard, taking care to slip a magazine under it so it didn’t make a ring on the wood.

“And it just doesn’t feel…right.”

“What doesn’t feel right? It doesn’t feel right to tell people that beneath my expensive suit I’m just an uneducated mechanic? Why not? It’s the truth, isn’t it? And tomorrow you’ll get to see the sorry place I grew up in, which, believe me, will live up to your every expectation and then some. You’ve got me right where you want me, so what gives?”

She looked like she was about to cry. He snatched a tissue from a box on the sideboard and handed it to her. “Here.”

She blew her nose into the Kleenex. Tears shone in those big brown eyes. He had a sudden strong urge to put his arms around her, which he resisted. “It doesn’t feel right to make me undress in front of the camera to show you have power over me?”

She leaped off the bed and walked to the other side of the room, wet dress sticking to her skin.

She couldn’t look at him.

“Or it doesn’t feel right to do that stuff and then pretend like you’re all excited about marrying me? That’s it, isn’t it? It’s the embarrassment to yourself you hadn’t figured on. You were so hell-bent on showing me up as the loser you think I am that you didn’t realize it would make you look like a loser too.”

“I hate you!” She pulled off her shoe and threw it at him. It smacked loudly into a wooden bedpost.

“Yeah? So how come you can only sleep when you’re in my arms?”

“You’re nothing to me. You’re nobody!” Her eyes flashed. Sticky tendrils of wet hair curled up around her face.

“So you keep trying to prove, but apparently I’m not dropping dead because of it.” He shrugged. “I’m learning quite a bit about you, though.” He paused. “I’m the naïve one. Do you know I really thought you’d be okay with me once I told you the truth about me. I figured, hey, I make her happy, she loves me, it’ll all work out.”

“I didn’t love you!” she sobbed. She bent down to pull off her other shoe, but lost her balance and pitched forward, grabbing the bedpost to steady herself.

The bed creaked loudly and shifted. “Woah.” He grabbed a thick wood post and tried to hold it steady as it tugged against him, shifted, and came loose from the bed base. It weighed a ton and he couldn’t stop the motion. “Look out, it’s coming down!”

He dived toward her, knocking her out of the way with his body and slamming them both into the floor in the corner of the room.

In slow motion, with a cacophony of creaks and a cloud of malodorous dust, the entire four-poster structure above the bed twisted, listed, then collapsed and crashed to the wood floor with a thunderous series of bangs and crunches.

His body covered hers completely during the bed’s descent, so he was relieved when the noise stopped and he’d sustained no puncture wounds. “Must’ve been rotten.”

Hot, angry and struggling to escape, Lizzie’s lush body was having an unfortunate effect on him. He eased himself off with considerable regret.

She sat up, panting. “You practically killed me!”

“I didn’t want you to get hurt. You’re alright.”

“You tore my dress. Look!” He glanced down. Her plump breasts heaved against the blue fabric, one breaking free where a strap had snapped. Nice.

“Stop staring, you beast! Help me up.”

“Sure.” He couldn’t stop the grin ripping across his face. The sting of her hand on his cheek slowed its progress. Okay, so maybe he deserved whatever punishment she had in