up in flames and frankly, he’d done more dirty things in one night with Rosalind Carpenter than with the last ten women he’d dated. But by the time the sun rose, they were done. He had a strict one-time-only rule that he never broke and not just because of the pact he’d made his senior year at Duke. He’d vowed to never fall in love—because he’d been rejected enough in life and the best way to avoid all that noise was to avoid intimacy.
Sex he liked. Sex worked for him. But intimacy was off the table. He guaranteed it with no repeats.
Only at his mother’s insistence would he consider making Roz his onetime exception.
“So this marriage idea. That’s supposed to fix the fallout? From where I’m sitting, you’re the reason for the scandal. Where’s the plus for me?”
Like she hadn’t been the one to come on to him on the dance floor of the Calypso Room, with her smoky eyes undressing him, the conclusion of their evening foregone the second their bodies touched.
At least she hadn’t denied that the photograph had caused her some difficulty. If she had, he’d remind her that somewhere around 2:00 a.m. that night, she’d confessed that she was looking to change her reputation as the scandalous Carpenter daughter. The photograph couldn’t have helped. A respectable marriage would.
That fact was still part of his strategy. “Helene’s your plus. You’ll be the daughter-in-law of the next governor of North Carolina. I’m confused why you’re struggling with this.”
“You would be.” She jerked her head toward him. “I’m morbidly curious. What’s in this for you?”
Legitimacy. Something hard to come by in his world. His family’s chain of tobacco shops wasn’t a respected industry and he was the bastard son of a man who had never claimed him.
But what he said was, “Sex.”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re such a liar. The last thing you need to bargain for is a woman willing to get naked with you.”
“That sounded like a compliment.” He waggled his brows to hide how his insides suddenly felt wobbly and precarious. How had she seen through that flippant answer?
That was what he got with a smart woman, apparently.
“It wasn’t. Seduction is less of an art when you’re already starting out with the deck stacked.”
He had to laugh, though he wasn’t quite sure if he was supposed to say thank you for the backhanded nod to his skill set. “I’m not leaving here without an answer. Marry me and the scandal goes away.”
She shook her head, a sly smile spreading over her face. “Over my dead body.”
And with that, she pushed his foot from the gap and shut the door with a quiet click.
Dumbfounded, Hendrix stared at the fine-grain wood. Rosalind Carpenter had just rejected his proposal. For deliberately not putting anything emotional on the line, the rejection sure stung.
* * *
Roz leaned on the shut door and closed her eyes.
Marriage. To Hendrix Harris. If she hadn’t understood perfectly why he’d come up with such a ridiculous idea, she’d call the cops to come cart away the crazy man on her doorstep.
But he wasn’t crazy. Just desperate to fix a problem.
She was, too.
The big difference was that her father wasn’t working with his “people” to help her. Instead, he was sitting up in his ivory tower continuing to be disappointed in her. Well, sometimes she screwed up. Vegas had been one of those times. Fixing it lay solely at her feet and she planned to. Just not by marrying the person who had caused the scandal in the first place.
Like marriage was the solution to anything, especially marriage to Hendrix Harris, who indeed had a reputation when it came to his exploits with the opposite sex. Hell, half of her interest back on that wild night had been insatiable curiosity about whether he could be as much trouble as everyone said.
She should have run the moment she recognized him. But no. She’d bought him a drink. She was nothing if not skilled at getting into trouble.
And what trouble she’d found.
He was of the hot, wicked and oh-so-sinful variety—the kind she had a weakness for, the kind she couldn’t resist. The real question was how she’d shut the door in his face a moment ago instead of inviting him in for a repeat.
That would be a bad idea. Vegas had marked the end of an era for her.
She’d jetted off with her friend Lora to let loose in a place famed for allowing such behavior without ramifications. One last hurrah, as Roz had informed him. Make it memorable, she’d insisted. Help me go out with a bang, had been her exact words. Upon her return to the real world, she’d planned to make her father proud for once.
Instead, she’d found exactly the trouble she’d been looking for and then some.
It was a problem she needed to fix. She’d needed to fix it before she’d ever let Hendrix put his beautiful, talented mouth on her. And now memories of his special brand of trouble put a slow burn in her core that she couldn’t shake. Even now, five minutes after telling him to shove off. Still burning. She cursed her weakness for gorgeous bad boys and went to change clothes so she could dig into her “make Dad proud” plan on her terms.
Marriage. Rosalind Carpenter. These two things did not go together under any circumstances, especially not as a way to make her father proud of her.
After watching her father cope with Roz’s mother’s extended bout with cancer, no thank you. That kind of pain didn’t appeal to her. Till death do you part wasn’t a joke, nor did she take a vow like that lightly. Best way to avoid testing it was to never make a vow like that in the first place.
Roz shed the flirty, fun outfit she’d worn to brunch with Lora and donned a severe black pencil skirt coupled with a pale blue long-sleeved blouse that screamed “serious banker.” She twisted her long hair into a chignon, fought with the few escaped strands and finally left them because Hendrix had already put her behind for the day. Her afternoon was booked solid with the endless tasks associated with the new charity she’d founded.
She arrived at the small storefront her father’s admin had helped her rent, evaluating the layout for the fourteenth time. There was no sign yet. That was one of the many details she needed to work through this week as she got Clown-Around off the ground. It was an endeavor of the heart. And maybe a form of therapy.
Clowns still scared her, not that she’d admit to having formed a phobia during the long hours she’d sat at her mother’s hospital bedside, and honestly, she didn’t have to explain herself to anyone, so she didn’t. The curious only needed to know that Rosalind Carpenter had started a charity that trained clowns to work in children’s hospitals. Period.
The desk she’d had delivered dwarfed her, but she’d taken a page from her father’s book and procured the largest piece she could find in the Carpenter warehouse near the airport. He’d always said to buy furniture for the circumstances you want, not the ones you have. Buy quality so it will last until you make your dreams a reality. It was a philosophy that had served Carpenter Furniture well and she liked
