The Temporary Wife - By Jeannie Moon Page 0,34
so, and everything was laid out plain as day, but he realized he was dealing with a woman whose emotions were as big as his bank book. A very emotional, shoot-from-the-hip woman, and there was a good chance she wouldn’t follow the rules unless he stuck to them. His Meg wasn’t the innocent girl he left fourteen years ago. She was smart, strong, and not afraid of her sexuality. It was an incredible combination—and a dangerous one.
Their whole marriage arrangement went against everything she believed in, but if there was one thing he knew about Meg, it was that she would sacrifice everything for someone she loved. In this case, she did it for Molly and Grace.
But Harper was right. He had to keep this relationship out of the bedroom. As much as he wanted to get his hands on the woman who was now his wife, he had to keep his distance. Meg was messy and complicated, and he didn’t want any of those things in his life. So no matter how much he wanted her in his bed—and he did want her—Jason decided he’d keep his distance.
The breeze from the bay blew across the deck, and Jason caught a whiff of Meg’s perfume. It was still in the air, floating around him, making him light-headed, and his intentions went overboard. He could talk all he wanted about keeping things friendly, but where Meg was concerned, he had no chance.
None. Zero. Nada. Zip.
***
Meg sat on the bed in her cabin and looked out the large window across from her. This was, apparently, the VIP stateroom.
It was too bad she didn’t feel much like a VIP. With her rumpled wedding dress and her hair falling out of its pins, she looked more the part of the runaway bride, and right then she felt like running away, too. And that wasn’t like her in the least.
Meg wasn’t a crier and she wasn’t a pushover, but since Jason walked back into her life, she’d become both. He made all the decisions, had infiltrated every part of her life, yet she seemed to be kept distant from his. She almost called this whole thing off last week, and now she wished she had. Other than his partners, Harper was the only other one in his inner circle. Harper, with her straight, dark hair, her perfect size-two figure, and her designer wardrobe. “Harper,” Meg sneered. Even her name was stuck-up.
Jason had tried to downplay the relationship recently. He’d talked about her less and he’d stopped waving her credentials in Meg’s face. Meg always considered herself smart and well-educated—her master’s was from Columbia Teachers College—but next to Harper’s Harvard MBA, Meg felt like a high school dropout.
It didn’t help that neither one of them, Jason nor the Harpy, understood her job or why she did it. And that became obvious two days ago when she stopped off at the house before heading to the bank. She’d gotten paid, and for some reason the direct deposit wasn’t made in her account. When Harper got a look at her deposit slip and her paycheck, she laughed. “You actually go to work each day for that?”
It was a slap in the face, especially since Meg felt she did pretty well. But in Harperland, her salary probably looked like an allowance; after all, it was only “babysitting.”
The more she thought about it, the angrier she got. She knew for a fact that neither Jason nor Harper would survive for ten minutes with twenty five-year-olds. Forget teaching them anything.
There was a small dressing table tucked against the wall by the bathroom, and Meg moved to the padded stool, her large skirts swishing around her. Pressing her lips tight, she started to pull the pins from her hair.
Locks of hair were falling around her face, and her heart ached at the thought of another woman spending time with her husband. She and Jason weren’t a real couple, she knew that, and there was no way to get around the fact that at times they were barely even friends. But it was hard to think about getting close to someone when you knew it wouldn’t last and when there was someone else in the marriage from the very start.
And damn, as much as she didn’t want it to, it hurt.
Her hair fell around her shoulders—not straight, not perfectly coiffed and dignified, but a wild mass of curls and waves. She did look like a high-priced stripper, with her boobs popping out of